Dave Smith

I often hear people say, “We’re going to take some money out of the house” when they get a home equity loan. That is exactly what banks and lenders want you to think you are doing, but it is totally and completely wrong. Let me explain.

Think back to when you got your first home loan. A woman in a pant suit probably put on an OSHA-approved back brace to hand you the 50 pounds of papers you signed. Those papers ostensibly said that if you were unable to pay back the mortgage, the bank would take your house away from you. This you happily agreed to, because, hey, it’s a house, and owning a house is good! A few years later, your house appreciated (that’s a fancy way of saying it’s worth more), and some banker convinced you that you need to “get some of that equity out” to use on cool things, like paying for your kids’ college, or building a new deck, or putting in a pool, or something. They probably said something like, “that’s a lot of money tied up in your house doing nothing — why not take advantage of it?” If you were ignorant, this probably sounded like a good idea.

That reminds me of a story. One time I went into a bank to get a letter notarized. The kind banker me asked if, in addition to the notary service, I wanted to also get a home equity loan. I responded, “Why would I want another loan when I’m working so hard to get rid of the one I have?!” She was surprised. Apparently most people take her up on her offer.

Anyway, back to why home equity loans are stupid. Let me make a point here. There is absolutely no way, none, zilch, whatsoever, of “taking money out of your house” without selling it. Let me say that again, you cannot get money out of your house unless you sell it. Period. Don’t believe me? Keep reading.

You need to get something clear if you are considering a home equity loan. When you get such a loan, what you are saying is this: Hey, my house is worth more than when I bought it. I should get another loan, and tell the bank (again) that they can take my house away if I can’t pay this loan back. That’s it. That’s all it is. You are getting another stinking loan, which the bank is happy to give you, because if you can’t pay it back, they’re going to take your house away and pay themselves back for both loans. It really is that simple. By getting a home equity loan, you are just handing over your house as collateral in exchange for another loan. This is a fantastic way to ensure that you will be in debt for the rest of your life. The bank would love for you to get a home equity loan every time you pay back a little bit of your last loan. Banks love loans.

Now you may be thinking this: But that’s my money. I paid down that first loan, and now I want my money back. Wrong! That was never your money. That was the bank’s money to begin with, and you were paying it back to them. They’re trying to trick you into thinking that it’s your money, and you can just “get some out,” as if your house was a gigantic ATM. But it’s not an ATM, because the money you used to buy it was not your’s. It was the bank’s. Remember, you borrowed it in the first place? How are you going to “take some of your money out” if you had to borrow it in the first place?

So the next time someone tells you they’re “going to take some equity out” of their house, you should probably say, “Don’t you mean you’re going to get another loan and give your house to the bank if you can’t pay it back?” They’ll probably get sick of your smug little smirk in a hurry, but, hey, sometimes the truth hurts.

But what about tax shelter? If I pay off my home mortgage, I won’t get tax benefits. Quick, Mr. Banker, save me from the IRS! This is another big, fat myth, but that’s another story.

I put together a $22 Hobby Lobby Yak 55 Profile this week, and it’s great fun. This is by far the most aerobatic plane I’ve flown. Here’s my power setup:

Here are a few videos of it in action

The takeoff

Sorry about the shaky cam at the beginning. Notice that it just jumps vertically out of my hand while rolling at about 3 rolls per second. Pretty awesome:

Some Stunts

This video shows lots of fun stuff, knife edges, loops, snap rolls, flat turns. Lots of good stuff.

Landing

This one mixes in some fun rolls and then the landing. The landing is a tad abrupt, but it works. I need to work on throttle management in my landing approaches because it just falls out of the sky if you dead stick it.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more photos of the plane up close so you can see how I put it together.

I’ve updated the LDS General Conference podcast to include the 4 sessions from October 2007. More details are on the General Conference podcast page.

Here’s the video of the Easy Glider maiden flight:

Since then, I’ve had about 4 more flights, and they’ve all gone very well. The only mishap was when the canopy popped off during my last flight, and landed in the nearby river! The wind was good to me, though, and blew it over to the edge, where I was able to retrieve it. Sometimes, mother nature really is on your side in this hobby.

I finished the Easy Glider today, and took it out for its maiden flight. Here’s the setup:

• Motor: Tower Pro 2908-10 brushless
• ESC: Tower Pro 30A
• Battery: Hextronik 2200mah 20C
• Prop: 9×4.5 (will upgrade to a folding prop later)
• Servos: Hextronik 9g servos
• Radio: Spektrum DX6 with AR6000 receiver

The plane took a little longer to build than expected, mostly because I ordered the non-electric version so I had to dig out lots of foam to accommodate my battery and motor. I had a hard time fitting all the servo cables under the canopy, so I flew without it the first time. Here’s what the plane looks like:

When I launched the plain, it flew up at about 45 degrees without any sign of slowing down. I was impressed. After an altitude of about 100 feet, I killed the motor to see how it would glide. I must have pulled back too much on the elevator, because the left wing stalled and it started to roll over. Experience taught me how to handle this, so I let the nose fall down to get some airspeed, and rolled out of the stall. Then, I decided to climb a bit, and that’s when the firewall tore loose of the foam. Fortunately, I had put a layer of packing tape over it to double secure it to the fuselage, so it didn’t fall out of the sky. I was able to pilot the plane down with no problem. Any maiden flight with a good landing is a good flight, and this was no exception. I came down with spoilerons, and I’m not sure I could have come down in time without them. I would have overshot my runway by a factor of about 3.

