Ep 140: Reno, Remote ID Delay, Crashes, and the Streator Fly In

[00:00:11] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. And I'm Dave. Just the two of us tonight, and I'm going to be honest with you, I forgot we were supposed to record this week. So, everybody, thank Dave for us having an episode. Otherwise, we would have been incognito, been silent, been whatever, and had nothing going out this week. Have a live panic Friday night. Well, it would have happened.

[00:00:38] Like, normally I'm on top of these things, but for some reason, like, everything that's been going on has just gotten away from me. It's been a busy week. It's been a busy couple weeks. And I think it's thrown me, too, because we usually record it on weekends, like the last few times. Yeah, to get the Reggie situation going. Right.

[00:00:54] And so now we're back to during the week, and it just, like, the weekends have been busy, so I haven't thought about recording, and it just blew right over my mind. But we're here. But we're here. We've got a couple things to talk about. I don't know how long we're going to be here today because, well, I didn't have much time to prepare to be on last-minute things. But anyway, Dave, welcome back to my humble home.

[00:01:21] Thank you, sir.

[00:01:23] So, in honor of Tommy being gone, I wanted to talk about something that is kind of, I guess, maybe near and dear to him. I'm not sure compared to…

[00:01:33] I think he's much more fan than both of us are.

[00:01:36] Right. But last week was the final Reno Air Races. Apparently, they're looking for a new place to hold them in, from what Wikipedia says, because I know nothing more than Wikipedia told me. They're looking for a new place to hold them in 2025.

[00:01:55] Right. So, I guess 2024 is going to be a year off,

[00:01:57] Maybe giving them time to figure stuff out, and hopefully in 2025 they will be able to announce a new place to have them, as opposed to Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, which I guess has been there for almost 70 years. It's been there a long time. Long time. They ended on a very sad note this year. They had two airplanes crash and kill the pilots upon landing, when they were trying to land. Yeah, it wasn't during the race. No.

[00:02:27] So, I mean, that's apparently part of air racing, because it happens semi-often.

[00:02:35] Yeah. Unfortunately, they tear up a bunch of heavy iron.

[00:02:38] I wish Tommy was here to fill in all the blanks, because that's about all I know about them. Right. Like, when you look at some of the things on Wikipedia, a lot of the names that I don't associate with real things, like real airplanes, are real airplanes that people have modeled airplanes off of. Yeah.

[00:02:56] Yeah.

[00:02:57] Strega. There's a few other ones, and I don't remember what else. Oh, my God.

[00:03:03] Apparently, it was during the gold T6 race, so there's a couple less Texans in the world.

[00:03:09] Do you remember what crashed at Oshkosh?

[00:03:12] Texan.

[00:03:12] Was that a Texan, too? Yeah, that's what I thought. That's not a good time to be a Texan pilot. So let me see here. What's next? I mean, do you have anything else on that? I don't have anything.

[00:03:27] I've been so busy this week, I knew there was a crash, but I didn't even really know anything about it.

[00:03:32] Well, I'm sure we're just having people just glued to their earpieces trying to listen to what we're going to talk about next. So next up, I guess one of the good things about waiting so late to record is that today, which is the day before this is going out, eFlight announced they are re-releasing the Viper 70mm EDF jet.

[00:03:54] An updated version.

[00:03:56] So they have changed a couple things on it. It's got beefier landing gear with softer tires.

[00:04:01] That's going to be a big improvement because I did notice that on the one I have that it's pretty stiff gear and low-quality tires.

[00:04:08] Yeah, so hopefully this will be nicer. And it looks like it has the oleo struts on it, so they're going to have a little bit of give to them.

[00:04:13] Should handle rough field much better.

[00:04:15] Or just landings in general. They should look a little nicer when you touch down. Man. Having a little bit of shock absorber. Not quite so pogo-y. Right. Then also they updated the electronics. Which? Which is normal. I mean, everything they have now has got the… AS3X and telemetry. Yeah. Flaps still, electric retracts. What I like, though, new color scheme. The new color scheme is pretty sharp. Looks good. It's got some orange in it.

[00:04:45] Somebody there must like orange because the MB339 has a lot of orange on it. But the price did not go up. Exactly the same. $349.99. Which actually makes me think about getting one of these. Like, the only thing that's stopping me at this point is I don't have a battery. Yeah, me neither. I've got the plane. No battery. See, well, you have the plane. You're a step out of I am. But had I had that right size battery… Because those are over $100 for a battery.

[00:05:14] 25% of the cost of the airplane.

[00:05:16] I was looking like $60, $75 for a battery. I was going to borrow one from Reggie and see how this thing is before.

[00:05:23] Well, you should do that before fall hits. Yeah, we're not in fall yet.

[00:05:27] But before…

[00:05:28] No, are we? And we're close. I was going to say, maybe that's this weekend anyway. Time is getting away from me.

[00:05:34] Time change is coming up here real soon.

[00:05:36] That's in November, right? I thought that was first November. We have some stuff coming up. We still have Halloween and all that stuff. But anyway, E-Flight came out with a new airplane. It's pretty cool. It's one that I might actually think about getting.

[00:05:51] We'll see how the fall and winter goes.

[00:05:55] Yeah.

[00:05:55] It'd be nice if it was grass field capable. That would be…

[00:05:58] Yeah, I don't know how those are. I've never flown one of them.

[00:06:02] Well, we'll find out when I get a battery. I would think you'd be okay. I've flown 70mm off grass before. It should work. Because there's nothing extra in it. It's pretty light.

[00:06:12] Yeah. Good flying airplanes, from what I hear.

[00:06:15] Yeah. Okay. Kind of L-39 looking. It's due for a paint job in my book.

[00:06:20] You don't like the new paint?

[00:06:22] No, I like the new one. Just the older one that I've got. Yeah, it's going to get an L-39 paint job.

[00:06:29] Nothing wrong with that. Because, I can't leave anything alone. I know. You don't like to do that very much. I prefer to just leave stuff and not spend the extra time on it.

[00:06:38] And I can make it gray to make time even. Yeah. Completely gray to where you can't see top or bottom or anything. Yeah.

[00:06:46] Okay. Well, we also have some good news. Well, is it good? I don't know if it's good news. It's good news. Good news. So, the FAA has pushed out remote ID, six-month extension. So, according to the FAA, drone pilots who are unable to comply with the broadcast requirement of the remote ID rule will now have until March 16, 2024, to equip their aircraft. Pretty much all that's saying is we're just giving you another six months to get everything.

[00:07:20] Yeah, it got pushed out a year. Now, they're pushing out another six months.

[00:07:23] So, I've heard they've been having issues with the FAA actually getting all the free as approved.

[00:07:30] Yeah, I'm sure they're swamped with them.

[00:07:31] Well, they should be. But, they should just approve more a lot easier and be done with it. And then, also, remote ID modules are still not available. Like, I ordered mine from Horizon. And I know Horizon, if you want to, you can go out and look on Spectrum's website and on Facebook. They kind of had a little announcement about it. But, they were having some issues, I guess, with the website through the FAA.

[00:07:57] So, they are no longer, or they're not shipping the Sky ID modules out yet.

