Ep 112: Rain, Rain, Go Away!

[00:00:04] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom, I’m dave and I’m ridge. Reggie is here with us. Next week’s episode will be all about Reggie. It will be, so. Reggie will be our guest for the next. We just recorded that there’s a lot of stories in there. I don’t know if I want to say good or not, but there’s some stories in there, so tune in next week to find out. Oh, let’s do a teaser. It should be entertaining. Tune in next week to find out what.

[00:00:37] Happens to Reggie. Okay, that doesn’t sound good. Well, it wasn’t a great story, but it was a informative story. No, it’s a great story, an important story. I don’t know if I great, though how are you mean?

[00:00:52] Great I’m still here I don’t mean fun I mean it’s a great story it’s a story that is very entertaining.

[00:00:58] I guess that’s true I look at well entertaining though like I look at entertaining and great.

[00:01:02] As being great like good things it should be a story that draws you in and really and it was.

[00:01:08] Yeah I guess if that’s how we’re talking about so tune in next week to hear should we say what it’s.

[00:01:13] About no oh I mean you can say that it’s a conversation with Reggie it’s a conversation.

[00:01:19] With Reggie about something, stuff that happened. Yes, oh nice. Yeah, see, I don’t want to say too much, but that’s good, see, I’m getting good at teasing. Anyway, what’s going on, guys, this rain?

[00:01:34] Rain, rain. Go away and sitting here recording on a nice memorial, our veterans day, wait, wait. What is this labor day? Labor day, yeah, that messed with me. I was like: hold on what?

[00:01:45] Wait, I’m not gonna fix that. It’s fine late. No, and I just did it. Yeah. Labor day weekend: yeah, so this will be going out this when no, this friday, yeah, I don’t know why. So it’s supposed to be you.

[00:01:58] Know nice few days off and be hopefully at least a couple days worth of flying.

[00:02:04] But no. So here’s the funny thing. Like friday is when I was looking at the weather for saturday, because we were supposed to go out to the field on saturday- we were going to go meet up. The weatherman said it’s going to be a great weekend. There’s a slight chance- like 40 chance- of rain on monday, but not enough to change your plans. I’m like cool, it’s gonna be a great weekend.

[00:02:30] Saturday rained pretty much all day off, and on sunday- and that annoying kind of rain, the light, it’s just hard enough to keep you from doing anything you want to do outside you. Okay, but not so hard that it’s gonna like completely ruin your plans. It like gives you that hope that it’s gonna stop, and then it never does, and then it’s clear off to the west. Yeah, yeah, so we sat, so we went to the field saturday and yeah, we, you can see it, we could see the edge of

[00:03:02] Where the rain was at off to the west you could see it yeah like it was blue sky on the other side.

[00:03:07] And just like the bad juju right above us, yeah, as it sat. So we even went to eat, like we decided to kill some time, go to a restaurant. Your wife met us. We had that much time and then we still got back and it was raining. Yeah, the guy that owned the field came out. I was like you guys know it’s raining. I was like no kidding. I mean, yeah, it’s raining. I was. I keep looking at the radar and it says, hey, he was laughing too. By the way, I noticed that, yeah, like these dummies are just sitting here under an umbrella waiting for the rain to stop, which we did. Yeah, we did, and we got a couple flights in.

[00:03:41] Yeah, but not a lot of great stuff going on though, and it was a overall crappy day anyway. Yeah, sunday’s a repeat. Sunday was even worse. Like I, I didn’t. I purposefully didn’t unload my truck because I thought maybe, maybe sunday, I can find a couple hours to go out, fly the stuff. I couldn’t fly saturday because of the rain. No, it literally downpoured. Yeah, like we got a ton of rain on sunday, we did, yeah. So today, today it’s windy, it’s windy and it’s all overcast and overcast and it’s kind.

[00:04:20] Of chilly honestly well it’s the wind but it gets 75 degrees or something like that it kind of gives.

[00:04:25] That feeling of the misty like just really wet air that it was spitting on the way out here.

[00:04:30] Was it. So we’re hoping maybe. I know Reggie and I are kind of hoping. I’m not sure about dave and I know you’re out, Ron, yeah, but we’re hoping maybe that when we’re done here that it’ll calm down enough.

[00:04:43] Calm down enough so we can go fly something yeah I’m not hopeful no me neither.

[00:04:50] Just seeing the wind, I know that’s crazy, but anyway. So we went flying on saturday. It was kind of fun. I actually got to fly the miss vintage for the first time. Yeah, you had a good time. I put like a three minute flight on that. I forgot, yeah, we didn’t anyway. So I put like a three minute flight on that because it was getting and it flies awesome. It was getting dark and I didn’t want to spend too much time, but the wind had calmed- oh, not the wind. The rain had stopped enough to where there was nothing that I was worried about with that plane. So, yeah, I got to take it up that.

[00:05:18] Does fly very good although you can still hear the little drops ticking off the covering.

[00:05:23] Kind of sounded flying it was actually really cool yeah but it wasn’t enough to hurt anything.

[00:05:27] But what a good flying airplane man I really like that airplane it’s funny because we say that about.

[00:05:32] So many, it’s true. Like what a good flying airplane. That airplane looks like it flies really nice, but this one really does, and I don’t what makes it fly so nice. I mean, like what when you say that?

[00:05:42] Airplane flies, nice. What do you mean by that? I’ll be honest. I compare everything to the way a stick flies. Oh, do you? A stick just flies, honest. It doesn’t have any bad habits. It doesn’t drop a wing when it stalls. If it stalls, yeah, what I mean? It’s just, and it rolls, nice. And.

