Getting ready for the ETOC......

[Matchless]

I thought a few people might actually find this somewhat interesting (if you don't, then go find another thread to read .... After Biff put up his post asking people to put up pictures of their ETOC airplanes, I thought it might be halfway interesting for people to see what goes into getting ready. Granted, I'm not Jason Noll, but I think many of the competitors are going through the same stuff.......

First off, I'd been waiting to see the list of names (with my name on it ) and the aresti for the known sequence. Why? Well, I believe that you can design an airplane to excell at certain aspects, and some do things much better than others. In the prior months, I had designed 6 potential ETOC competitor airplanes. My hope was that after seeing the Aresti, it would be apparent to me which airplane would be best for me to fly the Known with..... and which I'd like to fly the freestyle with.

I've now pretty much locked down exactly what I'm going to fly, and I'm excited about it.

I had made a deal with a local CNC cutter to cut out my airplanes, unfortunately, he's run into software problems and my designs have too many lines of code to process correctly. So tonite, depron started flying. I printed my CAD drawn templates and used 3M removeable gluestick to stick the patterns to the depron. The stuff is great- comes off with a rub of alchohol and does not affect the paint I use.

My hope is to paint and frame a proto cut of this final airplane tomorrow and gear it up on Monday night after work. If it is in fact the right bird (I'll know really quick) then I'll go ahead and cut more. If not, then I know another design I like that will do the job well, and I have already made patterns of it....

The ETOC is about flying (not just building).... So today, it was nice outside. I had no indoor facility to fly in today, so with the air calm outside the house, I began working on elements for my freestyle routine. Thats always one of the most fun parts, because you get to be creative

I also spent some time on the sim practicing the known and doing the same with the little foamy stickplane a buddy made for me...

What have I already done before I started this post? Well, I know what gear I'll need, so I worked with my sponsors on getting my motors, batteries, servos, RCVR's, ESCs and carbon in. I also picked up 20 sheets of depron from the local hobby shop.

The other balancing act here is that like many of the other competitors, I need to spend time with the wife and my little girl so off I go into the land of baby bottles and diapers....

I'll post some more in this thread tomorrow....

[jwilliams]

Best of luck Jeremy, I am rootin for ya.
Jeff

[randy archer]

man i'm going through the same thing, motors just got here from hacker germany, been flyign foamies getting ready for about 2 months now and i feel good about it, i think i've found the Right foamy for me. i am really excited about the pattern and about flying with the top guys again.
been real stresful trying to learn how to mix music for my freestyle routine but i think i found someone to do it. practicing the sequence outdoors, i accidentally find myself correcting for wind and it's always blowin the same way here so i hope i don't make a habit of it.
ryan

[aglenn]

Im here in texas now doing some testing on a new bipe with Robert Youens and Jimmy Wade. I think that we have a really good flying airplane now i just need to pick up some dymond servos....

[TheRooster]

ac, i know dymond is out...i got the last 4 today...i think some of their distributors have them in stock though, the factory shut down so their kinda scarse right now...

[Matchless]

LOL, I feel like I started this thread and walked away from it......

Well, Saturday night, my wife got sick, and by Sunday afternoon, I was too. I had stuff coming out of every..... well you get the point. Its now Tuesday afternoon, and I've not eaten anything since Sunday morning.... Yuck....... Gotta get feeling better and need to go to work someday.....

On a more positive note, before I got sick, I managed to get my new bird mostly framed. I painted it also, but its absolutely the worst airbrush job I've done yet (thinned the red I was using just a bit too much) Somewhere over the past two days, my motors and some props were delivered as well. Still need servos.... Wondra, you better not have gotten the last ones!

I actually started listening to different music months ago, hoping to come up with some good freestyle routine. Unfortunately, the stuff a lot of guys fly to does not fit my style very well. Can't stand Enya, Celine Dion or Madonna..... But I've found some pretty good stuff. I have a lot of the routine marked out in my mind, and I've practiced many of the elements of it already. Just need to stitch the elements together.

[aglenn]

Jeremy call me tommorrow if you get a chance.

[TheRooster]

Still need servos.... Wondra, you better not have gotten the last ones!

I talked to helment and I indeed got the last 4.... they still have d60's which are 6.5 gramish quote]

[JAS]

what do these servos look like?

Jason
http://www.shulmanaviation.com/MicroServo.html

[TheRooster]

awesome dude, il be ordering some of them up =P

[Matchless]

	Quote:
	what do these servos look like?

About $10 more than everyone else charges....


LOL Thanks for putting that up Jason, if my original order does not come through I may have to order 'em up.

[TheRooster]

[quote=Matchless;198694]About $10 more than everyone else charges.... quote]

not if no one else has them in stock...

[TheRooster]

matchless... PM LJJ... he has a cnc router and laser action.
i'm sure he'll cut them for you if you send the depron to him. (LJJ started 3DFoamy.com)

[Matchless]

Thanks for the suggestion John : )


Today, when I got home from work, my servos were at the door. Thank goodness I got all correct servos. (had a shipment once in the past with a 9gm servo mixed in.... )

Anyway, I'm finishing up the new prototype, and its well below the 5oz mark. Exactly what I was shooting for. I just wish it was dead calm outside so I could get some stick time on the thing.

Back on the subject of music, I got the suggestion from somebody here to use the software Audacity to mix my music. I feel like I get better with it each time I use it. Pretty good software for free.

I also got some new APC props from E-Cubed RC to give a test with. They may be just right for the Axi 2203-46. I'll post more once I've run them.

[hpapilot]

I just got the news today that I'll be flying with you all in the ETOC. So, basically the same here... waiting on some more servos, test flying planes, and working on airbrushing. Oh, and of course, some of that practice stuff too...

I've been using Audacity for music mixes. I'm on something like mix #18 by now, but I've settled on the music. It really is a great program for this.

Looking forward to flying with and meeting you all there!

RJ Gritter