I'm back, baby!

Today was the day. Checked my batteries, most had really high internal resistance (IR) so we're not usable, but three had cells 20 or less, so I charged those. I updated the Spektrum Airware in my iX12 without any issues. I had to rebind the Alpha 450, but other than that no issues. A small flap break in the core on the horizontal stab was quickly patched and off I went.

First to a smaller "2 baseball diamond" field ringed by high trees. Flew the first battery there, but wanted some room to fly hard, so set off to find a field in town I had seen Last year, huge, several soccer/lacrosse fields huge, called Upper Wilkins Field.

Very nice. Grass a bit high but big wheels for that reason, a little flap and she took off and landed just fine. Almost windless day. Perfect for a return to RC flight.

I bought 4 more 3S 2200mAh 35C batteries from RCbattery.com with EC3 leads. I need to change the ESC leads on the Alpha to EC3 from EC5 now that I will be replacing my batteries. Will need to do that with all my electrics. I also had to buy a new voltage meter as my previous one isn't working.

Will be working out of an unlit garage for now, though I may do this sort of work on the dinner table.

This field will be fine for my 10-20cc gas planes, but my 30-35cc days are over, I think. My flying club, Southern NH RC Club got booted from the field hlits had for over two decades, I think it was, so that a solar farm could be built on the top of the landfill. I need to find a new club in the meantime.

I will be getting rid of the 35cc MX Breitling and MXBach, as well as a NIB Seagull 30cc Ultimate. Keeping the Ultra Stick with the hope of building it someday.

Been a minute...

 

It's been almost 2 years, I think, since I last flew my RC aircraft. Been a bit overworked. I quit medicine and became a letter carrier for the USPS, sold my house and moved to Amherst in a small apartment with my family. So I lost my basement workshop and am working out of a historic unit garage. Charging outside as I don't want any risk of fire burning down the historic over-250 up house we live in. 

Lots of dead batteries will need replacing. Will need to charge and the update the software in my obsolete iX12. Hope to take the trainer up and reteach mybeain-thumb interface.

I also need to get rid of my well loved 30cc planes including the Seagull Ultimate I have still NIB. Holding on to the 10cc aultrastick also NOB as I still want that one. Have had two I could not get to fly right as I think I was using too heavy battery and fuel tank, and I found CH hard to reach with the tail servos mounted aft in the tail boom. 

Anyway, hope to have some more free time, and with some local fields to get my smaller planes up. Will need to renew my AMA license I guess (don't want to get deported to El Salvador).

We'll have to see how this goes.

My Name is Ken, and I am an RC Addict

I am not mocking addiction, I do actually have one. My addiction to RC aircraft is real.

In the past two days I have made two major purchases. 

Being an idiot, I am buying my 3rd Hangar 9 10cc Ultrastick withing the last year, having the last one take too long to come out of a hammerhead. This time I will figure out how to fit the elevator and rudder servo's near the CG as opposed to aft, and put a smaller tail wheel on it. Dare I use the stock? Hmmmm... not sure. I am pretty sure I will spend more money I don't have putting bigger wheels on it, partly to make it more amenable to our field, but also because I like big wheels and I cannot lie.

I pulled the trigger on the Seagull Ultimate from Legend Hobby. I love the Ultimate. I cried when I had a midair with my balsa Eflite Ultimate, one of the best airplanes I ever had, which they degraded to a foamie so I won't get it again. I chronicled the demise of my lovely Pitts Model 12, and pouted that I hate flying and will never build another plane. So yeah, addicted, because I made these two purchases I probably shouldn't be making. I totally felt like a kid stealing cake from the kitchen... I'll get over the guilt, and I will still have cake.

I guess this weekend I will finally get around to salvaging parts from the pile on my "death bench", from the dead Ultrastick and Pitts. As part of my pouting over the losses, I haven't been down in the shop since I dumped the Pitts there. It's time.

Not my fault, but my fault...

I am sooo tired of this crashing yip I've developed, so much so I even gave up blogging and pouted for 10 days. This one isn't my fault, but is my fault.

Lost my new 20cc Pitts Model 12 to a build failure back, on 10/7/21.  At least it wasn't pilot error. Still hurts. Took off, had a blast flying the pattern for about 10 minutes with a couple of landing-turn-around-takeoffs, then flew 10 minutes of intense aerobatics. Finally turned downwind, coming down nicely, slowing turn to base leg, and she kept descending, applied more and more up elevator without a response, wings wiggled when asked, 3 F-bombs later she hit the ground. I had no elevator control. Hit the ground with quite a thump in a smooth continous descent.

Beautiful fun plane, my RCGF-USA 20cc Nitroplanes Pitts Model 12.

Wish I had another one.

Can you see the crash site, about a quarter mile out? 

That's a wet ditch without a bridge...

Can you see it now?

How about now? The debris field was at least 30 feet long.

Initial impact site.

Bounced about 30-40 feet...

The cowl turned back into fiberglass cloth. Engine was underneath.  

The rest was back in a different  zip code.

Internals are okay.  Not sure if there is supposed to be a light on with these new recievers.

Left the transmitter for the "swim" across the ditch, so couldn't test it.

Power was good. 

Only 47 frames lost, no holds. Not the radio system.

This was the culprit. The weak elevator horn attachment that I knew was weak, built it up, still thought I should throw a Dubro on it, but didn't. That's why its my fault. I knew there was a problem, and I ignored it. Crap.