[00:05:59] Axially, is that? I think that’s the word I’m looking like in the? Yeah, I know what you’re talking about, it doesn’t? It doesn’t do any weird barrel thing unless you add some rudder and then you can get the barrel roll. It just flies really nice. It has a good control authority. At pretty much all air speeds. Like even slowing it way down, it still has very good authority, especially with the ailerons and elevator. Yeah, just that’s to me. Generally speaking, it doesn’t do anything stupid, exactly. Yeah, it’s just easy to fly. You can take your hands off of it. Look at your.

[00:06:31] Buddy, and then look back at the airplane. It’ll be exactly the same attitude it was when you took your eyes off. Yeah, and that’s how it doesn’t do anything dumb. That’s how I feel about the miss.

[00:06:40] Vintage, if you wanted to fly. Really well, Reggie’s looking at me because the whole point of looking away from your airplane, I knew he was going to catch on that I mean not to ever do and you just put it out. Did I say I did that? No, I said you said you could. So now you’re inciting for someone to.

[00:06:55] Actually try. No, I’m not saying people should try it, I’m just saying different than should an airplane that I consider to fly. Well, a person could look away and then look back at it and it would be exactly the same. It’s just for you folks to understand. I have looked away from several planes before and I get grilled for even thinking of so. Like, when you look away from an airplane, you look away and look at somebody and then proceed to have a conversation with that person while the airplane is doing whatever is doing and then you go. I’m just saying you could briefly look away and look back, that’s all.

[00:07:27] I’m saying, which I will glance away. I’ve done before. Yeah, if you’re trying to figure out, to make sure that the field is completely empty, to make sure there’s nothing when you’re setting up for landing,

[00:07:35] Or look at the voltage on the readout or whatever yeah exactly briefly I think you’re just extending.

[00:07:42] That a little bit on I don’t having a full conversation oh you’ve crashed many planes.

[00:07:48] Because people have walked up and talked to you’ve said that before that’s many that’s just.

[00:07:52] That’s two too many that’s two more than I have done I will say that was my fault yes.

[00:07:57] Yeah, that was my fault, so just don’t look away and we don’t no more. We try not to, but anyway, that’s that’s what I consider a good flying airplane. Yeah, it’s very forgiving, like it’s. I wish I had more better words to describe what I’m trying to say, because we’ve all flown different airplanes so we know what tendencies each one can have. To, like you said, when you stall, it could drop a wing, it could just fall out of the air, it could do whatever. Like you had a couple minutes on it too and you tried to make it stall, it doesn’t no. Like you had full up elevator and it was still just. It was just.

[00:08:31] Sinking, just sinking, but it really does fly nice, not in a bad way at all. The balance is perfect. I mean that airplane is great. Yeah, I’m extremely happy with that one. So that is one that needs recovered. There is a lot of packing tape. It’s actually holding some slits in the covering together, but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time on it before you flew it. Yeah, right, because if I didn’t like it, then I’m not going to spend money and all that kind of stuff to get it fixed. But it flies really well, so I think that will be a good thing to work on. Definitely put a pilot on.

[00:09:02] Oh yeah there’s no pilot on that one so maybe rework the hatch so that’s magnetic maybe yeah I could.

[00:09:09] See, doing that very easily, make it easier battery, battery and stuff. Is that the yellow one with the double cockpit? Nope, no, you’re thinking of the space walker. This is the, the one from bob.

[00:09:19] The transparent red wing and stained fuselage. Yeah, I’m gonna say what’s that? The open fuselage on the back, skeletal, like okay, okay, kind of like an elder kind of. Yeah, it looks a lot like that. But

[00:09:30] It’s called the miss vintage. Thanks to tony, from or from, for telling me what that was. I never knew what that was until we were posting pictures. I think it might have been you, Reggie, that said something about post pictures of your storage, or somebody else on discord, and we were throwing up pictures of airplanes, where we had them stored and all that kind of stuff, and I put one up there and tony said something about: oh, miss vintage. I was like, yeah, I’m gonna google that really quick, see what he’s talking about. And sure enough, I was like that’s what that is. I never knew what that plane was, so it was nice to figure that out. Yeah, so now I have the plans for it, in case I

[00:10:04] Need anything I have all the information on it that I didn’t know what it was before so that’s very.

[00:10:09] You got to fly the big ultrax a couple times that day that’s so much fun like I love that.

[00:10:15] Airplane like now. I have so changed my mind on that. Like I know, last time we had talked- and it’s been so long that I forgot that we were talking about how that plane didn’t fly very well, that the umx ultrax was so much more fun. Well, I should have read the directions. That nobody helps.

[00:10:35] Okay. So the way the ultrax is set up on the umx one, your gear switch switches between safe mode and safe off and then there’s always AS3X on right, so the ultrax 600 when you program it up, and so with the ix12 and stuff you don’t actually have to program everything, you just download the program and put it on there and then it knows how it’s set up. So the safe is actually on a three position switch and I- I like I knew it was on a three position switch, but I figured it was still.

[00:11:07] Two position to where it was just on and off like the other one, so I never bothered going down to the, the final off position or whatever, and actually you’re the one that said something when we were talking about it not doing the pancake thing that the small one does you’re like. Well, does it turn the motor completely off? And so I was flipping through on the ground and trying to run it up and I couldn’t get it to turn the motor completely off until I flipped that switch all the way down and then

[00:11:34] You had one motor off one motor running full speed and I was like all right let’s try this one now.

[00:11:38] Yeah oh my god that’s so much more fun yeah like I absolutely love that airplane so that’s a good one.

[00:11:44] To go to and it does the cool and it does the cool pancake move, but it does it a little bit slower, so it’s actually more fun, I think, more enjoyable to watch. Yeah, for sure, those were actually on sale.

[00:11:54] I think this week up until today- up until today, no one. That was 199. No, I think it was 169, because I saw- I saw they posted that it was on sale for 199. I paid 199 for mine, which is the normal price unless it went up, and now they have 30 off. Well, not now, by the time this came out, but as of now we’re recording it, they had 30 off, which makes it 169.99. It was up until today, I believe. Yeah, so you should go buy one. Nope, the time you should go.

