JPEE

Hey Mark,

Just saw this morning on the News that SpaceX had another successful launch, booster recovery......and put up 60 satellites!

Sadly, you’ve seen the the terrible News with the loss of the Koby family and other souls in the helicopter crash. The crash site is 13 miles from my home. Today I saw a first time showed in the USA press release with Koby in Italy speaking fluent Italian and found that he also was fluent in Spanish as well. As all that were lost, they held special gifts in their own live too. What a tragic loss loss of good souls.



on the brighter side I have been learning (self taught) how to edit film and photos by adding to taking the audible track in, out, or adding. There will be two here, one with the TC Magnum PI theme and one with a real Hughes warming up and then and the an added track of Hughes blades beating in the air. Just something to do :-)

BTW the Magum is like two min, after 30 seconds cut it off and give yourself a break, and......I had added the siren too as if the Police were after TC, Magnum and Rick. After you see the SLO MO your done, I didn’t realize how “grating” the Theme song is LMAO

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

Not only the booster and 60 satellites, but also they recovered both fairing halves (one from the sea and the other caught in the boat nets!). So they are doing very well for the start of 2020.

When I heard about the Kobe fatality I was wondering if that was in your area - so it seems it was. I'm sorry to hear it was so close to home. A terrible tragedy to be sure - and sad that it could have been prevented if they waited until the fog lifted.

At work now so will have to finish a little later on...

JPEE

Gotcha,

Aframomum

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Phew, that was a long later on!

I have been so slowly working on my F-16. I finally finished the wings and just today I was able to begin applying the decals to the wings. I got my decals from Callie's Graphics and have to say they did a great job with them. They give you the option to apply them dry or wet, with dry being a lot faster but with the disadvantage of not being able to reposition them once applied. I opted for the wet application so was able to move the decal around to get it sort of 'just right'. I've heard of guys that took several hours applying decals for the big F4 that Motion sells, so I can say with certainty I completely understand the time commitment for such detail.

I also finished the filling in for the elevators. The actual F-16 has a fully movable elevator but for some reason (to save money?) the 70mm comes with a conventional elevator setup. Even my 64mm Raptor has a fully movable elevator. So I'm following what some others have done and converted the conventional elevator to a full moving elevator. So I have to sand smooth the hobbylite filler putty, put in the connecting bracket, and paint the elevators and I'll be done with that part.

I still have to install the EDF unit, but I was able to get it all wired up and tested it out. Right now the EDF unit is a little bigger so I need to do some foam carving to get it to fit. So out with the Dremel and to the garage b/c it's going to make a bit of a foam mess!

Meanwhile I've still been practicing with my Raptor each weekend. As you can see it has been through some rough landings.

About my chargers - I did have 2. The first was my simple charger (Thunder brand) that had about 60 watts and had its own powersource, so I could take it to work to charge batts if I wanted to fly the next morning after work. The other charger is my main workhorse that I use to do my 4S and 6S batts. Its with this one I can parallel charge all 4 of my 6S at once. That's my GT series and is part of the Revolectrix family of chargers. I've not had any problems with that one. Its the cheaper Thunder charger that burned out on me. So lesson learned, cheaper charger was fine for 1-3S lipo's but not really for 6S.

Luckily it only cost me a set of blades ~ around $88. Ouch! But not a full crash so that's a relief.

Okay, works getting busy again. Nice that I have the next 2 days off so should be able to finish...

Mark

JPEE

Mark,

As the days march on it appears they say the Koby copter was flying when it smacked down. They judge that by the finding branches and brush in the motor turbine and the damage to both sets of blades. Loosely they are leaning to pilot error with, becoming disoriented in the fog.

I think you went the right way with the wet decals for sure! When doing a build like this, you need some wiggle room to fuss and get perfection I think.

I understand where you have to hog out the fuse for the motor to squeeze in. I foam and paint in the back yard on a small table on the grass then I don't have to deal with the small stuff chasing it and having ti cling to everything, foam is like GLITTER, it just goes everywhere!

