aeromodellers anonymous

Long time coming

2009-09-13T23:37:00.003+08:00

It has been a crazy long time since I last did a blog entry. Almost a year now. I blame it on facebook. Also I don't really know how many do read this blog so the motivation is not always there.

Lotsa stuff happened the last year. The highlights:

1. Manic Street Preachers concert
2. Ashraf's 2nd Birthday
3. Trip up to Sedili with the family
4. Finally got my Yak 54 project completed (almost)
5. Started DLG (Discus Launched Glider) flying
6. Got me a Panasonic LX3 to document stuff

Well let's just hope this is a start of more regular updates with pictures and stuff. If not, you can always find me on Facebook Hah!

Cheers,
RandomTask

Head in the Clouds

2008-11-16T01:09:00.002+08:00

There's still no updates on the progress of the Yak on this channel cos I have not touched it. I've been amazingly busy this past few months and I have to say it's a good thing. Long gone were the days where I could think of packing up early to go for a flying session at the end of the day by lunch time. That's now a distant dream. But it's good flying weekends with good friends. That's what's it's all about in the end isn't it. Meeting up with friends, catching up on the week and fly. A good way to release the pent up tension that has been built over the week.

Since it has been over a month since the last update, Here's the big roundup:

1. Telink Multifun is ready to take on the slope.
My first, new slope glider for the upcoming season is ready to hit the slopes. I decided to get ready my gliders early this year so that I won't be missing slope action when it comes by not having gliders for the slope. This one should be my primary sloper for the season an I think I'm gonna have shitload of fun with it. Aerobatic + EPP. An unbeatable combo for low flying fun at the slopes.

2. Multiplex Park Master 3D
I decided to pick this plane up as I had no 3D plane to fly. The progress of the Yak is slow and time consuming so I got myself somthing that will come together quickly, a handy size, tough enough to endure accidental inverted landings and a genereally well-engineered plane. Multiplex planes usually fits this requirements. And since this is a relatively small plane and I had hardware to fit it, I got it. One of the best profile foamy I have ever flown. I think it is the best one thus far. The Flash comes in a close second. But this one really makes me look good. I've had only around ten flights or so with this plane but I'm already flying low and slow. This plane makes me look good. I like,

The colour scheme is an attempted re-production of Gernot Bruckman's XFC 2007-winning Krill Model Katana. I wanted the PM3D to not look like it was orignially just white and I believe I have suceeded in doing so. If the plane looks good, iit'l fly good.

3. First ever ballet/dance show.
NR and I went to a da:ns show. I'm not a big dance fan, but since we got tickets why not have a new experience. We went to a show titled Copelia. It was the opening show of the whole da:ns festival and wow was i blown away. These dancers are fit and everything looked so good. I think since this particular dance show had a very strong storyline, and a rather modern tone, it made the show very appealing and "easy" to watch. I'd rather not delve and describe the whole show cos that'll be whole different entry. Instead I'll just say it feels very humbling to be able to experience something new. It's always an experience to try something new. It may be uncomfortable but that's no denying that'll it'll be memorable.

4. I've got a new MacBook Pro. WooHoo!
I needed a new computer to cope with all the new projects coming in so I got meself the latest and greatest from the Apple factory line. Ok. Maybe not the greatest, but definitely the latest. It's still in its infancy and there's a few teething problems, but i can definitely feel the difference in processing speed when compared to my work horse: the PowerBook G4 which I got 4 years ago.

Ok, that's all for now. Watch this post as I'll upload the pictures soon enough.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

Big Roundup

2008-10-06T14:51:00.003+08:00

Yeah, I have been slacking off, not updating my blog. With constant work (Alhamdulillah), I don't feel like an out of work designer. In fact its just pushing me to take on more projects and improving the chances of expansion. Also, I have been out and about with NR and BB quite a bit since the last blog post. A short list of major events since the last blog post:
1) NR, BB and I went to the Zoo.
Loads of fun, but the zoo is going through some major upgrading and not all of the attractions are up and running. Breakfast was fun though but a pity that Ashraf missed the white tigers' feeding session cos he fell asleep. Cute little bugger.

2) Air Force Open House @ Paya Lebar Air Base.
NR really wanted to go ever since I mentioned that there was going to be an open house this year. So we did. NR did a real good job acclimatising BB to the roar of the fighter jets. He was so used to it, he did not want Me and NR's hands over his ears when the jets were off to a screaming take off. Ashraf also had a ball running around Paya Lebar Air Base. The little boy just needs space to run and run. He really appreciates being free and unrestrained by walls.

3) Missed the first F1 race in Singapore.
But we did manage to catch it on TV. Ferrari came home empty handed. Alonso had his first win of the season. Montezemolo had choice unkind words about the track. Boo!

4) I got an electric rc Corsair plough the back of my head.
Major bleeding. Stitches. Bandages. The works. More of this on another post. Grisly photos of bloody scars coming up. I've gotta love NR for being strong to help me clean up the bloody mess at the back of my head.

As you can see, I have been quite busy up and about. So that leaves me with little time to work on my Yak. But I did mange to get two gliders ready for the next season though. More of that in another post. And more posts to come soon.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Bling Landing Gear

2008-08-24T22:57:00.003+08:00

I've been bogged down with so much work the past week I've almost had no time to work on the Yak.

One of the stuff I managed to get done though is drilling the mounting holes on the carbon fibre landing gear which I'm going to use in place of the original aluminium ones. I've weighed them some time back, and found that both carbon fibre LGs were still lighter than one side of the aluminium ones.

If anything, they look so much sexier than the stock ones.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Yak 54, Work in Progress

2008-08-16T23:25:00.011+08:00

The rate of progress for the Yak 54 may seem so slow it seems as if I have not been doing anything. Quite the contrary. It has come a very long way since I opened the box the very first time. Here's a brief progress report so far:

Cooling hole for Dualsky Voltage Regulator

I've scratched my head for sometime before I made the decision for the placement of the voltage regulator. Ideally the regulator has to have ample cooling. And I am loathe to put the regulator all the way up in the cowl as that would mean I have to increase the length of the wire from the regulator to the receiver (RX), TWICE over. Since both wires have to be plugged in for it to pump the max amount of juice to power the servos.

In the end, I cut a rectangular hole at the bottom of the fuse. The voltage regulator can now be close enough to the RX without any extension wires and the heat sinks can be exposed to moving air, further facilitating the cooling of the regulator. I do hope it works though.

"Blinged" Battery Tray

The Yak 54 being a Nitro powered plane, does not have any battery trays built into the fuselage. So I had to fabricate one. I wanted a rigid one without adding to much weight. This brief to myself was closely followed and I made a battery tray from balsa sticks (which made up the frame) and some carbon fibre plate to get the whole structure very rigid. I added some cooling holes for the battery and this should reduce the overall weight of the battery tray too. The carbon fibre also adds some nice "Bling" to the insides. Pimpin my plane man!!

Once You Go Yellow and Black, You'll Never Look Back

Hellboy profile on left wing (WIP)

Well I was supposed to finish this plane in the same week as the local premiere of the Hellboy II movie but it was not to be. Nonetheless, I love Mike Mignola's art in his comics and this is just my version of fan art. :)

Well that's the progress so far, not bad right (hehe not shy). I will update more as I progress with the build. Hope it's soon.

Signing off,

RandomTask

Completion of the High Power Shunt for the Yak 54

2008-08-16T00:13:00.004+08:00

It has been some time since I've done anything to complete the Yak 54. Projects have been coming in, and I have not had time to really put my head down and get the plane up and running.

It's been so long since I worked on the Yak, that I managed to trash three perfectly good planes. All rx-related problems. Sigh, it's one thing to crash by flying too low while showing off, it's another when it's totally out of your hands. I've gotta find a way to avoid all this shit, Fasst. :)

My new foldable plane!

Ok. Since I've already completed the plug for the shunt, it's time for me to complete the whole thing. The other part of the shunt will be on the red power lead of the ESC. The shunt will basically not let power flow to the ESC when the plug is out. Thus rendering the ESC un-armed and safe to handle the plane to the flight area.

A few things I took not of was the length of wire used on the plug side. So when I did extensions to the ESC power leads, I made sure both the red and black wires are as similar in length as possible. I'm not sure if any difference in length will have an adverse effect, but I'd rather not find out.

Soldering the gold connectors to the wires is more or less standard stuff. And this is how the shunt looks.

Next up, more work on the fuselage.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flowers in the window

2008-08-15T22:39:00.011+08:00

So... the day after the Singapore vs Brazil match, Shahirah, Ashraf, my mom, my sis and I went to the Singapore Garden Festival. I thought I'd get bored out of my skull initially, but when I was there it just seemed fun. Almost reminiscent of time when NR and I went out to do research for our wedding deco.

There's just too much to talk about the exhibits at the Festival but since there are numerous reports on it and NR has written quite a comprehensive write-up on it on her blog, I'm just gonna show the pictures I took at the Festival.

The Ashraf Magic Show: Just now he was sleeping, now he's awake.

This has to be considered one of my fave exhibits.

Help me please!!!

Yeap, that was a fun day. And I'm actually looking forward to the next Garden Festival. Flowers are just fun. And all that negative ions definitely had a good effect on my mood. I love flowers!!!

Signing off,
RandomTask

Unachieved Goals

2008-08-08T17:58:00.007+08:00

Last Monday I went to what will most probably be my last trip to the "old" National Stadium. It has been slated to be demolished and rebuilt since goodness knows when. C'mon, they even had a farewell to Kallang stadium event but still it has hosted numerous events there.

Anyways, last Monday Shahedan had two tickets for the Singapore National Team vs Brazil Under-23 team friendly match. Alas, his tickets were only for kids under 12 years old, and he still needed a minder to bring him. I wasn't much up for going out but since it was his first football match and it is a Brazilian team, I knew if I went I wouldn't be disappointed no matter what the result was (unless of course if it turned out to be a goal-less draw, then I'll be pissed).

Well we reached the stadium at around 7pm. The east entrance seats were beginning to fill up but we still managed to get quite decent seats. And lucky for us, we were very close to a contingent of real hardcore Brazilian fans. They were armed with maracas, tambourines, drums and a whole assortment of other percussion instruments. The fans were already going strong with their cheers, drumming and dancing way before the match even started. And seriously quite a number of the Brazil female fans looked like Gisele (Bundchen). :)

They were moving too much, can't get a sharp picture with my camera phone

The two teams came on the pitch to warm up. I pointed out the most prominent on the field, and one of the biggest players around in the world to Shahedan. His reply; "Who is Ronaldinho?" I could net help but chuckle. Well it is his first live football match. Come to think of it, that was the first match he actually watched from beginning to end. He told me that he'd be supporting the Brazil team. I took the patriotic approach and supported the Singapore team, knowing full well that I will be disappointed at then end of both halves.

The Brazil team setting up for a free kick

During the match, I willed the Singapore side to push forward towards the Brazilian goal. I cheered every time Hassan Sani and Lionel Lewis parried the ball away from goal. I got on my feet many times in anticipation of the Singapore goal but it did not come. The Brazilians scored three goals against a valiant but overwhelmed Singapore team. You did us proud Lions. At the end of the match Shahedan was visibly happy. He also said that he could really enjoy soccer after this match.

All in all it was a fun day out. I do hope there are more big matches between the Singapore Team and some other big teams. Maybe a Man U full squad. Or even Chelsea then I can boo the shit out of them. Oh well, till then.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

My Big Boy...

2008-06-28T12:44:00.008+08:00

Figuratively speaking of course. Ashraf has grown quite a bit now. He can walk, crawl around, his first word was "cat", blow flying kisses, flag cabs, dance to Barney songs and the list goes on and on. He's also been discharged from going Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH) for his bi-monthly development check up. When he was born, Ashraf was so small he was within the third percentile of being the "appropriate size". Please don't quote me on this one. Now, he's out of the third percentile, he's on the FOURTH and that was good enough for the doctor to discharge him. Yeah! My son's not small anymore.

Oops!

I'm all set for school, Nya-i!

I'm a dancin' machine!

Now that Ashraf is quite mobile, we cannot take our eyes of him even for a second. He's always up to something. It's been a rollercoaster 13 months with Ashraf around but I won't trade it with anything else in the world.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

The big plane project: Putting together the high-power shunt

2008-06-28T02:20:00.010+08:00

OK, I got really bored cutting out wood from the airframe and re-covering it so I decided to get some of the electronics on the plane done instead. This time around I'll be putting together the high power shunt, a safety feature.