[00:12:22] Buy one. I know I should, but I’m not going to dave. You should go buy one. I accidentally bought a sound bar. You accidentally bought a sound bar. Yeah, I was at lunch on it and I was flipping around on amazon and was just looking at a sound bar and accidentally bought it. There’s a lot of air quotes going on here.

[00:12:42] I think. But what I’m saying, though, is that’s not an airplane, so you should buy an ultrax. Ironically, it is the same price. Well, well, that’s all right, return the sound bar and buy an airplane. No, but seriously, like if you were able to catch one of those on sale, if it really was the 169.99, That’s a heck of a price. It is a good deal and it’s a great airplane. Like when we went out, it was still wet and rainy, so I actually put that little front little nose wheel- weird wheel- on the front of it, and it did a good job of landing. Like it landed perfect, rolled out nicely and didn’t give me any.

[00:13:14] Problems with getting grass up in the servos and stuff so I was happy with that one yeah would you.

[00:13:19] Be able to launch it from that I bet you yeah absolutely you can that’s awesome it doesn’t have.

[00:13:24] The rudder, steerable gear, oh right, but you’ve got enough control authority with that and it was like two feet. Maybe, I don’t know, it might be 10 feet, I don’t know. But yeah, depending on the grass, it wouldn’t take much at all to get it off the ground. So you like the big ultrax. Now I do like so much more than the small one that when I was flying the small one I was thinking maybe I should just get rid of it. But then I come back. I’m glad you didn’t. It’s not costing me anything. I have the batteries for it that don’t go with anything else. So why there’s that? I mean it’s easy to fly to.

[00:13:53] And about those batteries you’ve had some issues brand new with them right no not on the small one.

[00:13:59] I was talking about the small battery. So yeah, so the gen 2 battery- I think we talked about that a couple times ago or last time. Yeah, so I bought the spectrum gen 2, which is the smart battery that doesn’t you don’t have to actually tell the charger what you’re charging, you just plug it in and it does it. I bought two of them and one of them showed no voltage, like actually when you plugged in and said that the polarity was reversed, but then after a few seconds it would show like 0.2 Volts. So I ended up getting that taken care of. I’m not saying this is how you should.

[00:14:35] Do it. So don’t do as I do, do as I say, but anyway. So I threw it on a regular charger just to get some volts put into it and then try and charge it on my on the, the regular, smart, smart charger, which that battery puffed up quite a bit, so I ended up getting that exchanged out and I bought two new ones. So I’ve got four of those batteries now for that airplane and then because I have four of those batteries for that airplane, I didn’t want to just have one airplane that took those.

[00:15:06] Batteries, so I bought the umx a10. This just keeps going downhill, doesn’t it? Or uphill, depending on how you want to look at it. So to run more airplanes is a good thing, well, especially those that are so small and easy to store. Yeah, I don’t know why you’re making that. They’re small and easy to store. It’s a box. I love the box setup. I do, too, like it. They’re handy for transporting them. That keeps them safe. No, they’re stackable, absolutely. Yeah, ux planes actually just fly better than I ever expected.

[00:15:39] They do fly well like even. It’s just I don’t know how they do it, except for the days like today where the wind is just gonna toss it all over the place. I wonder what I would do on a day like today. I don’t.

[00:15:52] Know you should take yours out and try it. I mean it’d probably be okay, especially if you’re flying over the field to where, if you go down, it’s not gonna hurt anything. But you’ll never find it ever again. That depends. Yeah, if it’s your plane, I don’t care. If we don’t find it true, I’m sure you don’t.

[00:16:09] Like if we fly as far away as we can, like some folks we know, no, then yeah, you probably wouldn’t find it. Glasses aren’t quite that good. I tend to fly close because, yeah, if it does go down.

[00:16:23] I don’t want to have to go walking a long way to go get it yeah Reggie flies with binoculars I think.

[00:16:28] I don’t even think I fly it 50 feet away yeah oh yeah you don’t have to.

[00:16:34] You really don’t I mean they’re they’re fun what’s that what’s the laugh for I just like the way you.

[00:16:39] Said that, oh yeah, you don’t, you don’t have to fly it a mile away. And then I ended up buying one of those, another one of the umx profile yak the 3d trainer ones. Yeah, you gave me so much heck for that because, like you don’t like those, you already have one. I know, but I can’t find them anywhere. I’ve only seen two of them for sale and I bought both of them. The first one was because I didn’t know what it would fly like, and I kind of like yaks, obviously, and it flies so well, it’s just a fun.

[00:17:11] Airplane really to go out back here. It’s not anything that I’m really going to take to the field or that I want people to look at. You did take it to the field. Well, I took the new into the field to fly it right because I wanted you to see how well it flew, and then we got rained out a little bit, but I got to fly it in on it. You did so. Yeah, it’s a fun airplane, too nice and a little 150 one cell.

[00:17:31] Battery. Yeah, that’s not that big a deal. No, yeah, so I also tried to fly on a saturday and I emphasize tried, although I did fly the umx ultrax, but you flew the v900, flew for about what 20 feet or so twice. I have such a hard time launching that thing. I don’t. There’s got to be a trick to launching those things, because have you tried to look up videos? Not yet, that would be my.

[00:18:00] First thing, like you, first I have to glue the tail back on, so you refresh that pretty good. Yeah, like the first one took out the propeller, yes, and then the second one, yeah, yeah, was the propeller, okay, the.

[00:18:11] Second time yeah well that’s good at least yeah that was disappointing because I like the way that.

[00:18:18] Airplane flies once it’s flying well, and that was you were trying to. You were trying to launch that yourself, yeah, and I don’t know like I just I don’t know I don’t like launching your planes because I.

