Ep 158: RC Fest and the Ring of Fire

[00:00:02] Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring, bound by wild desire, I fell into a ring of fire, I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher, and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire, the ring of fire.

[00:00:51] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab Podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave.

[00:00:56] What's up, gentlemen? Hey, are you going to get in trouble if we're using that?

[00:00:59] No, actually, apparently it is so old that it is in the free domain. It's in Pelican, Maine already?

[00:01:05] Yeah.

[00:01:06] Well. Well, that's what the attribute thing said when I looked at it. I like Johnny Cash. Yeah, we'll find out.

[00:01:14] I don't know. Cease and desist email is coming shortly. We'll play stupid, I guess. I can play that very well. The ring of fire. Ring of fire.

[00:01:24] Apropos for today's episode. That is why I did it. Yes, I do.

[00:01:27] And we will talk about it in a little bit.

[00:01:28] Cool. But suffice it to say.

[00:01:31] Ron flew into the ring of fire.

[00:01:34] And I had a blast.

[00:01:34] And it was awesome. It was so much fun. Well, you wouldn't know you weren't there. Well, but I mean, I saw the video.

[00:01:40] Just saying. Nobody else showed up. Reggie didn't show up. He was supposed to show up both days. I never said I was going.

[00:01:46] No, you didn't. That's true. So. He did.

[00:01:49] He did. Even Friday when I talked to him. He does that sometimes. He said he was going.

[00:01:54] Yeah.

[00:01:55] Anyway.

[00:01:56] So what's up? A BMW project for me. A lawnmower project for me. There you go. That's what we've been working on. What have you been working on, Ron?

[00:02:05] You guys suck. Well, I've had a lawnmower project also. But I finished mine, cut grass, and did some RC. Nice.

[00:02:16] Yeah. Good for you. Well, I can't say I didn't do any RC. I mean, I guess I did do a little.

[00:02:22] And is that how you say it, by the way? Do RC? Play with RC? I didn't RC this weekend? I didn't RC'd. Did you RC'd? That sounds stupid.

[00:02:33] All right. Send your letters, too.

[00:02:35] Good. RC'd. I don't know. Yeah. I guess I played with an RC airplane a little bit this past couple weeks.

[00:02:42] Oh, good. Then we can talk about that sometime.

[00:02:44] I've had multiple projects going, but no progress. Well, I don't know. Pretty good progress. Well, that was done shortly after we got back from, I'm not going to say it.

[00:02:54] Say it.

[00:02:55] Do it.

[00:02:56] Do it.

[00:02:57] Joe Null. Joe Null. See, that made me smile. Me, too.

[00:03:00] Anyway. So, what Dave is talking about is the airplane that Tommy crashed.

[00:03:10] Go ahead.

[00:03:11] Is now fixed. Dave fixed it for you.

[00:03:13] Dave fixed my R. I was going to say RC. The F4 that met an untimely demise. I can't believe you did that. I know. Shame on me. Should we say what's going on?

[00:03:28] Yes, you probably should so people know. And, Dave, you need to talk a little bit closer into here.

[00:03:32] The foam Air Force F4 that Dave built for me. Many, many, many years ago, a couple of years ago, you tried to launch it for me, Ron. And, it was a terrible launch. Broke the launching handle. Broke the launching handle. Yeah. And, it broke the nose off. And, Dave has fixed it. It looks better, I think, than it did when it was new.

[00:03:55] I think it looks better than before it crashed, too.

[00:03:57] I mean, really. Well, I mean, it looks brand new. Before it crashed, it had a few bumps and bruises. But, it looks like new. Thanks. It looks fantastic. And, Dave will really, really enjoy flying it.

[00:04:10] Because, Tommy won't take it back.

[00:04:11] I will not. Why not? Well, because I told Dave, here, this is yours now.

[00:04:16] You handed him a piece of junk that he fixed to give back to you.

[00:04:20] He expressed interest in rebuilding it, so I gave it to him. Yes.

[00:04:25] I saw it laying there all sad in your basement.

[00:04:27] When I, or how I took that, how I took that was he wanted to fix it for you.

[00:04:33] Oh. Well, here's why I want Dave to have it. Number one, Dave's, well, I'm wanting to call it an RF4. It's not an RF4. It's an F4. Anyway, Dave's F4 flew terribly. The one that he built for himself many, many years ago. And, I always felt bad because the one he built for me flew so much better than his. So, now I want him to have this one so he can experience a really, really good flying F4.

[00:05:02] Well, it might not be a good flying F4 anymore. You don't know. I have no reason to believe that it, well, yeah, but it's been repaired by Dave.

[00:05:09] The wings and tail have not moved. It was just the nose and other miscellaneous odds and ends.

[00:05:14] Yeah, so there's no reason it shouldn't fly exactly the way it did.

[00:05:18] Do you still have your other one, Dave?

[00:05:19] No, I shredded it years ago. See? I have the canopy, a couple other parts that I ripped off of it and threw it in a box. So, the canopy and the pilots are in a box in my closet.

[00:05:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:31] So, it's easy to build a new one.

[00:05:34] Now, you don't need to. Now, I don't need to. You've already built a new one. See? That's why. And, also, I wanted more space in my basement.

[00:05:42] Oh. Yeah, because you've got to make room to keep the telemaster.

[00:05:45] And, now, that's coming back here, too. And, as soon as whenever I get to it, fix it. It is not. I don't have room. It can live in the shed, then. No, that's so mean.

[00:05:56] I can't store it.

[00:05:56] I have no room for this ginormous thing.

[00:05:57] You said you had plenty of room in your new open area room. Kicked this kid out and everything. I know. Actually, have you put any shelving stuff up on that or in there? I don't remember last time. See, you're saying no. That's your problem.

[00:06:12] But, there's still furniture and stuff in there that I have to work around. Yeah, but it can hang on the wall and stick out.

[00:06:19] If you did what I did in the garage in that room in your basement, you would have plenty of room for a lot of airplanes.

[00:06:26] Okay. Moving on. I am not committing to keeping it at my house. Having said that, I'll probably end up keeping it at my house. Because it's going to be a while before I get to fixing it.

[00:06:42] Oh, good. I mean, not good for that, but good for the reason that you're probably going to keep it at your house. I have used the space that it occupied already for other airplanes.

[00:06:51] I saw that when I walked in. Did you? Yep, that's not coming back, is it?