[00:08:03] Yeah, I knew there was some sort of problem with them. It's just that I think where you, because when you get it, each one has its own little

[00:08:09] ID number on it. And that number has to be registered with the FAA. Which makes sense. Otherwise, how do they know whose it is? Yeah, they have no idea. And I guess there's a problem with the FAA's website on. Gee, a federal government website with issues? Really? There's an issue with having that live. So, it's not working yet. And then they also said, once all goes live, there will be updates for our transmitters and stuff in order to properly use all the extra stuff.

[00:08:42] All the extra features that are available. That's coming on that. So, I guess, stay tuned, and we'll see what happens next. I don't know.

[00:08:49] I don't know. I see a lot of outlaw RC.

[00:08:54] Yeah, I mean, I don't know how to…

[00:08:59] There's going to be a bunch of 60 and 70-year-old men breaking federal laws, is what I see.

[00:09:03] Well, so here's the thing. Like, I fly at two sites that will most likely become free. I'm hoping… One's questionable. One is questionable. But I'm hoping, like, our home field will hopefully get pushed through. Because there's other fields that are flying in actual airports, too. Right. So, there has to be some sort of… What's what I'm looking for?

[00:09:27] Some sort of exemption or some sort of rule to where they can all work together nicely.

[00:09:31] I mean, the airport we fly at is… Technically, it's an airport. It's a grass strip. It's a privately owned grass strip. Uncontrolled airport. That is… I mean, there's not a lot of traffic. No. I mean, how often do you think they take off and land on that? Maybe… A couple times a month. Yeah. If that. I mean, when we're out there in the evenings and stuff, where you think a lot of people would be flying, there's no movement. I mean, every now and then you hear…

[00:09:57] Every now and then you hear an ultralight running. Right. But they never take off, so I guess they just play with their motors a lot.

[00:10:02] So, I don't know. I mean, the life flight is close, and I can see that being an issue.

[00:10:07] Yeah.

[00:10:07] And they're there for fuel, and then they're gone. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like they stay there a long time either. So, I mean, it's… Holmes Airport is where we fly. Sanguine County… Or no, Sanguine Valley RC Flyers. And we'll… I mean, I guess we'll just see. Like, I haven't heard any updates or anything on whether or not we've been denied, approved, or anything like that.

[00:10:28] Yeah, we haven't heard peep one about anything. Okay.

[00:10:32] And so, I'm assuming then that it's not approved, which would make sense, but I don't know, like, if it was sent back and denied. Or not even sent in. Or still just waiting on the first round.

[00:10:46] You can hold Lee and find out. Might need to.

[00:10:49] And then Eli Field, the same way, they have not gotten anything back, yay or nay. It's still just in limbo. Which… Yep.

[00:10:58] What are you going to do? These things take time. It's the federal government. It moves its… Be the government.

[00:11:02] Which is very slow. But from what I understand, like, the remote ID module, there's nothing to it. Like, for the basic requirements, it just broadcasts that number. And just anybody that's listening or wants to see who's flying would have to have something open.

[00:11:25] They'd have to be able to figure out what that number is.

[00:11:27] Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not… I don't know. I'm not an expert on it, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be that big of a deal. Even if you're complying completely with the rules. Like, I'm not all that concerned about it. I don't like the extra money that we have to spend for it, but I think we're going to have enough added benefits to where…

[00:11:49] I mean, it kind of seems to me like the remote ID requirement is going to become second nature once it's built into all the different planes and stuff.

[00:11:58] It's going to be built into the drones is what it's going to be built into.

[00:12:01] Yeah, and it's not going to be that big of a deal.

[00:12:03] We're just casualties.

[00:12:05] Yeah, exactly. Like, to me, the sky is not falling yet. Like, I'm not concerned about this at all. Should I be? Maybe. I don't know. Are you?

[00:12:13] They don't have enough people to enforce it. It's not bothering me.

[00:12:17] So, I think that tells us where you land on that. But anyway, so yeah, six months extension. We'll talk about it as it gets closer, or we won't, and it'll just go into effect, and we'll all be fine anyway. We'll get through it. I'm hoping it's not killing the hobby. It shouldn't be…

[00:12:31] The sky was falling in back in the 90s when they made everything go narrow band with the FCC. So, we got through that. We'll get through this.

[00:12:38] Yeah, I think it's kind of one of those things that there's always an issue to fight, but it's not yet been the hill I want to die on. Does that make sense? Like, I mean, things change. Everything changes, and it doesn't seem to be getting that much worse to me.

[00:12:57] You used to have an FCC license to fly. You had to pass your basic ham radio license. I didn't know that, really. Yeah.

[00:13:06] Well, see, things are better then.

[00:13:08] Yeah, it got better. At least in that regard. Oh, anything else you want to say on that? Like I said, where I stand, so.

[00:13:18] Well, like I said, I got mine in order. I actually am interested to play with it, see how it works. I don't think the sky is falling. I think we'll all be happy. We'll move on. We'll be good.

[00:13:28] I will probably grab one at some point to have in my inventory. That way, if we go do a demo or somewhere, we can do it legally.

[00:13:35] Yeah.

[00:13:36] But, yeah, that's not happening.

[00:13:38] I'd order it now when it's $70 as opposed to $100. I'm waiting until it's $30. You'll probably be waiting a long time. I don't think it's going to be going, well, at least the Spectrum one is not, I don't think, going to be going down past $70.

[00:13:51] No, but there'll be ones out there that are just base models stripped down basic requirements to meet the law. And those, I'm sure, will be down there. Yeah, a lot cheaper.

[00:14:03] Okay, so do we want to talk about what we did already or what's coming up? Let's do what's coming up.

[00:14:08] Let's do what's coming up, yeah.

[00:14:10] So this weekend at Eli Field is the scale event, but actually I guess it depends. So when this comes out tomorrow, which is Friday, is the second day of the flying event, and then Saturday is the final day. If you listen to this early enough, come on out and join us. If not, well, I hope we had a good time. I hope you do. I hope I have a good time. I forgot you're not going. So that's pretty much it. We can't report on anything we don't know about. Not yet.

[00:14:39] But like I said, I'm taking time off of work tomorrow going over there. But I've got to get everything ready. Like I don't have that much that's scale. Like that was the other thing that like really concerned me. Scale event sounds cool. And then you're like, what do I have that's scale? Like I don't fly a lot of scale stuff. Come shop in Dave's Garage. Oh, but I don't fly other people's airplanes either. So that becomes problematic. I can take a credit card. Can you now?

[00:15:07] So I think the only things I'm taking is I've got, yeah, I think the only two airplanes I'm taking is I've got that Carbon Z Yak, which is just the foamy yak. And then the probably the, what is that? One point two meter. Oh, it's right there. What is that? The.

[00:15:31] All I'm seeing is your Sky Master.

[00:15:33] No, the otter. Oh, the twin otter. Twin otter. I don't have my glasses on because I can't read up close with my glasses on yet. I can't see without them.

[00:15:42] Yeah. I'm due for a new set of glasses.

[00:15:44] Last weekend about killed me.

[00:15:46] Sucks getting old.

[00:15:48] See, I'm just going to be taking those two. I think it'll just be a fun little laid back event. There's no pressure for anything. Just a bunch of guys getting together and flying toy airplanes.

[00:15:57] Yeah. That sounds great. Looking forward to it. I'm just behind stuff at home. I got to stay home this weekend.