[00:18:30] Always crash them not always most of the time 20 of the time is it that low there’s a big chance of also.

[00:18:37] Dropping your controller trying to launch one. Have you done that? I’ve done that really. Yeah, bob has a video of me trying to launch a. It was an f27 evolution, one of these things like behind me flying wing, basically, yeah, yeah, I went to throw it and brushed my leg with the controller and dropped the.

[00:18:54] Controller at the same time throwing the damn thing. How’d that end up with bob laughing at me on video? Did you crash it, or oh yeah, it just went right over into the weeds. Oh, basically it didn’t destroy anything. It was good. I didn’t know if you had enough time to get it, and oh no, that’s funny.

[00:19:08] Because I considered the striker to be one of the easiest ones I have other than my a10 I just.

[00:19:14] Couldn’t hold on to launch. I couldn’t hold on to, I was trying to, and it just basically fell out of my hand, with me trying to throw it but me brushing my leg with the controller trying to regain my status of throwing the damn thing. And just in them to double whammy settle. I’ve never dropped my transmitter, but

[00:19:29] I have fallen while flying yeah so I’m sitting there on the ground on my butt flying an airplane.

[00:19:35] Really yeah I’m glad I haven’t seen that because I would feel bad like I would laugh.

[00:19:42] It’s like somebody please take the transmitter so I can get up off the ground.

[00:19:46] Yeah and I’d be standing like no I cannot do that’s true yeah because you don’t fly I don’t.

[00:19:51] Fly other people’s stuff so then you just stand there laughing the whole time I am a jerk what a jerk.

[00:19:56] I’m sorry people falling is fine even if I fall it’s funny like I laugh at myself it is because you sent me.

[00:20:02] The video of you running out of the mcdonald’s drive-thru and what the camera on the tesla had it and you sent that to us. So yeah, you are pretty good about laughing at yourself. Absolutely, I never.

[00:20:13] Got this video. Yeah, this was a while ago. We went through the drive-thru and they forgot to give us something. So I had just pulled up and it was raining out and so I had my- I think it was my- work shoes on. Still, that were not. They’re not like tennis shoes, they’re slip on or slick on the bottom. And so I went in, got the stuff they didn’t give me and I came right back out and sure, it was raining and he was running. As I was reaching to. Yeah, as I was trying to slow down and reach out for the handle, my, my leg just went out from behind me and I just went down all the way down. Yes, like all.

[00:20:47] The way down, like my side landed on the sandwich I went in to get, so it was smashed. But yeah, but yeah, so I laugh at myself- and that was one that luckily, yeah, the car caught it on camera so I had to share it with all my friends and family. I didn’t get it, obviously, that’s what I said: all my friends and family. That’s what I thought. That’s what I thought. No, I don’t remember. Like I think it was just the group- that’s you, me and chat, crystal and lori Tommy that I sent that on, because crystal- actually crystal- might have been the one to send that. I don’t remember, but yeah, so I laugh at people.

[00:21:19] Falling and I do it all the time, kind of like the other day upstairs here. I told you about it because there was no video. I was doing dishes and I got sidetracked and I was I. So our dishwasher is still broken and so I was doing dishes and we have that, the big sink. It’s the one big tub thing, so it takes a while to fill up. So I was filling it up and I walked away. I had to do some editing for last week’s episode too, so I had my earphones on. I wasn’t thinking, I got busy doing something else and all of a sudden it hit me I am still filling my sink. So I walked into the kitchen, ran into the

[00:21:54] Kitchen actually, and as soon as I hit like a foot inside the kitchen, my foot just went out from under me because of all the water that was on the ground. There was a good, like, I’d say, three eighths of an inch of water all over the ground in the kitchen. Oh wow, I hit that, I went down. I of course my big body smacks into all the water on the ground. It splatters up all over, I mean like it was everywhere. Like cody luckily helped me clean everything up. I mean we had soap suds that were going all the way.

[00:22:24] On top of the sink. So we had to pull all the drawers out because it actually came off of the countertops into the drawers we had to clean up. Oh, I thought maybe that was the wave. That well, and

[00:22:35] That might have been part of you I don’t actually know yeah there was there was a lot of water that.

[00:22:40] Went everywhere and I- yeah, I was drenched- flooded the kitchen. Yeah, so I fall. I laugh at myself. It’s okay, she was not home and we had just it. It took us about an hour and a half to get it cleaned up and she got home about 15 minutes after that and she’s like what happened? I said: you don’t want to know, get your money clean? Yeah, I just told her. I said, well, I just cleaned everything. Yeah, yeah, I just mopped the floor, that’s all. So what else? People don’t want to hear about me falling. Oh, what else.

[00:23:08] Should we talk about well you flew we’ve got a lot of flights on the glider now oh there’s a youtube.

[00:23:13] Video up now. Yeah, yeah, we actually went out and took the golf cart. I don’t know about entertaining, it was kind of well. I was entertained, well, I enjoyed doing it. So golf cart for the win for.

[00:23:24] Yeah like that makes that job process so much easier yeah if you don’t have it takes the chore out.

[00:23:31] Of it. So we will pull that out every time that we go to fight the horse or the high start again, just because of how much easier it makes it. Yeah, yeah, you guys missed that, dave and Reggie, it was a.

[00:23:41] Good day, but you were both busy, probably at work or something, I don’t know. That was the day we were out there all day too. We were out there like eight hours that day. It was- yeah, it was the saturday.

[00:23:51] Before last I think yeah beautiful day I think I was in champagne oh that’s what it was yeah.

[00:23:57] You were busy doing whatever. Yeah, moving, if I remember right. Oh, that was a day. Yeah, I told you to skip it and you wouldn’t. You would have had more fun with us than moving somebody else’s stuff, but it’s okay, and I was working for my wife, yeah, yeah, so tommy and I actually got to go out and enjoy.

