It was all a bit of a blur during FTFF, and before it becomes even blurrier over time, I wanted to take the opportunity to type them here in Seth's great thread.
I'm new to the hobby, and a terrible pilot. I wanted to check out FliteFest but seriously wondered what I'd do with myself at a flying event if I can't fly for more than a few flights without crashing the two planes I brought with me (FT-22 and Cruiser) -- well, volunteering seemed like a great idea, so I signed up. Boy, did that make the experience complete. I learned so much, took away some great experiences, was humbled, made to feel grateful, special, and all sorts of positive adjectives that escapes me now. You know that feeling of being tired, and exhausted, but in a good way? That was me at the end, and I'm sure the same for everyone here.
Some of my volunteer experience:
Being new to the hobby, I wasn't sure I could help with CraftyDan and the build tent, but his patience, and great teaching skills taught me a lot. Same said for the giant FT Flyer build, I couldn't contribute in any meaningful way, but appreciated the little things I could help with. Holding it while Dan soldered LEDs up, help recover it post flights and be part of the "3D flying team" with WillsonMan. The build tent really put me outside my comfort zone. Having only built three FT plans, I really didn't feel confident in being able to help in any good way. I tried to help Dan with stringing up a power circuit, only to realize I was just slowing him down. It was kind of funny having Anthony from ImmersionRC crack jokes while waiting on power for his hot glue gun to fix his FPV wing. It was around the same time I had to watch in horror as Dan hit a live wire, which I would have to take some responsibility for because he wouldn't have gotten shocked if I were speedier. When the power was sorted out, and all the building started, it was clear they were going to need some help in there. There was a short period of time when I was bouncing around someone building a Spitfire, a family building a Racer, another family building a Bloody Wonder, and a mom and son building a Fogey. They all happened to be planes I had never built, nor had I watched any of the build videos for them. I tried to help where I could, but defintely ran into my limits where I just didn't feel comfortable giving advice and had to run around recruiting help from those who knew what they were doing. Again, I think I hindered more than helped in many cases. Case in point was Drew and his mom. He was building the Fogey, from a speed build kit. His first build ever. His mom was building the Nutball. I wished Doug had chosen the nutball or the ft flyer instead for his first ever build! After breezing through the power pod build, I quickly found I just didn't know what I was doing when it came to the next big thing: the wing. I had to go away to see if others needed help while Drew extracted the wing pieces. Of course, it took longer to get back than I hoped, and when I returned, he had what looked like a wingtip with aileron. He had cut a bevel, and made what looked like a glue hinge, but the hinge was full of glue and didn't move. Ok, it should be clear at this point that I didn't even realize the Fogey was a three channel plane. I panicked and told him we'll sort this out. I took a fresh sheet of foamboard, his wing tip, and showed him how to trace and cut out a new piece. I proceeded to cut a bevel and show how to make a control surface with a glue hinge. After all this, he was the one who pointed out that maybe I didn't need to do this because it's a three channel plane. Can you imagine how silly I felt at this point? I felt awful. I had led him down the most random, wrong path and realized I was way in over my head. At this point, he found a kind soul with a wifi access point on his phone, and was able to start building based on the videos. I slunk away to help others returning once in a while to check in. In the meantime, the kind soul who helped him with the hotspot and lending tools ended up cutting himself, and I was back in my comfort zone of providing first aid. I offered to cut Drew a new blood-less piece, because his neighbor got some of his blood on a part of Drew's wing, but he just put packing tape over it. After dressing his neighbors wound, I saw Drew had made good progress and was done with the wing and was starting the fuselage. At t his point, I think it was Wayne and Dave Knopf came up to me asking if I knew anyone with a multimeter so they could run some continuity tests / polarity checks on a power lead for the live stream kit. I didn't see Dan in the tent, but Anthony was still there chatting with Dan from LazerToyz, so I asked if he had one we could borrow. Of course he did, but it was in his toolbox at the ImmersionRC tent. I took the FT guys over there, found the multimeter where Anthony said it would be, and they quickly found out the polarity was indeed reversed. I started feeling that I finally was able to contribute in a meaningful way, and help without causing more problems!