[00:06:55] Honestly, I thought you said you were going to keep it. Yeah. Like, from the beginning.

[00:07:01] I probably did. I see the trash can telemaster going up for sale real soon at an auction.

[00:07:07] No, I'm not going to sell that. Yeah. I mean, if it came to the point where Tommy's like, I'm done, I've got to get rid of it, I'm going to throw it away, I would be making room. Yeah.

[00:07:16] Well, it would never get thrown away.

[00:07:17] I would never do that.

[00:07:18] Unless, like, we crash it and there's just no repairing it or whatever. But, yeah. No, it has an identity.

[00:07:25] Like, it has its own. It has a story. Yeah.

[00:07:27] So, I can't foresee passing that on to anybody but the three of us.

[00:07:34] Yeah. Well, I certainly don't want it.

[00:07:36] We both looked at Dave.

[00:07:38] We were hoping we found a fool, but we didn't.

[00:07:42] But the repair will be easy. But it flies good. It really does. But it flies good. It does fly good. See?

[00:07:49] See?

[00:07:49] Anyway. Yeah. So, there you go. That's what I've been – oh, and I put my turbo timber evolution replacement to airplane. I put that together. So, Horizon came through for me. You guys remember on the last episode, we talked about the issue I had with it. Sent it to Horizon and, by golly, if they didn't send me a brand spanking new one in the box to replace it. So, I appreciated that. And I did put that together, and I'm looking forward to flying that.

[00:08:20] Good job, Horizon.

[00:08:21] That's a good flying airplane. Unfortunately, Dave cannot understand the joy I feel for the service I got from Horizon. Mine has been subpar, as usual. Dave just has the worst luck with Horizon. He does. He really does. Well, not just Horizon. Well, that's true. He has – if you talk to Dave –

[00:08:45] I got issues.

[00:08:47] Dave has a cloud that follows him around all the time and rains on him.

[00:08:52] Yeah. That's all right.

[00:08:53] So, what is it this time?

[00:08:54] I'm not even going to talk about it. It's fine. I got – however, I got excellent service from ready-made RC. Oh, there you go. My airplane showed up in two days from Ohio.

[00:09:02] Yeah. So, that makes two ready-made planes you have now, right? Oh, you got three. What's the third one?

[00:09:09] That RQ-7.

[00:09:11] Oh, I didn't know you bought one of those. He's had that. I've had that forever.

[00:09:14] That's the inverted V-tail. Great.

[00:09:17] Oh, that's a ready-made plane? Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't realize that either.

[00:09:20] It's a ready-made Anaconda that I converted.

[00:09:22] Cool. All right.

[00:09:24] So, yeah, that's the third one.

[00:09:25] So, three, yeah. Good service.

[00:09:27] Excellent service.

[00:09:28] The kit goes together well?

[00:09:29] Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah, this would be an excellent builder for a first-timer.

[00:09:34] Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. What about a flyer?

[00:09:38] Middle-of-the-road flyer.

[00:09:40] Okay. All right. This is the McTwist you're talking about? The McTwist, yeah. So, the McTwist is kind of like ready-made RC's version of an Ultrix, I would kind of say.

[00:09:50] Yeah, it's a little different shape, but it's a differential thrust.

[00:09:54] Yeah.

[00:09:54] It's designed to spin.

[00:09:55] Mm-hmm. That sounds just like it. Yeah. High alpha. Yeah, which spin it does. Ron and I got to see them fly at Joe Nall.

[00:10:04] The McTwist.

[00:10:05] Yes. And, yeah, they look like they fly pretty good. I was trying not to say it exactly, but it's, yeah, I think that's why it started.

[00:10:14] So, you can fly it in there. I added some extra lights. It's got headlights now. Oh.

[00:10:18] Oh, headlights help. That's a good idea. What about taillights? Built-in.

[00:10:22] Oh, cool. Yeah. Nice. Nice. I was thinking about buying one of their Shadow Seahers.

[00:10:28] The Shadow Seahers?

[00:10:30] Yeah.

[00:10:30] You can't go wrong.

[00:10:32] I may buy one sometime between now and Joe Nall next year. Joe Nall.

[00:10:37] We actually took ours out two weeks ago and did some night flying.

[00:10:41] Nice. Oh, did you make it out?

[00:10:42] Yeah. Daniel and I went out and braved the cicadas. Oh, yeah. Are they bad out there? That's kind of weird. I guess they're dying or something. Yeah. Because they would just lay there. You could just go pick it up and move it. And when they did fly, well, one of them I did see fly just flew into a post. Crack. Fell down the post.

[00:11:01] Yeah.

[00:11:02] Not very smart. They weren't.

[00:11:03] Cicadas.

[00:11:04] They weren't real active, except for when you're sitting there in the dark flying and they decide to crawl up your back. That's. Attach to your neck.

[00:11:12] See, I've noticed around 7.30 to 8.30 or so, they start to die off at night. Oh, the noise? And we don't. Yeah, the noise especially. But they don't move around as much. I don't know if they sleep. I don't know. But it's nice because that's when I can actually go outside. Otherwise, I'm wearing hearing protection, walking outside, going to the shop and all that.

[00:11:31] Although they're not as loud today as they were the last time I was out here, which we've been a few weeks now. They were deafening. Yes. Yeah. I can understand why you were wearing it. It was ridiculous. Yeah. Could not have a conversation outside.

[00:11:43] No.

[00:11:44] No.

[00:11:44] Yeah. I very much didn't like it.

[00:11:47] And it's so weird. Like, I've not seen one in my neighborhood. Not one. In town. Yeah.

[00:11:52] Yeah. You've seen the pictures of ours.

[00:11:54] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:11:55] There were thousands just on one tree.

[00:11:58] Yeah.

[00:11:59] Yeah. Which, by the way, what was it, a couple days ago, we were outside walking around at night and sure enough, those thousands that were in the tree are all just like sprayed or splayed all over the ground. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.

[00:12:10] Yeah. When you walk on them, that's gross.

[00:12:12] It's pretty bad. It's like apocalyptic.

[00:12:15] So, I know we're talking about cicadas. They fly, right? So, we're talking about flying things. Poorly. Do you also have the holes in the ground? Yes. Like, where they came out?

[00:12:25] Everywhere. Yeah. It's pretty bad.

