Saturday 28 August

Wind was the order of the day.... (Whats New?)
However, this did not deter the diehards from flying their planes and heli's.

Fanie managed to select the wrong plane on his TX and was forced to try land his little electric inverted.. Well actually, it just went inverted straight away and hit the deck. Not too much damage though, despite the circumstances. Tony had a battery fail on his little electric, but unfortunatley, that didn't get off as lightly.

The heli's were in full force however, and didn't seem to worry too much about the conditions. Happy to say that the heli's made it through the day without any incident at all! Sorry Wifly.. No spares to be ordered this week!

I myself was getting a little more adventurous with my HK450 and was having a ball.. they really are great little heli's (for the price!) 

Days are getting longer.. Spring is on its way! 
That can only mean one thing.. More flying!

Have a great week guys!

Handing Over

Greetings all!


Time for the handover..... Dirty Sanchez is now living it up in Durbs, so I'll be handling this Blog and reporting back on the flying as and when it happens (Hopefully everyday :) )

Haven't been out in the last few weeks, but I am sure I'll be back in the swing of things in the weekends to come.

Some exciting news firstly ... Wifly.co.za is launching their new site on the 1st of September!
I have been privelaged enough to give my 2c worth on the preview site and my first reaction is WOW! I don't want to say too much, but what I can say is that it now has a much awaited forum where we can discuss those matters technical, airborne discussion, rc banter, build threads etc..

All registered users on Wifly, should receive an email in the next couple of days with a link to the preview so you can also get a taste of whats to come.


Back to the flying.....

I decided to take the Gentle lady out to Jaysons farm 2 weeks ago as she hasn't had air time in quite a while.. Should have done a more adequate preflight though... have a look at the video below!



Anyways.. Signing out for now!

Sat 26 June 2010

Wow. what a nice day. NO WIND at all during the day. pure sunshine. perfect day for thermalling. Fanie and Myself with out old timers were playing with the thermals. bouncing in and out of them. Dennis would have loved it had he been there with his Bird of Time Glider. Shaun flew the crap out of his giles. really goes nicely. I managed to bugger up jasons trex 600 heli when i landed it and was fiddling with the radio to adjust the pitch and the headspeed was too high and it tipped over. felt like a right ass.
also flew my Micro Liadon(available from www.wifly.co.za) what an awesome little plane. zips around the field at quite a speed, and lands literally on a pin.
Was braai day as well and it was well attended even by the ladies. Nice to see them at the field again.
For those who dont know. Ill be moving to DBN on the 1st aug. So ill hand over this site to someone else.

Cheers
Dirty Sanchez

Sat 15 May 2010

Nice day. cant believe there were still clouds around, almost middle of winter. Fanie flew his jet again. performance not as good with the new edf. its also rubbinng against the shroud making a horrible noise.

Sat 1st May 2010

what comes after 2 days of rain? Monday....

So for the past 2 weeks its done little but rain. normally i wouldnt complain but its seriously cutting into my flying time...grrrr

anyway. this weekend come hell or high water i was going flying cos i had my newly built old timer and skyfarer to maiden.

got to the field. cold and miserable already drizlling. but not to be disapointed i set up the old timer and got it ready to go. Fanie hand launched it for me and off it went. a little vibration from the motor and spinner but nothing bone rattling. climb performance is good and the wing loading is incredibly low so itll fly at walking pace basically. Slight warp in the wing casuing it to turn left constantly. With the use of shauns car exhaust we pulled the warp out and it flew just fine afterwards.

as for the skyfarer. well it was another story

Ive got an old OS MAx 25 FP Powering it with a master airscrew 9x6 prop. had serious concerns about it having enough power. Anyway. lined her up for takeoff, she trundled down the runway and bounched into the air with a low but respectable climb rate. flaps helped quite a bit.
she flies like a hunny! stall speed is quite high but thats to be expected

what i DIDNT expect however is for my elevator servo to strip on the second flight. however i did not notice until i wanted to bring it lower and i noticed i had zero tail control. but i noticed that the flaps had brilliant pitch control. they were set on a slider on the side of my radio. so using the slider i managed to bring it back down in 1 piece(luckily) But its a testament to whoever built it that it was absolutely pitch stable in level flight with elevator

needless to say it was quite a laugh in retrospect having to land a aerolpane with no rudder(it does nto have any) and no elevator. can anyone say free flight?

otherwise people pretty much went home early due to the rain. after sitting in the back of fanies bakkie and freezing our butts off we decided to land and go home rather.

Sat 17/04/2010

Good days flying again. Still waiting for my new radio to arrive so I used my HK4 Channel radio to fly the little nieuport 17. halfway into the 2nd flight someone says...hey...will it loop. Dunno i say. lets find out. so i climb up a bit to get some height so i can do a power dive. I put it into a gentle dive and within 2 seconds...CRACK...the bottom left wing is gone, I hadnt even begun to apply elevator to start the loop. the others folded almost immediately. so down it goes. hits the tarmac and sticks straight up out of the ground. Almost comical :) haha. oh well. part of the game hey. Plane is a rightoff but all the electronics etc are ok

Mamemoiselle Build Picture

Here is a pic of the wing I covered for the Mamemoiselle.

Just For Dennis

Dennis. I know youve been looking for a while for plans for a engine which can be made from stock metals and billet

here you go. Looks nice


http://www.myhobbystore.co.uk/product/15578/rc1539--matador-60-60-twin

Cheers
DS

Wow. check this out

http://www.westonuk.co.uk/westonuk2_066.htm

Ramblings from the hangar

Ok so i covered the Mademoiselles wing last night with the burnt orange transparent covering i got from HK and wow! its amazing stuff. a little tricky to seperate the backing from it. but you know what. at 1/3 of the price of its competitors ill stick with it. it irons excelently. shrinks nicely and does not deform or discolour in the slightest unlike solarfilm. its very similar to oracover.