[00:16:03] Oh, I'm behind at stuff or on stuff at home too, but that's getting put off for another week because after this, I think I'm pretty much done for the year because I don't think there's any flying events really that I know of. No. Meetings are now being moved into indoors because of time and darkness and cold.

[00:16:24] Yeah. You'll be looking at the New Year's Day flies before soon, before it.

[00:16:28] Yeah.

[00:16:30] Time definitely gets away from you. But, let's talk about last weekend. We had a little bit of fun. We went up to Streeter for their fly-in. Great fly-in. This is a yearly thing and this is the first time that I actually have stayed with you and Daniel in your camper.

[00:16:47] Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to sleep with Fred.

[00:16:51] Yeah. So, you had your dog up there. Daniel had his dog up there. Stella, right? Stella, yeah. And if I woke up once, I woke up 10 times during the night to having dogs licking me in the face.

[00:17:02] Wonderful.

[00:17:02] It had to be Stella because Fred doesn't do that. No, it was definitely Stella. But, no, it was a good time. So, I went up Friday after work. You guys were a little bit behind me. I got an hour start before you did. So, I was an hour ahead of you before or when I left. And you guys ended up showing up about three hours after I did.

[00:17:22] Yeah, yeah. It was a great weekend for the event. It was not a great weekend for me.

[00:17:29] Well, this is kind of of your own doing. Like, I don't want to put the blame on anything. But you, okay. So, you had a flat tire on the way there.

[00:17:36] Yeah. I got eight miles from the event. My trailer blows a tire. So, you were pushing your luck. You knew the tires were bad. You were hoping to get through the end of the year, right? Actually, the tires are in good shape. They're not checked. They're not cracked. But they are timed out. I've had the trailer for six years and they were on it when I bought it.

[00:17:53] Okay.

[00:17:53] So, they're timed out. But they are not dry rotted. They're not cracked. Oh. But apparently, the tread falls off. That's not funny.

[00:18:05] It's a little bit. Well, I, so I started to, okay, hold on. I started to get concerned. I got a little excited and got ahead of myself. I started to get concerned because it's, like, almost dark. And, okay, so when I got up there, as I was pulling in, you guys obviously weren't there yet. It was still, I don't remember what, almost six o'clock, a little bit before six o'clock when I got there.

[00:18:29] And as I was pulling in and, getting out, Brian was leaving and said, hey, we're all going up to dinner up in, in Leonor. Come with us. So, I ended up going up there with them and stuff. And we had dinner and all that kind of stuff. And then went through the hobby shop because it was open late. So, I was going through trying to find some stuff that I wanted to buy.

[00:18:49] Which, by the way, I didn't buy anything. I noticed that.

[00:18:52] That was weird. Like, I fully intended on doing it, but I just didn't.

[00:18:55] Brian's lost his touch about pulling your wallet.

[00:18:58] He'll be getting some soon. But, anyway, so after that, I loitered around there for a while and hung out and stuff. And then went back to the flying field because it was dark by that time.

[00:19:08] Yeah, and I called you from Bloomington, which is a little over an hour away.

[00:19:11] Right, which I was still at dinner. I was still at Brian's shop, I think, or something when I talked to you. You're in Leonor. I don't know where you were. Right. Right, so I knew, like, about how long it would be until you got there. And that time passed. By the time I was back out of the field, that time passed. And then I was like, hold on, I was just Bloomington. That should have been, 45 minutes or so from here. And it's been an hour and 15 or so.

[00:19:36] So I tried to call you. Nothing. Like, it just rang and went to voicemail. Because I left my phone in the truck. So then I called Daniel, and he didn't answer. Then I'm like, oh.

[00:19:47] Because it comes up odd.

[00:19:50] Yeah, so I forgot about that. Many, many years ago, so I'm a Verizon customer. Many years ago, this has been probably 15 years ago. So they had a thing where apparently, and I forgot all about this, you can change what it said when you call somebody. And I didn't want my name popping up to all the people I called, so I just changed it to a call for you. I mean, this goes all the way back to when we had the hobby shop here in town. Right.

[00:20:17] Because they would bring that up to me that whenever it came up, that's what their caller ID said. So it's been how long that's been. I mean, like I said, it's been quite a while. And anyway, so he didn't answer it because apparently he didn't have any programmed into his phone. So then I texted you. Or no, I'm sorry. I called my wife and talked to her for probably 10 or 15 minutes. Then I texted you. Nothing. Then I texted Daniel. Nothing.

[00:20:41] So I'm really starting to get concerned. And then finally, Daniel called and said, hey, we had a flat tire. Because I'm sitting there thinking, okay, so they should be here like easily by now. Why can I not get a hold of either one of them?

[00:20:53] And that was my bad for leaving the phone in the truck. Thanks for ghosting me. Brad didn't answer. I'm sorry. Well, you should teach him better. You should train him. He already retrieves airplane parts. Yeah, in pieces. But anyway, so you guys finally made it after I found out you had a flat tire. And my worrying was completely alleviated. Alleviated. And I was fine. We were on the road enough to get the burnt rubber smell out of the trailer. Which I was appreciative of that.

[00:21:22] So you didn't want to put your airplanes together that night because it was late and it was dark. Which, understood.

[00:21:30] Tired, covered in grease.

[00:21:31] Latest I'd been up for a while. It was 10.30 by the time we decided to go to sleep. Something like that. Yeah. And I was tired by then. So I was out fairly quickly for a little while. But no, it was a lot of fun. And it was very nice out. Yeah, it was excellent. I'm going to be honest. I was not planning on staying previously because I thought it was going to be hot.

[00:22:00] Right.

[00:22:01] And so, I am not. I'm high maintenance. So I don't handle the heat very well. But when I found out it was supposed to be down to, what, 51 that night?

[00:22:11] Right. We didn't even open the windows on the trailer. We were golden.

[00:22:15] I mean, it was beautiful. I was proud of myself remembering to bring a jacket. Yeah. So that could have been bad.

[00:22:22] I checked with you to make sure you had one.

[00:22:24] Because I thought, well, he forgot his jacket. Yeah. Checked with me after I was there, by the way.

[00:22:28] I had two of them in the trailer.

[00:22:30] Oh, okay. Well, I didn't need one. But I was, like I said, I was a big boy on that one.

[00:22:34] So mommy would have been proud.

[00:22:37] So then the next morning you decided to get up and start putting your airplanes together so you could fly.

[00:22:41] Yeah.

[00:22:44] You have taught me, just by watching you, that my decision of not having difficult-to-assemble airplanes is just the most correct decision I have ever made in my life.

[00:23:00] It's part of the enjoyment. It's not that bad when it's like that. It's bad when it's 90 degrees outside and you're having to sit there and sweat and put all this together. But you didn't seem like you were having a lot of fun.

[00:23:14] The PUP is not my favorite. Let me put it that way. So explain what this airplane is and what you have to do to put it together.

[00:23:20] It's a quarter-scale Stopwith PUP. It's also USA. By today's standards, it's pretty minor. But it's got a lot of flying wires. So you have to sort out all the flying wires and then put in the screws to hold the brackets in place. And this is only a biplane. This is only a biplane. And it takes a while to untangle everything because no matter how careful you put it away, it's like Christmas lights. They're going to tangle themselves up.

