WEEEEEEE! YEAH. UPDATE THAT CRASH CLOCK, BABY!

Decided that since the winds were damn near dead calm, I would take the two 500's and the Pulse XT60 out. This would be the maiden for the Pulse.

For 20 min I tried to start her. Decided to take a break. Dammit.

     

Flew two packs on the HK 500 FBL. MUCH FUN!

Took the cowl off the Pulse and inspected the engine quickly identifying the cause. Throttle linkage lost its nut. Loose fit it, and she started right up.  Packed her up. I'll run home, fix her, and come back out.

Flew two more packs on the HK500 FBL! MORE FUN!

Drove home to fix the Pulse. 30 min one way... Decided to replace the wire holder gadget, with one with a good screw end. Washer, nut snugged, then a dot of solder using a soldering heat gun so both pieces were hot. Cooled, added a touch of super thin CA.

Pre-Maiden walk-around. The power of this thing!

She Fly! This is a powerful, wicked fast, awesome flier! Stable, predictable, unlimited vertical. She was a touch nose heavy, but o/w trimmed out nicely. Put her through her paces with a couple of tanks. I love this plane. One thing I was worried about happened. The 15x6 prop barely clears the ground with the tail down, and is way close with it up in level flight. On one of my touch and goes the prop touched and snapped. 

I decided to fly the heli again and at the end of the pack, flying low, I dumb thumbed a rotor strike and that was the end of that. All that power and energy had to go somewhere.

On the way home I picked up another Xoar 15x6, and this APC 15x6. I think the APC may be more likely to survive light prop strikes and stall the engine instead of snapping. I also added 10 gms to the tail, on top the the boatload  already there.

Tomorrow looks like an even better day to fly! I can't wait! I think I will take the Spitfire to maiden as well.

This going to sit here for a while. Rebuilding and setting these up is laborious, so I will need to have everything else done. I still have the two 600's. I wasn't able to fly the HDX 500 because I forgot it takes 4S batteries, I only have one, and it was at home...

Changing Spektrum DX8 Antenna

As it tends to do the antenna hinge finally gave way from all my grabbing my radio by the antenna... bought a replacement. Installing this is very easy.

Set the radio on something protecting the gimbals and sticks, remember throughout the task NOT to apply any pressure on the sticks. Remove the rubber pads being careful to not tear the little nibs that hold them on. There is a light adhesive if you've not done this before. There are two screws in the antenna base, and the other 4 are under the rubber grips in the corners. Note that the gimbal tensioner screws are also present accessible through access holes, leave these alone. If necessary you can adjust them when the cover is off. Otherwise this is when you would do it if you are not takng the cover off.

Unplug the easily identified antenna plug. Gentle pull off.

Remove the two screws holding the antenna module in place.

Gently lift the module out. It is attached with those two screws and the plug. 

Unscrew the black screw holding the silver holdfast in place. Remove the screw and silver plate holdfast. Slide the old antenna base through the metal ring in the frame pulling it out. Take note of the relationship of the black plastic antenna, the antenna pigtail, and the silver antenna holdfast with the black screw in the center. 

This is the arrangement. There is a slot along the plastic base for the pigtail and it passes throguh the rectangle in the base plate holdfast. The round end is 6 oclock when unstalled. The rectangle fits over the plastic fitting on the bottom of the antenna, as does the semilunar one in the 6 oclock position. It's a loose perfect fit. 

Reverse the process with the new antenna. By the way, make sure that the screw that is on the back of the base (black part) of the antenna is facing you, the back of the radio if you like to bend the antenna towards you when flying. I don't, I leave it flat, so it didn't matter that I forgot that and it only bends sideways and back. Pass the pigtail then the base through the hole and metal ring. Place the holdfast properly aligned. Screw the black screw of the holdfast into the base of the installed antenna making sure the tabs are in their places in the silver plate and the pigtail is not pinched. It should all fit nicely securing the antenna. Snug, not gorilla tight. Press the antenna module back in, replace its screws and then gently push the antenna plug into the module. It does NOT snap.

All installed.

The hardest part of the whole task is getting these little penises into the holes... if you don't there is a bump. Press them in and if correct they fit easily and flat, then press the edges down using a flat blade. I only use glue (Foam Tac or 3-in-1) where needed.

And voila! I range tested it on a plane on a plane on my bench, and will do so again next flight!

WIndy Fun!

Day off today, Memorial Day, so when I finally got out of bed I packed up the Sukhoi RCGF 10cc and yet to be flown Pulse XT60 RCGF 20cc and headed out to SNHRCC in Hudson, NH.  The winds were about 7 mph with some calmer periods, increasing to about 10 mph, which brought my flying day to an end.  I flew her using the 12x8x3 and really thought she lost performance even though she picked up a few hundred RPM. I quickly changed back to the 13x8x3.