[00:24:15] Some time. There’s other folks there. I think bob was there and randy was there. There was a couple guys there and for a while, yeah, we waited for them to because we didn’t want anybody laughing at us.

[00:24:25] I’m gonna clear out before I unloaded the golf cart and got hooked up but like I said that made it so much.

[00:24:31] Easier that was really enjoyable yeah that took all the frustration really well yeah because by the.

[00:24:38] Time like we would launch. Then the other person that wasn’t flying could just go pick it up and, yeah, and bring it back and it’s ready for the next launch. Yeah, before, pretty much the.

[00:24:47] The person’s done flying, so, and on a good day with thermals, that’ll actually. I think that’ll work, work out pretty well. Yeah, have you guys had those yet though? Thermals, yes, as far as that. So on Ron’s the h-e-m-g-2- me too. Yeah, get it close every time. I know it’s helium and mercury, I think is the what the last time we had we had that out. I, Ron, let me fly it, and I actually caught a thermal. And I know I caught a thermal because he has the receiver with the vario thing, the altimeter.

[00:25:20] On it. So it was actually telling me that I was climbing and I got it up to like almost 500 feet when I leveled off- at about 400, I think it was when I shut the motor off, and so I think what you meant to say was: you got up to 400 feet when you started at maybe 401 maybe, but yeah, exactly. But I knew I was in a thermal and it was really exciting. Like I was like it was like a rush, yeah, oh so this is right. Yeah, exactly, this is what free altitude lift is like. Yeah, it was really cool. So that was the first time, knowingly, that I was ever in a thermal and I was actually able to kind of.

[00:25:55] Circle and maintain for 15 20 seconds or so which to me it was a long time it felt like a lot longer.

[00:26:00] Than that to be honest with you yeah it may have been I don’t know but yeah it was a lot of fun.

[00:26:04] So I feel if we can get those sort of conditions with the high start with the unpowered gliders.

[00:26:11] It’ll be just as much of a rush. Yeah, so we threw the gopro on a couple of those flights which really I like that just because we were able to see how high we were, because on the unpowered gliders, I don’t have one of the telemetry receivers on it yet, right, although I should, because I have an extra one that I don’t have in a plane yet, but anyway. So we were getting 250 feet out of a launch.

[00:26:36] Which I mean it would be nice to be a little higher. Yeah, nice to get higher, but that was. It was late in the day and I don’t think there was a lot of thermal activity going on, because the sun was already going down and stuff was starting to cool off and well, yeah, but out of a launch we ought to still be able to get a little higher. That is a starting point, yeah, but what I’m saying is like on a day with, with

[00:26:57] Active thermals. 250 Feet would probably be enough to get you that jump start to find a thermal and to where you can get into it and then get going up after that, exactly. But yeah, on a on a calm day I’d like to get 350 or so. On a launch would be nice. Yeah, that would be kind of cool.

[00:27:12] While I’m thinking about it, though I don’t mean to interrupt and go completely off. So, Reggie that airplane I bought off of you that crashed that. What was that blue one?

[00:27:22] The extra. Remember that one way back when- oh yeah, I lost control, couldn’t figure out what it was. So I still- and this is what reminded me we were talking about that receiver. So the receiver you had in there was that a ar 6610t. Yeah, and that’s what I have in all the other ones. I just bought another ar 6610t like three weeks ago when I was up at brian’s, or a month ago, whatever, and I threw it in my receiver box because I wasn’t putting in a plane yet and it was just an extra one that I wanted. I also had that old receiver from that airplane in that receiver box labeled what it is. I was looking

[00:27:57] The antennas on the one that crashed from you yeah are about half as long as the ones on the brand new.

[00:28:04] One. So something changed, or I don’t know if I got it that way from you or if that happened in the crash, but both of the antennas are about half as long as they’re supposed to be. Do they look like they’ve been broke or anything? Yeah, they do, but, like I said, I don’t know from where they came out of my airplane when I crashed that one. I don’t know if that was what caused that crash or what, but good to know.

[00:28:26] I don’t know I mean it could have been from the crash but I think so I would say that receiver to.

[00:28:33] Ryzen, I will have them fix that and they’ll have another one to put in something else. There you go. So anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt on that one, but I just remember that. Okay, it’s good to know, I mean.

[00:28:43] As far as I can remember, everything was the way it’s supposed to been when I handed it over to you. Did you buy that one new or what? Yeah, yeah, I don’t ever buy reused receivers, I do. I use old.

[00:28:54] Ones that’s okay I can’t afford everything brand new I just man just like I said that you stuff.

[00:28:58] Makes me nervous. Yeah, so that’s okay. So you mentioned going to brian’s. A few weeks ago we went to brian’s. What friday was it? Yes, whatever day that was. Yeah, I took off really from work when we.

[00:29:10] Went up friday tell your story well that’s where I got the a10 okay so a couple.

[00:29:18] Weeks ago brian posted brian posts on the on facebook whenever he gets new stuff in the store. He had posted some stuff that he had gotten recently. Big stuff, big airplanes. Should we start?

[00:29:28] Off by saying this does not have a happy ending what kind of does okay I don’t know how yet but okay.

[00:29:35] Tell your tale, so spin your yarn. He, in the batch of stuff that he got, it was one of those. One of the airplanes was one of those big, great planes: matt chapman, cap 580s, the paintball, the yellow with the paint. We all affectionately call those the splat plane. Splat plane, yeah, and this is the big one with the. This one had a da 100 on it and beautiful. Look in the pictures. Anyway, look beautiful. I called brian. As soon as I saw that was on the website, I said, hey, brian.

[00:30:05] I see you got this matt chapman 580, how much you want for we talked a little bit about and I was like, oh okay, well, I didn’t tell him that I wanted it. That’s the bottom line. I didn’t. I didn’t say, hey, can you hang on to it, I’ll be up, whatever. So that was a few weeks ago, a couple weeks ago. So we went up friday and I told you before we left. I said, if that airplane is up there, I am buying it. I have permission. I had permission, I have the money. Yeah, I had it all. It’s about 1600 bucks, whatever he.

