djnsayne

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What is an airplane?

tam popo

Gentlemen ('cos thats what you are!!) - I'm in a reflective mood today and I hope the Moderator will bear with me a wile, this is a sad, true tale.....
Aguy I know called James (aka Wing Commander or WC), is 52 y-old. He is or was, dedicated to all thingsmodelling, boats, planes etc. And a perfectionist in every way, a true scale builder. He even has 5ft. long model ships on display in the Glasgow Museum ofTransport.....but fate dealt him a terrible blow - he was diagnosed with Diabetes. Now, normally we wouldn't be too concerned, because lots of people have this condition (and its getting more prevalent). ButJames is losing his sightand can't build anything anymore.....can you imagine what that would mean to yourself, no building, no flying, no driving (or cycling).....nothing.
I gave him a lift home last weekand was invited in, and he gave me some bits and pieces that he could no longer use, mainly tool sets etc.He asked if I would like to see his latest (unfinished) project, a WW1 Sopwith Camel Bipe. I entered the room and it was strappedto the ceiling, 6ft. w/span, huge, a gasser minus the engine. The engine was on a table and the size ofa lawn mower, a monster. I offered to buy it from him but 'No' was the reply,he couldn't part with it at any price. So guys, when youarenext flying, just think of those who can't, for whatever reason. Iam disabled (hip arthritis etc) butat least I can build and fly.
Thanks Mr. Mod for your patience......

nyflyer56

Tam,

  Sorry to hear about your friend. On this thread no apologies are needed for such a post. It is always sad when the modeling brotherhood loses one of it's own, either from illness/disability, or death. I urge any club or individual to be aware of such instances.

  Sometimes the greatest tribute to these folks is to keep their models flying when they cannot or are gone. Being in an area that has lost several talented modelers in the last few years I have a number of planes belonging to some great guys, and so do other club members.

  When one of these models appears at the field, it will always spark stories of the individual, marvel over their craftsmanship, (or lack of it in some cases), and when it takes to the air, it is like they are still flying with you. You become the caretaker of theier creation, and it is never really your plane. You, and anyone who knew the individual, will always refer to it as "Doc's Plane", or "Cecil's Fighter", etc..

    Sometimes you get one that is not quite finished, and try to find the builders vision for the finished plane. I consider those ones an Honor to complete, and on the day they take flight, you just know someone is looking down smiling.

  This subject hits me especially today, as a fallen dear friend and modeler left behind 2 girls that I help take care of. Young Kaitlinn is quite enthusiastic, and hopes to fly her dad's old plane, and hopefully we can do it this summer in between her busy schedule.

  Sorry for the Kleenex moment, but Tam's post hit home on a day that the kids are here with me....

Tam , In the case of your friend, You know he feels bad about not building, but be sure to tap into his wealth of kowlege, sharing your projects, and other club members will make him feel involved, as will attending modeling events. The sounds and smells of flying, and the fellowship, are as big a part of this hobby as flying.

Phil

ZRAT

Tam, sorry to hear about your friend's condition. Take him out to the field with you, maybe you can convince him to share some wisdom on the BOC.

Took three out this AM. Bipe maiden went great, came home in one piece, ROG on 1st attempt, loops great, rolls not so much but the wind was terrible, I hate maidening in the wind but had to try. Not having any luck on the hammerhead attempt either but again I think wind was a factor. I was able to do the level hover in the wind at ~1/3 throttle, motor get a little warm but its a Tower pro combo so not much to lose if it fries, haven't hooked up the watt meter yet, batts are recharging. My only Bipe experience is on SIM so I'm very happy this thing is still intact. Going to have to paint it now.

SlowStick - Swapped in an AR7000, moved the Rudd/Elev servos back 6" to shorten control rods, running 248W on 8x6E APC prop w/ a 3S 15C 1500. Wings are fluttering, not sure this thing warrants adding more weight so maybe I'll drop down from 1300Kv to ~1000. Hate to slow it up any though.