This story is getting a bit too long. There's some good that came of what at this point seems to be like a bit of a disaster in terms of my "helping" Drew. He gets the plane done, and it's really rewarding to see his huge smile and his proud mom even though it took the better part of two days to build it. We figure out how his new TX and receiver combo works, but then he asks if I could help him with the maiden. At this point, I just wanted to crawl into my tent and hide, but I rally and start thinking of how I can help without creating a disaster. His TX had a trainer port that looked like the same one on my DX6i. I asked Dan from LazerToyz if we can buddy box with that TX and my DX6 -- he thought it would work, but hadn't fully tested it. I wasn't about to test this myself. Turns out Drew had given his mom his old DX5, so we took that and her spektrum RX, put it in his powerpod, got the controls sorted out with some help from other FTFF attendees who were kind and knowledgeable about all this. I ran and grabbed my DX6, bought a trainer cable from Dan, and by the time I got back to them, they were ready. The gentleman who was helping us sort out the buddybox system was great, and showed me how that all worked. We checked the controls via the master, and the slave. It all looked good. I then decided to enlist the help of the nearest FliteTest person to actually do the flying. Alex happened to be closest, so I asked him, and he was generously willing to help, but then he pointed out that Josh was really the best person to do that, since he hadn't been flying much at this point during the event. Josh happened to be nearby, so I discretely asked if he could help Drew. Here's where the lessons started all over.
I just didn't have any confidence at this point, so I wasn't thinking. Thankfully, Josh was. The first thing he did, after looking over the build and complimenting Drew on the great job he did for his first build, was look for the battery. At this point, I realized Drew had put it inside the powerpod, and I had an "oh carp!" moment (and would have slapped myself in the face with a carp if I had one) and realized the CG would be off and wondered how I missed that. Oh yeah, because I have no clue what I'm doing. Josh made the recommendation to move the battery to the outside, and mount it as far forward as possible. We return to the tent and I help Drew sort it out. At this point, it's becoming more of a mission for me to get him in the air. We get the CG sorted out, but it's now time for the all-out combat and he really wants to be part of it. He somehow convinces his mom to let him use her Nutball, but we have the same problems on it with the CG. I'm not sure why we didn't use the Fogey powerpod -- I think he wanted to make sure it was setup for the Fogey. We only had 10 minutes before the combat began, so I rushed to make the changes to move the battery outside, check the CG on the nutball, and check the control surfaces. He was so excited to get in on the combat, that he wanted to fly with the elevator reversed. I couldn't let him do that, so I insisted on sorting that out while we walked to the flight line with this strange TX I had never seen before. I figured out how to reverse the elevator, and got the TX in his hand in time for him to launch. Unfortunately, I think he launched without enough elevator and the nutball went into a powered landing after flying 10 ft. Now, all this time, I was warning him about maidening it for a combat flight, but he just wanted to go for it. I felt like there was nothing I could do other than to make sure he had the best chance of getting started, which is why I insisted on the CG check and control surface checks. It's funny how this will come up later.
After the combat, we recover the Nutball, and it's surprisingly in good shape. The prop is ok, and all the electronics were good. At this point, he thought the Nutball was underpowered and wouldn't fly. I suggested we just take it to the beginner flight line and get it in the air. Since this was his new TX, we couldn't confidently buddy box, so I just offered to launch it for him, while he had the TX. This time, I told him to give it a little up elevator right at launch. Uhm... I should have emphasized "a little" AND suggested about "50-70% throttle" -- he gave 100% throttle, and full up elevator, which I only realized later when I launched it and it proceeded to perform a perfect loop into a landing. I nearly got another haircut, but pointed out that there's plenty of power in that little plane, and it does fly! At this point, I ask if he wants me to demonstrate a launch and get it into the air for him. Lesson #100: after a crash landing, check everything. It all seemed ok with a cursory check, but as soon as I launched it, the left wingtip folded, but I was able to fly it and land it softly. Back to the build tent for us and some hot glue. At this point in the day, the wind was picking up, and we could tell the storm was about to hit for the evening. I suggested we be more reserved and pack it in for the day and try to watch the live podcast. He agreed and we watched the podcast which turned into a stormy "let's save the FliteTest store tent" adventure.