I looked up your charger and it is a monster at 1200 watts, it will handle anything you want to do. My older iCharger 1000w was rated at 30 amps so I would take my 6S 5300 lipos and do 6 each at 30 amps and set them up as 5000s which maxed out the charger. My new iCharger will push 40 amps on each side and if I use both iand combine them in parallel she'll push 70amps waaaaay more than I need, but is nice to have a split charger so I can charge two different size batteries at once as we often do in AZ. Well take big helis and then our smaller 3S planes so we need two different batteries with us. But there is no doubt..... your charger is a beast for sure, happy for you brother!

After looking your gently used landing gear (they are so small) yes I see what your talking about, a good practice ship for landings.

On the F-16 I am short on knowledge regarding the elevators. I don't know for sure what your saying. It looks like perhaps the whole tail wing was an elevator, then you cut in the smaller traditional small elevators wing to move. Sorry I am totally ignorant when it comes to this stuff and "elevons" I think is the term, is all Greek to me. If I saw her belly then I might be able to understand a bit more.

Have a great weekend! JP

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

Forgive me but I'm going to vent a bit with this post.

I just read an article about the Boeing Starliner review that was conducted by a 3rd party investigation. The report states that software issues could have resulted in a catastrophic failure of the spacecraft if it wasn't for ground intervention. See link:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/0...r-test-flight/

For a company that builds satellites, the X-37B space vehicle, Apollo - this is a major disappointment. Plus NASA funded 6.8 billion between Boeing and SpaceX - which wasn't split equally between the 2 companies. Boeing received 4.2 bil while SpaceX received 2.4 bil - yeah, that sounds about right and fair. Not to mention Boeing doesn't have their own rocket - they have to use ULA's Atlas rocket to get to space.

So, due to a software issue they may or may not have to do a second demonstration flight to make sure everything is working correctly. Hmm, interesting.

SpaceX has had their setbacks also. Their Dragon exploded due to a valve failure in the draco thrusters during a test after the craft returned from a demostration flight to the ISS. So they had to do some rework and redesign to make sure the draco's performed as expected. They also had to redesign their parachutes and riser lines as there were issues in that system. But they work through those problems and come out with workable solutions and press on.

I also remember that Boeing had some software problems that resulted in 2 crashes of their new 737MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019. Currently all their brand new aircraft are grounded pending review to determine if they are safe to fly and their production has been temporarily suspended.

Apparently the issue is they have these very big engines on the plane and due to the size of them they had to move the engines forward and up on the wing so it messed with the CG and stall characteristics of the plane - it causes the plane to pitch up while in flight. So to correct this Boeing implemented software which corrects for this situation by pitching the nose down (to correct a stall situation). Only problem is the software uses information from a limited number of sensors with little back up and if the sensors send wrong information the software thinks the plane is pitching up or stalling so automatically corrects by giving down elevator to bring the nose down. Boeing didn't include in their training or info documents at first any mention of this new system, so pilots had no idea it existed. Very scary.

Why am I including this? Southwest's fleet primarily consists of 737NG and they were planning to purchase many of the new 737MAX's - I suppose to replace the aging 737NG. We fly Southwest each summer to visit my wife's family in PA. Scary thought that a company puts out a product that has so many hidden 'surprises' and the company states that the pilots should be able to handle a stall situation and it isn't the companies fault. So this does hit home as we could have been flying on these aircraft if they hadn't been grounded last year due to political involvement. I spent a good part of last night reading up on the crazy Boeing situation. If you want to glance through:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX

Okay, rant over...

