No Fly Zone

Well, it was a beautiful day, but super gusty with modrate sustained winds, so grounded. Kenny and I did meet up at MCRCC and spent a couple of hours chatting, and enjoying a cigar. It looks like stong winds are the story for the next few days... judgement rules, survive to fly another day.

 

 

 

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Seriously?

Cat chewed my prop... dammit.

 

 

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Pulse Preps

In hopes of breaking my flying hiatus tomorrow I cleaned up and setup my Hangar 9 Pulse 25XT. The cote had pulled a bit from previous tune ups, so I replaced some of it. I bought some Monokote at my LHS yesterday, but the yellow turned out to be transparent... happens to me a lot. So I used some Cubby Yellow I had brought with me. Redid the horizontal stab, and the underside of the left wing. Not too smooth a job... I ain't much for cote work, but she'll do!

 

Also recharging 4S batteries, and will later setup the flybarred 450 heli!

 

 

Okay, other than the color mismatch, it actually looks pretty good. The curve came out nice. I replaced the cote on the entire outboard edge as you can see, including the elevator.

 

 

Cote removed from the underside of the left wing.

 

 

White cote replaced, and first black stripe set in place.

 

 

All done. The outsermost stripe is a bit rough, I tuned it up better after the pic and it looks much smoother and tight. Finished up a couple minor cote touch ups on the fuse and now she is flight ready!

 

Tomorrow Kenny Chandler and I are planning to meet up at MCRCC Field in Gulfport and break my dry spell!

 

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Biloxi Blues

It is sooooo very good to be back in Biloxi! I moved out of my townhouse last week since my lease was in renew or move mode, and I wanted to continue my job search from home in Biloxi. I went through taking the wings off all my aircraft and had them packed, so they are in storage in New Jersey until my final move, along with the tables and lights, and parts that make up the rest of the flight lab. I did, however, bring home the Pulse 25XT, a 450 Flybarred and my new, yet to be setup and flown Trex 600e Pro, and my toolboxes, and both my transmitters, as well as my charge box and the batteries.

 

Since I can't setup my lab the normal way, and no one eats in the breakfast room, I have taken it over and created a working lab there!

 

 

 

Put the Pulse back together. It needs some cote work. Stopped by the Orange Grove Hobby Shop this afternoon and picked up some yellow, black and white Monokote. Tomorrow I will be making repairs.

 

 

Love this room! The Trex on the floor.

 

 

Brought a small table in from the garage, and storing my toolboxes on top. The Trex 450 clone is in the silver case, and my trnasmitters are in the black case. The cote sealer, heat gun and soldering iron are in a plastic in now, also under the table.

 

I ran into Jason, the prorietor at the Hobby Shop and he remembered me immediately by name, though he hasn't seen me in a couple of years! Contacted my flying buddy, Kenny Chandler, and weather willing, we are flying Monday and Tuesday. It will be the first time I have flown in a year, and in the year before that I got in only a handful of flights. I want to get my flying thumbs back on the Pulse before flying the 450 heli. If all goes will in a week or so I will have the Trex 600 setup and programmed, and will fly it too!

 

I spent the afternoon discharging my batteries. I had forgotten I had stored them charged and never discharged them, so they need refreshing. Some old ones were puffed, one was just non-functional, and they were discarded at Home Depot, but most seem okay. Wonder about how well they will cycle.

 

Tomorrow, the cote repairs! Monday we are flying!

 

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Preflight/Reprogram Tarot ZYX

 

Spent a part of the afternoon revisiting the settings on the Tarot ZYZ on my EXI 450 fbl. In preflight refit I noticed the swash was reversed, though pitch and roll were fine. Along the way the collective and cycli controls on the radio reversed, they were right, but lef was right. Cray-cray. Not sure how I resolved it, but worked the normal-reverse combinations of the swash servos and somehow it resolved. I did re-establish the Pitch servo-Ch1/aileron-Ch2 relationships, as they may have been reversed, and that may have been the problem. I am pretty sure it was fine when I last flew her, kind odd. It was one of those situations where I did a bunch of differnt combinations of fixes and stopped when the problem resolved. I also noted the picth went +/- 18 degrees, and reprogrammed the FBL computer to +/- 14. It was fun relearning the programming, took me a while to remember the collective gets set in the FBL and not the transmitter.

 

I took the heli up to the big bedroom, shooed out the cats that followed, and spun her up. I had made the mistake of charging my batteries when I was flying in Dayton almost a year ago, so my batteries were not stored at 3.8V. I may have rendered them unusable... a couple were puffed, old ones, and I am disposing of them, but the newer ones I think I can recondition. Point being, it ran briefly but between programming and checking her blade tracking at zero pitch, by the time I tried to hover her the battery ran out of juice. I out another battery on he, but i wasn't really comfortable hovering her in the bedroom so just rechecked the setting and made sure she was stable at fill throttle in zero pitch, then shut her down.

 

It was nice getting back to the flight bench! I need to repair the Sopwith the cat landed on, my next project.

 

Need warmer weather, then to find a field and fly!

 

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New Align Trex 600e Pro

My new Align Trex 600e Pro, kittens and banana for scale.

I bought this newly built, never flown heli on eBay at a steal with a new Spektrum Dx7S. The heli is bind and fly with all Align parts, a Castle 80A HV ESC, a Spektrum AR8000 with satellite, Align GP790. It came with two new Fusion 6S 4000 mAh 40C LiPO batteries (might be a tight fit, haven't checked) with EC5 connectors (convenient as that's what I use),, and a new 2S 2200 mAh LiPO receiver pack with Traxxas connectors. I need to vet it, take the head and the tail apart especially, check the gyro and program my Dx8. This version uses a flybar, which I wanted, and I will need to make sure its mechanically set up.

A couple of years ago i bought an Align Trex 600efl (flybarless), and have been byung parts for it. I finally have all the parts and along with vetting the new 600e I will be building the 600efl. That will take a lot of time.

 

Meanwhile I am cleaning up and servicing my other helis and expanding my heli shop (picks to follow)!

 

I am definitely back! Spending my motorcycle money, but I am back!

 

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It's time...

I haven't flown anything since last fall... Fall 2012, back in Dayton. Kenny Chandler called me tonight on his way back from a fly-in in Jackson. He infected me. Again.

 

It's time.

 

 

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