Ep 115: An Oopsie, a Crash, and Our Winter Group Build

[00:00:01] Hello, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab, where we do lots of fun stuff and do more.

[00:00:20] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave. And I'm sorry.

[00:00:27] I was going to thank Piper, by the way. That was a great introduction. Oh, that was fun. Yeah, that was cool. It was really cute. You're going to apologize.

[00:00:33] I'm going to apologize for last episode that we did that didn't work out very well. So, don't look at me like that. exactly what I'm talking about. So a couple of weeks ago, we were supposed to have our live episode with Reggie with Collins. I was a little under the weather. You were a lot under the weather, really. I'm much better now.

[00:00:56] That's good.

[00:00:56] I'm still coughing a little bit. So if there's some weird like silences, that's because I'm coughing and trying not to get it on here. But anyway, so we tried to do it live with you running the board, Tommy.

[00:01:07] And that was a disaster, by the way.

[00:01:10] At your house. Yeah. With me trying to be a call in. And it was, yeah.

[00:01:17] Clearly, I am not cut out to be Ron.

[00:01:19] Well, and a new board. Yeah. And a new board on top of that.

[00:01:22] That's right.

[00:01:23] There was, if it could go wrong with that one, it did go wrong. Yeah.

[00:01:29] They talk about changing one thing at a time, to deter. Yeah.

[00:01:32] We changed everything all at once and tried to produce a live episode and that didn't work.

[00:01:38] Yeah. And yeah. And I'm a terrible host without you. Oh, that's so nice.

[00:01:45] So we're going to call this episode 115 again. Yeah. episode 115 was supposed to be a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Which we did. There were several people that listened live. Tried to listen live. If you did, I'm sorry. Like, that's all I can say is I'm sorry and we move on. Yeah. Yep.

[00:02:03] See, that's what I'm talking about.

[00:02:05] Okay. So, like we said before, well, but nobody heard because it was an episode. We are unfortunately going to a two-week release schedule right now.

[00:02:17] Just for now, for a while. I'm not sure how long.

[00:02:20] We want to get back to every week, but it's been quite busy.

[00:02:24] It really has. I mean, and I try to put my finger on why we can't. And it's like, there's like any given moment, there's five things going on between the three of us that we just can't make it work.

[00:02:36] Well, and the thing is too, like we don't do enough in the hobby right now in order to have anything to talk about because nobody wants to tune in and listen to us talk about nothing.

[00:02:45] Right.

[00:02:46] So. Which is most of the episodes. Well, you might be, you might be right on that. No, I'm teasing. I think we have good stuff. But yeah, so we're going to go two weeks for now and then see how that goes. We have some cool guests coming up that we have scheduled. We do. So it should be a good few months ahead. Yeah. I agree.

[00:03:05] Dave? Yep. We are filling it up for quality materials as soon as we fill in these dead spots.

[00:03:10] Don't say quality. Darn it. Now we have to live up to that.

[00:03:13] Well, anyway. Well, I mean, just one, before we really get into it, one thing I just want to hit real quick. I know we, we talk about it a lot, safety, but I've noticed a trend, maybe not a trend, but a few occurrences lately, maybe not locally, of people getting their hands cut by props again.

[00:03:35] Online. I've seen quite a few of them.

[00:03:36] Yeah. It looks like a couple of them were electric, the electric, for whatever reason, the motor went to full throttle and got their hand. And just a reminder, the only 100% safe way to keep your hand from getting bit by an electric motor with a propeller on it is to pull the prop off when you're doing setup or you're making any changes or anything like that.

[00:03:59] And it really is easy.

[00:04:00] It's really, no, it's not hard. There's guys that have talked about a throttle cutoff function. I'm not familiar with that with electrics, but that's still an electric switch probably on the transmitter that could get bumped. Correct?

[00:04:13] Well, so that would be a fail safe to the throttle setting on the, or to the throttle. Oh my God, my mind went blank. The throttle. Oh, help me out guys. The, the thing that you move up and down.

[00:04:25] The arm.

[00:04:25] No, the thing. The throttle stick. Thank you.

[00:04:27] Oh my gosh. You couldn't think of throttle stick.

[00:04:29] I told you I went. Wow. You went way too simple. I wasn't going anything difficult on that one. Wow. So that's a backup to the throttle stick as in you would have to have the throttle stick up and the throttle cut turned on in order to have the throttle move. So if you have the throttle switch off and then you bump your throttle stick, it's not going to turn on.

[00:04:52] Yeah. But if the switch accidentally gets bumped on and the stick gets moved, it could still arm the motor and turn it. Correct?

[00:04:59] Well, and that's a difference too on some of the older ones. I mean, yes, correct. That's, that's right. But some of the older ones, you didn't actually have to arm it. When you say arm. No, no, I gotcha.

[00:05:08] Okay. Yeah.

[00:05:08] Because now most of the ones I have, you have to go full throttle, wait for it to beep and then go back to idle.

[00:05:13] But what I'm saying, and I think Dave is getting what I'm, he's smelling what I'm stepping in. If the propeller is off of the motor. It's impossible. It is impossible to put your hand in it and get it cut off.

[00:05:25] I, or cut, not necessarily off, but yes, I agree.

[00:05:29] Yeah. Or, and not just your hand. I mean, if you're working on this thing, I've seen another guy that had replied in to one of the posts. He wasn't even like near the propeller, but the airplane. Throttle jumped, hit his leg, spun around and got him in the back of the, the calves. Yeah. I mean, so if the propeller wasn't on, that wouldn't have happened either.

[00:05:52] I've had a ducted fan to go to full throttle on the counter on me.

[00:05:55] Yeah.

[00:05:56] Not in an airplane.

[00:05:57] Sucks everything off the counter.

[00:05:58] Sucks everything off the counter into the motor. Finally died when it ate its own power leads.

[00:06:03] Oh boy.

[00:06:04] Yeah. So you're right.

[00:06:05] So anyway, I just wanted to, I just wanted to remind everybody, cause not everybody knows, so ever it's a, there's a first time for everything, right? So to all the listeners out there with electric airplanes, when you're doing your setup on your, speed controller and getting all the, the throttle function set up correctly. And even if you're making changes to the throttle, just do yourself a favor and pull the prop off just to be safe.

[00:06:28] Not even throttle. I mean, anything really. Well, if you're changing the receiver, doing anything like that.

[00:06:33] If you're rebinding, if you're rebinding, just, just be safe.

[00:06:36] Yeah. That's all I ask. It's so easy to take them off.

[00:06:39] I'm not a huge fan of the gruesome, finger cut off pictures that come across my Facebook feed. So yeah, I just wanted to hit that one more time. Cause I've, like I said, I've kind of noticed a trend. There was a few posts I saw. I was like, it might be worth mentioning again that, just pulled prop

[00:06:54] Off.

[00:06:54] And people need to stop posting those.

[00:06:56] There is nothing worse than scrolling through like, Oh, airplanes, airplanes, airplanes. Oh, what's that? Oh, I'm going to throw up.

[00:07:02] Somebody's finger cut in half. Oh, so anyway, thanks for, thanks for, appeasing me.

[00:07:07] I just wanted to get that out there. Okay. As long as you feel good, I feel good. I feel good by the way, because I got a hat.

[00:07:15] You got a hat?

[00:07:16] I got a hat. Remember we talked a while ago about the fly. You need a hat.

[00:07:20] You have a lot of hats already is what I'm doing.

[00:07:22] I know, but I kind of like this one. It's kind of cool. We talked a while ago about the fly RC nation, the horizon thing. So they sent hats to the first hundred people that were members of that. Really? And I got one. And you got one. It's kind of neat. You're one of the first 100.

[00:07:37] It even says on the side, first 100. Ooh, aren't you special?

[00:07:41] No, I'm just fast. But no, I thought that was kind of cool. They sent it. I mean, free of charge. I didn't have to pay for shipping, pay for anything.

[00:07:48] That is pretty cool.

[00:07:50] It's kind of neat. A good way to launch stuff. So I appreciate that. I kind of like it.

[00:07:53] Yep. It's a, I'm looking at it now. It's an attractive hat. Black. So when you're out in the sun, it's not like it'll burn your head or anything. I know, right?

[00:08:02] And sweat stains,.