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark, Thank you for this long and informative and detailed post, sincerely. I did read through all of the space related information, but skimmed the 737 info. As you said the unfairness of funding to SpaceX puts them at a disadvantage. Again being fair both companies have their problems. What’s disturbing and I know that’s the point you were looking for is that so much it appears seems to be taking for-granted that everything will go well be it hardware or software and there is this assumption “we” can handle anything that’s thrown at us at ground control for manned capsules or 737’s with their innate issues. Clearly that’s not true after two plane crashes and space vehicles not meeting their goals for docking and so on. Can we expect and error free man-made item.....I think not. If mankind has had his fingers on it it cannot be perfect, that’s understandable. But I kinda get the drift that there is a touch of arrogance from those in charge to think as I said earlier in this note “we” can get by and make it work from the ground, we’re covered and that would be the part that scare me.......if I flew which I don’t lol. It may sound silly but I am proud to be 72 and I’ve never been off the ground and I hope and pray I stay that way till I’m in the dirt. There’s a myriad of reasons why I choose not to fly. It stems from when I was a little boy. Being out of control and left to somebody else’s decisions and sitting there strapped in the seat is just beyond what I get every subject myself to. When I say stop, I want to get off, I mean right now...and nothing less. I did work up the nerve when I was 22 years old to go on a helicopter and I offered to buy all four seats so....... if I went up and I didn’t like it I could say set it back down, They declined my buy in for four ticket request for the helicopter. As fate would have it to weeks later A coworker that was with me that day threw a newspaper down in front of me that helicopter located at the Queen Mary in Long Beach California did go into the ocean and killed four souls sadly. Let’s just say I took that as a tap on the shoulder that I should follow my gut.

Thanks again for the good read and I certainly hope that they get the 737 cleaned up so you and your family feel safe.

John

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

Glad you liked my rant post yesterday. Not many things get me worked up anymore but reading that article was just enough.

I enjoyed your flying story - no, not the part about the crash that claimed the 4 lives but the part about you almost getting the nerve to do the helicopter ride. I've taken my son on a few of the tour helicopters the past few years. They all use the R44, which is a small, fun, and noisy helicopter.

I guess I have a much less apprehension to flying, probably stemming from my days of skydiving when I was in my early 20's. I was in the AF and a friend of mine came back to the barracks with a video of him doing a static line jump. That was all it took. The next day I went with him to do my first static line as well. The first plane I ever jumped from was a Cessna, converted to a jump plane. All the seats were removed (except the pilots) and you sat on the floor with your legs crossed. When the plane got close to the drop point the jumpmaster would open the door (it swung up and inward) and he would site the plane going over the airport. They would then hook your pack to a clip on the floorboard and you were ready to climb out on the strut under the wing. Once outside holding on to the cold strut with the wind blowing you, you would bend down and lift up while letting go of the wing strut and off you go! The line connected to the floorboard would pull out the chute bag and then the chute would inflate and there you were - all by yourself floating free. What a sensation!

I got a total of 26 jumps that year but stopped as it was quite expensive, plus I really started thinking of getting my own gear. You know, you can get really crazy buying things when your 22. And my attention switched gears to doing nitro boats. Geez, talk about expense! Especially back then (1993) as you only had local hobby stores and mailorder. I picked up a Hydroplane wooden kit and spent a week building it. It had an inline K&N engine that I could never keep running. I must have spent more time in the lake retrieving it then having it run! Fun times indeed.

And now were into helicopters, jets, and warbirds! lol

Speaking of heli's, I got my new blades and was able to take her for a spin this past weekend. It was a bit breezy but not a problem. I also played around with some mini auto's and this thing hangs for a good while. Only negative is...I so miss my torque tube. The belt definitely gives a quieter while different sound, but having to check it after so many flights gets tiresome. I really liked the set it and forget it ease of the TT.

BTW, I had to youtube some old video's of Magnum PI!! lol You did a good job of integrating the sound into your hovering video.

Mark

JPEE

Mark,

I didn’t consider that rant, I found to be sound statement as to why.....are these companies not meeting their responsibilities.

