Where are you??

OK, so I am not so great at keeping up with a blog. I know that now.. and so should you. As I remember and have time I will make postings here. Not much has happened in the past few months, Christina graduated and got a job teaching here in Amarillo, I have worked on a few planes here and there, but that's about it.

Guest Blogger

Alert! Alert! Nick's blog has temporarily been taken over by his wife.

Well, I have finally finished my student teaching (Yay!) and actually have time to attempt to build my PT-Electric. When I first wanted to try to build a kit, I wanted to do it by myself, without help. Yeah, well, so much for that. I am currently 3 pages into my instruction book and have asked Nick for help approximately 57 times. I can't help it, it's written in the language of "Boy." So far, everything I've done the instructions promptly told me to undo and put aside until later. Ugh, feels like I have made absolutely no progress. I have, however, learned to use the Dremel tool to cut off the ends of screws. Whoopie! Hopefully from here on out, I will actually be putting something together that stays together and this project might be finished before I *hopefully* start teaching in the fall.

In other RC News, we raced cars on May 8th. I successfully managed to lose the front bumper and do serious damage to the front bulkhead. Thanks to assistance from James, these parts were replaced. I also have new Crime Fighter tires on wheels that my wonderful husband dyed pink for me. Nick managed to have the steering screw come undone, an easy fix. We called it an early night since graduation was Saturday!

We were supposed to race Saturday the 16th, but rain cancelled those plans. Instead, we visited the driving range for Nick and me to try out his new driver and my new set of clubs. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) With assistance from another R/C flyer, John, I can at least hit the golf balls and usually they go straight!

So, rumor is that we are racing this Saturday night! WooHoo!! Can't wait! Let's go racing boys! .... and girls!!

Weekend Racing

Well, the weekend racing didn't go quite as hoped. We got a cold front blow in on Friday night that lasted through Sunday with high winds and low temperatures. Needless to say we didn't get to race. I was disappointed but at least I wasn't cold and wind blown! On Saturday night James brought over an extra starter box he had for my gt2 truck. We got it configured for my truck, although I had to dremel a little bit on the bottom of the truck to lengthen the opening for the starter. I think I am going to add a 12V switch to the box for easy on and off and to make it easier to charge. The race has been rescheduled for Friday night. I went ahead and took Friday off work already so i should have time to get everything ready to go and have time to get there for "practice."

Too Long Since Last Post

OK it has been way too long since my last posting. We have been really busy lately. We got a new Toyota Matrix a couple weeks ago. This has got to be the perfect car for an RC hobbyist. It has an AC power adapter built in. It has a hard plastic cargo area so any spills are very easy to clean. I think we are ready to race our trucks this weekend. We were supposed to race last Sunday but the 11 inches of snow we got on Friday kind of shut that down. We did go to the park and run our trucks earlier this week. It is amazing the difference I noticed after replacing the stock 4AA battery pack with a 6 cell 6 volt pack, much more response from the servos on my Team Associated truck. We also got to watch a couple friends break in a 1/5 scale gasoline powered buggy. I could not believe how LOUD it was. It was super fast. I will try to do better at keeping things updated around here. If I don't get a chance to post before then, I will definitely post on how the racing goes on Sunday.

And It's Team Greene Time

OK its been a few days and I definitely have some updates. I started a kit build of a Birdie Forty. It is an interesting kit, a "pattern flyer," Long and sleek but with tricycle gear. It is an older kit that a friend gave me to build while I have some days off this week. As an older kit, it has been more interesting than a Great Planes kit where you just follow the pictures, and have labeled laser cut balsa pieces.
In other RC news, after the fun we had last weekend at the RC car races, we spent a few hours with our friend and "crew chief" James at the hobby shop "fixing up" Christina's Revo. She put in a super fast and strong servo, switching from dual drive servos to a single drive steering servo. James also helped switch to a front drive only transmission since we can't use reverse on the track anyway. This will reduce the drag from the reverse gears in the transmission. Christina learned how to replace the shock fluid in her Revo and in a 1/10 scale truck. She also made some other modifications such as a metal rear skid plate, and longer struts giving the truck a wider stance.
I had so much fun watching her with the RC car scene, I just had to get something to play as well. I got a ready to run Associated GT2 1/10 scale truck. I haven't done much yet, except remove the baffle out of the fuel tank, and remove the "restrictor plate" off of the stock engine. I have yet to even burn it in with all the work being done on the Revo. Hopefully today I can get it started and break it in so I can get to practicing.
Finally, we decided we needed to get some new bodies on these machines. Christina's Revo is going to sport a nice pink and silver body and mine is green with yellow flames. Both sport our new "Team Greene" logo. ... .. .. Going to go ride our bikes this afternoon, so will try to get some pictures posted later on.

RC Car Racin'

My wife and I met some friends out at the local outdoor RC car dirt track yesterday. What a blast! She took our Revo to test drive durning the pre-race test period. She had so much fun that she decided to stay for the races and run. I had a whole lot of fun watching her race, although I realized that I get pre-race jitters FOR her, even though Im not the one running. I have a feeling we will be back out there for her to race again soon. I think I am going to try to get us a Spektrum radio so we dont have to fight for frequencies. Maybe I can just get a Losi buggy bundle and get me a buggy out of the deal. Oh well, who knows. I was just glad she had so much fun with it.