What's a shunt you may ask? In short, it's a plug. It'll be located on the live (red) wire on the ESC. So when the shunt is not plugged in, there won't be a closed circuit and the motor will not be able to power up. The shunt will enable you to power the receiver and all the servos while having all the batteries connected without powering up your motor until you're ready at the flight line. Once ready, just plug the shunt in, let the motor power up and you're good to go.

Before I did any soldering, I did a simple mod on my clamp. This clamp has been a faithful servant in holding up my wires, dean plugs and gold connecters while I soldered away. Recently I read that metal clamps actually draw heat away from the stuff that you're soldering while holding it down. This may cause cold solder joints and basically making it difficult to get the object to the right temperature. I understood then why it was a PITA to solder anything metallic. Some balsa wood I saved from the Yak 54 proved to be exactly what this mod needed. I cut a small piece, glued it to the metal clamps with medium CA and in two minutes I'm done.

Less than 2 minutes work

I'm not so sure if it was just me, but I did find it so much easier to solder the deans onto my Rx pack. This simple mod really works, and to whoever who reads my blog (I dunno if there really is anybody): DO IT. 2 minutes is all you need.

OK, back to the shunt. The main component on the shunt is the AstroFlight Zero Loss connecter. I had originally planned to use Deans connecters, but since the current spikes might go up to around 80-90amps, I do not want the shunt to be the weak point in this setup. I figured this will be the best bang for my buck.

I'll just be working on the male part of the connecter for this post. The female part will come into play in the later stages while soldering stuff on the ESC. Stuff for the job: 1. Astroflight Zero Loss connecter (just the male part) 2. 14 AWG wire (black) and 3. soldering tools.

Firstly, I measured out around 4.5cm worth of wire for the plug. I took note of this so that I can have similar length extension wires on both the red and black leads of the ESC.

I then prepped the gold connectors and wire and soldered them together. The important thing to take note on this step is to get the wire and the gold connecter soldered as straight as possible. Or else, it'll be impossible to pull it through the plug. Once I'm done letting the solder joint cool, I pulled it through the plug and worked on the other side. I soldered the other side of the wire while it's in the plug and once that was done, mission accomplished.

Ta Da!!!

Fast, simple work all in the name of safety.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

Weekend Walkabout

2008-06-26T00:35:00.014+08:00

The last weekend was definitely one of the more fun ones in recent memory.

FRIDAY EVENING

It all started from Friday. NR (Shahirah), Benjol Boy (Ashraf) and I went to Harbour Front to get a new stroller. NR needed a light stroller which she can handle easily and carry around when she's out alone with Ashraf. The current stroller, the Esprit one, has been serving us well and is not too bad. But small things like the extra weight, the "not-as-friendly-as-MacLaren folding mechanism, the manual locking "thing", etc does make the stroller more of a PITA.

So we got ourselves the MacLaren Triumph. 2 kilos lighter, single button harness release, user-friendly folding and locking mechanism and a butt-ugly neon harness (which I have already gotten used to). Definitely not the best looking stroller, but it fits our brief.

So off we went to get ourselves (ie ME) some grub. I do get very cranky when I'm hungry/thirsty/sleepy/headache-ey. So we had to get some food.. fast. Along the way down we passed a Barney-themed ride. It's like Barney's van, with the purple dinosaur on the front passenger seat with Baby-Bop and BJ in tow at the back. I thought that maybe Ashraf would enjoy himself on this thing. This rides cost so much more now. A friggin dollar for a 2 minute ride. Whatever happened to all those 20 cents ones.

As expected Ashraf loved the whole two minutes on the Barney ride. He recognised the songs played as the ride swayed back and forth. And when the ride ended, he gave the hand gesture signalling that the ride was over. Awwwwwww. Cute. Also as expected by NR, Ashraf did not want to relinquish his spot on the driver's seat and we had to pry him out of the seat. Ashraf started bawling and out came the "puteng".

Finished off the rest of the evening with dinner, walking around Vivo City for a bit and headed home.

SATURDAY EVENING

The evening started off at around 6.30pm when NR, BB, Hiqma (NR's niece) and I left Chai Chee to go to Bedok North Ave 4 to send fabric, which we bought during the Chinese New Year weekend, to be tailored for Hari Raya. Picked up my nephew, and headed down to Bedok Reservoir for a free Arts Fest show. There, we rendezvous-ed with Shahirah's two sisters and bro-in-law. While waiting for pizza at Canadian Pizza, Mom and Ibra (my niece) also arrived at Bedok Reservoir

Hydro Sapiens, by award winning troupe Lunatics from Netherlands, started at 8.15pm sharp. As we devoured our pizzas, we watched the performers jump into the cold reservoir waters, pyro-technics going off here and there, and got to see a big dancing robot made of plastic water dispenser bottles. I thought the robot was the coolest part of the show. Amazingly Ashraf went through the whole show quietly. He wasn't cranky at all. He generally just concentrated on what the performers were doing. He seem unimpressed by the fireworks at the end of the show too. Overall, I think he behaved very well. So proud of him :)

SUNDAY NIGHT

Wicked Aura Batucada rocks!!! I was initially not really impressed by them before the show but the minute the drums started I could not help but jump to the beats.

It was amazing to see so many people clamouring and crowding at the front of the stage even before the performers started playing. I guess you would do that if the performers were really good. The performance was actually good enough to justify a ticket. People were cheering and jumping around. The energy was high and the beats; contagious.

But amidst all these moving bodies, Ashraf was a picture of composure and concentration. Just like the evening before, he was staring intently on the performers. He seemed throughly UNimpressed, and he even yawned a few times. Amazing. Ha ha.

The show at the Esplanade wrapped up a very eventful weekend. It's amazing how many really good shows around are free. We definitely had fun, gotta do this again... soon.

Signing off,
RandomTask

The big plane project: Glow to electric conversion of the Phoenix Models Yak 54

2008-05-28T18:47:00.018+08:00

It's been a while since I have built any plane and this next undertaking is the biggest project ever for me. Having seen the Phoenix Models Yak 54 in action at Ave 5 and Civil Defence Field, I'm sold that this plane flies really well. And for the price, it's a bargain. I've only seen the guys fly the Yak 54 glow-powered. I on the other hand, will be attempting an electric conversion. The easy part will be electrifying it, the difficult part is to get it to perform as well if not better than the glow counterparts. That is a challenge I'm taking with my stride. A huge ass electric plane; BEST!

First on the to do list; remove current covering and replace with a new scheme. I'm not really a big fan of the original scheme as it make the plane look like an oversized toy. The orange, red, blue and white is a no go. Pity, it was so close to looking very scale except the orange spoiled it. I'm also hoping that by re-covering the plane with a not-so-nitro-resistant covering, I can actually save some weight too. Another reason is that I need to remove some wood on the plane and I have to re-cover it anyways. By removing the covering I will also get access to hard to reach places in the fuselage to stiffen it up with some carbon.

Removing all the excess wood was somewhat a relaxing experience. Though contest balsa weighed closed to naught, every gram saved will help to reduce the overall weight of the plane. Generally an electric conversion will usually be a tad heavier than its nitro counterparts. So wherever I can save a little weight I will.

Check out the "Before" and "After" pictures. The fuselage, especially, is beginning to look like Swiss cheese. Mmmmm, taste-tay!

Fuselage

"Before"

"After"

Wings

Marking out the areas where some wood will be removed from the formers.

Check out the lightening holes. I think the plane could have saved a shitload of weight if there weren't too many doublers. But it was originally designed for nitro.

Well, that's all for now. It's gonna be a massive project for me. So I reckon there'll be more posts for this build.

Signing Off,
Randomtask

Slicing through the air

2008-04-07T22:32:00.008+08:00

With my new Precision Aerobatics Katana MD (KMD), 3D flying is a breeze. I can fly it low with lots of confidence, constantly dirt flirting. Knife-edge flight are also pulled off with extreme ease.

The KMD really flies like the Flash (which I have already sold off by the way). It's low wingloadings make tail dragging fun and stress free... until of course you accidentally rip the rudder off the vertical stab. It happened when I was showboating close to the ground, low level snaps and tight inverted harrier circles. And as I was tail dragging the KMD, the rudder just got pulled off. Fearing loss of control and an even more catastrophic crash, I let the plane down as smooth as I can. The KMD cowl suffered some cracks and some paint getting chipped off. And the canopy got off lightly with just some scratches. Other than that, the KMD came off relatively unscathed.

I can't believe how tough this plane is. Even before my rudder got ripped off, the KMD actually managed to survive a vertical nose dive to terra firma. A bad connection between the Dean connectors caused me to lose all control of the plane. Some CA and the KMD took off again for some real hard flights. I really believe lots of other planes would have been broken in half. Maybe that's why I just push the KMD and my flying skills that much harder.

The plane may not be fully trimmed yet, but once it is (if its not totalled by then) I'll try make a vid of it or something. Until then.

Photos courtesy of John (P4cm4n@DaddyHobby)

Signing off
RandomTask

Active Ashraf

2008-03-01T22:03:00.009+08:00

It's amazing how Shahirah (NR) handles Ashraf each and every day. That little boy has so much energy, I think if we can tap his energy, like how the machines did it in the "Matrix", it will solve the world's power problems. He'll get a nobel prize and we'll be stinking rich... and famous. But seriously, that boy is a little dynamo. It's almost impossible to catch up with him.

Now for some photos of Ashraf shot at 96 a few weeks back. Maybe over a month back. Whatever it is, you can really see how active he was then. And he has definitely not slowed down since.

As you can see, it's quite difficult to actually get an un-blur shot of Ashraf when he's fully awake. And now, he's readily mimicking the actions of the people around him more readily. And even trying to mouth words that we say. It's been a journey alright for the past 10 months. But one which I will not trade for anything.

Signing off,
RandomTask

And the nominees are...

2008-02-26T00:07:00.004+08:00

Dragonfly by Valenta Model

Pulsar 3.2E from Esprit Model

Condor 3.2M from Soaring USA

Here are some of my favourite gliders out there in the market. I would really like to have one of them as my flagship plane for next slope season. Just have to start saving slowly from now.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Time to let go

2008-02-24T18:28:00.002+08:00

This slope season has been great, albeit a little short. I missed lots of slope time in November and December last year, but I more than made up for it earlier this year. With a trip up to Sedili and lots more trips to Bedok Reservoir slope, I'm more or less sated. With Ashraf around, it's a little more difficult to have the time to go down to the slope. But the best times at the slope are the ones with NR and Ashraf around. I just love seeing the joy on Ashraf's face when he sees the gliders whizzing by. And the horror on NR's face when Ashraf tries to put a blade of grass into his mouth.

Now it seems, that the season is winding down. The winds are getting markedly weaker and coming from the wrong side. My Multiplex Easy Glider has seen its share of action and it's time for it to be decomissioned. A broken wingtip, a fuse broken in two, an aileron which is barely hinging onto the wing, a bent nose and a crooked stab. That basically sums up the condition of the plane. For the longest time it was my go to glider. It can do everything, speck out, touch and go's and even some battle if the situation calls for it. Sad, but it is time to strip the EZG of all its working innards and move it to another glider in the future.

I've got my eyes on so many gliders, we'll just see which one will be part of my hangar for next season.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Laugh it up funny guy!

2008-02-19T01:11:00.003+08:00

Shot by my one and only NR. I love ya!

Aww... ain't he just cute. I really dunno what else to say.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flight of the Bumble Bee

2008-02-17T22:42:00.011+08:00

Ahh, the Bee has seen more action and mid-airs in its short life as compared to my other planes. Apparently one of the Daddy Hobby bros I chat online came down to the slope yesterday. Did not realise it was him yesterday as there were no introductions between us. Only found out today when he posted some pics on daddyhobby.com.

Here are some more pictures expertly taken by Ben. Thanks man, I really appreciate it.

Launch Sequence

Bee in Flight

Close Call

Signing off
RandomTask

Bedok Reservoir Slope Pictures

2008-02-10T20:33:00.000+08:00

For the past two weeks, the slope at Bedok Reservoir has been my second "office." The winds has been decent and on some days better than decent. And on those days, the people of the slope, have the most fun.

A great addition to my slope hangar this year is the Windrider Bee. It has served me well the past few days and I believe it will do so for many more flights to come. It builds very quickly and easily and flies just as well. With sufficient height the Bee will also recover from almost any mid-airs. I've been trimming the plane to give me optimal performance and I think I'm alsmost there, maybe another day or two of flying it and I can commit and confirm on the CG and cut out the ballast tube for it for greater speed. As it is, with the light-weight setup it's already rather fast but just unable to retain it's energy/inertia.