[00:23:52] And there's always a turnbuckle that's come loose at some point and it's no longer an adjustment and you have to readjust your turnbuckles and so forth. The plane's a pain in the butt to put together.

[00:24:02] Yeah. It's a gorgeous airplane.

[00:24:04] Yeah, it's a nice airplane. It's a pain in the butt to put together.

[00:24:08] Yeah. So you got that done.

[00:24:11] And then what else did you bring? Because you brought four. I had the triplane. I had the PUP. I had the Skywarden. And what was the fourth one? Eindecker.

[00:24:24] Oh, that's right. Nice looking airplane.

[00:24:28] The Eindecker is just with flying wires. They're non-functional and they're just on clevises. It's not a big deal to put that one together.

[00:24:37] The, yeah. Like I said, just watching you deal with all those wires and stuff, just, I mean, it was giving me a headache. So I can't imagine sitting there trying to get all that stuff together and figuring out what goes where. You just, you look like you're not having a lot of fun.

[00:24:53] I may not look like I was having fun, but I wasn't upset either. When you build it, you kind of know where everything goes. If I were to sell the PUP to someone and say, here, put it together, they're not going to figure it out.

[00:25:06] Well, that's kind of how I was. Because I was watching you trying to figure like, okay, so next he's probably going to do this. And I was completely wrong every time I tried to predict that.

[00:25:13] I always forget which order the wings go on. So? It's bottom wing first on that one. Okay. And then the triplane, it's the top wings.

[00:25:26] So what's the triplane? What is that one? What do you got?

[00:25:29] That is a quarter scale Balsa USA DR1 triplane. And that one goes together fairly quickly. That one goes together much quicker because Anthony Falker didn't like bracing wires. So there are no flying wires on that airplane that I have to remove. There's a set on the landing gear and there's a set in between the upper and mid wings, but they are permanently attached. you don't ever mess with them.

[00:25:52] So that, I mean, that one looked like it went together much easier than the PUP did.

[00:25:57] Yeah.

[00:25:57] That one does go, it's three times faster than the PUP. You were hour and a half?

[00:26:04] Hour and a half with three airplanes.

[00:26:06] Four airplanes.

[00:26:07] Oh, three with struts.

[00:26:09] Okay. But to get all of them together, you're about an hour and a half.

[00:26:12] Yeah. That just seems like a lot. That came apart in about 20 minutes.

[00:26:19] Apart is always easier, obviously, because you're not worried exactly with where things go and tightening them up. Right. You just coil up cables and get them out of the way. So what did you think of the flying up there? There are some gorgeous aircraft up there. Yeah. Your planes look big until you get around them.

[00:26:34] My airplanes look like tiny little toys.

[00:26:37] Well, they are all tiny little toys, I guess. But…

[00:26:40] They're much bigger toys.

[00:26:43] Like, I was impressed with some of the planes up there. I really was. Yeah. There's some super, super nice aircraft up there. John was up there with his Brandenburg again. Yeah, Brandenburg. That was… That's my favorite airplane. That just flies so slow. It just looks… It looks so… And by the way, I don't know if you noticed, he had that together and a lot quicker than you had yours together.

[00:27:04] Well, it was together when I got there, so…

[00:27:07] Hmm.

[00:27:08] Yeah, I'm sure. Just saying. I'm just saying that I'm not that good.

[00:27:12] Oh, I don't know if it's… Well, he is good. Because, I mean, watching him fly, he does a good job. We should have sat down. Like, I took my recording. The weekend got away from me. I took the recording gear, because I thought maybe we'll have a time to sit down and, even talk to people there. Right. I failed. So badly did I fail.

[00:27:31] Well, to be fair… To be fair. We only had about two hours, because this was a Thursday, Friday, Saturday event. It started raining at 10.30, and by noon, it was raining. Yeah.

[00:27:44] I guess that's right. I forgot about that.

[00:27:45] So, I mean, we only had a couple hours, really, at the event.

[00:27:51] And then I had to get going sooner than I wanted to, because, like, Reggie was supposed to come up. First thing in the morning, I'm coming up.

[00:28:00] First thing in the morning for Reggie was 6.30 that night.

[00:28:03] Yeah. That's when he showed up. Ask him. It's not his fault. Never is. So, I didn't even get to see him. Like, I was kind of hanging out, waiting for him. He was bringing a couple airplanes up to fly, and I was going to spend some time, figuring, when he says first thing in the morning, like, to me, first thing in the morning is, I will be there by 8.30. 9 o'clock latest. Right. So, leave here by 6 to 6.30 in the morning. No.

[00:28:32] He apparently left at, like, 4 in the afternoon. So, like I said, I didn't get to see him. I don't know what he actually brought. I think he said a B-70. He brought his B-24 and his B-17. And how did that go?

[00:28:44] B-24 actually flew fine. He broke the landing gear on it because he came in a little crooked, and they don't like the one wheel. True. So, it broke the bracket on that. He repaired that on the field and was good to go. And then we were trying to fly our B-17 with bigger-than-average batteries, and we can't balance it because it's nose-heavy with these giant batteries in it. So, he can't get it off the ground because it keeps nosing over.

[00:29:10] Okay.

[00:29:11] Because it's very nose-heavy. So, mister doesn't check CG. It's G. Okay.

[00:29:17] Well, because he said he flew it once or something.

[00:29:19] Hey, at least it's nose-heavy this time.

[00:29:21] Yeah. But I thought he said he flew it once and it was okay, but then he couldn't get it off the ground the second time or something.

[00:29:26] Yeah, I was busy flying while he was messing with that, so. Okay. Good old Reggie.

[00:29:32] Mr. CG. So, yeah, like I said, by the time he got there, I was gone. I didn't have a chance to talk to him, see him, anything like that, so whatever. Yeah. He's supposed to be coming over to Monticello this weekend.

[00:29:46] Yeah.

[00:29:46] I am not holding my breath, but we'll see. He's going to join. He said he's going to join that club. I think he should. That would be a good club for him to join. especially if he's thinking about getting a jet. Yeah, definitely. So, we'll see. so, yeah, like I said, I came home Saturday. You guys stayed till Sunday. And…

[00:30:07] We were hoping to fly Sunday morning, but consistent rain. Blowing.

[00:30:12] Yeah.

[00:30:13] So, came home and got 20 miles from home and blew another tire.

[00:30:19] Oh, at least you were smart enough to get your spare, not spare, whatever, your bad tire that was blown on the way up there, you got it replaced before you came home. Replaced it.

[00:30:30] No one up there had a new trailer tire, so we got a used trailer tire. But, I mean, it's working, right? It's round and it's got tread on it, unlike the one that's in the bed of the truck right now.

[00:30:43] Not going thump, thump, thump everywhere and getting it messed up.

[00:30:46] Yeah, actually, the one that blew on the way home, it literally just blew the tread off and was still holding air. So, were those retreads or something then? Like, what? No, they're not retreads. I just don't know why all of a sudden they're deciding to shed the treads. But this time it actually wrapped around the trailer axle. I got 90% of it back. Oh, man. Well.

[00:31:05] But it was sitting there, but without the tread in it, holding the air in, with 50 pounds in the tire, it kind of blew up. So, we were letting air out of it to keep it from exploding in the truck. I can imagine. So, we drove about four miles on the breakdown lane to get to the next exit.

