[>:]

Guess I can't complain too much, well I can but..noone would listen. HA.

Our field is ok Tom, but you see how close that walking path is. A takeoff with a trainer 40 takes almost the whole runway, at least 3/4. And landing is about the same. Hard to hit something that is 27 feet wide. At least for me. Weds I went out and was doing approaches as I seem to have to push down to bring her down. That's a bad thing. So I was feathering it in, and trying for 3 pointers. I missed about 5 times and aborting the landings was easy. TODAY however, the crosswind was fierce...then about 15 feet in the air there was a turbulance that was also creating a south>north wind that accompanied the west > east wind on the surface. Then to make matters even worse, on approach you can cut the throttle to almost deadstick(off), and suddenly an updraft would lunge the model up about 20 feet. Then of course, what comes up suddenly goes down suddenly also. Thus I would have pour on the throttle, fight to keep the wings level making my plane seemingly hover for a few seconds and even slowly drop level toward the edge where I took those pictures from the walking trail, which also is only 10 feet from 30 foot high trees. Sigh. Needless to say, when I finally got it down today, I kept it there.
Like I said, it's not bad. I like the little pavilion. It's rarely camped by pilots, and 'the regulars', consist of my brother..myself..the club trainer..and a local hobby store owner that sold me that bipe.

The bipe is moving along, slowly but surely. I was stressed out yesterday because I thought I was missing some wood. It was mearly hiding somewhere else. (cause we all know I sure as heck didn't take it out of the box and put it elsewhere right?) So I have the fuse construction going along. I spend probably 1/2 of my time slowly pondering things, watching tv, peeling CA from my fingers, smoking cigs/drinking coffee...and then other 1/2 gluing, bending, shaping, cutting etc. My neighbor gave me an old craftsman table scroll saw...kinda like the one dremel makes. It makes cutting wood SO much nicer. Didn't think I would need such a thing until I had to gut all those little longerons for the fuse structure. The wood is OLD and hard. Exacto knifes bounce right off of em. The Craftsman makes short work of it. I also have a Dremel I use for sanding, etc. But right now I have belief that this thing is only useful for cutting glue away from the balsa as it drips down to the waxpaper coated plans and dries flat. It's too cumbersome to get into cracks and creavases (sp?), and even at the slowest speed has a tendency to rip into things. I prefer the good ole' fashion sandpaper personally. Unless I have bunch chucks o' crud to remove. Sandpaper is more of a personal experience, you can 'feel' the job at hand rather than tooling it which leaves thing much more rough and choppy.

Bill, if you weren't a mod I would curse at you. All that runway #1 runway #4 crap is making me jealous. :0 In all seriousness, sounds like you guys have it pretty good there. I would like to gather a group of people in my area and obtain an area which could house some basic needs. Good space, ability to place electric/water ...or at least electric. Build a brick building that would house mowers, fridges, tables over an awning. Maybe someday. Right now, the only drawback is space. I'll never be able to launch my bipe there. So I will probably join the one that is gated. I've never used a grass runway before though. This should be interesting. I can foresee landing gear repairs in my future, and stress cracks.

Here's a few pics of my current progress.