Put a new video up of me flying the Piaget in the park. This has become one of my favorite planes. It is getting pretty beat up, and I really need to work on my Pluma bi-plane foamie. With spring days like this, if the wind would quit blowing (it did today!) I could really fly a lot.
I picked up an Electrifly Pluma 3D at the LHS for $49. I figure on putting some HXT 5g servos in for the elevator/ruder and one of the 9g servos for the ailerons. I'm going to use the 24g blue wonder motor and a 10A BESC and figure on using 410mAh 2S (indoor) and 640mAh 3S (outdoor) lipos. I sure like the way this plane floats in the simulator, so hope it is as good in real life.
I have had an old Carl Goldberg Tiger2 40 that I had a .61 ASP in that I built over 15 years ago and crashed. The right rear horizontal stab was broken. Anyway, it has been gathering dust in my garage for years, and I was thinking I would try to repair it and outfit it with a new electric motor. Just came across this thread in RCGroups, too, that seems to discuss it.
I have been thinking I really should try to take my Multiplex Easy Star over to Table Rock and try and do some cliff/slope soaring with it. Well, I had my replacement Hitec Mini 6S (yeah...more about that later) that they sent me that still needed trying out, and it was too windy to do any 3D flying with the Piaget, and my Typhoon 3D wings were not being held in by the small plastic tabs that screw together (it had split out last time I flew it), so why not. Plus, it was sunny and the kids might like the drive and hike.
Got some video of my Piaget this morning, despite it being on/off breezy. I really can't say enough about this plane. This is with the new aileron push rods put in (think it really helped, but have to get the longer horn in next). Also, not sure if it was the wind or not, but I'm pretty sure the Corona SC Rx was gliching on me, mostly when the radio was pointed right at the plane. That really sucks. I've had it with single conversion Rx's. At least with this radio on ch 30, it sure has problems for me.
Well, it was too windy to fly today, so I spent the day fixing planes. I REALLY needed to change the aileron push rods on the Piaget (they were flexing and not pushing in a straight line). So I did that, and I also was not real happy with the reception on the GWS 4ch SC Rx on the piaget, so I swapped it out to try the synthetic Corona 4ch SC I got. It worked pretty well from what I can see, and has good range. Flew it for just a second, but it was doing 15-20mph gusts, so really was NOT fun with this piaget. Really freaked me out.
I ordered some new lipo's from Hobby City in Hong Kong. This is my third order from them, and they seem to have pretty good stuff. The chargers, lipos and motors are all much cheaper and seem to be ok quality. I've been wanting to try to get into the 3D foamie flying. SloFly.com is a great site and resource for free plans and doing 3mm EPP foam home built. There are also a lot of people that even do plan cuts for you, routinely. The foam seems very inexpensive, once you get use to how to build and work with the carbon fiber rods and all the best components. I gather it takes a little experience to get it all just right and the weight down to a reasonable level (sub-7oz planes are routine fully flight capable with battery and everything).
I got a Park Zone T-28 Trojan PNP version for Christmas. It was a scratch and dent special from Air Land Hobbies. It had a slightly crushed canopy and the trailing edge of the wing had been compressed pretty hard, but I got it all repaired pretty well, and it looks great!
Well, I keep having problems with my Hitec Mini 6s single conversion Rx. The gliching happens in multiple planes, different ESC's and all different locations (even way out in the desert where there should be no interferrance). I'm pretty sure it is bad (or maybe the ch 30 crystal is bad???). Anyway, I'm going to replace it with a Neutron 6s dual conversion. I love how they work. I've had too many cases of near crashes or partial crashes (grin) with this Mini 6s. The latest was trying it in my Typhoon. And when those control surfaces go full rail glitch...wow...hard to recover from. I'm sick of it. I don't think it has anything to do with single conversion, but I'm done. It just isn't worth monkeying with. I'm going dual conversion and have had absolutely ZERO problems with two different neutron 6s Rx.
