Dave Smith's Blog

I thought there was such a thing as etiquette among experienced R/C pilots. Today I was provided with a poignant counter-example.

I was flying my newly rebuilt GWS Formosa, and was having a great time. After two successful landings and several great maneuvers, I was in the air for the third time. I was still in the process of trimming and working out a problem with thrust angle when a man showed up at the field ready to fly. He braggingly announced himself as an experienced pilot and told me (with my plane still in the air) that he was about to go stand on my runway to launch his plane. I asked him to please wait while I land my plane. He proceeded toward my runway anyway.

At this point panic started to set in as I setup for a landing, hoping he wouldn’t arrive at my runway before my plane did. He was lucky, because as I pulled my plane around for its final approach, I forgot about my thrust angle problem and nosed in to the ground hard, about 100 feet short of my anticipated landing spot. This of course crushed the plane’s nose and broke the prop. This time I’m not sure if I can rebuild without buying a new airframe.

So here’s today’s R/C pilot etiquette rule: When someone is flying, don’t walk in front of them. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but apparently that’s news to some, even “experienced pilots”.

I was able to finally get my GWS Formosa back in the air today. This time I was smart and setup dual rates on my ailerons. I have them set to only move 40% of full when I put the “Ail D/R” switch at 0 on my radio. That saved my bacon! The plane is a lot easier to fly like that. This flight, I noticed that the plane wanted to roll left hard. This is probably because I didn’t dial any thrust offset into my motor when I re-mounted it. I tried trimming in the air, but decided to land and do the trimming on the ground because I could see that it was going to be more than a few clicks. On the landing I came in a bit too bumpy and broke my prop. That’s when I realized I had forgotten to bring any spares. Oh well, the next flight will have to wait a day! I’ll hopefully have some good flight video next time.

I mounted my friend’s all-weather Oregon Scientific camera to his EasyStar today and took some aerial video near my office. We mounted the camera sideways right in the EasyStar’s cockpit. Here are the results:

Today I visited the Jordan River Modelport on a whim to see what was going on during the holiday. I was surprised to find only a single flier there, named Micah, which I got to know as I watched him pilot his 62″ .60-sized 4-stroke gas plane. What a great bird! He was a very aggressive flyer pulling out all the stops at low altitudes. With such a beefy motor he had unlimited climb, and he made use of every bit of it.

On his third flight, he handed me the controls. Boy was I nervous, but I pulled off an aileron roll, snap roll, and even an Immelman maneuver. Great fun! There was more wind than I would have dared fly my Super Cub in, but this plane handled it like it wasn’t there. A great day at the flying field!

I built a Multiplex EasyStar for a friend last week. We bought the receiver ready version, so it came with servos and motor mounted, and fuselage almost totally assembled. It wasn’t much of a build. The motor is slightly underpowered with a 7-cell NiMH battery, so we’re upgrading the ESC and throwing in an 8-cell NiMH pack. I’m sure it’ll do much better.

The maiden flight went very well. The best indicator of a good flight is a smooth landing, which this video shows:

This video shows some of the aerobatics the plane is capable of with stock motor:

Today we went out and thermaled it from the heat of our park’s parking lot. I kept it in the air for about 5 minutes with no power. It was great.

Today I had the distinct pleasure of watching several talented R/C pilots fly some amazing aircraft at the Jordan River Modelport. The first plane I saw was a GWS Corsair built and flown by Brent Hecht. Brent clipped, sanded and spackled the wings to improve aerobatics and cut down on the weight (much like full scale modern Corsairs). The plane rolled very well and had a top speed of around 60mph. Looked fantastic in the air. Incidentally, Brent and I use the same radio.

Next up was the F4D Skyray scratch-built and piloted by Rodger Hecht. Here’s a shot of it next to a ParkZone J3 Cub:

I’m told this plane can hit speeds of 100mph. It rolls so fast it has earned the nick name “the drill bit”. It uses pneumatic retractable landing gear. After the second take-off, one of the 3 gears failed to retract, so Rodger inverted the plane and applied some negative G’s to put the wheel away. Worked like a charm!

Chris Hecht played with his newly built GWS P-51d Mustang using (ironically) a Park Zone Mustang power plant, gearbox, and radio:

It flew quite well too and Chris handled it like a pro.

Last to fly today was the F18 Blue Angle, another one of Rodger Hecht’s creations.

I’ve never seen such a scale model fighter plane in both looks and behavior. Rodger pulled a cobra at one point, and (until the very end), I would have sworn it was the real thing. From a distance, it’s hard to tell if this is a model or not:

Unfortunately, the model lacks landing gear, so it has to find soft grass to land on. During its last landing, it almost augured into the bank of a small ditch we didn’t notice. Here’s the fresh landing shot (no damage to the plane):

What a great day at the flying field. Big thanks to the Hecht family for letting me spectate.

I am planning on attending the Electric Fun Fly this June 23rd at the Jordan River Modelport. Hope to see you there!

I just completed my GWS Formosa R/C airplane and it is ready to fly. Here’s a play-by-play with pictures of the whole process.

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Well, the day finally came: My Super Cub’s last flight. After strapping a co-workers shock resistant camera to the fuselage, I took off for some aerial video. Unfortunately, a rubber band broke during flight, causing the wing to shift around. One thing led to another, and the plane ended up in a cork-screw spiral of death straight into the ground. Here’s the post-mortum video:

Just for the record, the Cub was running a new Tower Pro Brushless 2908-10 motor with 8-cell Elite 1500mah NiMH battery pack with a Spektrum DX6 radio and S75 servos for rudder, elevator, and ailerons. What a great plane! Here’s a fly-by with this setup:

My next plane will probably be a GWS Formosa.

Rest in peace Super Cub.

This article is the continuation from Part 2 of the Super Cub aileron upgrade tutorial.

To finish the aileron upgrade on my Super Cub, all I had to do was cut a slit in each wing for the servo wires, and get it to the flying field. Here’s a video of the cub doing a couple rolls:

The Super Cub flies much better with ailerons. I am very pleased with the final outcome!

Here’s another video. This time I put the cub into a flat spin and barely recovered at the bottom using lots of rudder input:

This article is the continuation of Part 1 of the Super Cub aileron upgrade tutorial.

I finished installing the servos for my aileron upgrade today. Here’s what they look like in action:

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