If I recall I think you posted photos of you and Mr G getting in the heli, am I recalling correctly? At the end of this post I will put my grandson first jump. I may have mentioned that he wants to become a commercial pilot and part of that is getting in flight time to keep elevating up the ladder. Right now he flies with an instructor generally twice weekly, yes it’s expensive but here in the next 30 days or sooner they want him to solo. Forgive me if I’ve already told you this story but the first time he went up with an instructor And he flew so well the instructor said I just can’t believe that this is your first time up on an airplane? Joseph indicated he had gone on the introductory flight three years ago where it was 30 minutes so flying in 30 minutes of ground school, I think they call it an introduction flight which I bought and paid for her a gift for him. The instructor still said, no way can you fly like this with a 30 min flight three years ago. Then Joseph told him and flies daily and had over 200 global flight on passenger airliners with the high end simulator I bought for him three years ago for Christmas. It had the yoke the whole dashboard petals on the floor flap and engine sticks it was an expensive deal took the whole desk to secure it all down and I would go over there and he would have his headset on and flying 727 or whatever but you’re a big liner and talking on the headset and I don’t quite understand how the whole system worked but that’s where you learn to fly. Anyway back to the present time he’s passed his physicals and once he makes that solo flight then he gets credentialed at that level. He wants to fly the jumpers plane that you bail out of to building his time.
Oh boy, in the AF you really got the bug, geezzzzz 26 jumps, man WELL DONE! The boats was quite a departure, but that sport will let you live longer he he. Remember when we were 22 years old we were all BULLIT PROOF!

Your heli looks sweet! I hear you on the belt. I have a belt on my 500 after flying hard some years ago those TT and gears get expensive$ so put the belt on while learning some 3D moves and it remains that was today. The 600 got stuffed a few years ago and I could not find TT parts anywhere because it is so old, so I had with the parts that came with it a complete belt drive. This last season at AZ I moved it back over to TT. These belts I am running at high Rsss and I have never had a belt failure in my life.

Thank for the kudos on my videos, it’s something to mess with when your stuck inside during bad weather.

Take care and he is in a green t-shirt.

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

Your grandson's tandem jump was great - I bet it was very exhilarating for him! I see the jumpmaster carried his own camera rather than having a separate person doing the filming.

I have to admit I never did a tandem jump. Back in the day you had a choice: do a tandem, static line, or AFF (accelerated free fall). I started off with the static line then moved over to AFF to progress towards completing the program.

The differences in the 3 were: tandem you were attached to the instructor and had both the freefall and parachute experience; static line you were by yourself with just a walkie talkie to tell you how to turn towards the airport after the chute was deployed, but you only went out around 4-5K feet and had no freefall experience; AFF you had 2 instructors go with you but you were on your own (no attachments to the instructor). Both instructors were on either side of you and you would perform a series of maneuvers you practiced on the ground (such as turning right/left, move forward/backward, etc). You would usually go out at 10,500 and experience both freefall and parachute experience. AFF was the most expensive as you paid for both instructors but it was the shortest route to graduate towards your license as you would go over the objectives you practiced on the ground.

You are a terrific grandfather to give your grandson so much exposure with full scale flying - both with lessons in the air and mockup training sim in his house. I remember the video you posted of his first flight on his birthday a few years back and he seems to be progressing just fine. What a great future lays ahead of him!

SpaceX is due to launch their next batch of 60 starlink satellites Sunday morning. They are really ramping up their satellite business.

I know I said last month that I wouldn't be doing any more jet purchases but I should have made that claim a little later... ho hum.

Arrived 2 days ago! (can you guess what it is? )

JPEE

Hello Mark,

10-4 on the jumpmaster having a wrist camera. What shocked me was the day we went to see him make the jump it was only then that I found out his dad went with him as well, which is a bigger shocker for me. His dad is a standup rough and tumble guy not big in stature, but has what it takes to jump out of a plane so that really added to a father and son jump.

Having two other instructors be your Safetynet While doing the AFF is really something! Well, you know the old saying....... it’s never too late, perhaps one day you’ll get that certification and follow that dream.

I’ll keep an eye out for the SpaceX launch or at least news of it in the morning, thanks for reminding me.