[00:12:27] That's so weird. I saw holes all over my front yard.

[00:12:30] Oh, okay.

[00:12:31] But no cicadas.

[00:12:32] Weird.

[00:12:34] I wonder if they're like just attracted to certain trees. Because I've noticed like on the highway with the windows down in the car, I'll hear them periodically, not continuously. Yeah. what I'm saying? Like, you'll pass one area where like maybe one tree and they'll be deafening. You can hear them in the car on the highway, but then it'll be quiet. And then, you'll find a batch of trees. Yeah.

[00:12:57] Yeah.

[00:12:57] I wonder if it has something to do with the trees, I wonder.

[00:13:00] If that's the case, I need to cut all of ours down. Actually, I guess I don't have to worry about it for another 240 some odd years, right?

[00:13:05] Well, 13 or 11, right? Isn't that the brood?

[00:13:10] 13 years. 11 years and 13 years.

[00:13:12] 17 and 13.

[00:13:14] Is that okay? Whatever it is. I think that's what somebody said. Yeah. They don't always line up like they did this year, but they always are there. Yeah. Every so often.

[00:13:21] Yeah. So, of course, this has kept us inside. And now it is stupid hot.

[00:13:26] And windy.

[00:13:28] Yeah. Windy pretty bad, too. Yeah.

[00:13:30] It is warm. It did get warm today. It got very warm.

[00:13:33] You said it, not me. I know. I just wanted to make you laugh at me. And I did. Yeah, you did. So, anyway, should we go back to RC stuff? Oh, yeah.

[00:13:43] We should probably talk about RC airplanes. I have a feeling we're going to get off topic several times today. Because, honestly, with this busy as the three of us have been, not a lot of RC really going on.

[00:13:56] Not a lot of RC has happened. See? RC has happened. How about modeling? I mean, is it called modeling, though, if you're flying? I haven't been flying. Have you? Yeah.

[00:14:10] We did a little. Well, you've done more than me. But you and I went to Eli and flew, had like an EDF day. That was fun, actually. That was fun.

[00:14:18] We need to do that again. I agree.

[00:14:19] Except you're going out of town. Well, just for two weeks. You suck.

[00:14:23] So, we don't know what we're doing, by the way, for our next episode. I'm going to give you guys a lot of information on that. Not information. A lot of heads up on that. That we're flying blind for next two weeks. We'll see.

[00:14:36] Yeah. I'll be out of town. But you guys will hopefully get some flying in. And you guys can talk about that, hopefully.

[00:14:42] It's supposed to be 97 on Sunday.

[00:14:43] So, I'm not thinking so. So? No, I don't like the heat. We don't get along.

[00:14:50] It's such a sissy. Yes, sissy. Yeah.

[00:14:52] Wow. Thank you, guys. You're welcome. I own it, though.

[00:14:55] It's the heat and the cold. So, unless it's 72 degrees.

[00:14:58] 72 plus or minus 5.

[00:15:02] See?

[00:15:02] It's pretty close.

[00:15:03] Yeah.

[00:15:03] I can see that. I'm a fair weather flyer. Not an extreme weather flyer.

[00:15:09] But, yeah. We can talk about going to U&I. The U&I. And then you can talk about going to RC Fest.

[00:15:14] We can do that. So? Before we do that, though. Yeah. One of the things I have written down. Horizon came out with actually a few things today.

[00:15:21] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:21] And there was one you wanted to talk about.

[00:15:23] Really excited about. Well, I love sticks. I do know you love sticks. I'm a huge fan. I think everybody ought to have at least one. I agree. And I… There's… So, E-Fly came out with… Well, they announced a new one today. A UMX version of the Slow Ultra Stick, which I'm really excited about because it's cheap. 150 bucks-ish for the Bine-to-Fly version. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's the Ready to Fly one? That's right.

[00:15:45] Holy smokes. That's cheap. $119.99. I mean, yes, it's a good price. But I mean… I don't think I would call it cheap.

[00:15:53] Okay.

[00:15:53] Well… Because you're not getting a whole lot.

[00:15:55] It's an inexpensive airplane. Can we at least say that?

[00:15:58] But I bet it flies good.

[00:15:59] I bet it flies as good as the other Slow Ultra Stick. But I don't own the Slow Ultra Stick like yours, but I would definitely consider buying the UMX version of that.

[00:16:09] And that surprises me, though, that you don't.

[00:16:11] I know. Me too. But I have my Hangar 9, the 60-size stick, and I guess that's really about the only stick

[00:16:19] I have right now. This one just flies so good, though.

[00:16:23] It does, but you let me fly yours all the time. That's true. Whenever you want, you don't need your own. You got a point. But I think I will buy the UMX version. Maybe not right away, but yeah. It just looks like it would be a fun take it over to the park or fly it in the side yard, even at my house, probably.

[00:16:41] Oh, absolutely.

[00:16:42] On a call day. You got to love a UMX anyway.

[00:16:44] What's that?

[00:16:44] You got to love a UMX anyway.

[00:16:46] I mean…

[00:16:46] It hurts to say, but yeah. It really does. Just the simplicity, the not putting anything together. Everything fits in a box. I love putting it back in the box.

[00:16:54] Nice and safe. Yeah. No dogs trompling all over.

[00:16:57] Yeah. Nice, small battery. Not a huge battery to worry about. Oh, and this is a 1S power system, too. Yeah. So, probably the same battery as the Ultrix, right?

[00:17:09] No. Is it bigger?

[00:17:10] No.

[00:17:10] Smaller? It's the 1S 150s.

[00:17:13] Oh, really?

[00:17:13] I think it's 150 to… Well, you have it in front of you. I don't remember. I think it's 150 to 210s. And those are, what, five, six bucks a piece?

[00:17:20] Yeah, they're super cheap. A 1S 150. Yep, there it is. Yeah, those are like… I think we buy those at Bryan's for like seven bucks.

[00:17:28] Yeah. I think. They're not expensive at all, which is cool.

[00:17:31] Yeah. So, yeah, I'm excited about that. I was happy to see that on the old Facebook today. So, I will be getting one of those eventually.

[00:17:41] I thought about it. It's in my cart. I went that far, but I just couldn't pull the trigger on there.

[00:17:48] Yeah. No, it's not supposed to… After we talk about it, he'll… It's not supposed to come out. I'm surprised he doesn't have his phone out right now.