That little adventure started when Michael Bixler ran up to Andre from Canada, and me shouting about the storm hitting the tent. At this point, I had thought a lightning strike had hit or the wind had already collapsed it, but ran in realizing the panic was to prevent water damage. Unfortunately, the wind did start to pick up, along with the driving rain, which turned it into a save the tent exercise with putting up the front panel and holding up the side poles to ensure it didn't collapse. Eventually, everything calmed down, but that resulted in a new strange sound that a few people mistook for a tornado klaxon. Turns out it was just the generators running / starting. Everyone had a great laugh at the situation, and I snuck away when the rain subsided. As I walked past the hanger to wash up in the shower trailer, I saw the group of volunteers in there busy with building the Giant FT Flyer. This was the around the same time Austin walked in dragging a wet air mattress that Patrick and Asbjorn were using, having recovered their soaked belongings from their campsite that was near mine. We all learned that Patrick's cab hatch was destroyed along with their tent, which meant they were going to spend the night in the hangar. At this point, time sort of gets fuzzy for me, and it feels like it's already been a long week, but I think this was actually just the first official full day of FliteFest!
The next day, I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked into the clean hangar. Saturday for me was mostly spent back working Parking duty, which was more within my comfort range greeting people and playing tetris with their vehicles. The most excitement here involved tryiing to get the dump truck out amidst all the incoming traffic. This ultimately was the more relaxing volunteer experience for me. A few more first aid situations came up this day, starting with Jen Bixler running up with Michael explaining he had burned himself with a hot glue gun. I took him to Doc Ryan (my nickname for CrashRecovery) who expertly helped Mike and entertained him at the same time. It seemed this was quickly followed by several more calls for medic with more razor cuts, and burns affecting kids. All this amidst calls for a PT over the PA.
In the afternoon, after parking slowed down, I somehow found myself near the build tent again, which I had up to now been avoiding. I have to add, when I was at the tent the day before, LazerToyz and Dan saved me. There were countless people coming up to me asking where to get certain bits and pieces to complete their builds -- including Drew, and all I had to do was take them to Dan. Everyone would ask "how much?" for whatever it was they needed, and Dan would just say, "have fun building it!" without taking their money. He made it a point to find me and say "let me know if you need anything to help these folks build" and I was just simply amazed. His generosity was extended to me when it came time for me to buy parts for my FT P51 Mustang kickstarter award right before the live podcast. He sold me everything below cost, and I was left speechless. Turns out this generosity extended into helping the guys with the giant FT Flyer. On a side-note, it was simply amazing for me to meet him in person not only for the build tent experience, but also because he and FliteTest was how I got started with scratch building. I was way too intimidated with ordering individual parts and really didn't know what I was doing anyway. My first build of the FT-22 with the electronics kit ordered from LazerToyz was what got me addicted and how I ended up at FliteFest in the first place.
So, I'm back at the build tent, and I see Drew and his mom. At this point, he's joined by his father and sister, who made the two hour drive from somewhere in PA to join in the fun! Josh is busy with meeting folks, flying their planes, and we saw a window of opportunity to have him buddy box with Drew. I run away to get my TX and buddy box cable, and in my mission to get Drew in the air, completely forget to look over his Fogey. Of course, Josh quickly points out we need to fix his rudder which at this point has started to peel away from the paper due to all the moisture and handling from the last day and a half. I again feel foolish for not having caught this, and now I make it a mission to help Doug prevent the same mistakes. I take him into the tent, and we fix it, after which, I go over an overlong lecture on how important it is to preflight everything after a build, crash, or repair. I even want to take him out to perform a range check, but can't quite get myself to delay him more with all his constant looking around for Josh to see if he would be free. I felt bad enough that I forced him to remove the wing so we could re-adjust the ezjuster/pushrod for his elevator which had a few degrees up reflex at this point and explained how no amount of TX trim would get it to fly right with it set that way.