[00:08:04] Well, it's black so that, it doesn't get all dirty with putting your dirty hand and stuff on it. Well, I suppose.

[00:08:11] Okay. Thanks, Horizon.

[00:08:13] So what else?

[00:08:15] So we did some flying recently. We did. Yeah.

[00:08:18] Since the last failed episode got out.

[00:08:21] Yeah, we did. I got, I checked a couple more off my spreadsheet.

[00:08:26] I don't think I'm going to make it, by the way. What do you mean you don't think I'm going to make? I don't think I'm going to make going all of my airplanes that I wanted to fly by the end of the year.

[00:08:32] I mean, it's not even November yet.

[00:08:35] Here's the thing.

[00:08:37] It has been windy.

[00:08:39] Yeah. I mean, like way too windy for a lot of the airplanes I want to fly.

[00:08:42] It's supposed to be really nice this weekend.

[00:08:43] And windy. And windy. 30 mile an hour winds. They're calling for it again both days.

[00:08:49] I know. That's the problem. Like, I don't know where this wind is coming from, but it is.

[00:08:52] Some of these, couldn't you fly here at the house that are on your. What does that matter? Still wind. Well, but I mean, like this evening would have been a nice evening.

[00:09:00] Well, honestly, no, because a lot of them are still ones that I have to maiden. Ah, okay. Or a big. Okay. So I would not be comfortable maidening one here.

[00:09:10] Well, I'm on the verge of completing mine. Like, I think I only have a couple left. I got to fly the Duelist. I do too. I've got to fly the previously owned by Dave's T-34. And I think that's, well, and the Sandpiper. That's about it.

[00:09:27] Oh, that's not fair. I still have like 17 left.

[00:09:31] Well, stop buying airplanes. No.

[00:09:35] No, actually. No. But so we went out to the field, though, and you just bought another airplane, too. I don't remember if we talked about this. The Cub? Yeah, the Cub.

[00:09:45] Yeah, we talked about it. When? 109 and a half inches. Yeah, we've talked about it.

[00:09:49] Yes, but when did we talk about it? Was it the failed episode or was it the not failed episode? No, we talked about it before that, I think. Yeah, that's then. Yeah. But you haven't flown it. Had not. You had not flown it since we talked. And what a great flyer. How'd that go?

[00:10:01] Oh, it's lovely. I was concerned about the OS 120 twin being enough power. It's plenty.

[00:10:06] I was, too. Like, I'll be honest. I thought that was kind of small for the front of that thing.

[00:10:10] I did, too. I was concerned. But my concerns have been squashed. It flies really, really nice.

[00:10:16] Rightfully so.

[00:10:17] I think I can see myself flying that one a lot.

[00:10:20] And it flies well for a long time on the nitro fuel. What do you get on a tank? What do we figure?

[00:10:28] Didn't we come up with about 30 minutes on a tank?

[00:10:31] On a tank of fuel.

[00:10:31] And I'm pretty sure it's either a 12 or a 14-ounce tank.

[00:10:34] Yeah.

[00:10:35] So, honestly, about a 25-minute flight to still have plenty of margin of air and not have to worry about it. And for a big yellow airplane, I really enjoy it.

[00:10:49] It sounds good. It flies good. It does the one-wheel cub thing nicely.

[00:10:53] I like cub. I still want to see yours fly, Dave. And so would I.

[00:10:58] Did you get all the lines replaced on yours?

[00:10:59] Yeah, it's ready to fly. It's just every time I go to take it out, it's windy. And the 180-inch L4 is not flying in the wind. Yeah.

[00:11:08] Hmm.

[00:11:08] Yeah.

[00:11:10] I see you looking at me. I know it's windy. But I think there will be time. If you really, really commit, you could do it.

[00:11:18] I don't know if I can commit, though. That much in this short of time when it's starting to get cold and stuff out, too? I don't know. See, I started late in the year. You both did. Like, I didn't fully. Well, yeah.

[00:11:29] But I didn't have as many to fly. Like, my fly list is smaller than yours, but my build under construction slash whatever list is bigger than yours.

[00:11:41] Much bigger. So there's the.

[00:11:43] So that's okay. Yeah.

[00:11:44] But I don't know. Hey, at least you can say you tried, right? I'm thinking next year, if I start from the beginning and actually know from January that this is what I want to do, I will have no problem.

[00:11:54] Okay. Well, we might be able to get a good start on a January 1st like we always do.

[00:11:58] At least with one, depending on how. Yeah, a few.

[00:12:00] Oh, yeah. We'll see. We'll take as many. We'll pack the cars.

[00:12:04] Take a day out there. We'll get the trailer.

[00:12:06] There you go. Just make a day of it. Like a whole day. If the weather's nice, just be out there all day flying planes.

[00:12:14] Unless it's cold. That's right. The older I get, the worse I can't handle it.

[00:12:19] My hands get cold. Anything below 50 is uncomfortable. Thank you.

[00:12:23] I agree. Like completely. Like 50 is that magical. Like I can be out here and work on stuff and have no problem. Under 50?

[00:12:30] No. Hot hands. I'm just saying.

[00:12:33] Yeah, but that. I don't know. We'll see.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:37] Okay. But it was fun, though. When we went out, I was able to fly a couple airplanes. so I was not able to fly the three that I brought to Maiden. and that is completely on me. Like I feel like a, a Tommy. Yeah. So I, I made a mistake. So, okay. So I took the, the shoestring out with me and the space Walker. Both of those I Maidened, the shoestring I didn't like. I don't know if it was just because it wasn't set up right. I think it was the wind.

[00:13:10] It would have been the wind.

[00:13:10] That's a really small, lightweight airplane.

[00:13:12] It is.

[00:13:13] It gets tossed around pretty easy. But on a nice calm day, I bet that thing's a blast.

[00:13:17] Well, I won't know because I'm going to be getting rid of that one. Okay. and the space Walker flew great though. It does. That's a really good plane. I absolutely, I love that airplane. That will definitely be a fly a lot airplane when next year rolls around because this year is winding down. Mm-hmm. But I wanted to take out my Sig Cavalier. This is the first airplane I ever built or built from a kit. Mm-hmm. And I have not flown it yet.

[00:13:39] So this is the one that I started back in 2014, I think.

[00:13:43] Yeah. I was really excited to see you pull it out of the truck.

[00:13:45] I know. I was too. I had battery for it and everything. And then my mistake when I set it up at home, and now I didn't go over this before I took it out there. Like I planned on it, but time got, kind of pushed out and I didn't have enough time to go over it. So I just threw it in the truck when I was getting ready to go out. It had an orange receiver in it. Yeah. Yeah. And I did that, not to fly it. Right. Just for setup.

[00:14:07] But just for setup to make sure, the servos are moving the right way. All that kind of stuff is done correctly. So I wasn't going to chance it with an orange.

[00:14:15] I don't blame you. That's an airplane you kind of care about. I care a lot about that one, actually.

[00:14:19] So. Yep. So maybe that can be done before the end of the year. That'd be sweet. I can't wait to see that one fly. I bet it flies nice. Especially with the retract and stuff in it. That's going to be cool. That's going to be weird. I mean, like, I don't, I don't know. We'll see. I hope everything works the way it's supposed to. That was one I, I, it's not supposed to be retractable or retractable gear. And we'll see. That's what I did.

[00:14:42] What else? What else? Well, Dave was out at the field too.

[00:14:46] I attempted to fly. You did. I took three airplanes and flew one. Had the blue Max out there. Was unloading the truck. Put everything on the build tables and was getting some more stuff. And Fred was loose being Fred. It was a bad day for Fred.

[00:15:02] Fred's your dog. Fred's the dog.

[00:15:03] And he jumped on the table and of course landed directly on the wing. Which said it's skittering across the table.

[00:15:10] Across the table onto the ground.

[00:15:11] Onto the ground. And I've got toenail dig marks in it. So, yep. That one went right back in the truck. Oh, Fred. And then I brought my brand new Alteryx out that I just repainted.

[00:15:24] By the way, if I, if I may, Dave painted his Alteryx. He customized it. And it looks freaking amazing.

[00:15:34] It will not be confused with mine anymore.

[00:15:37] No, no, not at all.

