Hobbico: Another Awesome Customer Oriented Company!

About 2 years ago I bought an Onyx Dual Charger from Tower Hobbies or an affiliated seller. I don't have the receipt and I have no idea where I got it... A few months later the right screen failed and I didn't need a single charger (that's where I made the dual charger with two inexpensive single chargers).  I was on FB the other day and a suggested FB site for Hobbico popped up, and I  LIKED it. As I perused it I saw a post about this very nice charger, and I mentioned how mine went brick. Hobbico responded suggesting I contact them. A couple of weeks later I sent it in with a note that I had no receipt nor recall from whom I bought it. A week later it was in the mail, they turned it around in a day, repaired! I know its mine as I changed the output leads to bananas to allow a wider range of charge leads. 

I love this about Hobbico, Tower Hobbies and Horizon Hobbies! No one provides better customer service. 

Thanks, Hobbico! I can now charge two planes at once with my two dual chargers! They have earned a place in my favorite vendors (see the links to the right!).

Great Planes Big Stik 40 Build Day 1

The other day the UPS man left me a box from Tower Hobbies! What a nice man.

I had today off so broke open the box and got to work.

Das Box.

I wanted something different so I removed the Iron Cross from the right side and used a WWII Era US aircraft insignia.

I busied up the underside of the wing. I need more white. I plan to use some white on the bottom of the fuse as well. I want strong contrast top from bottom.

I decided to go with the taildragger modification.  I custom cut a piece of plywood and epoxied it inside to the bottom of the fuse. I wanted it to get support from the entire compartment.

I custom fit some triangle bracing and added support to the bulkhead forward, and a solid hardwood across the middle. The forward tray is where the landing gear blind nuts will be installed. This puts the landing gear just forward of the CG. You can see the stock blind nuts behind the middle bulkhead, under the servo tray.  The instructions a call for some sanding down of the bulkhead to fit the small stock fuel tank. I am not sure, I think it's about 200cc. I am putting a 260cc tank in. The stock calls for the front of the tank to exit the center hole in the firewall. This will crowd the air intake on the carb... My tank will be set up a bit aft of the hole and I will need to secure it from creeping forward. I am still not sure where I will put the ignition. I really don't want it outside the fuse.

I also installed the motor mounts but forgot to get photos. It was tricky getting the mounting nuts on the bolts... that forward compartment is long.

Heli Day

Its been a very, very long time since I have flown a heli, let alone setup a CCPM or programmed a FBL (flybarless) system.

I started with the Trex 600e, a flybarred heli that has been one of my favorites. I crashed it some three years ago when the elevator servo control ball link snap separated from the control rod and she did a 360 flip onto the ground (I thought I had posted on that, one of my last day at MCRCC in Biloxi, but I can't find it. Since that crash I had rebuilt the heli, and moved a couple of times, and then found problems in a pre-flight check. I discovered that like many of my helis with Align gyros, in fact, all of them, she had a tail twitch I could not program out, even trying to reset control lengths etc to reduce sensitivity. I kept wanting to buy a Spartan Quark, but I didn't want to spend $100+ to find out its not the gyro. Finally I found one NIB on eBay and ordered it a few weeks ago for $60. Today I finished installing the Quark and programed it, and fine tuned the CCPM on the 600e. A week ago I reviewed some videos on CCPM setup from Helifreak.com, and it all came back to me. A few tweaks and I set her up for 11 degrees pitch and 6 degrees aileron and elevator. Lubed her up, and now she is ready to go. Her head speeds on 12S are scary high, so I plan to create a throttle curve at about 80%, and may fly her 10S on 100% curves.

