What did you fly today?

[davegee]

It's definitely a small world. The pilot's and navs that I flew with were a good bunch. I miss being a Boom and working at Northwest.

Totally agree! It was a thrill for me as an aspiring airline pilot to be picked up by Northwest in early 1981. I was flying DC-8 freighters for Emery Air Freight (now long-since defunct) but was a huge step up. I enjoyed for the most part all my 36 years as an airline pilot. I agree, good bunch of people.

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

Finally got a day off that wasn't blowing wind!! First flights with the new eyes and it was terrific!! Actually wore my old Raybans which is a first for me as I always flew without sun glasses. Today, with that combination, a new world was opened up. Good bye cataracts, hello new eyes!!

Grossman56

[DCORSAIR]

Flew the 700 Cobra and 80mm F-14 this morning, nice cool breeze early this morning was nice.

[Elbee]

Y'all, Yes, I went flyin' on Friday. First check flight of my Flightline 1600mm Corsair. What a beauty. Best, LB

[davegee]

Y'all, Yes, I went flyin' on Friday. First check flight of my Flightline 1600mm Corsair. What a beauty. Best, LB

Outstanding, Steve! Looks like a beautiful field to fly out of! Congrats!!

Davegee

[Coconut]

Lake Afton? I was just out there today around 10.

[Elbee]

We got out there around 3:30 or so. Left within a 1/2 hour. Ate in Yoder, yummy.

[jetfool]

Light under the tires Congratulations

[Elbee]

Thanks, Rex, it was a good day.

[Grossman56]

Got six flights in today, three on the Tigercat and three on the old Flying Tiger P 40. That B25 prop system is the only way to go! Coupled with the 760kv motors and the F7F handles like the racer she's modeled after. As for the P40, the 6s system doesn't fail to impress.





Grossman56

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got six flights in today, three on the Tigercat and three on the old Flying Tiger P 40. That B25 prop system is the only way to go! Coupled with the 760kv motors and the F7F handles like the racer she's modeled after. As for the P40, the 6s system doesn't fail to impress.





Grossman56

Outstanding Warhawk, must be a blast to fly. Manufacturer?

[Grossman56]

That's the FMS 1400 P40. I also have one done in FliteMetal.



I originally had the old style roundel on the fuse aw well, but eventually I want to put the Hat-In-The-Ring insignia on instead, the Squadron actually flew the P40 but I can't find any pics of it.

[Elbee]

Grossman56, That is one BEE-U-tiful model. Best, LB

[Grossman56]

Thanks, I wanted something a bit different as I already had a Flying Tiger. I'd tried Flite Metal on the P 51 and thought the P 40 would be a perfect 'next'. Thanks to Hardway, who generously donated a new P40 to the cause when I was down in the financial end of life. Such generousity is so rare and never forgotten, she's always referred to as "The Hardway P40"

Grossman56

[Elbee]

Really miss that gentleman.

[davegee]

Weather forecast for northwest Wyoming shows some SNOW coming! Not too much, but looks like changes are indeed coming. Beautiful morning to fly this day, though. I brought my FMS P-47D razorback out to get a couple of flights in. This is my newest jug, and I just now have 40 flights on it. A real pleasure to fly with the mods I've made to all three of my flyable P-47s. I try to fly it as scale as possible, and I love the big V3 Corsair prop which works beautifully for that kind of flying that I do. The FMS jug and the Flightline 1.6m Corsair are my favorite warbird fighters to fly for me.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got out the other day with the last few aircraft I've converted the Spektrum AS3X gyro RX's to Plus. I've done about 20 now. While that upgrade helped all the EDF's incredibly, didn't expect it would make much of a difference on the prop warbirds. Boy was I wrong! Helps substantially in take-off as it tends to track straighter with only a slight right rudder correction needed. Additionally, the airframe tends to remain level much easier on take-off, preventing it from lifting off early and stalling. In flight, rock solid, but it was before as well. Helps on landing as well, keeping the airframe and the wings perfectly level so you can execute an easy, fairly slow scale 2 point landing. I'm definitely sold on the Plus upgrades!!



