James Flying

It wasn't raining this morning, so we headed for the Goble field.  I texted James to let him know we were flying and he showed up a couple of hours later.  I had forgotten the transmitter for his favorite plane the Yak 55P, so I had to do a quick receiver change.  It has been quite a while since he had flown, but he did great.  It was just a few minutes and he was doing spins with 2 turns right and 2 turns left.

He shot lots of touch and goes, he hasn't lost his touch there either.

For a little change of pace, I got the Slow Stick with the video transmitter on it and let him fly a little FPV (First Person View).  He did good, but said it was harder than it sounds because there is no depth perception.

 These are the planes that got flown today, a little variety makes things interesting.  The orange one in the middle is the Slow Stick with the video camera and 5.8 GHz transmitter  mounted on it.

After we got home, Vera and I decided to pick the plums before the rain that was predicted.  The last time we had a nice crop and it rained, most of them split.  We picked 4 gallons and there were still more on the tree.  We were surprised that being so dry there was still a nice crop of large plums.  We got them all washed, pitted and frozen, Vera did most of the work because I had company right in the middle of the job.

Catch up time!

Tuesday the 25th.:

Just the normal stuff today, watering, cutting some ferns and surfing the internet.  This evening I got the littlest quad out and took some video in the dark.  It does not capture a very clear video in low light, most of the video is just spots of light moving around except when I flew by the shop light and the porch light.  You can just barely make out the shop, porch and motor home on the right.  On the left is the house light, door and kitchen window.

Wednesday the 26th.:

While Vera was at bible study, I got the hedge trimmer out and did a bunch of clipping.  Big surprise, I had it pretty much all cleaned up when Vera got home.  I did some more videoing in the daylight with the little quad, but the video had wavy lines in it.  It seems when I hit the lilac bush in the dark last night, I got some grass wound around one prop shaft and it was causing a vibration.

Thursday the 27th.:

I didn't take a picture today, so here is a throw back picture to 8-27-2005 at the family garage sale.  Boy have the kids grown since then!  Today we had a 1:00 appointment to have our picture taken for the church directory.  They said that you could bring things or pets to include in the pictures, so naturally I took one of my radio controlled helicopters.  After the session, we had the option to buy pictures, so we picked out some we liked to have printed and framed.  We had a very pleasant surprise this afternoon when James stopped by.  The three of us spent a couple of hours visiting, it was great!

Walking

I was up early today and feeling good, so I decided to try walking with the church group.  It turned out that there were just three of us, Pastor Pam, Peggy and myself.  I told them that I planned on turning back if the Achilles started hurting.  I don't think I made it a quarter of the way before my leg started getting really tired.  I turned back and walked very slowly back to the church.  My leg felt tired the rest of the day, the Achilles felt fine so it is just going to take a while to build the strength back up.  Vera took the picture of our back deck and the roses.  They sure like this warm weather and watering every day.

Church Picnic

I was up early today as there was lots going on, first I ran up to feed Sam and played with him.  When I got back home I decided to wash the Blazer for the annual church picnic today.  Then I had breakfast and got ready to go.  The picnic was held at Barbra and Charlie's place on the Cowlitz river.  It was a very nice setting and 80 people showed up.

This is while the choir was singing, it was a perfect day for a picnic, no wind and mild temperatures.

My favorite picture of the day, Pastor Pam during her sermon.  Her passion for what she is teaching us really shows.

After the service, we had a wonderful potluck lunch, everything was delicious!  When I got back to our chairs, Vera asked if all I was having was dessert!  I said "No, I have potato salad and a deviled egg on here".  We took a short drive on the way home and then settled in front of the computers for the afternoon.  I went out and did a little work on the F-4 nose gear in the late afternoon.

Flying

I was up early and got the watering done, Sam fed and the last things loaded for flying.  The first thing I did at the field was mow, there are dandelions everywhere.  Then I used the motor home to roll part of the runway that was really rough from some mole activity.  This picture is just after I had been racing my friend Dave's FW 190 with my Mustang, we had a great time and they are pretty evenly matched speed wise.  I put in a flight on the B-36, it is flying great and I shot a bunch of touch and goes.  The F-4 flew great, but a spot I thought looked weak on the nose gear mount broke on landing so it was done for the day.

I got the Slow Stick and quad out and flew them to show Dave and Clark how the video worked.  The video camera is right over the GoPro on the quad, so I can use it to frame shots.

Boy did it get smoky this afternoon, when we came over the bridge, we could not see the hills East of Kelso.