[00:17:53] Well, this sucks, because I'm actually leaning more towards it. Because you can buy a light kit for it, too. I don't know if you saw that or not.

[00:17:59] No, I didn't see that.

[00:18:00] Yeah, 15 bucks, you can buy a light kit for it. Oh, man. Which, I mean, that would make it like a great late night fire. Or night. Or night fire. Or night fire. With as slow as it is, I bet I could handle that in the night. Sure.

[00:18:13] Sure you could.

[00:18:14] But see, like, my thought with this one, and it could be just me. Projecting hopes and dreams. But it would be that that would be a good one for Piper, because it's three channel, to fly around here to get the hang of it. To not have to worry about ailerons. To just up, down, left, right.

[00:18:31] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maybe. I don't know. Yep.

[00:18:35] Oh, Dave's looking at it. No, Dave's… Now he wants one. He's got his glasses down, looking over it like a librarian.

[00:18:41] Yeah, because my bifocals are out of date.

[00:18:46] Old Piper.

[00:18:46] I don't know. What do you think, Dave? Well, I thought it was three channel, or four channel, or at least aileron elevator.

[00:18:52] Nope. Nope. Yeah. Pass. Three channels.

[00:18:56] Go figure.

[00:18:56] Just for the… Glass half empty guy. But I mean, just for the simplicity of it, and the, the ability… I'm thinking aerobatic capability. To just…

[00:19:06] Aileron elevator is going to give you a lot more options than rudder elevator. I mean, you…

[00:19:11] Did you see the size of the rudder?

[00:19:12] I know you can roll rudder only. Yeah, you can. But…

[00:19:15] It's not pretty, but yeah, you can.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:17] But I mean, look at the dihedral and how large that rudder is. I bet you will be able to roll it in a fairly tight. Oh, I'm sure you can.

[00:19:24] Yeah.

[00:19:25] So…

[00:19:25] Yeah, I just… Yeah, I want one.

[00:19:28] You look at the point of what that is.

[00:19:30] Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:31] And that is just a small, slow… Just a little… Obviously, it's a slow flyer, because it's not a three-cell.

[00:19:36] Right.

[00:19:36] Like other planes that are that size. Size, yeah. Yeah, like the UMX Turbo Timbrevolution.

[00:19:43] Is that what I have?

[00:19:44] Mark 6 version 12.

[00:19:45] I mean… You have one, don't you? You've got the UMX version, don't you, Dave?

[00:19:49] Yeah, he's got the evolution version of what I've got. Oh. Turbo Timbre. Good grief, there's a lot of timbers.

[00:19:55] I know. I should remember, because I only have one. I should be able to keep one straight.

[00:19:58] I wonder if they're going to do UMX… I can't even say it now. There's so many adjectives in front of the timber. A UMX version of the new super timber. That might be interesting. I don't know.

[00:20:11] I bet they do a version of that. I hear a lot of people say those fly good, too. I've thought about buying one of those.

[00:20:19] It just surprised me, because all of my UMX planes have ailerons. Every one of them.

[00:20:26] Yeah, but once again, if you go back and look at what this one is, and compare it to what it's supposed to be competing against, it's going to be three channels.

[00:20:34] What it reminds me of, Dave? It reminds me of those old GWS sticks. Super slow sticks. Yeah, yeah. Only smaller.

[00:20:42] Yeah.

[00:20:43] And those flew pretty decent for what they were, and those were only three channels. Oh, I know. Okay. Pretty decent or good? They flew well. For what they were, they flew well.

[00:20:53] And that, like I said, that's the thing. If somewhere on there, it said that they modeled it off the Park Zone something or another. Ember.

[00:21:00] Yeah, it's supposed to be, well, they said, yeah, they modeled it off the Ember.

[00:21:05] Yeah. So. Which flew good. Yeah. So, honestly, yes, I'll probably have one of those. I do kind of wish it matched color-wise, the bigger one.

[00:21:22] Yeah, but they historically haven't done that. I know. So why would Timber, why would they start now? Do they?

[00:21:28] Oh, the color's on mine. Oh, so, yeah.

[00:21:30] Okay, I got you. Yeah.

[00:21:31] But it would be cool to have literally a small version just of that, which I'm sure could be done.

[00:21:36] Well, yeah.

[00:21:37] You have vinyl.

[00:21:38] That's what I was going to say. I'm sure it could be done.

[00:21:40] Yeah. But it's all of one, two, three, four, six stripes. No curves or anything, just straight. To make it orange and black.

[00:21:49] Oh, that would be easy.

[00:21:51] Yeah. So, there you go. So, you can make a UMX version of your plane. Or maybe I should make the big one blue. Oh, there you go.

[00:21:58] I think it'll look nice and blue.

[00:21:59] Or make both of them red, because I have red vinyl and I don't have orange or blue.

[00:22:04] There you go. And you do have damage on your… Well, that needs to stay on there. We'll talk about that.

[00:22:09] Yeah. That's a war wound that I'm proud of. Yeah.

[00:22:12] So, I'm sorry. Going back to flying EDFs at Eli. Oh, I forgot about it.

[00:22:17] Yeah.

[00:22:17] Yeah. So, you flew the Viper 90 for the first time. And then you flew the…

[00:22:21] I made in that one.

[00:22:22] The Haboo.

[00:22:23] And that was the maiden for the Haboo 50mm, too.

[00:22:27] Yeah. I took my Viper 70, which, man. Looks like it flies good. I cannot say enough good things about that airplane. Thank you, Dave.

[00:22:36] Those Viper's few flying dice, don't they?

[00:22:37] Thank you.

[00:22:37] You're welcome.

[00:22:38] I'm thanking Dave, because I got it from Dave. Dave was nice enough to give it to me.

[00:22:41] And I got it from Ron.

[00:22:42] And he got it from Ron. So, thank you, Ron. You're welcome. Thank you, guys. I love that airplane. Like, I really do.

[00:22:48] Yeah. The only thing that held me back on it was the oddball-sized battery I didn't own. That was my issue, too.

[00:22:54] Luckily, like, I had one and bought a couple more. And, yeah. They fly awesome, even with one aileron servo hanging out of the bottom of it.

[00:23:04] Oh, I forgot about that.

[00:23:05] Yeah.

[00:23:06] So, you had an issue. Tell about it.