[00:31:22] Oh. Well, yeah, you don't want to do that on the interstate. I don't blame you. Yeah. That's kind of a pain. So, you'll get that all done this winter.

[00:31:29] We will have new tires, wheels, and, yeah, I think I'm just going to buy a brand new spare.

[00:31:36] Yeah. It's a good idea. Get everything all done this winter so that next weekend for Joe Knoll we can be.

[00:31:41] Good to go.

[00:31:43] I'm looking forward to that one.

[00:31:46] I think I'll even, I think I'll keep one of the new used spare, I think I'll keep it as a second backup, just in case.

[00:31:55] Not a bad idea. Especially if you have room for it. It's not going to hurt anything. Yeah.

[00:31:59] One stores underneath the trailer. That was part of the problem is the one that goes underneath the trailer. You can only turn the jack handle a quarter turn at a time. Then you have to reset it. So, it takes forever to drop the tire.

[00:32:09] Yeah.

[00:32:10] That's going to get reworked.

[00:32:11] It's a good idea. Hopefully, you'll never have to use it again, but it'll be good to have it there if you need it. Yep. So, I think the last thing that I have that I want to talk about, I don't know if you have anything else. Well, we talked about maybe winterizing things.

[00:32:25] Okay.

[00:32:25] So, I'll get to my thing. Then you can talk about winterizing things a little bit. So, I crashed. You did. I did. It's not bad. It sounds worse than it is. But my slow ultra stick, which was becoming quickly my favorite airplane. I consider this peer pressure. Like, I don't. Peer pressure by a five-year-old. She's six. But anyway, so, it's completely my fault. I understand. Like, it was me. But I don't accept responsibility. No, I'm kidding. So, okay.

[00:32:55] We finally had a break in the wind because this past week has been very windy. It's been a little breezy. 25-ish mile an hour winds around here. So, I come home last night, Wednesday night, and I pretty much realize as I pull into the garage, the trees are not moving. This is not normal for this week. So, I decided to get my slow ultra stick out. I hurried up, got batteries charged because I didn't have anything charged.

[00:33:24] Took 15 minutes to get two batteries charged, and I threw the other two on the charger after that. Got everything together, went outside, and started to fly. Whoops. I've done that several times today. Started to fly. Everything went well. Was having fun with it. And then, normally when I fly my UMX stuff outside, so, we have like a field, and then we have like the rest of our yard, I guess is how I could describe it. So, an area that…

[00:33:51] You have a pasture and a yard. Yeah.

[00:33:52] So, the pasture, I've not really cut. I mean, I've run the bush hog over a month or so ago. So, grass is, let's say, 18 inches tall.

[00:34:02] It's rather deep.

[00:34:04] Exactly. So, but it's not anything you're going to run through. It's not anything you're going to play on. It's not anything you're going to use, really, at this point. So, the rest of our yard is mowed short, like inch and a half tall, whatever. And, when I have my UMX planes out, I will fly just over that smaller area, and Piper will run along with them.

[00:34:24] Or, she will get her little power wheels out and drive that, and then, I'll just kind of buzz her a few times or something like that. So, with a slow ultra stick, she asked me, fly over here so I can run with it. I think she wanted to race it or something, because she's like, see how slow I can get it and see if she can run faster than it. So, I said, no, I don't want to fly it into a tree.

[00:34:48] And, I didn't get that out more than, five seconds, and I was like, oh, I'm not going to say no. That's fine. I'll do it. So, I came around, and I, like, I know this is a bigger plane, so the depth perception is going to be different on this plane that's, three, four times bigger wingspan than the small, tiny little UMX stuff that I fly out there.

[00:35:10] And so, I went, and I flew, and I knew I was in front of a row of trees that, between our house and our neighbor's house, and I came in what I thought was in front of the apple tree that's in our yard, and all of a sudden, it disappears behind the tree, hits the top of the tree, and then tumbles out, about a good 20 feet in the air, tumbles out onto the ground. And, Piper looked at me. I kind of giggled a little bit, because it really was not that big of a deal.

[00:35:48] And, just, you could tell she didn't know how to react until I gave her a sort of, it's okay kind of thing.

[00:35:55] These things happen.

[00:35:56] Exactly. So, she ran over there, and I, of course, I blamed her. I told her it was all her fault and stuff.

[00:36:02] Excellent parenting.

[00:36:04] She knew I was joking. Like, I explained it really wasn't her fault. I joke around like that. So, anyway, so we went over and looked at it and stuff, and, like, it landed on its tail. Directly on its tail.

[00:36:17] Sort of like my glider dig. It came straight down on the tail.

[00:36:20] Right. Except I still had a full, like, my plane was together before it fell out of the air. Didn't have the wings folded or anything. That was the one you're talking about, right?

[00:36:29] That's, well, yeah. When it landed on its tail is when the nose flew off.

[00:36:33] That's right.

[00:36:34] That wasn't when it folded.

[00:36:35] You have so many crashes. I can't get my straight.

[00:36:37] Yeah. When it folded the wings, it turned into a little ball. That was a long dart. Right.

[00:36:44] But, anyway, so we went out there. It landed right on its tail. And I will admit, I was impressed with how unbroken it was.

[00:36:52] Yeah, it looks great sitting in your garage, except for the tail's pointing 90 degrees.

[00:36:55] Right, so the little joiner that holds the two pieces of aluminum angle together, or square tubing, I guess, together, is broken, which is not a big deal. I mean, that's an easy fix. It's just a replacement part. And then the battery holder came off, like, because it landed. It hit the tail and then rotated down onto its gear. Slammed down on the gear.

[00:37:17] Slammed down pretty hard. Yeah.

[00:37:18] And, honestly, that could have broken in the tree, too. I don't know. Like, I don't know how and when. I don't know where it happened. Right. So that, and it's just a little white piece of plastic that gets Velcroed on. That split in half, which is actually probably fixable, but I'm just going to order a new one. So I have those two pieces. The propeller broke, which is definitely from flying into the tree. So that's the only three things, really, that happened to it.

[00:37:47] If I really wanted to get, well, I don't have the propeller, but if I really wanted to just kind of tape it back together, it would be easy to do without replacement parts. Put a stick in the channel and Velcro strap the battery on and off you go. See, like, I don't plan on doing this again, but nobody ever does. My thought was, I mean, these are cheap parts, like, four bucks a piece. Like, I think if I replace everything out that I broke, I'm under 12 bucks.

[00:38:14] Yeah.

[00:38:14] So it's not a stupid, expensive crash. Looks worse than it is, like I said, because the tail is completely off. But, like, I thought about just, like, going in Menards or whatever, Lowe's or whatever else is around, to see if they just have a full length piece of that aluminum channel or the tubing, because that would be so easy just to replace the whole thing. but then I thought, if that happened again, which shouldn't, but might, I would want it to break where it broke.

[00:38:52] What I mean? You've got to have a weak point built into it somewhere. Right. And so if that's where it breaks again, that's perfect, because it doesn't mess up the tail feathers.

[00:39:00] Yeah, they look great.

[00:39:01] I mean, you can't tell it was in a tree. The front of the airplane, the wings, all that kind of stuff, except for the propeller, it's fine. So that was my stupidity, but it will get fixed. It'll get flown again. That plane is too easy just to take outside and fly to not fix it.