Perhaps this is a good time to talk about covering and the how to's of it. People often tell me they battle to cover their planes. they get warps and wrinkles and it does not stick. well. the most important thing when it comes to covering can be summed up in 1 word. PATIENCE

take your time. do it slowly and evenly and you wont have any problems
for instance. this is how to cover a wing

1.) generally you start on the underside as you dont want the overlap to be on the top.
2.) if the covering is big enough cut a panel big enough for 1 half of the wing, leave 25mm on each side of the wing to compensate for errors and overlap
2a.) To test the temp of the iron(a normal household iron without steam is fine) cut a little covering and place it on the iron face. it should wrinkle and shrivel slightly but should not melt and curl up into a ball.
3.) tack(iron) the covering done in 1 spot about 5mm big on 1 side
4.) now pull it gently to take out the wrinkles and tack it on the opposite side again in a 5mm spot.
5.) now go 90 degrees and tack it again
6.) Keep doing this moving around the wing until you have got a tack spot every 5cm or so. do NOT go in 1 direction as you will get a wrinkle at the end. Go from side to side and across like you would be tightening the wheel nuts on a car wheel or tightening head nuts on a motor.
7.) Once this done the then tack between the gaps and seal it. by doing small tacks around the wing you have eliminated wrinkles
8.) then cut the covering to size allowing for a 6mm overlap. iron it down securely all around
9.) Do the other half of the wing and then the top.
9.) Then take a hair dryer or heat gun(or paint stripper) and gently warm the entire surface, once its warm start concentrating the heat on areas until you start seeing the covering shrink and pull the covering tight. DO NOT Hold the heat gun in one spot too long as you will burn a hole in the covering in no time

For those of you who are curious. the guy with the tarring never came back to us. so no news there. will most likely put another layer of slurry on top of the runway though.

HK Covering

Well i finally received some of my covering so i can start the job of finishing off the mamosoille build. I got a roll of HK Burnt Orange Transparent Covering from Hobbyking(also available from www.wifly.co.za) and i must admit i was sceptical. R170 bucks for 5m of covering whereas locally you can pay up to 300 rand for 2m. anyway, im pleased to report its excellent. has good ironing characteristics and sticks well. does not deform easily and all in all does an excellent job. i will be buying lots more in future.

i tested it on my mamosoiller rudder, and elevator. waiting for my clear transparent covering to arrive now along with my new radio

Sat 10 April 2010

Ok so i sold my broken radio and receivers to dave armitage. Im also selling my Trex 250 with all the upgrades to finance a new radio. let me know if anyone is interested

So i went flying. took my park flyer. did not fly it due to wind. had a smashing day otherwise

Fanie brought out a profile f-22 raptor edf. launched at...WOW what a plane. unlimited verstical. jet like performance. simply awesome. its the one available on wifly for 699. i want one :)

only problem is this. the batt sits up from in front of the motor. Fanie attached it via velcro. Anyway he opened the motor to speed up and we heard THWACK. and we see battery and airplane part ways. the plane flops to the gropund slowly. so slowly you can catch it. no damage. the batt goes flying into the dirt.

pick up the batt. it went through the impeller destroying the impeller and denting the pack badly. pack still works fine though.
plane otherwise ok. Was quite a site to see it flopping to the ground like a parachute

Then i was flying Louis trainer. and it went nuts. turns out the BEC he was using(he is using a 7.4 pack for rx power) went nuts. So it went in bad bad bad. completely destroyed. crashed near the rocky road leading into the field.

what else. oh ya. Flew Lukes heli but he moved his receiver and the wires are now rubbing against the motor. needless to say it stats glitching and eventually goes out of control. still on the ground thankfully so no damage. the motor rubbed through the servo wires and was shorting out. should be fine again once the wires are cut and fixed properly

Henry crashed his big yellow ultra stick due to radio problems. Again with a hitec optic 6 on 35mghz. having alot of interference problems on it lately. Just last week shauns Giles was virtually unflyable due to inteference.

what else. nah thats about it. all good fun otherwise.

@#$#$^% Radio

so the main PCB on my radio is poked. 1300 bucks to replace it. not worth it. so if anyone wants to buy it and repair it, ill let it and the 2 receivers go for a song.

Sat 27/03/2010

Nice day. not a big turnout. Congrats to Ian Saunders on his daughters marriage to Stephan. Had a smashing time with my heli. was hovering inverted and the gear came loose. so it landed upside down. damage not too bad. also dropped my radio and now it no longer works arrggggh....

anyhoo. also flew louis electric pegasus again. only trainer i know that can climb vertically and prop hang!

Incidently the guy who came to give us a quote for the runway never bothered to come back to us. so back to the drawing board.

Better late than never

Hi Guys

Got feedback this morning that the guy for the quote to do the tarring on the runway is coming tomorrow morning to the club at 10:15

anyone who is interested is welcome to come along and give their input etc etc etc have your 2c say :)

Sat 13 march 2010

nice day on sat. not much wind. flew my V2 heli. enjoyed it. did some pylon racing with it. that little heli gets up and moves when it wants to! flew louis converted harvard with electric power now. very nice. only thing is that it burnt the windings on the motor due to too much load caused by a 13x8 prop.its amperage which burns windings. so if you want more power. remember that you can lower the amperage going through the motor by upping the voltage. ie increasing the cell count of the battery you are using.
reminder guys. subs are due. R200 is not much for fees. lets contribute and get the lapa covered!

Mamemoiselle Build

Almost finished. just need to cover it now. cute little electric old timer that i build over the past week.

Sat 27/02/2010

well sat was a nice day all round. no real wind to speak of and the rain Gods were smiling upon us.

