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Post by thevon on Apr 12, 2008 18:18:22 GMT 10
I think that one of my purposes in life is to do stupid things that make other people, by comparison, feel much better about themselves. This thread will be for me (and others if they wish) to tell stories of dumb loser things they do in the field of R/C sailplanes.
This should be a very busy thread as I really never stop pressing ahead with new developments in this area.
I'll kick it off by relating my latest. You may remember dear Reader, that a couple of weeks ago I pranged the Minij at Bald Knob in inauspicious circumstances, then patched it up on the slope, then broke the wing joiner in spectacular fashion whilst light DSing at the gate. The fuse with one wing half speared thru a shrubby tree and made sure that everything that could get wiped off the fuse did indeed get ripped away and distributed over a large area of inaccessible thickly forested steep slope.
But we have the technology! After long hours of surgery on cardiac bypass, I breathed new life into the Minij. I learnt one good thing - while replacing the tail feathers I opted to re-cover them with the "New Stuff" clear film, and I tried covering each surface separately and silicon hingeing them. It seems to be great. Easy, strong and authentically hinge-ey.
I also decided that I would need the Hitec Rx for a new (used) moldie I'm getting, so I took it out and replaced it with a tiny MZK 5 channel thing. I thought of checking the CG but decided the Minij is so well behaved it would be unlikely to need it altered (you can see where this is headed already, can't you).
Today with a beautiful sky and a very light wind I ducked over to Woody Point to "maiden" it. It flew off beautifully as usual, but a bit "porpoisy". I was adjusting the spoiler and flap compensation values during flight, for the first time - so easy to do with the new Multiplex Co-ckpit. I worked out gradually that the CG did indeed need to come forward. It was too pitchy and I had a bit of a fright when I tried some slight spoiler for speed and it went a bit crazy, when I turned. Decided to land and fix it and as it came thru the gap in the trees across the slope, I confidently put the landing spoiler on and it went berzerk again ... my slow brain was still spelling out "what the ..." and hadn't even started to process the concept of turning off the spoiler ... as the Minij flipped about manically like it was auditioning for "So You Think You Can Dance", before vigorously noseing-in loudly on the concrete path below.
Dented the nose cone, minor tears to a couple of the wing bolt areas (again) and one stripped HS55 servo (again). Back to the shed for repairs now. Thingy!! I should have re-set the CG. Tried to fix the servo but got myself tied in knots, and I'm going to order a couple of the new HS45HB's which are same size, but have the Karbonite gears.
Makes me worried about my capabilities with the new bigger moldies!
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Post by skyboyken on Apr 12, 2008 23:42:10 GMT 10
Nothing wrong with your capabilities mate, just be careful with CG's is all!
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Post by ezza on Apr 13, 2008 12:42:52 GMT 10
Several of my previous posts belong in this thread.  Did a good one last night. Rebuilding dads' old reaper, for some hefty ds'ing. Glued the servos in, servo arms in, all nice and centred. Sanding off the spackle and smack, right into the side of the servo arm, snapping it off!! ***T!!!! That is how most of my building goes, two steps forward, one step back. Eric (total Klutz) |
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Post by thevon on Apr 13, 2008 12:53:47 GMT 10
Haha Ezza, very familiar feeling for me too! One of my good tricks is to lay it all out, cut the holes glue it all in, even finish the plane off then realize that I only had the servo arms pushed on, not screwed in. So I have to bore diagonal holes thru the EPP and fiddle roughly for ages to get the screws in and tightened!. It would be funny if I just did it once. Twice is a bit silly. But 3 times?  ... that is a matter for some concern! I think that with the family chaos, plus work and tossing around ideas in my head about jobs I'm planning, plus lots of obsessed glider thoughts my brain is pretty much a total mess! There were only 5 things on the list when I just went to Woollies and I still forgot the Baked Beans! I have to warn you guys, don't get your hopes up; I reckon I can easily outdo you with klutzy stories! But keep 'em coming ... makes me feel a BIT better, anyway! |
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Post by felix on Apr 13, 2008 13:08:48 GMT 10
that's some bad news on the minij again mate!!! lol if you don't laugh you may cry i guess. mine was building my latest bee.....core sanded for hours,the spars fitted,groove with aerial set in the wing,bi taped all over and then i gave into the idea of setting the ailerons into the wing. traced out the recess for them got it all spot on,cut it out,admired my "genius" (word used very very loosely lol) and then wondered what the wire was hanging out the trailing edge? .....of course i had cut thru my aerial a few times!!! .....oh and there was the time i launched the electra at hastings with reversed controls.....the time i left the tx at home (twice)....the day i discovered some glues don't like foam....the day i tried inverted flight with the electra and scared some picnicers under a tree i demolished.....the day at mt mee i decided to land in the grass and forgot about the barbed wire fence..... .....i've only been flying for 6months!!! i think i need to take the girls advice and take up golf!?  |
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Post by thevon on Apr 13, 2008 17:46:01 GMT 10
Jeez, not Golf!!! Well I enjoy reading your stuffups Felix! Nowhere near as much excitement playing golf! When I chopped the wingtips shorter on my Drongo I also cut the aerial. But I didn't realize and kept crashing it whenever I turned the plane side-on! Ah, well, we can take comfort in a saying I once heard: "The only people who never make mistakes are those who never do anything!"
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Post by felix on Apr 13, 2008 19:48:02 GMT 10
haha bet the drongo aerial prob took awhile to figure out lol!!!
you're probably right about golf.....i could be bad news with a toilet plunger let alone a golf club ;D
may be safer if i stick to chasing chunks of foam up and down hills.
