Been Flying

Making use of the the strong sunshine today the RH wing loaded to hopefully cure the warp.
 
I actually flew it a lunch time and it flew straight at least to start with but slowly during the flight the right turn tendency slowly reappeared. Did not require full LH trim as before but still quite a bit.
Flew for over 4 minutes including a couple of loop and rolls. The battery definitely started to sag so a glide approach and landing. The battery was distinctly warm!
So a bit more warp correction needed. Just as well it is a hot sunny day!       
 

Phew - what a scorcher!
Long-sleeve shirt and my sunbrella were needed, today. I've no idea what the temperature reached, but it is26C now, at 2015.
Getting TO the field was a bit problematic. I'd got most of the way, came off the Dual Carriageway at the end of Daresbury village, and found that Newton Lane was blocked off by an RTA - right on the hairpin corner. There were two ambulances and about three cop cars in attendance, and as I was turning round to go the long way around, two more came hurtling up with the advertising on. While I was setting the field up, I saw the Air Ambulance arrive, but it must have been cancelled as it arrived, because it just circled round and went elsewhere.

Just me at the field at 0930, and the first up was the sunbrella!
I'd taken the Decathlon (of course), The Tango glider, the Kobuz fast aerobatic glider, and my little Blade heli.
Barely a breath of wind to stir the windsock - I think it was mostly indicating thermals, rather than real wind, as it was pointing in random directions - in between straight down!
Eventually there were ten of us there, mostly flying their regulars, but Stew had his big Spitfire, and John R had brought his big Moth and his Chipmunk.
Malc G had his little black Sci-fi ish crowd-frightener thingy, that is supposed to be a kiddies toy, but no kiddy could possibly fly it wthout prior ability!
Martyn brought his usual glider and his Duck.
Ed had his rebuilt Calamato. Last time we saw it, it was a pile of splinters,
Later on, Chris joined us, he'd brought a twin-prop model to fly through the on-board camera - with fpv goggles on so he cannot see what it is really doing. Martyn volunteered to hurl it at the sky, and it went up like a homesick rocket. After hurtling it around for a while, Chris got brave, and tried a few aero's, He soon found that if he pulled the loop too hard, it flicked out, and recovering with only the instruments and view in his goggles was - shall we say - interesting! But he managed. Landing was also interesting, because it doesn't want to slow down, and it glides like a brick! Resulting in a postive arrival, but no damage.
By then, everyone else had got thoroughly cooked, and gone home.
For Chris's second flight, he chose to try his four-wheel buggy platform, rather than a throw. I acted as spotter. The thing was airborne in about six feet, and the trolley rolled a further six or seven.
I finally locked up at 1915.



 

Third flight with the Hunter F6 this evening at 8pm after an afternoon of wing bending in the sun and because the 1800mAh 3s was getting pretty warm in just 3 minutes with plenty of throttle management it was changed to a 2200mAh 3s. I also set the timer to countdown 3 minutes as the DX6i gives some serious beeps when the three minutes is up!
It now flies pretty well much as it did when built. Whilst the 2200mAh was warm after a bit over 3 minutes but more important it was still showing 3.75V/cell so hopefully no damage.   
 

The RTA I mentioned, seems it was a cyclist - who is now deceased.
-
It is probably inappropriate - but Newton Lane is only a car and a half wide, really a tarmac'd farm track, which has a lot of blind corners, and is very up and down. It is a popular cycle route, and the lycra gang DO use it as a race-track - and expect everyone else to get out of the way.
This particular spot where the accident occurred - is a 90' hairpin, with a cottage right on the apex, so it is a blind corner, at the end of a longish downhill stretch.
I will not speculate on what actually happened, but I can guess!
Other peoples photo's show the Air Ambulance had landed in a small public park  few yards away, so I probably saw it as it lifted off and departed.
 

Seriously hot today. I wear a cap when flying and today added a long sleeve shirt to protect my forearms.
No dog walkers either so I virtually had the field to myself.
Decided to fly the Sea Hawk. This month is is 5 years old and in some respects it is starting to show it!
 
As it uses a low power 55m EDF rather than the high powered 50mm in the Hunter it can safely? use a 1800mAh 3s and can be expected to manage 4 minutes. To be safe I set the timer to countdown from 4!
Compared to the Hunter the Sea Hawk is a very docile animal with only modest power but its portly but smooth shape allowed a full 4 minutes with quite a bit of throttle management.
One interesting point is the Hunter EDF windmills at a good gliding speed whereas the 55mm on the Sea Hawk does not at any speed and indication of its inefficiency of its convoluted inlet duct, just as it was on the full size Nene with its double sided centrifugal compressor. The air entering the rear surface of the compressor disk was actually reversed to the direction of the air entering the front side. Difficult to maintain dynamic pressure from forward travel with a direction reversal!   

Hello everyone, sorry I've not been on here for a while.We were not able to get my Kootai going today but I did help Arthur put together this model which flew really well and I got to have plenty of goes and I did not crash   The photo in the air was when I was actually flying it.  There is video of me flying which I'm waiting for from Arthur.  Here are the two photos for now; 

There was nice period this evening when it was almost perfectly still so I flew the Canberra PR9 with the 850mAh 3s battery placed as far forward in the available space under the cockpit hatch.
 