We found Josh, who I really felt bad for at this time having been out in the Sun, and clearly not having much of a free moment to even grab a water. Noticing that, I grapped a few bottles from the hangar, and handed him one. Yes, water... not MtnDew! He was grateful for it, and I again felt like I finally was able to help in a small way. We finally got things reconnected, but of course, my inexperience showed it's overly large head and Josh found that we didn't setup the TX such that the rudder channel was mixed with aileron. That's mostly because I wasn't familiar with how to do that on the DX5 that acted as the master, and was too lazy/inexperienced to set it up on my DX6i slave. Josh solved that with an on-the-field swap of the servo connection to the RX. He maidened Drews Fogey and trimmed it out on the master TX. He then asked me to hook up my TX with the buddy cord, dialed in some expo based on his maiden, reversed the aileron channel (of course, I couldn't get it set in one go, and had to do it twice). Throughout all my fumbling, Josh and Drew were patient. All the false starts and issues I helped create was erased when I saw the reaction from Drew and his family to see him achieve success on this flight! It was sad that I couldn't have made their first flight experience smoother, but it had a happy ending. I'm super grateful to Josh Bixler for putting up with my inexperience. I think Josh felt bad for Drew with the messy patched bits I was responsible for, and ran into the FT Store tent and came out with a new speedbuild kit of a FT Racer for Drew! I felt like I learned a LOT from this little experience. Likewise, I wish I could have helped the Giant FT Flyer crew more, but I'm really only good for holding things or sticking my hands in small spaces to connect or disconnect things...
If it sounded like I barely flew, it was only because my own flights were rather inconsequential or just typical of what I could do around home. I flew my FT-22 one morning, and tried to get my FT Cruiser up, but the grass was too long for a ROG takeoff, and I just didn't have the confidence to hand launch such a heavy build (that wasn't a Versa wing). Josh happened to be walking by my tent with Alex, and I was able to ask for advice. I ended up thrusting my TX in Joshes hand while Alex launched it. Got some great feedback from Josh about getting some beefy wheels from LazerToyz and moving the CG up a touch more. I also bought a UMX Radian from the TimeFlies vendor, and had some fun relaxing flights with that. Another family I met, Dave (easy to remember) from Tennesee with there with his wife and two boys. As they walked past my tent on the last day (Sunday) in the morning, they came up to me to say hi, and we ended up chatting about his oldest sons new quad copter purchase. One of those little wee ones they were selling for $30 at LazerToyz. I asked if he wanted to fly a fixed wing plane, and pulled out the UMX Radian. I got it high up in the air, and put the TX in his hands. Figured if he can fly a quad, he can fly a three channel glider! He did great, with this dad helping him out. I put the TX in Daves hand next and lauched it for him for the next flight. I think I ended up convincing him that the UMX Radian will be his next purchase...
I think the most fun was being there for the midnight/1am maiden of the Giant FT Flyer, and running it back with Willsonman after the long ROG/RC Car/first attempt to launch, and maneauvering it like a 3D plane, with Peter throwing the sticks in a similar fashion. Watching the impromptu episode being filmed by Dave and Brian was also epic and a great insight on how these are made.
What did I learn? I think I learned to try and temper enthusiasm a bit. Be level headed, and try to do things correctly. I learned how to say "I would't do it that way..." Funny, enough, after Drew got his maiden, I was walking away from the build tent when a guy stopped me and asked if I had any experience with the FT Cruiser. I was finally excited I could help someone with a build I had experience with. Unfortunately, as we chatted while walking to his table, I learned this was his first time building any scratch built plane, and his experience up to now was ARF's or RTF's. I stopped in my tracks. Long story short, I believe I convinced him to start with the Versa wing in a tractor configuration before we arrived at his table with his girlfriend/wife/sister/friend (not sure of relationship) already starting to pull the Cruiser out of the plastic wrap. I explained the Versa will take the same "beef" motor he already had, it'll give him experience with the power pod, and with slight modification, he could reuse it in the Cruiser and will have a head start. The Versa being a quicker build seemed natural. I had personally built several Versas before moving to the Cruiser, so I was basing this on my experience.
