This tickled me today. You might go a whole year and not see anything this funny on TV. Enjoy!
Fun With Taxi
Expanding Your Airfoil Knowledge
Erik Dahl Christensen’s Airfoil History
If like me, you love to design aircraft and want to get a better handle on airfoils, Eric Christensens’s site is an excellent study. Click his home link to find calculators and other sailplane design information. Even if your not into sailplanes, the information is clearly presented and it’s influenced my thinking and understanding of airfoils on many levels. Studying other aircraft disciplines will help with your discipline whatever it is. I found the Airfoils section of this site very interesting. In fact, I may go back and give it a read again soon. I’m saving the link here for that purpose and to share it with you. I am currently working on my first sailplane kit and this site has helped me a great deal. Get some glue on your fingers!
RadicalCast #006
[display_podcast]
We discusss: Bad weather strikes, flying field weather tips. Fun with Hover Craft! More On Form & Peak Charging. Using thread locker properly.
Street Sweeper Skunk Wurks Project
Look behind he curtain at some of our wizardry at work.
John Purtee’s Twin Speed 300 Stick
Example of how a well planned power system works. Model hanging in shop. Can’t wait to fly it again. John builds nice stuff. All of them light and strong. Many hand built models by John are listed on our front page as of the date of this post.
Wire Resistance and Voltage Drop Calculator
Jeff Lucius provides us with his Voltage Drop Calculator. An excellent site to help understand why wire size maters. If you have a 1000kv outrunner and your voltage drop across wires and connectors is .5v then your losing 500 prop RPM. Yikes!
Restarting and old project: 108″ Dallaire Sportster
Photos sent to me by Bob Slater. He’s encouraging me to finish mine with Inspirational photo’s and “You will be thrilled with your Dallaire.”. Bob’s in Scottsdale, Arizona and is into SAM (Society of Antique Modelers) Old Timers, and sport acro. My Dallaire is almost completely framed up. When I started this project many years ago, I was dreaming of putting Saito 80 on it. I wanted to do a RC field to RC field cross country flight and figured this model would be easy see, slow and just right for the job. Of course, if I get started on it again, it’s going to be electric. I am getting the itch to get it down and get some glue on my fingers. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Old-Timer aircraft.
I Flinched at NEFI
I was looking forward to flying at NEFI this year. We arrived fashionably late Friday around noon only to hear about the storms earlier in the day. After getting our 20 x 30 canopy setup, our goods wheeled in and only just starting to set them up so we could be open on Saturday and Sunday. A huge thunderstorm set in, lasted about 20 minutes it seemed. Both John and I were leaning into one of our end canopy walls trying to keep the wind from busting it inward. It nearly knocked us both over several times. Scarey stuff. Both of us soaked to the bone from head to toe. I’ve a bunch of kits and other product that needs repackaging now. Looking at the forecast for the evening, it looked as if there was some risk of another thunderstorm. I strongly contemplated loading up and leaving right then. After spending 2 or 3 hours drying everything out, we decided to stack it tightly in the center and cover it well, we’ll setup in the morning. Well about 3am we are awakened to a rocking camper. Goods all dry this time. But an even more frightening 20 minute toss trying to keep the tent together and not lose everything. The whole time I’m thinking, “had my chance to leave…”. This late night storm was a good 20mph stronger than the earlier one. Torn sidewalls, bent poles in the tent, I had the strong feeling the good lord has just sent my second boat. I decided to bug out before the 3rd boat came. I mean, how many warnings are required? Morning Radar showed lots of storms with red in them headed that way still in western Indiana and Illinois. My decision was made. By the time we were packed up, the lot was full of cars and sky was mostly blue. Not sure what happened if anything after we left. The storms took all the will to fly and wind right out of my sails.
NEFI is a great event run by a good bunch of people and the venue is perfect. I hate not being part of the event this year. Hope to make it up next year. NEFI is growing and we are looking forward to it being even bigger (and less stormy) next year.
RadicalCast #005
[display_podcast] Bob’s Lucky 13 Kadet Senior and my flight predictions. A photo of the model and it’s owner was posted on June 1st. The High Voltage Paradigm Shift. Form Charging NiCad and NiMH packs. Important Considerations and general information on how peak charging works. Post flight commentary on Bob’s Lucky 13 and the importance of understanding what you want from a power system. The test flight video is available in the June 3rd post.
Show Notes:
Stick 400 Kit
GWEDP-300(A,B,C)
Lucky 13 Flight Test
Here it is. You can hear Bob stepping in the throttle on the take off. The model looked like it had pretty good power. He didn’t get around to removing the propless glow motor (donor fuse) so the actual flight weight here is about 10lbs 10oz. Yikes! On speed 300’s. Very sorry to say, shortly into the fight the rudder servo failed and after about 10 minutes of circling trying to work it over the field with throttle and elevator only, he gave up before it got too far away and it made an off field landing in a thicket. Might be a month or longer before this wounded soldier makes it out of refurb.