Retiring my first FT Plane...

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
A Sad day for me...

I'm finally retiring my first FT plane, the Sea Duck.

I went to fly her the other day, and discovered that it wasn't binding properly. So I performed surgery to get to where I had the receiver, re-did the bind, and then found my ESCs weren't zeroing out and the prop on one side was spinning at low RPMs when I armed it, while the other wasn't. When I tried to reset them, I bungled the ESC programming.

I tried to replace them with known good ESCs until I could get these reprogrammed correctly, and that's when I noticed that the firewalls were coming unglued from the power pods and the wing was starting to heavily sag on one side. Apparently, Southern California heat does not bode well for hot glue and foam board. :(

So...I'm going to turn it into a "Flight of the Phoenix" type of thing - resurrecting electronics from it to use in rebuilding the Sea Duck out of DTFB, instead of a speed build kit. The new one, I'll give it the proper livery colors and Minwax finish to get it waterproofed. :)

It's kind of a sad thing, but she will be reborn. :) At least she never crashed!
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
Good luck! I bought a speed build kit specifically because I didn't fancy cutting out the approximately 736 pieces of that bird by hand.

LOL yeah, I know it's going to be something of a chore. I'd try to pick up the speed build kit from one of the Hobbytowns near me, since they still stock FT kits, but they don't seem to have any of the Sea Duck kits in stock. Besides, this gives me something to do at night, while I'm watching the boob tube. :)
 

Berekiah

Well-known member
With HobbyTown you can purchase most of the FT gear online (Including the Sea Duck speed build kit) and have it shipped to the store where you can then pickup. I've done that with an order recently and it is very helpful when I cannot be waiting at home for deliveries.
 

Merv

Site Moderator
Staff member
A Sad day for me...I'm finally retiring my first FT plane, the Sea Duck. At least she never crashed!
You must be either be a far better pilot than me or don’t fly nearly as much.

I will go through 5-6 FT planes a year. Each plane will have multiple crash before I quit rebuilding them.
 

Walt1942

New member
With HobbyTown you can purchase most of the FT gear online (Including the Sea Duck speed build kit) and have it shipped to the store where you can then pickup. I've done that with an order recently and it is very helpful when I cannot be waiting at home for deliveries.

With Porch Pirating becoming the latest form of larceny, you are wise to have the kit shipped to your local Hobby Town. Unfortunately, I live in San Jose California and there are not any local Hobby Town outlets.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
You must be either be a far better pilot than me or don’t fly nearly as much.

I will go through 5-6 FT planes a year. Each plane will have multiple crash before I quit rebuilding them.

Probably more of the latter than the former. I get out maybe twice a month to Fly. Also, the Sea Duck is just one of those planes I tend to cruise with. 😁
 

bracesport

Legendary member
I decommissioned my nube tube today - it was in perfectly good condition but I needed the in-runner motor and servos for another build - I was hoping for one more flight but the weather was not playing ball - it was hard to say goodbye as it was my first love! 😝

Shown here with my TT.

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sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
@sprzout you can sprinkle baby powder on the plane and it will help with the hot glue melting back when it's super hot.

True. And I might have done that, save for a few things - the wing foam was starting to sag on one side and a vertical stabilizer had gotten bent enough that I had to have full trim in one direction to get it to fly straight..

Oh well. The second one is in progress now. 😁
 

Headbang

Master member
Funny thing about the seaduck, I am coming close to 100 flights on mine. And it is still in good shape, even with the bouncing over ice and snow, hard flight, and endless victory spins on the ground. It is one tough bird. I have been slowly working on the plans, making it a little more 3d, little more like the cartoon, little more powerful. But I hate to build a new one with the original in such good shape. And well, the original has gained sentimental value for me.

Good luck with your second, I could not see myself without one in my fleet now.