Alright so this is going to be one of those longer update posts heads up in advance
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First thing first I owe
@Arcfyre a video of me practicing take offs and landings with the FT Simple Scout, as filmed in short film episodes by my son, so here it is.
I gotta tell you folks that the time I've spent flying the FT Simple Scout recently made me realize just how much I like this plane. It's just such an all around fun flyer with aerobatic capabilities that I think makes a great next plane for anyone who mastered the FT Tiny Trainer and wants to fly something similar to it but bigger
. I think I'll make a video review for this model sometime, what do you all think?
Next up is my new RTF plane that I just recently received in the mail. Here is a little about it, it's a 2 channel plane managed only by throttle management, for altitude and left right direction. This setup is something I've never done before and requires getting used too, which is why I don't want to tell you all what I think of it just yet. I originally bought the plane looking for something that I can fly indoors, at work
, but have already seen some issues with that being an option with the space that I have available. I want to make a video review for the plane but first feel like I need to get some more flying done with it at different places and conditions before, so stay tuned for that. Here are two short videos of the plane in the meantime, one of it actually flying at work and one of the course I want to fly it through
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Those of you who are following my diary (this thread) know that I recently had 0 success with the MS Spitfire and eventually after a bunch of attempts to get it to fly, a dozen repairs and a broken motor shaft have pulled the plug on it for now. I decided to take it apart and use the working electronics in a different project. I put a lot of thought into what I want to build now taking into consideration that I wanted a somewhat different flying experience than what I am used to. I wanted something around the lines of the Sky King which is a model my friend has and I got to fly for a bit and just loved the way it flew, so I decided to build the FT Explorer. I built it with both wing sets both re-enforced with popsicle sticks because I read somewhere on the forum that the wings tend to fold. One night even my son who couldn’t sleep helped out. Anyhoe the other day I took it out for a maiden, the experience was short and ended with a bang and not because the wing folded. I actually don’t really know what happened when I crashed. I just know that the crash, broke the fuselage and nose, smashed all 3 cells of my 2200mah battery, and ripped a plug solder from the motor
. All good though I will repair what I can and rebuild what I can’t. What I can say from my short flight experience with this model is that it had a tendency to pitch the nose of the plane down when I throttled up. I know Josh mentioned it on the video and explained that this is why the motor is angled slightly upwards, to help push the tail down. Building with a C pack motor you need to move the marked motor location up but still stay angled according to the markings on the plan. I probably did something wrong here, although it seemed to me like I had the angle just right. Any suggestions? Here are some pictures of the plane with both wing sets before the maiden, I originally maidened with the glider wings but it felt hard to control so I switched over to the sports wing.
Sorry there are no videos of the FT Explorer I just didn’t have anyone to film me and the videos off a stand camera just isn’t good enough for me, and I find that editing them is just a pain for the little bit of good footage that I get. Anyhow the FT Explorer has been repaired for the most part of it, I built a new fuselage and used the rudder and elevator from the old fuselage because they were in perfect shape, I built a new nose but am still missing the fix on the motor.
On another sad note a few days ago I was flying my KFM Wing in an area which I have never flown in and lost it never to be found again. It was one of those days that it was best to stay in bed. The day started off with disappointment when I asked my wife and kids to come with me to the field for 30 mins to get her to film my take offs and landings, and they didn’t want to. Continued to a huge fight later on at her parents house when the kids were miss behaving, and ended with me going to fly for an hour after lunch and losing the KFM wing. Funny enough when I came back to pick up the family and go home they all came back with me to the field to help me search for it, I guess that at this point my mood from the day was all over my face. The KFM Wing was loaded with an on board FPV camera, an F pack motor 2x9g servos, a 30A ESC, an Rx, a battery alarm buzzer and a 1000mah 3S battery when it went down. We searched for the plane for an hour that day hoping for the battery alarm buzzer to go off but it didn’t and we just couldn’t find it so we went home. The next day I was after a night shift with no option to go to rest because my wife was at work on a morning shift so I was afraid to drive there with two kids. My wife, who knew I was disappointed, kindly asked her father to go to the field for me to try and see if he could hear the battery alarm buzzer. It probably started beeping sometime during the night but was out by the time he got there, cause he couldn’t hear anything. Meanwhile I asked a friend with a drone if he was around by chance instead of being at work and could help me search. By luck he was around and said he’d pop his drone up and look for it, but he too came short handed but decided to meet up later to look for it together. So later at around 18:30 with only but an hour and a half of sleep I drove off to the crash site with my wife, her father, my friend and his drone to keep searching. We searched until the sun went down, when we officially called it quits and I accepted the fact that I for the first time lost a plane
. My wife even went on Facebook and posted about it asking people to let her know in case they happen to find it but still nothing came up. Here are some pictures from the crash search party team
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A few days after I lost my KFM Wing I was feeling kinda depressed from the hobby, like I was just doing the same thing just flying different planes but mostly doing it alone. Which is not the reason I got into the hobby, the reason was to bond with my son and maybe have something for the entire family to enjoy and that’s just not happening. I haven’t given up but have to find a way for the entire family to be part of it otherwise I’ll have to cut off a lot of time off the hobby and spend more time with the family doing other stuff. If any one has any ideas I’d be glad to hear them! Meanwhile, to try stay positive I took the time to build a
Tiny Trainer for a friend from work who wanted into the hobby, it’s missing the electronics because I didn’t have any spares but once he gets the stuff he ordered I’ll help him add that to the plane. I am actually super happy with the way his Tiny Trainer came out probably one of the best ones I’ve built to date
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