What a beautiful morning!

We had a low of 19 last night, it was 21 when I got up and 22 when I took these pictures at 9:45 AM.

There was a nice coat of frost on everything and the sun was shining through the cedar tree.  It was such a beautiful morning, but about 40 degrees too cold for me to think about flying.  I worked on the Edge 540 today and got the linkages to the elevator and rudder all hooked up.  I charged the batteries that were used Friday night and changed out the receiver in one plane.  I took it out in the driveway for a short flight to test it but it wasn't long until the cold drove me back in the shop.  I flew the stealth quad around the shop a few times testing some of it's batteries and watched a couple of football games while I was out there.  It turned into a nice relaxing Sunday

Snow

I started pretty slow this morning, it was 8 before I got up, then I had a nice soak in the tub.  I had been puttering on the computer when Vera said it was snowing.  I grabbed the camera and took a couple of pictures and it was good thing I did, because 15 minutes later it was sunshiny!  My friend Dennis had brought me some clams for helping with his helicopter, Vera fixed them this afternoon and they were delicious!  Just before dark, I finally got around to getting the planes and gear out of the car and into the shop.  I filled the pellet stove and came back in for the evening.  Both football games I watched got boring because they were so lopsided.  I edited some more pictures for the club forum and posted them this evening and that was about it for the day.

Indoor Flying

I spent part of the day getting my small planes ready for flying indoors at the Centralia Middle School gym this evening.

We had a pretty good turn out for this first time club event, 9 flyers took part.

That is my Vapor in the picture, I managed to run into the blue ductwork once.  Then later, I was trying to activate the motion sensor on one of the lights when I ran into it, the light did turn on as the plane fell.  In both cases, I just added power and flew away.

Here I am flying my stealth quad.  

I passed the Vapor's controls around to anyone that would take it and a few who were a little hesitant.  I think Dick and his boy, Dennis, might be getting Vapors.  It was a great evening, we ended up flying for over three and one a half hours.  If things work out, we will be doing it again next month.

Thanksgiving

We went to the Mansion for Thanksgiving dinner with Mik, Michelle, James, Mik's brother Jim and his family and Mik and Jim's mother Margaret.

Our girls, Michelle and Bev looked so happy in this shot and all day.

This is Mik and James, boy is James growing up fast!

After dinner we all posed for pictures by the pond.  The day couldn't have been any better, being with family and sharing great food.  Then the day was topped off with a big win by the Seahawks.

More Edge

I got the elevator hinges glued in today and left them to dry overnight.  I also got the hinge slots cut in the rudder and glued the hinges into it, tomorrow I can mount it on the fuselage.  I got a replacement arm for the quad and put it on.  It doesn't quite match the one it replaced, so I may be changing it later but it will work until I get the right one.  I went up and let Sam out for a while and we had a great time with the ball until he tried picking up a small log again.  He was clear down at the end of the yard and wouldn't quit messing with it until I walked down there and told him "No" and pointed at it.  After that he was happy with the ball again.

Edge and Cobra

I got the Edge's rudder and horizontal stabilizer fitted today.  I put the wings on so I could line the stab up with them.  I have the stab glued in now, hinging the elevators will be next.

This is the new motor for the Cobra.  It took several days, but I finally got the clutch mount turned down so it would fit on the adapter.  I still have to shorten the motor shaft a little more, then I can start making a new motor mount for it.  The Monday Night Football game is sure a good one.

Cantata

We really had a nice church service today!  The choir did the Cantata which was really nice plus there was a play being done as part of it.  Boy was there a lot of thunder, lightening and rain before and during church.

I really enjoy listening to Charlie do his part.  He has been in several plays at the church and he has been great in every one.  I had my Seahawks shirt, socks and hat on today and I like to think it helped, because they won.  Watching football was about all I did today.

Edge 540

I started on this project last spring when I added some carbon fiber rods to the fuselage to reinforce the landing gear and cockpit opening.  Then I went over all the glue joints with super glue.  Today I picked out which motor, speed control and BEC I wanted to use and got them mounted.  There was some play between the wing mounting tube and the fuselage.  One wrap of copier paper made it a nice snug fit.  This evening I edited some old pictures from flying and put them on the LCRC forum.