Rose

Every day while I am watering the Don Juan rose smells so good.  They are really liking the regular watering as they just keep blooming.  It was a pretty laid back day, I let Sam out once, I made a trip to Bredfield's for some parts and I put up the new motion light in the woodshed.  I watched the Seahawks game this evening, then went to bed early so I could get up and get everything done before going flying Saturday.

Cobra

Vera brought my new batteries for the Cobra home from the post office after bible study on Wednesday and I started building battery boxes for them.  By that evening I had them made and wedged in place while the glue dried overnight.  Today we had a couple of things to do in Longview, after we got home I finished the wiring up and put the batteries on to charge.  Later in the day, the wind died down and I got in a flight in the back yard.  With the center of gravity in the right place it is flying better, now I just have to get used to the slower response to the controls it has.

The practice run part II

The practice run must have really helped, because our trip to Vancouver this morning went smooth as silk!  The company that manufactures the wheel covers for the motor home is located in Vancouver, so we took a chance and left early to try and get the new ones directly from them.  They were very friendly, in a few minutes they had the new ones brought up for me to check out.  They were just what I wanted so they got everything taken care of and I picked them up at the Will Call door.  From there we went to the Salmon Creek Kaiser and this time I was there on the right day and time.  I never even got to sit down before they called me in.  After a couple of tests, I had a little wait for the doctor, but there was a good magazine in the room so I didn't mind.  We stopped at Burgerville in Woodland on the way home for lunch and I had a wild blackberry milkshake, boy was it good!  This afternoon the neighbor boy came up and spent the afternoon.  I gave him a couple of lessons on quad flying, he was doing pretty good after the second one.  After it started to cool down, I went out and put the new wheel covers on, it looks much better to me!

Boy this day flew by!

This is James enjoying a piece of the Apple Upside Down Cake Vera made and took to the picnic yesterday.  We had a nice visit with him, he had come up to give me a new Seahawks shirt that Mik had gotten.  James got one also, so now we will match.  I was out watering early to beat the heat, then we loaded up the recycling and took it to town.  Ava came by in the Jeep and took the vases they had brought the flower in the other day back to Dianne's.  Later she stopped in again and I said "Are you on a cookie run", of course she was, and she picked out the biggest one.  Harper showed up later to get one also.  I worked on editing pictures from the picnic until James came.  After James left, I cleaned the filters in the pond, they were really plugged up with fir needles.  With this hot weather the trees have lost a lot of their needles.  You know the funny thing, I had planned on resting today after the big day Sunday.

Cowlitz Valley Radio Control Flyers Picnic

Today was the annual CVRCF picnic, this is just after we got all set up and were visiting with our friends Leonard and Audrey who came down from Olympia.  It was a nice sunny day, but boy did the wind blow.  It was 10 mph most of the day with a high gust of 15 recorded on my anemometer.

 This is Leonard making the first flight flown at the field today.

The club president Mike did the cooking and it was great, plus some members brought side dishes so we had an awesome meal

This is the North pit area during lunch, we ended up with about 20 people there.  In spite of wind, quite a bit of flying went on, Vera counted 7 planes in the air at one time.

This is part of what I flew today, I also flew my F-15 and P-51C.  The new electric retracts in the F-4 worked great after the first flight when the nose gear doors kept the nose wheel from coming down all the way.  I took the doors off for the second flight and everything worked great.  As usual, we were the last ones to leave, I got to try out my one dollar GPS from the garage sale yesterday and it worked great!  I had loaded new firmware and maps onto it last night.

Garage Sale

I got down to the family garage sale at 7:30 this morning and people were already leaving with bags of stuff.  It has never been as busy as I saw it today.  I guess putting it on Craig's List, in the Daily News and having the signs out drew a lot of buyers.  There were cars parked everywhere and the girls had to run two check out lines for the first few hours.  Most of the things I took down were gone the last time I went down.  I ended up buying the cabinet on the left end and I got it pretty well filled up after setting it up in the shop.  I had a great time visiting with the family, catching up with what some of them have been doing.

The new retracts are here!

I checked the tracking this morning and the new electric retracts for the F-4 were at the post office.  After forgetting the air pump once and then having a leak the next time I flew it, I was ready to replace the air powered retracts.  I made good headway and the nose gear was all installed before I quit this evening.

More Visitors

Vera had bible study this morning and I worked on the planes.  This afternoon, Ava and Emily brought over two vases of flowers to Vera, then they cleaned out my cocoa mound cache.  I did some pricing for the family garage sale this weekend and that was about it for the day.