I hope there are many more weeks of good winds to come. Here are some pictures of the Bedok Reservoir slope action.

Signing off,
RandomTask

The birds and the bees

2008-02-09T00:29:00.000+08:00

Today was a happy, happy day. My wife and son joined me at the slope. My wife's good friend also joined us for a picnic too. The Windrider Bee flew great. The bunch of us with flying wings had a good time attempting to battle. Yeah, today is a happy, happy day.

I really had a good feel for my Bee today. Got quite a number of flights with it, trimming it out, tuning it here and there. And by the end of the day, I have myself a nice-flying Bee. It can be better though. With a few more trimming flights I think I should be able to get the Bee to fly optimally.

The Bee flies really well at the Bedok Reservoir slope. It's light wing loading and excellent design keep the plane in the air effortlessly and gives the plane real good speed. It was a joy doing really hard turns without losing much altitude. This plane can be as aggressive as you want it to be. No wonder there are so much rave reviews about it in RCGroups. It's no fluke. It's real good design at a very good price. The build is also very straightforward. This wing is really an ARF. This is going to be my "go-to" plane for quite some time by the way it performed today. Furthermore it's just plug and play when I reach the top of the slope, no need for any assembly. Happy, happy day...

The two bees: looks fast even on the ground

Ken's bee in action

I'm hoping the rest of the Bees will be airborne soon. Then it will really be a battleground at Bedok Reservoir. That should really be fun.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Pictures by Ken (MadFlurry@DaddyHobby)

Seeing is BEElieving

2008-02-07T02:14:00.000+08:00

Day 2 of the Windrider Bee speed build.

First up, I found that the wing ends of the Bee really weak. If I were to hold the plane by the wing tips, it would just sag. And this is without any batteries or weight up front. My solution was to cut a slit on the underside of the wing, and slide in a small diameter carbon rod. This stiffened the plane a bit more but was still rather unsatisfactory. I then epoxied some flat carbon ribbon onto the top of the wing the length of each elevon. This really stiffened the plane up and I figured once I covered the plane with Budget Kote, it should be able to withstand punishment meted out by other wings and hopefully the unforgiving trees.

Now for the covering, I'm still not that good at covering foam cores, I need more practice. But given the rush nature of this build, I'll just do a decent job and fix anything later. This might not be the best way but I just had to give the Bee some air time by today.

I took around 2 hours just to cover something as simple as this. And the covering job was still far from satisfactory. My colour scheme: yellow for the top part of the wing and silver on the underside. This is the longest process of the whole build.

Next up, I proceeded to installing the push rods and control horns to the elevons. After that to the final programming of the radio. Done. I have succeeded in finishing the Bee for flight in less than 24 hours and around 6 hours of work on it. Fastest build of any plane ever for me. I decided to save the embelishment on the plane for later. Now it's time to hit the slopes and get some air time.

Max gave me a lift to the slope. Once up there, I checked for any conflicting frequency and Ken threw the Bee off the slope. She flies. It initially seemed nose heavy so I added some reflex. The next launch the Bee just ballooned up and it seemed to be stalling. I think I added too much reflex this time.

The bummer came when the 12FG's low voltage warning started beeping as I collected the Bee. Damn. Well, on the bright side, the Bee flew. I will have another chance to trim it on Friday.

So for most of the time on the slope I did some catching up with the other guys, flew Max's Windrider Fox and just "kaypo"-ed around.

Once I got back, I continued with the markings on the Bee's underside.

Now I just cannot figure out what to do with the top. I'll figure something out soon.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flies like a butterly, stings like a BEE

2008-02-06T01:38:00.000+08:00

The Windrider Bee is finally here!!! The Chinese New Year holidays are looming. This I reckon is going to be one of my fastest build ever. I want to get the plane airborne by tomorrow. I think I can, I think I can! Choo Choo. Let the Randomtask Express through. This is going to be one whirlwind of a build.

This morning I received the Bee from Jeremy. I also took over the rest of the bees for easier distribution to the other guys, namely Ken and Colin. Alas I cannot start the build immediately as I had a cake order delivery to settle first. Once I got back from doing what I had to do I started my build at around 10 minutes to 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

The Bee's foam core and additional carbon spar for that extra rigidity.

The kit comes very complete. With all the hardware needed. It even includes coloured packing tape for the covering.

The electronics: Hitec Electron 6 (receiver), 2 x Hitec standard servos

Okay, now that all the posey pictures for the build are out of the way, it's time to get some real work done. First up, was to adhere the two part wings together. The instructions never mentioned any gluing, but I just had to. Just for the peace of mind.

Adhesive of choice: Goop. Goop maintains a very strong bond while having some flexibility to withstand impact. Bottomline: Goop will not crack under pressure.... Get it? Get it? OK lame. I know. Moving along.

Next up, I proceeded to strap the wings halves tightly to each other with the supplied filament tape. Did this step on both the top and bottom part of the wings.

The next step I did was another deviation from the instructions. I decided to glass the nose area of the Bee. After researching on the Bee, it seems that alot of the Bee owners found the strength of the nose rather disappointing. So I cut a piece fibre glass(FG) cloth, sprayed it with 3M 77 adhesive, plastered it on the wing and proceeded to apply thinned down epoxy on the FG areas. Job done within a few minutes. Not the best looking job, but getting better every time.

While waiting for the resin to dry, I then went on to the programming the plane onto the 12FG. Easy job on this radio. I made sure the servos were moving the right way and I also wrapped the receiver antennae wire around the "dog bone" to reduce the length of the dangling wire when installed on the wing. After that, all the electronics, sans the battery pack were installed into the plane.

The last order of the day was to attach the ailerons to the foam core. I had to cut off part of the ailerons near the wing tips so that it will be flushed with the wing tips. I did this step while following closely to the instructions. No problems there. Once that was done I went on to brace the bottom side of the Bee with filament tape as per instructions.

There. Done for the day. I think I will be able to finish up the build tomorrow and get it airborne. Fastest build ever. For me, at least. To be continued.

Signing off,
RandomTask

RAPTOR48 - What it could have been

2008-01-31T11:03:00.000+08:00

Yeah I've lost my Future Slope Designs Raptor 48 to the woods of Sedili. But I had some decals all printed and ready for it. Pity I never had the chance to apply all of it on the plane.

Maybe another time. But I do enjoy doing this kinda stuff. Designing decals and logos. Maybe for the next plane I'll do one for it too. Until then.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flash video - Long time coming.

2008-01-28T13:33:00.001+08:00

This video of the Rc-Factory Flash video has been taken last year. Look at how clean the plane is. Now it's just full of mud and GOOP and epoxy and hot glue. Actually most of the repairs are in the nose area.

The Flash has now gone thru countless inverted landings and unplanned ones and the fuse is finally showing some signs of wear. Especially so in the backbone area near the tail surfaces where I had to cut it up and re-glue back on. That area is really starting to give way.

In any case, I've got my Flash replacement fund set up and when the time comes I'll be ready to get a replacement. And hopefully build it right first time round.

Hope you guys enjoy the video.

Signing off,
Randomtask

Ashraf's Astonishing Achievement

2008-01-25T23:42:00.000+08:00

Actually, it's one of his milestones in his life. Starting on solid foods. I missed to get his first solid meal on tape as I was still at work. So his second meal just had to do. I think he had fruits. Cannot really remember.

This video was taken months back, but me being a procrastinator, had to do it only now. Well since I have more free time in between projects, I might as well get some of my own stuff done. Time to look thru the video vault again.

Signing off,
Randomtask

Sedili Trip 20.01.08

2008-01-25T18:55:00.001+08:00

I was very jazzed about going up to Sedili for a slope gliding trip. Mainly because mom's house is just fifteen minutes away from the slope site and also because its my first time sloping there.

Alas, the trip us was not as cool as I hoped it to be. On my first outing with my Raptor48, which flew great there as compared to Bedok Reservoir got lost while in flight. On the first flight no less. Weird thing was that no one saw where it went too. Just my luck... takde rezeki. When flying in Sedili, one must have the initial mindset to lose all your planes. Good thing I developed that along the day so I did not feel like shit for most of the day. Instead I channeled my energy and time to taking vids of the other guys. Bottomline; I had fun and that was what I set out to achieve that day.

Here are some vids of the day. Enjoy.

Landings in Sedili

Mazon's Fishy Adventures

The Day's Highlights

Signing off,
RandomTask

Three Men Flash at Chai Chee Field

2008-01-14T23:45:00.000+08:00

I received a call while I was sleeping in the afternoon. It was Ken asking me to join him and Max at the field opposite Block 11 at Chai Chee Road. That place has been like my "personal" practice ground but I thought that it'd be fun to fly with friends too.

So I jumped out of bed, washed the sleep off my face, grabbed the Flash and my transmitter bag and I was off. Five minutes later I found that Max and Ken were already at the field. I got everything ready and was the first to get my plane in the air. Almost immediately I went into my inverted circuits, gradually getting closer and closer to the ground.

With a captive and appreciative audience (Ken and Max) I went lower and went on with inverted tail drags in the grass and tail touches from a hover. Stuff I'd only do with people around. Of course there were the occasional inverted landings and nose first landing.

Max then wanted to practice doing stuff in tandem and I agreed. I did the inverted thing and he would fly right above my plane. Easier said than done. with a small field and different setups for our plane it was impossible to fly in tandem. This in turn led to many unscheduled landings. But it was all in good fun.

Soon, lightning could be seen in the sky nearby and we decided to pack up. I demanded to be given a ride back home even though it was a few minutes walk. They coerced me to meet them at the field... And fitting ourselves with all the planes in the car was a feat in itself. Minutes later we were all compacted in the car and Max got me home in one piece. Pure fun.

I think we'll have more fun "Flash"ing together in the near future. And with a plane as robust as this you can expect more hijinks from us.

All pictures courtesy of Ken (Madflurry@DaddyHobby)

Signing off,
Randomtask

Sugar Fix is open for business !!!

2007-12-29T23:38:00.000+08:00

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Sugar Fix is now open for business.

Sugar Fix is my wife's small biz selling cakes, cupcakes and other confectionary. I highly recommend the brownies. It's the same ones I brought to the Punggol barbecue. Anyways please visit the Sugar Fix website at sugarfixSG.blogspot.com.

Thanks for tuning in.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Future Slope Designs: Raptor 48 Build Part 1

2007-12-25T22:54:00.000+08:00

I didn't feel too good this morning so I decided to pass up on the morning flying session. Instead I decided to stay home and get some building done on my Future Slope Designs (FSD) Raptor 48 (R48).

In this particular build I wanted to stick to the manual as close as possible to get a very tough model with a nice finish. The weight will definitely be more than a light-weight build but I think I will appreciate a tough good looking model on the slopes. Before I started today, I have been reading the manual countless times on pdf format and also the "speed" build thread on rcgroups. I have a good idea on what's the build's gonna be like so i feel quite confident plunging in. And before I even started with step one, I covered my working surface with cheap china-brand plastic wrap.

The first thing I did was to GOOP the wing spars into the pre-cut slots. This is the first time I'm using GOOP and I have to say that it actually smells like Cow Gum. I put a few Dabs of GOOP on the pre-cut slots, and pushed in the spars flushed with the wing. After that, I wiped the excess GOOP off with a plastic "spatula."

Once that's done, I then replaced the wing into the provided wing bed and put some weights on it. I used some old phone books I found lying around and let the wing set for an hour. while waiting for the wing to set, I then started working on the fuselage.

For the fuselage, the first thing on my list was to epoxy the fuse spar into place.

A rather simple job, After that's done I epoxied the space at the vertical wing tube together. I found after the epoxy has dried that there is still a gap, so I just applied some medium CA to the spots and voila job done. I then started working on the other wing.

Once I was done with the other wing I went on to mate the two wings together. I followed the manual to the word for this step.

Last order for the day was to spackle the main fuselage.

I did it with my fingers and once I've more or less covered the fuselage with enough spackle I let it to set in a nice warm corner of the house for the spackle to harden.

By then it was already five o'clock. And I decided to try to fly at the open space at Chai Chee Street opposite Block 11. Many times have I passed there thinking, "I can fly here," and today was the day I tried it. I turned out to be a mini picnic as my wife, son, sister-in-law and sister-in-law's boyfriend came along with baulu in hand and tea in a flask to boot.