Working Out

Boy did I sleep good last night!  I had gotten a new landing gear for the quad a few days ago and today I got it installed.  This afternoon I was heading to the house and I discovered the rain had stopped, so I got the quad out and tried the new landing gear out.  It seemed to takeoff better because the props are further from the ground.  Afterwards, I took it in the house and made another gain adjustment to the firmware with the laptop.  This evening I cleaned up around the weight machine and worked out for a little while.  Then I went in and watched part of a modeling video while walking on the treadmill.  Now I am watching my recording of Thursday Night Football and is it ever raining there!

The Quad flies again!

Vera had bible study today and she reminded me that it would be a good time to check the game camera since rain was forecast.  I brought it in and downloaded the pictures.  I put it out October 30th and it had 220 pictures on it, lots of the coyotes, a spike, a raccoon, Laury's cat and as you saw when I got the blog caught up, Steve and I.

I got the quad straightened out today and flew it three times.  It is kind of fun to get it where I want for a picture and then the GPS keeps it there while I take a picture.  I even set the transmitter on the ground during one set.

I got under it once and took a few shots of the bottom.

This is the tightest spot I put it into, it drifts around a little but I was never worried about it hitting anything.  I blew some leaves off the roof during this flight.  During the last flight I made, I blew the few that were left off the driveway.  Just before it got dark, I took the game camera back out and put it in a different place.  I am glad I did, because I just went out to lock the shop and it is raining out!

Time to get caught up

Sunday the 16th I had a sore throat, so I stayed home from church.  I watched football and messed with the new quad most of the day.

Monday the 17th the leaves were pretty dry, so I decided to mulch them up again today.  I forgot about the game camera being out on the trails, so I got a picture of myself coming down a trail.

Steve was out mowing also and the camera go him a little later.  The bagger must have been plugged because the camera took 5 pictures of him opening up the lid and on the last one you can see the leaves starting to fly out.

I did get the canopy glued on the F-22 before watching Monday Night Football.

Tuesday the 18th I spent most of the day trying to figure out why the quad rolled over and broke two props, then I set the gain too high and broke two more.  I also found a prop for the Graupner flying wing, got it balanced and checked the amps, 167 watts and moving lots of air.

Dang it is COLD!

I knew this morning that the shop pellet stove was out of pellets, because I forgot to fill it last night.  Once I was done with breakfast, I headed out to fill and start it.  It was so pretty out that I took a couple of pictures on the way, but boy was it cold, 26 degrees!  After I had the fire going, I headed back in to the house and messed around on the computer.  I got an email from a friend who wanted to stop by.  I emailed him our number, he called and we arranged to get together this afternoon.  I had a nice afternoon visiting with Rich and showing him around the shop.

This evening, I found a pilot and got him glued into the F-22's cockpit.

I have been working on changing the motor in a little flying wing, after several tries this evening, I finally found a prop adapter that ran true and got it mounted.   I was going to put the ammeter on it and check the current, but the transmitter battery was dead.  I put it on charge and called it a night.  The F-22's cockpit looked kind of plain with just the pilot in there, so I hunted up a picture of an F-22's instrument panel and printed it to a size that would fit.

I can put it in tomorrow and then the canopy will be the only thing left.

Success!

I went out this morning and made a mount for the compass, that is it on the post with wire wrapped around it.  I put on two new props and took it out for a test flight.  The GPS mode worked great and it hovered right over the driveway even though the wind was blowing.  Dennis got a surprise as he came up the road.  We got his helicopter out and I trimmed it out for him.  Then we headed in to warm up and I started a video of a fly-in going and we watched the whole thing.  I sent him home with some videos of several events around the country.  

After Dennis left, I had lunch, then I went out to fly the quad some more.  Vera took a bunch of pictures of it for me and I demonstrated the RTL (Return To Launch) mode to her.  It works great, it flies back to where I started, slowly comes down and then shuts down the motors.  I still have a little tuning to do on it as it rocks around a little in hover, but I am having a great time with it.  I had a call from Bob today and he is having lots of fun with his quad.  I did some work on the Raptor tonight and got the receiver installed and programmed the transmitter.  I tried the motors and it has about a 1:1 thrust to weight ratio, it is going to be fun to fly!

