Part I

I've always wanted an RC plane...just love airplanes and flight! I've flown sims since the TRS-80 was the newest thing on the block and have even gone up occasionally with a friend in a Cessna for a putt around the city. I'm 36 years old and figured that I oughta be coming up on a mid-life crisis soon. Can't afford a convertable sports car so I put in my order to Santa last Christmas for an RC plane. Santa (aka my girlfriend) came through! I open my present and there before me is a ARF Electra Streak! Wow....looks fast.... Santa had the fore-sight to include a very nice remote and plenty of large servos. One trip to the hobby shop and I had all the tools, battery, and a charger so I got to work putting it together. While putting it together I got to talking to the guys at the hobby shop and I discover that this thing flies around 70mph top speed stock. They've got a speed freak cop in the club that flies the same plane at over 100mph!!!

I'm beginning to become intimidated by this sub-sonic beast I'm assembling on my dining room table. (Ate a lot of dinners at the coffee table)

I get this thing together...never built one before, but I'm meticulate. Besides, I used to have an erector set as a kid...I can follow directions. I take it to the Hobby Shop for them to give it a go over. Imagine this! I got it perfect the first time and am told it's flight worthy. Even after I learned the hard way how to arm the ESC and I launch it off the table into the kitchen door. My girlfriend laughed so hard she was curled up on the floor crying! A little epoxy and some white out....I even got my 3 degrees down and right before I even know I needed to.

Took it out to the field the following weekend for it's maiden flight. I decide (wisely) to have an instructer take it up to see how she does. One good hand-launch later and she's whistling merrily up into the heavens. Now I did a lot of research on this plane and I read that stock it performs only marginally and takes a bit of time to get some alt to the point where you can have fun with it. I must have done something right because this thing screamed! Did snap-rolls nice and crisp, flew inverted, even stalled out nice and level. Once he got it level again he handed me the remote... What in the world am I shaking for?! I guess most ppl are like that the first time they fly. I wiggled the wings a bit...did kind of a shaky turn and handed the remote back to him just as he decided that he should take back over anyways. Damn, I'm sweating too?!

I took it back home rather proud that I build such a sturdy and well performing plane. Haven't flown it since... Scared witless to even think of it!

So I bought a slow stick....

I saw one at the airfield and thought that this was definitely more my speed. 5 mph vs 70 mph. Don't have the nerves of steel I thought I did....

First day out with it I made nearly every mistake that I've read in these forums (if only I had read them first!)

*put the propeller on backwards
*clipped the control rods too short and ended up tail heavy (did some very extraordinary porpoising tho...although my son said he'd never hand-launch for me again)
*Taped 20 cents worth of nickels to the front and that seemed to help (guy at the field said I should take that 20 cents and go buy new control rods)
*Started chasing around another slow stick that was much better piloted than mine and folded the wings. (I agree with some guys here...if you're going to pile drive from 75 feet up there should at least some kind of explosion)
*taped it all back together, launched it, discovered I had NO control, and helplessly watched it circle lazily onto the train tracks 200 yards away only minutes before Amtrack came blasting through. In a sense I suppose that's a little better than an explosion. Must remember to have someone start recording these flights.

Here's the pic of my first Slow Stick

That was pretty entertaining. Good luck with the stick. It's kinda docile.

Slow stick is a great plane. Some suggestions though for when you rebuild or get another one:

Use 5 or 30 minute epoxy to glue the reinforcing rods to the front and rear of wing.
Don't use the packing tape that comes with the kit.... I actually used monokote trim film, it stuck to the foam a lot better.
Get some real hinge tape, not the stuff they give you. My elevator kept coming loose, though not in flight!
Get a bottle of foam CA and glue the control horns in.
Use a sharpie to mark the locations of your brackets on the fuselage tube. That way if you happen to land in a tree and it falls out on its nose, you'll be able to slide them right back to where they were.

The SS is a great starter plane. Mine landed in a tree and got a couple holes in the wing getting it down, plus some other collateral damage. I'm going to get another one this weekend, too much fun to be without!

Andy

You can also epoxy some thick thread between the wings to hold the dihedral. This will prevent flapping and help with turn radius.

Thanks for the input! I wish I hadn't used the tape. I've seen quite a number of mods for securing the wings better and to keep them from folding. I tried one the other night that worked awesome! I took an 18" length of 1/4 x 1/4 balsa, sanded down the ends so it lays flush across the width of the wing. Epoxied it down and now the wing barely wiggles. Got a bit brave yesterday at the local ball field and did a couple of power dives with full back on the elevator. My girlfriend gave a short shriek (conditioned response to a number of other planes I've crashed) but the wings didn't even move. Also got chased by a couple of sparrows....seems the park belongs to them. I don't mind so long as they don't pull out the antenna...