I'm new to the hobby, and a terrible pilot. I wanted to check out FliteFest but seriously wondered what I'd do with myself at a flying event if I can't fly for more than a few flights without crashing the two planes I brought with me (FT-22 and Cruiser) -- well, volunteering seemed like a great idea, so I signed up. Boy, did that make the experience complete. I learned so much, took away some great experiences, was humbled, made to feel grateful, special, and all sorts of positive adjectives that escapes me now. You know that feeling of being tired, and exhausted, but in a good way? That was me at the end, and I'm sure the same for everyone here.
Some of my volunteer experience:
Being new to the hobby, I wasn't sure I could help with CraftyDan and the build tent, but his patience, and great teaching skills taught me a lot. Same said for the giant FT Flyer build, I couldn't contribute in any meaningful way, but appreciated the little things I could help with. Holding it while Dan soldered LEDs up, help recover it post flights and be part of the "3D flying team" with WillsonMan. The build tent really put me outside my comfort zone. Having only built three FT plans, I really didn't feel confident in being able to help in any good way. I tried to help Dan with stringing up a power circuit, only to realize I was just slowing him down. It was kind of funny having Anthony from ImmersionRC crack jokes while waiting on power for his hot glue gun to fix his FPV wing. It was around the same time I had to watch in horror as Dan hit a live wire, which I would have to take some responsibility for because he wouldn't have gotten shocked if I were speedier. When the power was sorted out, and all the building started, it was clear they were going to need some help in there. There was a short period of time when I was bouncing around someone building a Spitfire, a family building a Racer, another family building a Bloody Wonder, and a mom and son building a Fogey. They all happened to be planes I had never built, nor had I watched any of the build videos for them. I tried to help where I could, but defintely ran into my limits where I just didn't feel comfortable giving advice and had to run around recruiting help from those who knew what they were doing. Again, I think I hindered more than helped in many cases. Case in point was Drew and his mom. He was building the Fogey, from a speed build kit. His first build ever. His mom was building the Nutball. I wished Doug had chosen the nutball or the ft flyer instead for his first ever build! After breezing through the power pod build, I quickly found I just didn't know what I was doing when it came to the next big thing: the wing. I had to go away to see if others needed help while Drew extracted the wing pieces. Of course, it took longer to get back than I hoped, and when I returned, he had what looked like a wingtip with aileron. He had cut a bevel, and made what looked like a glue hinge, but the hinge was full of glue and didn't move. Ok, it should be clear at this point that I didn't even realize the Fogey was a three channel plane. I panicked and told him we'll sort this out. I took a fresh sheet of foamboard, his wing tip, and showed him how to trace and cut out a new piece. I proceeded to cut a bevel and show how to make a control surface with a glue hinge. After all this, he was the one who pointed out that maybe I didn't need to do this because it's a three channel plane. Can you imagine how silly I felt at this point? I felt awful. I had led him down the most random, wrong path and realized I was way in over my head. At this point, he found a kind soul with a wifi access point on his phone, and was able to start building based on the videos. I slunk away to help others returning once in a while to check in. In the meantime, the kind soul who helped him with the hotspot and lending tools ended up cutting himself, and I was back in my comfort zone of providing first aid. I offered to cut Drew a new blood-less piece, because his neighbor got some of his blood on a part of Drew's wing, but he just put packing tape over it. After dressing his neighbors wound, I saw Drew had made good progress and was done with the wing and was starting the fuselage. At t his point, I think it was Wayne and Dave Knopf came up to me asking if I knew anyone with a multimeter so they could run some continuity tests / polarity checks on a power lead for the live stream kit. I didn't see Dan in the tent, but Anthony was still there chatting with Dan from LazerToyz, so I asked if he had one we could borrow. Of course he did, but it was in his toolbox at the ImmersionRC tent. I took the FT guys over there, found the multimeter where Anthony said it would be, and they quickly found out the polarity was indeed reversed. I started feeling that I finally was able to contribute in a meaningful way, and help without causing more problems!
