Getting ready for the ETOC......

[Matchless]

Still using AFPD, but G3.5 is good to. I just have AFPD on my home computer. I love the Reflex that Donatas posted in one of the other ETOC threads. Great sim foamy. I had to trim it a bit to make it fly like my birds, but I like practicing the known with it.....

Finally made some headway on the indoor practice facility.... Besides the 4-6 hours we'll get in the Multi Use facility next weekend, AGlenn has gotten us access to a gym on 1 night a week, and I've gotten a church near my neighborhood to agree to check their schedule for any openings between ball practice.

[c.meijer]

OK i´m on my way to ETOC
signed the paper with Thunder Tiger and AXI this week.
Trying to lern my Sharks the right movs now:-)

see you in Tholedo

Claes , the happy "Swed"

[Matchless]

Well, today I got a call on my cell that was very welcome!
My neighborhood is across the street from a church with a large gymnasium. The church is a private school during the week. I spoke Wednesday with the facility administrator, and he agreed to check his schedule for openings between ball practice. All total, he found openings for me on 3 days of the week (one of them 4 hours long) and agreed to let me use the gymnasium. As long as people are there and no practice is scheduled, I've gotten permission to 'help myself' to their gym.

I guess it just goes to show that a friendly introduction and a handshake can 'open' a lot of doors. I plan to use the facility up until the competition and always leave it in a nicer state than when I arrived.

YEEEEHAWWWW

[Matchless]

Got some time to build this weekend. Made some mods to my precision airplane to allow it to better handle the maneuvers in the routine. I'll find out tomorrow if they worked when we hit the indoor facility.

A huge source of frustration as of late has been my paintjobs.... Seems they just keep getting worse and worse..... The paint on the bird I framed yesterday is just plain ugly..... Soooo for that reason, and in order to keep my Precision airplanes light, I may just leave them bare.

We've now got everything covered for travel to the event as well....

[TheRooster]

hey matchless, dont get so caught up in building, and tweaking, that you forget to practice! ....practice practice practice..... all the best

[Jr.]

Good Luck Jeremy

[hpapilot]

Yeah I've come to the same conclusions. I'm putting just enough paint on the planes to get a good reference view on them. I've got a few choices of plane. One I'm just now testing out, and I think has a lot of promise, but there's just no time (at least for me) to waste with a lot of tweaking. The primary plane isn't perfect, but I think the practice is most important. We'll see though...

I flew down to Fayetteville to see Mark and pick up some batteries Saturday, and now have my charge rig set up, so now I can get in the gym and fly non-stop. Definitely helping...

RJ

[Matchless]

John, you're 100% right, however the plane has to perform right! I guess I can't help it - a designer's project is never done.... : ) though I am done for now....

The good news is that the tinkering paid off bigtime. I have an airframe now that I trust and feel comfortable with. Performance is much better than anything else I've flown and should allow me to fly the routine to the best of my ability..... I'm going to cut my competition airframes over the next 2-3 days and begin assembly this weekend. Like I mentioned before, I'm going to keep the paint simple (light and easy).

AC and I hit the gymnasium yesterday that I just got access to. Its a bit small to fly the whole routine as it is basically a 'half' basketball gym with a 20 ft ceiling, however, its been very good for practicing most of the maneuvers. I'm also thinking that flying in the smaller gym and then going to the bigger one at Toledo(even though its small compared to most indoor venues) will help with spatial awareness.

Sim practice is paying off as well.....

[Matchless]

Ok.... what was starting out as a pretty crappy weekend has ended up pretty productive.....

I managed to get in approx 9 hours of practice... (though I don't think my flying is showing that yet.....

I also managed to cut and paint 6 airplanes..... Ended up production lining the things. For painting, I switched to Tamiya paints like CKoerner was using. Ran the brush at about 40lbs and painted away..... I like how they turned out. I kept it really simple too to make it go fast and to keep the weight down....

Here are the birds.....

[ChrisHays]

super cool jeremy ...

[hpapilot]

Kinda quiet around here... everyone must be out practicing!! I'm lucky enough to have spring break this week, so every morning I've been in the gym practicing. The freestyle is looking awesome and the pattern is coming along nicely. Now I'm building the new airplanes, and testing out some new secret weapons....

How's it going for everyone else?

RJ

[Matchless]

Yup, it has been a bit quiet...... I've been practicing heavily and building like a madman...... I've got my fuses built and carbon'ed, and I have tomorrow off work, so I plan to spend the day assembling the rest of the airframes....... They'll be done soon enough....
Practice was pretty good last night. I managed to make some pretty significant leaps in the precision routine....