Field Cold Weather Gear

Just like there's "Field Monokote", one can come up with Field Weather Gear! A cold front moved through when we thought it was going to be hot and humid.Windy, cold and raining! We were freezing! Pulled out a ginormous plastic bag and voila! Cold Windy Weather Gear!

Kenny's Cowl cleaning up nicely!

Kenny put some red and yellow cote on the cowl I rebuilt for him, now it looks really great! He plans to put some more yellow underneath.

Steel Chin

The other day I lost control of my Eflite PT-19 Cornell in a spin and nosed it in hard. It turned the cowl into shattered egg shell, and the motor mount/battery box into wood chips. Today I began the process of rebuilding the nose. I decided to use a metal electric motor mount similar to this one, instead of rebuilding a wooden mount. Kenny Chandler had given me this mount several months ago for just this purpose. One problem now may be that instead of absorbing the impact by turning into chips, the energy may go back to the fuse and destroy it if it crashes again...

I removed what was left of the original motor box, and installed a header piece across the top.

I built a mount out of sandwiched popsicle stick wood. Trimmed it to fit.

You can see the top of the sandwich mount just over the battery. I installed the metal mount upside down to allow the back of the frame to let the battery pass through. This keeps the battery mobile for CG management.

Side view. I had to set the motor attachment part above the midline of the mount to keep the motor aligned with the cowl.

The ESC is installed below the motor mount. You can see the bolts into the frame I made (the sandwich frame above).

Lucky me, it lined up spot on! I really mean lucky... I guessed at where the mount should go on the front of the fuse!

This is the shattered cowl before repairs begin.

The top...

It was so badly shattered that I first had to CA and epoxy the breaks and cracks to stabilize it enough to sand it. I will let it cure overnight and tomorrow sand it down, Bondo it and if time permits, prime it and paint it over the next day or so. I think with what I learned working on Kenny's cowl this one can be resurrected too!

UPDATE (11/13/11): Checked CG today and I did have to pull the battery back all the way, and add 1 oz to the tail... Hate adding tail weight so I checked, rechecked and checked again. Put the weights as far back as I could.

Kenny's Cowl

Kenny crashed his Edge hard Wednesday, when it tip stalled unexpectedly (he had been flying in winds, got used to slow approaches, then there was no wind...).  The wing dropped, caught and she cartwheeled down the runway... shearing off the cowl and motor, but otherwise coming out unscathed. He ordered a new one, but he needs to fly up at the Pine Belt RC Fly-in this Saturday. I offered to try to repair it... I have never worked with fiberglass before. Can you tell? I wanted the challenge and he had nothing to lose!

Post Crash - Pre Repair

I failed to get a pic of the left side which is cracked open all the way along the cowl. Its always something...

Repair

CA's the puzzle back together. Then fiberglassed the major split you can see here..

The ring was in pieces, back together again. I used a piece of plastic to support the ring on the left.

Fiberglassed the major crack. I was a little heavy with the resin.

Also had a few resin overruns.

All sanded.

You can see where I used fiberglass to round out the notch in the bottom.

Nice clean round notch.

Bondo magic!

Bondo sanded and cleaned.

Primer coat.

Painted in gloss dark blue. Here warming it in front of the fireplace on a Lazy Susan I could spin to evenly warm all sides. It came out quite nice. Not perfect but pretty darn good.  Learned a lot, will do a few things differently next time. Really like the Bondo!

Here it is on Kenny's plane. Maybe we should have gone with the red?

Rough day

Very windy day at BMF. Had a lot of fun shooting approaches and working crosswind landings. Made a couple costly mistakes...

I was shooting an approach with the Pulse XT, and in making my missed approach I firewalled the throttle. She shot forward and was doing about 60 mph one foot off the ground when the wind slammed her into the ground! Her gear snapped clean off and she skid to stop! The cost was the landing gear having to be reinstalled (the cote replaced too), replacing the cote where the landing gear punched through as they rolled under,  a stripped aileron servo, and a cracked prop. Need to order the JR MN48 for one of the aileron servos. It was pretty cool acutally, with all that speed, big puff of dirt!

Broke the gear off clean, no bending, cracked the fuse plate just forward of the gear. I removed the wing.

The hole in the underside of the right wing.

And through the top.

Already fixed everything except replacing the servo and the prop (need a nut).

I also worked the Cornell hard. I was practicing spin recovery when I got into a spin I couldn't pull out of. She slammed into the ground... and came through surprisingly well!

Shattered the cowl, and as you can see, I shook out the motor mount in chips... The prop is toast and I taco'd another battery. I will be able to rebuild this in a couple of days! There was no other damage.

Its Official!

Yesterday I became officially an AMA Instructor pilot licensed to fly non-AMA licensed people in intro and training flights! A special thanks to the officers of MCRCC for supporting my instructor status!

The new Intro Pilot tag on my license is my instructor ticket! Nice patches the AMA sent me!

Sabre Update

An update on the SkyAngel Mini F-86 Sabre from Hobby King. She is flying great! I did have to add 1/2 oz of weight under her nose (seen  below in the air intake). The elevator control horns both broke at their attachement to the control rod, so I would just replace these from the get-go. 

Two 1/4 oz weights in the nose.

I chisled out some of the canopy to allow me to use a 1300 mAh battery, just a smidge too thick for the small spot underneath. The included 950 mAh and my 1000 mAh batteries fit fine, but I also have a couple 1300 mAh batteries I want to be able to use.

She is a lot of fun and remains a show stopper!