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