Training, Day 2

Got home from Training Day 1; plugged the plane and the transmitter into the charger, and let them charge overnight (8-10 hours). Then, while the lights were still shining, I unplugged their batteries.

I got the to field this past Sunday, banded her up, fueled her up, switched her on... nothing. No radio response at all. This makes Drew a sad panda... so I pulled the battery out and tried reconnecting.. checked the connection at the receiver... nothing. So, I threw the battery on a field charger.. and the beep beep beep 5 minutes later meant we were ready for flight.

2 Flights : no problems. 3rd flight was a diff story. Al took off, pointer her at the sky, 3/4 throttle, nice upward gradual left turn... and thats how she stayed. Completely lost interest in what we were doing with the transmitter... just kept climbing, and climbing.. and slightly turning... and 12 minutes of shock and horror later, the little black spec that was the purple plane... disappeared behind a tree line, some 3+ miles away.

My plane... is gone.

"Put your name/number in it?" -- "Nope"
"Set your fail-safes, in case the Tx/Rx stop talking to each other?" -- "Nope"
"GPS/Transmitter in it in case you loose it?" -- "Nope"

Al was very kind and drove me around for an hour or more looking for it. No luck. 2 other people at the field went out looking for it.. no luck.

So, I'll put an ad in Craiglist.. in the lost and found... and hope/pray that someone finds it and checks CList, or calls around to the RC clubs in the area.

... speaking of sad panda...

Reserved : First day of flying!

Reserved

Taxi!

Saturday.. beautiful day, plane's ready.. instructors... who knows, they *might* be at the field :-)

I packed up and headed over to the Klendestine field. I figure, worst case I just taxi around for a while, making sure that the control surfaces are all good to go, the right direction, etc.

I got to the field, and it was empty.. no one in sight; so I set up to do some taxi'ing. Turns out the Rudder was reveresed; but that's easy to fix on my new radio! By the time I got it back to the line Joe pulled up in his truck. He'd been out looking for Lawn Mower parts and figured he'd swing by to see if anyone was out; Just my luck!

So, he helped me tune the engine up a bit, and volunteered to test fly it for me. Got it taxi'd out; and up... about 50' when the motor quit!! He was able to level it off and came in for a nice soft landing on the soy beans. Matter of fact, it didn't even get near the ground.. lol! Soy beans ftw!

No damage to the skin; but as we were trying to get the motor started again to try again the prop nut popped and since I didn't have *any* tools with me, we were dead on the field.

He did have some suggestions for alterations to the aleron servo disc to get more throw out of them; which I plan to handle before going out again tomorrow.

Thanks for your help Joe!! We'll get her in the air :-)

It's here! It's here!

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present.. the Air Tronics RDS8000 !!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!! :-)

Im very excited today to be installing a brand new, 2.4 Ghz Receiver into the Purple Plane, to accompany my new Transmitter. As you probably read earlier, the 72Mhz Tx/Rx that was in the plane before has been illegal, according to some group called the "FCC"....pfft.... for many years; and so I had to get a new one.

This Radio has a ton of butt kickin' features that I'm psyched about!

Cool Feature 1 : Thottle Kill Switch.

"In the old Days", we used to use the trim on the thottle control for shut off; so to start the motor you'd put the trim all the way up; and then you could adjust the actual throttle however you wanted, and it would stay started. To kill the motor, when it was on the ground, you would drop the trim to the bottom; closing the throttle. We thought we were clever :-)

This new radio has a special button on it called "Thottle Kill", which is configurable to an extra % of the servo throw, tied to the thottle channel. So; I set mine to 30%; and when I press the button (for 3 seconds), it closes the throttle an extra 30%! So, this means I can use the throttle trim for what it's meant for; and I won't have to keep track of the trim setting I want it at when in flight.

Cool Feature 2 : Built in Timer.

My Dad and I used to use kitchen timers, that we would clip to our belts, or to the Transmitter, set 10-12 minutes on them, and when they went off, it was time to land (Fuel Guage, basically)... Since *so* many pilots had to do similar things, they got wise and built a Stop Watch, and/or count down timer into the remote! So, I have preset it to 10:00; and with just 2 button presses I can start it running :-) No more forgetting the timers!

So, I'm thrilled.. I have the new radio; I bought Air-Tronics, which according to everyone I talked to/what I read.. meant that the servos I had in the plane would just plug right in... Never underestimate what 15 years can do :-)

Needless to say, they don't. So I went to my trusty Interweb, in search of what I needed. Turns out, this receiver uses "Standard" Z connecting servos, which all manufacturers of radios have switched to. That's great but what about me? Am I looking at $15x4 to get new servos in the plane?

Nope! Enter the Airtronics 99400Z... Adapter for old-school Servo's to Z Receivers.. for those of us with Equipment almost as old as Airtronics itself :-) AT $3.99 a piece, I did spring for all 4, installed the new receiver and I'm ready to roll... err, Soar!!

Good news, or Bad news first?

Fine, I'll start with the good news :-)

I took my Lakers plane over to the field to meet Andy on Sunday. He was there, along with Al, Fred and a few others. Enjoyed watching a few guys fly early in the day, before the wind picked up.

Andy had another student there as well, a Junior High School aged boy and his father. He decided to fly with this student first, since his plane was ready to go and had been up several times before. While he was up, he asked Al to come check out my plane and give it a test flight.

Al was checking controls and noticed something odd... Right Rudder, turned the steering wheel left... Left rudder, turned the steering wheel right... uh-oh! Plus, there wasn't enough throw on the ailerons, or the elevator. So, a minute or so later the plane was apart, the tool drawer was next to us, and Al and I spent an hour fiddling inside the plane. Special thanks to Joe for helping bored out the wing wood around the Aileron arms so they'd have more room to move.

Eventually we decided there was too much work to be done at the field; and since Al had nothing going on, he invited me and my Laker's plane back to his shop to complete the work.

We moved servo's around, replaced brace wood, and control rods, drilled a new hole in the fire wall and moved the steering arm to the other side so it would properly move when the rudder moved.

So, appx 4 hours (total) later I was back in the car heading home, Al's business card in my pocket, and a with a plane that was "approved" by Al for flight :-) I'm going to meet him some time this week to get a test flight in.

Now, for the bad news. The FCC outlawed Wide-band radios years ago; because frequency 42 took up 41,42 and 43! Everyone that flys these days uses either a narrow band radio, or a 2.4 Ghz radio (like your portable/cell phone). So, to fly at the club (legally anywhere, really), I need a new radio :-(

I've been looking, and I think this one is the one I'm going to go with, the Airtronics RDS8000, a 2.4 Ghz model.  It comes with 2 Receivers, so I can run two planes off of it right off the bat, with programming for up to 10!  It also has a bunch of simple built in features, like a timer as part of the radio.  Innovation.. who knew!  There are many other things, that sport and semi-pro flyers enjoy in a radio, which I will likely never need.

So I'm going to call the hobby shop today and see if they carry it, and go pick it up if they do.  If not, I'm going to order online and hopefully use it this weekend.  

Ill post pics of the changes to the servo configuration, and the radio as I get them :-)