Despite this it was still tail heavy and required full down trim elevator to fly reasonably well. It did perform both a loop and a roll..
Flying with full trim movement is not a condition I am happy with but rather than just add nose weight I intend to move the battery still further forward but retainig the existing hatch size. The battery can be "posted" into the nose but the bigger problem will be building the battery box through the same aperture!
Apart from this minor issue I am happy the PR9 is, or will be, quite flyable.  

That looks like a nice flyer Janine, I hope to hear about some more stick time

Nice calm warm evening today (Saturday) but I was unable to complete the changes to the battery location of the Canberra PR9 so I flew the reliable Big Dragon 3 instead.
 
23 minutes involving quite a number of 400 ft vertical climbs and slow glides back. With a climb of 12 seconds at full power the best glide back I achieved was just over 2 minutes.
Some figures
At full power the motor is drawing 28A. With its 4000mAh battery it can deliver this power for just over 8 minutes, or 480 seconds. In that time in theory it could climb for 12 seconds some 40 times!
I am not sure that full power "climb and glide" is the most economical use of electric power as I have flown the Big Dragon 3 it a "minimum cruise power" for over an hour and that did not use up all the battery capacity however it is very boring to do compared to relative excitement of repeated full power climb and glides.   

Weather looks really poor for the next week!         

So - here I am on Sunday morning, getting ready to go to the flying field - 
and
It's peeing down!

Supposed to be taking a mini picnic and going with Arthur today but its raining here also but the wind is calm so might happen yet.

Once that squall I mentioned earlier had passed through, I loaded up and set off, arriving at 0930 through very light traffic - except for one woman in an Audi who was trying to see how closely she could get to my back bumper without actually bumping into me, and got mighty peed off when I gradually slowed down to about 15 mph on a 40 road. Did she try to come past - no of course not! She just dribbled along behind me for a couple of miles, then when we got to where she wanted to turn off, she gave me a big blast on the horn! (Behave, the CAR horn!)
As usual, nobody there at the field.
Pete was first, at about 1030, followed a while later by Alan, then Stew, Mike, Chris S, Jeff W, and later on - Martyn.
That made seven flyers, and four or five spectators.
The breeze couldn't decide if it was blowing from the North or the West, so kept chopping and changing! It was noticeably cooler than last Sunday, as I had my usual jumper on, and later added my fleece, and still later my windproof.
There were a couple of very brief flurries of wet dots in the wind, but nothing more than that, although the wind strength slowly increased to nuisance level, where you don't let go of your model whilst on the bench!
As usual, by around 3, they were beginning to drift off again because it was too cold. (Well, they had come dressed for the previous Sunday's conditions!)
Of course, that is when the wind died down, so I stayed on, and got a few more flights in with my Decathlon. I had taken the Kobuz and the Tango as well, but with the uncertain weather, they stayed unassembled. As it turned out, I could have flown them, but - - .
I locked up at 7.15ish, and came home on nearly empty roads.
 

I waited until 8:30 pm this evening for the wind to die down in order to test the Canberra PR9 with its new battery position.
It was all a bit of a rush so the battery was only half charged but it flew nicely and with a central elevator trim. With a max of 2 minutes available the flight was very short but landed safely and no damage.
Yet another "lightweight" to add to my collection of calm weather flyers.
I still have the 36" Skyray to repair! 

Flying for me today.
I had barely started out, when it decided to rain!
Anyway, got there for 0915, and got the cabin open and the windsock up.
I'd taken the Decathlon, the Kobus, the Tango, and the little practice heli.
First up was the Decathlon, while the heli battery was charging.
Then Pete arrived, with Alan not far behind. Graham is still holidaying in Devon.
Pete decided to cut the damp grass, as the rain had stopped. Of course, it clumped up all over the place!
Nobody else showed until turned 12, when Mike, John R, Chris S, Paul the ex-trainee, and two newish members I've forgotten the name of. They brought a large heli. While they were fussing about with it, I flew mine - nothing spectacular, just a bit of hovering and a couple of circuits.
Those two finally got sorted, put the heli out on the field and - - - it hopped up about three feet, made a weird noise, and sagged down again. It turns out that a main bearing had failed, so presumably all the pitch control rods are now a bit bent!
When they'd gone, I whistled the Kobus around for about 20 minutes, then landed. A bit tricky because it was a South wind, which means bumpy.
At different times, John, Chris, Mike and Paul flew things. John had brought his KwikFli and his big Zlin, Chris was flying his twin FPV model again, with Mike being spotter. Later, he flew it again with me as spotter, because Mike was flying his Wot 4.
Through the afternoon, there were a couple of brief splutters of rain, but nothing happened.
As usual, everyone was going home at around 4.
I flew my Decathlon again, then the heli, and was considering flying the Kobus again, but tried the Tango instead. Mistake, above the tree line the wind speed wasn't much less than the flying speed!
I had a bit of a battle getting it down again through the turbulence.

I decided that that was enough, and began packing up.Four Decathlon flights, two heli, and one each Kobus and Tango.
I locked up at 6, just as it began to rain. It rained all the way home. and still is.

If the vid is any good, once I've downloaded it and edited it, there might be something to watch, later.

As threatened - a VERY heavily edited vid of Sunday's flying. - 
Full text on the You-Tube vid.