skeeter_ca
Posts: 389
Joined: 11/30/2005
From: Yucaipa,
CA, USA
Status: offline
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July 15, 2007
Same Bat time, Same Bat channel. We get up, wash up, load up, drive up, eat up, drink up, get out and unload for the 3rd time to the field with the plane. It seems we have done this so many more times. This time we get there at 8:00. The gate is locked and no one is around. I can see the field from the locked gate and yes no one is there. I guess we wait. I back up to the side of the road so as to not block the gate and we sit in the car waiting for someone, anyone. In about 15 minutes Mel showed up and unlocked the gate and we all drive in. We fueled up and was ready to go. So we waited till Albert got there. 8:30, 8:45, 9:00. Still no sign of him. The boy starts to get anxious. I tell him to just be patient. He will be here when he gets here. A few cars pull in but none are Albert. A motorcycle pulls in and parks near the shed. It’s Albert! He’s here. No Bubba though, no planes. Just him and his expertise. We realize I didn’t bring my AMA card to put on the frequency board. Albert goes and puts his membership card on our frequency pin number.
It seems like a slow day, not many people here. The glider guy and Mel, but he had no plane today like most times I’ve seen him. The glider guy floats around for awhile as we all sit around shoot the bull with stories of our past and present.
I start her up, but…… the engine starts giving us this problem again. That damn lag right at mid throttle. It dies on the bench for the first time. We start adjusting the idle needle and it seems to get better but it is still there a little. We taxi around and run it at full throttle. It still has that lag but isn’t dieing any more. I line it up, advance the throttle and lift off into the wild blue yonder. Making some circuits and figure eights I check out the trim and make a minor adjustment to the ailerons and she’s flying level at half throttle. Albert asked if I have ever done any loops or rolls. I tell him yes along time ago when I flew before. He’s says to go ahead and try one now. I straighten it out of a turn and add full throttle. A second later I pull back on the stick and she climbs into a nice arc. At the top I ease off the elevator. And pull back the throttle to half. She starts on the downside of the loop and accelerates fast. I level it off at almost the same place I entered. It could not have been better if I had practiced it hundred times. I make another go around and line up for another loop. Throttle up, pull up, at the top ease off and throttle down. Loop gets too tight and I end up higher than I started. As I thought, the first time was a fluke. Only 98 more to go for another perfect loop. Instead of 98 more times to get to that perfect loop again I start working on my approach pattern. Around and around I make a good approach pattern at about 200 feet up. I bring it down to about 100 feet on final over the runway and then turn after the end of the runway climb to 200 and start the pattern all over again. I do this till I’m comfortable with it and it’s time to land already. Trusty Al steps up to do his job now and does it nicely as always.
We rest a little and talk. One thing that people don’t realize when they think about wanting to join a club and fly RC airplanes is the people you meet. People that you would never have talked to before. You talk and realize that these are good people. Some may not be to your specification as being considered as a friend, but being there together with a common interest really changes how you think about strangers. I have heard some say that they just want to fly and not socialize with people. I did that with my Aerobird Commander. I would take it out to the park, charge it up and fly, charge it up and fly again, usually resulting in at least one crash for each day I flew it. It wasn’t a lot of fun. It actually was boring. Even if I went with my son, there was something missing. Now I think I realize what I was missing. The people. Sitting around, relaxing and talking between flights, watching others fly. That adds a whole new experience to flying.
I fire up the plane again after my pit crew fuels it up. It still has the lag at mid throttle and we decide to definitely replace the plug with an idle bar to see if that helps. I’ll get one on the way home today. I take it out to the runway and takeoff with no problems at all. I start doing a landing pattern immediately. 200 feet on downwind leg then bring it down to 100 feet on the final leg. I get comfortable with the 100 feet and go down a little lower. I notice that as I get lower the plane seems to be going a lot faster. I’m sure it is just me but it seems more responsive. Just a small input of the stick and the plane jumps. It must have done that before but I could not notice it before because it was so far away. As I get closer to the ground and me I start to be smoother on the sticks. Only small control inputs on the stick are needed to keep it on track. I’m down to about 50 feet when it flys in front of me right down the runway. I must have flown about twenty circuits at that altitude and really starting feeling good. I feel the plane and seem to be able to predict where it will be. I actually start feeling like I am ahead of the plane instead of following it. Before I just sorta pointed the plane hoping it would go where I wanted. This was weird. I had control. Left. Right. Right. Left. I was relaxing at the controls. My knees didn’t shake. I felt at peace. The force flowed through me. But again I’m almost out of fuel and must hand it over to Albert for his part of this flying session. This time I took off and flew the whole tank by myself until that very last part. I felt good about it.