First flight on the new quad

I put the first flight on the new quad today.  It flew fine in the Stabilize mode, but when I switched it to the GPS mode it would head off from where it was hovering.  I finally managed to tip it over and break two props.  After much reading I learned the compass calibration could cause this problem.  The picture is the compass on my new quad, the chip in the middle is about 3/16 of an inch across.  I went round and round with it all afternoon trying to get it to calibrate.  I finally discovered that it was too close to the wiring and I needed to make a mount for it that put it up higher.

Our friend Dennis came by this afternoon with a new Blade 400 helicopter that he needed help setting up.  It had been about a year since I have seen Dennis, so we had a nice visit while I tried to set things up.  I am not really familiar with the programming of a Spectrum transmitter, so Dennis left it for the night.  I did some reading of the transmitter manual and finally got everything moving the right way.

First Frost

It was a beautiful day Monday and I spent the afternoon winterizing outside.  I got the faucet covers put on, drained the hose reels, put RV antifreeze in the motor home plumbing and hooked up the electric heater in it.  When I got up this morning I was glad I had done it, because we had our first frost.  We walked with Pastor Pam and had a great time, there was no wind so we didn't get cold, in fact I was a little warm in my heavy coat.  I puttered on the new quad a little but I didn't accomplish much today.

Veterans Day

They had a really nice Veteran's Day service at church this morning.  The members had been invited to bring pictures from when they or family members were in the service.

During the service, the choir sang each of the service's songs and asked those who served in each one to stand.

After church, James came up and we spent the afternoon repairing a broken sway bar bracket on the Maxima.  When we finished that, we watched the Seahawks win today's game that I had recorded.  Of course, I had my Seahawks shirt and socks on for luck.

Mowing

I got ambitious today, I decided to mow and mulch up all the maple leaves.  First, I had to get some gas as all the cans were empty, that was a short trip, I forgot my billfold.  The second one was more successful, I got the gas, picked up the mail and got a couple of things at Bredfield's.  The mowing took most of the afternoon, it was slow going through the leaves.

As I was coming in after cleaning up the the sun was setting and I liked the look of the scene with the candles in the window.

A Beautiful Day for Flying

It was foggy when we first got to the flying field this morning, but by the time the mowing was finished, it had cleared off.  Mt St Helens has some snow on it now.

I took Bob's Phantom quad up to him this morning and he is putting his first flight on it.  He was really happy with the way it flew, it was even better than he had hoped for.  We put the camera on it for one flight and he has some pictures to play with now.

I put my quad up later with my GoPro on it and got this picture of Leonard's Slow Stick cruising by below me.

Raptor

I got quite a bit done today on my latest project, an F-22 Raptor.  I got the left wing and vertical fins epoxied on, the servos hooked up, the fan access hatch put back on and the stabilizers glued to their mounts.  I might have gotten more done, but I was charging batteries when I noticed the fan on the battery charger wasn't running and it was smelling hot.  19 screws later, I had it apart (it turned out I didn't need to take 8 out), I was able to lube the fan and got it freed up.  After that, I settled in to watch Thursday Night Football and do today's blog.

Finally!

I figured out where the oil leak in the Blazer was last night after I got home from the club meeting.  I expected the repair to take quite a while, but I was done in a couple of hours with only one trip to town.

After walking Sam this afternoon, I stopped by Steve and Dianne's to visit and I found out Auna had a game tonight at 5:30.  I put a reminder on my phone and I got the leak fixed soon enough that I could go watch.

Auna played great, here she is setting the ball for a return.

Castle Rock won, the girls were really excited when that last point was scored.

The score of the final game.  Was it ever noisy in the gym, I had some Elma supporters up behind me and I was wishing for ear plugs.

The Phantom

We have not walked yet this week, we just can not get excited about walking in the rain.  I had made a few more adjustments to the setting on Bob's Phantom and there were a couple of nice periods today when I got to do test flights.

Here I am testing the prop guards, I discovered that it does not need any control inputs when it takes off, just give it power.

It flies great, I tested the low battery function and it starts flashing green and orange when it gets low, then orange when it gets to the next lower level and lands itself.  I also tested the Come Home feature, I flew out about 500 feet, flipped the switch and it came back to me.  I had a club meeting in Longview this evening, I left early, dropped off a Bluetooth mouse I had for Bev and we had a nice little visit.  The meeting was at Stuffy's, I had clam strips for dinner and really enjoyed them.  There were only six of us at the meeting, so we were all done in ten minutes.