Once we reached the field, I quickly turned on my transmitter, hooked it on my neck strap and got my Flash turned on. I used the pavement as the runway and as expected it took off rather gracefully. I love taking off from the a runway. I did a few basic circuits to orientate myself in the new environment and got used to it quite comfortable. I then started practicing some slow rolls but my skill is just not good enough to pull off more than 3 revolutions. Practice, practice. After expending a pack, and a nice safe landing on the pavement I found the field more than suitable for simple practices. The area is large enough to pull off most manoeuvres. Ahh how nice it is to find a practice ground so close to home.

Today was a rather nice day. I got some building done, and some flight time under my belt. The Flash has now seen 34 flights already. I will continue the R48 build another day.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Not-so-Fun Jet

2007-12-23T08:54:00.000+08:00

The Multiplex Fun Jet was one of my favourite planes. Yes... was. I crashed it hard just over a month ago while i was doing a full throttle low pass at Tampines Ave 5. Well it actually crashed when i was attempting to do a roll at a low altitude. I just did not manage to "catch" the plane once it got out of the roll and gave it wrong inputs which eventually ditched the plane into a marshy grave. Sigh.

It has served me well enough though. This plane actually made me understand the thrill of flying fast. A different set of skills are needed to fly faster planes as compared to slow 3D flying. Also, I learned that flying with elevons feels very different as compared to flying a plane with a full house set of control surfaces.

Ever since then I have not had a really fun flying plane. The Ikarus Extrema Shockie was a good flyer but it's not very durable due to the thin foam. I sold it off only after a few flights as I came across the Flash, designed by David Kyjovsky, at Singapore Hobby Supplies. I have actually wanted to get this planes for so many months already but the shipping would have cost a bomb. Once I saw it the shop, I knew I had to get it.

The building process of the Flash wasn't the most enjoyable. With very general instructions in the manual, there's alot of room for error on the builder's part. But I take it as a weakness on my part for not being more careful too. The performance of the plane though, is another story altogether.

My maiden at Punggol Field Walk was the best ever. Once the plane left the ground i immediately felt connected to the model. Controls were responsive at high rates and very precise at low rates. Within the first few minutes of the maiden flight I was already doing silly stuff low. The Centre of Gravity was dead on for me at the recommended range. Knife edge flight had a little coupling but was easily mixed out. Point rolls and slow rolls are fun to pull off too. This plane has been so fun I have been putting off maidening my Katana MD. I think that plane will only get some air time next year.

Since then I've been flying the Flash at Kembangan field alot. It's very close to home and the field is big enough for this slow flying plane. Since its maiden two weeks ago the plane has flown 26 times already. And now I'm really getting a better feel of the plane.

One favourite plane crashed and burned and another takes over its place. Life is good.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Slacking off

2007-12-22T23:59:00.000+08:00

As the title suggests, I believe I have been slacking off updating my blog. With so many things happening I really do not know where to start off again. It's this kind of thing which got me into so much trouble in Primary school. Not doing homework for a couple of weeks but once I'm in the mood and want to start doing them, I'll be so overwhelmed by the amount of backlog I have to cover and get put off. Resulting in more backlog and the cycle never stops.

Ok, enough of me rambling about my school life. Now to more fun stuff. I did a mini mass order from Future Slope Design for a few close friends. We got 6 x Raptor48 and one Raptor36. These are generally flying wing types slope gliders mad of the ever durable EPP foam. Paige, the owner and boss of Future Slope is a great guy to deal with and has excellent customer service. My mails were answered almost immediately most of the time and that reduces loads of lag time.

I was excited when NR called me at the office and said that there's a package for me at home. But once I got home I was disappointed to only see a small box. When I opened the box, there was only 2 kits. Thinking that Paige has mixed up my order for someone else's I immediately mailed him. In just an hours time, Paige got back to me and clarified everything. Relief.

Today, after a morning flying session, I decided to check the mail and guess what? There was a mail from the Immigrations Department informing me that I have to pay Goods and Services Tax (GST) for my packages. But at least they're on safe shores. Brought home the packages unpacked everything, and repacked them into individual packages for the guys. Looks like something you'd get from the market but who's gonna know? Hehe.

Well, I will most probably start with the Raptor48 build soon, but more details of it will be in another posting. Until then.

Signing off
RandomTask

Kenny Soo in Action

2007-11-13T09:09:00.000+08:00

Over the Deepavali holidays I had the opportunity to shoot some vids of one of Singapore's best heli flyers; Kenny Soo (sookainian@daddyhobby). I usually don't do helis but his flying was impressive and I had to get some footage. Here are two vids I cooked up over the weekend.

KENNY IN ACTION I

KENNY IN ACTION II
No music, no editing, just Kenny's full flight sequence.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

German Invasion

2007-10-12T17:16:00.000+08:00

Well the Germans are not really invading, but their RC planes are. Multiplex have consistently come up with robust, good flying RC planes and I have two of them. The Easy Glider is my first and the other one is the FunJet.

The FunJet's name is self explanatory cos it's one heckuva fun plane to fly. The patented Elapor just makes you fly it even harder as it does withstand really heavy beatings.

Here's a vid of the FunJet shot at one of the best fields (but alas has been closed down).

Signing Off
RandomTask

"Raf"ing it out

2007-10-08T23:40:00.000+08:00

Here's more pictures of my son.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

2007-09-29T22:58:00.000+08:00

It's been a really long time since I've managed to fly consistently. Now I've finally managed to go flying for three weekends in a row. It feels great and the confidence is getting back into my thumbs. I feel especially comfortable flying the FunJet. It's currently my longest serving plane and is by far the hardiest too.

Flying the FunJet low and fast is especially fun. Seeing it just skim over the grass; extremely gratifying. It is my go-everywhere plane. Since it's a hand-launched plane, it will fly in any open field. The very large speed envelope also makes it comfortable to fly in all sorts of places. I think the ultimate challenge will be to fly the FunJet indoors.

Speaking of indoor planes, I still have my Ikarus Extra shockflyer to maiden. It's my lightest plane to date. Weighing in at a whopping 260grams, this plane is definitely not a contender for windy days, which by the way is a common occurance lately. Luckily there's the FunJet and the Fliton Element 30.

The Fliton Element 30 is definitely the best aerobatic plane I have ever owned. It tracks like its on rails and the uplines are really nice and straight. It's definitely a looker too. The covering for this plane is definitely one of the reasons I got it. And the side surface area is huge. Slow knife-edges need not be high alpha. The spins are predictable and will exit immediately once the sticks are put to neutral and the snaps are aggressive yet it will always maintain its heading. If I had only one word to describe this plane it will be, "Shiok-ah."

Yeah, that's an update on my current fleet of planes. Alot of my other planes are either sold off or decommissioned. The Extreme Flight Extra, EFlight Tensor, both FoamEIIx have been written off. But I really think my current fleet should last me quite some time.

Signing Off,
RandomTask

Punggol picture credits: Leon and John from DaddyHobby

My Son: Muhammad Ashraf bin Adnan

2007-07-26T11:27:00.000+08:00

The past two months of my son's life has been rather well documented in pictures and one or two videos here and there. This will be the first (of many) pictorial posts of my son.

And here's the link to more Ashraf's photos

Signing Off,
Randomtask

Back from outer space

2007-07-24T21:28:00.000+08:00

Hello all, after more than two month of no show on this blog I'm finally back. Main reason: I have finally found the perfect cure for the aeromodelling addiction. It's called having a baby. Yes, it's as simple as that. It helps if your baby is darn cute too. Please excuse my shamelessnness. I've still managed to sneak in a few flying sessions after the baby was born but I did not feel the need to go flying every weekend. Weekends have also been a self imposed daddy to "bathe the baby days" and to try to get the "baby off mommy as much as possible days." So that usually rules out me going flying in the morning. It's also the time for me to catch up on housework and laundry. It's been a blast having a baby around. But it's also the most tiring thing ever, especially for the first month or so. The early morning feeds and diaper changes gets to you and your significant other but it will eventually get better.

Woah! In all this excitement I have forgotten to mention my son's name. Well his name is: Muhammad Ashraf bin Adnan. Yeah that's it.

Well I will have more entries coming up soon and this is just the beginning of a new and sustained string of Blog entries. Till then.

Signing off,
Randomtask

Acromaster action!

2007-04-27T19:35:00.000+08:00

Since the first video, I've been in the groove to edit more stuff. So here's another vid of Acromasters in action at Bedok Reservoir field. Jeremy and Wei Yao provide the aerobatics for this video outing. Enjoy.

Signing Off
RandomTask

My first shot at video editing

2007-04-25T00:21:00.000+08:00

Here's my first attempt at video editing. Please bear with me as it seems a bit choppy. I am still trying to understand the video-editing program and video aesthetics at the same time. Enjoy.

Signing Off
RandomTask

My ego has landed

2007-04-21T00:16:00.000+08:00

That's one big bird. It chased my extra around a month ago when I went to Punggol Field Walk to fly. The Extra with a Slow Fly prop at that time was really struggling to out pace the eagle. It even outsized my Extra. Anyways, just wanted to post these cool pics taken by John (aka P4cm4n2000).

I have also finished building the 3DBatix FoameIIx bipe. Flew it initially with a 2s lipo batt. BIG mistake. Even with the pitch deflected to full I had lots of trouble pulling out of low hovers. The only way to recover is with a tailslide and that's impossible when you're 1 metre off the ground. Needless to say I had more than my fair share of not too pretty landings.

Had a go at the FoameIIx again the very next day. Had new "Team FlightPower" stickers on it too. But I desecrated the stickers by using Thunder Power 3s packs on the plane. Retribution was swift and unexpected. On the first outing with the plane on that day, the motor mount just gave way while taxiing. The propeller did not snag on anything but the motor decided to leave its motor mount anyways. That was a sign of more bad things to happen but I did not heed it. Instead I carried on to repair the mount and was ready to go again.

The second flight was fun. Got to a safe altitude (with no trouble thanks to 3s power), flicked the switch to idle1, and had me some variable pitched prop (vpp) action. Got the plane going into weird spins and stuff. Once the timer started beeping, brought the plane down with the softest of landing. Sweet.

Seeing Ken hucking his plane around soon afterwards made me itchy for some more action. Switched on my Tx, connected the batt, did my pre-flight checks and I was in the air hucking away. The foameIIx is a joy to harrier, slow rolls are easily executed and hovers are super easy to lock into and maintain. As usual, I'll proceed to do silly things with the plane. Coupled with the unexpected performance of the plane I started to do silly things just off the ground. Dirt flirting, some may say. Ken got some really cool shots of the plane. I was having a ball showing off.

Soon enough, I chucked the plane in an awkward position and me not being able to put enough corrective inputs the plane went smack into the ground. It wasn't a hard crash but the fragile nature of depron (which also contributes to its light weight) ensured that the plane ended up in pieces.

Picked up the pieces, acknowledged that it was purely pilot error (and not the goat which farted in Tanzania which inadvertently caused an unexpected gust at the field) and had a good laugh. It was a funny feeling. I felt sated that I had a very good low flying session but at the same time sad that such a pretty plane is now in pieces.

So I brought back the pieces home. Glued all the pieces together and I'll be trying the FoameIIx again on my next flying session.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Engrish Please

2007-04-14T16:17:00.000+08:00

I love Daiso. It is the wonderful world of knick knacks, DIY tools, pots, snacks, kitchen wares and everything Japanese-ish for two dollars a pop. The tools there are cheap and perfect for my aeromodelling purposes. But one of the most entertaining products in their store has got to be the paper bags with, I think, English translated Japanese "words of wisdom."

You've gotta love the sayings. But I won't spend good money to get them 'cos it's not my bag baby (pun intended).

I have also thought that it'd be cool to just showcase some of the more interesting stuff that I have stumbled upon while I'm out of the house. All the pictures were taking with my Sony Erricson K800i handphone.

Well that's all for now. It has been a nice break from just writing about model planes. Till my next update on my foameIIx build.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Taking it slow

2007-04-13T21:01:00.000+08:00

I've been rather slow in updating this blog for a few reasons; 1. Nothing major happens at the flying field: I go to the field, I fly I land and bring home the plane in one piece 2. Everyone is flying so well now and that's a good thing 3. Lastly none of my builds are out of the ordinary and there are many better ones in RCGroups and DaddyHobby (not forgetting Mazon's very detailed builds in his blog).

Now, I have so much stuff to write about cos lots of stuff has happened over the past week or so.

