Just one of those days...

[jack10525]

Sat Feb 18th was a gorgeous day. I had a few projects around the house I wanted to tackle and the weather in south florida was compliant. I finally got finished around 2pm and decided to head to my local flying spot. Nice sunny day with a slight breeze. Perfect!!! I started with my newly built FT3D speedbuild kit. Had to trim the plane out a little. Seemed to want to go down unless up elevator was applied. Got her flying and man is this thing twitchy. I'm a little heavy on the controls. Probably should have dialed them back but I didn't. Got her up did some looks and then tried some rolls. Wow!!!! Rolls are amazing. Then I lost control. Smacked it into the ground and tore up the fuselage and dislocated the wings. Time to switch to the Explorer. This plane is so graceful and forgiving. It just flies. I did a few laps around and decided to try some loops and fast rolls. Folded the wings up. She didn't come in too hard but I did manage to crack the fusealage and break the wing in half. Lets move on to the versacopter. This thing screams even with 2 bent motor shafts (I'll be buying motors soon). Just started out slowly with some hovering and slow flying around. I am flying los so I can't go too far away. It gets small real fast. Started feeling good and pushing my limits. Did a few flips and lost control after quite a few successful one and broke a boom!!! Wow good day flying. Did more crashing the anything. Now I got 3 aircraft to rebuild. :black_eyed:

 

[cranialrectosis]

Been a bit bumpy here. My Alien 4" has developed a bit of 'fall-out-of-the-sky-for-no-reason' syndrome. It just shuts off and restarts. No beeps. No video loss, nothing. It's all back on by the time it hits the ground. Gotta be a loose wire.

No worries, though. I'll fly the tricopter until I rebuild the Alien.

On a happier note, the folks over at SpaceX seem to have had a fantastic day!
http://www.spacex.com/

 

[PsyBorg]

I got out last two days in a row and am about to head out again for a third soon as laundry is done.

Don't feel bad as crashing is the current theme. I flew 5 packs yesterday and even got to take a family who were trying to fly their first toy quad at the park for rides. The Grandfather was the one all excited to be doing things with the grand kids and was amazed with the FPV aspect. The father was like ohh thats gonna get expensive so I pushed him towards the Flite Test family to maybe get in slower with the foamie air planes. The three kids were crazy excited and loved it all.

Anyway after that was done I was back to race practice with the new rates and camera angle and Working the kinks outta the Taranis set up. I hit the ground so hard and fast that twice I ejected my action camera and spent near half hour each time walking back and forth in an open soccer field trying to find it. It was nearly 25 yard away the second crash!!

After that was done I decided to maiden the Baby Baron I just built. I learned several things.. I won't say here as I may upload the video to my build thread and link the maiden thread for all to laugh and scratch their head over.

Anyway enjoy the flight time as I am with this nice few days break from winter up here.

 

[JimCR120]

I hadn't flown for weeks but today I decided was a good day.

First the UMX Radian. One LiPo through it and then I landed as the wind started to get turbulent. Next the BN Versa, just puffed a 3S on that, otherwise good to go. Same with the Inductrix indoors, no puffiness though. Then my NanoQX2. Indoors it was sweet. Outside it was 55F and for Maine in February thats almost beach weather. Anyway, did I mention the wind? Yeah well I took off FPV and found the wind a little too strong. I lifted the googles to return LOS and the little bug was becoming a speck just over 50yds away. I decided to chop the throttle and do the walk of shame. Unfortunately it came down on the road instead of the acres of snow covered field around it and bent a shaft.

Time for a parts run to the LHS and pressing on with the tricopter.

Good thing we enjoy building, right?

 

[jack10525]

Great stories guys. And yes building and rebuilding at least half the fun!!!

 

[PsyBorg]

Soooo I wanna say thank you for jynxing every one by starting this thread.

I got out today to fly the quad and to re maiden my Baby Baron now that I "Thought" I had things set up correctly. I went out and set up a different race course to practice on. First mistake.. Usually I test fly my quad before doing all the walking and bending to losen up the fingers and make sure everything is good.

Turned on the radio, powered up the quad. Did a little hop up LOS to make sure it turned n tilted right still. Sat down put the goggles on and hit the track. Third turn in my goggles go to static. No signal fade no coming and going just static. I pulled pitch and cut throttle mentally trying to land by muscle memory and not trash the quad or hit something. (After review of the action cam footage I didn't do too bad actually) Did the walk of frustration and started looking for the obvious loose connection , broken wire.. Nothing. Removed the top plate and see there is no power to the VTX. So I have to troubleshoot that deeper but my guess is either the PnP50 filtered supply crapped out or the VTX did which either dying will NOT make me happy as they are both less then 6 months old with low use since it is winter after all.

Anyway I was flying no matter what so I did 5 batteries of LOS and managed to smooth out doing a split S less then 10 feet off the ground so I think at least the muscle memory is now locked in and I may be smoother when I get my FPV back.

After that was done I tried re-maidening the Baby Baron.. Tough as it is needless to say I will be making a new one. sigh....

It was a great day FOR flying not a great day OF flying.