This story is getting a bit too long. There's some good that came of what at this point seems to be like a bit of a disaster in terms of my "helping" Drew. He gets the plane done, and it's really rewarding to see his huge smile and his proud mom even though it took the better part of two days to build it. We figure out how his new TX and receiver combo works, but then he asks if I could help him with the maiden. At this point, I just wanted to crawl into my tent and hide, but I rally and start thinking of how I can help without creating a disaster. His TX had a trainer port that looked like the same one on my DX6i. I asked Dan from LazerToyz if we can buddy box with that TX and my DX6 -- he thought it would work, but hadn't fully tested it. I wasn't about to test this myself. Turns out Drew had given his mom his old DX5, so we took that and her spektrum RX, put it in his powerpod, got the controls sorted out with some help from other FTFF attendees who were kind and knowledgeable about all this. I ran and grabbed my DX6, bought a trainer cable from Dan, and by the time I got back to them, they were ready. The gentleman who was helping us sort out the buddybox system was great, and showed me how that all worked. We checked the controls via the master, and the slave. It all looked good. I then decided to enlist the help of the nearest FliteTest person to actually do the flying. Alex happened to be closest, so I asked him, and he was generously willing to help, but then he pointed out that Josh was really the best person to do that, since he hadn't been flying much at this point during the event. Josh happened to be nearby, so I discretely asked if he could help Drew. Here's where the lessons started all over.
I just didn't have any confidence at this point, so I wasn't thinking. Thankfully, Josh was. The first thing he did, after looking over the build and complimenting Drew on the great job he did for his first build, was look for the battery. At this point, I realized Drew had put it inside the powerpod, and I had an "oh carp!" moment (and would have slapped myself in the face with a carp if I had one) and realized the CG would be off and wondered how I missed that. Oh yeah, because I have no clue what I'm doing. Josh made the recommendation to move the battery to the outside, and mount it as far forward as possible. We return to the tent and I help Drew sort it out. At this point, it's becoming more of a mission for me to get him in the air. We get the CG sorted out, but it's now time for the all-out combat and he really wants to be part of it. He somehow convinces his mom to let him use her Nutball, but we have the same problems on it with the CG. I'm not sure why we didn't use the Fogey powerpod -- I think he wanted to make sure it was setup for the Fogey. We only had 10 minutes before the combat began, so I rushed to make the changes to move the battery outside, check the CG on the nutball, and check the control surfaces. He was so excited to get in on the combat, that he wanted to fly with the elevator reversed. I couldn't let him do that, so I insisted on sorting that out while we walked to the flight line with this strange TX I had never seen before. I figured out how to reverse the elevator, and got the TX in his hand in time for him to launch. Unfortunately, I think he launched without enough elevator and the nutball went into a powered landing after flying 10 ft. Now, all this time, I was warning him about maidening it for a combat flight, but he just wanted to go for it. I felt like there was nothing I could do other than to make sure he had the best chance of getting started, which is why I insisted on the CG check and control surface checks. It's funny how this will come up later.
After the combat, we recover the Nutball, and it's surprisingly in good shape. The prop is ok, and all the electronics were good. At this point, he thought the Nutball was underpowered and wouldn't fly. I suggested we just take it to the beginner flight line and get it in the air. Since this was his new TX, we couldn't confidently buddy box, so I just offered to launch it for him, while he had the TX. This time, I told him to give it a little up elevator right at launch. Uhm... I should have emphasized "a little" AND suggested about "50-70% throttle" -- he gave 100% throttle, and full up elevator, which I only realized later when I launched it and it proceeded to perform a perfect loop into a landing. I nearly got another haircut, but pointed out that there's plenty of power in that little plane, and it does fly! At this point, I ask if he wants me to demonstrate a launch and get it into the air for him. Lesson #100: after a crash landing, check everything. It all seemed ok with a cursory check, but as soon as I launched it, the left wingtip folded, but I was able to fly it and land it softly. Back to the build tent for us and some hot glue. At this point in the day, the wind was picking up, and we could tell the storm was about to hit for the evening. I suggested we be more reserved and pack it in for the day and try to watch the live podcast. He agreed and we watched the podcast which turned into a stormy "let's save the FliteTest store tent" adventure.