Firstly, the tale of the Tensor. I got this plane from sky Hobbies. I have to personally say that is one of the best planes I have ever flew. The balance of the plane is unmatched, there is no bad tendencies (eg KE coupling), and most importantly its very light. with the CG a bit to the back I did rolling harriers like a pro without any additional counter stick movements. The plane also locks in rock solid into a hover and high alpha KEs are all hands off. It just tends to be a bit weird at low speed; the planes adverse yaws very bad and nothing but coordinated turns will steer the plane. I also fitted it with a variable pitch propeller (vpp) which was loads of fun... while it lasted. On the fourth flight when I already got used to the plane it suffered from a really bad glitch and went into reverse pitch while I was doing a low hover. Nothing could save the plane. I went home tore the plane and salvaged all the control horns and carbon parts. I was determined to use it on another bipe pronto.

I'm currently in the process of building a 3DBatix foameIIx bipe. I decided to go for another bipe as I enjoyed the very low wing loading which equates to very slow flights. This will help me hone certain skills like rolling harriers and rolling circles/loops. I'm now halfway to completion and will post some updated pictures along the rest of the build.

Now Ken (Madflurry) has been very busy behind his video camera and his computer to come up with some excellent flying vids. He does have a knack of editng and putting up an enjoyable coherent in flight videos of all our planes. Below are some of his work. Enjoy.

Well, I'm all tuckered out from all this writing. Will have more updates along the way and I do hope to post more regularly.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Sunday Flight

2007-04-01T22:50:00.000+08:00

Today's morning flight session was definitely a disappointing one. After changing the thrust angle on the Extra the plane will still roll violently to the right when I pull up hard. Also my lipo died on me when I was attempting a low tailslide resulting in a hard landing which actually cracked the ply at the undercarriage of the plane.

Only when I got home and after a thorough check thru all the parts did I find the cause of the plane's right rolling tendencies. The left elevator half had come loose and it does not correspond to the right half when the elevator servos are moved. This plus surface blowback caused the most violent right roll especially when I perform A high G elevator manouver. Fixed it up with both thin and thick CA and I'm done.

Went back to the field in the evening and had a wonderful time. The plane behaves like I expected it too giving me the confidence to go even lower and attempting other stunts at lower altitude. Hovers are getting lower but I still have to get the hang od doing KE on this plane. Should be soon enough with more stick time under my belt. It's very difficult to improve when you only have one plane and no flight simulator. Well just have to get the stick time in with good old lipos.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Manchester United Wins Another Match!

2007-04-01T00:07:00.000+08:00

Another victory for Manchester United. A hard fought one coming; from a goal down and losing one of the most consistent centre backs they have (Nemanja Vidic). Blackburn played a very physical game as expected but the United players' characters really came out and shine today. It was a very emotional game. Each goal just drew out thunderous applause and sighs or reliefs at the same time. I really hope they clinch the Premiership this season.

Signing Off
RandomTask

13, the Extra's lucky number.

2007-03-25T19:02:00.000+08:00

Since the last entry, The Extreme Flight Extra have racked up 35 flights. I have experimented with the different prop types (SF and E), different pitches. Finally I have found the perfect prop in Ken's APC 13x6.5 E prop. Overall power was greatly improved and the amps draw was still manageable. Going vertical is a non-issue now, thrust on mid stick is more comfortable and still no evident sign of torque rolling. The 13 incher maybe two inches too big according to the recommendation given by AXI but it barely gets warm after a seven to eight minute flight. All is good. Other than that it has been great fun flying the Extra and now I'm finally get comfortable with it. Must have been the bad experience I had with the Katana Mini. But I also got that repaired and its raring to fly again.

I have also finished building the Tensor 4D and just have the servo and VPP motor installation to do. It should be up and running by next week.

Not much else to say in this post except; enjoy the pictures (taken by Ken aka MadFlurry)

Signing Off
RandomTask

Successful Maiden of the Extreme Flight Extra 300

2007-03-05T00:03:00.000+08:00

This has been a very good weekend. Manchester United had won a difficult game against Liverpool eventhough they clearly were second best and I manage to successfully maiden my Extreme Flight Extra 300 (EF EXtra 300). I think this is the first plane I ever maidened on my own. It had very predictable flight characteristics and was a breeze to fly. It felt like I was flying a foamie. And it lands so sweet. Three point landings are such a pleasure to view, and gratifying when managed to be pulled off by the flier.

Today's flights were mainly to find the sweet CG spot. I still need a few more flights to find it then I will be going to start on the intensive trimming regime. I got this Peter Goldsmith guide on how to trim precision aerobatic planes and I'm gonna try it out.

Just some frank reviews of the EF Extra 300;

Generally the plane is a looker. It's nicely covered and the overall quality is not bad. I've not much experience with other planes to compare it to for now on this aspect. This plane has very docile flight characteristics on low rates and is a blast to fly on high rates. I have increased the throws on all control surfaces after today's round of flights to give it that extra manuevarabilty and control.

Ok, let's get on with the gripes I hav with this plane. Firstly, I'm not impressed by some of the hardware included with this ARF. Starting from the top, the spinner cap was way off balanced and impossible to rectify. It caused so much vibration at half throttle, that I dare not even go any higher than that. The canopy is rather flimsy. Before the first flight there was already a crack on the front part of the canopy. The EZ links connectors are not that good either. The tightening screws on all of them have very weird sizes. For the aileron connectors I actuslly had to use my pen knife to tighten them as my smallest screw driver (which is very small by the way) was way to big to fit. Next problem is the general quality of the wood used on the plane. Some parts are so soft I dare not even sneeze when handling them. I CAed most of the wood frame and motor mount of the plane to give it that extra rigidity with the advice from the shop owner who sold it off to me. The landing gear itself is not too bad but the wheel, axles and the wheel pants are far from perfect. I think I'll have to add ball bearings to my wheels so that it would track straight.

I'm not saying that this plane is bad or anything of that sort. In fact far from it. It's just that I think my overall experience with this plane would have been much better if these small details were sorted out. But for now, I'm very happy with this plane and I hope that it will last me through the second stage of my aerobatic learning process.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flight Log 02.03.2007

2007-03-02T15:39:00.000+08:00

1. Extreme Flight Extra 330

AXI2814/20 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 35amp ESC

Maidened: 04.03.07
Number of Flights: 5

All built up and ready to maiden this weekend.

2. Precision Aerobatics Katana Mini

AXI2217/16 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: N/A
Number of Flight: N/A

Currently in the rebuilding process. If it flies well, great. If not, it will be sold off cheap.

3. Multiplex Easy Glider

Maidened: 28.11.2006
Flight Time: 8h+

4. Micro Bug HLG (JAWS)

Maidened: 06.01.2007
Flight Time: 2h+

5. Hacker SuperZoom 4D

AXI2212/26 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 10 August 2006
Number of Flights: 154

Sold it off! Hope it serves the new owner well.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Extra build log (continued)

2007-03-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

I was thinking about writing a whole build log but I'm not really that good at it. Anyways, there are tonnes of better builds of this plane on RCGroups and this other German forum (the website eludes my memory at the moment). I figured I'll just show some pictures and have some short description of it at the bottom.

At long last my motor arrives, the AXI 2814/20 (thanks Mack). It was a very good deal. Initially I planned to adhere strictly to the recommended prop size by the manufacturer. But after reading through the forums, most of the motor users said that it can take up to a 12inch size prop and still handle the load eventhough it was considered grossly over-propping the motor. I did some bench testing of the motor with different props and this was what I got:

APC 12x3.8SF prop at WOT: 22amps (no spinner)
APC 12x3.8SF prop at half throttle: 3-4amps (no spinner)

APC 12x6SF prop at WOT: 25.5amps (no spinner)
APC 12x6SF prop at half throttle: 5-6amps (no spinner)

APC 12x6SF prop at WOT: 29.5amps (with spinner)
APC 12x6SF prop at half throttle: 7amps (with spinner)

Not bad numbers for bench testing. The motor was barely warm in all the tests and at half throttle the plane was already quite a handful to hold back. I expect the amp draw to unload a bit in flight and that would give me a piece of mind. Even though the spinner cap does add to the amps drawn, I'm leaving it on for both aesthetic reasons and I believe that it will help in the aerodynamics department however miniscule.

During this build, the component which has caused me the severest of grief was the prop adapter. I went through two "no brand" ones from two different local hobby shops and was frustrated with both of them. In the end, I went for original AXI prop adapters which was just a few dollars more expensive and was immediately gratified. It stuck to the shaft with no budging and with a simple tilt of the sleeve it was out. Amazing! Word of advice, go for the good shit. It will not let you down.

The other component which was a pain in the posterior was the spinner cap. As expected the stock spinner cap was causing major vibrations. I could easily see the tip of the spinner making a circle with a 1cm diameter at half throttle and dare not go any faster. I shudder at the thought of the major vibrations it will cause at higher rpms. I got another one with a thicker base from another local hobby shop. It looked good, but alas, I had increased the size of the mounting hole for one of the dud prop adapter and it was way to loose for the AXI one. Safe to say, I was not going to use it, not on this plane anyways. Finally I got one spinner with an aluminium base plate. It tracked well and the tip did not move from what I could see. Now the plane looks good.

The motor mount was a bit tricky. The given holes were not lining up to the AXI motor I had. If I were to drill new one on the existing motor mount it will severely compromise the integrity of the whole mount. My simple solution was to CA a balsa sheet to cover the mounting area and drill new holes. It works and looks rather solid. After finding out what the funny sticker with the mounting holes markings, that came with the motor, was for some time back, I successfully used it to line up my new mounting holes on the new balsa plate. Personally, I'd rather front mount the motor, it's so much easier and it provides for better cooling of the motor. 3DHobbyShop.com planes has this kind of mounting and I love it. And there are no pre-drilled holes so customisation is a breeze and there is no structural compromise of the motor mount plate.

I thought that the cowl was rather flimsy and guess what, before anything there was a crack at the front. I CAed it at the crack and in an attempt to strengthen the front part of the canopy, I coated it with a blend of Epoxy and micro baloons. That should do the job, I hope.

The other thing almost worth mentioning in my build is the extension of the servo wires. For the wire extensions to fit into the servo wells, I had to remove the extension wire connector cover. This also helps in reducing some weight. Yeah that's it.

Also had loads of fun checking the throws with my new throw meter. Makes this process a breeze. What used to be a chore is now kinda fun. And it also gives me that piece of mind that its all accurate.

I do plan to remove more weight after initial test flights though. The back part of the battery plate is slated to be removed and I will be making two 1cm wide holes on the firewall. That should knock off a few more grams.

I will also add ball bearings to the wheels so that id doesn't get eaten up by the threaded axles. This will also help the wheel track better and improve the general lifespan of it.

"The elevator and the horizintal stab."

Woah, that was a wordy post. So much for just slapping in pictures and writing descriptions. I'm just your typical talkative uncle. What to do? As I identify anymore significant mods to be done to the Extreme Flight Extra, I'll progressively update it on the blog.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Hobble, hobble

2007-03-01T11:25:00.000+08:00

Two weekends ago as I was heading home after a flight session, which was full of ups and downs, I slipped down the slope on the way home from the field. Slid down hard and I heard a pop. Pain seared quickly up my leg. I thought I broke my ankle. Writhed in pain for a minute or so then this main and his daughter came by from over the bridge and helped me up. Tried moving my toes and twisting my ankle and I could do it. Phew, luckily nothing broke. This kind man helped me with my plane and other stuff and accompanied me to the nearest road and almost immediately a taxi came by. I hailed it and made by way back, not before profusely thanking the man and and his daughter. What a sucky Sunday. It almost made sure of the end of slope season for me. Gotta make sure I don't slip like that again.

"I'll miss this plane. Never thought I'll be so attached to a piece of foam"

Ok a week later and my ankle is still rather stiff but I still had to go for a barbecue organised by John (p4cm4n). I wouldn't miss it as it was an oppurtunity to catch up with some of the friends I have made over the last year from this hobby and not forgetting the good food. I was not let down, the food was great. Had some stick time with the Super Zoom at the field next to the pit and let Durex and Derrick have a go. Derrick managed some nice low hovers in the strong winds and I was impressed. The plane came in for a hard landing though and it broke along an old crack line. Small matter as it just needed a slap of CA and kicker and it would be as good as it was before. Ate some more that night and I have to say the barbecued chicken wings rock.

