Come in, Major Tom!

She was in a nice descent on base and I started my turn to final. And then she wasn't there anymore. We all stood there kinda stunned. The Cornell simply stopped flying and just as suddenly was gone. Major Tom stopped responding to Ground Control...

I had been toddling around in a holding pattern waiting for Greg to bring his Ugly Stick in for a landing. He cleared the threshold and I turned to base. I was just starting a turn to final when she just disappeared. She had plenty of speed, and hadn't done anything quirky. Her battery was fresh, she hadn't been up long (still over 4 V on recovery). She disappeared in a hurry. I was dumbstruck. A lot of people were watching and it was clear I wasn't doing anything other than a nice gliding turn. When Kenny, Susanne and I found her (using the motor sound to track her), she didn't look too bad. The wing is a little tweaked. The motor mount and battery box are bits and pieces, but I think enough remains to rebuild it. I won't make the mistake of angling the battery as I did before. If it's too much trouble then dammit, I'm buying another expensive fuse! She just flies too sweet. I won't be using the AR6100E I had in there... curious as she wasn't more than 500-600 feet away, and I've never once had an issue with this receiver. I may put an HK Orange Receiver and Satellite in her, since I have never had a problem with one of them... Don't know. We can't think of anything else it might have been. Its nigh on impossible to stall this plane.. There was nothing else wrong that I can see so far. Has to be the reciever.

Bummer.

UPDATE (9/10/11@2057hrs): Ordered a new hatch and noticed that the cowl's will be available in Jan 2012!

UPDATE (9/12/11@0800hrs): Dick Clarke pointed out that I am using a Spektrum AR6100e, a park flyer receiver. I need to change these over to the new AR600 series full range receivers. I have flown this receiver without problems at great distances, but I wonder if the odds eventually caught up with me, even though it wasn't all that far away?

Love in an elevator

The Stearman got a few work overs today. The wing tab on the right was a bit long with all the CA repairs and the wing wasn't fitting snug. I had been looking for an excuse to redo the tab, so today I snapped it off, Dremel sanded a 45 degree slant on the wing side and an opposing one on the tab, and CA'd them in place. I also shortened it a mm or so. Fits very snug now. I was doing this before heading out to the field so I was rushed and realize I didn't take any pics. I started this afternoon working on the right horizontal stab and elevator. In cartwheel landings it tends to take a hit, and is cracked with a subtle but clearly evident flex. I opened the cote and CA's the cracks, and added an angled cross spar. Does the job perfectly. Re-coted and done. She flew marvelously today with these two repairs. Landings were sweet, even in a light crosswind.

The cote removed. The screw point at the cracked sections.

Match stick wood spar CA'd in place. Re-coted and looks as good as new!

Avast there ye Piratey Fella!

Today was an interesting day...

It started with the discovery that someone I thought was a gentleman and a friend was really a bully. Turns out he reacts like this when he doesn't get his way, I am told... We had the Piratey Flag for the Pirate Squadron flying below the American flag. I came out of the clubhouse having done some solder work, and he acosted me in front of a large crowd, including Bob Miller (see below), asking me if that had been my Pirate flag. I said yes, and looked realizing he had used past tense. He told me I could find it in the garbage where it belongs and proceeded to berate me angrily for flying it. I pulled it out of the trash, a bit bewildered why it merited such a spirited yet childish reaction. I calmly though shocked asked him why I deserved to be treated this way, and that I thought him a reasonable man, and was bewildered by this very unreasonable action. I knew this was not the place for a confrontation, but am saddened that the other members present we're cowed by this man and said nothing. I folded it, put it away, and let it go without further challenge, apologizing for any offense ("Apology accepted!"). I was ashamed for Mr. Miller, who had not visited our field, his field, for many years. I let the bully be. A member of Mr. Miller's group told me moments later they thought I handled the situation well, noting "You can't let the bullies win." Even they knew the situation for what it was. Unfortunately, the bullies are winning... if I had done this to him, I would have been told to leave and never come back.

But, it was another day with flying conditions beyond belief! Cool temps, light breeze. And I did get to meet the Bob Miller, for whom our field was named in respect to his efforts in establishing it. He is retired and lives near his family in Dallas. It was nice to meet a legacy who has given us this great place to play.

I flew my entire hangar of aircraft today, sort of, if we don't count the Super Cub which Ron helped me troubleshoot today. We think we are getting close to solving whatever the problem is. He took it up as we tweaked it, and when we did get it off the ground I am glad he was at the controls as it was really unstable. He managed to get her back down. Made some tweaks, but ran into a battery problem. My 3S 1000 mAh battries, some of the oldest and highest cycled batteries in my locker, would charge, but not discharge fast enough. No power. So I ended up retiring them one by one today. On my way home I dropped them off in the recycle bin at Home Depot. A couple of "corrections" to make to the Cornell and Stearman, but other than that, the planes handled the day well. And so did the Pirate flag, which, being a gentleman I will no longer fly on the flag pole, but reserve the right to display on my bench! Avast ye bully, hands off me property!