I'll post a pic of this mod tonight...I think it looks pretty kewl. It's also a great mount for when "Joe" wants to go wing-walking again. He hasn't quite recovered from the Amtrack incident....

The sparrows got me thinking... Do they make an rc plane that resembles a large bird of prey? I don't think the flying chicken that's out would at all intimidate the sparrows. And would it be considered inhumane if I chased small dogs around the park with it?

Slo stik's wing sort of looks like a bird's wing. You could cut your own tail feathers to make them look like a bird, the landing gear is about in the right place to make it into talons.......


Andy

no, i dont think they do. but when you get into gas, it is really fun to chase the birds around. up at our simi field, there are a bunch of red tailed hawks that like to play around in the thermals. you can come blaring by and they scatter and make a huge racket. it is pretty fun.

Awtoo,nice to hear you enjoy this sport but reading your posts you never mention you kissed or thanked your g/f after she got you your present.

* i lived in grants some time ago,probably longer than i think*
*is it right for a cop to be speeding ?,no but who's gonna tell him,maybe he's a speed freak with a badge.*

Talons? I'm surprised I didn't think of that! That would inhibit rolling landings...but I suppose if I got good enough I could land on a tree branch. I got to looking at the Graupner Funky Chicken after my last post and I think I've changed my mind. I saw some pretty wild paint schemes for it. Maybe a Spotted owl?

Oh, I definitely thanked her! I was hopping around like a little kid! She got a kiss...and a bit more, but being that this is a general forum I think it's best that I not elaborate. The best part is, she supports my addiction - er.....uh hobby. She helps me build my planes and is at my side during my occasional "walks of shame" even if the walk is sometimes only 10 feet. She refuses to fly them, but she's starting to show an interest in the RC off-road trucks. Think I'm going to get her one soon. Anybody priced those trucks yet?! Very pricey!

I know Grants, I lived there for about a year. The most excitement that one horse town has to offer is driving through the Sonic and the dirt track up in Milan. I think the town had a parade when the Petro Truck Stop opened there. LOL I heard recently that they had to close the Grants Zoo....seems their duck died. >wink<

Trials and Tribulations of a Newbie - Part II

After "Joe's" brush with death with the Amtrack train I found that I didn't want another slow stick. I had been doing pretty good with it, had some nice landings and I had the plane doing pretty much what I wanted it to do so I decided to risk a step up. After browsing the hobby shop for some time and consulting with the very helpfull staff I settled on the GWS E-starter. Ailerons! I can handle that! Standing there, holding the box I daydreamed of lazy barrel rolls, Immelmans, inverted flight, and split-s's. It was the same cost as the Slow-stick so I figured it was a great bargain! Fortunately the electronics from the Slow Stick survived...

The plane came together very nicely...took just a couple of evenings which included a very nice black and ghost ship grey paint scheme. Looked a lot like the WWII spotter planes. I took her up for her maiden flight and she actually did wonderfully! I had a 5mph wind to cope with and found she handled it nicely. My runtime was pitifull tho...had only 5 minutes. I had started an approach for a landing and about 50 feet from the strip it just kinda stopped in the air! I settled it down right there and the closest thing to damage was a few cactus needles in it and a broken tail wheel. I had read somewhere in this forum where a guy had converted his E-starter into a tricycle landing gear set-up so I took it home to do just that. I borrowed some parts from the mangled slow stick and the set-up turned out quite nicely and the CG needed no adjusting.

I really, really wanted to fly the next weekend (I got the bug bad now...) but the wind was pretty fierce. The New Mexico State Song makes reference to the wind here. We went out to the airfield to see if the wind was a little less strong there. No such luck...even the sparrows were grounded... Not willing to go home just yet we went down into the valley down by the Balloon Fiesta Park. Hmmm...winds aren't near as bad... So I took out the plane and convinced my very skeptical girlfriend to give it a hand-launch. She was a natural! The E-starter did very well in the wind considering my very limited skills and a few mistakes that I was able to quickly recover from. Even got a couple of loops in... Coming in for a landing and at about 4 feet from the ground it got hit by a very hard cross-wind and it literally slammed into the ground upside down! Now the wind wants to play with it and starts rolling the plane across the ground. The ground was asphalt and this foam doesn't hold up well to it. Easy enough to fix tho except where the tip of one wing got shaved pretty good. The cowling is destroyed however....

But I had been reading the night before about the Tiger Moth 400....I wonder if they have one in stock at the hobby shop?

They did...and that's another story...

Nearly forgot a picture of it. This is just before it's maiden flight...