[00:23:08] Well, it was not a big deal. I was, I don't know, third or fourth. I flew the snot out of it that day. But I noticed on the last flight that it didn't have the aileron response that it had previous flights. And I honestly thought I had flipped a dual-rate switch or something. But the elevator was normal. So, I was like, oh, that's weird. But I went in and flew it, for the three and a half minutes that we can fly an EDF. That's the downside to those.

[00:23:34] But, man, that fly is good. Anyway, so I landed. And on the rollout from the landing, I saw something kind of hanging down from, I forget which wing. Let's say the right wing. It's like, oh, that's weird. Did I get in some grass or something? It's an asphalt runway. So, no. So, when I picked it up, I noticed, yeah, the aileron servo had just basically come out of its pocket, molded pocket in the wing. Which I thought was odd.

[00:24:00] But what I held in there with that white gooey stuff.

[00:24:02] No, this is a, it's a clear, almost looked like shoe goo is what it looked like.

[00:24:08] That plane has been through a lot.

[00:24:09] But, yeah, you could tell. But it still flies amazing.

[00:24:13] Yeah.

[00:24:15] So, yeah, that was it for the day. I didn't risk it.

[00:24:18] I didn't have any. Bubble gumming up in there.

[00:24:20] No, I didn't have any glue or anything with me. So, I went in and put it away for the day and flew the decathlon the rest of the time. But, yeah, it's fixed and ready to go. I just used some, what did I use? Oh, foam tack. I put it back in with foam tack. Foam tack's good stuff.

[00:24:34] That's all it takes.

[00:24:34] It won't come out again unless I deliberately pull it out. Yeah.

[00:24:39] Good luck with that.

[00:24:40] Yeah. But that is such an amazing, I just can't say enough good things about that thing.

[00:24:46] Yeah.

[00:24:46] And your Viper 90, by the way, flies just like it, only better.

[00:24:50] Yeah.

[00:24:51] If it could fly better.

[00:24:52] I need to get a lot more practice with that.

[00:24:54] And I plan on it.

[00:24:56] I was a little nervous.

[00:24:58] Yeah, yeah. I didn't, I don't quite understand. Viper 90 is a baby. It flies, yeah. I mean, what is it about it that made you uncomfortable?

[00:25:07] Well, first off, there was a crowd.

[00:25:09] It was two of us.

[00:25:11] No, there was about five or six people behind us.

[00:25:15] Yeah. My wife and your mom. No, there were other people there. There were. So when we got there, there were maybe five flyers there. By the time you got the Viper 90 ready to go, it was me, you, Joel, the other guy that I had just met, that you had met before, and Miguel. That was it. Those were, that's who was there. That's it. That's all? That's it.

[00:25:44] It felt like more. Excuse busted. That's all that was, like, I remember.

[00:25:49] I promise you, that's, it was just those two guys and you and I flying. Okay. And then Marilyn and Lori were sitting in the chairs behind us.

[00:25:59] Well, it felt stressful.

[00:26:02] Okay.

[00:26:02] So there was a crowd. Well, and I think it was more, not just that, but, I mean, it was expensive.

[00:26:09] It was.

[00:26:10] And there was, there was no safety net. It was just me.

[00:26:13] That's true. Yep.

[00:26:14] And so that, I think, I think that was what was.

[00:26:17] I did not want to stand out there and make you nervous, but at the same time, I didn't know. So I just kept my distance because I didn't know what you want.

[00:26:24] Well, no, and then, no, that's fine. I appreciate that. But I'm saying, like, it was just, I had just bought it. So I knew how expensive it was. I knew. I get that. All that kind of stuff. And I didn't want to be the guy that crashes on the maiden.

[00:26:36] And you didn't. Almost did. Oh, the landing was not pretty, but it wasn't close to a crash. No, before that.

[00:26:42] Before the landing was close to a crash when I stalled it.

[00:26:45] Oh, yeah. You did get it a little slow.

[00:26:47] That was scary. That's about when I pooped my pants.

[00:26:50] Well, it wasn't, I can tell you from, from witness. Eyewitness account. Firsthand account. Firsthand account. It was not nearly as close as you probably thought it was.

[00:27:03] Really? Yeah. Because to me, it was 30 feet from the ground.

[00:27:06] It was, it was a little bit higher than that.

[00:27:09] Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:27:09] You had, you had easily a mistake. Well, I used that mistake. Well, no. In addition, like once you recovered, you still had room for another mistake. Yeah.

[00:27:20] So I came in on final, first time flying that airplane. Got a little, little slow and dropped a wing to which I clenched, went full throttle. And I mean, really it recovered no problem whatsoever.

[00:27:34] I wouldn't say instantly. Those things have so much thrust.

[00:27:36] Give me some credit, but.

[00:27:37] Well, they recovered in a couple of seconds.

[00:27:40] There you go. A couple of milliseconds. Oh, gosh. No, but it worked out fine. First landing was. Five landings. Atrocious. I will, I will say there was. Got to keep a little power on. A little bit. There, there were audible gasps from behind me when I stalled it and was coming in and. Checking the quality gear. Yep. And, well, luckily it was strong enough to hold that because there was. Not a mark on it. Several bounces. There's a not a mark on it. Yeah.

[00:28:12] But, second time I flew it. Oh, much better. The landing was beautiful. Yeah, you greased it in. And what's funny, nobody saw that one. I think you did. I did. But I don't think anybody else did.

[00:28:22] No.

[00:28:22] They were back there talking.

[00:28:24] Yeah. I think Miguel was putting stickers on his airplane.

[00:28:27] Could have been.

[00:28:28] Yeah.

[00:28:28] But, yes, everybody that saw me mess it up the first time. Oh, we all saw that. I couldn't have been paying attention the second time.

[00:28:35] But you were still, you still, after that, you told me you were still not quite comfortable flying it. No. Even after the second.

[00:28:42] I've got to get used to it. I mean, that's all there is to it. Yeah.

[00:28:46] Yeah, it's.

[00:28:47] So, I had enough for that day on that one.

[00:28:49] Sure. I get that. And it's important to, with the EDFs and eventually our jets, it'll be important to keep, keep a good amount of airspeed up until you're really, really, really, really familiar with how the airplane acts when it's slow.

[00:29:03] And the jet, for some reason at this, and maybe it's because I'm not standing there doing it, but at this point, the jet doesn't scare me because I will have that safety net of somebody with me. Right.