Flew my new 450 V2 . Flies nicely. cant notice a difference to the v1 in normal flight and hovering but when it comes to aerobatics. its definitely crisper and more responsive. i suspect due to improved dampers in the head

Flew Louis new Aquila which very much resembles a lancair. very nice model but the nosewheel is a bit short so it jumped off the ground rather unexpectandly and was on the verge of stalling. it also happened to be tail heavy which didnt help. anyway he is going to move the batt pack forward so that will help quite a bit. possible also going to convert it to electric power after seeing how his pegasus trainer performs with the Turnigy motors that wifly supplied him. unlimited vertical on a 13x6 and it will hover on a 12x6. crazy stuff!

Aerial Photo of the Club

From Google Earth

No title

Hey guys. no posts for a little while. been working/away for the last 2 weeks. but im itching to get back into the air. i finished my v2 450 heli this week that i got from wifly. keen to see it fly.

Sat 6th Jan 2010

hey hey. the club lapa is up! looks great(no pics unfortunately) all we need to do now is put on the roof which is going to be composed of long sticks.
been chatting to a guy i work with who has contacts in the road building industry, he says he can perhaps get us a big discount on profesionally built tar runway.

otherwise flying on sat was good. a bit interrupted by 15 seconds of rain. helis flying everywhere. Wifly brought out the v2 hk450 heli which i ordered. very nice. they have improved alot of the niggles the v1 had. ie the spindle is now 4mm so it stands up a bit better to knocks.

the blades it comes with look better. not as thick as the v1's version. so the power drain should be less.

i did an auto with my v1 on sat. bumped down a bit hard but no damage. then i noticed a bit of vibration while flying afterwards. the downwards whip of the blades when it bumped down bent the 3mm spindle slightly.

carried on flying but obviously the vibration is not good for. it. fortunately the spindles are very cheap. but the improved 4mm version in the v2 will improve things quite a bit

tried a set of 335mm blades on my scale. BIG improvement. alot more lift and in descent and braking it doesnt drop out of the sky like a stone so much.

i think for general flying these blades are better than the standard 325mm as they produce more stability and more lift. for 3D stick to the 325mm blades.

Joke of the Week

American Airlines 747 Heavy is busy taxing out of the Berlin AIrport Terminal, comes to a stop at the taxi way.
The Controller in a heavy german accent says: American Airlines 747 why are you not moving.
American Airlines: I dont know where to go.
Controller: WHAT? have you never been to Berlin before?
American Airlines: Yes once...In 1944 it was dark and i didnt stop.

Why Pilots Prefer Aircraft to Women

• Airplanes usually kill you quickly; a woman takes her time.
• Airplanes can be turned on by a flick of a switch.
• Airplanes don't get mad if you do a "touch and go."
• Airplanes don't object to a pre-flight inspection.
• Airplanes come with a manual to explain their operation.
• Airplanes have strict weight and balance limitations.
• Airplanes can be flown at any time of the month.
• Airplanes don't come with in-laws.
• Airplanes don't care about how many other airplanes you've flown before.
• Airplanes and pilots both arrive at the same time.
• Airplanes don't mind if you look at other airplanes.
• Airplanes don't mind if you buy airplane magazines.
• Airplanes expect to be tied down.
• Airplanes don't comment on your piloting skills.
• Airplanes don't whine unless something is really wrong.
• However, when airplanes go quiet, just like women, it's usually not good.

New Product RSS Feed

Hi guys

On the right hand side of the the page you will see a portion called Hobbyking New Products. This section of the site updates automatically from HobbyKing showing us their new products etc.

Nice to have a look at every day or so

Cheers

HE-162 Fighter R/C Ducted Fan Jet Plug-n-Fly

Always liked this WWII jet. ive got a big one sitting at home waiting to be finished. oneday...

This one is available from WiFly on Request. Give them a shout for prices.

A nicely scaled and unusual old-war fighter jet with brushless EDF system.
The HE-162 EDF jet comes 97% pre-built and includes a powerful 30A brushless electric ducted fan system and steerable nose wheel.
This well detailed jet uses a 64mm ducted fan unit to provide fast throttle response.

Specification:
Wingspan: 790mm
Length: 988mm

Wing area: 12.8dm2

Wing load: 47g/dm2

Flying Weight: 600g
Channel: 4ch
Motor: 4300kv Brushless Inrunner
ESC: 30A
Servo: 4 x 9g
EDF: 64mm

Battery compartment size: 83 x 43 x 33mm

Required:
Your own Tx & Rx
Battery 1300mah 11.1V 3S 20C

ooohhh its arrived at last!

wooohoo. HK has just released their copy of the Align 450 Pro. looks to be a stunner for those interested in hardcore aerobatics. cant wait for mine(santa?)

WiFly will be stocking them soon. estimated price around R799, maybe less, maybe more.

some details below

99% parts are compatible with the Align T-Rex 450.

Features:
Newly designed head block with high rigidity and stability.
Single piece integrated design of main bearing block and servo mount.
Single piece integrated design of anti-rotation guide and gyro mount.
Single piece integrated landing gear.
Highly stable flybar control system.
High precision bearing mixing arms.
Newly designed high resolution swashplate.
Single piece battery mount with integrated canopy mount designed to bring CG closer to disk plane.
Highly rigid frame with single piece carbon side and bottom plates.
Highly efficient Belt driven tail design.
Weighted tail rotor blade grips to repel centripetal forces.
Straight-up in-frame rudder servo mount for improved geometry.
Newly designed aerodynamic canopy.
Newly designed high strength main blade grips.

