Flight Log 29.09.2006

Just for the heck of it, I have decided to start a flight log of all my planes in my hangar. This is just to facilitate easy reference and justification of the mooloah spent on my planes.

1. Hacker SuperZoom 4D

AXI2212/26 Gold Line (upgraded from AXI2212/34 Silver Line)
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 10 August 2006
Number of Flights: 16


2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 5


1. Airfoilz Yak

None (Planned for AXI2217/16)
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: N/A
Number of Flights: N/A


I will update this at the end of each weekend and evaluate every once in a while.

Signing off
RandomTask

Ghosts of aiplanes past (Part 2)

Being the control freak I am, past forays in flying with China-made toys has left me with nothing but bitter dissapointment. I've had enough of not being in control of the planes that I was flying. Landings were most of the time (99.9%) unscheduled and crashes were inevitable at every flying session. THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN! So I decided to take the plunge and get myself a "real" RC plane.

PLANE 4



GWS SLowstick. A relativley simple constructed plane. 3-channel controls. Perfect for the beginner. But what's a good, easy-to-fly plane without somebody to show you the ropes on how to fly it properly. So I went to a local hobby forum and asked for help. That was where "Mazon" found me and offered to help me maiden my plane and teach me how to fly.



Since it was my first serious plane build, I did not even manage to finish hooking up the control surfaces before I went off to the flying field. So when I reached the field, the guys there (KP, Mazon(Pang), Kelvin) helped me finish fixing up my plane. Mazon maidened it and I was convinced that I have myself a winner, why? Because it flies and it can be controlled. Pang handed me the controls while the plane was in the air, within 30 seconds I manage to lose enough altitude to be worried about. That's when Pang bailed me out gained altitude and I had another go. This happened a few more times and after I had enough Pang landed the plane nicely. Yeah, this is a winner.



After around a month I fitted the Slowstick with Wing Dragon wings for some aileron fun. And it was, the plane was more responsive and much faster. A month after that the Slowstick was decommissioned and I got myself an E-Starter.


PLANE 5







My E-Starter. Loads of fun. Pushed it to its aerobatic limits. After I have managed to overcome the learning curve associated with the E-Starter, I decided to get a better, more manouverable plane. Well after the E-Starter, I tried making my own plane out of depron but it was just too heavy. So I got myself a Super Zoom and the rest of the planes which followed are still in my hangar.

Ghost of airplanes past (Part 1)

I have only started this hobby since April 2006 but I already have had five planes, three of which is currently in my hangar. I think that's a tad excessive even if I do say so myself. Wait a minute, other than these five I had three more China-made, Ready-To-Fly (RTF) planes. That makes it a whopping eight planes in around 8 months. I need help.... I don't expect myself getting any new planes in the coming months though, as the current contents of my hangar are good quality planes which I expect to see me through my aerobatic learning curve.

PLANE 1
I do not have a picture of this plane. I cannot even remeber the name of the plane. It was a virtual disaster the moment it came out of the box. It was a 2 channel plane, the only controls were: throttle speed and differential speed between the two motors. Suffice to say from its first flight/crash, it would not last one day. And it didn't.

I got this plane as me and my wife were walking through Takashimmaya Shopping Centre. We spotted this toy plane as we walking walking through the toy department. "Twenty Dollars for a plane?" I thought for that price, the plane was a steal. Never expected it to be me who was stolen from. Whipped out gift vouchers we had and duly made a prompt purchase. It was definitley not one of my prudest decisions and I'm definitley not proud of myself with this one.

Within a week, I owned another toy plane.


PLANE 2


As one of my nephews has this plane and he said that it can "fly", I decided to go for this plane as my second one. So I got myself a Silverlit Xwing.