[00:29:14] Are you going to do it on a box or?

[00:29:15] I have to.

[00:29:16] I mean, per AMA guidelines, I have to.

[00:29:19] Oh, okay. Good. Well, that's good. I know. Yeah, because it'll be an instant.

[00:29:22] Yeah. Yeah. If the. If I mess up, somebody else is there to take it from me and I don't have to worry about it. Yep.

[00:29:27] So, yeah, that'll be, that's good. Yeah. Good deal.

[00:29:30] I will be, hopefully we'll be talking about that in the episode after next. If all goes before I get planned. That would, that would be awesome. I should hopefully have my maiden done with that beginning part of next month. I'm excited. End of this month, beginning part of next month. I'm excited for you. It'll be fun. I hope I get to be there. I hope it happens like after so I can watch, but either way. I'm hoping for that day too. Yeah. But we'll see.

[00:29:55] But you also flew the Haboo SS? STS. Haboo. It's a Haboo small one.

[00:30:00] 50 millimeter. I think it's the SS. Okay. There's. That thing. That's a lot of fun. SS.

[00:30:06] Super small.

[00:30:06] Super small. Yeah. Little 50 millimeter runs on a 3S 2200. I think it should be called SF.

[00:30:13] Super fun.

[00:30:14] Oh. I was trying to figure what F was.

[00:30:17] Fun. Yeah. Because it is. Like, Ron, you let me fly it and that thing just. It's a blast. It flies almost as good. Not quite, but almost as good as that 70 millimeter Viper.

[00:30:30] Really? Yeah. Because I tell you what, that one was stress-free. Oh, yeah. And just a whole bunch of fun. Yeah.

[00:30:38] You could horse that thing around. I know. Yeah.

[00:30:41] And it sounds kind of funny. It does.

[00:30:44] It makes like a moaning sound.

[00:30:46] It's weird. I don't know how to describe it.

[00:30:48] I can't wait until Dave sees it. Yeah. I'll see how he describes the sound it makes.

[00:30:52] Launches are easy. Super easy. Landings were spot on. I never had to walk more than like, well. Mine weren't so pretty, but.

[00:30:59] But that's okay. Well, when I say pretty, I had to walk farther to get it when I landed it. But that's okay. I was just being careful because it was not my airplane.

[00:31:07] I get it. I fully understand. I appreciate that.

[00:31:10] But yeah, that's a fun. And for the size of battery, pretty decent flight time. We're getting like four and a half minutes or so. Yeah, I think four, four and a half.

[00:31:19] I think four is when I planned on starting to come in.

[00:31:21] Okay.

[00:31:22] Yeah.

[00:31:22] And you had to do a go around a couple of times. So, yeah. Well, you didn't have to. But you chose to because you wanted to land right in front of you. Yes.

[00:31:29] I wanted to make sure I wasn't walking far.

[00:31:30] Yeah, I was impressed. I was impressed with the flight time for how small the airplane and battery combo are.

[00:31:35] See, that's the biggest one that they recommend for it. Okay. And I think the smallest one is a 3S2200. And I think the smallest one that they say is like 3S13 maybe. Really?

[00:31:49] Could you imagine the performance with the 1300?

[00:31:52] Well, if you want to try it, I bought one.

[00:31:54] Oh, okay. Because I bet it flies even shorter. Shorter, obviously. Less weight. I bet that thing flies amazing.

[00:32:01] Less weight and it'll be a little bit more tail heavy because it doesn't have all the nose weight. And that's what actually concerned me with the 3S2200 is because I put that in there and tried to balance it. And it was very nose heavy per the manual. But it flew great. It flew awesome. Like I didn't feel those nose heavy really at all.

[00:32:20] Nope. Never ran out of elevator authority, I don't think. Even when you got it slow for landing.

[00:32:26] Yeah.

[00:32:26] It still had plenty of elevator authority. So, I don't think it was. Even though it showed nose heavy when you, did the balance thing, it didn't fly like it.

[00:32:36] I didn't think. It flew great. It's a lot of fun. Like I want to get a lot more flights on that. And the nice thing too, once again, having the Gen 2 smart batteries that you can charge so fast.

[00:32:48] Yeah.

[00:32:48] We were not waiting for batteries to charge.

[00:32:51] No.

[00:32:51] We had four batteries and two chargers going and you could not use them fast enough.

[00:32:55] Nope. No, I went home with charged batteries because I, yeah. And you can say, I told you so if you want to. I deserve it. I wish I had gone to the smart batteries sooner. The reason I didn't, reasons, money, whatever. But, man, that smart, the G2 stuff is really, really cool.

[00:33:15] Let's be honest. Is it more expensive?

[00:33:18] No. What I'm saying is to buy the charger and then buy the batteries to get into it,. But if you're starting off that way, it's in the long run probably cheaper because you're not buying as many batteries. Because you just don't need them.

[00:33:30] I know.

[00:33:31] So, yeah.

[00:33:32] Like I said, with four batteries, like honestly, we would have been fine two batteries. Oh, absolutely. One charger.

[00:33:40] Absolutely. I think we would have. Especially having multiple airplanes.

[00:33:43] Yeah.

[00:33:43] Like, I had the Decathlon and the 70 millimeter Viper, which obviously used different batteries. Like, I would fly the Viper. Honestly, I could probably get away with one for each because I would fly the Viper, bring it in, and put that battery right on the charger. Yeah. Like, I probably should have waited until it was at least cool.

[00:34:03] But if it's too hot, it won't charge it.

[00:34:05] Oh, well, there you go.

[00:34:06] I don't know if you knew that or not.

[00:34:06] I did not. So, I put that on the charger and then I would go fly the Decathlon. And by the time I got done flying the Decathlon, pulling the battery out, putting it on the other port on the charger, the Viper battery was almost done. But I was, out there flying your stuff or watching you fly. I mean, one battery probably would have been enough. And if you're at a field that's really busy when it's just more than just the two of us, you have even more time. Yeah.

[00:34:31] So, yeah. I really, really like the smart stuff. As much as I hate supporting whatever, like Dave's unfortunate experience with Horizon, as much as I hate that he has a bad experience, I don't.

[00:34:50] Everybody else on the planet has a good time. It's just me.

[00:34:54] Yeah.

[00:34:54] Don't worry about it.