Spec.
Length: 635mm
Height: 230mm
Main Rotor Diameter: 710mm
Tail Rotor Diameter: 158mm
Motor Drive Gear: 14T
Main Drive Gear: 150T
Autorotation Tail Drive Gear: 106T
Tail Drive Gear: 25T
Drive Gear Ratio: 1:11.5:4.24
Weight(w/o power system): 450g
Flying Weight: Approx. 780g

Required items.
Brushless Outrunner Motor
Servos
Gyro
Receiver
ESC
Lipoly Battery (2200mAh 3S)

Ramblings from the Hangar - Forward Flight in Helis

Hi Guys

some nice articles posted below on hovering and nose in hovering. Once youve got this right its on to the fun stuff. Forward flight.

Now most of you are probably already screaming at the thought of taking your pride and joy and pushing it into the wild blue yonder. but its not that bad...and dare i say it? better than sex! hehehe(hope my wife doesnt read this)

if youre familiar with aircraft youll be pleased to know that forward flight in helis is very similar.

ok. so youve got your heli hovering in front of you at eye level tail facing towards you. you want to start foward flight.(at this point im assuming youve completed the previous lesson on nose in)

slowly swing the nose to the left(left rudder) and push forward GENTLY on the elevator stick.this will start moving the heli off to the left slowly. if it starts moving too fast pull back gently on the elevator stick. try to keep constantly moving forward though. the minute you stop and go back to hover the heli will tend to want to fly back towards you backwards.

ok so keeping the heli moving forward very slowly. once its about 20 feet awy from you slow swing the nose to the right(right rudder) until its perpendicular with you. the heli should now be slowly moving forward past you. when its moved past you and is about 20 feet away. slow swing the nose to the left again(again making sure that its always moving slightly forward) and start on the return trip flying past yourself again. basically you are flying up and down very slowly doing a turn at each end. on the left its a right hand turn. on the right its a left hand turn. this teaches you not to get too used to a specific type of turn.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KEEP IN MIND. keep moving forward. the tendency to pull back on the stick in a turn(like an aircraft) is strong. but be careful of it. too much up elevator and it will start moving backwards and then things go pear shaped. if this happens. stop. put the heli back into a hover. tail facing you. bring it back towards you slowly. calm down and try again.

Aileron(cyclic) does not really play a large part in these slow circles and movement. only when you start moving forward faster and faster will you bank with aileron, give up cyclic to lift the nose. BUT you still have to swing the tail round to turn it. otherwise you will just end up flying backwards at a bank...not a good recipe.

ok so to sum up. Grab your balls in your hand. get off the ground. start moving forward. doing little circles at each end of a flight path. as you get more and more confident make the circles bigger and bigger. and move faster. the feel for aileron and elevator cyclic will automatically come to you.

remember. if you get into kak. just return to hover. if you panic slam open the throttle and climb. itll give you precious seconds to think. careful not to climb too much as the heli will go out of site.

obviously dont slam the throttleopen if you are sideways heading towards the ground. level the rotors first.

Learning Nose In Flying with Helis

With kind Permissions of www.littlerotors.com

Lesson objectives:

First steps of nose in Higher altitude nose in hover Learning orientation tricks Developing your nose-in skills

Nose in is one of the more important skills to learn when learning to fly. After all, if you fly the machine away from you, you're gonna have to bring it back aren't you?

Once you've learned nose-in, your flying will really take off. You'll progress a lot faster once you've learned it and you'll find yourself 'less afraid' of the helicopter as you'll be able to deal with it in most orientations.

Learning nose-in isn't that hard if you put your mind to it. Having said that, having a simulator to practise on really makes things a lot easier. I'm going to discuss two ways of learning nose-in, with a simulator and without.

Simulator
Far and away, the best way of learning nose-in is to use a simulator. You aren't afraid to crash the machine and you make much more progress faster. Practise on the simulator each night for a week and at the weekend, get up the guts and just spin the machine around and see how long you can hold it.

Orientation Tricks
Nose-in is certainly different to tail-in, no doubt about that. However, there are a few tricks that I use to help me give the right stick inputs. These are:

• Push towards the low wing.
  When the helicopter is facing you the left/right cyclic controls are reversed. Therefore, if the helicopter is facing you and is leaning to the left (ie the left side of the rotor disc is lower than the right), then move the left/right cyclic control to the left. As you do this, you'll notice that the left side of the rotor disc starts rising towards a level plane. Once the disc is level with both sides, release the stick input.
  
  
• Steer the tail.
  When the helicopter is facing you, the rudder controls are also reversed. I find it easier to steer the tail. This means that if you're hovering nose-in in front of you and the tail starts to drift to the left, apply a little bit of right rudder which will start bringing the tail back into line.
  

Exercises
OK, so those of you with sims will have done a whole lot of practise before you get to the field eh? Well now it's time to get busy!

Now I recommend that you fire up the helicopter and have a fly around just like normal to 'warm up' if you like. Then, once that flight is over, it's time to get serious.

There are two ways I recommend starting nose-in for real. One is to hover the helicopter to a good safe height and spin the heli around so it's facing you, or, to gradually do it by doing figure eights.

Spin and hold
This is the way I learned. Move the helicopter out a safe distance from you (maybe 10 meters or so). Then, once you're there, slowly climb until the helicopter is about 10 meters high. Hold the helicopter in a hover. When you're ready, use the rudder to make the helicopter slowly turn until it is nose in to you.

If you have a heading hold gyro, it's a good idea to do this in heading hold mode. That way you can concentrate on just the cyclic controls and not worry about the tail coming out of line. Then once you have the cyclic controls sorted, learn the rudder controls.

Try and hold it as long as you can, but if you feel yourself starting to lose it, make your escape root more collective as you feed in rudder to bring the helicopter tail in again.

Gradually, you'll find yourself able to hold the helicopter longer and longer. When you get more confident, start decreasing the altitude and bringing it closer.