[00:15:38] There's no problem telling it apart now.

[00:15:39] Yeah. Can you describe it?

[00:15:41] Well, I kind of was inspired by the, the Vought, flying flapjack, the prototype one that was in yellow. So this is now bright yellow and silver.

[00:15:52] Yeah. So for those of you who don't know what a flying flapjack is, it's basically, it looks like a flying pancake. It's like a giant pancake with two engines on the front and these kind of weird shaped tails on the back. And that's exactly what it looks like. It looks like a flying pancake.

[00:16:07] Yeah. It looks like a modernized version of the pancake. Yeah.

[00:16:10] Chrome yellow.

[00:16:11] Chrome yellow.

[00:16:12] That's the correct color. And it is bright.

[00:16:14] It's bright.

[00:16:15] I mean, it's not neon, but man, is it a bright. Yeah. It looks really.

[00:16:17] Oh, and I left the leading edges white so that the, lights would show through for the, night flying. Yeah.

[00:16:22] It looks fantastic.

[00:16:23] That is very, very cool.

[00:16:25] I can't wait to see it like in the air.

[00:16:27] Yeah. It's going to be fun.

[00:16:28] And then you do the, the super ultra twisty move. Oh my gosh. I'm giggling. Just think about it. Yeah. That's going to be pretty good.

[00:16:34] So anyway, how'd the flights go with that, Dave? Didn't fly it at all.

[00:16:39] What a jerk. Went. Like you totally set them up. Like what a, what a man.

[00:16:46] Put the battery in it. Was expecting a bunch of fun. And, the entire system was 100% completely dead.

[00:16:54] No power.

[00:16:55] No power. did some quick diagnostics and come to find out the, the negative lead had completely came off the ESC board. Yikes. That's not good.

[00:17:06] Better, better there than in the air though.

[00:17:08] Yes, absolutely. And I'd flown it a couple of times previous to that repaint.

[00:17:13] Yeah.

[00:17:14] So I'm really glad that it decided to come apart on the ground. It was due to a very, very bad, cold solder joint, on the board.

[00:17:21] If, not to interrupt you, but I interrupted you. If you could send me a picture of that, I'll put that on the custom foam and ARF, Facebook thread that, Gary. Oh, yeah, that's right. Gary Gilbert. but anyway, the Facebook page he's got out there is, where people can showcase their customized foam airplanes. So if you don't want to put it on there, yeah, send them, send me the picture.

[00:17:42] Yeah, absolutely. I'll send that to you.

[00:17:43] Because it looks, it looks amazing. I think, I can't wait to see it in the air. Neither can I. And neither can Dave. Yeah, I'm ready.

[00:17:52] But now you changed the, the battery plug on that. Do you think anything happened to that? Maybe, like possibly when you. No. That's out of that.

[00:18:01] That's good. Eight, 10 inches away from, the board.

[00:18:05] Oh, is there? I don't know. I thought it was like an inch and a half.

[00:18:08] No, it's way back up in there.

[00:18:10] That's how it is on our micros.

[00:18:11] They're, they're pretty short.

[00:18:12] Maybe that's the one I'm thinking of them. Could be.

[00:18:14] Yeah, this was a big old crusty lump of coal on the end of the wire.

[00:18:18] Cold solder joint.

[00:18:19] Yeah.

[00:18:20] Well, that's, that's too bad, but at least you figured it out.

[00:18:23] Yeah. We found it. It's not going to come off again.

[00:18:26] Yeah. And you found something else when you soldered that back on.

[00:18:29] Oh, yeah. so I wasn't exactly sure where the wire came from. looking at the board, all the other wires are attached to the end of it. and they've got this, kind of black silicone stuff on it. I guess for shock resistance or something. Anyway, I couldn't really figure out where it came from, but there was a hole there in the middle of that board in the back.

[00:18:49] And I was waiting for Ron to send me a picture of his so I could see where it was on his board.

[00:18:55] He texted me, by the way, on the way home from the field, as I was going home, it took me less than 10 minutes to text him back. And he was too impatient to wait for me to send pictures.

[00:19:06] I totally get it. Like if I'm in the middle of the project, I want to get it done so I can move on to the next one. I don't want to have to wait.

[00:19:12] So I saw this lug, that didn't have anything soldered to it in the middle of all these other wires. I thought, that's where it's got to be. And this joint was so cold. I, I can see that it didn't leave any solder behind.

[00:19:23] Yeah.

[00:19:23] So I went ahead and soldered it on to that middle lug, fired everything up. It works beautifully, no problems whatsoever. And then I get the text from Ron who shows me it solders to the middle of the board. in the meantime, I'd also tried to remount the board back in the airplane that takes three screws. I had now realized that one of those three screws came out of that hole that I found.

[00:19:46] That you soldered the negative lead back to.

[00:19:48] Yeah. So apparently that entire board is a ground. Interesting.

[00:19:52] Good to know. So, so if anyone out there has, has the old, the big Alteryx 600 millimeter, I think the blue one, and let's paint it.

[00:19:59] Yep.

[00:20:00] And, and you get a negative lead to come off. Just know that you can solder it just about anywhere you want on the board.

[00:20:06] Sounds that way. but yeah, I unsodered it, so I can mount the board properly again and put it where it's supposed to be. But, yeah, nothing fried, nothing, and it worked perfectly with it soldered to that, where the screw's supposed to be.

[00:20:19] I don't know if you really need three screws to hold that tiny little board in there, though. You probably could have gotten away with two screws and…

[00:20:26] I don't know. Can you imagine the G's when we're doing that fun pancake, whatever you want to call it, crazy maneuver?

[00:20:32] Yeah, I guess. But that's pretty close to the CG. It's not like it's way off. That's true. So it shouldn't have, I don't know, whatever. But yeah. So anyway, it's not going to come apart again.

[00:20:40] It's got a great joint on it now.

[00:20:41] Well, I can't wait to see you fly it if we ever get, days that aren't windy. Yes, I see you.

[00:20:47] I see you. Oh, so didn't get to fly the Blue Max.

[00:20:50] Didn't fly the Blue Max. Didn't get to fly the Alteryx. I did take my, Carbon Z Cessna 150 slash T50, up and did a bunch of inverted flat spins with it. So,.

[00:21:02] That's fun.

[00:21:03] Yeah, I was watching this. And that looks kind of funny, by the way. Yeah, Cessna. Yeah, doing an inverted flat spin. Inverted flats, yeah.

[00:21:08] But it does up really, really well. That usually, like full scale, I think that means death.

[00:21:12] I think the wings are going to come off. Yeah. Speaking of wings coming off.

[00:21:17] Oh. Yeah, this is sad, kind of. Well, it's not.

[00:21:21] No, it's very sad.

[00:21:23] Yeah.

[00:21:23] I loved this airplane. Continue.

[00:21:26] Yeah, my brother.

[00:21:29] Well, he said, speaking of wings coming off. I mean, what? That kind of gives it away, too.

[00:21:33] I guess so.

[00:21:34] So, my brother bought, back in, God, what was it, June? He bought, this generic big stick of some sort. We're not really sure what it is. it has an OG26 on it. Pretty airplane. Pretty airplane. And he's been flying the bejesus out of it for months now. In fact, that's not anything he flies anymore. Yeah, a couple months for sure, yeah.

[00:21:54] And it was, it was done with, the cream and blue. Yeah. What was the covering on it?

[00:21:59] Some sort of fabric. We're not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, pretty airplane. Pretty airplane. Flew beautifully. his first big airplane. And I was teaching him some basic aerobatics with it. I was teaching him how to do Cuban eights. nothing high stress on this airplane. everything was going good. he had got a little opposition doing these Cuban eights. And so he was making a gentle left-hand turn to put it back in the center of the field.

[00:22:24] And the, right wing just pops off. in the process of the wing popping off, it must unplug the battery.

[00:22:31] Because he has no control over it. Nothing, yeah.

[00:22:33] And it's at full throttle.

[00:22:35] Yeah, and it was wide open. Yeah.

[00:22:36] Yeah. At the ground.

[00:22:38] Yeah.

[00:22:39] That battery ended up, what, 30 feet away? It was a long ways away.

[00:22:42] It hit hard.