I moved on the my HK500FBL that has a BeastX on it. I wondered if there was a Mac software for it and found that they is one now and installed it. It is a manager, not a programmer, so after I updated the firmware on the BeastX, I spent the evening programming it. Its easy, and I found some things I hadn't done quite right before. I used the BeastX digital bevel box and tuned it to a pitch tolerance of 0.2 degrees. Sweet. I had to replace a weak ball link snap, and the new ones wouldn't fit! After a while I got the idea to heat the control rod and the new snaps went on easily, cooled nice and snug and custom tapped to fit! She is now ready to fly! I love the wheels, but it does make her a bit tippy. I remember this being a challenge on spinning her up unbalanced as she will wobble and tip over. I also need to find a better way to secure the wheel cowls to the landing gear as they can vibrate a lot in the current arrangement.

I have honed my skills on the Phoenix Flight Sim, and think I like about 35% expo. I fund flying planks that I don't like 40% and have dialed those down to 35, and will likely end up there, or perhaps 30. I have always flown 25% expo, but think as I age I need to loosen that up a bit.

I am excited to get back into my helis. I plan to re-tune the 450's which both have Tarot ZYX FBL systems on them. I've pretty much stopped flying the 450's liking the stability of the larger helis.

And I still have the Trex600 EFL Pro NIB with all the parts and electronics that I have never gotten around to building, including a Spektrum AR7200BX 7-channel receiver with BeastX. A couple of years ago I rounded up the parts after accidentally winning the airframe on eBay. I think its time to build! I plan to build it along with the Great Planes Stick. After that I am going to put off new aircraft until I get my mojo back!

A couple of days of work work, and then its back to the lab, and hopefully some nice weather to fly!

Great Planes Stik 40

When my Spitfire met its demise and challenged by loyalty and dedication to r/c flight, a very nice gentleman was flying what I believe was a Eflite Ultra Stik 25e. I watched him fly it simply, gracefully, enjoying himself. I have forgotten what thats like since I lost my mojo. For a long time I have wanted to have a simple basic plane with no bad habits and some performance. I have been thinking about the Ultra Stick 40 or 60, but for some frickin' reason they discontinued it (I mean, come one, seriously? It had everything! Simpliticy, performance, stability, flaps...). Hobby King has a nice one, but it needs at least a 15 cc engine.  I love the performance of the Ugly Stik, but never was fond of the odd lines and the scalloped ailerons. Since I can't find a left over Ultra, I went ahead and bought the Great Planes Big Stik 40 with the plan to take everything from the Spitfire and use it on the Stik.

I so want to just build it like its designed... I don't want to modify anything, just build it, and fly the crap out of it. But I already am putting a 10cc gas engine on it. That changes the weight distribution and I am not sure it will fit without modification. And then I want to make it a tail dragger to fly off rougher runways, which means moving the back landing gear forward, which means getting some self setting nuts and strengthening the fuselage. This too changes weight distribution and flight dynamics. And if I do that, why not add flaps? Change the shape of the vertical stabilizer? And voila, a complex, long build...

I think I will build it stock and enjoy flying it, and then someday later modify it. I will change some of the colors though. She is notorious for being difficult to determine orientation on as the top and the bottom of the plane are the same. 

Fast, aerobatic, stable, predictable, gasser, easy to build, easy to fly, easy to repair.

Hmmm... maybe I will just make the tail dragger modification. And... maybe the vertical stabilizer.

The Day I Quit

Our hobby is like an affair, a dangerous thrilling passion. Its pulls us away from our responsibilities to play the fool, it costs us money, sanity, and oh does it cost us patience. It teaches us, it makes us better people, and it keeps us out of trouble. As it loves us it threatens us, and all we hold dear. It is passionate, exotic, full of challenges and taunts, moments of exceptional pleasure and sheer anger, joy and terror. And on some days, it makes us mad as hatters. And yet we are drawn to it, and like the proverbial moth to the flame it burns us for loving it so.

I hate it with a passion that keeps bringing me back.

I finally maidened the 10cc Spitfire. First flight, she took off wonderfully and flew like a gem. Very little trim needed. I put her through my first flight tests. and everything was perfect. The engine ran flawlessly in all phases. She performed basic flight maneuvers well, stalled a bit intensely but predictably. After about 10 minutes I decided on one more power off stall, gear down throughout the entire first flight. She stalled dropping a wing harshly, I recovered and she clipped the tallest tree on the field and dropped like a stone into the creek.

