I'm Baaaack!

And it was beautiful! I so needed this success. Like that perfect golf swing that makes you love it all over again, I had perfect flights. Weather and waiting my turn limited the number of flights, but man, it brought me back to my love for this hobby! I was getting frustrated not being able to fly and having no luck when I did, I was beginning to feel like a poser. To boot, there was a crowd, which I don't enjoy, but they couldn't have cared less which made it all the more wonderful. John giving me a new path into nitro with the Goldberg Falcon, reignited my love for the hobby, and today it burst back into flame.

The field was soggy, the clouds threatening, but the winds temperate enough that a crowd showed up early. I brought out my three go-to planes. Sadly, I forgot I had the camera on my head and only filmed one of the last Cubby flights. I am happy that I got to fly all three planes today without any drama.

I decided to start with the Hacker MX2, as I trusted it tilo behave. It did not disappoint and it having gyro stabilization helped keep my nerves manageable. I was able to completely tune out any concern about a crowd. Light gusts challenged but did not freak me out, and helped me regain my confidence. After my remastering basic flight maneuvers, I put it thru some more aggressive aerobatics. I have to be careful as I think my cataracts affect my vision. In the end it all went exceedingly well!

Second flight was with the Alpha Sport. I was pleased that it behaved itself! It seemed a little less powered than with the previous motor, although the specs are the same. It's adequate and I don't intend to change anything. I am so happy to have gotten it in the air and successfully!

Before the rain, I got a couple flights on the Cubby. I remembering to video one flight, which I ended early because I found the control a bit mushy. Much better after tightening it up. 

I was out for about 2 hrs, got about 5 flights what with just watching for the first half hour, then waiting my turn. As the rains began to trickle in, I packed up, but sooooo wanted to fly the Alpha Sport again!

I think I feel comfortable bringing the Pulse XT 60 out, and maiden the Ultrastick, and the Falcon even,  as long as I keep them close. I have never flown 3-channel and am a bit anxious not having ailerons and direct roll control. 

Amazon didn't deliver the igniter yesterday, but it expected to arrive late this afternoon. I will have to charge it, but I hope to get one run on the vintage Irvine 40 on the Falcon to see if it starts and runs. Looking forward to the smell of burnt nitro!

Glad to once again have found my mojo.

New Project Gifts!

At my visit today, John gifted me with three projects he thought I would be interested in. One ready to fly, one that will need some building, and one that's going to take a long time to refurbish. 

Goldberg Falcon 56 Mark I or II

PS: I did up the wing to give some top-bottom contrast. The AMA sticker is patching a small hole. I don't have matching cote. I out down the black cote because the back rubber ands leave black dust.

This Carl Goldberg design originally from the 1960s is a famous classic beloved model. A wingspan of 56 inches, there were three revisions, and I think this is a Mark II. 

This one has a vintage British made Irvine 40 nitro glow engine turning a 10 inch (? Pitch) wood Top Flite prop, a Spektrum AR 6200 Ultra lite receiver and Spektrum DS821 digital servos. It flies old school 3-channel (rudder, elevator, throttle). The recommended prop is an 11x5 or 10x6. This prop is a 10x6. I want to put a 11x5 Master Airscrew Scimitar on it. I have an extra 11x7 Scimitar for the Evo 10cc I might use.

It is in amazingly good condition. This will be my first nitro plane, and I am psyched! I love the smell of nitro. I did have to wash out the tank, had some mold (?) and the stoped was badly degraded. I ordered a nitro starter kit, comes with a NiCd igniter, fuel bottle, and glow wrenches. I also ordered black size 32 rubber bands to secure the wing, and a spare OS8 glow plug in case the current one is bad. All arriving tomorrow. I am hoping the carb is good and doesn't need refurbishing. John gave me a quart of "historically old" 10% nitromethane fuel, hoping not to have to head out to the hobby shop for a fresh gallon. I put a nose cone on it, and may get a more yellow one. Hoping to get it running tomorrow! This is going to be a lot of fun! What a gift!

