Camera away!

Not that I planned it that way...

Dropped the fam off at the airport on their way to Mechacon in New Orleans, thought I would take advantage of the ungodly hour and beautiful wx to capture some gorgeous vid from aloft in my new $10 pinhole camera.

And somewhere over the trees and fields, in the light of the morning sun, some critter was bonked on the head with a gift from the gods, with which it has absolutely no use.

So, no video.

Don't Tell Maria...

But, my wife doesn't need to know I decided to replace the dead Sbach 70... Though, really, she'll know soon enough.

I finally bought the Sukhoi SU-26 I have wanted for a very long time. I will use the electronics and motor from the Sbach 70 I lost last week. I really didn't like the way any of my Sbachs fly, but this beauty is a classic airframe and I expect good things from her.

I expect to start the build after I get back from vacay!

PS: I couldn't bear it... I told her. I married up!

Now I'm starting to worry...

Flew for over an hour today. And ran into what is becoming a recurrent problem that is making me nervous. I was flying the Alpha Sport and she suddenly would not turn left and she required hard left aileron and rudder to keep wings level. I did the UPS Delivery "Right Turns Only" thing by easing off aileron to let her fall right. It took some major skills but I landed her.

Here's the scary thing... The right aileron thought its center was full up. It barely moved down. Sound familiar? This happened with the MX-Bach, and the Alpha's rudder, now it was happening to the Alpha's aileron. This time though the small plastic control horn was stripped. I had to replace the entire servo, which failed, and the horn.

This is really weird. Did this kill the Sbach and the Sopwith? I haven't done the post crash yet. I need to get on the website and see if anyone has seen this before. The only common is my Spektrum DX8.

I met a neighbor who stopped by, Brock. Took him up in the Alpha (of course, its always something, so that's when the Alpha went wacky). I took him up on a buddy box with the Pulse, and he noted being a pilot of full scale, this was really weird for him. I have heard that from a couple of pilots of full scale: orientation is harder to sort out.

Took the MX-B up, and the tall grass (it has been way too long for too long) grabbed the main gear and they cracked.

It's always something.

I. Can't. Even.

UPDATE (7/3/15 @ 0930hrs): Ok.. I was so pissed yesterday. The words that came to mind were pretty ugly. This is my Skyline 70 SBach. I had flown her, she flew pretty well actually (never really enjoy flying SBachs, except my 30cc) and landed fine. New battery, took her up, toodled around and made an approach. It was long, so I went around, 20 deg flaps. Stayed inside the field (surrounded by trees). On the downwind at about 20', crossed the sun and she didn't come out. I noticed I wasn't controlling her, cried out, "Oh, no!" (point being there was time...), thinking she was stalling I applied power slowly but deliberately, and she drilled in hard. She is literally tooth picks.

Dead Plane Flying

Yesterday I had a moment of calm wx and decided to try the A-10 jet and the Sopwith.

The A-10 was hand launched, which I hate doing. The first attempt nosed in right away. The second took to the sky but was twitchy! She seems a bit tail heavy one moment and nose heavy the next. I trimmed her out and she settled down. Belly landed in the thick grass. She flew nicely and will be a frequent flier. I set her DR and Expos to softer numbers for next time.

Now the Sopwith has always been a dead.plane flying, and she met her doom. She took off, at about 5ft veered hard left into a 180 deg turn and spiraled to her death. My new phone camera and I couldn't get along so I didn't get pics until this morning. Sadly I am not sad.