In the post previous to this one, we have an excellent example of the long term effects of inhaling nitromethane fumes .....it's a sad thing to bear witness to, I must admit. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Peace.

Downtrodden

Down,

I love my club. It has about 80 members that range in age from 13 to 85. It is about 5 minutes from my work so I am able to fly at lunch time if my work schedule allows. Our field is very simple and low cost, $50 per year per member. We just did a Spring clean up about a month ago and resurfaced the runways, put up a gate to keep vandels out, took the plastic walls off of the lean-too for summer, and just generally picked the place up. It was a lot of fun, and the place looks great.

There are fancier fields near by with lots of rules. Ours is casual and as rule free as possible. The social aspect of the club is great. You get to meet defferent people, and see a lot of different planes. The only time you have to wait to fly is if you want to be up by yourself. A busy weekend day there may be ten guys there. As much chatting and coffee drinking goes on as flying. So if you are hardcore you can just fill her up and get back in the air.

Jack,

Are you O.K? When they start talking to you, it may be time to take a day off from flying. I know that it will be tough, but for the good of Mr. Twist, and Miss Rundo, you may want to leave them in the basement alone for a while. Just don't leave them too close together or you get some more shorts, sparks, and over heating, if you know what I mean.

Adam

Wow! 80 members!!! You must get to see every bird possible. That must be a riot...considering that we always have a grand time with just 7 pilots, at most!

Peace.

Downtrodden

80 Members !!!! I think you should all get in the sky at once, who cares if some of you are on the same frequency, it probably wouldn't matter,

Jack, I have to be honest in saying I have SMALL conversations with my birds as well, I always thank them if they gave me a great day of flying, and that means came home in one piece, so I can work on my other birds, but I never talk to a bird until it is a complete bird, and I usually warn it on the first flight, I try to walk by my burning pit with the birds too, just to remind them of where they could be. [>:]

I also have been inhaling Nitro fumes for a length of time now, I must admit I use to love starting the ol OS in my enclosed 8x8 bedroom, the window open didn't really do much, But hey,, I turned out alwight I tink, afrte lla wthat cud posssssilby og rong.[sm=bananahead.gif]

Wtist eitm

Thanks, Waldo, I depend on you to understand such things--as speaking to birds and having THEM speak to YOU. Whenever Down doesn't fly for a day he gets weird--after several flightless days (forget the "foamie" flights) all imagination fails him, and he falls into his super-rational, scientific mode, where he's comfortable with "rationality." When he flys, his imagination can do inverted flat spin landings--and dance with the clouds. Today he missed every thermal. He worked. I'm afraid to speak with him. LOL

With the 61 Twist out of commission, I flew the Saito Twist today. Oh, glory! I forgot how much fun that Twist is--and I thought of your bird, Waldo. As much crap as I've given Saito engines here, in these pages, the 82a started easily, ran the mothball oil out in a hurry, and flew beautifully, dependably, without a touch to the needle valve. I also maidened the Goldberg Ex-Treme 330--with the new OS .50. After five tanks of gas I put the 12.25x3.75 prop on her. Ahhhhh.... No flameouts, no troubles, all freedoms. Incredible clouds. Believe it or not I terminated a 20 minute flight with the Rundo (nice thermal!) to get up out of my comfortable chair and fly the 4 stroker for an elderly gentleman and his son who stopped by and wanted to see what the Saito sounded like.

Perfect day of flying. Rick and RJ (after school) flew their Goldberg 540 until the 6 volt bat when to "RECHARGE." Down will tell you, RJ, a teenager, is scary. What he's doing with that 540--with fewer hours on it than Rick, is ridiculous. These KIDS! This summer, when he gets more time--and buys fuel, he will surpass Rick AND me in his skills with the Twist, I'm sure.

3 pilots, innumerable flights; 4 airframes; all birds home safe.

J

Here's a pic of Rick hovering the 540 (OS .61)--at 20 yards altitude (telephoto lens). He's usually at 50 yards alt. , but he's comin' down. Slowly. Wise, hm?

It's allllll about getting ready to fly his Twist, 46AX, better. Believe it.

