Getting ready for the ETOC......

[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....

[randy archer]

Nice man, are all of those planes for etoc?
ryan

[Matchless]

	Quote:
	Nice man, are all of those planes for etoc? ryan

Yeah, I'm planning on taking all of them..... truth be told, one of them is for flying 'after' the ETOC.... maybe a hotel lobby or two?

[madmax]

YES! Jer, let me get my paws on that biotch!

[hpapilot]

How many planes is everyone else bringing? I'm going to have 2 pattern planes and 2 freestyle planes ready to fly. Of course hopefully I won't need more than one of each, but...

Oh, and I'll have to throw in a lobby-flying plane too.

Anyone have a bit of advice for me on the 270 degree roll-snap-roll-snap-roll-snap maneuver? I'm new to pattern and that one's giving me a little trouble.

[Matchless]

HPA, I'm not the right guy to give advice on that maneuver, however, my suggestion would be to get the sim running, set the speed on 50% and fly through the maneuver slowly... Then speed it up a bit until you are flying through it at regular speed....... I also found that I need to keep a little more speed throughout that maneuver than I had originally thought...

Oh yeah... I'm bringing 5 birds... Mainly just incase one gets damaged in transit.....

	Quote:
	YES! Jer, let me get my paws on that biotch!

You fly mode 1 bro?!!!!! Coolllll (OK, I know the real answer to that one LOL) Seriously, are you gonna bring your bigarse vid camera to the hotel again?

[hpapilot]

Yeah I've been working on it on the sim, but something just get lost in translation between sim and real world. It's just not gonna be my prettiest maneuver... the rest is pretty good though.

I've got bigger problems now, though. I popped open a kit to build my primary freestyle plane, only to find the foam horribly warped . Not just a gentle bend, but like a wavy irregular warp. I don't have enough Depron to cut another, so it looks like I'll have to order another kit and hope I've got time to get it finished.

Good news, the new motors will be here in the morning...

[Matchless]

RJ, I'd take that depron and see if you can't 'de-warp' it with a little heat gun finesse. At least thats better than waiting.... You can't really make it worse than it is if its already unusable....

The day off has been good..... Got Rush playin in the CD player and glue flyin'

5 Berg Recievers soldered up with Azarr antennas
3 airframes assembled with servos and motors in place on stronger mounts than I was previously using

2 airframes to go basic assembly.

Pushrods and control horns left to install.....

[hpapilot]

Nice... those planes look great!

As a matter of fact that's what I did... I managed to get it almost back to usable shape. It had some odd effect on the foam, though. It's like it made it softer... we'll see how it flies tomorrow though. No sense in not at least trying it out...

One more thing... I'm using fiberglass motor mounts (in the shape of an X) that glue directly to the front of the fuselage, with no room for fillets or really any reinforcement. The only thing I can do is wrap something around the edge of the foam, over the motor mount arms. Any suggestions for what to use?

[Matchless]

HPA, I'd use some fiberglass reinforced packing tape... Should be able to get it at the grocery store or an office supply store.

Well, I finished one airplane, all up weight RTF is 3.75ozs, I should be able to finish the rest tomorrow morning. Just need to finish bracing the last bipe and do all of the pushrods for 4 of them.....