[00:34:54] No, it's not just you. I think we've all had issues with Horizon. We have. But they've always been good, I think, to stand by what they're supposed to stand by. And the times that we've had issues with it, if you take a step back, I can see their side. I don't feel like I've ever, I don't think I've ever had an issue with them that wasn't satisfactorily solved.

[00:35:22] I've only had one in recent memory. But like what we were talking about before the show, or before we sat down to record, it was for the light kid on that UMX Alteryx. And was that $25, whatever it was? It's like, okay, whatever, $25, I'll eat it this time. And Horizon can make do on a future endeavor, which they did. For me.

[00:35:43] I know you guys are not huge fans of it either, but the Elite membership thing, it's so worth it.

[00:35:49] I mean, it really. I'm going to do it. Like whenever I'm ready to buy like the receiver for my jet, for example, I will do that.

[00:35:56] Yeah. But for now, I just, I'm not buying anything right now. So. I look at it as I belong to Amazon Prime. I really don't get much out of them.

[00:36:06] Not as much as we used to.

[00:36:08] Walmart Plus member. I don't do that. Don't get much out of them. I don't do anything with Walmart. Walmart or the Horizon Elite stuff that I have. I get a lot out of it.

[00:36:17] Yeah.

[00:36:17] So.

[00:36:18] And I will too.

[00:36:19] To me, it's very worthwhile.

[00:36:20] It's not that I'm against it. I just, right now, I don't buy enough to justify. It's just not viable at this point. Right. Yeah. It will be eventually. And when that time comes, I'll join or buy the membership or whatever it is.

[00:36:33] And the customer service you get with that?

[00:36:35] That's what I was.

[00:36:36] Completely. I'm glad you said that.

[00:36:37] Completely fast. Well, that and probably would have made the issue I had with my super or my. Timber. The timber thing.

[00:36:45] Timber. Timber.

[00:36:47] Yeah, that one. That probably would have been even smoother had I. Oh, absolutely. Been a member and had my own personal consultant.

[00:36:55] Yeah.

[00:36:55] At Horizon.

[00:36:57] I mean, you're not wrong. Yeah. So, anyway. I had a question about something the other day and I emailed him and I had a response within five minutes.

[00:37:05] I mean, it's, like I said, it's. And I email. I don't like talking on the phone. Yeah. Because I know they have other things going on. Right. I know I'm not the only customer they deal with.

[00:37:13] The only schmo they deal with.

[00:37:14] Plus, for me, it's easier when I'm at work to just sit there, type an email.

[00:37:18] Yeah.

[00:37:18] And get a response back as opposed to trying to get on the phone and stuff. Yeah. No, I get that. I like emails so much more.

[00:37:24] I do, too. The older. Like, I'm from the generation. Dave and I both from the generation where we talked on the phone. There was no texting. There was no. But, like, now that I've gotten older, I actually prefer not to talk to people on the phone.

[00:37:36] I am kind of the same.

[00:37:37] It's weird.

[00:37:38] Technical issues, I'd rather talk to someone in person because otherwise you're just back and forth, back and forth. They're texting and it's, 30 seconds per text, back and forth, which is a nothing. 30 seconds is nothing. But 20 of those in a row where it could have been, oh, okay, I can try that instead of this. I can see that.

[00:37:55] But I've never had a technical step-by-step question where it was back and forth that I've had to go with. So maybe if we started something like that, a phone call would make it a lot easier.

[00:38:06] Because when I send an email to them, it's three to four days. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean.

[00:38:11] If they answer. I will say that it did take them a couple days initially when I emailed them about the timber, it did take them a couple days to respond. Had I had the membership, it probably would have been much, much quicker. But at the end of the day, like, I wasn't really in a hurry. Yeah. So I was okay with that. And you should not have to pay for customer service. But that's my two cents. Oh, I agree. I don't disagree. I don't consider it.

[00:38:42] But there's levels of customer service.

[00:38:43] Yeah. I don't consider it paying for customer service. I'm paying for all the other perks, and customer service is one of them. I mean, there is a lot of stuff that you get with that. So just saying. Dave's rolling his eyes.

[00:38:56] I will not be getting one of those memberships. Ever.

[00:38:59] Dave is over there, like, just. Fuming. He's fuming. Chomping at the bit to say something, but he's.

[00:39:05] I'm not. I'm good. I.

[00:39:09] It'll be a DX9 radio for sale before too long. Oh, boy. If I were in Dave's shoes, I would probably feel exactly the same way. Honestly. But for the luck that he's had, I mean, I think anybody would feel the way he feels.

[00:39:24] Yeah.

[00:39:25] And I'm pretty sure that's. It's not. I don't think Horizon is taking it out on you personally. I think. No, it's just my luck in the draw. It's just. Yeah. Unfortunately. Poor Dave.

[00:39:34] It's OK. Don't worry about it, guys. We're good. This is for fun.

[00:39:38] It's toy airplanes, for gosh sakes.

[00:39:41] For goodness sakes. They're toys. Yeah. They don't feel like toys, though. Really? With the amount of money that we spend on them.

[00:39:49] They're expensive toys.

[00:39:50] Yeah. Definitely. But I mean, I guess they're still, at the end of the day, toys.

[00:39:56] I could have a lot of other vices that are worse.

[00:39:59] Oh, for sure. I think. That would make a good episode.

[00:40:02] What else could we spend our money on? What else could? Well, and we all have other things, too, that we do.

[00:40:08] Let's see. We need to talk about our other hobbies. Yeah. One of these days. I don't have a lot, though, anymore.

[00:40:15] Well, you're raising a kid. That's kind of a hobby. Really? Yeah. It takes up a lot of your time. Well, it does.

[00:40:21] But we could talk about things we used to do.

[00:40:25] Before you had.

[00:40:26] Before I had all the responsibilities and kids and all that stuff. Yeah.

[00:40:30] Yeah. But anyway, we had a good day at Eli flying with the Jets. You took the Blue Angels F-18 that you bought at Joe Knoll.

[00:40:43] I swear I saw you put it in the car.

[00:40:45] No.

[00:40:45] It was the other one.

[00:40:48] Wasn't it?

[00:40:48] Oh, it was the gray one. It was the gray one.

[00:40:50] No. I put the gray one back, and you grabbed the blue one. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I don't remember that at all. You chose not to fly it, which I get that, especially after you're kind of the scare after the Viper 90.

