Catching up

Well.....it's certainly been a *loong* time between posts on here, but I have an excuse! I'm lazy.

There, now that we have that out of the way, I can actually explain what's been going on. You see, I've been having so much fun working for myself in the hobby shop, I've hardly thought about any of the things I used to do when I worked for CentreFlunk. I used to blog at least semi-regularly then, but I've got so many other things to do now. So many toys, but so little time :-)

I've been doing a little bit of RC flying again recently. I've put another nitro helicopter together (since I sold my old Ergo50), but I still have my electric TRex450SE V2. I've also become rather keen on electric flying for my planes. I converted my World Models Super Sports Senior over to electric and haven't looked back since (apart from the minor crash that is....). I just electrified a 120 sized Ultimate Biplane too, which is 'kn awesome!

I finally got around to test flying my Faser glider a couple of days ago and all I can say is 'wow'. Being a fully composite moulded plane, it's incredibly strong but light too. I was hoping to get some onboard footage today but it hasn't stopped raining since early this morning, so I guess that's out. I'm competing in the QLD thermal championships with it next weekend, so some practice would have been nice :-)

I haven't had much of a chance to kitesurf since I got the hobby shop. It's a bit hard finishing at 17:00 when you're used to bailing out at 15:00!! Never mind.....eventually I'll work out a way to get more kiting time in. We *did* go for a drive to Middle Creek yesterday, but it wasn't windy enough for me to get going (so all I got was cranky....). At least Michelle got to kite......

R/C heli flying

I took my newly acquired Align Trex 450SE V2 out today for its first proper flight (other than hovering in the back yard to make sure everything was working properly). Man.....I'm certainly rusty! But, I suppose that's to be expected, having not flown a heli in over 2 years. It's definitely going to be a long road back to where my skill level was at before I quit :-(

Mechanical abuse

Or....how to waste about $600 in a week.

Recently, after having replaced the piston/liner/rod in my off-road buggy engine (OS.21VZB V-Spec), I went to the track to do a spot of tuning. After having some real trouble trying to get a consistent run out of it, I started to attack the track with a little too much enthusiasm (read: hitting all the jumps at full noise). At some point, most likely during one of the rather heavy landings, the air filter popped off the engine (that's bad, mmmkay?) and I did around 6 or so laps sucking all manner of dirt/grit into my nice new piston/liner :-( Scratch $125 worth of parts right there.

Not to be dissuaded from my current addiction to all things R/C, I put a new piston/liner/rod (which I had on hand for just such an occasion) in the engine and ran it in. Now, it should be noted at this point that it seemed to run faultlessly throughout the entire running in procedure. Revved out exceptionally well after run in and idled like a dream. All good, right? Wrong.

I put the car away until race day on Sunday, at which point I couldn't get it to run. It would start ok, but then wouldn't rev out. Then, after it got hot, it wouldn't idle. Then, it wouldn't start at all. So, after missing the start of my heat, I went back to my pits and pulled the engine out to have a closer look at it. After blowing it off with the compressor, I found a nice crack running along the entire bottom of the crankcase :-( That's also bad, mmmkay? Scratch another $125 worth of piston/liner/rod, plus a crankcase. Basically, that means a replacement engine, at around $400 or so.

Turns out when I replaced the first piston/liner/rod, I neglected to check the crank pin on the bottom end. A fellow racer gave me the tip after I displayed my newly destroyed crankcase to all and sundry in an attempt to share the grief. When I got it home, I stripped the engine down completely and checked the crank pin with another V-Spec engine I have. Sure enough, it's nowhere near the right size/shape anymore. Looks like it's been letting the bottom of the rod contact the case and....well....the rest is history :-(

Bugger.

Fast toys!

Considering how shit the kite season has been so far, I decided to find something else to do while there's no wind. Years ago, I used to race 1/10th scale nitro powered radio controlled road cars. Lots of fun, but not very well organised, so when the engine in my one and only car finally died, I gave it away. I recently sold my R/C helicopter and one of my large R/C planes, so I had some spare cash kicking around and decided I might like to try my hand at 1/8th scale off-road buggies this time.