[00:30:39] Was asking for it, I was ready to buy it. We got up there and of course it was gone, which I wasn’t really all that upset about because I was prepared to not spend the money to buy it. So I

[00:30:50] Did not come home with it because it was gone. That’s why I said not a happy ending. But then it was funny because you were. Look, you looked like a kid in a candy shop. You’re like: all right, I got some funds to.

[00:31:00] Spend well. So in my mind I didn’t want to like. So I think in my head- the reason I didn’t call brian a head to say, hey, do you still have it? He would have said, of course, no, I sold it. And then in my mind I’d have been like, okay, well, if I can’t buy that, then I’m gonna buy this or I’m gonna buy that. I was hoping to not spend the money, honestly, because I could. We had some vet bills recently and some other stuff that’s come up that has cost us quite a bit, so I was okay with not spending the money. So I thought, well, if I’m up there and I go disappointed or and I get,

[00:31:33] Disappointed, then I’ll, I’ll buy this other small stuff that I need and then that’ll be that, which is a ultimately what happened. Yeah, so I didn’t. I didn’t communicate with brian before I went out there and brian actually said he felt bad because he, if he had known I wanted it. He.

[00:31:48] Would have he probably obviously saved it he said so but he didn’t need to feel bad because he didn’t.

[00:31:53] Say I want it. Right. It’s totally on me for not telling him, but we’re looking around and he did have a cub there. That was very pretty. It is very pretty. And then I think it’s the third.

[00:32:07] Scale? I think it’s no, is it? It’s not bigger than. It’s not bigger than what he or what dave has? Okay, well, because you’re talking, I think is 104 inches or so. Okay, yeah, mine’s 108, so that put it right around.

[00:32:18] So it’s probably about the same thing. Yeah, with a really nice sato or, I’m sorry, os 120 twin as quarter scale. Yeah, okay, really nicely done, beautifully put together and finished and had a nice cockpit in it, really well done and it was in like with the other stuff I was buying. It was in the range of sixteen hundred dollars which I could have spent and brought it home, but I exercised restrained and left it up there and I’ve thought about it every day since. I know it’s gonna be regretful.

[00:32:51] When you go up there and it’s gone traditional yellow yeah and what was that covered in.

[00:32:56] Because it was a. It was a beautifully done it. It looked to me like it was 21st century fabric. The painted fabric is what it looked like. Yeah, it’s pretty common. A lot of people use that. That’s what it looked like to me. It wasn’t the aura cover, because that has a different feel to it. This felt like painted fabric and so it reminded me of the 21st century fabric. That’s probably 300- 400.

[00:33:16] Dollars in covering just on that potentially yeah I mean if that’s 60 bucks a roll so yeah I.

[00:33:24] Left it there and came home, although I did buy some really cool stuff. You did so a while back. I bought a chip hide double vision biplane kit, which you’re not into biplanes, but it’s a really good looking airplane, it’s an ARF. Yeah, sorry, not a kit, but I don’t have an engine for it, so I bought an engine. I bought a dle 55 r, a brand new and which, by the way, my very first brand new gasoline engine, wow, which, after all these years, after all these years- yeah, nice, good for you- never bought a brand.

[00:33:56] And I was there when it happened. I’m very happy. So I’m really excited about that. I’ll start- that’ll be one of my winter projects probably- to start putting that thing together. And I bought a, bought a couple of servos and some other just odds and ends that I needed for other stuff that I needed to get in the air. So yeah, but no, no airplanes. I know I was disappointed, I got rid.

[00:34:18] Of a couple. You came home with two, yeah, and I took two up there and got rid of them. You took two kits, two kits and brought back to basically ready to fly airplanes, yeah, so that’s cool. I’m net zero, but I’m it’s okay because these are done smaller. Yeah, because these are both boxes for boxes, yeah, small.

[00:34:36] A10 and then that like for the profile two long skinny boxes for two pizza boxes basically pretty.

[00:34:42] Much kind of: yeah, that are at least more fun in the way they were sitting. So, true, yeah, I made the mistake. So I bought brand new the 40 size tob from balsa usa and then decided I don’t want that one. So I took a hit on that. But that’s okay, I want okay. I want the 60 size. You want what you want speaking.

[00:35:04] Of tobs yeah we’ve had a mishap of the tob this weekend tell your story well actually I’m gonna let.

[00:35:11] Reggie tell Reggie should tell the story he was there no name he witnessed it yeah he was all happy.

[00:35:18] Ready to go. It looked great, it was actually a beautiful plane and he looked it up off the ground and it went straight up almost. It literally just went up and, if I remember right, that’s only three channel, had elevator rudder and throttle. Yeah, way, laurence. Yeah, it circled back behind us in the pits and got over the corn field on the south, south east. Was it southeast? And you could hear it kind of throttle up and next thing the- I think it was the left wing- just snapped.

[00:35:49] It basically exploded and went right on into the corn. We did find it. We didn’t find the left wing, but we did find the plane. Yeah, he had a transponder in it or a locator. Worked out pretty good too, I.

[00:36:01] Mean took you right to it pretty much good deal much so we saw the video looked very tail heavy it.

[00:36:10] Did it did and the reason the wing yeah the reason huh you think it looked tail heavy too.

[00:36:18] I couldn’t okay on my phone old phone very great no it’s not that Reggie sent it to us in text.

[00:36:26] And then he said it to me on whatsapp. Whatsapp sends it through at full like full resolution. It doesn’t do anything. I’ll show you, remind me of Reggie. I’ll show you the difference in them. Do you have whatsapp, dave? No, oh well, you’re out. We’ll show it to him on your phone, though I will remind me when we’re done. I’m not gonna do it now. And yeah, it makes a huge difference and, like I said to me, it looked tail heavy when the wing folded, though he was in a dive crashing anyway. So it’s.