Figure Eights
How you say? Well, what you can do, is start doing more perfect circles on each side of the figure eight. As each side becomes more circular, as the helicopter passes over the middle point, the helicopter will be more and more nose-in to you. Start out doing normal figure eights as practised earlier, as you become more confident, steer the nose around so it becomes more nose-in to you.

See that the helicopter now moves around the the points instead of over them. After passing around each point, the helicopter crosses the landing pad, as you become more confident, gradually bring the nose around until it is eventually nose in.

Learning nose-in through figure eights is a little harder than the 'spin and hold' routine I used to learn. However, it teaches you better orientation as you fly the transition between tail in and nose-in. With the 'spin and hold' routine, you learn tail in and nose in, but nothing in between.

It's up to you which one you choose, but it is important to learn nose in, it will rapidly develop your flying abilities!

Learning to Hover

With Kind permission of www.LittleRotors.com

The machine is all trimmed, tracked and ready to fly, now it's time for your first flying lesson!

Hovering is the most important flying skill to learn. You take off in a hover and you land in a hover. If you can't hover, there's no hope for you :).

The amount of time taken for people to learn to hover varies from person to person. Some people pick it up within a few flights, others never progress much past it. It's all up to you.

Now, you want to learn to hover, so strap the training gear back onto your helicopter and go through all the procedures you have to do (checking heli, getting your frequency, range checks etc) before flying.

Now that all that's done, crank up the heli and carry it out to a designated hovering area that's obstacle free. Make sure you're not in the way of anyone, or anything and set your helicopter down on the ground.

How, make sure your transmitter aerial is fully extended and walk about five meters behind the helicopter. You always want to be behind the machine when you're learning, otherwise you will get disoriented.

Your first hops
OK, so now you're standing about five meters behind your machine which is sitting there burbling away, waiting. Take a few deep breaths and slowly start moving your throttle stick forward. You'll hear the engine start winding up and the rotors will start turning. It's all on now!

Keep advancing the throttle stick slowly and as you get around mid-stick, the helicopter will probably start to get 'light on its feet'. Don't worry, your training gear will stop it falling over.

The aim of these first few flights is to get a 'feel' for the helicopter. You don't want to be a hero and try and fly around cause 90% of the time the heli will bite you on the ass. Little steps...

You'll probably notice that the heli will be moving around on it's training gear, and may or may not be where you first put it down on the ground. Don't worry about that, just try and get a feel for what the helicopter feels like when it's about ready to take off.

Gradually start advancing the collective until the helicopter is just off the ground. Don't let it climb too high though cause you'll probably lose it. Just get it to the point where it's lifting off the ground. While it's off the ground, use your cyclic controls to stop it drifting around. If it starts moving off and you don't feel you can bring it back, just drop the collective slowly and it will settle on the ground (now you know why you brought the training gear!).

By now, sweat will be pouring down your legs. Don't lie, I know it is. Walk up behind it and try again, and again and again and again. Keep trying until you can keep the helicopter within a two meter radius. If you can do this in one tank of gas, good on you, if it takes ten tanks, who cares? As long as you're having fun!

Controlled tail in hover
OK, so now you can keep you machine in within a two meter radius, you're doing good! The story is now to try and keep the machine in one place.

So, lift off again, and try to anticipate it's movements and correct for it. Helicopter's have natural tendencies to wander off to the side on take off, so try to counteract this when you lift off.

The exercise now is to take off, hover for 10 seconds in one spot and land again in the same place you took off. Keep doing this until you can confidently take off and ascend vertically, hold the machine in a hover about five feet off the ground for ten seconds, then put it back down in the same place.

Keep trying until you can do it!

Moving around
Now you can hover pretty well, it's time to start moving things round a little. Pick a spot about about 4-5 meters away. You're going to take off from your present spot, hover over to your new spot and land.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you used to the cyclic controls.

So spool up the helicopter and take off like you practised earlier. Once you're about 5 feet off the ground. Slowly and gently move the cyclic stick slightly in the direction of your landing spot. Don't give it too much stick else it'll take off on ya! Feel free to walk behind the helicopter if it makes it easier for you.

The best way is to give the cyclic a slight nudge in the direction you want to go then back off nearly straight away. The helicopter will start sliding in the direction you gave it, but if you keep holding in the same amount of cyclic you gave it, it's gonna pick up speed pretty quickly, so back off.

Now your machine should be sliding towards your new landing pad. As it gets near the new pad, slowly feed in a bit of opposite cyclic (ie opposite direction to where the helicopter is heading) to slow the helicopter down. Once it's at a stop, slowly descend until the heli is on the ground.

Congratulations! Now keep doing this until you can confidently move the helicopter from point to point and set it down accurately.

Here in New Zealand, the Clubman class of competition is mostly made up of maneuvers that judge your precision hovering skills.

Controlled side on hover
Good, so you can take off, hover, move to a point, hover and set it down ok? It's time to start working on your orientation.

The desired outcome of this lesson is to have you being able to hover your machine side on from each side. This starts to become more important so you can progress with your flying.

The way I learned side on orientation is hovering the helicopter to a point that was forward and to the right or left of me. So while it was still tail in to me, I was looking along the side of it. This gets you used to looking at the side of the machine. Make sure you do this from both sides. You don't want to practise a lot from one direction and be useless on the other.

As you become more and more confident with each side, gradually move the helicopter further back towards yourself so you're looking at more of the side of the helicopter and less of it's tail.

Keep doing this until the helicopter is hovering side on to you. Once you're comfortable with hovering the helicopter on each side of you, move it back until it's tail in right in front of you (where you lifted off) and slowly start applying rudder to bring the nose of the helicopter around. Keep applying rudder until the nose is at about a 45 degree angle of what it was.

