Range Failure? Voo-Doo Stink?

Took the MX2 out today after her rebuild. She took off nicely, was a lot nose heavy but manageable, but once again, got a little off in the distance and suddenly I wasn't controlling her and flew her self into the ground, just like before. It fell down and went boom. This is a persistent habit it has developed. I am thinking its a bad receiver that is short ranged. I am going to take the Hobby King Orange reciever out and use the Spektrum AR6100 from the CopterX250. The control surfaces moved fine and the motor worked great. I didn't take a picture of the crash... The butcher's bill is: broken prop, broken spinner base, loose firewall, right wing broken clean off at the wing root, broken left aileron, unhinged rudder, crunched cowl crappy cheap milk bottle plastic), a spring is missing on the tail wheel, and it wouldn't be the MX2 if the landing gear didn't bend all up. Honestly, I am done with foamies.

So this afternoon I epoxied the wing back with spars, epoxied the broken aileron, ironed out the wrinkled cowl, unbent the gear. Letting everything congeal (sitting on the epoxied wing in the pic). Tomorrow I'll rehinge the aileron and the rudder, snug up the firewall, reattach the landing gear, install a two blade prop and spinner (changing to an 11x6 from whatever the 3 blade was; I'm gestimating 10x6x3), install and bind the AR6100 reciever. Friday, I'll take her foamie carcass up, crash her, and start all over again.( Geez, she's the new Cubby...). If I swapped her for Steve's I wonder if he'd notice?

Speaking of foamie carcasses, the Suicidal Cubby took to the air, briefly. She took off sweet, but was sluggish. it reminded me of the case with the Alpha Sport's stock slow flyer prop that got too soft in the Mississippi heat. The Cubby's 8x6 prop was soft from the heat and from being bent in prop strikes, so I tried an APC 9x8 (purchased in error when my son misread 8x6 as 9x8...). She flew great, for about 3 minutes, when the motor locked up. Was it the motor wires shorting again? Did the ESC fry swinging the bigger prop? Turned out the motor fried. Dead-stick landed with no damage, but the motor was toast. Change it out to the one that was on the Phoenixcubby and it works find again. Put a new APC 8x6 on it, and am looking forward to flying her again tomorrow!

Spent the first flights with the Alpha flying video recon over the land of the Northern Ents where Vinsen lost his Hobbico Next star, and Ron his profile Edge. Didn't see anything... Flew her in a variety of shifting winds all day, getting a lot of practice, and flew her inverted (5 mistakes high...) for the first time successfully.

Alternated flying the Alpha with the Stearman, flying 6 good packs. I am really getting comfortable flying her, almost as much as I flying the Alpha. This is what I wanted, to get comfortable flying her, not being so afraid of hurting or losing her, I'm flying her very well, learning how to bring her down and land her without going head over heels as often. She does tend to need a little speed on landing or be wheels on the ground as the speed bleeds off as she will abruptly stop flying and drop. I really enjoy flying her!

In between I spun the Erazor 450 pro up. The other day I tried to spin her up and a solder had come undone. I had fixed that and took her out today. She spun nicely, and lifted off. She drifted quickly off to the left and I set her down. Apparently a bit hard. The tail fin and a tail rotor blade broke. Fixed those at home today, and will take her back out tomorrow. I still suck at flying helis.

At BMF we had a small Wednesday crowd, but it was a beautiful day for flying until a thunderstorm finally moved in. We called it a day, but will be back out tomorrow!