What did you fly today?

[F106DeltaDart]

Outstanding, F106DeltaDart!: One of my favorite airplanes, got around 15,000 hours in them during my airline career. Great plane! I might look into that HSD kit.

Good luck with the Big Bird Fly-In in two weeks. I hope it does great and wows the crowd there!! Please post some pics of the event and your airplane!

Cheers

davegee

Thanks, and will do! Very cool that you've got that much time in the real thing! If you have any desire to get the HSD kit I suggest doing it soon. HSD only made ~100 kits worldwide. They are huge (quad 90mm, 40 lbs, and about 10 ft long). All the PNP versions are sold, but HSD USA still has a few airframe kits. Very expensive, but they are the only real option out there for a 747. They are quite an endeavor to bring to the field. Fuselage and wing both can separate into 3 pieces for transport.

[Elbee]

Completed the first flight of the HSD Boeing 747 converted to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft today....

F106, OUTSTANDING. Bravo Zulu, Sir. Best, LB

[davegee]

Completed the first flight of the HSD Boeing 747 converted to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft today at Thunderbird field in Ft Worth. Overall, the flight went well. Still having some retract issues in flight, despite them working fine in ground tests. It is definitely a runway hog on landing, using every bit of the 500 ft runway even with application of braking and reverse thrust. Next flights will be planned for the Waco Big Bird Fly-In in 2 weeks.

Outstanding, F106DeltaDart!: One of my favorite airplanes, got around 15,000 hours in them during my airline career. Great plane! I might look into that HSD kit.

Good luck with the Big Bird Fly-In in two weeks. I hope it does great and wows the crowd there!! Please post some pics of the event and your airplane!

Cheers

davegee

[F106DeltaDart]

Completed the first flight of the HSD Boeing 747 converted to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft today at Thunderbird field in Ft Worth. Overall, the flight went well. Still having some retract issues in flight, despite them working fine in ground tests. It is definitely a runway hog on landing, using every bit of the 500 ft runway even with application of braking and reverse thrust. Next flights will be planned for the Waco Big Bird Fly-In in 2 weeks.

[Grossman56]

Good for you Dave!
I had the new Spitfire out last week and she flew great! I had the same old guy moment when landing. I have to remember she needs about two clicks of throttle after touch down to keep from pulling left and standing on her wingtip. Caught my mistake immediately just as I saw her start to move left and added the throttle, she immediately corrected and it was a near perfect landing, not bad for a maiden
For some reason, this one has an XT90 plug on the ESC, which will plug into the EC5 but I was told there were an awful lot of reports of burn outs because of guys doing this so I just ordered a couple of adapters off Amazon. Yeah, I could have changed the plug, but I don't trust my soldering skills that far.
Went out today and the wind came up and the temp went down. If I can't turn the airplane on the ground because the wind is too strong, then I don't fly

Grossman56

[DCORSAIR]

DCORSAIR. Wow, very realistic. Great work, beautiful paint, and the pilots are outstanding. Best, LB

Well Thank you sir, the paint is actually stock as is comes out of the box from Roban, they do a pretty good job on these scale helicopters that MRC sells for Roban, I've had several of the 700/800 size kits and they all looked great and fly really good, not a lot of accurate scale details but for a guy like me who likes to put them together and go fly, you can't beat em.

[Elbee]

DCORSAIR. Wow, very realistic. Great work, beautiful paint, and the pilots are outstanding. Best, LB

[DCORSAIR]

I added pilots to my Roban 700 Cobra and got several flights on it yesterday, for some reason adding pilots makes it fly better but the issue is I have Army pilots flying a Marine Cobra...,...

[davegee]

Davegee, Hope your P-47 is accepted. You build fantastic replicas and should be shared for all after their fight days are over.


EvanD, Thanks for the advice, I am working motors today in the backyard. Cleaning, adjusting hope to try them out at the field tonight.

Wildman, As always your models look great and you fly them all with authority I haven't gone EDF yet but like the FW ME-262, partial to WW-2

Elbee, Hate to hear of the towns economic woes, but glad you and yours truly are moving on to a great adventure and getting a flying club close by

Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. I'll probably put out a query and some photos to the folks at the USAFA next week, to see if there is any interest.

cheers

Davegee

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hugh Wiedman

On a rather sad note: all is about to shut down here at the Elbee Works late next month.