That little adventure started when Michael Bixler ran up to Andre from Canada, and me shouting about the storm hitting the tent. At this point, I had thought a lightning strike had hit or the wind had already collapsed it, but ran in realizing the panic was to prevent water damage. Unfortunately, the wind did start to pick up, along with the driving rain, which turned it into a save the tent exercise with putting up the front panel and holding up the side poles to ensure it didn't collapse. Eventually, everything calmed down, but that resulted in a new strange sound that a few people mistook for a tornado klaxon. Turns out it was just the generators running / starting. Everyone had a great laugh at the situation, and I snuck away when the rain subsided. As I walked past the hanger to wash up in the shower trailer, I saw the group of volunteers in there busy with building the Giant FT Flyer. This was the around the same time Austin walked in dragging a wet air mattress that Patrick and Asbjorn were using, having recovered their soaked belongings from their campsite that was near mine. We all learned that Patrick's cab hatch was destroyed along with their tent, which meant they were going to spend the night in the hangar. At this point, time sort of gets fuzzy for me, and it feels like it's already been a long week, but I think this was actually just the first official full day of FliteFest!
The next day, I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked into the clean hangar. Saturday for me was mostly spent back working Parking duty, which was more within my comfort range greeting people and playing tetris with their vehicles. The most excitement here involved tryiing to get the dump truck out amidst all the incoming traffic. This ultimately was the more relaxing volunteer experience for me. A few more first aid situations came up this day, starting with Jen Bixler running up with Michael explaining he had burned himself with a hot glue gun. I took him to Doc Ryan (my nickname for CrashRecovery) who expertly helped Mike and entertained him at the same time. It seemed this was quickly followed by several more calls for medic with more razor cuts, and burns affecting kids. All this amidst calls for a PT over the PA.
In the afternoon, after parking slowed down, I somehow found myself near the build tent again, which I had up to now been avoiding. I have to add, when I was at the tent the day before, LazerToyz and Dan saved me. There were countless people coming up to me asking where to get certain bits and pieces to complete their builds -- including Drew, and all I had to do was take them to Dan. Everyone would ask "how much?" for whatever it was they needed, and Dan would just say, "have fun building it!" without taking their money. He made it a point to find me and say "let me know if you need anything to help these folks build" and I was just simply amazed. His generosity was extended to me when it came time for me to buy parts for my FT P51 Mustang kickstarter award right before the live podcast. He sold me everything below cost, and I was left speechless. Turns out this generosity extended into helping the guys with the giant FT Flyer. On a side-note, it was simply amazing for me to meet him in person not only for the build tent experience, but also because he and FliteTest was how I got started with scratch building. I was way too intimidated with ordering individual parts and really didn't know what I was doing anyway. My first build of the FT-22 with the electronics kit ordered from LazerToyz was what got me addicted and how I ended up at FliteFest in the first place.
So, I'm back at the build tent, and I see Drew and his mom. At this point, he's joined by his father and sister, who made the two hour drive from somewhere in PA to join in the fun! Josh is busy with meeting folks, flying their planes, and we saw a window of opportunity to have him buddy box with Drew. I run away to get my TX and buddy box cable, and in my mission to get Drew in the air, completely forget to look over his Fogey. Of course, Josh quickly points out we need to fix his rudder which at this point has started to peel away from the paper due to all the moisture and handling from the last day and a half. I again feel foolish for not having caught this, and now I make it a mission to help Doug prevent the same mistakes. I take him into the tent, and we fix it, after which, I go over an overlong lecture on how important it is to preflight everything after a build, crash, or repair. I even want to take him out to perform a range check, but can't quite get myself to delay him more with all his constant looking around for Josh to see if he would be free. I felt bad enough that I forced him to remove the wing so we could re-adjust the ezjuster/pushrod for his elevator which had a few degrees up reflex at this point and explained how no amount of TX trim would get it to fly right with it set that way.