I should CUSS you out for the plane ID: challenge... LOL. For trying to make me figure out which plane you just had dropped it took me about 10 minutes going back-and-forth with your blurry picture with a split screen on my iPad and looking at the little bit of detail that was there to get me where I needed to be several times. I thought it was an F-16 but the sweep of the forward wing and the stabilizer and what looked to be twin engines side-by-side in the tail is what kept throwing me off. I wasn’t sure what it was whether it was the photograph that made it look like two engines or it was just a single engine but then I focused in on the screws that were above each motor and decided it is a twin. But I had to get to page 2 after going up and down page #1 a godless amount of times LOL making sure I wasn’t missing anything.
FINAL ANSWER: see pic, and you deserve it my friend. I know you know family comes first, and if there is something left over then.......do it and drop the hammer. It’s not like your going out for a new car or something. so happy for you and you enjoy 😉

Aframomum

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JPEE,

Great detective work there Mister J, you nailed it! No need to CUSS me over it!! lol

Sorry that the picture was fuzzy - that was very unintentional but worked out for the better ultimately. he, he.

You may remember but my second EDF was a F-18 made by FMS that I got back in February '14. It was a 3S powersystem and I remember it was kind of under powered. It started off with landing gear but eventually I converted it to handlaunch.

This one is made by Freewing and has a 4S system and it is much more powerful. I finished the maiden yesterday and was very pleased. This one is much different than the Raptor with landings - it likes to come in hot. I also need to get the CG more forward as she wanted to float forever down the runway. But she looks good in the air and gives me a different airframe to get used to.

Glad you enjoyed the challenge!

Last pic is of the old FMS bird.

Mark

JPEE

Mark, consider yourself cussed lol.....@&#$@@&**! ;-)


To be honest I was up for the the challenge, it got my juices flowing.
You know you have reminded me that some of Phil’s FMS jets have been a bit lackluster when it comes to performance too. He has installed some larger motors, or purchased fans with more blades, or with the bigger motors, new ESC or has adjusted his to got from 3-4-6 cell pack. He is always making them better.
Yes I clearly recall your hand launch F-18 and while the landing gear was finally removed it was then easier to land on grass. Back to your new plane, it really has a nice scheme, me likie...... I am glad you’ve caught the point that the CG is of because that really sets you up to “possibly” STALL and that would be catastrophic!! Hey my friend, that’s the fun part, the tweaking your ship to make it yours!
Glad to hear the maiden came off without any issues beyond the poor CG. Enjoy my friend, enjoy.

JPEE

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

So our new flying area has finally opened up - so excited!! We got to use it last weekend to do some flying and testing new equipment (more on that later) and it is sooo nice. I am talking about our newly opened phase of our subdivision. They finished up paving the roads so its available - plus its large enough to really let loose with some of my planes without having to worry about trees or houses. For our first outing I took the F18, Goblin, and my FW190.

First thing is I have roads that are perpendicular to each other so it makes take offs and landings easier to deal with if there is any wind. Plus being newly paved it is very smooth. No speed bumps either! I was able to do mostly practice approach and go's with the F18 but with my Goblin and all the new space I have I was really able to go crazy. First flight was in idle 1 but second I went idle 2 and let her rip. Big, big air and lots of full collective runs. It was lots of fun!

My new equipment I was speaking of earlier was installed in my old 3S Focke-Wulf FW 190. I discovered I currently only have 1 usable 3S lipo so the flight was limited to one. Shame really b/c I was having a lot of fun with the plane. I had picked up a gyro from Motion a few months ago and installed it in the plane for the sole purpose to try it out. The FW190 was a good platform as it was small and kinda squirrely and easily affected by the wind. After installing it I got caught up with other projects and sort of forgot about it - until last week. The finishing setup was very easy and I had to just make a few software changes to get it to correct in the right direction.

The first flight I had the gyro's pot set at low and the plane behaved like its old squirrely self. After landing I adjusted it up a bit and took off again. This time things were different. It was so stable it was crazy. I was able to do really low passes and she just skimmed the surface like on rails. Inverted was just as sweet. It was incredible. Landing was super nice as I just had to do some adjusting with the rudder to line up on the runway and let her settle down on her own. So smooth. I am really sold on the gyro for planes - definitely worth $19 bucks!

A few days later I picked up another gyro from Motion - this time one that has an integrated receiver and also comes with panic recovery. It has been a little bit more of a challenge to set up then the basic gyro I first tried out. I put this one in the Zero and hope to try it out tomorrow morning.