It is supposedly unbreakable, made of EPP foam. A 5-year old can fly it. My confidence grew. But not enough, so I let my wife had a go at flying this plane first. She managed to fly it in a nice tight circle bringing it down nicely just in front of us. Seeing how well it flew, I took my turn at flying it. Subsequently it landed in a low tree. CRAP. I found a bamboo pole and speared the plane down. It came down without a sign of any damage. I did not want to fly it again for a while but my wife insisted it was a freak accident and will never happen again. Grudgingly I took the transmitter and launch the plane. It caught the wind and flew up to 12 storeys. That's when the controls did not work and i just saw the plane being blown off towards the road. CRAP. It started to lose altitude fast and landed in a tall tree. It was stuck at least 5-6 metres off the ground. I tried everything; I tried bringing it down by throwing plasticine to lodge it off its perch; I tried to bring it down with a ballast and rope, but it was too near the road so I feared that it might just hit an oncoming vehicle and scrapped the idea. There goes my second plane within 25 minutes of its maiden. Boy was I bummed.





PLANE 3

I was really bummed by my plane getting stuck in the tree within minutes of its maiden. I was moping around so bad my wife got pissed at me. She gave me an ultimatum, get me a new plane if it would make me feel better, or stop moping.... or else. I got a new plane. I cannot remember its name too, but it was yellow. Thus we named it "Nyuh Kuning." The name of the village we stayed in Bali.



The day after, we maidened the plane. It flew really nice for a two channel plane. Climbs very fast and levels out nicely. After the flying session, I felt really good that day and thought I'd tried my luck in getting my Xwing plane down from the tree (which has been up there for two days and a thunderstorm). I went down and looked up the tree that imprisoned my plane and taped five bamboo poles to make one "mega" pole. After a few shoves and a help from a kind (kaypoh) soul on a bike the plane was finally dislodged from the tree and leafed to to the ground. Hooray.

I went with a few more flights with "Nyuh Kuning." But got sick of it really fast as I did not have full control of it. That was when I made the decision to plunge myself into "real" RC planes.




To be continued...

Signing off
RandomTask

My Hangar (Hanger?)

With two planes with a 40-inch wingspan and another with a 70cm wingspan, it will take up a very large are in my room/hangar. Limited floorspace, due to my other aeromedlling stuff, has consigned my planes to the walls and ceiling. Off the ground the planes look like they take up half of the room. I definitely need another place to put up my planes. For now, three planes are more than enough for me.






The Hacker SuperZoom 4D has seen the most flight times (and most cras... i mean unscheduled landings) as compared to my other planes. This planes flies nice and is very forgiving in hard landings as it can take that extra punishment and if does come apart, it goes back together in a jiffy with some super glue. I currently run this plane on an AXI2212/34 silver line and an 11x4.7 slow fly propeller. It flies well enough with this set-up but just lacks that extra punch that will bring it out of trouble during low flight manouvers. I will be replacing the motor with an AXI2212/26 gold line and see how it goes this weekend. Hope the results will be favourable.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Am i clear for take-off?

Hello one and all.

INTRO:
My name is RandomTask and I have and aeromodelling addiction. I purchased two planes in the past three weeks and now I have three planes altogether. Slope season is coming soon and it seems I have to get another plane. I could sell off one of my planes for the glider I intend to get, but that mean I would have to sell a plane which I have not flown yet or one which has only one flight under its wings. My favourite plane (which my wife absolutely abhors) is a Hacker Super Zoom. I simply cannot bear to part with it either as it has gone through alot of hard and unscheduled landings (read: crash) and it still will fly like nothing happened.

HISTORY:
I started this hobby/sinful addiction/vice in April. Since then, I've gone through a Slowstick (duly gave away to serve a new owner as a great starter plane), an E-Starter (sold away to fund the SuperZoom), a Hacker SuperZoom (faithfully flying hard), an Airfoilz Yak (awaiting motor) and lastly, a Hacker Mini Mustang Reno Racer (only one flight under its wing as it was a tad underpowered and was very prone to tip stalls.) That is just the planes. I sold off my Futaba 6EXAP for a second hand Futaba 9CAP.

I need help before this hobby becomes an obsession (as if its not already).



I really wish there are support groups for us obsessed people. This hobby is a great respite from the doldrums of the busy weekdays but I do believe we have to spend time with our wives and kids and families (our who?). In this blog I will hope to find some solace in the fact there are people worse off in their obsession with the aeromodelling hobby (hehe just kidding). But I hope we can share ways where we can achieve a balanced hobby-work-family life (note hobby came first in that list). So let the blogging begin.

Happy Landings
RandomTask