Burned again by technology

[TMan]

I think I've mentioned before that I fly model helicopters. My favorites are all made by Horizon Hobbies because they offer Ready To Fly (RTF), which include a transmitter and Bind-iN-Fly (BNF), which do not include the transmitter.

The transmitters and receivers use Spread Spectrum technology, which means there are no crystals and channels like the old Radio Control planes/helicopters so you don't have to worry about someone else accidentally taking control of your aircraft and crashing it.

Last week while I was in the hobby shop, I saw an Ultra Micro plane:



I went for the BNF version because I already had a couple of suitable transmitters.

After binding the transmitter and receiver together, I discovered that the rudder didn't move. Read the manual. The rudder is controlled by the right stick not the left. Okay, everything worked then to wait for a windless day, which is a rare occurrence in Texas.

Yesterday was the rare day, well it was rare that the wind was not blowing. Me having problems of one sort or another is not rare.

In case you have never flown a model, but I think it is true on big planes too, when you turn, you loose altitude. I decided that a hand launch would be the best bet because there was no way this thing could take off from the grass.

The results were always the same: hard left bank and into the ground. After dislodging the battery holder, I called it quits for the day. I was puzzled; no matter how quickly I slammed the rudder control all the way to the right, it had no effect. Time to dry-fire.

Bringing the model inside to test it, I quickly found out that if I moved the control to the right, the rudder went to the left. The servo was reversed.

["DoubleAction"]

.....TMan; Do you remember the balsa wood airplanes, with the windup rubber band powered propellers ?

...The tail dragging tri-wheel, and the design reminds me of your plane. I never got into to the model planes, from fear of crashing them. I knew of many model airplane hobbyist, that would spend a month building a model airplane, and crash it on the first run.

....I like your's ;D

["DoubleAction"]

...By the way :

I think it is true on big planes too, when you turn, you loose altitude

.......On the passenger planes, you have a visible horizon and an instrument horizon to keep the airplane level. It's been awhile since I went flying with my father, but, he would teach me about doing certain in flight maneuvers. During the last few years, of flying with him, I spent most of my time shooting pictures.

[TMan]

Ah yes, I remember the rubber-band powered ones very well. My best friend was a boy scout and one of their projects was to build a rubber-band powered plane. It flew, but it was quite wild in its flight pattern.

I told my step-father about it, and he said he would build a plane for me. It got some paper, glue, balsa wood and piano wire. He carved the propeller out of a block of balsa wood.

That plane was the talk of the neighborhood. It flew like an arrow. I don't recall how he made the wheels for it.

I used to fly control-line as a teen-ager. My friend would hold the plane and let it go out and away from me.

One time I had trouble starting it. I finally got it running and then ran over to the handle. I had the lines all straight and everything so I gave Dave the signal to let it go. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt by the crash. I forgot to check the air-flow. The engine had started backwards.

Some great aerial pictures you have there.

Edited to add:

I also have this one, but haven't flown it yet.



One of the advantages we have now days are very realistic flight simulators that have model aircraft on them. I've just about mastered this one on the simulator (Phoenix 4), but it is too big to fly in the backyard so I'll need to go to the park on a relatively calm day.

The other advantage is the lightweight batteries and motors that allow us to fly without all the engine break-in and noise problems. Kids today are so lucky.

["DoubleAction"]

May 13, 2013 10:02:13 GMT -5 TMan said:

.....TMan; this model plane looks like my father's 4 Seater Cessna, but his wasn't a tail dragger ( 2 wheels in the front, and one on the tail ). One day, my father landed his plane with less than 4 feet of runway space at McCollum Airport in Kennesaw, Ga. ( where he kept it ). He was using full flaps, when the plane touched down. As soon has the plane approach the runway, he touched the plane down. This was probably the best landing that I ever seen him do.

....The rubber band powered planes : "$7.00" For Two

.......The prices has gone up !!!

www.rei.com/product/815414/guillows-sky-streak-balsa-wood-power-plane-package-of-2

[TMan]

McCollum Airport in Kennesaw, Ga. That brings back memories. My youngest son, Chris had a friend, Matt Blake, that worked on airplanes at that airport.

The kids used to kid me that I never threw away my old 3 piece suits, but instead would use them for painting, working on cars, working in the lawn, etc.