[00:39:19] Right.

[00:39:19] That make sense?

[00:39:20] Right.

[00:39:20] I mean, like, there are some of them. If I crash, I'll be like, oh, I'm done. I don't care about it. But that is just such a good flying, fun little airplane that I don't want to do.

[00:39:27] It's your pocket rocket that you just go to. It's so simple.

[00:39:31] It really is. So.

[00:39:34] We have another crash story. So Daniel bought his new plane at Streeter. Little UMX Ultrix. Yeah, I didn't. Oh, no.

[00:39:44] I didn't hear anything about this one. So, yeah.

[00:39:48] Saving this one for later.

[00:39:52] So. Well, hold on. Let's tell the whole story. So we were up there. This is during one of our rain delays. We went to Brian's shop, and he was looking at either the UMX Ultrix or the 600 millimeter Ultrix. We kind of talked through which one he was going to get. Because he was asking me, he's like, which one do you like better? It's so hard to say because they're both fun airplanes.

[00:40:16] I tend to gravitate to the smaller one just because it's smaller and easier to pack around. I agree with that. I like the way. And the box has a handle.

[00:40:24] Well, my big box has a handle now, too.

[00:40:26] Well, so does mine.

[00:40:27] So I kind of gravitate towards the big one because, well, I'm trying to think. So I have four batteries that will go in the big one. They all charge fast, so that doesn't matter to me. The only thing I do like about the small ones better is that the little 1S150s that it takes, or not 1, 1S500s that it takes, I can charge at the field, at the local field here where we don't have power, just off one of the little battery banks that you use to recharge your phone. Yeah.

[00:40:57] That makes it very simple. But, I mean, they both fly so good. The big one just flies a little bit differently. It handles the wind a little bit better. Yeah. I don't want to say it flies better because it doesn't fly better, but it flies differently, and I like it better. They fly pretty similar in my book. But it's a little less maneuverable than the small one is.

[00:41:20] I like flying the little ones real low and slow right at night.

[00:41:25] Yeah, I like seeing how fast you can dive to the ground and pull out. But anyway, so he ended up going with the UMX version. He bought the light kit. All right. And two batteries, I think it was. That's all we could find up at the shop.

[00:41:45] But anyway, so…

[00:41:46] That's all you need is two. So when I left, he hadn't flown it yet.

[00:41:53] So we had a little bit of a… Do tell. A little more rain delay. Sat down, and I programmed the radio for him, and he charged the battery, and it was pretty much ready to go. I took it off, did the trim flights on it, made sure everything worked properly. Went to hand it to him. He has it for less than five seconds. When I'm handing it to him, he decides to flip the motor hold switch and turns the motor off. Oh, no. So he flies it for less than five seconds.

[00:42:22] The ever-so-known sound of what one sounds like going into the ground.

[00:42:27] Broke a prop.

[00:42:28] Well, it should have come with a replacement.

[00:42:29] He got a replacement prop. We put a new prop on it, and he flew it just fine.

[00:42:32] Oh, good.

[00:42:33] And he is absolutely amazed how maneuverable the thing is. When it first took off, he, of course, he flies everything full throttle. I tried to break him up, and he still flies everything full throttle.

[00:42:44] That's one that doesn't need to be flown.

[00:42:45] You fly that thing at full throttle, it's darting around like a little mosquito.

[00:42:49] Yeah.

[00:42:50] I got him to slow it down, and he was just flabbergasted at how maneuverable and how small a space he can fly it in.

[00:42:55] Right, yeah.

[00:42:56] So he has since got the lights installed on it. Good. And we're good to go again. Any damage at all to the… Just a propeller. Foam?

[00:43:05] Okay.

[00:43:06] Nope.

[00:43:06] Good.

[00:43:07] Just a propeller. I'm glad to hear that. I think it hit flat. If we had thought about it, if he had just let go of the sticks, the gyro on it would have flattened it out anyway. But he was brand new to it and was fighting with it.

[00:43:19] Yeah. And that happens. I mean, I don't know how… Well, I mean, like, just when you land. I mean, that's kind of the same thing that you're talking about. It doesn't have gear, so you're going to come on the belly, and you have to be careful, I guess, to not break a prop. Yeah, you just got to pancake it in. Yeah.

[00:43:36] Well, because it does look like a pancake.

[00:43:38] Well, and see, that's the other thing that's nice about the bigger one. It does have that front gear. It's not a steerable nose wheel, but with a differential thrust, you can still taxi it. It's amazing.

[00:43:49] It does taxi fairly well. Yeah. And it's got the little rollers in the back.

[00:43:52] Yeah. Not really wheels. You're right. There are more rollers than anything. But it's a good airplane, too. Yeah. I have a feeling he'll probably end up with that one also.

[00:44:01] Yeah. Well, five seconds in.

[00:44:05] I heard click and his radio say something. I was like, -oh. So when you hand it over to him, he probably, with his right. His right hand.

[00:44:14] Probably. Yeah, because he has the motor hold switch on, or safety switch on the right.

[00:44:18] Yep. That's where mine is, too. So, well, at least he learned, and we won't do that again. I'm glad he likes it, though. I forgot he got that one. So, good for him. We had some fun with that. He's now part of the class. I think we all have one now.

[00:44:32] We all have one. Yeah. I've got a big one and a small one. You've got a big one and a small one. Tommy has a small one. Reggie has a small one.

[00:44:40] And Daniel has a small one. Sorry.

[00:44:44] Oh, God. This goes down the gutter so fast.

[00:44:48] Anyway, I never get to say that any other time. Yeah. So, I mean, they're fun airplanes. And I think there was one time we caught it, the big one, which is usually $199. I think Horizon had them on sale once for $169 last summer. No, it would have been the spring, perhaps.

[00:45:09] Yeah. I got mine on sale. Gosh. What did I pay for mine? It was like $159 or something like that.

[00:45:17] That's what it was. Yeah. Because they're $200 new, right? $199?

[00:45:20] Yeah.

[00:45:21] Okay. Yeah.

[00:45:22] Yeah. Mine was on sale when I bought it. Otherwise, I probably would have bought the small one to start with.

[00:45:27] Yeah. Like I said, they're just, they're good airplanes. I enjoy them.

[00:45:31] Just knock about it. You don't worry about them. If you smack it in the ground, you smack it in the ground. I found it.

[00:45:37] Yep. Been there, done that. So, well, good for him. I'm glad he got that. And I'm hoping he'll enjoy the other flying with it. We'll have to all get them together. Oh, that's going to get confusing. Yeah, well, that's okay. We'll take them all to Joe and all and fly them all together.

[00:45:54] Yeah. I'm sure it'll go.

[00:45:57] Plenty of room for it. A whole stack of pizza boxes. No doubt. Medium pizzas at that. Oh, all right. Well, are we, what else?

[00:46:06] Well, we were just going to talk about putting stuff away for the winter. That's right. It's that time of year again.

[00:46:11] I cut you off on that, don't I? I'm sorry.

[00:46:12] Yeah, I brought it up, though.

[00:46:15] It is about winter time.

[00:46:16] We need to talk about some sort of public service at some point.

[00:46:19] We're waiting until time gets back, because I, yeah.