Wish me luck!!

Mark

JPEE

Hi Mark,

I am short of time to fully address your post, all good news I must say. I wanted to share a short video I made for you. Then like Tuesday I’ll get back with you.
My Tank is naked presently. I am going to age it down and weather it first, then apply and small exterior pieces shown below. Note the black streaks off the lower machine gun turret between the tracks. Just notice all of the streaking over the entire tank. The cameo comes that way, so you can see what he has done. MY caulk set arrived today, so I ave down or weather it and then put on the tanks exterior accoutrements.





JP

JPEE

Mark,


Congrats on getting a new RC Airport opening.....he he, seriously that wonderful for you. That you NS EW runways is spectacular. phil and I have that in the open desert but the average wind blow to the SE so we head into at due west. If the wind change to harder NS we can and do land that way too but the level minimal ricks is much shorter. Did Mr. G get a chance to get in some taxiing?

Sounds like you were in Heli’s heaven and got to slam your sticks....good for you! Question from my gray hair, does Mr. G know how to call 911 should a Goblin blade or something go awry he could get you help?

Phil and I had heard about those plane gyros. Horizons Hobby/ Eflite has been outing those in for years. The old timers in AZ all buy a HH Apprentice plane with that in there. My new 130 HH Heli has it in too. If your flying forward and push down full stick she will dip and then over ride you and level the heli. I am sure it would help me with my big P-51. I gotten to where I am doing pretty good, but I’d take the assistance in a heart beat. That’s a $300.00 plane. Yes it is dinged up and she looks 200% in the air LOL. That’s what I like to hear, flying on rails!!!!!! love it. The PANIC recovery system is in my 230 in Stunt too and both Jason and I use it from time to time. Worth every penny!
So let me know how it worked in the Zero!!??

Phil gifted me a Tank for something to play with while I am stuck at home for a couple months that I can run on the carpet and work on. It’s a

Heng Long USA M4A3 Sherman Upgrade Edition 1/16 Scale Battle Tank - RTR

This tanks has smoke, a huge sound card the puts out the engine sound, the tracks squeezing, smoke, Cannon fire and.......it shoots air soft BBs! Lastly, it has IR Infrared for War games with other Tanks. When your infrared hit’s the other tank, that shutters like recoil from the Cannon. Once it’s hit five times it’s dead and it takes five minutes or so to reset the disabled tank. There are a ton of clubs that hold battles, we ME not interested in that. Phil likes competition. He bought for himself 4 or 5 of the available tanks. The IR sits atop the Tank in a port and it can be removed when your not in competition.

Again my best to you on your new fly area.

Aframomum

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JPEE, JPEE, JPEE...

You are a bad man!

I have been watching Motion since December for their tank offerings and saw that most of their tanks were due for the first shipment in Feb/March. And you score a Sherman. Nice! I'm going to hold off for now but they do look really cool and have all sorts of features as you've described. I love the recoil of the tank when you shoot a BB. Does yours have a decent amount of smoke? Some say depending on the model it may or may not be really noticeable. Crazy but almost all of Motions stock is now out of stock - boy, they sold like hotcakes! Maybe later down the road for me...

I am currently editing video I finally took this past weekend - my camera was either too high or too low so need to cut out all the sky-only shots. I did have a bit of a misjudgement with my new field - there is an area that has trees on one side and as fate would have it my approach was directly over them. It really messed with me so my landings were steep, hot, and not very pretty. Later as we were leaving I saw another street that would have been much better to use for landings as it really didn't have any obstructions in the way. Oh well, next time.

My Zero with the gyro - couldn't really tell a major difference. I didn't have much time to adjust it but I feel it may do better without one. I plan to pull it out and try it in the F-18 (after I repair the gear on that one). I may pick up another stand-alone gyro and try that one in the Zero (same one I have in the FW190). This particular gyro (integrated receiver) I had some issues setting it up with my radio. They want you to assign the panic to your bind button but my older DX7 doesn't seem to have in the settings an assignable letter for the bind button. I need to talk to Motion and see if they have any suggestions/help with that. I do believe the F-18 will benefit from a gyro - and since the plane doesn't have a rudder I'll just use the aerilon and elevator control from the gyro.