Beautiful day, beautiful flights!

Took the brood out to BMF today, on one of the most beautiful flying days this year. The Stearman, Cornell, Trojan and the Suicidal Franken Cubby. The first three flew awesomely, but I set the Cubby aside before I realized a power issue with a battery and not the aircraft, so I didn't fly her today. I will tomorrow.  Flying was disrupted by mowing... we bitch when its long, and we bitch when they cut it while we are flying, but at least Greg took breaks to let us fly!

Tomorrow's weather should be as good and with short grass!

Aw, snap...

Tuesday was a tricky breeze day, calm one minute, blustery the next, as it sometimes is at BMF. This Tuesday was a bit more malicious being post Tropical Storm Lee. I took the Stearman up, toodled around, and the battery waned faster than usual, 8 minutes faster, probably because of the winds. I had trouble with the low voltage change in the ESC keeping enough thrust to maintain forward flight in the wind as I turned quickly to land. She drifted over the runway as I tried to trade altitude for velocity, but a gust would lift her five feet. There was only about 10 feet of runway left when I brought her down a bit briskly. She snapped the damn wing tabs (Eflite should double those...), broke the multiply repaired wing spar (out of stock until January 2012. Its a carbon fiber rod, WTF out of stock?), and bent the landing gear. No problem. Had the tabs repaired before I left the field, but the spar was going to take some work. Being a moron, I leaned over and twisted the landing gear back into place, succeeding only in completely fracturing the landing gear plate deep inside the aircraft fuse. That's why only moron's do that... Cursing myself, I took her home and benched her. It took a couple of hours, but it doesn't look bad at all. Taking her up today, a so far beautiful one!

Okay, I faked this photo, because I had already power drilled out the broken dowel, but you get the point. Since the replacement spar tubes are out of stock, have been for months, will be until Jan 2012, I have strengthened the tube and repaired it by fitting a conveniently perfect sized dowel down the middle. These are the outside ends, but the broken part looks the same. Power drill out the ends of the broken section and use the hand drill there to clean up the detritus.

So it looks clean, about 20mm deep on each end.

I measure out a 40 mm section, which I intentionally cut a mm or two short.

I put a dot of CA in one end, shove and tap the dowel into place, and do the same to the other end. Tap them snug together and CA the joint. Once it dries I sand it all smooth so it will fit. It breaks along the same lines every time it breaks. This preserves the wing structure by absorbing the forces. 

This is what the landing gear well looks like. It looks like rotted wood, but its just busted. I have peeled back some of the cote. I was doing this bit by pit, opening those holes, pushing wood, trying to avoid opening the fuse.

It became clear I was going to have to repair this by opening up the space.

That half of the plate was just hanging there loose, and here its removed. I cleaned up the edges.

Using 1 hr epoxy I set the plate back into place. The white stuff is lithium grease to keep the clamp from sticking to the epoxy. I left this overnight.

The next morning I dry fit the gear and rebent it to the correct angle with pliers, refitting and rebending.

I put some support pieces in the well, and placed a piece of plywood over it, cutting out the weight reducing space and the screw holes. Its supported on all 4 sides. I sanded it down. I also had put piece wood along the outer edge of the fuse to close the space and sanded this down as well using a Dremel then by hand.

I used some spackle to fill in the rough spots where a mix of crushed balsa and CA couldn't fill.

Let that dry a few hours then sanded it down. Cleaned it with alcohol.

I then recoted the entire section and poked out the screw holes. Never can get those to be pretty...

Came out pretty well! The wing was reinstalled and she's ready to go!

All looks, no action...

Sweet looking Green Model RC/Powerline Hobbies Super Cub after the repairs to the crushed front end, taken this past Tuesday. I added a new cowl, a modified Parkzone Mini Cub cowl split on the bottom.  I fired her up, rolled her out and she promptly nosed up and rolled hard right into the ground. Just like before. I had put in some right vector, maybe I need a little more down, but she has a lot of down... a lot. The second try bent the gear and I had enough so I put her away. I will straighten out the gear when I feel like wasting flying time. I put another washer in pushing the vector a little more right. I will fix the gear later and try again. I love/hate Cubbies... Here's a pic before the flight.

Super Cub Uncrunch Pt 1a

While waiting for batteries to charge in anticipation of flying tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and do the white cote job. I also finished off the red side stripes. Not bad...

Not  bad at all. Did the epoxy on the cracked cowl, and will repaint it tomorrow.