What did you fly today?

[JamesonC]

Went and did some flying at Nall in the Fall yesterday. Good to see James as always and all the Freewing/Flightline products in the air!

[F22trainer]

Fiji to LAX.... ten hours or so in Coach seating.

That’s some serious fanny fatigue...

[F22trainer]

Monday morning at the plant.

[F22trainer]

[F22trainer]

Let’s just say someone got a workout and I was the coach. Great day at work, but everyday is a great day whenever you get to do what you enjoy.

[Aros]

Wow no kidding! How great would that be?!

Flew my F-18...My left flap servo isn't behaving but at least it was on the ground and not when deployed in the air...Time to bypass the blue box and see if that helps.

[F22trainer]

Wow no kidding! How great would that be?!

Make your way to Phoenix - I’ll put you in the left seat.

[Aros]

Don't threaten ME with a good time mister!!

[Hugh Wiedman]

Finally got the maiden in on my 90mm F-16 Wild Weasel along with 4 additional flights, after dodging hurricanes and bad weather, and taking time out to create 4 tail versions and messing around with the gecko ESC and changing it to a Castle; all this causing me to put it off for 4-5weeks. And man was it an adventure!

I installed the upgraded 12 blade 4068-1835kV inrunner and set the CG at 118mm (118-126 recommended). There was no wind and decided to take off without flaps. The grass had been mowed the previous day, leaving cut blades and there was dew on the grass, and wouldn't you know it, she couldn't get her fat arse off the deck (and our runway is a good 6-700 feet!) Finally got it up on the 2nd run and it required 97 clicks of up elevator trim! We proceeded on each flight to move the CG back, and although it helped getting off the runway, as I finally got the CG back to 135 by the 5th flight it still required 60 clicks of up elevator. Of course at that tail heavy CG, even though it flew OK, landing was a bitch as it raised it's nose severally as power was reduced.

So I'm back to the drawing board and hope to "re-maiden" it Friday. I have to keep the CG back in the 120-122 range (otherwise landing this creature is impossible), which means I guess that I can only take off of grass by using flaps. Maybe all the loose grass blades and dew slowed the take-off run down, but has anyone else had an adventure getting this thing off of a grass field without flaps? I was planning on changing out the tail for each flight, but until I get this set up so it is flyable, I stuck with the Wild Weasel the first day, and boy was it wild. Just changed it to the Arkansas Razorback for the next go around, so we'll see if I can figure this thing out. Assisting me on this first maiden was our club's most experienced jet pilot, who's flown and owns large turbine F-16's and smaller F-16's (but not the 90mm Freewing), and this was all completely foreign to his experience.

[F106DeltaDart]

Flew the mechanics to my 600 UH-1N twice yesterday. Still getting gains tuned in, but luckily not seeing any ground resonance issues like I did with the fuselage installed. Still need to pull data and look at the vibration levels, but it looked and flew pretty good.

[F22trainer]

It was a week of ‘oh you’ve got to be kidding’...
But today was really cool because I got to finally meet Pan Am legend Chuck Glass and hang out with Piper Chief Test Pilot Bart. 2 people I have wanted to meet for years. And I did not know it, but Legacy owner Bill Inglis was also actually part of the Pan Am team when it was in Florida before the hurricane. Wish I had been with these people then, but oddly enough I started my instructing with many of the pieces they had just left behind when I began at Pan Am. I feel like it’s the circle I have been destined to fulfillment. While some fought to fill the power vacuum I believe I have taken the higher road.
I’m a lot closer to the Piper family than I realized, and they let me know it today.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got lucky and went out yesterday and flew an odd arrangement of planes. Got in 4 flights each yesterday of my F-16 (which was the re-maiden of that beast), my new red Avanti with an afterburner (which was it's maiden), the FMS 1700mm P-51 and my repainted Stinger 90 with it's new RC Geek afterburner. The afterburners were awesome, now installing them in both my F-4's.

Finally found the correct settings on the F-16, CG at 120mm, and take-offs with 1/2 flaps worked great, although we did have a perfect 10mph wind from the east which is our best grass runway (for some reason, without flaps I can't get it off the grass runway). Changed the tail from the Wild Weasel of last "maiden" to the Arkansas Razorbacks. Next outing will go with the Lone Star Gunfighters.

The maiden on the Avanti was perfect, what a sweet flying plane. Last 2 flights went from the 5000mah to a 6000mah with no discernable flying differences, expect of course more flight time.