At home, I stared long at hard at the Super Zoom. It has served me very well. Took numerous crashes only to fly five minutes later. In the end I decided to decommision it and sell off the servos. I have a new Extreme Flight Extra 300 and I think I'll just concentrate my attention to it. It will be my new flagship plane. Just need to get new batts and it'll be good to go.

I feel kinda sad letting the SZ4D go though. I think it will always be like this everytime I let go a plane which flies well and has been through more than a hundred flights. It was well worth the cash spent on it. Today, a fellow DaddyHobby member will be taking it off my hands at a steal and I hope it serves the owner well.

Signing off,
RandomTask

End of (slope gliding) Days

2007-02-18T19:28:00.000+08:00

Dead air. That best describes the wind condition last saturday.

I made the best of it by taking my dusty 'ol Super Zoom 4D for a spin. It was great. Lots of low passes; upright and inverted. Lots of touch and go's too. I tell you all the hours clocked in during slope season greatly increases my confidence and improved my landings. I come in dead stick without batting an eyelid now. I love the slope season. Let's just hope the slope is still there next year cos I have a list of what I want to fly already. Namely an M60 (wing) and a Valenta Model Storm. Both very beautiful planes.

At least I got the last few gusts of wind for this season last friday. All thanks to the bug which flew in almost no wind conditions. What a pity.

Anyways, here are some videos of last Thursday's slope session. We had lots of fun trying to knock down the bottle with the Easy Glider. Ken was also there with his girlfriend and a new plane. But alas it was not too well balanced and its maiden flight was rather short.

With the end of the slope season beckoning, my resolve for finishing the Extreme Flight Extra and the retro-fitting of my Katana Mini has been renewed. Expect more build pictures down the road.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Let the battle begin!

2007-02-10T23:01:00.000+08:00

"My battling days are over ah!"

Famous last words from our friend, Scully aka Botak, before there was a mid air "incident" with Wei Yao's spanking new Raptor36. I'm not here to judge who ran into who, but that inceident sparked a slew of menacing mid-air melee. Anything that was made of foam was fair game. Even I was caught up in the heat of the action, tangling with Scully's Jazz 60 and hurtling to the ground. I also managed to accidentally whack Wei Yao's new plane for 3 more times. I betcha there's a foam magnet somewhere in his plane.

But before all the carnage, there was some really good soaring done in the slopes. I managed to really speck out the Easy Glider, highest I've been all of this first season. A feat I reckon will be difficult to emulate again. Flew inverted a couple of rounds and did the mandatory lopps and "rolls", if we could call them that with the Easy Glider. Friday was a good day. Everybody at the slopes had fun. It was very easy to see.

Saturday morning started out beautifully. The sun was shining, the winds were blowing and the sky was relatively clear. My wife and I managed to finish up three loads of laundry, and they were drying up in record time. We also had breakfast at the nearby Indian stall. The fish curry was not bad but the "vade" was excellent. It was not oily and the spices were just right. I especially like the fact that they used whole black pepper seeds instead of grinding them, my wife thinks otherwise. It was a good morning.

I came back from breakfast and had a thorough run through of my bruised and battered easy glider. Boy did it take a beating from the previous day. The rudder control horns came loose, there were cracks running down the chord of the stab at the wing root, the leading edge was a landscape of dings and dents and the nose was just crushed. Nothing some CA and boiling water could not cure. For added measure for future melees, I taped up the leading edges of my wings and vertical fin and I was done and ready for another day of sloping fun.

The time at the slope was equally as good as the morning; the winds were blowing directly towards the slope and the constantly too. The Easy Glider had another good day and it even beat the altitude record that it set the previous day. More of the same fun that it had on Friday. Not forgetting the mandatory whacking of Wei Yao's R36 out of the air. I tell you it is a magnet in his plane. And a mid-air with Ken's Easy Glider. But all's good, everybody came out of it relatively unscathed.

"Scully's Innocence Plea"

"Spectacular Landing by Wei Yao"

Other guys also had a go on the R36, namely Syming and also Pang. I had some great still shots of it and a nice lores vid of it too.

"Pang with the R36"

Pang also maidened his Banana. Nice. Fast. Furious. That is one very effective plane. It was very sleek except for the mis-coloured servo bay covers. He had nice red ones but the shop sent him a plane with blue stripes instead. But it does make it a special plane in its own right. I have to say it again, it is a very nice plane. Really.

So far it's been a wonderful weekend at the slopes and I tend to lose all track of time. I really have to start putting an alarm to tell me to go home. There's still a Sunday afternoon for flying, but to tell you the truth; I'm sated. No wonder everybody was so looking forward to slope season. I'm glad I didn't pass the opportunity to experience it first hand.

Signing off,
RandomTask

P.S.
The images for the past few blog entries have been taken with my new Sony Ericsson K800i. Excellent picture quality and very handy. Now it's so much easier for me to take pictures at the field as I don't have to lug around another camera. I'd recommend this phone to everybody.

I've got wind in my gut

2007-02-06T23:32:00.000+08:00

It has been a great few weeks of slope gliding. Bigger gliders are now seen at the slope, more people are joining in and at times up to ten gliders in the air. What more is there to say, life's good.

Flying powered planes now a pain, the winds are forcing me to fight the plane more than flying it. Coupled with an off-shaped plane (Super Zoom 4D), made it almost unenjoyable. So now I'll continue to slowly build by Extreme Flight Extra 330 so that once the winds die down, I'll have a spanking new plane for the off-slope season. I'll build this plane right, straight and slowly. It's a big investment and I don't want to take any chances, thus the investment of tools to facilitate in the ground testing and build.

Enjoy the pictures!

Signing off,
RandomTask

Oh Bugger!

2007-01-22T20:57:00.000+08:00

It was a great day at the slopes yesterday. The winds came from the right direction and continued blowing for extended periods of time. Definitely the best weekend of the year (eventhough there were only four so far this 2007) eventhough the weekend did not start as well as I'd had hoped.

I did not get to fly on Saturday morning as I had to attend antenatal class with my wife at Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH). It was kinda boring as most of the information that was passed out on that first lesson of the course was stuff that my wife has already read about and related to me. What was worse, the nurse doing the presentation was just reading off the slides, making it even more yawn-inducing. Nonetheless, trips down to KKH are always fun, as my wife and I would plough the stores and just browse through the array of toys, clothes, food, etc. My mind would, from time to time, wander to faraway thoughts of Bedok Reservoir slope. Alas, as we stepped out of the hospital to make our way down to Raffles Hospital, dark, heavy clouds were already forming and I was resigned to having a Saturday afternoon without a flight at the slope.

At around 2pm on Saturday, the sky gave way and it just poured. And poured, And poured. Bummer. Stayed home and continued with repairs on the E-Hawk 1400. It's definitely starting to look very good with a new covering and all.

On Sunday, on the other hand, was a great day for flying. A big crowd came down to the slope and everybody had a good time. Gliders were staying in the air for hours on end efforlessly. There was a 4-metre glider which floated effortlessly with much of a throw, and the DG-1000 were taking turns to fly. All-in-all, a very good day. Ken (MadFlurry) had his first taste of slope gliding and he definitely enjoyed the experience. Spending at least half hour in the air at any go.

"Ken's Zagi which he did his maide slope gliding run with."

"Dennis with a new Multiplex Evo 9 transmitter which he got form Leo."

"Leo with his Multiplex Cockpit flying his Thunder Tiger Soaring Star."

"Scully with his sexy shorts."

It was a good weekend and I'm looking forward for more of the same in the coming weeks. Until then.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flight Log 10.01.2007

2007-01-15T13:25:00.000+08:00

1. Hacker SuperZoom 4D

AXI2212/26 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 10 August 2006
Number of Flights: 120

Fly it hard, fly it low, fly it fast, fly it slow. I'd do anything with this plane.

2. Multiplex Easy Glider

Maidened: 28.11.2006
Flight Time: 3h 45min

Maidened quite some time back and I find that this glider is an excellent all rounder, extremely robust and very forgiving. I have not done any repairs on this plane even after all the abuse that it had to bear. But now I'm flying it like it should, relaxed and slow instead of all the low dives and loops that I have previously subjected it to.

3. Precision Aerobatics Katana Mini (temporarily decomissioned)

AXI2217/16 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: N/A
Number of Flight: N/A

Maidened, but crashed a few times as it had some niggling problems. Currently decommisioned until I get the mood to fix it up.

4. Micro Bug HLG (JAWS)

Maidened: N/A
Flight Time: N/A

A Joe Yap Aeromodel Work Shop build. Artfully put together and neatly covered, it is safe to say this is one of the prettiest plane I have in my hangar. Mine's the white one.

5. Thunder Tiger E-Hawk 1400

Maidened: N/A
Flight Time: N/A

Picked it up from somebody who wanted to throw it away. It's currently in the re-building process.

6. Extreme Flight Extra 330

AXI2814/20 Gold Line (Pending)
Castle Creation Phoenix 45amp ESC (Pending)

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

Building and waiting for the hardware to come in.

7. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang (Sold Off)

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 12

Being one of my most problematic planes I had around, I decided to sell it off. May it serve its new owner well.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Re"covering" the E-Hawk 1400

2007-01-15T12:59:00.000+08:00

Still sore from the Katan Mini crash, I decided to work on another project I have on hand; whipping the E-Hawk 1400 I got from a fellow flyer (who was about to trash it in the bin) into shape. It had lots of holes in the fibreglass fuselage, hairline cracks all over the place, the wings were riddled with holes which was either covered with unsightly, gaudy stickers or patched up with mis-matching covering. I've decided on a predominantly white colour scheme, the classic glider look with some hints of colours later on. This will be my biggest challenge in reviving planes as its made up of two materials which I have no experience repairing before: balsa and fibreglass. Also not forgetting I have never had any experience covering balsa planes with Monokote or other coverings for that matter. I fear I may be in over my head for this one.

I had already filled up most of the holes on the fuselage with epoxy mixed with micro balloons. Sanded them down and maybe I'll just go over the fuse with watered down epoxy or something to improve the overall integrity of the frame.

The wing was an eyesore; the original yellow covering with patches of "stuff" all over the place. So I decided to strip it all down right to the balsa wing. Strengthen the wing joints with some fibre glass cloth and CA and now I'm in the process of re-covering the wings. Ran into so much trouble with the covering. Firstly, I had so much trouble getting the covering to stick onto the balsa wings, that was until Wei Yao told me that there could be a protective covering on the back side of the film. D'oh! Apparently there was a very, very thin layer of plastic which anyone could've missed. Thank goodness for friends with experience with these stuff or I'd be left in the lurch cussing and swearing. Then I ran into another set of problems. Unsightly wrinkes were appearing at the corners of the parts that I was covering everytime I attempted to tack it down. I then cut the covering into smaller pieces and decided to work on the wings in small parts, starting with the wing tips. Voila, with the help of my wife (to hold down the wing and parts of the covering as I tacked it down I managed a nice taut covering on the wingtips. I went ahead to cover one of the ailerons and the other wingtip until my heavy eyes made me decide to call it a night. I will continue working on the covering slowly over the week and hope that it'll be ready by the weekend.

Signing off,
RandomTask

It's a boy!!!

2007-01-09T22:16:00.000+08:00

The picture should say it all. After some thorough scanning at the hospital, the ultrasound operator at the hospital told us that the baby is a boy. Yeah, ain't it cool. Now my wife and I can finally focus on what what kind of clothes to buy, what kind of toys to get and can finally rest easy knowing the sex of the boy. The doctor has confirmed with us that the pregnancy is going very well and all is good.

Speaking of babies, I've got a blue one on the way too: an Extreme Flight Extra. Got it a around two weeks back and I've been slowly working on it. Fixing in the ailerons to the wings and covering the gaps with Blenderm tape. I have put in my order for the AXI2814/20 and the Castle Creations Phoenix 45 for the plane. I am really taking my time with this plane, for one main reason; the motor will only come in by mid February. It's a beaut of a plane and I'm really happy admiring it while its on the work bench.

The wing, nuff said

A shot of the bottom of the wing.

See the blenderm tape sealing the gaps? No? Precisely. It's my new magic tape, very flexible, strong, almost invisible and it doesn't leave any marks after you remove it.

My Katana Mini just won't fly. Or won't land in one piece. I just nose dived the plane into the ground yesterday. Everything is still working and the only damage to the plane is in the motor mount and the firewall. Definitely fixable, but the question is, "Do I want to spend any more resources into it?" The plane has been banking to its right, yes its right even with left full trim, I can't figure out what's wrong, or haven't had enough air time to figure it out. But I reckon its a warp in the right aileron whic I have not been able to straighten out that much. I guess I'll just put it one side for a few months until I get the mood and resources to work on it again. For now I have de-rigged the whole plane and maybe I'll use the hardware on another plane IF I decide to get one. Most likely not.