Hey, how did that F18 get in there!! It was the last EDF upgraded to test out as my other F18 was getting all the air time!

[davegee]

Beautiful Fleet, Hugh!!

Davegee

[davegee]

Today I did my first test of dropping relatively scale M40 Para fragmentary bombs as they did from B-25s in WWII Pacific Theater. I have made up five of them, only four chutes at the moment, so I dropped four of them from a scale altitude of abut 300 feet, or about 25 actual feet above the ground, being this is a 1/13 scale aircraft. Again, even with these new bombs that had not been dropped by me before, they all landed within about a 10 foot circle, which would have been enough to play havoc with a ship or Japanese airfield. I don't see a problem at all with just carefully packing the chutes and bombs in the bomb bay, closing the doors, and it is ready for dropping in flight as soon as they are opened. I've never had one hang up in the bomb bay yet.

I'll probably drop at least 5 of these for any scale events I might do in the future, and about 4-6 of the scale printed 500 lb. that use the bomb rack to set up for dropping.

I've been busier than I thought with this stuff, especially since the best weather flying days for the year are rapidly closing. Today was beautiful and I got accomplished what I wanted to. I've had this model less that a month, and have 23 flights on it so far, with 14 of them testing different bomb configurations. I don't know if anyone else has played around with these parachute bombs for the B-25 like I've been doing, probably so, but I have never seen any photos or stories on them, myself.

Bomb Groups like the 345th were converted to low altitude strafing airplanes, and dropping bombs from about 200 feet altitude, sometimes even less. Thus, the parachutes for some of their missions. To be sure, these tactics were Extremely dangerous, and even the plane I'm honoring, Cactus Kitten, lost its crew during one of these raids in Indo China in 1945. This bomb group alone had almost 800 crewmen killed during the war, so that goes to show you the incredible courage these men had in trying to win WWII for the good guys.


I"ll attach a photo taken after today's flight of the scale M40 para frag bombs and somewhat scale sized 6 inch diameter parachutes I used for this test today. These are Estes rocket parachutes. I ordered two more so I can drop 5-6 of these at a time.

I hope to get some decent photos of these bombs dropping once I can coordinate with a friend to be out at the field and help me take some pics as I drop these bombs.

Davegee

[jetfool]

Entice Someone in your club with a steak and egg, pancakes early breakfast just for them to get up early and snap a few good pictures. Always works for me when someone asks for my help that early. LOL

[davegee]

Entice Someone in your club with a steak and egg, pancakes early breakfast just for them to get up early and snap a few good pictures. Always works for me when someone asks for my help that early. LOL

Good idea!

davegee

[Grossman56]

Got out to the field around 10:00 and it was perfect. no clouds temp creeping up through the 60's and no wind!
Took the Spitty out to make up for last Mondays gear issues and she flew great. On the landing approach, she does this sudden drop, similar to when you have your hand out the car window. I'm thinking she may be a tad nose heavy, any thoughts?? I usually fly with the 4500s all the way forward, maybe I'll try easing them back a 1/4 inch.
Anyway, she came home in great shape.



That's her in the middle with Jeff Deines, our club president flying.

Grossman56

[f4u ausie]

Got out to the field around 10:00 and it was perfect. no clouds temp creeping up through the 60's and no wind!
Took the Spitty out to make up for last Mondays gear issues and she flew great. On the landing approach, she does this sudden drop, similar to when you have your hand out the car window. I'm thinking she may be a tad nose heavy, any thoughts?? I usually fly with the 4500s all the way forward, maybe I'll try easing them back a 1/4 inch.
Anyway, she came home in great shape.



That's her in the middle with Jeff Deines, our club president flying.

Grossman56

Hrb 5000 all forward...4 me flys well.. i had 2 flights yesrerday morn(sunday here) first landing was a bit too slow.. droped a bit last minute.. (not so pretty).. second landing was an absolute greaser,,, bit speed ,and settled in nicely on mains then settled on to tailwheel.... i think most like a little speed on landing🥳