Morane Saulnier N

This partially completed kit is framed out, but missing the rudder, wheels and nose cone (that I have no idea what I will do for...)  and I believe is flown 3-channel, though the wing has no dihedral. The scale WWI French built monoplane fighter used wing warping for roll instead of ailerons.  I will probably be building it electric, but gas puks be nice. It has plastic cowl and fuse top. I think I would want to do the wires too. It has no plans so I will be making it up as I go along. It will require a lot of cote work. I would like to do it these British colors. ​Even though the aircraft is a French-designed Morane-Saulnier Type N (popularly called the "Morane Bullet"), this specific profile represents an aircraft operated by the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1916.

Here are some pics of the model. Somewhere between loading the car and getting home I lost a plastic bag with the plastic parts (cowl, top cockpit).

I will need to build the rudder. Worried there isn't much dihedral for 3 channel and wonder if I should try to convert it to ailerons. Not sure how to power it: there isn't an easy place to install and access the battery, though I could permanently install one and charge it after each flight. I also am not sure where the CG is. Looking for a manual. John is looking for the bag with the parts... I am so annoyed with myself.

Links to this plan and a nice article are 

at the bottom of the page the image links to.

PS(05/31/26): John found the bag with the Morane's plastic parts init this morning, thank goodness. I was about to head out to the trash bins to rn they then to look, expecting. To find them all crushed. He also suggested moving tool a bigger rubber an, from the 32 3" x 1/8") to the 64 (3.5" x 1/4"), noting it the more traditional size for this purpose. Wne I saw how narrow the 32 is stretched, I wondered if I should have done that, but thought I could get by as 8 seemed really sturdy, if stressed. His advice pushed me to do the right thing and just get the 64s.

Fairchild PT-19 Cornell,1/4 scale

This is an unholy-huge plane. It has been framed out but needs some serious refurbishing. All the major parts are there, rudder, elevator, ailerons (not installed),and a plastic cowl.. But for the tail, all the cote is missing, and I will need to find landing gear, windshields, cockpits for it.

I measured the wing, it's 88 inches, 2.25 meters.

I am passively looking for parts. Cockpit stuff, windshields, landing gear mainly. 

Gemini thinks a 50-60cc gas engine, or a 120-130 amp 12S 180kv motor. A large, low-KV outrunner designed specifically to swing big props (22" to 24") on high-voltage setups.

"Top Options: RimFire 50cc or RimFire 65cc, Dualsky GA6000.8 (180KV)

E-flite Power 360 (180KV) or Hacker A60-18 M .A KV rating between 160KV and 190KV. This ensures the motor spins slowly enough to safely handle a massive propeller without drawing excessive amps."

Both of these planes deserve to be fuel planes. Now that I am getting into nitro, maybe the Morane should be nitro. Might be less expensive.

I am excited to get started on the Morane. It will be a while before I get to the PT-19.

It wasn't me, it was bad cote...

Recall I could not get the cote to shrink. It would just melt and wrinkle up. After several attempts I gave up. I asked John Hayes to help me figure out what was wrong.

I spent a couple of hours with John Hayes at his shop this afternoon. I had so much trouble with the cote work on the Cubby, and now on the PT-19, that I asked him to teach me his technique. Turns out it was the cote, and not my technique. He had the same problems with it melting instead of adhering and shrinking properly. John noted that there was a period of time where Monokote ruined its formula and the cote behaved miserably, like the cote I had. It is older cote, so maybe that's why it sucks. He brought out some of his stock and it went perfectly, and quickly. Good as new This is the large patch on the top  He uses a heat gun with a flat focus diffuser instead of an iron on the compound curve. Made short work of it. Incidentally, John gifted me a Top Flite mini-iron for the smaller areas of cote work.

The smaller repair on the underside.

 

I repaired the rondel!

All up and ready to fly!

It's like golf....

 I loved golf. But I hated sucking so bad at it and not getting better that I gave it up.

There was a deceptive break in the weather.

I decided to try Joppa Hill Field, infamous in my flying history for ripping the landing gear off my planes. Per usual, while cut, the grass was still too high. I tried a few times. I finally walked around and found a closer cut section, and took off. 

The Alpha Sport felt a bit under powered, an the gusts were once again a bit more than it could handle. 

In a turn it got pushed stalled and I recovered by so close to the ground it was a hard forced landing 

And the gear dot torn off 

One flight. 