Hey, I want to build a plane and do it by myself

I am really excited.... When it comes to the RC plane hobby my wife and I both participate. Normally the job of building and prepping the planes is my job, but recently she decided she wanted to build a plane, and do it by herself. I thought I would post a few thoughts on first builds here.
I still remember my first build. It was an Eagle 2 kit that I picked up from the LHS (local hobby shop) while I was a jr. or sr. in high school. I can still recall the joy of sitting in my bedroom floor with a piece of 2'x4' plywood, a box of balsa, and a bottle of CA. I can also remember the roll of my parents eyes as I brought home this box of balsa explaining I was gonna build an airplane. I have not always been known to finish all the projects I have started so im sure my parents figured it would end up half finished in the garage somewhere. Well it did end up in the garage, although it was fully covered and well flown.
I have high hopes that my wife finds at least some of the joy I found in putting together an airplane from a pile of wood, and the joy of seeing the completed project knowing that hey .. you I built that.. I have every intention of letting her do it by herself, and providing only the most basic of assistance.
As I thought of the things I wish I had known when I built my first plane, it has nothing to do with specific ways of monokoting, or exacly how to get an exact balance on the plane. In those days the internet was new.... way new... and it would have been nice to be able to do a quick search on rcgroups or rcuniverse to see what others thought of the kit.. Its always nice to know what worked and what didnt for others.. but that doesnt mean I would have HAD to follow their advice.
For those that are new to the hobby I would pass them this as a tip... look and see what others have done.. take some and leave some when it comes to advice, dont rush even though the process is exciting, above all have fun.... if you dont find this part fun... buy an ARF..

OK just my thoughts..

PS good luck on your new build!!!

Electra

I finished up my Electra sailplane this evening. I have had it "mostly" together for quite a while now but had to put the finishing touches on it.. I mounted the pushrods, and leveled out the control surfaces, and mounted the receiver. Now I just need to get it out for a test fly.



I am working to get little projects like this finished up so I can justify working on my new corsair kit... I guess just we will have to just wait and see how long that takes..

Back Again

Well, I spent the last week in Boulder, CO at a disaster recovery drill for work. Basically, we had to pretend that all of our computers in Amarillo failed and restore our systems from tape backups in Boulder. We did really well and got a lot of information ready for a speedier recovery next time. Needless to say, I was way busy so no new updates. I should have taken the Blade Micro CX to play with during down times.. but I probably would have had to share... or forever listen to "give me a try." I did get the servos installed, the motor tuned, and everything ready to go on my low wing mach II. If we can get a nice day outside, I hope to get out to the field to give it a test fly..

Still Here

Ok, its been a couple days... and I have no updates posted. Well that's because I have not worked on any of my planes over the last few days. Next week I get to fly on the real thing.. oh joy, oh joy. It is not my favorite thing to do. I prefer to stay on the ground with a controller, and just watch.. not climb in and go for a ride. It wont be too bad though since its only a 1 hour flight, and on southwest.
Now that I am almost finished with this low wing plane, I am trying to decide what to do next. I have a "red box" edition top flite corsair kit just aching to be started, but I also have my zipidee do daa, (ZDD) and a large chikn hawk glider that need to be finished. If I ever want to get more kits I guess I had better finish some of the projects I have going already.
Both the ZDD and chikn hawk need to have the glassing finished and smoothed, then painted. I got an airbrush for Christmas, so I think I am going to try to use that for the fuse finishes, and then monokote the wings on these birds. When I get the glass smoothed and get some paint layed down I will get some pics posted.
I guess thats pretty much all I have for now.. check back.. maybe I will come up with something else.. who knows.

Low Wing Training

My newest project is going to be my low wing trainer. It was inexpensive so no worries if it hits the ground. Here it is so far...



This is the same plane that many people in the local club are building to pylon race. I did notice a few things for those building this plane.
1. The monokote was really loose. When I tried to shrink it with my heat gun, it shrunk A LOT. I ended up having to remove some of it and replace it (now we have the blue and orange Auburn University colors! I did find that a low setting on a monokote iron worked perfectly to shrink the monokote.
2. Before you mount the engine go ahead and put the pushrod in the throttle arm.
3. Also make sure you run the pushrod holding tube for the throttle before you mount the fuel tank. Otherwise you will be removing the fuel tank to put it in.. (not that i did this)

Well this is all I have for now.

Everyone Else is doing it Why Not Me?

Ok, I read blogs... apparently, you read blogs... so why shouldn't I start a blog too? What should I blog about? Well here I plan on blogging about my RC (Radio Control Vehicles). Airplanes/gliders/micro helicopters/cars... if it has servos and I play with it .. I can blog about it! Ok well here we go..

Update..
Here is a link to the Blog Catalog so I can get published!
http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/outdoors