As you become confident at being able to keep the helicopter stable on this heading, keep feeding in a little bit more rudder and repeat the process. Keep doing this until the helicopter is fully side on to you. Ensure you do this for both sides of the helicopter. It is important not to develop a 'favourite' side.

Higher altitude hovering
Right, you can now hover tail in and side on comfortably. Well done! You can either choose to skip this part and go straight to figure eights, but you'll still have to come back to it eventually, so why not get it done now?

When I say higher altitude, I don't mean 100ft, I don't even mean 50ft. I mean being able to keep a stable hover about 20-30ft off the ground. The aim here is to get used to looking at the helicopter from the bottom.

So, lift off from the helipad as normal and bring the helicopter to a nice stable hover with the skids of the machine at eye height (this is the altitude that competition hovering in NZ is done). Keep it nice and steady. Once you're comfortable, slowly raise the collective so that the helicopter slowly starts climbing. Let it climb for about five feet or so and then stop and try and hold it in a steady hover.
Never let the helicopter get so close that you're looking straight up at it (ie over your head) cause it's likely you'll get disoriented and crash. Always keep it forward of you.

As you get comfortable, climb an additional five feet and repeat the process. Do this until the helicopter gets to around 50 feet or so. Once you can do this, move on to the figure eights!

Sat 30th Jan

The rain gods were smiling apon us. it rained all week and cleared up Saturday. usually the other way around. turned out to be a scorcher at the field.
Nice turnout. the guys did the concrete stands for the lapa. so this week we should be able to start putting up the uprgiths for the lapa. really starting to look good.
The area around the lapa is also going to be paved and hopefully a few tables will be built in the pit area to fix your plane/heli or put your drink on around the braai

flying consisted mostly of helis and then mostly HK450's hehe they are really becoming popular

Fanie flew his normal one, and a flybarless version. it flew nicely just quite sensitive to the type of blades it uses. it seems to prefer thicker blades with a wider profile to the narrow CF blades.
I Flew my Scale Hughes(as per the pic above) quite different flying scale. its obviously alot heavier. so you need to up the throttle curve and pitch curve. in forward flight it racks very nicely(having a big vertical fin at the back) but when hovering the wind does tend to push it round a bit. When coming out of dives etc you have to flare earlier and harder(makes sense since its heavier) but all in all im very happy with it

One thing to note though. if anyone wants to go the scale route. i highly recommend a 50amp+ speed control from wifly. the 40a purple ESCfrom wifly works ok but it gets pretty warm. also a 3000ma pack is useful to make it balanced. otherwise they turn out tail heavy.

I can highly recommend the Scale fuselages from Wifly. The quality is better than align. and they are Cheaper too.

not much plane flying went out. Luie flew his stick around a bit. Louis flew his pegasus trainer and Jimmy/James flew around a little fandango. cute little plane. funny looking.
I flew Louise 3D Groovy. but the motor came loose. burnt out. so it ended up in the feld. no damage apart from a fried motor.

If anyone has more pics pls send them along

Dont forget guys. Club fees are now due. R200 for existing members. R200 joining fee and R200 for new members.

How to do a closed loop System(Push Pull) for rudder and elevator

lovely article here.

http://members.cox.net/bdfelice/Pull-pull/pull-pull.htm

Some interesting Facts about Balsa Wood

Bet you didnt know all these things hey ? check out the link below

http://web.archive.org/web/20021016081157/http://www.bomarc.com/Misc/interesting_facts_about_balsa_wo.htm

Wifly Up And Running

Hi Guys

Well. its been long time coming, but Wifly(ex Flights Of Fancy) is back up and running. products are being loaded everyday and new features are being added.
Registration on the site is still disabled but this will come back online in the next day or so

go check it out at www.wifly.co.za

Cheers
DS

Sat 23rd Jan 2010

Filled with trepidation and angst i awoke on sat morn...aahhh screw the poetry

kak week with rain expected more on fly day. fortunately none was about.
Fanie was busy mowing the runway(i kid you not) getting rid of the weeds etc, its looking good. but in some places the runway is lifting a bit. needs a second coat of bitumen. anyway care to get dirty again :) so hopefully we can do that soon.

Also started digging the foundation holes for the lapa. gonna be nice and big. provide a bit of shade. somewhere for the ladies to sit. and for us to sit during the braais.

as for flying. well it was mainly a day of helis. with the occasional interlude from a aircraft.
dennis has his gorgeous Astrohog there. brings back memories :)
I retired my Calmato low wing sportster(A.K.A trainer) after 83 successful and somewhat hair flights, with 2 midairs inbetween. Considered giving it a Norse funeral(ie light it on fire and see how far you can get) as per lukes suggestion but decided against it. flew twice. more and more stuff falling off it. went home and took the radio gear out and relegated it to the loft. perhaps oneday to see the sky again. i doubt it though.

I must admit. after all that flying the motor still starts with a back flick on the spinner. and this is a cheapie kysoho motor. im impressed. it lost a bit of power over time. but still pulled it with respect.

had 3 new heli arrivals on the scene on sat. I brought out another hk450 v1 which im going to put into my scale hughes fuz which i got from Wifly. Shaun davies brought his out as did luke

all flew well. luke had an untimely meeting with a pile of gravel though so its a bit bent. shauns flying no problem. my older hk450(the demo model) had a mishap. i took off. did a climbing turn and then lost all power. the main gear stripped and i tried to auto it in. no blade momentum left though and it hit HARD and bounced.
all thats damaged is a bent spindle and a bent frame. not bad at all. and of course the stripped main gear. Turns out it stripped becuase the motor had come loose. this is something to be aware of if flying these helis. what happens is that the plastic motor mount compresses slightly over time and every so often you should just check the screws for tightness. OR get a metal motor mount. either will work. if you get a metal motor mount dont forget to use locktite on the screws.

also one thing weve noticed is that the modern 2200ma batt is too light for these helis. they were designed for the older heavier v2 lipos. the modern v3 lipos are 20% odd lighter and hence the heli tends to be a little tail heavy. not an issue if you are just hovering but the minute you transition to forward flight it becomes pitch sensitive. tends to nose up and down.

to sort this out use a 2600ma turnigy or 3000ma turnigy(available from wifly) prices about R250 i think. added avantage is longer flight time.

otherwise a good day had by all

see pics above of the heli im building.

