Kenny's Cowl

Kenny crashed his Edge hard Wednesday, when it tip stalled unexpectedly (he had been flying in winds, got used to slow approaches, then there was no wind...).  The wing dropped, caught and she cartwheeled down the runway... shearing off the cowl and motor, but otherwise coming out unscathed. He ordered a new one, but he needs to fly up at the Pine Belt RC Fly-in this Saturday. I offered to try to repair it... I have never worked with fiberglass before. Can you tell? I wanted the challenge and he had nothing to lose!

Post Crash - Pre Repair

I failed to get a pic of the left side which is cracked open all the way along the cowl. Its always something...

Repair

CA's the puzzle back together. Then fiberglassed the major split you can see here..

The ring was in pieces, back together again. I used a piece of plastic to support the ring on the left.

Fiberglassed the major crack. I was a little heavy with the resin.

Also had a few resin overruns.

All sanded.

You can see where I used fiberglass to round out the notch in the bottom.

Nice clean round notch.

Bondo magic!

Bondo sanded and cleaned.

Primer coat.

Painted in gloss dark blue. Here warming it in front of the fireplace on a Lazy Susan I could spin to evenly warm all sides. It came out quite nice. Not perfect but pretty darn good.  Learned a lot, will do a few things differently next time. Really like the Bondo!

Here it is on Kenny's plane. Maybe we should have gone with the red?

Rough day

Very windy day at BMF. Had a lot of fun shooting approaches and working crosswind landings. Made a couple costly mistakes...

I was shooting an approach with the Pulse XT, and in making my missed approach I firewalled the throttle. She shot forward and was doing about 60 mph one foot off the ground when the wind slammed her into the ground! Her gear snapped clean off and she skid to stop! The cost was the landing gear having to be reinstalled (the cote replaced too), replacing the cote where the landing gear punched through as they rolled under,  a stripped aileron servo, and a cracked prop. Need to order the JR MN48 for one of the aileron servos. It was pretty cool acutally, with all that speed, big puff of dirt!

Broke the gear off clean, no bending, cracked the fuse plate just forward of the gear. I removed the wing.

The hole in the underside of the right wing.

And through the top.

Already fixed everything except replacing the servo and the prop (need a nut).

I also worked the Cornell hard. I was practicing spin recovery when I got into a spin I couldn't pull out of. She slammed into the ground... and came through surprisingly well!

Shattered the cowl, and as you can see, I shook out the motor mount in chips... The prop is toast and I taco'd another battery. I will be able to rebuild this in a couple of days! There was no other damage.

Its Official!

Yesterday I became officially an AMA Instructor pilot licensed to fly non-AMA licensed people in intro and training flights! A special thanks to the officers of MCRCC for supporting my instructor status!

The new Intro Pilot tag on my license is my instructor ticket! Nice patches the AMA sent me!

Sabre Update

An update on the SkyAngel Mini F-86 Sabre from Hobby King. She is flying great! I did have to add 1/2 oz of weight under her nose (seen  below in the air intake). The elevator control horns both broke at their attachement to the control rod, so I would just replace these from the get-go. 

Two 1/4 oz weights in the nose.

I chisled out some of the canopy to allow me to use a 1300 mAh battery, just a smidge too thick for the small spot underneath. The included 950 mAh and my 1000 mAh batteries fit fine, but I also have a couple 1300 mAh batteries I want to be able to use.

She is a lot of fun and remains a show stopper!

Kenny blowin' in the wind!

Kenny and I tried videoing with his Sony Handycam, and it was difficult... We couldn't see the screen on the viewfinder and had to guess where the airplane was, and the autofocus had trouble staying focused, so much of the video was not usable. But here's what I edited up of Kenny working his Edge in a very brisk wind at BMF, basically Kenny shooting crosswind approaches while I'm harassing him.

Ultimate bits

A Handycam vid... only what we could use from the long DVD, since the autofocus, invisible viewfinder, wacky zoom and operator wedgie pretty much made most of it unwatchable! So, here are bits and pieces of me flying my Eflite Ultimate!

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

Oh yeah! What a great day out at BMF! Flew the newly repaired Stearman (everything changed, all the trims were off, flew tail heavy at first), the awesome Pulse (who loves her new 12x8 Xoar wood electric prop), maidened the F-86 Sabre (way tail heavy, 1/2 oz later, flies pretty darn good!), and the much awaited Eflite Ultimate. She flew spotlessly smooth from the get-go! I had to remember a few things about landing a biplane, and added some flaperons (she wanted to tip stall), and now she's sweet! Great day! Flew until I had to go.

My Eflite beauties! Pulse XT 25e on the left, Ultimate 20-300 10 on the right.

Three of my Eflite favorites (the Cornell was at home). All flew great today!

People had issues with the battery compartment. I don't think its a problem at all. The 3S 2200 mAh batteries all fit great and balance her fine. She is sturdy, took a hard landing fine.  Can't wait to fly her again tomorrow!