We didn't take George's plane to taxi (no room in the car!!) but he did bring a few other planes to play with. I learned from my finger in the prop incident that George needed to know how to use the phone to call for help if anything were to happen.

Back to video editing...

Mark

JPEE

Hey Mark,
Tank smoke turned on bench test.

Aframomum

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Hi JPEE,

That's exactly what I was looking for - thanks much!

Right now I am looking at 2 German tanks: Panther and Panther Type G.

What is it about me and Axis craft? lol At least with my jets I seem to lean toward the American types...for now.

On other fronts my son has spring break next week and we decided to visit his papa...and also see a few museum ships while were there. Planning to see the USS Yorktown, USS Laffey, and the USS Clamagore (Patriots Point). So today I spent the morning working on my wife's car doing maintenance. Replaced the spark plugs, serpentine belt, air and cabin filters, and oil change.

I remembered why I hated working on 4 cylinders - no dang room in the engine compartment! My knuckles are torn to heck trying to get to some of the bolts to loosen the alternator to release tension for the belt. Yup, no simple tensioner to release to get the belt off. But on the bright side, the spark plugs were nice as they had those coil on plug arrangement...made for an easy plug swap. So tomorrow will be rotate and balance tires then an alignment and we'll be ready.

Don't know if you heard but last Friday night SpaceX had a launch to do an ISS resupply mission. This was the last time they are launching their first generation Dragon capsule. Every other ISS resupply will use their new Dragon capsule that is the same design as their crew Dragon. The original Dragon would approach the ISS then be attached to the station manually by the station robotic arm controlled by an astronaut. With the crew Dragon design it will dock automatically. The launch time was 11:50pm and I got to see it from the house. See link for story:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/0...or-final-time/

Mark

Aframomum

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So I finished my video editing. Whew. lol Had to remember how to cut out sections and splice other sections together.


Zero had unbalanced prop blades from an earlier nosed in landing...

JPEE

Happy Saturday Mark!

First let me say thank you for sending the flying video with you and George out there, that was cool. It still made me very nervous as you would come in and land with all of those 3 foot steaks on each side of the road at the curbs edge, no room for slop they are my friend you’ve got to hit the blacktop and stay on it. That’s not to say that it’s not a great area to fly because it is! Also, as I mentioned earlier I concur with coming in over the trees and height and depth perception really comes into play. Beyond that your planes that honestly I probably couldn’t even fly are really lacking if it’s the right term Axis, As you were coming in that was playing the sea with the wings tipping left and right up and down it look like it was a real handful I commend you on your expertise to be able to get the bird down in right side up, almost. One little tip over it’s not the end of the world the rest of your flights were straight on.

Thank you for including the information on SpaceX I had heard it on the news that they were upping their game but I did not have an opportunity to watch any video so your information was great to catch up with.

You will catch up and get your tanks in due time. Phil has taught me how to whether the tanks exterior with sharks which arrived a few days ago but I have not had an opportunity to sit down and apply them. I have been watching numerous videos on how to age down or whether be at airplanes but the special video is on tanks which I will include for you I think you’ll find it interesting. You will catch up and get your tanks in due time. Phil has taught me how to whether the tanks exterior with sharks which of arrived a few days ago but I have not had an opportunity to sit down and apply them. I have been watching numerous videos on how to age down or whether be at airplanes but the special video is on tanks which I will include for you I think you’ll find it interesting.


Working on your wife’s car sounds like a real knuckle buster! The upside is look at the money you’re saving and time by not taking it into a garage and having a ya-hoo work on the car and you don’t know the quality of his expertise. I am that way on lug bolts. Whenever I have tires put on a vehicle and I watch the guy with the air wrench just run down the bolts I take my own torque wrench set for the factory spec for my particular vehicle until the guy use it and get my five dollar tip. There’s no better way to ruin your routers then a guy at a tire store just running down the gun but God knows what the foot pounds are set up with your not the same for every make and model and car and rim etc.

