The Second Part of my Journey - The Diary

[The Hangar]

Been holding this close to me for a while and don’t know why, think it’s time that I present to you my best FPV camera video to date, enjoy!

Amazing video buddy!

 

[The Hangar]

@Marty72 this post is dedicated to you.

As some of you might know I recently built the Master Series Spitfire. I found that the build itself is a little more complicated than Master Series Corsair which I have built, but the outcome is amazing, especially if you add some decals.

View attachment 173352 View attachment 173353 View attachment 173354

Unfortunately on the maiden the plane didn't fly well, on my first launch I had an issue with an aileron control horn that broke and I had to emergency land it with a lot of luck no damage was caused. On my second launch the plane was out of balance and seemed to be very nose heavy something that made it hard to trim the plane, regardless was no fun because I always had to hold the up elevator to hold the plane from nose diving into the ground. Somehow I landed again I managed to land the plane with no damage considering the circumstances. After fixing the balance issue I launched the plane for the 3rd time, this time around the plane flew better. A much less up elevator was needed to keep the nose from diving so a little trim should fix the issue, I climbed 3 mistakes high and started trimming out the plane. After a bit of trim the plane was a lot more stable and easy to control, but still stayed a handful for the less experienced pilot. The reason why I am saying that is because the wing airfoil that has no under camber wing tips like the Spitfire David designed does; makes the plane drop a wing tip on you on a sharp turn at lower airspeeds. This is something to watch for and be prepared for because an inexperienced pilot can easily freak out and lose control causing the plane to spin to the ground and crash. A good tip to delay a tip stall from happening and helping you get out of it is to turn your rudder towards the opposite wing from that which is experiencing the stall, then apply some opposite aileron input to level out the plane.

Here is a highlight video for the maiden flight.

Anyhow from the first maiden day the plane came back with a few bumps and bruises but all were fairly easy to repair. The next time I took it out the plane flew ehhh and upon a hard cartwheel crash the outcomes were a little less on the bright side as opposed to my previous outing with it.

View attachment 173355 View attachment 173356

Ok so this is bad but you all know me, I don't just RIP a plane because it needs surgery, so I put on my surgery gloves and got to work. The crash broke my wing in half and I guess it's mainly because the plywood spar from the original design was replaced with a 5mm balsa spar because I have a hard time finding and cutting out plywood. The first thing I did was glue the two wing halves back together and for extra strength I also added a small piece of carbon fiber rod that I had laying around. Once the wing was back in one piece I moved on to the fuselage which needed a whole lot more work to fix. The fuselage was ripped into 3 pieces so I was really pondering how I should put it back together and what would be the best way to re-enforce it. After running through all the ideas that I had I decided to re-enforce the sides of the fuselage with a thin 2mm balsa sheet, which was a good idea. It helped stop the hot glue from dripping all over the fuselage since it was glued on the inside and also helped put more pressure on the break point.

Next up was the entire motor pod area which also broke off and as easy as it seemed to fix, actually required more awareness which I didn't put into it. I had to make sure to get the motor aligned to the rest of the fuselage but since I wasn't thoughtful about it I ended up gluing it on an offside. Alright well with that out of the way the last thing to do was glue the wings back together with the fuselage. This was a little harder than I thought it would be because I found myself having to trim the sides of the fuselage for the wings to sit straight with the horizontal stabilizer. Once I got the wings to sit leveled with horizontal stabilizer gluing them into place was easy and went quite well.

View attachment 173357 View attachment 173358
View attachment 173360

The plane was repaired and ready for a re-maiden, and I was eager to give it another go. Without wasting time the first day I could I went to the field and took the Master Series Spitfire with me for another maiden. This maiden didn't go well either and after a short sketchy circuit around the field ended in a crash in which I broke the firewall. So now I have a new issue, one which I don't know how to fix or actually to be more exact, I don't know what would be the best way to fix. @Splinter189 any recommendations?

To sum up considering Davd's design of the Spitfire is definitely one of my favorite FT models to fly, I think this one deserves a second chance, so I will rebuild this if I can't repair it once again, because I don't feel like I had the chance to really experience a decent flight with it yet.

Too bad about the first crashes, but your repairs really make it look almost new! Good luck on fixing it again.

 

[The Hangar]

I have never felt so upset in the hobby as I did today! I finally got my daughter interested in flying and built her a new TT to fly this morning after my shift, considering I can’t go to sleep cause my wife is at work. I got to the field pumped of excitement just waiting to give the sticks on the new TT. But then all just went side ways up to the point where I had to give up trying to fix issues at the field and go home. The motor connector broke lose one servo that I used was stripped and didn’t show up at the office testing last night. She obviously doesn’t want to go back to the field and I am supper disappointed in myself and sad to cry from the situation .

Nooo! Gear failures are THE WORST!