[00:46:22] So, yeah, it's that time of year you kind of have to start putting stuff away. Do you put stuff away, or are you just?

[00:46:27] My stuff is mostly always put away. And I don't mean, like, stored well. Well, I mean, like, in an area where it won't damage itself if it sits.

[00:46:38] So, just put away for the winter. I mean, we fly year-round-ish.

[00:46:42] I mean, we, depending on what the actual temperature gets. I forgot you weenie out on everything. I do, because I get cold. But, like, normally, well, I did buy, I think, did I tell you, or did, whatever. I got one of those.

[00:46:59] You got one of the fancy socks?

[00:47:00] Yeah, pretty much. I guess that's all it is. You're right. But the winterized thing that you put your transmitter in, and you put your arms in to keep your hands. Those are nice when the wind's blowing. So, I've never used one before. So, I'll have to try it on a cheap airplane that I don't necessarily care about doinking if something happens. Old tricks. Probably. That's exactly the one that I was thinking of when I said that.

[00:47:21] Just to see what it's like, because this one, where did I get it? I think I got it at one of the swap meets. I think I paid, like, 10 or 15 bucks for it.

[00:47:29] There's some really nice-looking wool-lined ones out there.

[00:47:34] Yeah. I don't remember exactly what this is or where it is, to be honest, right now. I'm going to have to go look for it. But it's got the little window on top, so you can see what's going on. It's got the antenna hole out the back, so you can stick your antenna through it and not mess with signal. Yeah. I don't know where I was going with that whole story, or what we were even…

[00:47:52] Anyway, we fly during the winter.

[00:47:53] Fly during the winter. There we go. Thanks for bringing it home.

[00:47:55] So, anyway, we do fly during the winter. But, there's certain things, like the pup. I'm not going to freeze my fingers putting that thing together. No. And so, they get winterized and put away for the winter.

[00:48:06] Well, some of the nitro ones get more difficult, too, also.

[00:48:08] They can be a little cranky. I think they're a little…

[00:48:11] It's a little cantankerous.

[00:48:11] I mean, I probably won't touch anything fuel-powered starting next month on.

[00:48:17] Yeah.

[00:48:18] So, that stuff gets put away. My stuff sits outside in an unheated, un-air-conditioned garage, not climate-controlled. And my stuff's been out there for 30 years.

[00:48:27] Yeah.

[00:48:28] I have a little bit of mass damage to the tire. Apparently, they have, like, T28 tires. But, other than that, I've never really had any problems with leaving stuff outside. I always make sure, though, I go out and I, when I try to remember, go out and collect all the receiver batteries. I don't like leaving the receiver batteries outside. All the nickel-metal hydride ones? Nickel-metal hydrides, yeah. I don't know. It's just the thing I've got.

[00:48:51] They're probably just fine because, I mean, we keep batteries in the refrigerator. What difference does it, if they're out in a 40-degree garage?

[00:48:58] Well, but during the winter, it will freeze. Yeah. And you're not, I mean, none of them really are good to be frozen.

[00:49:04] So, anyway, I try to go out and gather those up. And I always make sure, if anything that's been flown recently, I'll take and pull the plugs and throw oil in the motor and so forth. Just, and then kind of make a mental note of each of them going through any damage that occurred during the summer. It's like, man, I got a flying wire that snapped on that one. Or landing gear's a little loose on that one.

[00:49:27] Make those little notes and then try to get those repaired throughout the winter. And it's just that time of year to start putting our toys away. That makes me sad.

[00:49:37] Well, and because there's a lot of them that I haven't gotten to fly this year that I've wanted to. Like, I've got the, just looking over here at the Carden Yak, the Hangar 9 Carden Yak. So, that is ready to go. Like, I literally went through that in the spring, I think. Replaced all the fuel lines. just did everything to where I know it's good now. Because I got that off of Tommy last year, I think. It's ready to play. I hope it was just last year.

[00:50:02] But I had to put a new receiver in it with a power expander board and all that kind of stuff. So, everything is set up and ready to go. It's all been programmed. It's ready. I've just been lazy, I guess. I don't know what you would call it. But I just haven't had a chance to do anything. Well, and now, I guess, the more I think about it.

[00:50:18] So, I didn't have a vehicle. Yeah, you didn't have a vehicle big enough for that.

[00:50:22] Really, to take that anywhere. So, now that I do, I guess that will make it easier.

[00:50:29] Yeah.

[00:50:30] So, yeah.

[00:50:31] I forgot. I bought another Expedition. A trustworthy Expedition now to where I can go.

[00:50:36] Yeah, I show up over here starting to look like an Expedition lot. We have, when you're here, we have three. Yeah.

[00:50:41] But that's okay. One of mine is good, and one of mine is a spare, just in case another car.

[00:50:49] I had the exact same model spare back in the day.

[00:50:52] I like it. I mean, like, I…

[00:50:54] Of all my Expeditions, I like that one the best.

[00:50:57] So, the one we're talking about is a 2000, 2000, yeah, 2000 Expedition, I don't know much about them. XLT. So, and that's a good running car, except it's got the exhaust leak, so it's embarrassing to drive.

[00:51:10] And it's rusted out like they all do.

[00:51:12] And it is complete… Like, I'm scared to get in and out of it that I'm going to give myself tetanus or something.

[00:51:16] Yeah, the first gen's rotted something horrible. But mechanically, it's still okay. It's just one I don't necessarily want to be seen driving. I'm driving around with a big chunk of paint missing off the hood of the Mustang right now, so… Well, that's all right.

[00:51:30] My other Expedition now has that, too. So, what is that one? It's a 2011 that I just got. So, it's… I don't know, trim levels. What is it? Do?

[00:51:39] I think that one's… That one, I think, is a limited. Limited. It's got the retractable landing gear, right?

[00:51:44] Yeah. Yeah. It's got the running boards that come out and stuff. So, it's nice because I can fold the seats down and get pretty much anything I own right now into it. Yeah. So, I don't have to worry about that. I just have not had a chance to take it out to either of the fields yet to fly stuff. So, next year should be a good year for flying. Yeah, we get a lot done. And that was the other thing, sadly enough, that made me decide to buy that was whenever the jet gets in.

[00:52:11] You got to have something to haul that in. I had to have something to bring it home in.

[00:52:15] Like, I was getting sick and tired of, hey, Tommy, what are you doing? Hey, Dave, what are you doing? You want to run up to the Brian shop so I can go shopping? Like, finally, I'm self-sufficient and don't have to worry about it.

[00:52:27] So, I'm just sitting here getting sad about fall and putting stuff away. Then I get thinking about our listeners from Southern California and Texas.

[00:52:36] Yeah. At least we don't have to fight rattlesnakes around here. I would not be happy about that.

[00:52:42] I'm not a snake guy. Just get the year-round flying, man.

[00:52:44] That would be nice. But,.

[00:52:46] Then we got our Canadian friends that are already shut down. No, they're not. Actually, the weather looks pretty nice up there right now.

[00:52:53] It's funny, though, how you're right. Like, we're getting kind of mopey about the winter hitting and fall and the cold weather. But some people are coming out of it now. And they're going into their summer down in Australia. We got our Australian and New Zealand listeners. Yeah. They don't understand our plight because they're getting ready to go. But everything down there wants to kill them.

[00:53:13] That's true, too. And I don't like things that like to kill me other than my wife.