[00:22:45] So hard. So hard that the engine was destroyed. bent, crankshaft. I think the crankshaft is bent in two different directions at least, if not three.

[00:22:54] Yeah.

[00:22:54] The carburetor is completely ripped off the engine.

[00:22:58] Yeah, it broke the mounting lug off.

[00:23:00] Broke the mounting lug off it. the ignition coil is all busted up. it's, parts-wise, it's just not a rebuildable motor. That's a shame. It is. And, of course, the airplane is a big pile of doo-doo. Yeah.

[00:23:16] He's rebuilding it. And for, for those that, that may not know, what is a Cuban 8?

[00:23:21] A Cuban 8 is the first half of a loop, but instead of completing the loop, you come down on a 45-degree downline and roll back to level flight. Yeah. and then you would go and complete the other half of the loop going the other direction. Yeah.

[00:23:38] So, so it looks like an 8 vertically. Yes. Yeah. So when you're done, if you had smoke on, it would look like an 8.

[00:23:45] Yeah, if you continued around and did it on the backside, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right.

[00:23:48] So, yeah, so not particularly high stress. No, we were not stressing this airplane at all. post-mortem, because he is trying to rebuild it, which. And that, that I still can't.

[00:23:57] And it didn't break, I'm sorry, it didn't break on, on, on pulling back. It was, it was actually banked in a turn. Gentle left-hand turn. When the green came off.

[00:24:05] Nothing hard whatsoever.

[00:24:07] And so I wasn't actually, I didn't have my eyes on the airplane when it happened, because either I was flying or doing something else, something else, and I heard it before I saw it. Like, I heard, like, the crack. Yeah, it was a big old crack. Yeah. And then, and then, of course, that gets your attention. I look up and I see, I see Daniel's airplane doing this death spiral wide open. And it, it was like slow, like, it wasn't even my airplane.

[00:24:32] It was like happening in slow motion. I was like, okay. I was thinking to myself, I was like, pull back the throttle. And then that's exactly when I heard you say, Daniel, pull the throttle back. And I heard Daniel say, I did.

[00:24:43] Yeah.

[00:24:44] Yeah. Yeah. And the thing just, yeah, man, it was sickening.

[00:24:48] Well, it was still interesting that wing took, what, a minute to come down?

[00:24:52] Yeah. The half that popped off.

[00:24:54] It had so much time. I actually have pictures of it.

[00:24:56] Yeah.

[00:24:57] Like, I had time to get my phone out, like, watch the crash, look over and be like, oh, that's still fluttering down.

[00:25:03] Oh, I better get a picture of this. Yeah.

[00:25:05] And small debris still came down like two minutes later.

[00:25:07] Oh, yeah. Yeah. It, the, excuse me, the joint where that came apart. Yeah. That was, I'm surprised he's got enough there to, to work with, to rebuild.

[00:25:18] Believe it or not. He's, we picked up more than we thought apparently, because he's got it laid out on the board. And, yeah, we were back and forth today while I was at work with, rebuilding that wing.

[00:25:27] And I feel bad though, because he at, like when we went out, I asked, how much of this do you want? And I was told we're not going to get everything because there's no way this is going to be rebuildable. So we left a lot out there on the field. Excuse me. That we probably should have picked up.

[00:25:41] Yeah. Well, he's apparently only missing five ribs, only five ribs. but we did a post-mortem on it. We do know what happened now. whoever built it, I don't know if it was plans built or a kit built, but they, did a scarf joint to splice the wing spars together. they spliced it at a 45 degree angle instead of a long 60 plus degree angle with no reinforcement on it. he said one of them, he actually just pushed a little bit with his finger and it popped right.

[00:26:09] I mean, you may as well have just butted them together.

[00:26:12] Might as well have.

[00:26:12] I mean, cause yeah, if any, if you don't know where, well, I'll try to explain it. So the spars are so long, it's a big airplane, right?

[00:26:18] So long wing. About 80 inches plus.

[00:26:20] You can't get, you can't get lengths of stick long enough to make a spar one piece. So you have to make it in two pieces or ideally in this case, you would have made it in three and put your splices out farther towards the wing tips. That's the way I would have done it. I'm pretty sure that's the way you would have done it. And I would not have made the joints of those splices 45 degrees.

[00:26:38] Like Dave says, you make them 120 degrees, 60 degrees, something other than 45, cause you want to spread that load out over as big an area as you can.

[00:26:48] And you don't do a splice joint four inches out from the fuselage.

[00:26:52] Four inches from the fuselage. Yeah.

[00:26:54] There's so much.

[00:26:55] Not cool. Yeah.

[00:26:56] So yeah, no wonder the wing failed. So build a tip out there for you guys. If you do a splice, splice them at the tips where there's less stress on everything and do the longest splice that you can.

[00:27:07] Yes, absolutely. Would it be better to double those up even? And plate it.

[00:27:10] I would plate it. Yeah, for sure. Yep. Especially an airplane that big. And not that it was heavy, but it's, it's a big airplane. Therefore, there's a lot of leverage. A little bit of heavy, a little bit more weight than a standard sport plane.

[00:27:22] And no, no bracing.

[00:27:23] And no bracing. No struts. Yeah. It's not, it's not designed to use struts. And I'm not even sure struts would have saved it, honestly. No. Well. Four inches from the fuselage. I'm not, I'm not sure.

[00:27:35] Maybe, it would have taken a lot of that stress off of the wing flexing and moved that to the bottom of the fuselage. Yeah. So it's possible. Yeah, maybe.

[00:27:43] Anyway, it's in the process being rebuilt.

[00:27:45] Well, kudos to Daniel for trying it. Yeah. Daniel, if you're listening.

[00:27:49] He's got the fuselage back on the wheels. So.

[00:27:51] Holy cow. Really?

[00:27:52] That's awesome. That was in a lot of pieces too. Yes, it was. Well, good for him. Which brings us, by the way, because he has started using another tool.

[00:28:00] It's time for our Seaplane Labs Tool of the Week.

[00:28:06] And what is it, Tommy? Well, this week's, or this episode's Tool of the Week. Should I say, I should probably just say Tool of the Episode, right? Because we're not doing them every week anymore. Yeah, I guess so. It's a Dremel Moto Saw. And until we got together tonight, I had never heard of such a thing.

[00:28:24] I hadn't either. And it actually looks pretty cool.

[00:28:26] But it is a collapsible, if I could use that word, scroll saw. And it's genius. It looks like it uses a Dremel, like a regular Dremel Moto Tool. And it's mounted to the bottom of a table. A small table, but it's a table. And then, yeah, it folds up and mounts, clamps to the side of your workbench.

[00:28:46] And you can even take that table off and use it handheld.

[00:28:50] Yeah, handheld. Kind of like a keyhole saw, only powered and bigger.

[00:28:54] Yeah, like a coping saw. Yes, thank you. That's powered. Yeah, it looks like a giant coping saw.

[00:28:58] Right. Man, genius.

[00:29:02] 115-ish bucks for what we saw on Amazon.

[00:29:04] And when you're done with it?

[00:29:05] Knock it down?

[00:29:06] Yeah, you take it down, put it back in the case, and throw it out of the way.

[00:29:09] Store it in your closet.

[00:29:10] Yeah, I'm going to buy one.

[00:29:11] I probably will, too. Because I get sick and tired of having to walk out to the shop when I just need to do some quick cuts.

[00:29:17] Yes, I mean, just mount it to the side of your countertop there and have at it. And then tuck it in the drawer underneath when you're done.

[00:29:25] Have at it.

[00:29:25] So thanks, Daniel, for that. I had no clue that even existed.

[00:29:29] And good luck.

[00:29:30] And now I'm going to buy one.

[00:29:32] Putting this back together.

[00:29:32] Yeah, that too.

[00:29:34] He'll get it.

[00:29:36] Yeah. Will it be sturdy enough when he's done? Well, I'm sure it will be with Dave's.

[00:29:40] It will be thoroughly inspected and signed off on. What's he covering it with? Don't know yet. Okay.

[00:29:46] Is he going to completely strip it or try to match it?

[00:29:48] He's already completely stripped it. Okay. Well, there's only one surface that wasn't damaged, so everything had to come off. That's true. The left elevator was the only thing not damaged on this thing. Yeah.