Dont go too long, idle LB hands sound dangerous, probably more for your CO.

For me it is move back to my hometown and for Tamms it is a move out of Hutchinson. The current economics both local and federal have really taken a toll on this community.

If you gotta go, you gotta go, (From Jurassic Park and the out house)! Get out while the gittins good! And as Dorothy said, "There's no place like home" and you no longer can say "You're not in Kansas anymore".

This will certainly give me the opportunity to fly much more often as the field will be 15 minutes

Now that sounds like the best reason to move. Maybe we'll get to see that Corsair get into the wild blue yonder!
Hugh

Best as always, LB

[jetfool]

Davegee, Hope your P-47 is accepted. You build fantastic replicas and should be shared for all after their fight days are over.


EvanD, Thanks for the advice, I am working motors today in the backyard. Cleaning, adjusting hope to try them out at the field tonight.

Wildman, As always your models look great and you fly them all with authority I haven't gone EDF yet but like the FW ME-262, partial to WW-2

Elbee, Hate to hear of the towns economic woes, but glad you and yours truly are moving on to a great adventure and getting a flying club close by

Best Regards, Rex

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got out yesterday and got 20 flights on 5 aircraft. It was hot as hell, 96, but the winds were lite in the morning for the first time in forever. Winds kicked up in the afternoon to 15-20 mph and the Mig, F4 and Euro handled them like it was no big deal. The FW 190 and F18 on the other hand were dancing to the music, even with gyros. All in all a great day. F4 on 8S is the way to go!

[Evan D]

Glow and sometimes gas need tweeking depending on weather, mostly colder or hotter. We richened them in winter and leaned them out in summer. If you didn't change your setting, probably both ide and full throttle needles you are too rich and that's why it's dying.

[davegee]

Understand completely. Went to field today with four planes. 2 nitro, 2 electric. Nitro wouldn't stay running ,new plugs last fall but wouldn't stay running today. just about ready to give up on nitro.
I got one flight on my electric then realized I hadn't charged my other batteries since last outing. Good thing field is only about 15 min. from home. A beautiful day so I either got in a hurry or old age creeping up. I want to believe I just got in a hurry.
Seems to me glow plugs lasted longer 15-20 years ago..They start right up but quit after removing glow lighter and running 20-30 seconds. They ran fine last year.

Up and away Rex

I hear ya, Rex! I flew glo and gas for about 13 years before I started dipping a toe in the then- new foamie warbirds. The first ones were almost pathetic, by my standards, and I waited until much better offerings came out, especially ones I could personally modify to my likes. You can probably tell I am all about history and accuracy, and that pretty much summarizes my getting into rc airplanes back in 2000. Eventually I left the glo and gas world, but I still appreciate all those who still do it with such amazing results. But I'll stick with the foamies, jets and props as long as I am still able to safely fly them and enjoy doing it.

I flew, or was going to fly two airplanes this morning, my "Ol' Cock" P-47D and my LOU IV P-51D. The Jug flew great after a few minor adjustments to the tailwheel steering, and when I tried to get my LOU IV up and running, it would bind, but I couldn't get the ESC to boot up, no matter what I tried at the field. Never had this issue before. Of course, when I put it on the bench at home to try and suss out what the heck was going on with the ESC, OF COURSE, it started up just fine!! I couldn't even get it to malfunction putting different batteries in it, including the new ones at the field that didn't work somehow.

Oh, well. I did get 4 great flights with Ol' Cock, and landings were much better. I got into a bad habit when I couldn't do much flying due to the weather, of taking off too much power on the flare. Now, I keep some power in as I used to, and all is good now.

Speaking of Ol'Cock, I am looking into the possibility of asking the USAF Academy if they might like to have the model as a hanging display for the cadets. My main motivation is that the pilot of that airplane in WWII, Lt. Gen. Donavan Smith, had a stellar career in the Air Force during WWII and 30 years afterwards. Unfortunately, he suffered from a brain tumor and passed away at the age of 51 in the 1970s. I'd like to honor General Smith's life in some way, as he is buried with other notables in AF history like Gen. Curtis LeMay, and Brig. Gen. Robin Olds in the Academy cemetery.