Diablo - I know noone cares but since everyone hates these things I insist on making it fly. Slapped in an eflux concentrator and mounted the fan on top of the fuse, it flies, not great but it flies, will loop, semi roll if you can call it that but with no ailerons and a dihedral wing I was happy I could invert at all. I'm considering chopping ~2" out of the fuse behind the wing and stuffing a ridiculously high KV brushless in the fan. I'm still on the stock brushed setup. With extensive mod's this thing might just be a worthy plane.

Zrat

Loubud

Shugs,
A truly sad story. We wish him all the best. It's good that he has a friend like you
Podwerderf ran into a lot of problems also. Got sicker than a dog and now has limited use of his hands. He still builds and flies  but I feel very bad for him. The good part is his extreme optimism. This new disability doesn't sto him and he's still the riot he always was. Sure do miss his posts.

Phil,
Your story is inspiring. Keeping a lost soul's planes in the air is a pretty nice thing to have happen.

Zrat,
Congrats on your maiden. I'd stuff a high KV motor in the Diablo also. Mo power.

I didn't do anything remotely related to flying today. Just broke out the chop saw and belt sander to do some picket fence repair. Hate that physical labor carp but sure do like good belt sanders.

Glacier Girl

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Ha Ha Ha, hey DJ, nice to see you back man. You to Tam.

Long time Brent.

Zman, umm with the jet, as long as you can get it launched, it might fly pretty well. I'd be looking at a bunggee system to get her going fast enough. And it sounds like you may be pushing the limits a litle bit with your setup on the other one.

Tam, going V tail would be just changing the SS into a Slo-V.

You were asking about planes we have? Well I'm no Duggie, but quite a few have been in the hangar since I last heard from you. Umm, let's see Hangar 9 Camel and P40's, lots of Nitro Planes birds, big ones, like 120 class, T-Bolt, Corsair, couple of Predators, C-47, couple of Fokker tri planes, even a VQ P-38, you know me and 38's. Crap, so many planes, I gave away most of them at last years fly in, so I didn't have to move em to Florida. Stillgotta an Eflite airliner, HETMe 262, and a couple others still to build.

Oh and you gotta see the Duck. 9 1/2 foot wingspan monster built out of foam. Here's a pic of it. So dang big, I'm having to wait till the fly in to maiden it.

Asfor your brushed motors, would be good candidates for a foam build, check outthe NASTY, quick build and good size for those gearbox setups. Quite a few ofus have built them, great flyer.

Later.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Brad, you have not mentioned your excursion to the highway with The Donald.  HEE HEE

Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Here's a flight report for saturday 6 June.  .Semper Fi to the men from Utah, Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha, and Pointe Du Hoc, and their Families


Good stuff Zrat., i think your plan is good as well.  I "retired" from wrenching after 15 years, counting high school and USMC, just didn't see a great future.  We have a small company that makes and imporst restaurant stuff, I do custom and big stuff and the prototypes.

OK, you fellas probably need to get comfortable, I have a double flight report ;D ;D ;D ;D '

Well start with the morning outing, and a mention of a new rule, I no longer take more than 4 planes at a time.  So first up were the SSX, the Texan. the Swift2 and the Quick-1.  I got to the field and I already had some wind (dang Pacific Ocean) so I bust out the radio and the Swift2 was the first model that I hit.  I plug it in and discover a frozen servo, drat, one down and three to go.

Next up was the ssx, I repropped it since it's last flight, I stuck an 11x8 prop on it, and didn't note that I had a bp-21 on it as well.  And just to add insult to injury, I put a green meanie battery on it as well.  I noted that it's take off left much to be desired, but it had a nice floaty quality in the air.  So I'm cruising around just being careful and feeling out this combo.  After about 5 minutes the motor cuts out.  I'm thinking that the battery was done.  No biggy, kill the throttle and dead stick it back.  I hit a chunk of air and didn't get a pretty landing but there doesn't seem to have any damage.  With the exception of the motor being so hot that when the plane stopped the motor fell out of the mount.  I think I have a tool that will allow me not to do this again.  I think the motor is toast, it turns but the windings are black .