No sooner did I read that Jack was afraid to talk to me..........then I answer the phone to Jack's familiar voice! Of course he's calling to rub it in. I'm spreading mud and he's enjoying 1 of the 2 days of summer! I'll have to play hooky tomorrow and fly, that's all there's to it!

Peace

Downtrodden.

Nice Pic there Jack, you have to love countless flight days, I almost switched over the Bipe 46 and the Twist OS .70 I just couldn't do it yet, My Bipe is screaming at me for the 70, but she flys alright with the .46 and I don't want to change over the motors, ya know take off cowls and props, speed control lines, why touch something thats working perfectly. and I can almost see the little tongue sticking out of the Twist when she looks at the Bipe[sm=lol.gif] I think there's going to be a cat fight soon. [sm=punching.gif]

Hooky to fly DownT !!! Thats just genius, [sm=idea.gif]I've been so buried and busy at work, I forgot all about playing hooky,, [:-]I think I can do that, Its on my card the next time I hear of a sunny day, Its just been rainy and muggy for days, almost 2 straight weeks now.[&o]

Down,

If it makes you feel any better, I am a tile guy. I am a project manager by day in charge of 30 guys and 8 to 10 tile jobs going at any given time. It is a great job, and I have a lot of excellent guys that I can depend on. I set tile nights and weekends to fund my addiction, I mean hobby. Right now I am in the thick of side job purgatory. I go from one job to the next. I love the work and the extra cash, but it kills the flight time. Of course it has been blue bird skys, wind under 10 mph, and about 80 degrees all week. More of the same weather for this weekend, but I am planning on 2 ten hour days to wrap up this shower.

The cool thing is the guy I am doing the shower for is a pilot for Delta I think. He also flys RC heli's. Before I lsft last night he was showing me hsi new JR radio. I had my electric Supersportster with me, so I showed him what a brushless/lipo combo was all about. He was amazed that I had the power of a .40 gas motor in a 3 pound electric and still got 1/2 hour of flight time. Nice to be able to mix business with pleasure.

I think you have inspired me to take an hour lunch break and run over to the field. All of this Supersprtster talk is making my eyelid twitch. Good luck playing hooky. After all, it takes a lot of time for mud to dry properly!

Waldo,

I may be biased, but keep the .70 in the Twist. As the weather gets warmer you are going to want the extra power that you have grown to love.

Adam

I'm sorry to report that the "dungeon master" and the "scribe" (Waldo and Jack) ,two good 'ol boys that have spent way too much time in a cubicle, have rounded the bend. One murmurs incantations as balsa and covering take form and the other has imagined "flights of fancy" (read Jack's "panty raid" post). One threatens his unflown birds with hellfire as he walks them by the firepit and the other views his hanger as a harem with each vixen scheming for their master's attention.

This must be the final stage of the addiction, to wit......Two Twisted and Tetched Twistaholics Too Tangled To Terminate Twisting...Too bad.

Peace

Downtrodden

As my daughter says to me at times "your a dork" [:-] My reply,,, Yeah,,,Thats right,,, but I'm a Happy Dork

I so agree...would LOVE!! to see few other color patterns on this beauty!!

Thanks so much cornduster....very useful!!got it bookmarked..

What a great day to have played hooky! Five hours of breathtaking clouds and gentle breezes. I plunged my tail deep into the grass on one hover......and the elevator disappeared. The next time I did it I snagged my elevator on some tall grass and had to bottom out...no damage. Of course Jack had to get good pictures of that one, not the first, but I have witnesses. I even got my Hirundo up for two flights. Rick's son RJ has already surpassed Jack and Rick, and I believe I'm the next to fall. Jack pulled off this one maneuver were the plane spins with the wing as its vertical axis as it falls.....beautiful, but unfortunately a fluke, he couldn't reproduce it......that's one move I'd be envious of! Well, I've got chickens on the grill and some beverage chilling........what a day!

Peace

Downtrodden

I didn't get a good pic of Down's Twist's tail in the grass, but close. See below.