We'll see if they have any interest. That's fine if they don't, but I'll keep looking for a proper fit for this airplane. I have several planes around the country that I have donated after completing the flying career I had in store for them. So, we'll see.

Good luck with flying season this year!!

[jetfool]

Understand completely. Went to field today with four planes. 2 nitro, 2 electric. Nitro wouldn't stay running ,new plugs last fall but wouldn't stay running today. just about ready to give up on nitro.
I got one flight on my electric then realized I hadn't charged my other batteries since last outing. Good thing field is only about 15 min. from home. A beautiful day so I either got in a hurry or old age creeping up. I want to believe I just got in a hurry.
Seems to me glow plugs lasted longer 15-20 years ago..They start right up but quit after removing glow lighter and running 20-30 seconds. They ran fine last year.

Up and away Rex

[davegee]

Beautiful Dave. Watch those high winds, would hate to see damage Rex

Thanks,Rex. Yeah, these foamies are a real problem in the winds, especially the gear which is easily damaged and takes $$$ and time to get replacements. Most of the time, I'd "wave off" flying when I get to the field with weather like that, but this time I just decided to give it a go. After this one flew, I decided not to risk taking my E Flite LOU IV up. I'll wait for better weather in the future, which I usually do. In my old airline days, we used to have a joke that "why check the weather? We're going, anyway!" That was somewhat true, but we always had a backup plan to divert if it stayed as bad as they were forecasting. At least with RC, I can just put the plane back in my car and make the short drive home it I don't like the weather at the field.

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Beautiful Dave. Watch those high winds, would hate to see damage Rex

[davegee]

Flew my oldest FMS P-47D razorback this morning. Pretty crappy weather, but I decided to put it up in a pretty mean crosswind and turbulence. Took off great, flew great, but had one of the gear mounts pull out on landing. I had glued it in some time ago with some Hysol, but I either didn't use enough back then or it just wasn't up to the task today. I've got the mount gluing up with some more conventional epoxy, and it will be ready to fly again soon.

This plane is a replica of a real aircraft that flew on D-Day almost 80 years ago now, on June 6,1944. It has the full invasion stripes on wings and fuse. It had a couple of names: "I Wanted Wings" from a famous song, book, and movie of the time and another one on the fuse "Button Nose." From the few pics I have of it from 1944, I've tried to get it to look as much as it did then.

If the weather is good on June 6, I'll try to take it and another P-51 up in the invasion stripes as a tribute to this momentous day in history, 80 years ago.

I'll include some pics from this morning, and the real thing, around the time of D-Day.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Think you made a good call there Motion has stepped there game up on EDF and ESC choices. I’m for now staying 6s after talking to a club member with the 8s Zeus he said his 6s much easier to have fun with rather than 2 batteries the charge time involved. Nice thing with the J-10 is if I change my mind it’s just a simple EDF change to go 8s or I could throw my JetFan in for crazy stuff

Thanks for your input, shortround91. I have zero experience with 8S, although with this F-15 with its TINY battery compartment, 8S would be a No Go trying to get all that stuff crammed in there. I'm hoping the new hardware and 6S battery will do the trick for the type of flying that I do these days.

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

Late to the party,,,, considered the 1960 kv 6s for my f4 ,,as the upgrade,, but went 8s,, looks like 1960 is also very good,, let us no dave

Thanks, Craig. That is the standard issue for the F-15 models from Motion these days. My old 9 blade outrunner motor just wasn't up to the task, especially at this elevation (5000 feet) so I hope to get a good flight report on its next time I take it up. I'm hoping the parts will be here in my hands within a week. It should be a pretty quick remove and replace operation to have it ready for further flight testing. I think in the future, I"ll probably spring for the extra $$$ and just buy a complete and ready to go airplane, versus the ARF+ that I bought. It was worth a try, I guess.

Cheers

davegee