 

[Dunfielder]

I have never felt so upset in the hobby as I did today! I finally got my daughter interested in flying and built her a new TT to fly this morning after my shift, considering I can’t go to sleep cause my wife is at work. I got to the field pumped of excitement just waiting to give the sticks on the new TT. But then all just went side ways up to the point where I had to give up trying to fix issues at the field and go home. The motor connector broke lose one servo that I used was stripped and didn’t show up at the office testing last night. She obviously doesn’t want to go back to the field and I am supper disappointed in myself and sad to cry from the situation .

Sorry to hear your daughters fly day didn't happen. Don't beat yourself up over it. I am sure you will get her back out there. Having two small daughters myself I feel for you. I am also hoping to build something for my oldest daughter. All she asks since I built my p40 is when daddy is going to make her a plane to fly too?! I'm thinking a FB glider or a champ because she's only gonna be 5 here in October. Anyway hopefully you get your own daughter back to the field so she can experience the fun of RC aircraft with her dad. I'm sure she'll love it!

 

[mayan]

Amazing video buddy!

Thanks!

Too bad about the first crashes, but your repairs really make it look almost new! Good luck on fixing it again.

This one is actually mocking me cause I am clueless as to what is the best way to repair this was hoping @Splinter189 would give me his two cents.

Nooo! Gear failures are THE WORST!

True it’s even worse than a crash because on a crash you still had some fun .

Sorry to hear your daughters fly day didn't happen. Don't beat yourself up over it. I am sure you will get her back out there. Having two small daughters myself I feel for you. I am also hoping to build something for my oldest daughter. All she asks since I built my p40 is when daddy is going to make her a plane to fly too?! I'm thinking a FB glider or a champ because she's only gonna be 5 here in October. Anyway hopefully you get your own daughter back to the field so she can experience the fun of RC aircraft with her dad. I'm sure she'll love it!

She did get back to the field the next day actually which was great. I still haven’t posted about it cause I didn’t get around to it but I will over the next few days on this thread: https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/teaching-my-children-to-fly-the-diary.58161/ which I suggest you check out for ideas on training kids. I would also recommend the TT as a trainer easy to build, fly and repair .

 

[The Hangar]

Sorry to hear your daughters fly day didn't happen. Don't beat yourself up over it. I am sure you will get her back out there. Having two small daughters myself I feel for you. I am also hoping to build something for my oldest daughter. All she asks since I built my p40 is when daddy is going to make her a plane to fly too?! I'm thinking a FB glider or a champ because she's only gonna be 5 here in October. Anyway hopefully you get your own daughter back to the field so she can experience the fun of RC aircraft with her dad. I'm sure she'll love it!

Haven’t built a TT yet but the champ is a solid plane! It flies almost hands off and can take quite a beating.

 

[The Hangar]

Thanks!


This one is actually mocking me cause I am clueless as to what is the best way to repair this was hoping @Splinter189 would give me his two cents.

Is it a fixed power pod? If you can get a close-up I might have some ideas...

True it’s even worse than a crash because on a crash you still had some fun .

Exactly!

 

[mayan]

Is it a fixed power pod? If you can get a close-up I might have some ideas...

Yeah it’s fixed but not only that you don’t really have access to it.

 

[The Hangar]

Yeah it’s fixed but not only that you don’t really have access to it.

View attachment 173905 View attachment 173906

That’s a tough one! I’m assuming it’s on a power pod that you glued in similar to the Corsair, right? Any way you could use a knife to cut the glue and pull it out?

 

[mayan]

That’s a tough one! I’m assuming it’s on a power pod that you glued in similar to the Corsair, right? Any way you could use a knife to cut the glue and pull it out?

The yeah it’s glued in from both sides and on my last repair I put extra glue . The Corsair power pod can actually be remove and replaced. The only thing I can think of is cutting off the nose and I am not really up for that ATM to much going on right here.

That’s the kids room so the are sleeping in a tent in the living room.

 

[Bricks]

A repair like that nose might be easier if you can unscrew the motor and just glue another fire wall right to the old one.

 

[mayan]

A repair like that nose might be easier if you can unscrew the motor and just glue another fire wall right to the old one.

Wish I could! It was just one of those times where I didn’t use an X mount .

 

[mayan]

For a long time I have been wanting to learn to fly 3D and was to afraid to learn on the Edge540, even though I've built it a dozen or so times. The last time I flew it was actaully it's maiden flight as part of a FT Edge540 group build that we have going on here: https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/at-the-edge-of-the-world-we-meet.59425/. On that flight it felt totally under powered, far from what I think that a 3D plane needs. So I got it a new motor something that swings a 12x6 prop and can carry up to 2.2kg on a 3S battery. Now with all that extra power I was terrified to fly the plane but lately I have been feeling good about giving it a try and I sure happy I did. Here is a short video of it's first maiden with the new motor after a very long time that it has been sitting in the cloest, I call it "cleaning of the dust" , enjoy.