We found Josh, who I really felt bad for at this time having been out in the Sun, and clearly not having much of a free moment to even grab a water. Noticing that, I grapped a few bottles from the hangar, and handed him one. Yes, water... not MtnDew! He was grateful for it, and I again felt like I finally was able to help in a small way. We finally got things reconnected, but of course, my inexperience showed it's overly large head and Josh found that we didn't setup the TX such that the rudder channel was mixed with aileron. That's mostly because I wasn't familiar with how to do that on the DX5 that acted as the master, and was too lazy/inexperienced to set it up on my DX6i slave. Josh solved that with an on-the-field swap of the servo connection to the RX. He maidened Drews Fogey and trimmed it out on the master TX. He then asked me to hook up my TX with the buddy cord, dialed in some expo based on his maiden, reversed the aileron channel (of course, I couldn't get it set in one go, and had to do it twice). Throughout all my fumbling, Josh and Drew were patient. All the false starts and issues I helped create was erased when I saw the reaction from Drew and his family to see him achieve success on this flight! It was sad that I couldn't have made their first flight experience smoother, but it had a happy ending. I'm super grateful to Josh Bixler for putting up with my inexperience. I think Josh felt bad for Drew with the messy patched bits I was responsible for, and ran into the FT Store tent and came out with a new speedbuild kit of a FT Racer for Drew! I felt like I learned a LOT from this little experience. Likewise, I wish I could have helped the Giant FT Flyer crew more, but I'm really only good for holding things or sticking my hands in small spaces to connect or disconnect things...
If it sounded like I barely flew, it was only because my own flights were rather inconsequential or just typical of what I could do around home. I flew my FT-22 one morning, and tried to get my FT Cruiser up, but the grass was too long for a ROG takeoff, and I just didn't have the confidence to hand launch such a heavy build (that wasn't a Versa wing). Josh happened to be walking by my tent with Alex, and I was able to ask for advice. I ended up thrusting my TX in Joshes hand while Alex launched it. Got some great feedback from Josh about getting some beefy wheels from LazerToyz and moving the CG up a touch more. I also bought a UMX Radian from the TimeFlies vendor, and had some fun relaxing flights with that. Another family I met, Dave (easy to remember) from Tennesee with there with his wife and two boys. As they walked past my tent on the last day (Sunday) in the morning, they came up to me to say hi, and we ended up chatting about his oldest sons new quad copter purchase. One of those little wee ones they were selling for $30 at LazerToyz. I asked if he wanted to fly a fixed wing plane, and pulled out the UMX Radian. I got it high up in the air, and put the TX in his hands. Figured if he can fly a quad, he can fly a three channel glider! He did great, with this dad helping him out. I put the TX in Daves hand next and lauched it for him for the next flight. I think I ended up convincing him that the UMX Radian will be his next purchase...
I think the most fun was being there for the midnight/1am maiden of the Giant FT Flyer, and running it back with Willsonman after the long ROG/RC Car/first attempt to launch, and maneauvering it like a 3D plane, with Peter throwing the sticks in a similar fashion. Watching the impromptu episode being filmed by Dave and Brian was also epic and a great insight on how these are made.
What did I learn? I think I learned to try and temper enthusiasm a bit. Be level headed, and try to do things correctly. I learned how to say "I would't do it that way..." Funny, enough, after Drew got his maiden, I was walking away from the build tent when a guy stopped me and asked if I had any experience with the FT Cruiser. I was finally excited I could help someone with a build I had experience with. Unfortunately, as we chatted while walking to his table, I learned this was his first time building any scratch built plane, and his experience up to now was ARF's or RTF's. I stopped in my tracks. Long story short, I believe I convinced him to start with the Versa wing in a tractor configuration before we arrived at his table with his girlfriend/wife/sister/friend (not sure of relationship) already starting to pull the Cruiser out of the plastic wrap. I explained the Versa will take the same "beef" motor he already had, it'll give him experience with the power pod, and with slight modification, he could reuse it in the Cruiser and will have a head start. The Versa being a quicker build seemed natural. I had personally built several Versas before moving to the Cruiser, so I was basing this on my experience.
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So I introduced myself.
