Flying High

Long time since a general flying blog entry eh?

Well, there's been plenty of flying over the last two weekends, as well as some new aircraft, a few little incidents (none involving my aircraft - well not quite - read on for more) and some of my fleet starting to show a little bit of age.

When I am talking about ageing it is the Zero to which I am referring, which is now getting very close to having flown an amazing 200 sorties. Anyone with serious RC experience I tell this to is amazed. It was late November in 06 when I first flew this plane. Since then I have busted her up good in very serious crashes, as well as making her endure a long run of nose over landings (which still regularly happens on grass, and occasionally on bitumen).

She has had her powerplant upgraded, battery system upgrade and for the last 100 flights or so she has been an absolute pleasure to fly, and the envy of many of the pilots I fly with. Quick, responsive, no bad habits, almost unlimited vertical (a solid 5-6 seconds on the right battery) - she can even almost hover, but then you turn her downwind, and zoom her past at low altitude and everyone knows that she has earned her place in the sky.

However, as 200 flights has started approaching a few little niggles have started to appear in her flying. For example, the weekend before last after landing I checked her control surfaces to realise that two aileron hinges had come away from the wing leaving the aileron secured by only one hinge. Also, for some reason her elevator pushrod has now started flexing giving her less elevator authority, and the battery compartment foam has now compressed enough that batterys she used to hold securely are now shifting around in flight - making for interesting CoG issues.

These are all fixable with enough maintenace, and I will be looking over her for more issues over the next week as well as trying to fix. I'm really hoping she makes her 200 flights, and then goes far beyond that. This little plane has given me so much fun, its cost me so little in terms of money and even effort to keep her flying. With a cheap brushless upgrade I can absolutely recommend a GWS Zero.

Okay, other stuff - Incidents. The Pole of death at Kambah claimed another plane during the last two weeks - DJs new PZ Typhoon.

He had his plane up and dancing around the sky before it wandered to close to the pole and was smaked out of the sky. Although I was flying at the time I was able to glance over as DJ fought to control the model as it fell. Ultimately it was futile - this photo illustrates a large part of the problem - left wing.

Anyway, he glued it up basically as good as new, and took the Typhoon out to Lyneham the following week. He was messing around doing some hovering and various stuff about 2 metres off the ground. He took a hit, recovered, suddenly took another hit and ended up in the ground with a busted nose. The plane was only about 25 metres away from him, well away from the infamous Lyneham Bermuda Triangle. Lyneham just has bad glitches sometimes, and there is not much you can do about it.

Needless to say he was a bit annoyed about this and we immediatelly had another discussion which concluded with the idea of replacing the JRs with Spektrums. I'll write something on them another time, but there is no doubt it is a good idea to my mind. It's a lot of cash though, and you are usually okay, provided you keep enough clearance from the ground. Certainly if I was starting again I would be straight on the Spektrum wagon.

More incidents and accidents. I no longer have an Electrafun. Yes - my bird is gone. A mate new to RC Planes (has messed around with Helis at home for some time) was trying her out with a view to buying her when he drove her straight into the tallest tree on the field.

If you look very closely at the middle of this photo (click on it to bring it up larger) you can make out the shape of the EF in the middle of the frame.

So, with the plane 15 metres of the ground various attempts were made to recover it, before it was accepted that the plane now "belonged" to my mate. Right up til the crash he was flying her very well - good stick association, good orientation - probably all RC heli developed skills. Depth perception - a work in progress perhaps (but it gets very hard when planes are a long way from you).

Speaking of RC helis - I'm buying one. A GWS Mini DragronFly from NQRC. In fact, it is on its way to me right at the moment. Ground Dancer let me have a play with his on Sunday. I just skated it around the ground for a few minutes before lifting her off. She immediatelly yawed left. I correct with a little bit of right, gently pushed her over the grass (took of on the edge of the bitumen) and put her in for a pretty reasonable landing. This is going to be fun - challenging but fun.

On the topic of new aircraft I have a new StevensAero kit. For those that aren't familiar with the tales of my RV4 she is kit build balsa plane (so from laser cut balsa sheets) which just flys beautifully. The only reason I wouldn't recommend her as a good low wing trainer is her complete intolerance to bad landings etc. Anyway, I'm only talking about her to lead into my new StevensAero kit - a G300 park flying aerobat (the G-Ride).

I'm looking forward to building this bird. I've seen one fly and they are exciting and fantastic planes. This time I'm really going to work on keeping the weight down - I guess that means contending with a ghastly pull/pull rudder and elevator setup, and also keeping my natural tendency to pour lots of CA into any joint that seems like it might be a problem.

However, before I get to it I have some other kit to look after. My heli will be here soon, I still have a microseether which hasn't come out of the shrink wrap, and my elebee needs to be converted for phase 3 (yes - I am clipping her wings - but not to stop her flying - to help her fly faster).

There is heaps more to tell you, but I am out of time for today. May your landings have a light and steady headwind.