Knowing it wasn't a pilot error, I spent the next hour flying 6 packs on my Trex 600e FBL. This flawless experience gave me solace.

Lesson learned. Looking for a 20cc  biplane...

Kinda tired of all the crashing...

It wasn't too bad today. There was no wind, no gusts to deal with. A light rain interrupted us, but that was over in about 15 min

Bill Renault sat out the rain with me. I have a weather radar app so we were able to predict it coming and stop flying, and knew when we could start up again. I had gotten a couple of flights in on the Ultra Stick, and one on the heli before the break.

Bil flying Ol'Skool 72 mHz!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rccrashes/

I am getting a little tired of my crash trend lately. My membership in SAD really isn't that important to me, so I honestly would like to stop maintaining it...

At the end of a long 20 min flight, one of several, I did a poorly executed hammerhead. Poorly executed because I threw in too much rudder and it pin-wheeled! Over corrected, and by the time I caught up with the airplane I ran out of altitude. I did manage to avoid a fence-posting crash, but the front end is smashed up and, well, you can see... Lost one of my 4 inch Sullivan tires out there. Searched twice, could not find it.

Yeah... thats not gonna buff out, This is going to be repairable, but its also going to be a winter project. 

On the bright side I flew my Align Trex 600e FBL (Its not DFC, though the stock canopy says it is). Its my favorite heli. Well, it and its twin at home, my flybarred Trex 600e Pro. I really want to add a 700, but thats gonna cost some coin so it will be awhile.

3 flights, flew it 10S today, sport. Felt confident and really enjoyed it!

My goal is to fly  heli every time I fly. Maybe the 450's next time? Squirrley birds, thos 450's. 

Landing my helis intact after a full 5 min flight is awesome. Doing it three times with no unplanned departures from controlled flight, flying all 6 5S packs, priceless. Worth the wind down vid after the last flight.

I left the Pitts Model 12 20cc in the car, didn't want to deal with the wing setup in the possible rain, and didn't want to risk adding it to my SAD Manifest. I didn't unload it from the car when I got home, optimistic I may have a chance I  the next day or two to fly again. 

Great heli flying right up to the crash!

Great day of flying the HK Trex 500 Pro, my go to for the first heli flying of the season, albeit late, and I took out the Spitty prepared to maiden it. Luis, and Greg were there flying their glorious 700 sized helis on the gasser side, and Dan was enjoying his electric Twisted Hobbies Crack Edge on the electric side. Perfect conditions.

Preflighted the HK Trex 500 FBL Pro, flying her 5S. No adjustments necessary in the driveway hover tests.

Took her up for 4 full 5 min flights with total control, Awesome! Plan to bring a heli everytime I fly now.

End of the 4th pack I seemed to lose focus and she flew over me in a hurry. As I turned to follow, I must have input some rudder twisting her and lost orientation. She hit the ground and bounced up against the shed. Did not ruin my awesome heli day! I have already rebuilt her, but need a new main shaft, just a hair bent but set up a vibration that made it clear it needs to be replaced. I am out of them, so no flying until I get some in. Twisted a washout arm just a smidge, so replaced that too, and lost the swash-to-head control arms and had to replace those. Replaced the main gear as I failed to hit HOLD and stripped it in a spot. Tail boom replaced, and will replace the main blades. The tail feathers were fine, but I am replacing them with a pair of Align blades. Right now I am just waiting for the main shaft. Oh, the skids were toast. I don't have any, will need to order some, but I had been toying with putting the wheel mod back on with a different idea for the tail wheel. Its done, pics will follow. The canopy was crushed as well, so back to the original blue one. Easy fixes, but man, when a heli goes down its a mess.

The Spitty and its RCGF-USA 10cc engine with its crappy new Zhejiang carb (the new ones shop with Walbros), didn't fail to disappoint. It started but would not run reliably. High idle, inconsistenly stall on acceleration, and when at WOT after running fine there for half a minute it would just quit. I just could never get the needles right. After a few tweaks on the bench trying to recover it, I grounded it. I will need to replace the carb with a Walbro I will order from Joe at RCGF-USA before I fly it.  I won't likely be buying another 10cc engine, they are just too touchy. The Evo on the Ultra Stick used to be but this year it has run perfectly. 

Well, the heli crash resets the aircraft mishap clock...

Another Awesome Day!

Though I maidened the Nitroplanes Pitts Model 12 last week, the engine wasn't running well and I ended up tearing the right landing gear off. I replaced the sparky,many now the engine is running fantastically with the CM6 spark plug. I also brought the AS3X settings closer to final and managed to fine tune it today. A couple of flights in variable gusts really benefitted from the stabilization, but I didn't want to push my luck, so after a couple of flights I put it away. Really enjoyed flying it, and the landing gear held! It did shake the exhaust loose again, despite JB Weld. I went back to traditional, gasket (trying dry) and blue locktite, with lock washers. Hope this works.

Got the PulseXT 60 up for several flights. Always fun! This RCGF-USA 20cc likes the back pressure from the silencers on the exhausts. I tried them off, very loud and poppy, with the silencers the engine runs smoother.

Don't remember if this is with or without the silencers.

Rain is coming these next few days, so no flying anticipated. Its time to get the RCGF-uSA 10cc Spitfire up and running. I haven't started the engine since rebuilding the entire thing. Maybe I'll work on that.