[00:29:59] Man, what an impact, too.

[00:30:01] That's so sad. It was. I mean, that, yeah.

[00:30:04] So what's he going to do for an engine?

[00:30:06] We don't know yet. We're probably going to track something down. I would love to find, like, a Zenoa 38 to stick in it because we need a little more nose weight so he didn't have to put, a pound and a half of lead back in it. Plus, this plane's going to be a little heavier with the rebuild, so I'm hoping to find, like, a Zenoa 38 for it.

[00:30:21] Would a 50cc be too much?

[00:30:24] I think a 50cc would be, probably shake it to death. That's not that big of a plan.

[00:30:27] Well, because I've got that old one at home that I can't. Old what? It's an old, is it a BME, I think? It's either a BME or something along those lines. But, yeah, it's not as lightweight and high horsepower as today's 50cc. It's more like your Cheetahs, but it's electronic ignition. It doesn't have all the Magneto stuff on it.

[00:30:52] Really? Yeah, so I think we're kind of open to whatever we're going to stick in the nose.

[00:30:56] I mean, if you want that one, you're welcome to use it.

[00:30:59] We'll see how things turn out.

[00:31:00] Okay. Cool. It's probably going to prompt a trip to Brian's.

[00:31:05] Well, we're going up there this weekend.

[00:31:07] Yeah, without me again.

[00:31:09] Well, I feel like I'm cheating on you, and I'm sorry. Actually, it's so funny because I was talking to Crystal about it. You should. Really?

[00:31:17] You should. You should feel guilty. Going up there without me. Who went up there last time by themselves? To get the Cub. That's the only reason I went.

[00:31:27] And I wanted to go up to get an airplane, too. You probably wouldn't have gotten it that day because it wouldn't have fit in the car. No, but I might have made the deal. Anyway. Excuse me. So it's funny because I… Oh, now you're doing it. Now, let's see. I'm so sorry about this.

[00:31:43] But anyway, so I was talking to Crystal about it, and I told her after I talked to you last time and said I was going up there that I think Tommy might have had his feelings hurt when I asked him about going up with Dave. And she kind of like started to make fun of me. She's like, you guys are like an old married couple that can't do that without each other. And I was like… That's not true. Oh, I told her that's kind of true.

[00:32:09] I'm not upset that you guys are going without me.

[00:32:13] Well, you hide it really well.

[00:32:16] I'm jealous that you guys get to go to the cool hobby shop, and I don't, but…

[00:32:19] Yeah.

[00:32:20] Well, we'll have to go up, I'm sure, in a few more weeks for something. Hopefully you guys come back with some really cool stuff. I plan on taking… I, yeah, I'm… Go ahead.

[00:32:30] I plan on taking a couple of planes up there to get rid of, and then we'll see what I come home with. Yeah.

[00:32:36] You better come home with a certain something that I'm thinking about.

[00:32:40] If it's there… what I'm talking about. The telemaster, yeah. If it's there and we can come to a… Both be happy with a price, it will come home with me. An amicable arrangement. There you go. Yeah. Hopefully Dave comes back with something cool, too. The whole reason for…

[00:32:53] I'm not buying anything for myself. Maybe.

[00:32:56] You don't know that, for sure. I mean, you can't ever say that when you go up there. No. But you are buying your brother. Well, yeah, you are going to come back with an airplane.

[00:33:04] Daniel does a lot for me. Helps me. He cleans the gutters and stuff, because I can't get on my roof anymore. We go to these fly-ins. He's my constant pack mule, moving airplanes around for me, back and forth, back and forth. So, I'm going to buy him a replacement stick-like airplane, so he can at least have something to fly for the rest of the year until he gets this one pushed back together.

[00:33:26] Nice. That'll be good. It's nice. So, what are you getting in?

[00:33:29] It is a… Do you remember?

[00:33:32] Dakota Hawk.

[00:33:33] Dakota Hawk.

[00:33:34] Oh, never heard of that.

[00:33:35] Never heard of that. And I can't find anything on the internet about it, so this is going to be interesting.

[00:33:39] Okay. Cool. What size is this one?

[00:33:43] Roughly 80 inches. Oh, so it's not a small one. That's a good size. Yeah. And it's got a gas engine of some sort on it. Nice. Excellent.

[00:33:53] Magneto, then, or is he going to be going with the ignition?

[00:33:55] I don't know. I'm not familiar with this particular engine. I didn't do the research on it too much.

[00:34:00] Did you say it's a DLE?

[00:34:02] No. Oh, okay. It's… Just a second. You guys talk, and I'll be right back.

[00:34:06] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. I thought, I think he showed a picture. It's orange.

[00:34:12] So that much I know. It's red.

[00:34:16] Well, that's what I said. Red.

[00:34:21] Oh, man. RC, excuse me, RCGF-15. Oh.

[00:34:26] Oh, if it's RCGF, that'll be electronic ignition. Yep. I've got one of those. Yep. He had it, and then he decided it wasn't enough power for what he had it on, so I got it back.

[00:34:34] I like that.

[00:34:36] Yes, very orange-ish, except there's red and white.

[00:34:39] Well, yeah, there's red and white on it.

[00:34:42] Looks orange. No, I like it. That's a pretty good looking airplane. Sweet.

[00:34:45] So you're coming back with that, and you're coming back with the other airplane that…

[00:34:49] Yeah, we've said the Telemaster, perhaps.

[00:34:52] Yep.

[00:34:52] Big. And who knows what else? Huge. I might come back with something else.

[00:34:56] Oh, yeah?

[00:34:57] I've been looking at the Voodoo Mustangs that just came out. The UMX ones. Oh, that's so cool. Maybe. I hope you do. We'll have to see if he has them there.

[00:35:03] Well, right, but if he has them, I hope you can make that work, because that is freaking sweet.

[00:35:08] And the biggest problem, though, it's another battery. I know. It's another new type of battery. It's like a 3S200, I think.

[00:35:15] However, probably only need a couple of those, right? If it's a smart battery, that charger of yours will charge it in, like, 30 seconds or something like that.

[00:35:23] Yeah, but there's still freaking… What would that end up being, like, 30 bucks a battery? Well, I don't know. 20 or 30? Probably. We'll play it by ear. Yeah. If it doesn't happen this time, that's one I know I can buy later. Yeah. I mean, it's not like…

[00:35:34] It'll be available for a while.

[00:35:35] Yeah. At least a month until they stop selling them.

[00:35:38] Yeah. I was really excited about making that announcement on our live episode. Oh. About the Voodoo Mustangs. That it was coming… Yeah. Did you… You didn't. Did you? Yeah. I said it on the podcast.

[00:35:51] Oh, well, say it again, then.

[00:35:53] Well, so brand new from eFlight. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Purple Mustang. The Voodoo Mustang. The, Formula One or not Formula One. The Unlimited, the Reno Unlimited Mustang. Yeah.

[00:36:04] Mm-hmm. Really cool. And these will run, I think, on 3S batteries also. And supposedly, they're very, very fast.

[00:36:12] Very fast, yes.

[00:36:14] Is it 3? Yeah, because you can get either 2S or 3S, I think. I hope I'm not wrong.

[00:36:19] Why would you put a 2S in it?

[00:36:21] Because then it would fly like the original Mustang, the original UMX. Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:24] That's just silly.

[00:36:25] So this is just a re-release of that with new electronics and different paint scheme. And this one takes the bigger battery to go faster.

[00:36:32] And they said it's very fast. Yes. It looks fast in their promotional videos.

[00:36:36] I'm excited. I can't imagine because that A10 is fast. It really is. So for what it is. Yeah. That little UMX A10 is quicker than…

[00:36:44] So yeah, I hope you come home from Brian's with a Voodoo Mustang and a Telemaster. We'll see.

[00:36:49] That would be a good trip.

[00:36:50] It would.

[00:36:52] And that's about, by the way, my money limit. So at least for this month.

[00:36:57] Four more this year and you're done, right? That's what Reggie says. He's going to buy four more airplanes this year. He's got four more to pick up this year and then he's done.

[00:37:04] It's the year's early.

[00:37:05] Whatever. He said that on the Discord.