Next up was the Quick 1, some moron didn't set the linkage up properly, we ar talking a 5 minute job : : > ;D

Last up was the Tex, 8 superlative minutes, beautiful landing, except this is the time that the prop was down and bent the shaft.  So in about 30 minutes I had broken 2 planes in an odd fashion.  I had also picked up a certain box at the PO.  I ordered a ploat and they sent me a couple of stickers and a stack of depron.  Brad, Hobby-people still has UHU Por.

I brought everything home made lunch, did the recycling, and decided that I would go out again.  Fixed the Quick 1, loosen set screw, adjust linkage.  Ended up replacing the servo in the swift2 and grabbed the Bug.  And off into the valley of death rode the.....

So I get to the school and the wind is kicking.  I stick the Bug up and it is weathervaning like mad and just holding it's own at half throttle, that's fun at the house but at the big field it's even better.  Then a gaggle of kidlets see the Bug and need to investigate.  It seems they thought it a boring old kite until I threw a couple of rudder/aileron rolls into the equation.  Then they had to see everything, not a bad thing in my mind.  Anyway after some discussion they asked me to fly the Quick 1, I had to explain that it was way to windy to try that.

Then they asked about the Swift2, now I think everyone remembers what a spoilsport swift2 can be, running away and hiding and all.  So I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  And I had just gone through the servos and end points etc.  And it had the motor that it prefered again.  But since I had changed the motor I had altered the flight balance, so I said sure, this plane likes wind.  So I gave it the pre-flight, and the toss into the wind and hit the gas.

One of the little kids says "wow, that one's fast"  My response was it's going as fast as it will right now.  I have the thing wide ope in pure vertical, it was not fast in my eyes, but it was puttingyards between it, the ground, and the little kids.  The Mom must have heard the tinge of worry in my voice since she called the boy's closer.  I leveled off at 150'-200' and started trimming while fielding vital questions like, "Can that airplane touch the sky?" and "wow. how close did you get to that big airplane?" (For the record, assuming that the plane was cruising at 40,000', I only missed it by, oh, 39,800' or so, the jet wash was terrible).  The Mom herds her gaggle back towards the Gym but they watched until I landed the Swift2.

Now that had gone quite well, I might want to think about re-propping, but otherwise, the no power glide is back to where it used to be.  So I stuck another battery in and flew it some more.  I think I have officially gone 4 channel, as I kept trying to feed in some rudder : :, but that was a quick 6 minutes on that battery, and this motor-battery combo is awesome, I would like a bigger push from the beginning, but once it has some airspeed it flies well, different, but well.

Overall I would say today has been a screaming success so far.  I figure I have at least 2 more Bug Flights coming and a styro kit to look at.  And Lou I got yeller tail fins fer the T-rex, gussy'er up some

Tim             , Sword

Glacier Girl

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Shhhh, Tim, we don't talk about that/ LOL[X(]

Tam, get him out in the fresh air get the spirit moving again. No such thing as a disability. Best carpenter I know is "Blind Bill", lived near me in PA.  Blinded in Nam, never stopped him.  Stuff he builds is just beautiful, and how it does it just amazes me. Only problem in his place, for me, is walking around in it.......................................NO LIGHTS OR WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!  In there I was the one with a handicap.

nyflyer56

Blind Bill sounds like an amazing guy, I would love to see his work. Blindness is usually not the disability you see cabinetmakers with. Usually disability or injuries from contact with various machines. Nicknames like "two fingers Tom" or "Lefty" are far more common. 
 
  My Brother is a gifted cabinetmaker, and was injured in an accident with a shaper due to a bad helper. He lost one finger and has a badly damaged second one. Still cranks out some amazing work. I am humbled when I see what he does on a Daily basis. 

