What did you fly today?

[jackcutrone]

My usual.

[Oxotnik]

Had a great day at the field today. I flew multiple sorties in my FlightLine P-38, Flightline Spitfire, and Freewing Me-262. Here's a video of my P-38 trying to protect our airspace. I think that I probably scored a few hits...

And here're two Schwalbes flying together.

[Shirty]

Nice fellas.

[F106DeltaDart]

Awesome flying Oxotnik!

Yesterday our club had a model aviation day event, and opened up the gate to the public. I brought out my HK B-17, FMS 1500 P-47, the big A-10, and the Little Bird. After a great day of flying, with 2 sorties completed on each model, I started to pack up. Seemed like a fantastic day of flying was over. Wind was zero all day, with only scattered clouds and no forecast for rain until the late evening. And then all hell broke loose...

in a total time of about 3 seconds, the weather went from a slightly grey sky, to a straight up downpour. I've never seen anything like it in my life. All my planes were on tables underneath the canopy. The A-10 and P-47 had their wings off, With the A-10s in wing bags, and the P-47's sitting on a table. The B-17 still had the wings on from her last flight, and was on a picinic table under the shelter. I immediately moved the Little Bird to the center of the canopy to protect its delicate electronics as best I could. At first, there was no wind. And then there began to be 20-35 mph gusts... All I could do was hold on to one plane at a time. The A-10 ordinance and one one P-47 wings lifted off and blew outside almost immediately. As went to retrieve the wing, the wind lifted the B-17 up, and threw it into one of the support posts, and it caught the H-stab and did a full rotation around the pole before slamming into the concrete nose first. The the A-10 fuselage blew off the table and skidded inverted across the now-flooding concrete.

At this point, the rain was going sideways, and the canopy no longer helped. Everything was getting drenched, and there was nothing I could do. After about a half an hour, the rain finally subsided, and I made it to the car to get a towel, and start packing. It figures, I bring 4 of my favorite (and most expensive!) models to the field, fly everything without issue, and then this happens. I've been letting stuff dry in the apartment, so I'll have to see what survived, and what has to be replaced. I've got some foam scars/rips on pretty much everything, and a shattered nose bubble on the B-17, but it's all repairable, and least cosmetically. I haven't dared plug in the electronics yet..

[Shirty]

Man... hope it works out ok

[Boots Whirlygig]

Wow what a nightmare. I'd bury the electronics in a jumbo bag of uncooked rice for a couple days to absorb all the moisture before you test them.

[TiredIronGRB]

Wow what a nightmare. I'd bury the electronics in a jumbo bag of uncooked rice for a couple days to absorb all the moisture before you test them.

The receivers are the only pieces I would be worried about, I fly in the rain all the time and it doesn't bother the motors and servos.

[Boots Whirlygig]

I've lost some good electronics to water damage. I've had Minute Rice and Uncle Bens save quite a few, from phones and MP3 players to a receiver and servos. Now I use silica gel bags. At work we get a lot of shipments from over seas and they come with 3 pound cloth stitched bags of silica gel hanging all over, so they're free! You'd be amazed how quick they'll dry out wet shoes!

[Oxotnik]

Thanks, DD and Shirty. It was a good flying day. My first flight of the day (FL Spitfire) was a bit rough on the take off and landing (grass field), but all of my other flights really felt 'in the groove.' I flew the snot out of my Me-262 and P-38 yesterday. Man, I love those planes!!!

The Coffee Airfoilers, in Tullahoma, TN, had a big Model Aviation Day event on Saturday, too. The turnout from the public was really nice. They were buddy-boxing with the kids (or anyone who wanted a go at RC) and had a flight simulator running, too. There was everything from quarter scale competition routines to warbirds (me, mostly) to UMX to helicopters to FPV quads. My buddy and I (who are also high-power model rocketry enthusiasts) launched a 5.5" dia rocket on a titanium-spiked G-motor (only to about 800') and we each flew our own rocket-boost gliders (E motors for ascent and RC for glide/recovery). Rain threatened us all day, too, but held off until an hour before our planned finish time. Luckily, we sensed that we were about to get hit; so, we started putting planes away. When the rain got to us, there was virtually no wind; so, we had no problem keeping our planes and equipment mostly dry.

[F106DeltaDart]

The receivers are the only pieces I would be worried about, I fly in the rain all the time and it doesn't bother the motors and servos.

The receivers were pretty well sealed in the Fuselages, so I'm not that worried about them, the servos/retracts do scare me a bit though. I'll probably test them out tomorrow morning and see what works.

[jackcutrone]

Jeez Marie - sounds horrible. Hope that the damage wasn't too bad and is repairable. Electronics should dry okay, I would think. Hope so anyway.

[TiredIronGRB]

I found this old A-10 out on the tarmac, it was shot up a little and was nasty so I patched up a little and got her up and blew the cobwebs out of her...that was after a few flights on the B-26 and L4...I'm getting over 10 minutes on the B-26 with one of the new Admiral 4S 4000s:Cool:

[F106DeltaDart]

Jeez Marie - sounds horrible. Hope that the damage wasn't too bad and is repairable. Electronics should dry okay, I would think. Hope so anyway.

I reaaally hope so, especially double so for the Little Bird. Helicopter parts are so expensive.. and I will not be happy if I have to redo the setup.

[jackcutrone]

So, just in case you were wondering . . . it is not a good idea to grab the discharged lipo instead of the charged one to fly with. Flight lasted about 45 seconds and resulted in tail of the Carbon Z Yak 54 getting broken off. All glued back together and waiting for the next flight with a fully charged lipo. God, do I feel stupid. :Silly::Silly::Silly::Silly::Silly::Silly:

[Hardway]

Didn't fly today, but this is very recent...

[Hardway]

Flew the T-45 the same day I flew the Yak130 to warm up... What a great flying 90mm. Love the bright LED's. My wife got the shot of the high speed low pass. I was WOT after a 30 degree dive from about 800 feet, so it was moving!!! :Whew:

[TiredIronGRB]

I love than plane...

[TiredIronGRB]

I maidened some rescues I picked up last week, the P-47 was in good shape but the P-40 was an abandoned project...both are good flying planes.

[OV10]

So I don't normally post what I flew but in remembrance of the Sonic Modell Pitts Python..........:Loser:
Don't feel sorry....I got this bird on the real cheap a year ago. Made mods to the gear mount and motor mount bulkhead that had major design deficiencies.
Since the mods have flown it hard and then 3 minutes into this evenings flights the E servo quit functioning coming out of a monster 400 ft loop and it fence posted the motor 3 inches in the ground.
Salvage whatever electronics are good and consider its hangar space as half the room I need for the planned 84" Tigercat.
And then there is one civy bipe in the warbird fleet.:P

[RCjetdude]

Sorry about the crash CB.