A Change Of Pace

There is an aviation museum near the municipal airport in Slaton, Texas. Several years ago I took a bunch of photos out there, of full-scale aircraft and a few of their display case models. I thought they would fit the theme of this blog well enough to post them.

FMS FHX-800

Here is a post-flight pic of the little FMS-800. It was calm enough to fly this morning, light winds for a change, and I practiced rudder and aileron co-ordination in turns. This plane is so light a crash won't do much damage.

 

Catching a Thermal

I flew the Hawk Sky this morning and it caught a thermal. It took a lot of down elevator to get it back. I almost lost sight of it. Here's a pic of the plane, back in my car, safe, after very nearly flying off out of sight and beyond recovery:

 This pic of my flying area might explain why this happens so frequently-- it is a big bowl shaped depression. And in hot weather the air rises from it like crazy. There is a small body of water at one end. I've photographed this basin a lot from the air, but this is what it looks like from curbside:

 Unfortunately this is not a designated flying field. I always wonder how long I'll be able to get away with using this for my RC flying. A few times cop cars have slowed down to look me over, but so far no one's told me to get out. This storm water catchment basin is surrounded by residential areas and houses. It's a whole lot bigger than the average park.

Second FPV

I got it posted at You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUpS5BFrVIE&feature=youtu.be

Here are some vidcaps:

 

Aerial Views Of Mae Simmons Park

I took these in Guerrilla FPV mode with the Firebird Stratos. I loaded the plane in the back of my car and took it out on location for a quick flight with the keychain camera. I've been wanting to try this for quite a while and I managed two locations near each other on the East side of town. You can see the brief video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9Gmw2Sqjs&feature=youtu.be

It's a shaky video due to wind. Landings were not easy-- not much room, lots of hazards in the form of trees, and very uneven ground.

Here are some stills:

 

A Very Stable FPV Platform

In dead calm conditions I flew the "used" Firebird Stratos from eBay with the 1600 mah battery. The very slight extra weight of that battery allows the plane to track very precisely. Next step will be to attach the camera. I suspect that I will have a very stable fpv platform with this combination. For my transmitters I'm going to try the new AA low self discharge nimh rechargeable batteries. So far, I have only been able to buy these online. I got 20 on Amazon. I'm still trying to locate Oxyride low self discharge rechargeable nimh batteries. Battery Joe's does not have anything like this in stock yet. As far as I know the Oxyride technology is proprietary to Panasonic.

The EZ Hawk..

... home again, after another fine flight!

This plane survived my beginner mistakes and keeps on flying. 

Yesterday it was calm enough in the morning for the Cessna Champ, and in the evening I flew one of the Firebird Stratos planes.
 

A Run of Good Flying Weather

I've been able to fly something just about every day this past week. I took advantage of very light wind yesterday evening to fly the EZ Hawk. I set the cg to make it nose heavy and used full throttle to maintain altitude. It flew fairly fast and I just made circuits of the park, like a pylon course. This plane went through a lot. Several months ago it crashed into a tree. I got it down but a wing had sheared off. I put the wing back on with hot glue and used reinforced packing tape to beef up the entire airplane, and reinforced the aileron hinges, adding cambered extensions in the process. When I was still learning how to launch these planes it went in nose first and split and deformed the foam forward fuselage. That was also repaired with hot glue and packing tape. I reinforced the forward fuselage internally with basswood strips. I added a lot of weight but the plane still flies well. At some point I will decide that it has given me enough service and I will strip out the servos and motor and speed control and Spektrum receiver. I've been thinking about a PNP Radian or a larger Dynam powered glider. There are lots of options. My objective would be something I could fly at a higher altitude and farther out, for better flight video.

Link to New FIrebird Stratos Flight Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp-7HXYeqq4&feature=youtu.be

This is the one I did recently with the new camera but I'm not sure the quality got across on the upload...

Good Flying Weather

Yesterday I had a very long flight with the Hawk Sky, catching a lot of thermals. I used an 1800 mah battery and that helped too. I should have had the camera on board because I really got a lot of altitude. I'm trying to find some binocular glasses that will let me fly these planes to about a thousand foot altitude. I might not be able to do any flying today because of heavy rainfall last night.  The winds are light but my flying area is going to be very wet.

I sold the Blade Nano QX on eBay. I just could not get the hang of flying it, and it was way too easy to lose when flying outside.

Down at the end of this page, on the Links Of Interest, I posted a link to an article about Riley Wooten. He used to have a hobby shop on 34th Street. I bought a couple of planes from him way back in 1969, and then began in radio control by buying my first plane and equipment from him in about 1982, I guess. Flite-Line Products was the name of that shop. My wife's late husband knew Mr. Wooten. They worked on planes together in the room I am currently using as my "office/hobby" area.  

More Flying

Reduced winds and a break in the heat have allowed me to fly twice a day for several days. I've gotten out the ultra micro T-28, the little Cessna Champ, the Firebird Stratos, and the EZ Hawk. I found a better pic of the EZ Hawk, showing the kind of prop I use on these type planes. It is the only way to go. 

This pic also illustrates how I modified the ailerons and reinforced the plane. 

Finishing photo sequence...

... and it is kind of annoying that I have to do it this way.

 Touchdown!

It was a nice flight and the video is really stable and free of motion blur. The Firebird Stratos made a very good platform!

New Camera Test

I mounted my new keychain camera with wide angle lens to one of my Firebird Stratos planes, as shown below:

Very simple! And it worked very well. I will upload the full video to You Tube when I have time but meanwhile I'll just put up vidcaps here. These are in sequence, from shortly after launch after gaining some altitude, to landing and total standstill back on the ground.

Looks like that's all I can get in one post! I'll continue in another...
 

Firebird Stratos with 1600mah 30C battery...

The battery turned out to be a Turnigy, so I guess only the connectors are Losi. Whatever, it works great. Fits well in the battery compartment, has little effect on the cg, and longer flights are now possible. The new camera arrived as well and although I have not tried it mounted to a plane yet, a test indicated that image quality will be much better. I hope to have a link to a new flight video soon.

Thunder Power Lipo

This evening I tried the Thunder Power lipo battery in the EZ Hawk. Now that I've got a way to charge this battery from a standard balance charger, I've got yet another power option for the EZ Hawk. Works great!

Charger Adapter

I got, from a seller on eBay, a "Thunder Power battery to Align charger 3S adapter"-- this handy connector allows one to recharge a Thunder Power battery from a standard balance charger. I have a 1350mah 20C Thunder Power lipo that I wanted to use in one of my planes but could not charge it until I found this adapter. Now I have another option for 3S batteries!