[00:36:50] Not like the wing fold caused the crash that plane made for speed whatsoever it’s kind of a.

[00:36:57] Yeah, it’s not made to be pulling out of a nosedive straight to the ground, so I’m not surprised that happened. But it, yeah, it was a gorgeous plane beforehand. Yeah, so I don’t know if he plans on.

[00:37:09] Rebuilding it, having it rebuilt, giving up. So I talked to bob yesterday- was over there working on something else of his what? No name. Oh, oops, sorry, bob. Well, that’s out the window, yeah, oops. So anyway, I was over there yesterday and I saw the fuselage and I think the plan is to find a wing of some kind, like maybe a stick wing, and assemble an airplane out of that. Really which?

[00:37:41] I was wondering how you got a 40 size stick wing wouldn’t be that hard to do that’d still be the.

[00:37:44] Same distance between. Even if it isn’t, you just build a fairing in front and the back and make sure that it’s mounted solid and make sure that the cord line is in line with the stab should be fine. That’s not bad actually. The fuselage actually looks pretty, really good. Hardly a scratch on it. Really, it didn’t break the prop. Yeah, that corn must have been like a giant.

[00:38:08] Catcher’s mitt. Then something, it was it. It went to the bottom, but it didn’t like it hit hardly at all. Yeah, that’s impressive. I don’t think he broke the covering anywhere else. I don’t think. I didn’t look.

[00:38:18] At the bottom but the right wing didn’t have a scratch on it really yeah it was on its left.

[00:38:25] Side when we got to it. Well, I guess he’s lucky, because it probably would have done more damage had that other wing on there when it went in. Maybe so weird. Well, yeah, it did look tail heavy, yeah, and you could tell by him trying to fly it around that it just looked like it didn’t have the control. What they say- tail heavy planes, fly once. True, it makes more sense when you say the whole thing. But what is the whole thing? Nose heavy planes fly, tail heavy planes fly once. Is that right? Something like that? I don’t know, I’ve never heard that before, really. Oh well, there you go, you heard it here.

[00:38:59] First for me I might have made it up but I thought I heard that before I’ve heard it from you as well.

[00:39:03] I’ve never heard from me as well oh nobody else I think I’ve heard that so yeah it’s nose airplanes.

[00:39:07] Fly poorly, tail heavy airplanes, fly once okay. Well, I put my own spin on it, but that’s all right. Well, you were close, I was. I don’t ever get anything right. I get as close as I can. Anyway, I wouldn’t say ever.

[00:39:24] He gets that rare gem, wow, okay. So do you think going back to the top, do you think he would have been able to save it if it had ailerons? Do you think it’s still as heavy as it was?

[00:39:39] And they said it went up. When it left the ground it just went up and from that point on, like he was struggling with it the whole way to the scene of the crash. Yeah, yeah, it was a long flight. Yeah, it was.

[00:39:50] Well, on its way to crashing before the wing snapped off. I’m just going to say that, yeah, I mean I don’t think the wing snapping is the cause of the crash. I think he said he was giving it full rudder. He was.

[00:40:01] Just whatever he could turn, because he didn’t want to go behind the pit the way it did. Well, yeah, I mean, of course he could have gotten over the soybean or something. Maybe it had been a little bit better chance at least get it to the runway. But yeah, it did a full circle. What I saw it didn’t look like he had.

[00:40:14] Much, if any, control over it. Yeah, he had throttle control. You could hear that cut. Yeah, he throttled back and then you could have throttle back up, but as far as, yeah, it looked tail heavy for sure to me.

[00:40:27] But I’m just kind of wondering: if you would have killed throttle right off the bat, just let it drop the soybeans, what would have been left? And probably somewhat stable, maybe, maybe, yeah, it’s hard to tell.

[00:40:38] It’s always easy to look back and what if what if you can only go by what happens true what you got.

[00:40:43] Yeah well your first response is trying to save it yeah well fly it fly it to the crash it to.

[00:40:48] The crash site. Yeah, I mean never give up on it. He didn’t. I mean he was, you could see he was. He was doing everything he could. But yeah, speaking of rebuilding, you’ve been doing some work on the big yak.

[00:41:00] I have. I’ve been pulling all the covering off and trying to get that one ready for a recover. I found it interesting. So whenever this is a little tip, I saw this online and I wanted to try it. When you’re pulling covering off, you don’t always get all of the covering off. Then you’re trying to figure how to get the- oh, the color that’s left, the color left over. So I used to take just the end of my X-Acto knife, heat it up and scrape it off, like that would work to get most of it off. You’d still leave a little bit of the color and then you’d have to sand that down to get rid of.

[00:41:33] It. But I saw somebody said: use clear packing tape, put it over it and then heat that up and then pull the tape off. It pulls that off perfectly, really nice. Yeah, I love doing it that way. It’s so much easier. Excellent tip. So, yeah, anytime you do it. So now I just have my tape gun and I will take it, pull it out and you only get a couple inches wide. Whatever that ends up being right. Put it over the pieces that you need to take off. I found it easier, like I have one of those bondo spreader little things like if you have any kind of squeegee or something, push it on to make sure you get a good grip on it.

[00:42:08] Then just heat it up with a heat gun slowly pull it off and that all comes right up with it I’ll be.

[00:42:12] Darned. Yeah, that’s a great tip. I enjoyed that one too. Thank you, I will probably use that because I have a couple of recovers that I need to do. Yeah, I’m in the midst of a couple of them, so looks really good without the covering on it. I bet that’s really cool looking. It does. They’re cool, and.

[00:42:30] Just the nakedness of it yeah I’ve seen some of the way they’ve done the balsa on it and I’m.