The Practice Run

We were up early and headed to Vancouver for my appointment with the eye doctor.  When we got there and checked in, I found out we had the right time, right day but wrong week!  I had put the appointment into the wrong day on my phone calendar.  It was a good practice run, we know exactly when to leave now.  On the way home we drove out by the house Uncle Chris and Aunt Marge lived in.  It has sure grown up now, Chris used to keep everything trimmed.

I forgot to put this with the new tires story, it is Vera after 3 hours at Les Schwab wondering "Are we there yet!'.

Visiting and Visitor

We picked up supplies for Marie this morning in Longview and then delivered them to her.  I put a newly loaded SD card into her picture frame and we had a nice time talking with her and explaining who was in some of the pictures.  After we took her down to the lunch room, we had lunch at Jack In the Box in Centralia.  We figured that our friend Bob would be done with his lunch by then, so we stopped at Sharon Care to visit him.  We were wrong, he was not in his room but we found him in the cafeteria eating his dessert.  We visited with him while he finished and then we went outside to a bench to visit some more.  He was excited about getting to go home this Friday, all the nurses who walked by commented what a good patient he was and how well he was doing.  I could sure see that he was walking much better.  After we got home, there was a knock on the door and there was Ava all dressed up.  She was really proud of her high heel shoes.  She had a cocoa mound with me and then grandpa showed up to get her.  Later there was more knocking on the door and it was Ava again, she wanted to go out to the shop and play with the magnet.  She picked up a bunch of screws, washers and nuts from the floor a couple of times before it was time to go home again.  I did some research this evening and got the new wheel covers for the motor home ordered.

Church and New Tires

We went to church this morning and had a very nice time.  James called me and asked if we could work on his clutch this afternoon as it would hardly release.  When he got here and started describing the trip up, I started to realize it was a hydraulic system.  I did a quick check in the manual and that was the case.  We went out and sure enough the reservoir was empty.  After adding some brake fluid, he pumped it several times and it felt like normal, an easy fix.  We checked a couple of other things and he headed home.  On Friday we had gone down to Les Schwab and had new front tires put on the motor home.  We had a bad idler arm and the right tire had worn badly.  The only problem was no one has 16.5 inch tires any more.  We ended up getting new 16 inch rims and tires.  Today I decided to put the wheel covers back on, only to discover after and hour or so of messing around that the 16.5 covers will not go on 16 inch rims.  It looks like I will be ordering some new 16 inch wheel covers because I really like the way they look.

Saturday Flying

Vera and I drove through a couple of light showers on the way to Goble this morning, but it was dry at the field.  The little Cessna 150 was the first flight of the day.

Then I flew the F-4 followed by the B-36 and P-51 with the Soloshot II taking videos of them.  By the time I flew the Corsair, the camera battery went dead and I did not get any video of it's flight.  I finished up the day with a flight on the Sukhoi.

Here is a link to some of the video I shot today.
Flying 8-8-2015

Game Camera

I had set a reminder in the phone to get the game camera after a couple of weeks and it went off yesterday but I ignored it.  Today Vera and I took a walk and ended it at the camera so I could bring it in.  This was a much better spot, no leaves waving in the wind to set it off and we got several nice pictures of the deer.  We see this little buck every few days.

We see this doe all the time also.  She has some marking on her left side that we recognize.  We liked this spot so well that we put it back there for another couple of weeks.

Flying at LCRC

We went flying at Toledo early this morning to beat the heat, but by afternoon it was pretty darn warm.  I have been wanting to try out the tundra tires I put on the little Cub for quite a while and I remembered to grab it this morning.  I am putting air in them before the first flight.

It was just Vera and I for most of the day, but Bruce showed up with three new planes to test fly.  I did the test flight on one, a Hots that ended up flying fine!

I have one like this, but with a conventional tail, Bruce had modified his to a vee tail and it flew great.

This Sikorsky helicopter flew by while we were flying, boy was it noisy!  It is the type they use for fire fighting, so it may have been headed to one.

Another warm day!

I watered early this morning so I could work on the flower bed.  It wasn't long until I ran out of landscape fabric so we made a quick run to town for more.  By then the sun was hitting that area and it was feeling pretty warm.  The last part went good, so I was done before it got really hot.

I worked on the Cub this afternoon, when it is 95.8 outside the air conditioner feels really good!  I had a call from my friend Bob and he is doing great with his rehab.  He now has free run of the place and he was out on the patio enjoying the sun.  I put a flight on the quad tonight before coming in.