MY excitement came with the Hirundo. I ran out of gas at about 2000 ft altitude, then went straight up--I could barely see the plane. I dove and dove. When my heart stopped throwing me around in the chair, I couldn't find that thermal again. Down, flying the Twist, missed MY excitement. That flight ended at 18:13 minutes. What fear, what FUN! I wish I had some way of knowing how many flight miles that Hirundo has on it.

What Down didn't tell you was that RJ (after school) flew the Goldberg 540, not the Twist. The 540 is MUCH harder to inverted flat spin, constant subtleties with the elevator. Just get the Twist flat on her back, hit hard rudder, full up ele, and she spins. The 540 is something else. You have to take OFF elevator when you get into the spin, then constantly adjust. Dese KIDS!

5 hours, 4 pilots, innumerabble flights, 6 birds, all home safe.

J

Way to go Down and Jack! Ya'll are having all the fun it looks like.

I've been a little occupied with my new toy lately... an ATV. [sm=wink.gif]

Sweet pictures Jack! That is great that you keep a camera with you. Keep the pictures coming! Glad to hear that you guys are out flying! Your flying field looks beautiful withat of that green grass.

Adam

Here's a photo of my new engine that arrived today. It's a Jett .76L. I'm doing the 30 min. run-in on a test stand. I only ran it about 5 min. because it's quite a bit louder than most engines I've run on the bench. I was afraid a neighbor would toss a grenade over the fence. I haven't decided whether it's going on the Twist or the Pizazz. It will turn a 14x4W at 10,500 if the specs are correct. I'm breaking it in with a 12x7 for a light load and lots of air over the fins.

Tim,I never had any experience with Jetts. 76 sounds big for a Twist. Let us know how the fuel efficiency goes, too. There is a very low velocity stack on the carb, though. The prop may blow fuel out of it at low throttle. Design is rather jazzy looking. Kool.

Good luck with it.

J

P.S. Had another great day of flying, nothing spectacular--except the clouds, low, changeful winds, and glorious yellow and purple agains them all. I ruined a gear set on the 330's rudder when it dumped over on landing, cross-wind, dead stick. Rick has to change his Goldberg 540 rudder servo gears, too. The servo shudders in neutral on the table. He flew it anyway. We watched it very carefully. There were only two of us. RJ, his teenage son, flys that 540 too fast with the .61 OS, I'm thinking. That's the THIRD set of gears Rick's had to change on that bird: one elevator; two rudder.

The Saito 82a did yeoman service with the Twist.

TimC,
Jetts are a great engine. I have the Jett 50 for my F-20 Tigershark and it will haul butt. It is suppose to turn about 18000 with a 10 x 6. Yep a 10 x 6 and nothing bigger according to Dub Jett. Another guy has the Jet 90 on the GP Patriot and it is a rocket ship. Faster than lightning. Might want to be careful that 76 doesn't rip the wings off the Twist or Pizazz.

If I use the black muffler for Quickie racing it will turn over 20000 with a 8 x 8 or 9 x 6.

Jack and bluemax. The engine is a new design. Dub Jett got all the bore and stroke out of a .40 size possible. He then ported it for torque and lower rpm's. This engine is not a screamer at all. It is made for turning large 3-D props at lower rpm's. It's actually lighter than an O.S. .46FX.

Interesting. Let us know how it works out.

Gosh, I just got my Horizon catalog and am looking at the new Zenoa G20ei for 60 to 90 planes. 15 minutes on an 8 oz tank (who puts an 8 oz tank on a 60 size plane?). DownT mentioned this engine to me. I would use it on my Hangar 9 P-51D, with retracts. But it's 34.4 OUNCES. More than two POUNDS!

Anyone have any experience with Zenoa? Would it be worth $339? The savings in fuel, alone, would probably make it a good idea over time. Or, are they like Saitos--with a 30 flight hour expectation before overhauling something? And they say it won't, once started, flameout as long as the fuel lasts.

Now if Zenoa made a gasser for a 40 sized bird....

