Really?

Flew the recently repaired Sbach today.
 
Crashed the recently repaired Sbach today.
 
This plane is small, a 1 meter thin profile wing. Its designed for a 450 sized motor and a 3S 2200mAh battery. I am flying it with a Power 15 Sport from HeadsUpRC on a 4S setup. Where I screwed up is I have a 10x5 prop on it, what the HURC site recommended for 4S. She flew okay with this setup, a bit piggish today though. She flew better last time. Long roll out, little vertical, mush through turns, struggle in a cross wind, needs to land hot even with flaps. Too much wing loading, not enough prop. Jim Farned was watching, and he agreed (see, what happens is his fault, just so you know... ). We thought maybe putting a 3S 2200 mAh battery might be better, being significanlty lighter. Well, wouldn't you know, its not...
 
She took off, same long roll out, but climbed sluggishly. She flew sluggishly, wouldn't power through a loop from level flight. So when I did get her to loop, she came out of it slow, and stalled when climbing out, rolled and landed hard on her belly, ripping her gear off and significantly damaging the cowl and the airframe.
 
 

 
 
So... I am rebuilding her, again. Spoke to Kenny and Jason (visited Jason at his Hobby Shop, Orange Grove Hobbies). Realized that this prop is way small. The wing loading may be high, but she got nothing from the prop. Jason suggested an 11 inch, but didn't have any in stock. I am going to try a 12x6, which the Power 15 is rated for, and keep her heavier 4S setup for power. Just keep in mind she glides with a fast sink rate, even with flaps, and needs to come in hot.
 
Why I didn't prop up when I motored up I will never know.
 
For the rcord, I also flew the Ultimate today. She seemed sluggish to me too. There were good crosswinds, but she usually handles them well. I noticed her rudder servo started having centering seizures, so grounded her until I can replace that. Nice to get the rust off.
 

Wingmasters, Dayton, Ohio

I am moving to Dayton, Ohio, to take a position as a neonatologist at Chirldren's Medical Center of Dayton! I have been looking for a new flying field, and didn't see much on the AMA field finder, so imagine my surprise when surfing through the Radical RC website and their Workbench Blog I ran across a link to the field they use, in a discussion about the recent FAA rules. I found out it was the Dayton Wingmasters field, and wow, what a field!
 

Very excited to see that they have electrifed their club, since I am an all electric flyer. They have a huge heli group too, so I can finally learn how to master those bugs!
 
This is a great find! I saw several rules that limited the utility of flying at the Wright Patterson AFB field near the USAF Museum, such as no flying weekdays before 1700 hrs... no electric power, and no club strucutres that I could see. I found another field in Byron that looks nice, but the field in Dayton used by Wingmasters is exceptional, and with the addition of electric power, its totally where I want to fly!
 
Its a chartered club, so I don't know why I didn't see it on the AMA Club Finder...
 
Hope to get out to MCRCC today. Its been a dry spell for flying what with the job search travel and work eating into my flying time. Now I can get my priorities straight and fly, dammit!
 
Exciting stuff!
 

The end of the Edge

Kenny head wedged his beautiful Seagull Edge into the ground smartly. Knife edge, turned in towards himself, "righted" her about 20 feet AGL, pulled back on the stick, and... well, you know.
 
He's still sobbing. Like a little girl.
 

Kenny and his Seagull Edge during better times.

 
 

The Edge at home.

 
 

The site of the murder, I mean, crash...

 
 

All the kings horses, all the kings men, couldn't put the Edge back together again...

(Talk about turning a plane into dust).

 
 

All that could be salvaged.

 
 

Where he put the rest.

 
 

And now there's room for the new Ultrasport!

All teasing aside, sorry for your loss, Kenny! You are still one of our best pilots!

 

New Shiney!

I was having trouble securing the white plastic cone to the ultimate and getting it centered. Its held on by a couple of screws into the plastic back plate. It was always likely to be off kilter. I ordered a nice inexpensive aluminum Electrlfly nose cone from Tower Hobbies a couple of days ago, and like always, fast shipping! Put the puppy on today. Nice and shiney, perfectly true!

 

 

Kenny's Strega Mustang

Kenny Chandler's Strega Mustang from Phoenix Models! It has an OS-55, Futaba S-3010 servo's, and a AR6210 receiver by Spektrum.

Nicely done, Kenny!

 

Ultimate Cowl

The other day I tipped the Ultimate on landing and knocked the motor mount, cracking the cowl. Yesterday I sanded it, did the Bondo thing, and this morning sanded it down, primed it and painted it. Came out pretty nice

The prop and spinner off. Motor is loose, cracked cowl.

 

The firewall removed (over to the right being CA'd). One third broke off, the rest was loose.

 

CA'd a few popsicle stick pieces over cracked parts.

 

Repaired and installed the firewall.

 

Coated the entire motor box with epoxy thinned with alcohol for strength, then installed the motor.

 

Back to the cowl...

 

Bondo. Love the stuff.

 

Sanded the following morning. Masked for paint. Applied a coat of gray primer, forgetting I have white primer... did a coat of that. Sanded the remaining spots and touched up the white primer.

 

The white cowl is off white... so there will be a paint line...

 

On top I masked to the edge of the silver, so it looks clean. Tonight I will put a coat of clear coat on it, allow that to dry overnight and reinstall the cowl in the morning, ready to fly!

 

Oops... my bad.

I described earlier the issues I had with my Spektrum AR600X reciever, how I thought the reciever was the problem and sent it to Spektrum for evaluation. They kindly sent me a new one. I installed it in the Sbach today with a new ESC/BEC, and the problem remained. Oh... now I don't think its the receiver at all. I should have swapped out the receiver before when I thought it was the problem, before sending it off to Spektrum. My bad. But something is shorting the system out. I unplugged everything from the receiver and removed the ferrite ring extension from the ESC/BEC, plugging the ESC/BEC directly, eliminating the ferrite and its extension as the source of the issue. No problem! Stayed on. I replaced the ferrite ring extension, still good. I plugged in each channel one by one, everything was fine, even under input load. Then I plugged in the right aileron, and the failure returned immediately. I unplugged that lead, and finished the last ones, no problems. I put a new servo on the right aileron channel, no problem, worked fine. Put the old one back in, failure. Eureka... it was a bad servo all along. Sorry, Spekturm, this problem isn't yours! But I am still wondering about the bind loss that cost me two planes...

Here's what the bad servo looks like on the servo tester. It should light up in one mode and sit there until I do something, instead it has a disco seizure. Its providing really bad feedback. It is now living in the circular file under my workbench.