Hated every moment of it.

And hated the hobby as I carried it off, for  no other reason than it sucked today, my decisions sucked, the consequences of my decisions sucked, and I sucked.

Well.... Enough of that. I drove home mad and went straight to the garage workshop to repair the landing gear.

The front gear just stripped out the screws. A bit of epoxy, screwed back on, front gear done in 10 minutes. I started the main gear repair just using weight but decided to remove the wing and use clamps.

Main gear simple, clean break by design. Epoxy the edges to allow breakaway.

Clamped.

Done, good as newish. Checked everything and the motor is sound, no bent parts. I e decided I am only going to fly at the field, as inconvenient as it is to get there. It's just not worth the stress of wondering if the fields are going to break a plane. And I need to wait for the weather with more patience for the lighter planes. 

Continuing my struggle to get cote skills. It's curious that I have done cote all these years for patches without issue, but this cote on the PT-19 and the Cubby is soft.

I spent the better part of the afternoon applying, removing, applying, removing, several times, cotte over this wing. I expected the compound curve to be difficult, but I could not get this cote to stretch and adhere. I could get a clean sheet attached to the straight parts, but the moment I went to shrink it with the iron or heat gun, it wouldn't shrink properly and the edges melted into wrinkles. I tried a long sheet including the compound curve, and two 

Separate sections, one clean rectangle and one to stretch around the curve. It was made more difficult in that I can't get the landing gear off.

After multiple attempts over several hours I have quit, and wrote my friend John Hayes who repaired the Alpha Sport wing. I asked him to help me repair this by teaching me how. I asked him if he's free this weekend as I have three days off.

I stopped, left the garage. I wanted to try the HK500, but no suitable place for a hover test, and I had had enough humiliation and failure.

I REALLLLY need a successful day of flying, or this will go the way golf went. Hopefully this weekend, weather permitting.

The Good and The Ugly

 8 hrs in the garage like it didn't even happen ... Memorial Day weekend, weather is for shit with much needed rain.

I replaced the motor in the Alpha Sport 450, proving that it is a bent shaft, though not visibly discernable. There is no wobble at all now, everything is clean and straight. My OCD is happy.

I will change the shaft on those other two 450 motors when they get here in a couple of weeks. 

I replaced the Viton tubing in the tank of the Ultrastick with Sullivan Proflex fluorosilicone, and it had the desired effect. It's short so the Viton didn't flex enough to reach the floor of the tank, but the Proflex is soft and works wonderfully. Ran the engine up to make sure the plumbing works, and it runs just fine. Looking forward to the maiden.

I spent a couple of hours reprogramming the BeastX Microbeast on the HK500cmt (forgot to take pics). The other day I spun it up and something was clearly wrong with the setup (I haven't flown it in years).  I lost the manual a while ago, and the only one online is for the PLUS, but the programming was the same. I only did the main setup and not the parameters, as I am not familiar with that second menu but will be reading up on it. The swash was off a tish, and the control rods needed a lot of levelling. Not sure what was up with that. It seems all set to go, but with the rain I didn't try a hover.

I decided to finish the repair to the left leading edge my wife had crushed by accident a long time ago. Once again my lamentable understanding of applying cote plagued me as I tried to get a simple patch on the upper and lower wing done properly. I could get it in place easily enough, but I could not get it to shrink properly. The edges melt before the center shrinks at all. Redid it several times and finally settled. Had the same problem with the cote on the Cubby. Tried lower temps, higher temps, none of the advertised temps of different cotes worked. On the Cubby the cote shrank but the edges melt-wrinkled. Here the shrink just would not happen completely with either the iron or the heat gun. I need to figure this out... I think it's the next favor I need to ask of John Hayes, who repaired the wing on the Alpha Sport 450; teach elme how to do the repairs.

Interesting thing on the electronics in the PT-19, another plane I haven't flown in a while. It has an intact ESC lead to the throttle, but it also has an IBEC or a UBEC (can't tell). I don't know why... Why doesn't the ESC leads power line just provide the power. I decided to remove the IBEC when I changed out the EC5 connector for the EC3 I have been using in my 3S batteries. Plugged in the battery and the motor chimed in, but the receiver didn't do anything. Nada. Huh... So I wired a UBEC in off the battery leads, plugged it into the AR650 battery slot, and voila! Checked the installed gyro stabilization system, and it's fine. All up. So, ugly wing repair, but the PT-19 is ready to fly.

