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