I’ll post some video later.

It’s a short video today, but a good one. I strapped a co-worker’s video camera to the Stryker. It was a heavy load, but the Stryker handled it quite well. Here’s the video:

With winds gusting to 15mph, I took my new R/C plane, the Stryker, out for its maiden flight. If you’ve been following the build log (part 1 and part 2), you already know that it’s outfitted with a Tower Pro 2409-12 motor, a Blue Arrow 30A ESC, an 8-cell NiMH battery (9.6V), and a 7×6 slow flyer prop. The maiden results are in:

• Flights: 3
• Aileron Rolls: 2
• Split S’s: 1 (accidental)
• Immelmans: 1
• Landings: 3
• Crashes: 0

I am very pleased with the results. The plane flies fast and responsive. Only a few clicks of right trim were needed on takeoff for level flight. The glide ratio is exactly perfect for slow, controlled, short runway landings. I am very impressed with this plane. Even with my wimpy 8-cell NiMH battery, it seems to fly around 50mph in the flats. I think when I go to LiPo, it’ll be closer to 70mph. The final speed upgrade will be a 7×7 prop, and that should put me right at 80mph. Wow.

Here’s a video of the takeoff (you can tell how windy it is by my hair blowing straight up and back):

Here’s a video of some aerobatics during the first flight. It starts with the first roll this plane has even performed, which turned into more of a Split-S since the ailerons were on low rates (50% travel):

And finally the landing. I bobbled a little on the approach, but the touchdown was nice and smooth. I love belly-scraping planes like this. They land so much better than geared planes on uneven terrain:

I was pretty nervous flying this plane for the first time, but I’m not nearly so afraid of repairing this plane as my Formosa, since it’s all one piece of foam. Hopefully I won’t have to find out how hard it is to repair.

I finished my Stryker RC plane today. The only thing I had left to do was mount the motor, which I am very pleased with. I decided to use the stock motor mount with a very small adaptation to mount the Tower Pro 2409-12 motor that I bought from unitedhobbies.com. I used a technique I read about on one of the RC forums (rcgroups, rcuniverse, wattflyer) involving the plastic lid of a soda bottle. Since the 2409-12’s mount holes are in different positions than the stock motor mount, I drilled 3 holes into the bottle cap to mount into. I used my razor blade to chop away the vertical cylinder of the lid, leaving only the flat disk, which fits perfectly inside the Stryker mount. Here’s a picture of the sode bottle lid bolted into the stock motor mount (on the other side sits the aluminum mount that came with the 2409-12 motor):

The bolts included with the motor from unitedhobbies.com were too short to fit through both the bottle lid the stock mount, so I had to buy some 2-56 metric bolts from Radio Shack for $1.99 (the motor 2409-12 mount’s holes are drilled for a 2mm bolt). From the back, you can see how the three bolts protrude with plenty of room:

The bottom bolt fits into the bottom hole of the stock mount, but the other two sit at approximately 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock. The mount is amazingly sturdy as the bottle cap and mount are squeezed in between the bolts’ washers and the aluminum mount. While working with the mount, I realized I needed to remove the bell from the motor mount to accommodate my fat fingers. After I mounted the aluminum plate, I put the motor back on using the two Allen screws. Here’s what it looks like ready to fly:

I did some glide tests and partial-power tests in my backyard today and it seems to fly level and smooth. I had to spend some quality time with my DX6 to adjust the servo travels because it seemed that when I applied full back stick, the right elevon moved farther than the left elevon. I knew that this would cause the plane to roll, so I reduced the elevator channel’s travel down to 50% in both directions. That’s what it took to make the two elevons move evenly with elevator. I setup low rates at around 70% for both elevator and aileron channels and they seem pretty good. I think I will probably fly the maiden flight with the elevator on high rates and the aileron on low rates. The maiden flight will probably happen this week some time.

For the maiden, I’ll try to borrow a friend’s Align 2200mah 3S lipo, which should provide lots of power. If it’s not available, I’ll use my 8-cell 1500mah NiMH pack. Currently the CG seems to be spot on with the 8-cell pack.

I started building a Parkzone Stryker last night. So far I’ve spent $25 on the fuselage and elevons, and this is what it looks like:

This airplane has been very easy to put together. The elevons clip on with no glue and are pre-hinged. The battery compartment is very spacious, and the servo holes are pre-cut. This took me less than an hour to do.

Here’s what I have left:

• Install the vertical fins.
• Mount a motor (considering the Tower Pro 2408-21, reverse mounted on the stock motor mount).
• Secure the battery with a velcro strap.

Here’s a shot from the back for the curious:

I have been struggling with this problem for a number of months. Here are the symptoms:

1. Email sent to Hotmail via my SMTP server and Thunderbird never arrives, but I get no bounce message.
2. Strangely, email sent to Hotmail via my SMTP server and the “mail” command arrives perfectly.
3. Email sent as a reply to a Hotmail message using Thunderbird arrives perfectly.

I played with SPF and lots of other Postfix and DNS settings hoping to fix things, but the problem persisted. I gained some hope when I read that this site was having the same problem.

I’m stuck scratching my head since it’s obviously not a server problem. I just can’t imagine what header Thunderbird is adding that Hotmail doesn’t like. I started this thread (continued here) on the Provo Linux Users Group hoping to get some answers. No luck yet.