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Post by swoopdown on Apr 15, 2008 16:25:21 GMT 10
Ive done plenty of dumb things in past but this has got to be one of by crowning jewles.
I bought my first electric Swift 2 flying wing (like a small combat wing) a couple of weeks ago. Its 800m wingspan EPP light as a feather and flys just like you would expect. My 3rd flight i was already doing everything i could think off. Jumping the model, Flying through the unmeshed soccer goal box, under the local watercourse walkway and even rounded up a flock of Cockatoos.
But upon landing i felt that it was coming in "too hot" (300grams at 30kmh I still dont know what i was thinking?) I was undecided to power on for another aproch or just let it glide and land in the grass. Before I knew it I had "landed" it in the small stream. Lucky the speed controler was the only thing fried.
Im going to take a while to top that stupidity.
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Post by skyzking on Apr 16, 2008 22:51:22 GMT 10
Last sunday went down to my flying club. We had a couple of new members on the site so the members asked me to put on some sort of a display.
So everyone gathered around to watch. I powered up and did a circuit at less than half throttle. Just before touchdown, i went to power up again and pulled a full vertical. Normally this thing will accelerate right up vertical and spec hight in less than 8 seconds. But this time it didnt, as i pulled the vertical and powered up it stalled. Just 1ft of the ground managed to pull it up back straight but it went down hard on its belly. That was no show for me, just a total moment of embarrassment.
So you guys are probably wondering what went wrong, stupid me forgot to charge his batteries and tried flying on a flat battery.... How good is that ha....
Abdullah,
who wont be doing that again...
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Post by thevon on Apr 18, 2008 7:55:38 GMT 10
I am sort of in glider heaven, as I have got the Wizard Compact BPV which a friend brought back from the US. But also I snapped up a Fazer F3B recently. Everything pointed to this being a "must have" thermal/ sloper/ light DSer and when it popped up at a great price I went for it. So that's the budget blown for a while!!! (Apart from the Ocelot I have on order too! !!!)
Amazingly after 6 weeks wait the Wizard turned up a day after the Fazer! So it was total overload with getting to know these planes and dialliing them in (both fully built so it was only fine tuning and radio programming). I could hardly sleep with the excitement. I spent many hours on the Fazer, setting everything to the specifications, setting up flaps and spoiler, up/down throws till they were all perfect. Then copied that program for the Wizard, and set it up too.
Then got the chance to go to Bald Knob yesterday. I was a bundle of nerves! Greg H agreed to come up to give me a hand. My usual flying buddy Sean was off on a DS adventure to visit Ezza. I assembled the planes and while waiting for Greg, switched the Fazer on to do a range test and stopped in my tracks ... the aileron throws were back to front! Left stick gave right aileron!!! I have ABSOLUTELY NO idea how I did that! Anyway, 10 minutes of fiddling and tape-measuring got it right. I maidened it, and the Wizard with Greg's help to dial the flap compensations in flight, and it was absolutely great. I'll hopefully post a report about each later. I know moldies are expensive, but they fly like nothing else and are exhilarating!
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Post by Vanders on Apr 18, 2008 16:16:47 GMT 10
Andrew lets hope you don't have to post anything else in this thread regarding your new mouldies!!!!!
Check, check, check again then throw. (like I never do!!!)
I threw the Moth off the other day still with the charge plug in..........DOH!!!!!
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Post by sean on Apr 18, 2008 17:32:04 GMT 10
He he! I did that once with my Bat!!! You'd think a big charge lead dangling off the wing would be pretty hard to miss  . On the Bat the rx is turned off by inserting the charge lead, so I had to just watch it circle tighter and tighter until it hit the back of the hill with quite a bit of speed... My biggest klutz story would have to be leaving my tx on the side of the road at Byron Bay a couple of months back and then driving off. But that story has a happy ending - someone found it and handed it into the police so I managed to get it back, but not before buying a new radio to replace it... |
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Post by ding on Apr 18, 2008 21:00:26 GMT 10
My biggest klutz story would have to be leaving my tx on the side of the road at Byron Bay a couple of months back and then driving off. But that story has a happy ending - someone found it and handed it into the police so I managed to get it back, but not before buying a new radio to replace it... That sounds like a total win!!!! |
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Post by sean on Apr 19, 2008 10:15:56 GMT 10
Yeah it was! I gotta admit I don't regret buying that new radio one bit, it's much better than my old 2610 and I don't think I would have forked out for it if I hadn't lost the old one!
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Post by thevon on May 5, 2008 19:02:03 GMT 10
Relatively minor addition:
Fazer has too much slop in flaps, so I decided to replace them with the really excellent JR 368's from the nose of the Wizard Compact - they're overkill for the Wizard V-tail. I took them out and found that the thin CA I'd trickled in recently had run into the area and completely glued a servo lead to the fuselage. Had to cut it off.
Removed the old servo mount plate, glued in a lovely bit of ply, then used Dremel and disc to cut a hole to fit the 2 smaller Hitec HS65HB's, on an angle. Cut the hole too big of course! Must have picked up the JR's to hold as templates! But it was OK, using washers to overlap the edges worked OK. Not worth mentioning really, that's a pretty average klutz result for me!
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... that is a matter for some concern! 
. On the Bat the rx is turned off by inserting the charge lead, so I had to just watch it circle tighter and tighter until it hit the back of the hill with quite a bit of speed...