HK 450 size V2 heli

The succesor to he popular wifly(HK) 450 heli has just been released. its basically the same heli but they have fixed a couple of niggly problems on the v1.
for instance the tail drive shaft pinion is now better secured. as the v1 occasionally started slipping.
it features more metail bits. eg main rotor block and head button
it features a double fork tail control mechanism. this helps with extreme aerobatics as well as less effort required to move the tail rotor now. means you can use a lighter servo if you want.

the main gear looks as if its been upgraded to a stronger nylon. nothing wrong with the old one. but it did tend to strip if you overpowered the heli too much(duh....)
the main rotor block is now metal as well. no perceived gain from this for mosts people. just looks nice. for 3D is supposedly mkes the blades slighter stiffer making the helis response from crisp(A.K.A) Twitchy.

Anyway same price. R450 from Wifly. still a bargain.

see pics below.

Sat 16th Jan 2010 and club fees

well. i cant comment really since i wasnt there. So if anyone has interesting news. Email me on flightsoffancy@webmail.co.za, perhaps send me some pics etc

Remember Guys its the start of a new year so club fees are payable again. R200 Please pay to Ian Saunders.

Ramblings from The hangar 12/01/2010

So....

what will 2010 bring model wise i wonder? a fat kate moss? no man...not that type of model. i mean the flying type! well these are some of the hot up and coming items to look out for this year

Telemetry Systems
FPV Systems
High Power EDF
Autopilots

Telemetry systems is essentially a system where you can send and receive feedback from your model. sooo if you want to know your current battery voltage in the plane it would show up on your radios lcd screen, or if you wanted to know the fuel level or airspeed etc. it would show up on a screen or be outputed as a verbal instruction.
sound odd? far fetched? not really its here already. the New Hitec Aurora 9 Transmitter has it. also commercially available now are systems to plug into your exisitng radio where you can monitor battery draw, current, power consumption etc. we are edging closer and closer to full instrumentation as in full size aircraft. will it make the hobby more difficult or easier? i dunno. but i reckon its going to add a new dimension to the hobby for those who want to go down that route.

FPV Stands for (First Person Video) this is a system where you pop a camera in the cockpit of your plane, strap it to the wing or watever. hook it up to a transmitter, then on the ground you have a receiver connected up to some sort of monitor. whether it be video glasses or a laptop.
all very nice to "sit" inside the cocpit of your plane and fly but it lends a sense of surrealness to the flight unless you can look around as you would in a real aircraft....BUT WAIT THERES MORE. the latest FPV Systems have a head tracker. this is a device which you would strap to your hat/cap. it then measures the movements of your head and sends them to a pan and tilt device on your camera. so picture this. you strap the head tracker to your cap. swithc on the FPV system. and your looking forward. now turn your head slightly to the left and voila the camera turns and looks out over your left wing. etc etc. this makes the flight quite a bit more realistic. so much so that when some guys where the video glasses for the first time they fall over from disorientation

current costs for a full system is around $700. but you can build your own far cheaper

check out www.fpvvideo.com

High Power EDF(Electric Ducted Fans) are making a splash into the hobby market. with the advent of serious lipo power with high C ratings and high power Brushless motors its becoming more and more practical to have electric jets now instead of nitro ducted fan or turbine motors.
and its not just park flyers im talking about. you can get some serious power from bob violett systems. thrust in the region of 15kg is attainable. still expensive...but its getting cheaper.

Autopilots have been around for a while with mixed success. the old batch of autopilots used a optical sensor to detect the angle of the horizon problem with these was that when it got dark(dawn dusk) they didnt work. and would turn the plane upside down or watever as they could no longer tell the difference between the horizon and the ground. also. the best they could do was to level out an aircraft if it got into problems.

NOW the latest autopilots have also been designed with helis in mind. so much so that a heli poiinted straight at the ground will pull itself out and go into a steady hover if you leave the sticks go. kinda takes the fun out of it but its there to help beginners. cost is around 2k for a autoplitor system.

then the next level up is one step short of a military system. an autopilot whose movements you can plot in a pc and program into a pre defined flight plan. itll take off. go where you tell it. do something or other then come back
all on its own.
guys are using this for aerial photography on larger models.
cost is $5000+ i dont see this becoming viable anytime soon, besides. i dont know many people who would use it anyway. but its interesting to see the new technologies

begs the question though. when does it stop being a hobby and become an obsession?