I quit right then and there.

I found her in the creek under the tall trees, the wing separated from the fuselage, floating wheels down but intact, and the fuse hanging vertically right next to the wings, only the cowl under water. The receiver was dry as were the switches and the remote cut out. The engine and the ignition were under water. At first glance she is surprisingly undamaged. The wings were torn off whole and the right wing was fine, the left one apparently is the one that hit the tree. The outer 10 cm has a dent, and about mid way in the leading edge is crushed. The fuse has a few cracks, especially large one near the tail, but internally a bomb went off and several of the frames and the stringers are completely gone. The cowl intake on the bottom was sheared and the cowl would need to be replaced, though I could do the glass repair. It wouldn't take much to fix her. And that's just it. I was bummed, but really, I have zero interest in rebuilding her. Zero. But thinking its just a phase, I stripped all the parts (all of them survived, except I think the ignition), and I stashed the fuse and wing in storage in my workshop. The engine started and would run, but like it was poorly tuned, and its behavior changed as it ran. I suspect the ignition did not take the bath well... the spark wire covering is frayed, but the ignition looks otherwise fine.

Before her flight, during pre-flight checks.

After the recovery...

The wing looks pretty good. The landing gear would not retract or extend, but after things dried out they work fine. 

THe underside. 

The fuse looks well too, but internally took quite a beating.

This crack looks innocent enough, and should be easy to repair but it will be extensive work.

When the wing came off if took a lot of the internal framing with it.

I've take all the electronics and servos out, and they all work fine. I removed the engine. The plane is back to its shell...  I already have a project in mind, and its the reason I decided not to quit.

By the way, I forgot the name of the kind man who was there and helped me bring her back, risking the poison ivy. Thanks so much for your time, kind words, support and timber bashing!

VQ Models Maiden Flight Ready!

I installed the new prop on the VQM P-51B, and ran a quick test, she stayed together. Today I ran her a bit longer and did some static thrust testing.

She is about 8 lbs AUW, and using the 14" 4-blade prop with a 6S she is producing 1200W at 52A with 12 lbs of static thrust at full throttle.

This is a nice plane, but there are a couple of things that bug me. One is that the coat is rubbery, and low temp, so in the warm air it sags. I suspect this will really suck out in the sun. The second is that to change the battery the wings have to come off. 

Those two holes are where the wing bolts go. The tend to miss the hole inside and flop about the pseudo-air ram. It takes a lot of time to fish them out and try again, a process that takes several tries.

The battery compartment. Fits the 6S 4500 mAh battery fine.

I stuck rubber washers on the ends of the screws so all I need is a screwdriver and they should otherwise stay put between changes. All she needs now is for me to try and fly her.

We flew rockets today, and I caught some video from my Alpha Sport 450 and a keychain camera. An hour of that and I am pretty much done for the day.

MotionRC Delivers, Sweet Results!

I have recently started buying parts from MotionRC, and one of the things I appreciate most about a vendor is quick processing and shipping. These folks rock: part arrive 3-4 days after I order them.

I had ordered the 4-blade prop from the FMS 1700mm P-51, and it really was too big for the VQ Models P-51, coming in at 17'. I ordered the prop for the FMS 1400mm P-51, and its a very nice fit at 14". A quick test last night and she ran fine on 6S drawing about 55A and making about 1200W, but I didn't run her up completely to full throttle. This prop, like its bigger brother, has a hex shaped box on the bottom of the spinner to drive the spinner from a similarly shaped hex on the shaft of the motor. My smaller shaft (okay, I hear that...) doesn't have the hex, but it seems to work fine. It was challenging to get the prop nut secure without stripping the shaft trying to hold it while tightening it. It also took me about an hour to get the engine aligned with the cowl... for some reason it was just not staying where I put it, but once I found the sweet spot she spaced perfectly.

She is pretty much done and is ready to maiden! Does that not look awesome? I am glad MotionRC stocks these parts.