I really want to fly. Its supposed to stop raining tomorrow afternoon. Everything is going to be soaked, but its worth a try. I want to check out Joppa Hill Field, where I used to fly when I lived nearby in Bedford, but the grass is usually too tall and clumpy. Depending on the sitch I may drive all the way out to the field in Derry.

All set for the crying! I mean, flying!

Nailed the CG with no adjustments! Came in a 7.7 lbs dry, much better than the 10 lbs of versions 1 and 2 that had the tail servos in the tail, requiring a lb of lead up front, and weighing in at 10lbs. I am optimistic this one is a keeper.

I kept referring to the Evo 10cc as a "single needle carb, but I had forgotten that there is the obvious HI sped needle on the port side, and the low speed needle is tucked into the center of the carb vent barrel on the starboard side. I rediscovered this last night as I kept wondering why the manual refers to both needle settings. I saw the engine diagram and slapped my forehead (not really, I was in bed and I sat up). I had forgotten all about it.

Today I set the HI at 2.5 turns, ended up tweaking it once to about 2-1/4. It screams with the 11x6 Master Airscrew Scimitar prop. Keeping the throttle at about 1.5 mm open at idle, I tweaked the low speed needle leaner, no idea where it ended up, and I found this to be the best I can get. Clean initial slam with a small stumble just before peak rpm, quite acceptable. Reliable and no thrust generating idle, and a screaming full throttle.

I am pretty sure that the recent crash of the Alpha Sport 450 bent the engine shaft almost imperceptibly, enough you can see a wobble, not enough to affect performance. I decided this needs perfecting. And therein lies my latest frustration with this hobby: finding parts. Why is this so fucking hard?

It has an aluminum nose cone that can with a 4mm to 8mm prop adapter with a threaded center hole for the M3 screw that secures the nose cone. China doesn't even sell these. I have to buy a whole new nose cone, about $20 on Amazon, with its own adapter. I could use a 4mm to 6mm adapter and a spinner nut that has the same M3 hole, but none of the 4/6 adapters tell you how long they are. I need 30mm. I bought 6 4/6 adapters on Amazon, the same ones that you see everywhere, and they are 25mm long, so they can't accommodate a base plate for the nose cone. I hate the bullet ends these come with, suitable for drones and tiny planes, but not on a 450 size. Doesn't matter for now, the current nose cone adapter is not bent, but it annoys me I can't have spares.

Okay, moving on. Replacing the 4mm x 49mm c-clip end electric motor shaft on this DY2836 electric motor (same as I need to replace on the original motor). Not in America you don't. Took some looking and on Walmart, selling for a Chinese vendor, I found 4mmx50mm c-clip end shafts at a reasonable price, but they are still two weeks out from arriving. I ain't got time for that, but they are on there way, and I need two now 

So I did what every RC addicted boy does and just ordered another DY2836 880kv motor from Amazon and it will be here tomorrow. 

Look, I just want to get this thing flying right, get my thumbs retrained, get used to the field, improve my confidence, so I can maiden the Ultrastick. I am confident in that I wasn't the cause of the last crash, and I managed a lot of crazy attitudes in the bad winds before that crash. But I want some clean flights under my thumbs before then. Matching up weather and my days off hasn't been in the favor of flying, which is probably why I chose poorly to try to fly in those winds last Sunday, but I am sure that day will come, hopefully with no one else at the field (I hate an audience).

OH, BTW: THE engine has a bit of low end resolution, but once the throttle gets to 50% it's pretty much screaming at full throttle. I tried a Throttle curve and it worked nicely to smooth the power curve. I may lower it in the mids a bit more.

All done but the crashing....

The Hangar nine Ultrastick Number 3 is done. I just need to verify the all up dry weight, goal is 7lbs, and check the throws on the ailerons and flaps, and check CG. I want to get some real thumb time on other planes as I really haven't flown anything this season, before the maiden.