 

[mayan]

@The Hangar I am bumped out that I can't take my Edge 540 to the field tomorrow because the cloest containing it is also covered in plastic wraping so decided I try repair the Master Series Spitfire. What I did was heat up a table knife and then used that to get the hot glue to melt I did that a few times untile most of the power pod came loose. I then repeated the same proccess with anything that was left inside the fuselage.

And this is the end result.

 

[The Hangar]

@The Hangar I am bumped out that I can't take my Edge 540 to the field tomorrow because the cloest containing it is also covered in plastic wraping so decided I try repair the Master Series Spitfire. What I did was heat up a table knife and then used that to get the hot glue to melt I did that a few times untile most of the power pod came loose. I then repeated the same proccess with anything that was left inside the fuselage.

View attachment 174010
View attachment 174011 View attachment 174013

And this is the end result.
View attachment 174014

Too bad about the edge, but I’m glad you were able to fix the spitfire!

 

[mayan]

Too bad about the edge, but I’m glad you were able to fix the spitfire!

You mean break it again! Which is exactly what happened on today’s maiden, guess I am doing something wrong .

 

[mayan]

Just thought I'd share with you some stuff that has been going on with me lately, but promise not to make this a very long post at least I'll try not to. A bit of personal stuff first and then some RC related stuff. The window changing in our appartment that started last week still continues so the kids room is still out of service and they are still sleeping with us in the living room. Considering our room was srunk to be half it's size 6 months ago it became a storage room and we moved to sleep in the living room that's why the kids sleeping in the living room are actually sleeping with us. The bright side is that the kids room should be finish by tomorrow so half a problem solved right there, as for our room, today we were told that it should take another 4 months or so until they open back the room. This entire situation makes it really hard to do anything no where in the apprament because no matter where you go you have no space to put but a needle, let alone start working on new planes. Trying to get some stuff done at work but never really finidng any real energy to do much, kinda feel lazy lately, which is totally not my style. Just feel like I had to get this off my chest to people that I like sharing stuff with so thanks for listening.

Any how enough bitching let's talk some RC. A while ago I was stuck with no spare electronics for anything RC actually so I decided to build these.

Two are nerdnics but one actually belongs to Ben aka @Mid7night. They all fly great on thing I do have to mention about the Concord's design is the fact that it's hard to launch maybe you should think about a launching gauge .

Talking about spare electronics recently I've been having issues with some motors, 2 have bent shafts causing crazy vibrations that make them break off the power pods let alone get extremly hot. Another 2 have start issues and have to been swang into action kinda like what you see with gassers expect for the fact that they just seem to be under powered. Last but not least I recently burnt a motor on my TT .

This brings a question to mind that I would appreciate your knowledge about (@Hai-Lee, @Arcfyre, @kilroy07, @BATTLEAXE, @bracesport, @CarolineTyler, @Grifflyer, @The Hangar, @Wildthing) any one! Can any of these conditions cause damage to other electronics like the ESC, Rx, servos, battery? Or the worse that can happen is that the motor will just die on me?

Backing tracking a bit, back to the kids room situation made me have to lock down the closet that contains my bigger planes the ones that fly off of the 2200mah 3S and 1300mah 4S batteries with a plastic wrapping, giving me no option to fly bigger models like the Edge 540. A model that I have just recently taken out again, to practice some 3D flying and was starting to feel comfortable with.

Trying to find a model that I can fly using these bigger batteries and with no wish to fix my smashed up master series Spitfire, I thought it would be a great idea to rebuild a model that I really enjoyed flying the last time I've built it and could also take these batteries. Any thought? Well it's the Simple Scout, it's considerably a very quick build, doesn't use much foam and is very versitle in terms of power setting; I also wanted to practice ground takeoffs and landings again, so it made for the prefect fit.

Been practicing with it a few times already and feel like I am getting quite good at it, never the less starting to actually like this more than hand launching. Yesterday I manage to even land without tiping over like I do nearly all the time, which I am very proud about. One thing I do thing I'll add to it is a steerable tail wheel, might attempt to do that tomorrow night.

Ok one a different note I had a chat with the farmer on whos land I fly and got his premission to clean up a certain area in the field from weeds and put up some polls for shading. Once I get everything done it will make going to the field so much more bareable causing sitting/standing in Isreal's summer sun for a long time isn't very enjoyable. Here are some progess pictures, hope that you unlike other people aka my wife and colleagues actually do see some difference, must mention though that it's all been done manually.

That's it folks at least for now .

 

[bracesport]

I feel like this could be the start of 'RC-club' Mayan!

 

[mayan]

I feel like this could be the start of 'RC-club' Mayan!

Lol most of the time I end up going to the field alone . I actually thought I’d have company this morning but going alone . I was really hoping to get out more people to the field but that ain’t working as planned, Covid19 and stuff of course ain’t helping much. As of now we might be going into lockdown again .

 

[bracesport]

@mayan - maybe put some signs up?

Covid19 is destroying 2020, so we will have to play the long game - on a brighter note have you seen my latest build ?