Flying for Real..

[DaveB]

I think thats a 'wife' thing mate

Wish I had the terrain for u/c ops as I find hand launching a bit of a chore. Nice collection you have there

ATB
DaveB

[VEGAS]

Hi guys,

Took the P-51 up for five Lipos of fun this evening.

A lovely cloudy but calm and peaceful evening. No weather issues whatsoever.

However my PFC were hampered by a dickhead who had no control of his four golden retrievers.

One of which came bounding into me and grabbed the P-51 canopy in its mouth and ran off.

I can honestly say I've not been this pissed off for a very long time.

Took what seemed a lifetime to recover the canopy from the dogs jaws.

Thankfully no major damage, only a few small teeth marks and nothing the foam filler wouldn't sort.

Could have been a lot worse if the dog had decided to start mauling the canopy.

Gotta say I was proper miffed though. I'm not a violent man. I have far too much to lose.

But this evening I could have easily punched this dog owner in the chops. Thankfully I have good self control.

Anyway once the idiot had gone I had some good flying...for a while at least.

I'm sad to say my P-51 had its first major crash tonight.

All down to me as well.

I was trying a high speed low altitude pass. No more than five feet at full throttle.

It came shooting past me in quite spectacular fashion.

I broke a golden rule by not checking the path ahead.

Frustrating looking back because its normally second nature to me.

The starboard wing clipped a very small tree. Tiny but enough to cause a major deviation to route.

Proved fatal at the altitude I was flying.

Went cartwheeling into long grass.

Not major damage apart from a 5p size hole in wing.

Nothing that a foam filler wont sort.

That will teach me not to be so complacent.

[DaveB]

Hiya Eddie

I read that with my heart in my mouth. Having clipped a tree and gone spinning off into long grass, I feared the worst. If the only damage done is a dink in one of the wings and the odd scratch, all I can say is you've more jam than Hartley's I'm pleased it wasn't anything drastic though mate. Pee'd off as you must have been, you'd have been more pee'd off taking it home in bits as I did last time Still not flown it btw.. flown everything else BUT

Wasn't yesterday's weather glorious Today is odd down here. Been out for an hour with the Bixler and had a great deal of fun flying into thin, low, fast moving cloud. The sun has finally broken through (as I sit here typing) and the temp must have risen a few degs. I nearly came home after the second battery (40mins worth) due to the onset of hypothermia but thought bugger it and loaded up the last one to take me to the hour of flying Been reading various reports on the Bixler and most if not all bloggers say 'bin the standard prop and fit an APC/TGS 6x4E'. In for a penny, in for a pound, I've bought a couple I had to drill out the end of the prop to get it to fit on the shaft but it all fits snug. The benefits of the new prop (according to the bloggers) is an increase in torque, increased battery life and a 30% noise reduction. The downside, if it can be called a downside, is reduced top end.

Having put it through it's paces this morning, I can confirm it's a fair bit punchier. With the standard prop (which I'm glad to get rid of as it looks like a plastic moustache!).. unless you had enough speed, the motor wouldn't pull you over the top of a loop. With the new prop, it pulls it over like a train Other evolutions like getting out of trouble quickly are easily done too. Just a quick dab on the throttle and she's out of danger. As for the noise reduction.. well, it's 30% quieter than a fully loaded 747 at takeoff weight.. no change there Not sure about battery performance and this is gonna be difficult to quantify. I know I ran my old 3S lipo down to low voltage cutout and I've not done that before but that did include some 'spirited' aero's. The wings looked like a 7late7's at times All in all, I'm happy with the new prop As well as being more aesthetically pleasing, it's an inch longer than standard and looks proportionally better too

I put the glider out of harms way last week only to have the wife kick the end couple of inches off one of the wings. She hadn't noticed it was there My old mate 'epoxy' came out of semi retirement and I now have a nice, firm, straight join Took it up for a couple of batteries yesterday and it goes a treat. Absolutely no wind which required pwer on flying all the time and the 1000mAh 2S lipo's were tired after 7.5mins. Won't take her up today as the wind from about 40ft down is unpredictable and maneuvering a 6ft wingspan in such conditions is not funny while trying to keep it straight and level on landing. OK on the Bixler as it's big old ailerons work a treat but not so for the glider. The ailerons on the glider are 15 1/2" long but not very effective.

Right.. that's me done. Get that filler out mate and get her back in the air

ATB
DaveB

[DaveB]

As for battery useage.. my new Overlander took 63m45s to charge, my PKZ took 63m45s (coincidence??) and the old Tipple took 52m53s (this for a 15min flight.. the others for 20m). That's the longest the first two have ever taken to charge so I'm not sure if the new prop is saving me power That said, there was a lot of spirited flying.. perhaps more than normal so who knows

ATB
DaveB

[Tarasdad]

Went out and launched rockets yesterday. Here are a couple of shots of my Aerotech IQSY Tomahawk launching:

On the pad at ignition


Off the rod and going UP!!

[DaveB]

Ee-gads Barry. That's faster than I can muster Still.. I like the idea of 'fire and forget'. It makes it easier to explain when things go wrong

Thanks for posting mate and keep em comin'

ATB
DaveB

[Garry Russell]

Thar ya go Dave

Any trouble with trees and maybe Tony and his mates will help you out

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthrea ... -from-Tree

[DaveB]

I'd be happier if they'd just come and cut the trees down!

ATB
DaveB

[NigelC]

[GHD]

You need this guy on standby:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/s ... -From-Tree