[00:42:35] Like it’s art, like it’s so nice. Yeah, maybe the strips are. Yeah, the wing panels are too long to get a 36 inch long plank, so they spliced them at an angle. It looks really cool. Yeah, I will have to.

[00:42:48] I’ll have to take a picture of that once I get everything stripped and then put it together and take a picture and post it, because I think that looks pretty cool too. Any plans on what the

[00:42:58] Designs will be when you put back together no that’s my problem like I want to get it and just kind.

[00:43:02] Of sit it down here and look at it like all just together, nude, if you will, and see if I have any ideas that pop into my mind. Like I, I cannot, like I can’t picture things finished, I am so I don’t know.

[00:43:18] I lack google, but even that, I have a hard time picturing that plane, oh, in different designs, especially if I’m thinking of different colors, like that’s. It’s just so. It’s always been hard for me. I cannot, I can’t really see things without actually seeing them. So something unique, something that’s.

[00:43:37] Gonna definitely stand out in the air to be seen and just your own your own thing I know what I’m.

[00:43:45] Putting so much time and effort into it. I want it to be what I want and I want to like it like. I don’t want to get through and be like, eh no, red and black plane. It will be another red and black plane. By the way, I tell you that I love those colors together. There’s definitely gonna be red and black, probably some white and I don’t know- silver, blue, maybe red, I don’t know. That’s gonna look like a clown. It’ll be a clown yak. Maybe I’ll just do the whole thing white and be done with it. You ever

[00:44:13] Seen those 30 little pilots jumping out scrap bin covering jobs where you just use what you got yeah.

[00:44:19] That’s not a bad idea. This patch goes here. There you go. That’d be kind of different camouflage. Maybe I’ll just do the whole thing white and blue, yeah, and make the white look like clouds and throw.

[00:44:31] Some gray on it. There you go. There you go. Great idea: oh yeah, kind of like the RC Plane Lab logo. Well, I mean, that’s supposed to look like the clouds. So yeah, there you go. And then just put big rc plane, that bonnet, somewhere. Oh no, oh no, all right, well, we’ve stalled enough. I’d say, yeah, I mean, I’m you.

[00:44:58] Guys have anything else are you done I’m done oh good I’m good dave I think you said three things.

[00:45:03] How are you doing? I’m doing great. Well, dave, I have to. I come to. I’ll come to dave’s defense. He’s been busy. He has been like. Unfortunately he has not been busy working on airplane stuff, he’s been doing the craft business with his wife, so he has been well. I mean no, not boo, that’s another source of income.

[00:45:21] It’s actually very nice. He brought out a, a, a thing for piper that he made. That’s this awesome. I love that. Thank you very much. Thank you, you’re welcome so, but still, fine, I’ll be back on track.

[00:45:32] Here by december. But december, oh, that’s a long time. Some cold flying. I delayed it as long as I could. Now I’m paying for it. Normally I start cutting in june or july. Yeah, oh, you waited a long time. Yeah, this is september. Yeah, I’m in trouble. Well, well, that’s our fault. We keep pushing.

[00:45:53] You come out let’s go flying let’s do this let’s record let’s come on Ron’s fault you heard it’s like.

[00:45:57] Yeah it’s not like I don’t do anything else I’ve got the dog thing I’ve got the airplanes I.

[00:46:03] I came to your defense I appreciate it busy guy yeah I get busier than I am but what’s my excuse.

[00:46:09] I don’t think you’re just lazy, I am just lazy. A new job: yeah, that’s true. And then they moved you around. Yeah, I’m in my third different department in three months. So, on top of all of that, you still.

[00:46:22] Has time to help me fix something on my planes see I don’t have my pet project Reggie I was gonna say.

[00:46:26] That’s yeah that takes up more time than anything else no it’s not that bad I don’t know I don’t.

[00:46:31] Know, I see a lot, of, a lot of you text. I know, yeah, it was the other night. You texted 10 o’clock at night, I know, in bed, and you’re going over to dave’s house to get a servo arm. Yeah, that’s what.

[00:46:42] And then all of a sudden Reggie’s like you just want me to come now. I’m sitting there thinking what? He’s probably in bed, and he’s like sure, come on over. And then, 45 minutes later, hey, thanks dave. Like my god, I sleep. I don’t have a nine o’clock bedtime. Yeah, I do, I do. Yeah, oh, that’s sometimes earlier. I can’t ever get earlier. I’d like to, but anyway, well, you have a little one, so I do okay.

[00:47:10] Well all right anything else so hopefully we’ll have something more exciting to talk about next time.

[00:47:15] Yeah, we’ve not been doing too much, so it’s okay. Well, when winter gets here, we’ve got a lot projects to work on, so hopefully we’ll get some stuff to. Can we get to a special one that I want to get? I would like to. Yeah, we just need to bite the bullet and buy more balsa and build a tri-motor.

[00:47:32] Are you gonna get the balsa? That’s the question. That’s why I said: buy more. Listen, you can get balsa. It’s just, it’s available, you just have to find it. Yeah well, yeah, you could have always got it, but we.

[00:47:41] Already paid for it, so we’ve been waiting for that to come in. That hasn’t come in, so we’re just gonna have to buy it again and hopefully that other one comes in sometime. Yeah, maybe time for an attorney.

[00:47:52] We’re not going to talk about that so anyway don’t bring up that’s a sore subject yeah.

[00:47:57] All right, well, until next time. Thank you for listening. We’re sorry, we bored you. Now you can go on to something else more fun. Yeah, I’m Ron. I’m Tom gosh. Well, he looked at you. I’m looking at you. There’s a fixed order here. You looked at him. Well, it’s because I thought: anyway, thanks for listening. I’m Ron, I’m Tom. I’m dave Reggie. Goodbye, bye, bye.

[00:48:21] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time. May your landings be gentle.