Ok that's all for now, I will be updating the blog regularly with my build of the EF Extra kit.

Signing off
RandomTask

Au Naturelle

2007-01-08T16:41:00.000+08:00

Having not updated this blog for over a month, some might have guessed that I have quit this hobby. Fat chance! It's just that for the past month I have not spent much on this hobby as I was busy flying - slope gliding to state it more accurately. It's been such a blast keeping the plane in the air for more than half an hour when the winds are accomodating.

Lots of flyers lament that slope gliding is so boring without even attempting to throw it (the plane) in the wind, literally. In rebuttal I would have to say, it is exciting watching people climbing trees, tugging at branches with ropes and seeing mid-air collisions (between foam gliders only). Then there's always the close shaves - almost crashing into the trees. How can anyone who has seen all this say that slope gliding is boring? But to each, his own. And when in rome... (hehe)

I also got another glider, it is a Joe Yap buit Micro HLG Bug. All I can say it is such a looker, being hand made and all. There is no laser burn marks on the balsa and the covering was done to perfection and without a flaw except on the base of the fuselage where the covering wrinkled a bit, easily fixed with some heat.

I'm also attempting to revive a Thunder Tiger E-Hawk which one of the guys at the slopes has given up on. It was riddled with cracks all over the fuselage and the wings' integrity was questionable. There was also excessive binding on the elevator, which I reckon made it impossible for the previous owner to fly this plane properly. So far, I have ripped off the covering on the wings, glued some of the ribs to give it a bit of strength and remove all the pushrods. I plan to recover the wings with white monokote and maybe add some details later on... If I get any further with the repair of this plane.

Well that was a summary of what has transgressed over the last month or so. Next posting will be very soon and it will cover more of my ongoing powered planes projects. Until then...

Signing Off
RandomTask

Pimp my Plane

2006-12-03T22:02:00.000+08:00

I have finally finished repairing and modding my second hand Katana Mini and now (at least in my opinion) it looks so much better and should give much better performance as compared to when I originally got it.

The Katana Mini has new servos for the tail feather section; HS55 for the elevator and HS65 (pull-pull system) for the rudder. I have removed the original tape used to seal the gaps in the aielerons and have replaced them with llighter Blenderm tape. The cowling has also been re-dremelled to give it nicer appearance and cooling holes were added at the bottom too. Cooling holes were also cut near the tail section, this will facilitate the cooling of the hardware in the fuselage and also helps in reducing a bit of weight aft of the centre of gravity. Holes from the previous placement of the tail feather servos have also been covered up with white tape.

On Saturday, I did some testing with different Flightpower Evo Packs to find the most suitable one that will suit the centre of gravity on the Katana Mini. I have found the 1800mah pack will put the centre of gravity at 8.5cm from the leading edge at the wing root, the recommended one. It also keeps the all up weight of the Katana Mini down. As it is, the weight of the Katana Mini without the battery to be at 650g (if I measured it right). And that should help keep the wing loading down, reducing the chances of tip stalling at slow speeds, something the Katana Mini is infamous for.

That Saturday was a very good day for slope gliding too, there was a rather bigger crowd than usual at the slopes and the winds were strong and relatively constant, I managed two flights that day, a 35 minute one and my longest flight ever, a 65 minute one. This puts the total flying time for the Easy Glider at a whopping 2 hour 30 minutes. I have to say this plane is an excellent all rounder, it catches the wind to gain lift like the big boys (2.5m wingspan gliders) very well and highly manoueverable (I managed to put it through loops and a roll). The Easy Glider will definitely see much more air time as the season comes in, maybe even see some air time in Sedili. This is definitely the glider of choice for the the beginner or novice to slope gliding.

The winds were so strong on Saturday, there were at least four incidences of planes getting stuck in trees. Wei Yao also managed some beautiful low dives and immediately recovered altitude without much effort. Nice.

I'm hoping the winds pick up over the coming weeks then we'll enjoy more air time and have a good time at the slopes. Let's just hope and see.

Until then, signing off
RandomTask

P.S.

2nd YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Today, 4th December 2006, is my second wedding anniversary. My wife has been so supportive of me.

Hi Shahirah, I know you're reading this now, and I just want to thank you for all our great years together. It has been wonderful and I hope it continues for a long, long time.

I love you hon and happy anniversary!

I believe I can fly!

2006-11-29T20:58:00.000+08:00

After a few times of making my way down the slope and subsequently trudging myself up with my Easy Glider in hand, I managed a decent 35-minute flight, I timed it. Got a good cardio workout. Maybe I should go sloping more often when the winds are not so favourable, lose a couple of kilos in the process. Yeah I can finally say that I can "slope". It is an achievement for me to be able to do it on my own without any mishaps. Of course I was on the more prudent side and all I did was to keep the glider in the air, no stunts - no regrets. If the wind picks up and gets more consistent maybe (read definitely) I will try to do some stunts with my glider. Gotta love that elapor foam, it gives me the unfounded confidence which cannot be achieved with less robust material. Hopefully I can clock in a bit more stick time on the slope before the weekend.

Last Sunday I spent the most part of the day at the BBAFC Jamboree. It was a fun event with high speed pylon races, a heli obstacle course, demonstrations by respective vendors at the event and even a lucky draw. It was quite fun eventhough I did not even fly anything. I was really impressed by a flyer who did some pattern and 3D flying with an engine-powered Fliton Inspire. The demonstration was nothing but inspirational. Seeing a large plane doing 3D moves will definitely not fail to impress. The plane just floated. At the end of the event, I came home with good memories of the day and a splitting headace. Not forgetting a nice FlightPower cap from KP. Thanks man.

"The SunRacer V2. Slurp. Beautiful plane but it really doesn't suit my type of flying."

"The TREX 600 in all its majesty."

"Kelvin's grossly overpowered Multiplex Twin Star."

"Competitors getting ready for the race. This was the last we'd ever see of Kelvin's FunJet canopy."

"Pang with his pylon challenger."

"The champion of the pylon race but he does not know it yet when this picture was taken."

"Accidents do happen and they look like this. It was just not your day, Frank."

I really hope there are more events like this where flyers from all over Singapore will just come togetther on a given day and just share the sheer fun of flying together. Until then.

Signing off
RandomTask

Toy Boy

2006-11-27T16:37:00.000+08:00

"Autobots! Transform and roll out!"

It's amazing how I manage to go from one expensive hobby to another. Before starting radio controlled air models I was deep into designer toys and other stuff of the sort. Just last Friday, I took a walk around China Square and suddenly realised how many great new toys there are on the market now. How I wish I could get my hands onto some of them.

This post is dedicated to some of my favourite toys which I have in my current collection. Enjoy.

"My pride & Joy"

I can see clearly now the rain has gone

2006-11-20T11:15:00.000+08:00

It rained heavily on Friday afternoon but as quickly as it came, the clouds disappeared making way for clear skies and constant winds. Making it a perfect beginning to the weekend. I started the weekend off by successfully maidening Multiplex Easy Glider (EZG) on Friday evening. The winds was favourable to us, as we had constant wind blowing the right way for extended periods of time. That made it much easier for me to keep the EZG in the air as it was my very first time flying an unpowered plane and it was an exhilarating experience. And it was an interesting sight to see a flock crows going after the EZG, coming close and attempting to peck it. The winds were so good that Wei Yao also managed to fly his 2.6-metre wingspan Manta without running into any problems. There was also a Multiplex FunJet on the slopes that day. Eventhough it was powered it needn't go over half throttle as the winds just kept it in the air. I really like the colour scheme of the plane though.

"Just like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Birds'"

"Manta Ready!"

"Manta Launch!"

"Manta Fly!"

"Francis's FunJet with the cool colour scheme"

"Me!"

"Deft stick controls made easier with purple transmitter rest"

On Saturday, there was a big score of people at the Bedok Reservoir field, most of them training for the upcoming pylon race coming up this coming weekend. There was also some smooth flying by the guys from Radio Control Sports. More of Saturday Funfly reports and pictures from Mazon's Blog (links on the sidebar). I also managed to successfully fly my heavily repaired SuperZoom. It definitely flies better now eventhough it feels a bit heavy but I still have not managed to overcome the right wing drop whenever I do a loop. I'll try figure it out another day.

Overall, the last weekend was a fun one. It especially is when you manage to successfully maiden a new plane.

Signing off
RandomTask

Flight Log 14.11.2006

2006-11-14T15:02:00.000+08:00

1. Hacker SuperZoom 4D

AXI2212/26 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 10 August 2006
Number of Flights: 65

Most abused plane ever.

2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 12

3. Multiplex Easy Glider

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

Ready and raring to go.

4. Precision Aerobatics Katana Mini

AXI2217/16 Glod Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: N/A
Number of Flight: N/A

This plane is still currently waiting for new servos to replace the old Dynam ones and also going through a weight-loss program. I'm hoping to get the AUW to be around 750g-800g. It has to so that it will not give the current motor any trouble while doing 3D or pattern maneuvers.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Of Super Zoom Maiden and Rhinoplasty

2006-11-14T14:26:00.000+08:00

As it happened, last Saturday saw an introduction of another blue and green Super Zoom 4D (SZ4D) at Bedok Reservoir flying field. That makes for three of the same plane with the same markiongs and another one with a red colour scheme at the field. Madflurry (Ben) brought his out for its maiden flight but as fate would have it his motor would start spluttering like an old jalopy when it hits the high range of the throttle. Classic case of bad connection between ESC and the motor. So I then lent Ben my ESC from the Midget Mustang so that he could actually maiden the plane without having the worry of his plane spiking in mid air. Ben's SZ4D maidened without any problems and seems to fly well. Welcome to the SZ club Ben, may you whack this plane to the best of its capabilities.

On Monday, when I took my SZ4D out for a spin, it met with its worst crash ever. The nose of the plane came ripped off, the landing gear area was mauled beyond recognition, cracks ran across the front part of the fuse doublers and generally the whole integrity of the front part of the plane has been compromised. The nose of the plane suffering the most damage and it also seems that the thrust angle has changed to a more upward thrust angle. .Good thing the SZ4D is mainly EPP. Got me some more CA glue, some UHU glue (for the micro baloons) and thank goodness I got myself the CA accelerator. Will have to work on the plane a bit, but I reckon it will come out looking decent after I'm through with it.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Sunday Morning Fun Fly (06.11.06)

2006-11-06T23:11:00.000+08:00

Last Sunday's funfly was fun like all other Fun Flies (FF). Lots of different types of planes from jets, to pylon racers, to 3D planes and not forgetting helis. As expected I had lots of fun flying my Super Zoom (SZ) but it just cannot keep its heading in loops. I have already tested and have found that the plane is laterally balanced so I'm going to change the thrust angle a bit and see how it goes. Hopefully, I can then have a few more left clicks of the ailerons and the SZ will even out. Even with all the problems I had fun hovering my SZ at the same time with Max's Zoom Zoom 4D (ZZ). It was lots of fun and as the confidence grew the closer the planes got and there were alot of near misses, but that's where the fun kicks in. My SZ suffered alot of crashes that day and the nose got ripped off. A little CA and Max's kicker and the SZ was good to go again. I also think that my Thunder Power lipos are also not holding its voltage that well any more. There's just not enough juice and it just seems that the SZ is struggling for power.

Making a first appearance at Bedok Reservoir flying field is the Fliton Edge 540. One of my dream planes. Its pilot, Zheng Yang does a very impressive job in putting the Edge through its paces; long knife-edges, slow rolls and the works. I stilll have to work hard to get close to his skills and I think with the SZ it will give me some forgiving training crashes. Once I'm confident with my abilities with the SZ I will then move on to my Katana Mini.

Yes, last Sunday was fun, but so are all the times anyone get to be in the company of friends. And that's what this hobby is all about: friends and giving your friends a show.

Signing off,
RandomTask

High winds, low ebb

2006-11-02T10:06:00.000+08:00

My last two outings with my Super Zoom 4D has been very disappointing. The monsoon winds are really starting to pick up and it makes flying the SZ with the Slow Fly prop very very frustrating. Wing rocks has been very obvious in high alpha harriers, the plane seems to be staying in one spot when flying into the wind and it just seems that one wing will just stall when both wings are not parallel to the ground. Lucky thing the SZ is made of EPP, this bird has taken a hell of a beating these few days. An elevator wingtip along with an aileron wing tip has a deep crack in it. I also had a 90 degrees nose dive into the ground and the horizontal braces got unstuck to the main fuselage, nothing some CA glue won't cure. Overall, I think I better get started working on my Easy Glider as the slope season beckons.