She is up. She flew well, and a couple of hard and one off field landing her infamous landing gear stayed on! The new design proved itself.

Saw the antenna starting to come off so ordered a new one, arrived this afternoon when I got home, but for now I am flying ghetto with package and electrical tape.

Louis Rios, heli pilot, rather nice guy!  I think he is going to be very helpful getting my heli skills sharpened.

Clarence White. He is always here, and makes sure the place stays clean and mowed. Ted, don't forget to pay him!

Me flying the Sukhoi in strong 8-10 mph winds for the practice and fun of it. Louis recorded this for me and let out a Jesus! because a wind gusts picked up. You can hear the wind. The winds were down the runway maybe a 45 deg off centerline.

Louis with his 700 Nitro heli.

While short as the winds picked up on Mt Hudson, it was fun flying. I learned to come in higher (thanks, Louis!) and avoid the down draft vortex at the southern end of the runway that pulled the Sukhoi down once despite full power! Landed facing backwards but unfazed otherwise! It was nice to meet and watch Louis fly again, and its always nice to meet Clarence!  I have 4 days off coming up and hope to maiden both the Pulse XT60 and the Spitfire, winds permitting. 

Now, to fix that darn antenna.

Antennae Gain

So I learned a thing today.

I need to replace the antenna on my DX8 Gen 1 for only the second time in its very long life. They like to break at the hinge... and it's breaking there again. Change presents opportunity, so I wondered if there was anything to be "gained" from changing the antenna.  Longer is better, right?  Not so much, unless you are flying long range drones.

The stock antenna on RC transmitters is a 2 dbi antenna. This low gain antenna provides more than adequate range for RC flight, and a nice 360-ish degree sphere of signal. If we increase the gain, which requires a longer antenna, we increase the range, but narrow the beam so that the "sphere" becomes a shallower and shallower "donut". This illustrates too that pointing a high gain antenna at the reciever puts the reciever in the larger null zone resulting in a signal loss crash. With a low gain antenna, like ours, this isn't so much an issue, but since a true isotropic (full sphere zone) antenna is not possible, there is still a bit of a null zone pointing out of the end of our low gain antenna too, even though the pic shows a complete sphere, there really is a tiny wedge of null pointing out both ends). So pointing the end of the antenna directly at the reciever actually decreases signal... The best position of the antenna is more or less perpendicular to the horizon, unless the aircraft is directly overhead. Point is, there is a reason the engineers use a 2 dbi antenna for RC, and why a long range drone pilot might want a more directional higher gain antenna.

So, I bought a plain old replacement 2 dbi antenna for my Dx8.

The standard 2 dbi Spektrum Dx7s and Dx8 antenna

SPektrum Dx8 Gen 1 with stock 2 dbi antenna. Really, it's all we need.

Dx6 with a 5 or 9 dbi long range antenna for long range drone flying. The mod is incredibly easy, and there a several vids on YouTube describing it. For pretty much all of us it's un-necessary and will decrease performance, increase risk of signal loss.

Master Airknives

Removing the 3 blade MA 12x8x3 from the Suhoi when my finger brushed the back of the blade. That MF be sharp...

MX--Bach 30cc Re-conversion

Today I pulled the Turnigy Rotomax 1.40 and the Hobbywing Platinum Pro 100 amp HV and the cooling fan, and the harness, from the MX-Bach. I had foorgotten about the engine mount I had made for it. Pretty nice Mcgyver of what I had, some nice engineering.

I will be putting this up for sale as a kit soon. Its new, flown 3 times.

There are some cracks in the base of the equipment tray that I repaired and then added tongue depressor wood to both sides to add strength.

The new 10 oz tank in the Sukhoi.

I took the 14 oz  gas tank out of the 10cc Sukhoi because it really was too big for it, having replaced the orinignal 8 oz tank. I got a new 10 oz tank and put it in the Sukhoi. The Tech-Aero IBEC in the mail today, have a fuel vent and T connector for the fuel system coming.  The electric power switch is in the equipment bay, and I will have to decide if I am going to keep it, or change it to an external switch.  I have an old fuel dot I can install in hand. I am now searching for a used 30cc gas engine, but may end up putting a new one in, likely an RCGF-USA  Stinger.

I am prettty excited about this. She has just sat there since I didn't have the batteries to fly her. This way I have another gasser that I can fly for years!

Pulse XT60 Update

Something about the Pulse XT60 has been bugging me.

The thrust line is a tad south of midline. Can't really tell from these pics...  This is stock at the firewall so maybe it's supposed to be this way? I realized this after having to modify the cowl, and later thought I should have made an adjustment in the engine mount before changing the cowl. You can see the down angle here.

Better here. Not just the low lying shaft, but the angle.

This isn't the best pic, but I put about 1-2mm (2 washers) of washers on the lower mounts to raise the thrust angle a bit. This does that. I fell better, but we'll see.