[00:37:08] Oh, did he? Well, yeah. I didn't pay… Whatever. I missed a couple of them. So yeah, that's kind of cool. He's going to buy some more. Hopefully I'll buy some more and then I'll see. I'll see if we can get Dave to come home with another one.

[00:37:22] Yeah.

[00:37:22] He needs one for himself. I mean, you're going all the way up there.

[00:37:26] I was just thinking, my spreadsheet, I have one more I still have to fly. What? The Vamana.

[00:37:35] Oh, you built a plane. That's right. I forgot all about that. Wow.

[00:37:38] So yeah, I built a, I built an airplane in secret.

[00:37:42] Without? Well, I guess without me knowing would be in secret. Why, why did you do that? I didn't tell anybody.

[00:37:46] Like why? Like I didn't tell anybody. I told Dave.

[00:37:49] I didn't tell anybody I told Dave. Well, no, wait a minute. It was probably 80% when I told you.

[00:37:56] Why? I don't know. I just thought it'd be fun to build it in secret and then like spring it on you and be like, surprise, look what I did. Well, it worked. Yeah, you were surprised.

[00:38:06] When I got out to the field that day, which it was, what was the matter with it? Why didn't you fly it? It was a little too windy. Oh, that's what I'm saying. You're making my point. But anyway, there was this airplane out there. I'm like, oh, this is a cool looking glider. Who the, whose is this? It's in my way. and I'm looking down the line.

[00:38:24] That's why it got your attention because it was in your way.

[00:38:26] Well, no, it was a nice looking airplane too. But I'm looking down the line like, why would, okay. So I know whose planes are where and how it's lined up. I'm like, who would just leave this down here? And then my mind starts going. I'm like, Tommy's wanted a, a powered glider. No, he would have told me. He didn't tell me.

[00:38:45] No, I didn't.

[00:38:46] So tell us a little bit about it. Why, where, how, when?

[00:38:49] So I was, you're right. I wanted a powered glider of my own because you're, H E, H G. I can, I never get it right. What is it?

[00:38:58] Helium is actually what it's called. H G M or H E M G two.

[00:39:02] Thank you. But helium is, that thing is a blast. It is. I really enjoy flying your glider, but I feel guilty flying your glider because then when I'm flying it, you can't be flying it. So anyway, I know that's, it's all in my head. I get it. Yeah. You don't care. I know. but anyway, I wanted one of my own. So you're right. so I was looking around for kits and those Stevens arrow kits are not cheap. No. Especially for the bigger ones.

[00:39:26] If you, you get into the a hundred plus range there, the kits are 300, nearly 300 bucks. So, a little more than I want to spend, but they're good kits. They are absolutely. And they're great flying airplanes.

[00:39:40] Yeah.

[00:39:40] Just more than I was prepared to spend it. Yeah. So about the time I was kind of doing that research, this company, just, it's so weird how Facebook and Google and all that works. Right.

[00:39:53] Facebook listens to you.

[00:39:54] Yeah, for sure. Because I had been doing some Google searching on, powered gliders or, Stevens arrow gliders or, whatever. And then the very next time I'm on Facebook, which is just a few minutes later, probably across my Facebook feed comes this blue sky air models ad. And it's a, it's a company in Brazil. He, I say companies from what I can tell, it's one guy, his name is Al, which is common by the way. Most of these. Right. Yeah.

[00:40:27] But he's, he's, he's actually cranking out a lot of, he's got six different, anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm really excited about it. so anyway, this, this ad pops across my, Facebook feed. It's a, like I said, it's blue sky air models and they're from Brazil. He's from Brazil and the price was very, very reasonable. Even with, with shipping all the way from Brazil to get this kit to my house, I think I paid total 170 bucks.

[00:40:55] And how big of a plane is this?

[00:40:57] So it's 102 inches, two wing panels. it's a, there was a term for it, throttle elevator rudder. They call them something, right? Not a res.

[00:41:10] Yeah, no, I'm trying to think because tell.

[00:41:13] No, whatever it is, it's a three channel. So it has a, has an electric motor, so it has a throttle and then elevator rudder, no ailerons, no spoilers, none of that.

[00:41:22] And so it's a two piece wing though? It's a two piece wing. Yeah. Really?

[00:41:25] So it's got a, it has a, so it has two, at the center section, it has two dowels that hold the alignment and then one large on the plan is called a bayonet, but it's a, it's an aluminum rod that acts as a wing joint or tube and they slide together like that. And then they actually, when they come together, it forms a kind of a nub on the front that fits into the form of the fuselage.

[00:41:49] And then one screw with a, or I'm sorry, two screws with a, a plate for the rear. And that's how it's all held together.

[00:41:55] Nice. Yeah. Super easy to put together at the field.

[00:41:57] And of course I had to put lights in it.

[00:42:00] Yeah. You did a good job on that. Well, thank you very much.

[00:42:02] I'm quite proud of it.

[00:42:04] The only thing, like you asked me about those and it's been, it's been what, six weeks ago,

[00:42:09] Maybe, maybe more. Oh yeah. It's been a while ago.

[00:42:12] So I asked you about wiring them up and how do you power yours? Yeah. I didn't think anything of it. Yeah.

[00:42:19] I was trying to be really, really sly cause I didn't want you to like key in on what I was doing cause it was supposed to be a secret.

[00:42:25] Wow.

[00:42:26] So anyway, yeah, it's got, it's got lights in the wings. I put, I embedded LED strips in the fuselage and it's quite bright.

[00:42:34] And that looks pretty cool. Like you did a good job getting that all nicely done and rounded for the lights to fit in.

[00:42:40] And so, yeah, I took pictures of every step of the build process and eventually, we'll get them, we'll get them on our, on our website.

[00:42:48] Yeah. Oh, I've got a phone call and we're done. but yeah, no, actually the pictures are already uploaded, but you're going to have to go through, we'll sit down sometime, we'll have some time and go through and yeah, you can put all your captions on that. I don't know what that's supposed to be.

[00:43:06] So there you go. The pictures are on there and you can see sort of how I embedded the LEDs in the fuselage and how I had to wire them. and it really wasn't difficult, just time consuming.

[00:43:16] Oh yeah. That's just two wires.

[00:43:17] A little bit of soldering.

[00:43:19] Well, it was a lot of soldering if I'm honest. Cause I, you cut them.

[00:43:22] Well, you had to, I couldn't, I didn't want to weaken the rib structure by running them underneath the ribs by the spars. So I just, yeah, cut them and put them in every other rib bay, which actually looks really cool.

[00:43:34] Yeah. I see. I don't know what it's going to look like at night yet because I haven't seen it when it's dark. I've had it on at night and it's good enough to fly. Oh my gosh. It's bright. Did you do anything on the wing tips to change the color? So you could see? No.

[00:43:46] I, I, so I wanted to fly it. I wanted to actually fly it a couple of weeks before we were all at the field together, but you got sick. And then there was another reason we didn't fly. It may, may have been weather, but I was kind of in a hurry to get it done. Cause I wanted to get it finished so that I could fly it.

[00:44:05] Yeah. so I didn't do that. That's too bad.

[00:44:08] But I'm, that would be, I mean, there's nothing, yeah, there's nothing to say that I can't go back and cut a piece of covering off and put a nice little square of green and red.

[00:44:15] And the other thing that would be just as easy to do, by the way, is buy red and green led strips like that and just do like the outer two panels.

[00:44:24] Oh yeah. Oh, that's a great idea. Something we could have talked about had I known you were doing it. That's okay.

[00:44:30] No, that's pretty cool though. I'm, I'm.

[00:44:31] Well, we'll do that for our next project.

[00:44:33] Okay. We're going to that now.

[00:44:35] Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:44:35] No, that's great. Okay. No, no. So we have a project coming up for this winter we have decided on, and we're going to try and talk Dave into doing one with us. Yeah, I think so. So let's, let's take a step back because we are recording this not in the order that it's going to come out. Right. Right. So we have already recorded our last episode, which will be our next episode coming out. And in that episode, we talked to Terry Dunn. That's not confusing at all.

[00:45:05] What?

[00:45:06] Just suffice it to say, we were talking to Terry Dunn and he was one that when we started talking about the shiny after I bought that in Toledo, he emailed us and told us that the airplane that that was, I don't want to say modeled after, but is really close to is called an electro streak produced by great planes back in the day, way back when. And yes, that looks a lot like the shiny. It does. Except it has a rudder. It does. Which I like that idea better.