J

You Guys seem to be having all the dang fun, Great pics of the Hover!!! thats some nice flyin DownT, Jack you have to be ready with that camera for those planes that scream by as well, and nice flight clocking in at over 18 minutes, I don't think I have the stamina to look up for that long.

TimC Nice looking motor, what is the weight on that baby?

Bluemax, How does that Patriot fly? I've been thinking of grabbing one for a jet project, I had the 35 sized F-15 before, but all I had for a motor was an OS .40 it was a very old motor, so I didn't think anything of the speed of it, but I was wrong,,, That thing screamed faster then anything I ever had, and to this day as well, she just loved to start snap rolling all by herself when I tried to slow it down, without exaggeration,,, I would pull the throttle back to Idle, and the jet would probably snap roll 30 to 40 times in a 50 foot stretch, the plane actually looked like the prop going around, every landing it would just snap over and smash into the ground in less then a second from about 20 feet up on an approach, It must have been the same feeling Jack described about almost losing his bird, she flew beautiful at full speed though, you just couldn't tell which way it was heading after you screamed by yourself, in less then 5 seconds you needed to be turning or it was out of site, very uncontrollable for me back then, I remember standing on the runway and you could just feel your heart start to accelerate, then as soon as I hit the full throttle for take off, I would just forget about everything except who you thought you were going to kill, I would talk to myself constantly in that flight, saying,, Fly the plane, just fly the plane, as calmly as I could, I rebuilt it 3 times and all 3 flights ended in destruction, so I quit putting it back together, afraid I was going to have a lawsuit against me. but it was a great plane to fly, just could never get it back. It was suppose to land very hot, but I didn't have the room for that kind of a speedy landing. Now I do....

I worked and worked for over 38.5 hours overtime this past week, just staring at my wall of pictured birds in my windowless muggy environment, taking shots from wondering mosquitoes coming into the dock area as they have had too much rain as well, how do you get eaten alive by bugs in an office??, Answer:: Have an office underground on a dock that they shut the AC off after 5:00 to save on Electricity expenses, So I have to leave the office doors open as not to permeate my lungs with the wretched stench of wilting envelopes, and of course every flying object except the Twist finds its way to the brightly lit dungeon sweat shop.


So all I do is wait for Saturday morn and its freakin Poring right now,,, Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I want to fly, well my band is playing later outdoors this afternoon, so I have missed my opportunity to soar again this week, I just hope the rain quits by 4 so we don't get electrocuted. the Twist sits ever so humbly saddened by its permanent position on the wall with a fresh charge, but she won't say a word, knowing I'm just as bummed out on the weather, well just one more week of work and then it is Vacation time, so I will fly the ever livin skin off her then, and then I should be back to normal at work so all my OT will cease until I'm ready for OT again like Mid snow season.

Ahh,, Thanks for letting me vent, I'll shut up now...

Waldo......I sympathize with you man! Dag nammit anyhoo. If you're willing to put up with mosquitos that rival your airplanes in size, you might consider coming up this way for a week. The weather has been phenomenal! Blue skies with clouds so awesome I've actually grounded myself for a flight or two just to remember what it was like to be a kid and lay in the grass and stare at Cummulo-Nimbus, gloriously billowing heavenward. Jack has been busying himself trying to touch those self-same clouds with his Hirundo...pushing not only his equipment to the max, but his eyesight as well.

I've discovered something awesome to dabble in during the odd rainy day.......A software synthesizer combined with a sound card that's on steroids. Add a 66 key MIDI controller/keyboard and 200 watt Polytone amp and VOILA!!! Now mind you I can only play by ear (and even then not very good) and sheet music is chicken scratchin's to me........but you can alter sound in such a way..........MAN! The thing is.........I had everything but the MIDI cable, but had never assembled it all. I was given the Reason soft synth by a musician friend and the rest was hanging around. This was better than being given a Saito engine that's never been run!

Well, I've got to cut this short if I'm to beat Jack out to the field. The sandwiches are packed and the cooler is full (green tea...come on!) ....... and 2 gals of extra strength bug dope ought to do. It's going to be a long day, but someone's got to do it!

Peace (and a wish for blue skies and gentle breezes for those that need it)

Downtrodden