Holiday RC

A few notes on what I've been up to...

A week ago I nuked the motor on my elebee. I had a brand new 4s 2200 LiPo. Unfortunately, the slight voltage and current delivery differences between the old 4s and new 4s was enough to nuke the motor. When she came down I touched the battery - nice and cool, touched the speedie, warm but just fine, touched the motor and burnt my finger (ouch!).

Was actually flying her head to head (kind off) with another elebee - this one on 3s. So I need to source another motor - that align one stood up to a lot of punishment, and I was certainly happy with it, but I'm thinking if I can get something cheaper in the 2000kv range from UH that is probably where I will go.

The Tucano had a close call on boxing day morning. I'd just put here up, she was running about nicely when suddenly she started rolling to her right. At first I messed with trim before realising there was no way trim could account for that roll rate. It took almost full left aileron to keep her flying straight and level, and she was very sluggish in the air.

An emergency landing saw her on the ground in one piece. When I got closer it became obvious the right wing servo had failed, and failed in an upward deflected position, leading to the roll. And of course, when you counter the roll you end up with two airbrakes! Oh well, a reasonably straight forward repair I guess.

Have been giving my TREX a few tentative hovers. I'm not real impressed by the MKS gyro which is installed at the moment. Having come from a faulty, but more expensive gyro, which didn't need trimming and held the nose proprely, having to trim the MKS everytime the heli takes off is a real drag (frightening in some situations). Yesterday the MKS gyro was so out of trim I was hesitant to take my fingers off the rudder for long enough to trim the heli.

Some news on my Ultrafly P51, which has been sitting round since my last birthday. She is almost ready for her maiden. I've installed the works - retracts, flaps plus those other kind of essential controls like rudder, elevator and aileron. Hopefully maiden her tomorrow (should have had her ready today but for slackness).

My 45 minutes to disaster post and my learning to fly course seem to be getting a fair amount of attention - no doubt lots of Christmas presents have already had their maidens. Welcome to the blog to the new readers - I was where you are about 14 months ago.