I rest. It’s hard to convey how much energy it takes to concentrate on flying an RC airplane for a newbie. Maybe it’s just me. It’s good to de-stress talking and watching others fly. The glider guy goes up again and we watch him glide gracefully thru the clear blue sky with just a gentle breeze coming out of the west. He’s a quiet guy. I should go over and introduce myself. He never comes over here and talks to us. I’ll make a point of talking to him. I have a Gentle Lady glider I am going to put an AP .061 on. I want my boy to fly that awhile as it is nice and slow and I think he would easily be able to keep up with it. Perhaps that will help with breaking the ice in a conversation But not right now. My mind is on me flying.
Albert has to leave early today because he does have a life outside the club. It’s a shame. Erik fuels up the plane and I start it as he holds the tail and wing on the safety bench. He’s been practicing picking up the plane and decides he wants to try it this time with the engine running. In order to do it without damaging the plane you have to hold the plane gently by the tail and leading edge of the wing near the fuselage. You move it back slightly off the bench and up over the safety stops on the bench. At the same time there is a pole about three feet from the side of the bench, so you have to make sure you don’t hit it with the wing. And last but not least, when you lift it up over and around the obstacles you have to make sure you don’t hit the whirling prop against the roof of the shade. He did an excellent job the first time. The boy takes the plane to the taxiway and gently sets it down. Al by my side as I roll out to the runway and takeoff with out a worry in the world. Well, maybe a little. I make the circuits and do a couple loops. Still 96 to go. I start doing the landing pattern but this time I start at fifty feet. I feel a little nervous coming around on final at fifty feet. I make a couple of rounds and get my confidence back. Descending and turning on to final can really screw you up sometimes. First you have to setup a good steady descent but not to much or you’ll run out of atmosphere and be digging ditches. Then your turning left onto final and whoop’s. The controls are reversed. Think backwards now. Left is right and right is left. The easiest way for me to switch like that is, as Albert told me, to level the wing by putting the stick to the low wing and it levels. It works for me and that’s what counts. I make some more circuits and decide to get a little lower. 35’, 30’ and 25’. Flying an approach down to 25’ is nerve wracking. I would get it right down the runway and be perfectly lined up. Albert would say “Are you landing”. I would say “No”. He would say “Oh”. I didn’t want to make the landing yet. If I’m not totally confident and relaxed I won’t pull it back to idle. Remember I have a plan. I think I know why I crashed twenty years ago. I learned how to fly and could land it, but was not comfortable. I was very nervous when taking off and even more when landing. The demise of my model was during a normal teakoff. During rollout it drifted off to the side of the runway and just before it went off the runway I didn’t know what to do so I yanked back on the stick. It lifted off but then stalled. The nose went down and gained some more speed then started back into another stall and the underside of the model grazed the top of a pointed rock. As I wrote before in the beginning off this too long of a diary. It grazed that rock and was gutted from nose to tail. So back to the plan. Be totally confident in flying first, at any altitude, then land. So I’ve burned up another tank and Al takes over for the last time, I hope.
Al rides off into the horizon on his metal horse and the boy starts to pack up the plane in the scooter. About five minutes later Albert comes riding back down the dirt road. Whoops, he forgot his membership card. The boy realizes it even before Albert can stop his bike and runs over to the board and grabs his card and returns it to him. I look out at the lake. The water has receded about 300 yards from the runway due to the drought we are having. We only got 3 inches of rain this winter. We usually get 25 inches. I decided to go look at the lake up close. The boy didn’t want to go. He said “it’s too hot and too far away”. I shrug my shoulders and start walking across the runway. The only others there are the glider guy and Mel. I walk out into the field where a tractor had tilled the soil. This would not be a good place to land a dead stick. The soil is all clumpy and hard. Just right to grab a wing or landing gear. I walk more, more and more. It’s a way to the lake. I reach the dirt part where the lake has dried up and no plant matter as grown. I expected it to be muddy. It’s hard packed and cracks everywhere. Like a…….Dry lake bed. Hmmmm…….interesting. I get to the water and look around. There are a lot of birds. The kind with small bodies and stilts for legs. I look out over the water. It must be 500 yards across where I am at and yet this is the small side. I see the birds are maybe a hundred yards out and still only in about 2 inches of water. Wow, talk about shallow. I start back to the runway and notice something about 50 feet from the water line. Stuff on the ground. It forms a line as far as the eye can see in both directions. They look like dried up chili peppers at first glance. A closer inspection reveals that they are dead and dried up catfish! Small, maybe only two inches long. They must have got caught in the receding waters. I’ll bet the birds where fat and happy that week. I truck it on back to the pits. The glider guy is flying overhead as I cross the runway. Erik has the plane and equipment loaded in the scooter. I wave bye to Mel and we take off down the road with another great day of flying behind us.
I believe that’s 9 flights so far and all looking good. I can’t wait for next Sunday.
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Skeeter
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RE: Beginners Logbook? or what I learned today -