Anyways, I finally got myself a Katana Mini, a second-hand one at a steal. It's a red one, not my preferred colour but with the price that I got it for I simply cannot complain. The plane is in a relatively good condition but I still have some work to do to it. I'll have to replace the tape used to seal the aileron gaps, re-file/dremel the canopy so that it looks better, add in a few triangular balsa braces to the motor cage, remove the binding between the rudder and the the vertical stabiliser and I'm also seriously considering changinng to a pull-pull system for the rudder. The servos that came with the plane will also be sold off to subsidise the cost of new Hitec servos. Nothing but the good stuff will be in this plane. It is a beauty. Alas, I think it will only see any airtime only after slope season. Just means that I wil have a bit more time to whip it into shape.

Signing off
RandomTask

Finally prepared for glider season

2006-10-30T15:19:00.000+08:00

I finally bit the bullet and got myself a second hand glider. It's tough, realtively a good flyer and easily repairable. I got myself the Multiplex Easy Glider. Now that I have a glider and have been talking to more glider experts I'm quite psyched up to see all the unpowered plane up in the sky riding the wind and catching thermals. I will definitely miss flying my Super Zoom though but I will have more time in preparing the Katana Mini which I hope I'll be getting second hand. So by the end of the Slope season I will have myself a "new" plane in my hangar. I think it will gather somme dust before it is finally flown though.

The Super Zoom has been an exceptional 3D/pattern flying trainer. I'll always feel that whatever other 3D planes that I'll fly after it will give me inferior flight performance but it always feel like that when you have something really good which has served you well. There are still a few more moves to master on my Super Zoom before I move on to another plane so that I can actually give a fair assessment of any planes post SZ. It has been a really fun few months since I started this hobby and the journey of practicing and gaining new skills is really exciting.

Well, I have been practicing my "Maximum of 3 planes at any one time" credo and it has curbed costs. So I think I will stick to it all the way. But are gliders considered as normal planes? They only get to go out only once a year.

Signing Off
RandomTask

Flight Log 30.10.2006

2006-10-30T00:28:00.000+08:00

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: 45

Still my favourite plane. But today the trims all seemed to be a bit off but just a few clicks of the trim and everything is all ok. Did lots of low level flights for the crowd.

2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 9

My little problem child. The plane can still do with a bit more power I reckon but rolls are too darn slow for it to be exciting. Maybe I'd just work on this plane a bit more instead of spending money on another plane. It's still up for sale in the DaddyHobby Market Place but I'd still fly it for all its worth. Maybe it'll grow on me after some mods. Who knows?

3. Multiplex Easy Glider

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

Finally got a glider second hand from a guy fron DaddyHobby (Ronnie). For a second hand plane the servos all look as good as new. I will have to do some custom paint job as I simply cannot leave anything stock. Elapor should be able to handle some of the harder landings which I will most probably subject this plane too.

Airfoilz Yak (sold off)

AXI2217/16 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 15 October 2006
Number of Flights: 3

Finally this beautiful bird has a new owner and I hope that it will serve him well. I did not give this plane much chance to fly as I already have the SuperZoom. The new owner seems to be happy with it especially with the free motor which a local hobby shop had graciously sponsored to help me with the sale.

Pictures by P4cm4n200 from DaddyHobby

Signing off
RandomTask

Gliding through the season

2006-10-21T05:55:00.000+08:00

Glider season is impending and I do not know if I'm really looking forward to it. Firstly, I have no glider. Secondly, I have no buget to get myself a glider. And lastly, no one wnats to buy off a plane I'm selling to help me with the funding for a glider.

As it is I'm in two minds in getting a glider. Everybody is just anticipating for glider season to come but I'm still rather apprehensive. Unpowered flight? Come on, there is just so much control you can have. And I am a (remote) control freak. I like the feeling that I am in control of my flying model and not dependent on the erratic whims of prevailing gusts.

My plane of choice for this coming season has to be a Multiplex Easy Glider. It's simple build, tough 'elapor' material and decent manouverability is what's attracting me to this particular plane. I believe, given the right conditions and with sufficient ballast, this plane can be quite a joy for in-your-face sloping (loops and rolls nearer to the slopes) or just relaxing thermal riding. But still, you're at the mercy of the winds.

I would rather get myself a Katana Mini (KM) for my next plane. I believe once I'm proficient enough with my current hangar of planes, the KM would provide me with alot more 'umph' to my flying sequences. It's always a spectacular sight seeing a balsa plane pushed to its (or the pilot's) maximum capabilities. Low passes would simply be majestic, while spins will just have the audience at the edge of their seats. If I were to get myself a KM I could actually use alot of the parts which I already have except servos. And support for this plane is also very comprehensive, with the covering and other parts readily available at a local hobby shop.

Well, I cannot say I can complain with what I currently have. The planes in my hangar is serving me well and I do hope they'll last me for more months or hopefully year to come. As much as I would like to upgrade to a better built, but more importantly, flashier plane. I still have to improve my skills slowly. I must constantly remind myself that is not a race to get better at my flying skills. It's the friends you meet every weekend to wind down from the stress and drone of work. But the showman in me will be hard to surpress.

A glider or a balsa 3D plane? Until I manage to muster the funds for either, the answer is blowing in the wind.

Signing off,
RandomTask.

P.S.
I've always liked Leonardo (the turtle not the artist). And he wields two katana blades. Imagine that.

Bedok Reservoir Bloggers (BRB?)

2006-10-21T05:38:00.000+08:00

So far, it seems that 3 members of the local flying site at Bedok Reservoir have their own blogs including me. I would like to call ourselves (unofficially) the first three, and currently only, mebers of the Bedok Reservoir Bloggers or BRB for short.

Writing about our hobby also gives us another outlet to enjoy it instead of just being out in the field. Sharing with the online world, or the very few who actually do view our blogs, our experiences, thoughts and opinions. It is way more cost effective and somewhat still satisfying, Still, nothing beats the morning sun on your back, the company of good friends, the wind blowing in the exact opposite direction of what you want, and the whirring of the electric motors on our planes.

Until more blogs sprout up from more our members, I will be trying my best to keep my blog up and running and constantly updated with more stuff.

Signing off,
RandomTask

Flight Log 19.10.2006

2006-10-19T13:35:00.000+08:00

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: 37

My favourite plane as yet. 'Nuff said

2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 8

Found a perfect prop to haul this plane around with the current motor setup without excessive amps drawn: GWS 8060 HD. Now it has much more speed due to the higher pitch which is a trade off from the high torque it had previously. Flies very nicely with the newfound speed so tip stalls seems a thing of the past. Just need to get a few more 2S lipos from KPModelSports so that I get to fly this baby much more.

1. Airfoilz Yak

AXI2217/16 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

Maidened: 15 October 2006
Number of Flights: 3

Signing off
RandomTask

Hitting a snag - literally

2006-10-19T12:48:00.000+08:00

In the past week I had alot of flights on my SuperZoom 4D. Been Hovering lower and lower, practicing slow rolls (but accidentally come out as rolling circles), knife edges (which has been difficult cos there just been a bit of coupling). Inverts are a breeze with this plane and even need some up elevator inputs from keeping it from climbing ( a sign of the plane being a bit tail heavy) but it flies well enough right side up too with the proper trimming.

A friend (Wei Yao) finally maidened my Airfoilz Yak. It flies really well without much trimming and doesn't have much bad tendencies. But I was reluctant to fly with my 11 inch size prop which would have given it mad power as the sttatic amps drawn were way through the roof. Around 11 amps through the roof. Will have to experiment with other props over this weekend.

Over the weekdays, I also flew the Yak on my own. It feels very good in the air even though tad underpowered. It just floats and floats and tracks very well. This then got my confidence up. Started doing some tail touches and once I achieved it with the plane right side up without much problems I decided to push the envelope and do inverrted tail touches. And guess what, this plane makes it soo easy. I was pleasantly surprised. After a few passes I finally got the plane low enough but it was around 20 metres in away from me. I manged to do an inverted tail touch!!!! So I gave the plane a little down elevator input to climb and it suddenly jerked and nose-planted itself into the ground. Crap! I went up to the plane and found a stray mimosa entangled in the rudder joints, the tail feathers have disjointed itself from the plane and the nose a bit crumpled. Of course the propellor was broken. This just blows. My SuperZoom takes much more abuse and still stays in one piece.

I went home, did all the necessary repairs and it looks as good as new. I reckon it will fly as good as new too. But I have decided to sell off the plane and use the cash to fund for a glider for the slope season. I already have the SuperZoom which has proven itself a worthy 3D trainer which is good enough to withstand my learning curve and more. Just hope that it will be sold off soon.

My babies

2006-10-11T14:02:00.000+08:00

'Nuff said.

Got this ultrasound taken last Monday (2nd October) at Kandang Kerbau Hospital. The foetus was 6.5 weeks old then. I was so jazzed when i saw the picture you wouldn't believe. Now I can truly say I can be part of the DADDYHobby forum cos I'm gonna be a daddy this coming May. So from now till then I will get as many flights as I can with my current fleet of planes cos I reckon, after the baby's around, I won't have much time to fly (that doesn't mean not flying altogether).

Flight Log 09.10.2006

2006-10-09T20:28:00.000+08:00

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: 25

Had lots of flights over the past week. Been practising landings and hovering. It's been such a joy to fly this plane. The most abused part of this plane has to be the landing gear area. It has been glued and micro-ballooned many times. but as long as it can fly it's good enough for me. Also tried it with an APC E prop somewhere in the week and found that the plane reacts totally differently with just a change of prop. With an E prop it takes the plane a longer length of the runway to take off but just have that extra speed in the air and much more efficient thus increasing air time. I still have more experimenting to do.

2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 6

I have not flown this plane for the past week. I'm considering getting a GWS Brushless motor with a 2150KV just to get that extra bit of power. I reckon this will be a nice aerobatic plane with the correct power supply.

1. Airfoilz Yak

AXI2217/16 Gold Line
Castle Creation Phoenix 25amp ESC

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

Signing off
RandomTask

Unpowered plane. Gliders... not really.

2006-10-05T22:11:00.000+08:00

I was helping my mom-in-law clean the store room today and boy were there lots of treasures. I found my wife's unfinished B-17F flying fortress from around ten years ago. I also found some nice small profile warbird planes kits, the kind we used to buy from the corner "mamak" shops for 50 cents. My wife got it from either the RAF Museum or the Imperial War Museum in London. But this is way cooler. It has a moving propeller (which works more like air brakes), under-cambered wings and landing gear. Way cool for something with a wingspan of around 25cm.

Maybe I shouldn't get anymore powered planes but just get these types of planes instead, its cheap, hardy and takes no skil to fly.... Yeah right like that's gonna happen.

Happy Landings,
RandomTask

Flight Log 02.10.2006

2006-10-02T11:32:00.000+08:00

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: 17

This plane now flies great with the new motor with the 10x3.8 prop. Flies nice and slow with enough punch to get out of trouble. With this current setup, lower altitude hovering (still trying to get it right) is possible with much more confidence. But broke the prop while doing funny things after landing on the runway. Bloody Kerb!

2. Hacker Reno Racer: Mini Mustang

Tower Pro BM2408-21
Tower Pro 18amp ESC

Maidened: 16 September 2006
Number of Flights: 6

I tried running this plane with a 3S battery. Oodles of power. It had unlimited vertical climb and with the heavier battery, the centre of gravity was inadvertently moved back which really helped in the climb. So I had lots of fun just climbing high and puutting the plane into spins. It had som much power that during ROG the Mini Muustang took off with a slight crab-angle. Overall too much power for a small plane and I will revert to my 2S lipo. I won't suggest anyone getting this model as it just seems to have lots of drag in the air. I will try find a solution to this and post any updates on the performance of this cute little plane.

1. Airfoilz Yak

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

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

Signing off
RandomTask

Flight Log 29.09.2006

2006-09-29T21:10:00.000+08:00

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)

2006-09-28T11:46:00.000+08:00

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)

2006-09-25T12:05:00.000+08:00

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?)

2006-09-25T11:31:00.000+08:00

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?

2006-09-25T11:28:00.000+08:00

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