I popped in to one of the local hobby shops to see what was around and there was a second hand car in there, complete with absolutely everything I needed to get going. Turns out it was a Hobao Hyper 8 Pro with an O.S. .21 VZB V-Spec engine in it. The guy had spared no expense and had a ton of extra bits and pieces with it (including a whole, near new V-Spec engine that he had blown up on its very first run!), so it ended up being a steal :-)

I'm still struggling with the fact that the car spends half of its time off the ground.....it's a lot different to on-road racing, that's for sure! I'm slowly getting a handle in it though. It *is* a hell of a lot of fun too :-)

Bad vibrations.......

I've been doing quite a bit of r/c helicopter flying of late, now that I have a shiny new OS .50 Hyper engine in it.......can you say 'power'? :) Unfortunately though, my helicopter has suddenly decided it's going to try to shake itself to pieces in the air. I've picked up a rather annoying vibration problem that's had me stumped trying to fix it. I've replaced (in no particular order).......
Mainshaft,
Tail output shaft,
Tail blade hub,
Clutch shoe assy,
Cooling fan (I got the shiny bling K&S one.....it's niiiiice),
Tail pitch slider assy (some more K&S bling)
Washout assy (yet *more* K&S bling!)

All of that to no avail....other than adding significant cost to the upgrades I've got on this thing. BUT.....last night while I was refitting the engine after painting the back of the new cooling fan black (so my new optical govenor sensor wouldn't get confused and keep turning itself off in mid flight), I discovered that I have a wobbly clutch bell. So, having replaced a whole pile of bits that didn't need replacing, I think I just might have *finally* worked out where the vibes are coming from.

I'm now waiting for some more 'upgrades' to replace those bits :-)

First R/C flights in 2 years!

Given that I'm not going to be able to kitesurf again until next season (thanks to my wrist tendonitis), I decided that I might dig out my radio controlled planes and helicopter for something to fill my spare time. I dragged them out and checked all the gear out, only to discover that the receiver pack in the helicopter had give up the ghost. Everything else seemed to be perfectly fine though, much to my surprise, considering I hadn't bothered to cycle any of the packs while they were in storage. Nor did I do any storage preparation on my engines.

Anyway, I replaced the receiver pack and gave the heli engine a quick test run in the back yard the other day and it ran fine, so I took it all to work with me the following day so I could go flying after work. Of course, it rained the next day. I went to the field anyway and had to stand around for nearly 2 hours waiting for the rain to stop. When it finally did, I got organised to fly but for some reason the engine decided it was going to play up on me and not run past about 1/3 throttle without suddenly stopping. It did this about 5 times, after which it started to rain again anyway, so I went home.

Next day, I decided I would try to sort out why the engine wouldn't run. I had it in the yard again, trying to start it, and my power panel blew up. No warning....just suddenly died. So, I went to get another one from the hobby shop. By the time I got home, it was too late to try again though. So, I packed the car for a day at the field today instead. When I got there and tried to start the heli, the brand new power panel also blew up! Not having much luck here! So, not to be dissuaded, I hunted around in my car until I found a couple of 1.5v batteries. With some electrical tape, 2 banana plugs and some aligator clips, I had myself a makeshift glow plug igniter :-) It worked a treat, so I was *finally* able to get airborne.

I tell you what.....after 2 years of not flying anything, you certainly get a case of nerves when you lift off with the helicopter!! But, after a couple of flights my thumbs remembered what to do and all was well. I took my World Models Super Sports Senior to the field with me too. No such problems with the YS.91FZ.....started immediately and ran like it had never been sitting in a room for 2 years under a sheet. I hope the YS1.10FZ in my Ultimate Bipe behaves as well when I head out later in the week with it!

What a fantastic afternoon too....clear blue skies and light winds. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon :-)