How to choose and electric motor for your plane/Heli

so one question i often get asked is, how do i choose a electric motor for my plane. cos MOST electric motors(with the exception of Eflite) do not give the equivalency rating to a glow motor. they say a motor is a 41/50/8 or something which to most guys means...dick.

ok. its quite simple

Firstly se the table below to work out the power requirements roughly that you will need for your particular plane

Glider - Powered Glider. Eg lone Ranger 60-80watts per pound of weight
Trainer = High Wing Kyosho Calmotor. Thunder Tiger Pegasus etc 80-90watts per pound of weight
Sport Plane = Ugly Stick 100-120watts per pound of weight
Aerobat/Pattern = 120-150watts per pound of weight
Fighters/Scale = Spitfire, Harvard, Tiger Moth 120-160watts per pound of weight
3D = Any 3d Aircraft(Foamies included) 200+watts per pound of weight

Ok youve got a trainer. it falls into the 80-90watts per pound of weight category. lets say you work it out that your plane is going to weigh roughly 2.5kg when its ready to fly. this is equal to 5.5 pounds
So you would need a motor that can supply 440watts(5.5 x 80) at LEAST. but its better to er on the side of cauting and go for slightly more power.(you can always throttle back)
so lets use 5.5 x 90 = 495w, call it 500w

ok so now we know the power we need. but how does this compare to a .40 size glow motor.
ok quite simple. MOST 40 size motors put out roughly .8hp, this equates to 600w, remember that glow aircraft are generally heavier due to fuel and extra batteries so ignore the subtle difference.
so off you go now and look for a electric motor putting out 500-600w of power.
but now you see that there are 20 different motors putting out this power. and the only difference between them is something called a KV Rating??????

Ok this means RPM per Volt. so if you have a KV Rating of 1000kv it means that for every volt the motor receives it will turn at 1000rpm so if youre using a 3cell lipo pack which is 11.1v then the motor will turn at 11000rpm(under ideal conditions)

great. how does this equate to glow? between the .25 to .60 size area the rpm range is between 14000rpm and 10000rpm more or less. so go somewhere inbetween and you get 12000rpm

so now you now that to fly your .40 trainer you need a motor which can supply between 500 and 600w of power and a kv rating that will spin whatever prop it recommends at between 10000 and 12000rpm

so please dont go buying a motor with a kv rating of 4000 this means it will spin at 44000rpm on a 3 cell lipo pack. useless for aircraft unless youre flying ducted fan.

most aircraft use 3 cell packs. if you want to use a bigger pack, for a larger aircraft. say a 4 cell(14.4v) pack. then bear in mind it will UP the rpm of the motor. so when considering motor choices you have to look for one with a slightly lower KV rating say 750kv
this means 750 x 14.4 = 10800rpm? you see how it affects it?

anyway. post some comments if it sounds greek but the process can be summed up in the following steps

1.) Find out the type of plane youre flying(should be pretty obvious)
2.) Find out its weight in pounds
3.) establish how much power you need to fly it
4.) look fore the appropriate motor with the necessary power and appropriate kv

voila. done.

C Rating on Packs

so on sat a couple of guys were asking what the heck the C Rating on a lipo pack means. ie 20c 30c 35c etc.

Well c stand for its capacity to supply amperage. so 20 c means 20 times the batteries capacity. so if the pack is a 2200ma(2.2a) pack and its C rating is 20c this means it can constantly supply 44amps(2.2 x 20) to the speed controller without burning up and turning your aircraft into a fireball.

Now what will be the difference if you buy a 30c 2200ma pack? well essentially this
it can supply the power in larger amounts. Ie it can safely supply a constant amperage of 66amp(30 x 2.2a)

how does this affect your flying? not much unless you you are flying high powered EDF(Electric Ducted Fan) Or 3D helis which need large amounts of power in a light weight setup.

A 450 sized heli needs a 40a ESC or so. So using a 30c pack which can supply 66amp is pointless. as the speed control can only handle 40amp
In the long run you might notice that the 30c pack will last longer as its not using its full capacity all the time. but the price difference does not justify getting the large C rated packs in my opinion.

20C rating should be fine for most applications. if you need more amerage. go to a larger sized pack.

Turnigy VS Flightmax Packs

Hi Guys

As you know Wifly has both the turnigy and flightmax packs available. both seemingly identical, just the flightmax is R20 cheaper or so sometimes. ive been asked why. here is the simple reason

1.) both batteries have the same stated capacity. ie 2200ma. but if you compare them side by side you will see the turnigy is ever so slightly larger. 5% or so.
2.) when you fly them you will get slightly more flight time out of a turnigy
3.) when you recharge them the flightmax will take 2200ma and the turnigy will take 2300ma+ odd...but true.
4.) the Turnigy does not come with deans connectors. and the flightmax does.
either way they are both excellent packs.

HK 450 Helis Short term report

Ok so weve been flying the Hk450 heli for a while now. this is one of the helis available from WiFly Hobbies(Ian)
So far so good. its excellent value for money. as with all helis there are some things to take note of
1.) Unless you are just learning to fly throw the standard plastic blades away. they have a thick profile and suck at least 30% extra power. fine for learning on though
2.) Check all the frame screws for tightness when it arrives. we had one come out on the motor frame and it stripped the main gear. you should actually check all the screws on any heli when you build it. remember to use loctite on metal to metal screws
3.)If youre using the telebee gyro. remember it mounts SIDEWAYS. not flat
4.) If youre using a HK401b gyro use a fast digital for the tail, otherwise you will get wag

Remember to get yourself some nice painted canopies. they are Cheap (Between R80 and R95 rand) and the quality is very good.
when your flying improves go to the fibreglass blades(bout R60) or CF blades(bout R150 from wifly), the CF blades are excellent, in fact i prefer them to Align Blades

otherwise there are no issues to report with the heli. it flies beautifully. so much so that im going to get a couple more of them! :)

Sat 9 Jan 2010

RAIN RAIN RAIN. got there early. nice and sunny, but round 3pm 2 storm fronts hit us at once. jumped into the cars. most guys left but afterwards flying was nice. still spitting and dropping but we got some good flying in. I left my low wing trainer under fanies car. to protec it from rain but there was so much it got into the wood on right right hand wing. so when i was flying and i pulled tight turns it would stall to the right heavily and go into a spin. landed it and turned it on its side and water poured out the wing. hehe. i think its time to retire the old girl

Not much other flying went on. Most people left. I did prang louis 3D plane(DOH...) pulled a loop to close to the ground, couldnt pull out and splat. my bad....