Matt had a pickup truck that he had installed headers on and they were too close to the starting motor. So when the engine was hot, he couldn't get it to start until it had cooled down.

One day he was out in front of our house waiting for it to cool down when I came home from work. I said: " Matt, do you know what is wrong with this truck, because I do". He said: "What?" I replied: "It doesn't respect you. If you wore a nice suit when you were working on it, it would respect you and wouldn't act up like this."

I looked at the link for the rubber-band powered ones. I wonder if anyone ever makes the big ones anymore. I can remember using a hand drill to wind them up quickly. Now days you could use a portable battery operated drill, and you could wind one up in a real hurry.

They have electric motor starters for the "gas" models now days too. I have one for my RC car.

Kids today flying model planes just don't know how good they have it not getting whacked by the props trying to start one by flipping it with your finger.

Well, I need to go get the ladder and get busy installing my new weather station.

[blueglass]

He needed a heat sheild for that truck engine. I have one on mine as I also have new headers installed as of last fall.. Bought the silver coated ones from Hedman which are top-notch in my view. Got 9 years out of the last set of Hedmans.

[TMan]

Blueglass, when my son was in the Marine Corp, I drove his Mustang occasionally. Bad mistake. After he returned, I pulled the head and rebuilt it before really looking closely at the block. It was cracked inside one of the cylinders.

He had a friend that had run into the back of some other Ford product that had the same engine. Rather than go through the insurance route, he had just paid the guy for the car. The block was good so we bought that from him.

Well, as you well know, that after you put in a new cam, you have to break it in. Prior to doing so we installed the battery and I told my son to put the strap on it. He said he would do it later. We had put chromed headers on it, and it looked good.

So we broke in the cam and he told me he was going to take the car over to show his trainer (this was when he was still an amateur boxer). I said okay.

We both had forgotten about the battery. He came home several hours later with a new battery that had been properly fastened down, but the headers were ruined by the battery acid from the original battery that had fallen over on the headers and melted.

I took the headers off, sand blasted them, painted them with a special high temp paint and put them back on. They worked okay until one snowy/icy night in Poughkeepsie when he wrapped the Mustang around a telephone pole and totaled it.

Believe it or not, but that was the best thing that could have happened to him. Without transportation we convinced him to come to Georgia and go to work for a friend of ours and get away from Margaret, his girl friend, that would have smothered him.

While staying with us in Georgia he met Jennifer who became his wife over 20 years ago.

Living in Texas now and my son still in Georgia, I miss working with him on projects. He came over three years ago for a visit and two days before he came the 1HP submersible pump that runs the streams ceased up. The pump was not serviceable, according to the manufacturer, but prior to spending over 1K on a new pump we decided to take it apart.

We found a bearing ceased and bought a new one at the local NAPA parts store. We put it back together and it has been working ever since. He still tells me how much he enjoyed working with me on that.

Great memories, but I hope he doesn't remember that I crashed one of his model planes. ;D

[blueglass]

MY son and I also still do some projects together which is still fun for me. He is not all that up on vehicle knowledge like I am but he is trying to learn so I finally started giving him some of his own tools to work with. My Mac roll-a-round cabinets are so full that I really should get some weight out of them as it is. Might do my 1st carshow of the year this Sat up at Goderich which was smacked very badly last year by a toronado. It was rated as the prettiest town in Canada at that time but not now due to the serious damage they suffered and the deaths as well that came with it from the storm. I'll get the old truck cleaned up on Friday so she looks good for the week-end show. Sure is nice when you can fix something they say you can't fix at all and save a small fortune doing at the time as well. Good for you.

[5ontarget]

love to see some picks of your truck all cleaned up!

I've got a truck stuck with seized brakes in the corner of my barn, if I wait another 20yrs it too will be a classic. It has been a someday project for quite some time now. I need to win the lottery and retire.

oh, put a gun on the front seat or in the bed to make it gun related for the forum kidding

[blueglass]

I can send you them in private perhaps if thats permissable. A quick wash and she's all ready to roll. Haven't driven it in 2 weeks now as it is. Just love the smell of burning rubber and alchol mixed with gunpowder 1st thing in the morning. pIc big smile here