[00:45:37] Because that's my one complaint about that airplane. Although you really don't need it.

[00:45:41] Not really. That, that airplane is so rock solid. It flies great without the rudder.

[00:45:46] But I use it more than, like I use a rudder more than I would expect. Yeah. When you don't have it.

[00:45:51] Thanks to Dave. I fly a lot rudder these days.

[00:45:55] Yeah. I find myself, even my airplanes without rudders, I find myself moving the stick. Yeah.

[00:46:00] Yeah. And that's. Dave used to yell at me. I say yell at me. He didn't yell at me, but he used to comment whenever I was taught. He would chide you? Because I used to hardly ever. Like once I was off the ground, I would, it was aileron and elevator because that's how I was taught. Yeah.

[00:46:13] Way back. So was I.

[00:46:15] But yeah, Dave would frequently comment, hey, Tom, why don't you coordinate your turns? What does that mean? I'm like, coordinate my turns. What do you. So then, yeah, he said, use your rudder. And by golly, if he's not right, it doesn't. Like I would make a turn and it always looked like I was dragging the tail through the turn. Well, it's because I wasn't coordinating. I wasn't using rudder. Anyway. Thanks, Dave.

[00:46:34] Yeah. And different airplanes do it differently. Yes. Right. So it's more pronounced in some than others. But back to what I was saying, so, so Terry is the one that told us about the Electro Streak. We talk very little bit about it in the next episode that's coming out. Right. And I think we talked about it in the episode. I don't remember if it was before or after. We did. Okay.

[00:46:56] So I think we say something about, well, maybe we should do something or build something or you should, well, whatever. But we have now decided that is going to be our winter project. We are both. Alongside. Hopefully all three of us will be building.

[00:47:10] Lots of stairs.

[00:47:11] Yeah. We're staring him down. But anyway, hopefully all three of us will be building an Electro Streak and making that our night flyer airplane. Yeah. Originally, like you were so excited, Tommy, when you texted me that today.

[00:47:26] I was.

[00:47:26] And I was like. Well, I still am. I was like, well, this is perfect because I have actually, I had thought about doing that, but I, it wasn't on my list, anywhere near the top.

[00:47:35] It wasn't high up there.

[00:47:35] Yeah. Because I really, I think I want to retire the shiny. That's sad. It is. But here's, I have a couple of reasons. Okay. First reason, don't fly airplanes you don't want to lose. I really don't want to lose that airplane. Like, I like that airplane a lot.

[00:47:52] And you can't get them. Like, they're.

[00:47:54] Right.

[00:47:54] Literally, there's none out there.

[00:47:56] Yeah. If there was another 10 of them listed on eBay that you could pick up to replace it, no problem. That would be completely different.

[00:48:02] Yeah.

[00:48:02] But since there's not, I don't have a way to replace it. Second thing, the covering is starting to kind of, like the color is coming off. It was a printed covering. Yeah. It had that tribal design on it. Yeah. And that's kind of starting to go away. So, I don't want to mess it up more just by using it. Right. Let alone crashing it, if something stupid happened.

[00:48:28] Nope. I totally get it.

[00:48:29] So, I'm cool with building another one just like that.

[00:48:31] Neat.

[00:48:32] And I haven't decided what I want to do yet. I have a couple options with the shiny. Because Crystal, when I told her I was going to retire that one, she was actually a little upset. Yeah.

[00:48:40] She did not take that very well.

[00:48:44] Excuse me. That is her favorite airplane. I'm fighting costs this whole time. But anyway, that's like her favorite airplane that I've ever had. She loves the color. She loves the lights and all that kind of stuff.

[00:48:52] That's, to be honest, it's one of my favorite also.

[00:48:54] And it's so weird because when I saw it, like I almost didn't buy it. It was just one of those. You thought it was ugly.

[00:49:01] Actually, I did walk past it and go, oh, God, that's ugly. The tribal thing does nothing for me.

[00:49:07] But it grows on me. Like the more I saw it, the more I kind of liked it. And I was like, okay, how much? And couldn't say no. Yeah. And then when you turn the lights on is when it really shines. Oh, I see what you did there. It shines. Yeah. Because it's a tribal design.

[00:49:25] Yeah.

[00:49:27] But what I think I might do with that is either hang it up downstairs in my basement or in Piper's room. I haven't decided which yet. Hmm. And use it as a nightlight for her or hook it up to my, I don't want to call them mood lights, but my LED lights that I have down here.

[00:49:42] Yeah.

[00:49:42] So that it goes on when I turn the light switches on. I think that would be cool. Very neat.

[00:49:46] Mm-hmm. That would be an awfully bright nightlight. I'm just saying.

[00:49:49] Well, you can dim it down.

[00:49:51] Oh, that's true. Because it does give off a lot of light.

[00:49:54] Power with five volts or something like that. And try to see what happens.

[00:49:57] But anyway.

[00:49:58] That'd be neat.

[00:49:59] So winter build. Yeah, yeah. Electrostreak. Yeah. We're going to do it.

[00:50:03] Because I feel like I cut you off. You were starting to… No, I'm just really excited. Oh, okay. So Dave, are you in?

[00:50:09] Because it's going to be an easy airplane to build. Really. Even if we were…

[00:50:13] It should be.

[00:50:13] Even if we were completely doing it all by hand, it's still not a particularly difficult

[00:50:20] Airplane to build. Yeah. I'll… We can laser cut the ribs and stuff and that'll make it a lot easier. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:50:26] And the former's maybe too.

[00:50:27] Yeah. I think that's… Is that supposed to be light ply?

[00:50:31] Some of them are. Okay. If you look at it, weight was a huge premium back then because we were using NICADs for the battery for the motor. For some reason. And then you also had a… Car motor. Yeah. You also had a 4.8 volt pack in there to power the radio because they were separate back then. Yeah. So weight was a premium. So we can be a little more generous with the construction. So some of the stuff I wouldn't mind beefing up a little bit, like the wing spars.

[00:51:03] We could go with bass or bass. Yeah.

[00:51:09] And it calls for…

[00:51:09] As opposed to the hard balsa that they call for on the plan.

[00:51:12] And it calls for a 16th inch balsa for the spars. We might… Ribs. Ribs. Oh my God. I always do that. It's okay. The wing ribs are supposed to be 16th inch.

[00:51:21] Which is pretty thin.

[00:51:22] It is. And if we're wanting to put servos in the wings, we might want to up that at least in the center.

[00:51:28] For sure. Yep.

[00:51:30] Dave? Sure. You're going to do it?

[00:51:32] Dave's in.

[00:51:33] Yes. Who else can we get? Would Daniel want to build one? Maybe. Ask him.

[00:51:39] We'll find out.

[00:51:40] What about you guys that are listening? If anybody is still listening to this episode and you guys want to do an electro streak, maybe we could do like a group build thing or something.

[00:51:50] That's a good idea.

[00:51:51] It was actually your idea. That's why it was a good idea. Exactly.

[00:51:56] No, but that would be something kind of fun to do, actually.

[00:51:58] I think it would be very fun to do. See if anybody wants to build it.

[00:52:00] If so, maybe we can actually make use of our forums that we don't use anymore. Hey, there you go.

[00:52:05] And we can post progress pics there. We can do an electro streak thread on our forums. I like it.

[00:52:10] I have not been to that in months. I haven't either. We have let it die.

[00:52:14] Well, the Discord has taken off, though. It's taken off. It has. We use that a lot more.

[00:52:19] I do. That was nice.

[00:52:20] Well, you had to get one in, so I had to get one in. I didn't. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. But no, that's a great idea. That's what you just said. Great idea. Great, great idea.

[00:52:31] And so when you texted me about the electro streak today, I was on Outer Zone, because that's where they have the plans for it.

[00:52:38] Wait a minute. You were on Outer Zone when I texted you? You were already looking on Outer Zone?

[00:52:43] After you texted me about doing it. Oh, I was going to say, wow, that was a weird. I got on. Okay, I got you. All right. And so I went through like 2,500 of the plans they had on there.

[00:52:53] You looked at 2,500 sets of plans?

[00:52:56] Well, the pictures. And I scrolled through. That's still a lot.

