October 2008 Archives

Fall Indoor flying in the Golf Dome

|
| Comments (1)
Just got back from an indoor flying event at the Golf Dome in Winnipeg. As it was the first of its kind, the late evening start (10PM until Midnight) and we are still in October, the crowd wasn't as big as hoped, but still a lot of fun was had. We start with Harold chomping at the bit, eager to get up as soon as the last golf ball was cleaned up:

harold_waiting.jpg


The field was BIG. It took my little Citabria nearly 10 seconds to fly end to end. Lots of height to try loops and inverted flying (my elevator is not big enough / set aggressive enough to hold the plane inverted).

big_field.jpg

Here are some gratuitous airplane shots.

yellow.jpg planes_chopper.jpg foam1.jpg

The plane of the evening was the Cub. There were 2 of them; Harold's and this one. Harold was running something like a huge battery and claims to be able to get over an hour out of the pack. He took pleasure in slowly chasing a few planes around, had half is stab sheered off by a helicopter and finally was grounded after a full head on with a 3D Excitement.

cub.jpg

Repair Parkzone Citabria Landing Gear

|
| Comments (0)
Over time, and after many rough landings, the thin wire gear eventually starts to tear the styrofoam where they are inserted. The result is sloppy gear and a plane that doesn't sit level or straight. Eventually, the gear will be so far back that the risk of the prop striking the ground goes up. Here's how I fixed my plane.

First a shot at the problem.

stressed_body_gear.jpg

Note the enlarged circles where the gear wire enters the body. This is not factory, and is the problem. The expensive (and complex) solution is to replace the body. But that will involve removing not only the gear, but the motor, control board, main and tail wings. Not to mention redoing the decals. There's gotta be an easier way.

I removed the gear and used some scotch tape to change the wire to a blade. This increases the surface area interacting with the planes body and should reduce the amount of damage sustained during a hard landing.

taped_gear.jpg

Once taped, I slid the gear back into the slot from which they came. The result is nearly new landing gear - nice and stiff!

reinsert_gear.jpg
fixed_gear.jpg

One other repair I did while I had the plane apart was to remount the motor. I had a couple hard run ins with a concrete wall, and one with the floor that broke the propeller. The propeller was an easy field repair. Just pulled the old one off by holding the shaft with needle-nose pliers and twisting the prop off with my fingers. The new one goes on just as easy.

broken_motor.jpg
At home, I noticed the motor mounts had sheered off. So I simply reglued them with CA. I didn't use foam-safe CA since there was lots of left over white glue from the original replacement I did a while back.

fixed_motor.jpg

I was hoping to add a couple of flashing LEDs to the top and bottom for the upcoming indoor fun fly (since I had trouble staying focussed last time...). But I have yet to come up with a small effecient circuit that can blink 2 LEDs every second and use the LiPo for power. Maybe someday...







New season of indoor flying has begun

|
| Comments (0)
WHAM Indoor is back in action! Actually they were a few weeks ago - I just started tonight. A good turn out and some neat new toys on the block. Bind-N-Play is quite the thing with these pilots. There were 3 Vapors and I think at one point I counted 4 Blades flying. Once you have invested in the right transmitter, then you can purchase ready to fly planes that just work. Very cool.

PKZ3380-250.jpgAbove is the Parkzone Vapor; while the e-Flite Blade is below:

EFLH2280-250.jpgBoth use Bind-N-Fly technology - all you need is a DSM2 2.4GHz radio.

Upcoming note - next Monday (October 27th) from 10PM until midnight, the Golf Dome has been booked for flying! This should be lots of fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing what new models show up!

Here's the Details:
Golf Dome Indoor Flying!
Organized by: Mark Jurcevic
 I have been talking with some people and we have been able to rent the golf dome for some in-door flying.  We have a date set as a ( trial fly ) to see how it works out.  We have booked October the 27th, 10:00pm untill 12:00 midnight, a couple of things, I know this is a late time but it is the only way we are able to get in at a fair dollar rate, and get in at all! also I know this is a Monday and Buchanan School has its in-door flying on Monday nights.  If we get a good amount of people we change it to any day of the week and maybe a little bit earlier than 10:00pm.  It looks like it should not be any more than $15.00 a person, the more we get the less it will cost each of us.  I figured that sending a e-mail to you guys you can pass on the word!
Mark