   I did have to laugh when he added an adition to his house, and subbed out the framing. As a do it myself (translation= cheap and broke) kind of guy I had to ask why he did not do the framing himself.
   Turns out it just seemed 'wrong" to him to nail 2 bieces of lumber together without planing them to perfection, and putting a dovetail or mortise or something on them. 
 
  He also pointed out that he could pay the framers, continue his work, and still come out ahead, as his per hour was far greater than what he had to pay out. I couldn't argue with that....

NightTrain0128

I bought a couple of used Badius gliders about a month ago and after reading a few opinions, was skeptical to say the least. Ireceived enough parts for one good airplane and I took it out to local schoolyard and gave it a toss and it was readily apparent that power was not somethine I was exactly awash in. Iflew it few mins and went back home to ponder my next move. Ilooked around and found a couple of used speed 400 motors and a Pixie 20A at a good price. A few days later, Iwas ready to go again. I wired up what I thought was a S400 (the owner said it came out of a Stryker so that should have been a clue), the Pixie and a 7 cell 1000mah NIMH from my old Super Cub and headed back to the schoolyard. After launch, I could tell that I had something to work with here. It was a dead calm morning and I looked at my cell phone to verify the time and slowly started up into the clear blue sky. 22 minutes later it glided neatly to a stop. The nose was still pretty warm so that night was spent digging around the workshop looking for something to make a scoop to cool my motor and ESC. Iran across an old pare of safety goggles that had some neat looking breathing attachments. A few minutes later I had one mounted into the nose. Hopefully the pics attached to show what Idid.

At any rate, this solved my cooling issues and the glider flew great. At some point Inoticed that the motor was indeed a 480 and not a 400 so Isnuck into my neighbor's garage (ok I knocked and he wasn't home and I knew it would be ok and made off with an old broken up Firebird Freedom that I knew also came with a 480. Iinstalled the motor and a couple of servos in my spare airframe and off I went again. After launch, something was different than my other glider. The throttle didn't activate until at least halfway and no matter how Iadjusted the EPA in my Optic 6, I couldn't get it to start up earlier. It also just didn't seem to have the oomph of my other setup. My battery was winded after only about 5-6 minutes and when I grabbed the nose to pick it up, the metal plate almost burned my hand. Something weird was going on. I could see the 370 getting hot...or even an S400 if that is what I was using but the 480 should drag it around without breaking a sweat and my first one did exactly that. So what was different?

I decided to get another Pixie 20A and after a few more days wait, I was ready to try again. This time it flew exactly like the my original glider. Nice strong pull at about 1/3 throttle, 15-20 mins airtime and warm at most after touchdown.

The only conclusion I can reach is the stock ESC has issues and Ithink they have unfairly given this glider a bad rap. I think I could go back to the stock motor with the Pixie and be happy with the performance.

All in all, Ilove this glider. I've taught a few people to fly already and one of them swapped me his GWSCorsair for the first glider. I keep the second one around for the neighborhood kids and anyone else who wants a go at the sticks. It really is a great flying glider and incredibly easy to fly. The neighbor with the Freedom has killed about everything I've tried him on and he can fly this with no problem. He isn't mad about the motor either

ConRMan

Greetings fellow RC'ers,

I find myself wanting to move into areas other than RTF. I've up'd the motor in my Slo-V, built the Hobby Lobby Nemisis, and am presently involved in completing the ModelAero, 6mm depron kit, Polaris. The Polaris is similiar to building a birdhouse out of 6mm only thisplane is anamphibion and everything will be sealed up in order to be water-proof. No round doorway for the bird.

Question:
I've taken up a "Fatal Attraction" with the Sikorsky S-38 and want to build that next. I sawthe SCJohnson Carnuba S-38,a half plane mock-up at the EAA museum in Oshkosh, WI, and want to build and fly that beauty.My problem has been getting information on kit availability or finding anyone who has already built one. General information on this plane must have some national security status because nobody has nothin'.

Can any of you experts help a neophite find what I need to build, buy, and fly the Sikorsky S-38??????