[00:52:59] Trying to find your winter project, right?

[00:53:01] It was a dead day at work. But anyway, I'm actually proud of myself. Of all the airplanes that I looked at, I have a short list. Okay. Now, granted, this isn't, I would build every one, but a short list to look at again of like 22 airplanes. That's your short list?

[00:53:18] To look at again. Okay.

[00:53:21] I mean, like, obviously not build 22, but I'm saying there's 22 that I would have some interest at looking at again to see if I want to build it.

[00:53:29] Okay. Can you name them off the top of your head? No.

[00:53:33] There was one.

[00:53:34] Was the Electrostreak one of them?

[00:53:35] Well, after we talked about it. Oh, dang it. There was one that I saw that I do remember what it was called. It was called the eel. Like the eel? Like the fish? Yeah. Or a snake? Or what is it?

[00:53:47] It's a fish. Okay. Well, it looks like a snake.

[00:53:50] But I like airplanes that are a little bit different, obviously. And this is one that instead of having the normal tail that comes up at the end, it's built into the whole airplane. And so… Kind of like a taub? No. So it's an elongated, flattened fuselage. Well, the fuselage is still normal, but it has the tail section.

[00:54:13] And by normal, Ron signaled with his hand, round.

[00:54:17] Oh, rounded.. But anyway, so it has a long rudder type thing that goes on the top, right? Not rudder, but a long fin that goes along the top. And then the rudder is the very back that goes back and forth. And it kind of looks like a eel the way it's rounded and stuff. And I don't know why. That one kind of stood out to me. Balsa? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't think Arizona has plans for anything else. Have you seen the Flying Superman?

[00:54:42] You've seen these, right?

[00:54:43] Yes. I like those.

[00:54:44] That is awesome. We should build those someday. Maybe. Maybe you should put your face on it. It looks really simple. A Flying Tommy. Simple enough.

[00:54:52] That'd be kind of funny, actually. That would be.

[00:54:54] But the videos I've seen of it, it's really hilarious.

[00:54:58] Yeah.

[00:54:58] Because when he flies, his legs are like the… Anyway.

[00:55:02] No, I agree. I've seen a lot of those. And they've been… They've piqued my interest also. But anyway.

[00:55:12] Yeah. So if anybody's looking for a winter build, I would recommend building an Electrostreak with us. Yeah. Or while simultaneously we're building one.

[00:55:21] I don't know how it would work yet. Email us and let us know if you're interested. And then we'll kind of worry about setting stuff up. If not, we're doing it on our own.

[00:55:27] Which is fine also.

[00:55:28] As long as we build them.

[00:55:29] That's cool with me. I mean, I've already got like… I mean, I've already got the color scheme picked out and how I want to cover it. And I've got it all figured out. See, I haven't gone that far at all.

[00:55:39] I always go back onto the base of… Well, okay. How do I have to build this now? So my thoughts are getting the ribs traced. Oh, yeah, yeah. Getting the formers traced and all that stuff to get it right.

[00:55:50] You should show me how you do that so I can help you.

[00:55:54] Okay.

[00:55:55] One of these days. I'll bring my laptop over here and you can load whatever software, whatever.

[00:55:59] Okay.

[00:56:00] And show me how to do it and then I can help you instead of you doing all the work.

[00:56:04] I'm not going to say no to that. Yeah. It's easy.

[00:56:07] Next time I come out, I'll bring my laptop and you can do that.

[00:56:09] Okay, cool. Oh, the other thing I saw that was coming out that I might actually think about getting, I don't know yet, actually. Okay. Does that make sense?

[00:56:19] Yeah.

[00:56:20] Real Flight is coming out with new flight sim.

[00:56:22] Oh.

[00:56:23] Like an updated one. The one I have, like, is old. Yeah. I still fly with Phoenix, what is it, four point, I don't remember what it is even. At least you still fly one.

[00:56:37] Like, I haven't fired up a simulator in years.

[00:56:40] Well, in the wintertime it's good and Piper actually gets on every now and then and is trying to use it. So, it would be, like, I can imagine in the last eight or nine years they probably have gotten a little bit better. I mean. I would say so. There's not a lot of great physics built into the one that I fly. Like, it's one of those to where if you're going straight in the line, it does not move.

[00:57:02] Like, in real life, there's going to be a little turbulence, there's going to be a little bounce. This is just like a rocket. So, I would like to see if this one actually has a little bit more.

[00:57:12] I couldn't even tell you which one I have, to be honest. It's been such a long time since I've even looked at it. I know it's a real flight, and I know I got it at the Habesha, well, I got it at Hammers when it was Hammers. so, God, was that Real Flight 3, maybe? Maybe, yeah. So, there you go. That's how old mine is.

[00:57:30] Mine's Dave Brown.

[00:57:32] Dave Brown. I remember that one.

[00:57:34] I don't remember that one. Got it at Toledo.

[00:57:36] But listen, at the time.

[00:57:38] It's on a floppy disk. That was.

[00:57:40] Oh, okay. At the time, man, that was the bee's knees. Well, it probably was. But this one is Real Flight Evolution. Whoops. And it comes out October 28th.

[00:57:50] Okay.

[00:57:51] We'll see. It's a hundred bucks.

[00:57:52] So, does it come with a transmitter, or can we use our…

[00:57:55] For two hundred bucks, it comes with the USB transmitter. Oh. For a hundred bucks, it comes with… And, so, I guess there's no disk anymore. You have to use Steam. I think it's Steam. Steam. Okay. Which, I know Cody uses that, so I can ask him for help. I don't know how to use Steam. Yeah, I think my kids use it, too. I've heard of it. I guess that's where you download games and stuff. Oh. Okay. But that's kind of the same, whatever.

[00:58:17] So, do you have to use a USB transmitter, or can we use ours?

[00:58:22] I need to look into that. I know there's a way to use ours, but I don't know if that means you have to buy the little $50 Wi-Fi dongle thing. You said dongle. Or if you can just plug… Well, actually, do we have a 3.5mm jack on the iX12?

[00:58:36] There is a jack back there. I don't know what size it is.

[00:58:38] I wonder if you can use that.

[00:58:40] Because that's where the… Like, if you're using a trainer cord, that's where it plugs in.

[00:58:42] And the DX9 has a headphone jack, too. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. The 3.5mm.

[00:58:48] Yeah. Okay, so, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. See. We'll see. I'll have to look that up, and we'll talk about it. Okay. Sometime coming up.

[00:58:54] Yeah. When you buy it, you can talk about all the fun features it has.

[00:58:58] I need to get… Maybe I just need to go on Horizon's site and ask them what I would need to use an iX12 with that. That way, I don't have to do all the work. That's probably… Let them tell me, and then I can just order it and be done. Yeah. That's probably the better way to go, yeah.

[00:59:09] Cool.

[00:59:10] Is there anything else? More new toys. Yay! I know. And it's going to be nice for winter. When it is windy, we can still do a little bit of flying. So, anything else you guys want to talk about? Or can I turn this off and start coughing?

[00:59:22] I think that pretty much covers everything I wanted to talk about. Yeah. Good for me. I'm happy we got a real episode, and the new board is nice.

[00:59:31] Yeah. We will get back on this, and we'll get back to our normal releases every two weeks.

[00:59:36] Do you want to try to… I mean, we don't have to set a time, but I think we'd like to do the live thing again.

[00:59:41] You want to?

[00:59:42] I would like to try it again, yeah. Okay. With the call-ins. Live is fun.

[00:59:46] Yeah. I will try to figure out how to do it. Yeah. As long as you're not sick.

[00:59:50] Well, I can't guarantee anything. Obviously, I cannot be trusted to handle the board and, like, drive the conversation because I was terrible at it.

[00:59:57] We don't do well unsupervised. Exactly. Actually, what I want to do, I don't really like using the Podbean thing for going live. I would like to find a way, and I'm sure it's possible, to where we can take call-ins on our phone number, our 818-351-9846 number, and then go from there. That would be nice. We'll figure it out. Yep. Okay. Are we good? Yep. All right. Until next time, thanks, everybody, for listening. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave. Good night. Good night.

[01:00:26] Good night.

[01:00:27] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Planelab Podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give anything back, 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.