[00:53:19] But, no. So, is that all you do, then, is just kind of pull your batteries?

[00:53:23] I just pull the batteries and make notes of whatever needs minor repairs. sometimes you will pass over that little nick in the covering that it's fine. It's not going anywhere. But, hey, I got a little time for the winter. Let's get that patched up.

[00:53:39] Yeah. It's, I guess, good to have a little bit of downtime. I enjoy the building season slash flying season. I mean, it's good to kind of reset and make sure you go through things. Like, I really need to go make a list of airplanes to get rid of. I know I've said that before. But it's to the point where I need to room-wise.

[00:53:57] I have to. I cannot store an additional airplane.

[00:54:00] Yeah. Well, I mean, winter is coming, which means, for me, this basement area is going to become Christmas area. This is where we put up the tree and all that kind of stuff. That's not possible right now. No, there's a little tidying that needs to be done. There's a lot of airplanes that need to go away somewhere else. So, I guess I got more this year than I thought.

[00:54:27] Well, I don't have anything I'm working on currently except for Reggie projects. Oh, it's always a Reggie project. Yeah, I got to get this Mustang on my house. This thing's 150 size. It barely fits in my workroom. So, it's a big one. It's a big one.

[00:54:42] What's he got you doing on that?

[00:54:43] He's putting one of Brian's cockpit kits in it. It's a big project. You got to relocate all the servos and move everything around.

[00:54:51] Why doesn't he do anything like that?

[00:54:54] Hey, I need the money.

[00:54:56] Oh, okay. So, it's not just out of the goodness of my heart I'm doing this for you?

[00:55:02] Reggie pays for a lot of my swap meet money. Oh, well, good for him.

[00:55:07] Why doesn't he pay for my swap meet money? Oh, that's right, because I won't do anything for him. He, like, I understand that, but he needs to learn. Like, he needs to… He's doing a lot better. Is he? He actually fixed that landing gear on his own. You keep saying he's doing better, but I'm just… He really is.

[00:55:24] I don't blame him on this cockpit kit. I mean, it's a real fiddly… I hate working with vacuum form, and… Vacuum form sucks.

[00:55:32] Yeah, it's kind of… What's the word I'm looking for? It's wibbly-wobbly.

[00:55:37] Yeah, I mean… Until it's supported well. I've gotten good at working with it. I just hate working with it.

[00:55:42] Yeah.

[00:55:42] And so I don't blame him, so… And he wants it look good. We finally found a new canopy for it, so that's a big project off my book. I don't have to figure out how to repair this canopy.

[00:55:51] Well, that's good.

[00:55:52] Although I haven't opened the box to see if it fits, but we'll see.

[00:55:56] It's always something with him, that's for sure. Yeah. See if we can talk about him like that now, because he's not here.

[00:56:01] He's not here. He's in work,…

[00:56:03] Although I'd say the exact same things to his face, so… Yeah. Or whatever.

[00:56:08] He flew my paramotor up at Streeter several times. I taught him how to do touch and goes with it. Oh, nice. And I took like four tries, and he did all right.

[00:56:18] Did he ever get his together?

[00:56:20] No.

[00:56:21] Of course not. I'm sorry. Did you ever get his together?

[00:56:24] No.

[00:56:25] Oh. We'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah, you have winter to do it now.

[00:56:29] Seriously, a nice Sunday afternoon, and that thing will be ready to go. It's that easy to do.

[00:56:36] Yeah.

[00:56:36] Just assemble the little cart and program the radio.

[00:56:40] Yeah. I mean, it didn't look like it was going to be hard, but I know that he wasn't doing any of it, so…

[00:56:46] It'd be kind of fun to get two of them up there. I'm kind of…

[00:56:49] I need to push him along on that. You need to get better lights for it. I need better lights, yeah. The ones that we saw at Joe Null…

[00:56:55] My nav lights work for me, but the canopy lights don't.

[00:56:59] Yeah, so the ones at Joe Null were literally like night flyers, like pitch black. You could see where it was going, which way it was facing, and it looked really cool.

[00:57:06] Yeah, I have five pathetic white LEDs.

[00:57:09] Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking. You need like two really good white LEDs is fine. A big strip. Yeah. Oh, well. Anything else? Let me know. I didn't know if you were done with winterizing or not.

[00:57:23] No, that's pretty much all I do is go through my stuff, organize it, and of course your batteries, I have to take and cycle those throughout the winter sporadically.

[00:57:32] Your NIMH?

[00:57:33] Nickel metal hydrides, and I do that with my lipos, too. Just keep them exercised.

[00:57:38] Really?

[00:57:38] Now, the ones I fly on, the stuff I fly during the winter, I don't pay too much attention to, but there's a few special batteries I just fly on certain airplanes, and those don't get flown during the winter, and I'll make sure to exercise those a little bit. So, charge and then discharge, or? Yeah.

[00:57:53] That's a pain.

[00:57:55] Yeah. And I'm really bad about using the storage charge situation. I don't know. I just tend to charge everything up and throw them in the box, which is bad for them. I know. I know. I'm bad.

[00:58:09] So, I'm okay doing that with, like, the little one-cell batteries that are six bucks a piece, but the ones that are $125 a piece, I would like to take care of.

[00:58:17] I still get two, three years out of them easily, so I don't think it makes a huge difference. Every winter, it seems like I lose one or two batteries, and they're usually the older ones in the batch.

[00:58:28] Yeah.

[00:58:30] But anyway, I try to exercise them a little bit just to keep things moving.

[00:58:34] Well, that's good. You're a step ahead of me, because I pack them away and forget about them. So, but I do keep mine at storage charge, only because they automatically do that.

[00:58:42] All my bigger batteries are still on the bad air things, and that's nice.

[00:58:47] Yeah.

[00:58:47] I wasn't, I know a lot of people had trouble with the bad airs, but they were predominantly on the smaller batteries, and I typically don't use those on the smaller batteries anyway, because I just don't like the extra weight or size in the airplane.

[00:58:58] Yeah, and I get that. Like, I did lose a couple of the smaller ones, like 1300, 3S 1300s, and we talked about that before, and that's just, they do have a little bit of parasitic drain on them.

[00:59:11] Yep, and you just got to either play the game or pay for it. But I think once that, it's not as big of a deal. Yeah, it's like, oh, it's been a couple months, I need to pull it out and charge it.

[00:59:22] Yeah, so if you can make a mental note to actually keep that going and do it every two or three months, it'll be fine.

[00:59:29] Yeah.

[00:59:30] I mean, like, the small one I lost literally was one that I had never even flown. It was brand new, but it sat for about a year, and I mean, I didn't even look at it in that amount of time.

[00:59:41] My 4-cell in my flight box, that battery is puffy two days after I bought it.

[00:59:46] Yeah.

[00:59:47] But I leave that bad air on it all the time. I charge it once, maybe twice a year, depending on how much I'm using my starter.

[00:59:54] Yeah.

[00:59:54] No problems.

[00:59:56] Well, that's good. Okay, I think I've had enough. Have you had enough? I'm sick of you. Let's go. All right, well, thanks, everybody, for listening. Dave has to leave because he's sick of me. So until next time, I'm Ron. And I'm Dave. Good night. Night.

[01:00:11] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab 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.