As always, I bow to your collective wisdom, conRman

nyflyer56

ConRMan,
   I am thinking on the S-38 that you will be doing a scratch build, altho I know I have seen them done, so there must be some plans available somewhere.

ZRAT

ConRman - check out post 23 on this thread, may be able to talk to this guy, he sounds like a fan fold builder, beautiful S-38.

www.rcuniverse.com/forum/F%25A%25D%25(fanfold_aircraft_design)/m_2124113/tm.htm

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Hi guys I've been doing a ploat build,  Here are some pics,  http://badiusownersclub.com/forum2/i...ic=106.0  It's sort of a build thread but all kinds o pics,

Tim

tam popo

Night-Train......I'm back off my hols (Turkey) and just saw your post on the Badius. The Badius guys (Airborne/Japan) gave me 2 of them which flew Ok as stock. But being the bar steward I am I decided that a b/less had to go in with lipo - but not any oldb/less - it was a BIG 200+W Himark inrunner which fitted perfectly and with a1300 3S. Wow, vertical, stable and brooody Fast!!!!! Toof fast so its now got just 150W Zeda motor and1300 3S. I later swapped the wing for a cut-down Easystar wing and it flies brilliantly, thermalls, verts and is tough as old boots. Its got DX6iSpectrumand long-range AR6200 to control it.

I'm back guys!!!!!!

nyflyer56

Hi Tam welcome back. I hope you had a good holiday.

Loubud

Hi Shugs
So where are the Holiday pics? Kiddin. No, really. I'm kidding.

nyflyer56

Lou, 
 Be careful of what you ask for. we don't know that he wasn't at a Euro nudie bech Pappy type spot...... No telling what we might see!

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Phil, while Turkey is a secular state, it is also a Muslim state.  I am going to guess that nude beaches aren't on Turk beaches. 

tam popo

Guys....Ferndale is right, only saw one woman topless!!!! BIGGerman - enough said.
I took a Phase 3 Rookie (indoor) but only got 2 good flights in - it was toooo windy. 100F, clear skys etc....am I making sick!!!!

At the moment I'm doing an inventory on all my planes and what they need to keep flying but also to improve....things like better servos, motors etc. The list is endless. No new planes to be bought until the new P?Zone PNPB/less Mustang hits Europe.....you just get the 27mhz thing.....but we can stick our trusty Spectrum gear in for FULL control manipulation. Ain't you jealous. Don't know what the price is but I don't give a Tinkers Cuss what it is - I want one!!!!! Still to finish the GWS'Stang so thats why I'm buying 'stuff' to finih it and improve my S/Sticks.
Got to go - shopping to do.......

nyflyer56

   Forgot you were in Turkey, Yep the Muslim thing would put a damper on Pappy style vacations for sure!

    Boy there is so much stuff coming out that it is hard to keep up T28, corsair, now a mustang! if it flies like the rest it should be a winner. Since they stopped making the p-47 kit that everyone loved, maybe they will re-introduce it as the next in the series. We can hope, Right?

NightTrain0128

Itried a wing like this on mine and it wasn't very controllable. Ihave a good bit of dihedral in mine and it turns nicely with rudder only. With the flat Sky Fly wing, it's not nearly as stable and very slow to respond to the rudder.

Loubud

Shugs,
Thanks for not posting any German pics.

Nighttrain,
Make a larger rudder and you might be happier with the response. Good job on the wing.

tam popo

Guys....thanks for sharing your personal thoughts about Jim (and also all your pals and friends) who have some sort of disabiltity. James gave me a home-bilt (from plans) Bushwacker nitro plane I converted to leccy. It flew great but my 'strip' wasn't up to the long take-off it needed. You've all now inspried me to get this baby up and running in respect of James. Kepp you informed with pics.

And guess what....I just ordered a stock Super Cub (Nimh), not the new 1300 3S lipo version. I'll pull the jumper off the esc and use my own lipos. Yippeeee........