The Stinger with it's new afterburner was outstanding and the P-51, as usual, had a nice, large scale presence. I fly the P-51 with a 4000mah battery instead of the normal 5000mah because it performs much better with the lighter battery and hardly any loss in flight time. Vertical climb is much better and it flies with a lower throttle setting-making up the difference in time.

[Elbee]

Got lucky...

Hugh, You never fail to impress. Keep killin' me. Best, Steve

[Aros]

Been rocking the FW 90mm F/A-18C all weekend long. Now that I have replaced the elevator servos I have all the confidence in the world with her and she's been rewarding me with some fantastic sorties! Such a thrill, and I love how jacked up people get when they see her taxing on by to or from the flying field. Especially the kiddos!

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got another 3 flights each in yesterday morning of my FW Corsair, Avanti, Stinger 90 and the 62" MXS Heavy Metal. Unfortunately, the rains came around 12:00 and cut the day short, but any day you get some flight time in is a great day.

Still having issues with the left flap on the Avanti sticking in the landing flap position after landing. I had reduced the delay from 4 seconds to 1.8 sec, but that didn't help, came in stuck. 2nd flight, I reduced the deflection 10% and it worked fine and on the 3rd, returned the deflection to the original point and cut the delay to 1 second and worked fine. My next 2 flights would have been with 0 delay, but the rains came, so didn't really get enough of a sample to figure it out. All I know is that until I do, I'm not making any slow, low pass with full flaps and then raise them up and continue flying;---could be "all she wrote". Had the same issue on both my B-24's, each time with a different flap, but reduced the delay to 0 and haven't had it since, but only have about an 8-10 flight sample. I'm thinking it might also have to do with the servo going too far on full flaps and getting stuck, as this has never happened (thank God) on take-off flaps. It's still a little disconcerting thinking 1 flap can stick, hopefully not during flight!

The Avanti is such an easy flying and landing plane, I give it a 1 on my BPF scale. That's the butt pucker factor scale, with values of 0-10, where 0 is chilling on a yacht with a brew and a cigar while being waited on by the Dolphin Cheerleaders (Dolphins don't need them anyway since they won't win a game this year) going to 10, where 10 is arriving in prison on your first day and finding out that your bunk mate is 350 pound Bubba, who hasn't seen a women in 25 years. I'd rate the Stinger 90 at say 3 (landings are a little faster and I don't want to repaint it again), my F-4's around 4-5, the Corsair at 5, Spitfire at 3, all my 60" Extreme Flight planes at 0 and the 90mm F-16 at 12 (just blew through my scale). Maybe Motion should adopt this scale and in their descriptions or specifications, a BPF should be given for each plane instead of the less accurate description of beginner-expert.

[F106DeltaDart]

This weekend I drove down to New Waverly for BEST (Best electrics in south Texas). Got in quite a few few flights on my LX B-25, Huey, Cub, and Bell 47. Lee Ray of RC Roundtable took some awesome photos of my Bell 47. Was a great event, and can’t wait for next year!

[Hardway]

NICE NICE NICE!!!!!!!!!!

[Hoomi]

That’s some serious fanny fatigue...

Seriously. My bony butt starts complaining about airline seats after an hour or so.

Back on topic, though, and today I made the maiden flight of my new Mavic 2 Zoom drone. Only issue I encountered was the micro SD card I borrowed from the Spark was too slow for the Mavic 2's 4K video, so I have a UHS 3 card on its way. Awesome camera drone, and I hope to get some great video of Union Pacific's Big Boy steam locomotive at this location next week, when it departs Tucson. This is the Cienega Creek Crossing on Marsh Station Road, just east of Tucson. I don't know if they'll run that massive steamer over the old trestle, or due to its size, run it along the newer route following the creek, but this location should be fantastic for either. Both lines are UP right-of-way, and still active for mainline traffic.

[Turbinefancy]

Did some low level acrobatic FPV and scenic tour around our field and matched with soothing music. Enjoy!

[wvrailfan]

I flew an old friend for the first time this year. I quickly remembered why I liked this model so much. The FMS 1400mm P-51 is an all round good flying model.

It also made me realize that I will miss Motion carrying FMS. I really like their 1400mm war birds and Motion is the reason I have the ones I do. I know they have good business reasons, it is actually the lug heads at HH causing the issue, so I hope they try to fill that 1400mm size range with some other good warbirds.