Other than that and rain rain and more rain not much popping here. At the airport I used to fly out before it was closed and is now re-opening and we’re waiting to get final signatures from the Army Corps of Engineers that is responsible for the damn basin area and used to flood out in these types of heavy rains. One of the guys is a heavy equipment operator and went out and just leveled acres and acres and rerouted the water that runs daily but also enough to handle the overflow in this type of a storm. Our runway and our benches and tables in parking lot used to get under 1 to 2 feet of mud in the worst scenario now there’s nothing, see pics.

Take care my friend and your environment and I would assume that they’re closing your schools as well? I know you’ll be vigilant for you and your family God bless and take care under these trying times.
JPEE







JP

evdreamer

It is good to see you both are still active on here.

I have been in the dumps recently. My girlfriend was arrested on Feb 20th. I don't want to say to much publicly here, but she was a victim of a crime in Alaska about 10 years ago. She was charged as a victim in her own criminal case. Fast forward to now, she was supposed to fill out a document with the Nebraska government when she decided to move here for me, but didn't know she had to do so because of this old case. She was screwed over by the public defendant because she couldn't afford a private lawyer. She didn't want to do that again, so I had to sell her car and some of my investments to pay for a lawyer. It is a federal case, so almost all lawyers were asking for $7500-10k for a retainer. Paying for my lawyer, my arbitrator, and her lawyer has really stressed my finances the past couple of months. My closest friends had a wedding shower today, so I told them what was going when she didn't show up. I was nervous telling them because I didn't know what they would think of her. They were very supportive. It felt good to talk to them about this and not keep it bottled up anymore. I thought I would let my online friends know what is going on too.

Nick

evdreamer

Mark,

Your son is getting big from the last time that I saw a picture.

John,

That is cool your grandson got to skydive. I thought about doing it last year, but never got around to it.

Your tank is cool with the smoke and sound. My dad wants to get a model train engine that has all the engine noises, but can't afford one on a fixed income.

I am going to try to get on here more this year.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Welcome back Nick!!

I'm really sorry to hear about the troubles you and your girlfriend are going through now. Nothing worse than legal disputes to deal with. Hope you are able to sort through it all and everything works out.

Yes, my son is growing up. Sad to say. I do sometimes miss the early memories of when he was a lot younger. But these times do have their perks as well. Soon he'll be flying his own model aircraft which will be very interesting. I'm just trying not to push too far too fast.

About your father and his wish of getting a loco with sounds, tell him to check out modeltrainstuff.com - they have Klarna which is similar to Affirm but you break up the payments into 4 equal payments. I've used it in the past and it is a nice option for payment.

JPEE,

You old scoundrel - trying to entice me with Motion's newest release...ships!! That I'll have to pass on definitely as some of those suckers are in the 800 dollar range. Yikes! I'm still planning on tanks in the future. Thanks for the weathering vid. Motion is excellent in the video's they produce for their products - I so appreciate the time they take to make them as they are very useful.

I hope everyone is doing fine during these uncertain times. So far for Florida the schools have closed until April 15 (may change to be later) so we are doing homeschooling. Restaurants (dine in) are closed, only available for take out. Disney, Universal, SeaWorld - all closed. Beaches are also closed. Bars and nightclubs closed. No curfew for our county but the city of Orlando (Orange county) has implemented a curfew - we are figuring that is coming soon. Grocery stores are opening in the AM and the lines waiting for them to open is unreal. You really cannot go out in the later morning/afternoon and expect to get anything - have to get there when they open.

Things haven't gotten too crazy at the hospital - yet. I am expecting things to increase in the next few months.

Take care everyone and stay safe.

Mark

PS - I can't believe our gas prices are down to $1.90!

evdreamer

We just had our first case a few days ago. I am working from home when I can. My job is considered essential, so I am lucky to still have a job. I am kind of a hermit, so I am used to spending most of my time at home. I worry about my parents since they are up there in age. They keep going out to shop even though I offered to do it for them. My sister works at a hospital in Colorado and they only have a few cases so far. I still can't find any TP.