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.

MS-Bach Topped!

The new spinner bolt came in, and so did the muffler connectors I am using as extensions on the Pitts to make sure they get below the cowl.

I put that spinner on, and now she is fully ready to be balanced and flown!

 

Awesome!

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Southern NH Flying Eagles

Last year I checked out a couple of fields and clubs, joined a couple, but never made it out. Yesterday I renewed my membership with the Southern New Hampshire Flying Eagles, AMA Clube 2417, in Merrimack, NH. No electricity, but they have a great geotex runway!

Flying there today was a small crowd, which allowed me to fly a couple of times. I met Carl, who greeted me right after I arrived, friendly and welcoming! Then Tom, a 17 yo with "the touch", and his dad, Bob. Tom is an intro pilot instructor. Chris showed up later. I really felt welcomed, and comfortable flying. Some kids showed up with their dad and Tom took them up on a buddy box. A touch breezy but not bad at all.

 

The stations are well designed and made. I love the transmitter holders, and that they designed in a fold-away foam support for putting the airplane in upside down!

 

Trees at the North end of the geotex runway.

 

 

Runway 18 (looking south). Once you cross the low end trees on the north end there's a long approach to the threshold. The planes seem to eat it up in a hurry though. Yes, those trees at the south end are very, very tall, and very, very close.

 

 

Looking across the runway to the stations which are on the west side of the field.

 

 

Runway 36, looking north. Those are the low trees, and they are further back than they look. Getting used to where they are is a challenge. You can see the grass landing strip to the right.

 

 

Looking at the stations from the south end of the field.

I flew several packs, flying the Alpha Sport 450, the first plane I always fly at any new field. I mentioned in a previous post that the MX-Bach had its rudder go over hard and stay. Nothing mechanical, leaving only some programming issue. I had to remove the control arms and reset it. It had not stripped. Well, today the Alpha Sport did the same thing. Hard landing, and all of the sudden the rudder was over hard and I had to climb out over the pits and it was all I could do to control her. Back in the pattern and brought her down successfully. When I got home I had to remove and reset the control horn, and on again, it was not stripped and the programming had not changed. This is wierding me out... Is there something wrong with my DX8?

Fortunately I also brought the Ultimate and the Pulse, which flew perfectly. Set up differential ailerons on the Ultimate and the worked pretty well! Will try them on all my planes.

I like this club so far. These guys were good ambassadors. It will take some time for me to get used to flying out of the bowl the trees create, and landing on the geotex runway. It requires a bit more precision, and I am excited about that. Not that there is a good place to crash, but here, there is no good place to crash. It's nice to have some skilled people to watch and learn from. I look forward to coming back!

 

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Busy Day

So, a day off, and it was beautiful. The winds were gusty. They'd be fine on the ground and howling 30' up. Then just gusting. I took three planes out, but just flew the Alpha Sport. After 3 flights I gave up, but it was fun!

The new Turnigy 7V 2300 mAh reciever and ignition packs arrived, so I replaced the old 4.8V ignition and the old reciever packs, in the 30cc MXS-R.

I put together my own dual charger after my new Traxxas Onyx dual output charger had one display crap out. I like to charge the reciever and ignition batteries at the same time. I don't have the receipt, let alone know where I bought it... It's almost a year old. All of the dual chargers out there are well over $100. Instead I bought two simple chargers, a $10 Stanley toolbox, soldered the two separate AC powercords together, and made my own for about $50. I used the box one came in to make a shelf so both could fit side by side, and hide the cord Y point. It works perfectly!

Soldered, capped, and then tied together.

 

Testing the power cord.

 

 

The other day I put an extra 7.4V 2S Lipo I had into the Alpha Sport, just to power the lights, because I could, and I knew it would make them brighter. And it did! I flew her this morning, but at dusk I took her back out and flew her 3 times. I have to say it was very cool seeing them as she flew. Did I get pictures at the field? No. Did I get video at the field? No. But I did think of it as I was unloading, so...

 

 

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A little spit...

...and she's ready to go!

I trimmed out the cowl and it went remarkably well. It lined up nicely with the engine. I have some black silicone exhaust connectors coming that I will use to extend the Pitts muffler pipes below the cowl. I also decided to replace the 4V ignition pack and the 7V receiver pack with new ones by Turnigy. I decided to make the ignition pack 7V too. I had to order a screw for the nose cone as I could not find an M5 40mm bolt anywhere locally.

 

Underside. So shiny it's reflecting everything under the aircraft.

 

Once the final pieces are installed I will retune the engine with the cowl in place, then man up and fly her!

 

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Can you hear that?

It's the sweet sound of my DLE 30 running perfectly! She doesn't even 4-cycle like she used to. She started up this morning almost right away. Cleaning the carb is all she needed. Somehow I knew she would not disappoint! She idles a bit rough, the airframe shakes a lot without the wings, but after a gallon of gas she already runs smoother. I later put the wings on to save the airframe. She runs wonderfully, clean throttle response. I put in a throttle curve with expo to smooth out the advance, and increase resolution. Now a sweet run from a bit rough idle at 1800-2000 to sweet 7800 rpm.

She liked having the wings and the canopy on. The last thing I have to do is cut and install the engine cowl.

 

And from our "It's Always Something" department... I kept having problems with the right elevator sometimes not responding. It would just ignore commands. This would have been deadly in the air. I ended up replacing the Spektrum AR7010 with a new AR7610 from my local hobby shop. Problem seems solved. We'll see!

In a few days I will get the balls to trim the cowl for the spark plug and the exhausts. After that... She will need to fly.

 

 

Model Aircraft Fabricators, Merrimack, NH

 

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Tomorrow

As I wrote previously I haven't been able to get the DLE 30cc to start after it sat for almost a year. I got some carb cleaner and soaked it for hours, picking it up and shaking it and using some spray carb cleaner to blow the ports. I had removed all of the needle valves, and cleaned their ports. I completely rebuilt the carb, and then the engine, and reinstalled it with a new Hall sensor.

Tomorrow, we try again.

I also applied the lettering and some labels. I think I did a pretty decent job laying out the BREITLING logo! The kit came with the letters but I had to apply them one at a time on both sides.

 

Tomorrow we find out if I am buying a cheap Turnigy gas engine to replace the DLE...

Flew this morning. The Cosmic Wind hates the tall grass on landing, even without the wheel pants. She is one faaaast flier. I flew the second Alpha Sport 450 before selling it to Jerry, to make sure she flew well, and she of course flew marvelously! The Pulse XT went up and as always flew smartly.

Now, tomorrow.

 

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