[00:41:02] Yeah.

[00:41:02] I get it. So we'll fly that another day.

[00:41:06] So that was… See, I would have sworn it was the other one, too, Dave.

[00:41:08] No, it was the Blue Angel. Okay. Because the nose gear doors are kind of weird on the gray one. And when I noticed that, I was like, oh. So you did pull that back out.

[00:41:18] Well, you saw that one. It was hanging. But that doesn't matter. Not the hill I want to die on. So, yes, I took the Blue Angel. And I took the slow ultra stick, too. Flew that quite a bit.

[00:41:28] Oh, that's right. I forgot.

[00:41:29] You did take that one. I think between the two of us, we had, what, 28 flights or something like that? Yeah, it was a bunch. We got a lot. It was fun. Yeah.

[00:41:36] I enjoyed that. I flew my slow stick twice. Which one? Oh, your slow ultra stick. Yeah. It's just the weather has been so cruddy.

[00:41:44] Yeah.

[00:41:45] That handles the weather pretty good, though. Not mine, because I went to the dual aeron setup, and so the AS3X doesn't work real well.

[00:41:53] Oh.

[00:41:53] So it's on me. Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, it doesn't handle the wind nearly as well as you guys do. Well, I don't have one. I have his. He lets me fly his. What made you do the dual aeron? I want to fly super slow, and I love playing around with flaps. See, I thought about doing that. Yeah.

[00:42:11] But that thing flies so slow to begin with.

[00:42:13] Yeah, they're not necessary, but I don't fly even slower.

[00:42:16] Yeah, they're still fun to play with. I get it.

[00:42:17] Yeah. It just, unfortunately, because my radar doesn't have the Ford programming in it, I can't go through and reset the AS3X.

[00:42:24] Oh, you can hook it up to mine, just bind it to it and do it. Yeah, I'm just going to have to do that with one of yours.

[00:42:27] Rebind it on yours, yeah. But right now, it only does AS3X on one aileron, and so, therefore, it's kind of sluggish reacting to wind inputs. And it looks weird.

[00:42:37] I mean, really, it does. I don't. Had I not flown it, I would not think AS3X works on this, because if you move it around, you don't hear anything.

[00:42:45] It doesn't do much. It's very minute. But it does make a huge difference.

[00:42:49] But it works.

[00:42:49] Mine does not like the wind at all.

[00:42:51] Oh, see, mine's fine in the wind. Interesting. Like, I landed backwards once. It was, I mean, it was so much wind. Like, I took it to the field for a meeting. The rollout was reverse? Yes.

[00:43:01] Nice.

[00:43:01] I took it to the field for a meeting, knowing that it was windy, but I was going to go anyway. And I thought, I took this with me. I have to fly at least once. So, yes, it was a cross runway landing that was landing towards me, but the plane was facing away from me.

[00:43:17] Nice. Yeah. Fun. When it's calm, mine's great. Yeah. And that stupid slow crawl that it can do with the flaps down is ridiculous. Yeah.

[00:43:26] I'll have to watch yours fly sometime, because, like I said, I thought about doing that. I just, after I flew it, didn't think it was really necessary.

[00:43:33] If you just get in there and reprogram the receiver, problems are going to go away. Yeah. It just uses one aileron right now, and it's just too slow.

[00:43:41] Cool. That's a good flying airplane.

[00:43:44] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:45] I agree. That's the one we flew off the table. Remember? Yes, it is. Doesn't take much runway. And could probably have flown off half of that table.

[00:43:53] Yeah. Probably could have had a two-foot run-up, and then with the drop, it would have been just fine.

[00:44:00] Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good day at Eli Field. Then you went back.

[00:44:05] We made a lot of trips last week. Oh, did you? So, out of five days, we were at Eagledoy four days of the five. So, four trips back and forth. First one was the meeting, first of the month meeting. Took a couple planes to fly. Then Piper took her car. She was able to run it a few times. Went through a few batteries, charged a couple times. And then she wanted to fly.

[00:44:31] Oh, okay. I felt bad, though. Why? Because it was windy.

[00:44:35] Oh. So, it wasn't like she could really enjoy as much. So, we buddy boxed. I got everything set up and stuff for the slow ultra stick. That was the one I took with me. She was able to fly that. Not much, like I said, because the wind was, it wasn't constant. It was just very gusty. So, I think I flew that two or three times. Which, maybe next time it'll be better. So, anyway, so we went over for that. Then, that was Tuesday. Thursday, we went over.

[00:45:11] We actually went all the way to Champaign and went for a tour of Horizon. It's kind of nice. I mean, that's a nice building, the way they have it all set up. They have a big, like I thought of Dave the whole time. Which is so weird, because they have this huge shipping area and stuff where they actually ship all your orders and all that stuff. And, yeah, for some reason, Dave was on my mind the whole time.

[00:45:36] Where they crush your orders before they send them out.

[00:45:38] Where they crush your orders before they crush your dreams. I was going to say they just crush my dreams. But, anyway, I mean, like I said, it's a nice facility. I was impressed with it. It's bigger than I thought, bigger than Crystal thought. We weren't quite sure what to expect. But, let's see, then, that was Thursday. After that, we went to Eli for a little while. Helped set up some stuff. And then, Viper wanted to play again. We got home late that night.

[00:46:09] Friday, we went back to RC Fest. After work. That was a lot of fun. They have a lot of stuff at RC Fest. Saturday was even better. Actually, so, Friday, they had the monster trucks. Real, full-size monster trucks, which was kind of cool. They had, what were they? Kraken, I think, was one of them. And Jester was the other. Not names that I had known. Like, I hadn't heard of them. But, anyway, so, they did Car Crush Friday night that Piper really enjoyed. More so than I thought.

[00:46:42] Like, I was pleasantly surprised.

[00:46:43] So, the noise didn't bother her or anything?

[00:46:46] She had her fingers in her ears. Okay. And was okay with it. So much so, by the way, that she said she wanted to go to a monster truck show. So, we might actually have to do that. Those are fun. It's been a while. Actually, they have some coming to the state fair. I just, I don't know. Just pull out your inner redneck and do it. Well, I plan on it. But, we'll probably stick with something close. We used to go to the NH, no, what is it? And, I don't remember what it is now.

[00:47:11] It's been so many years. So, the monster trucks have their own…

[00:47:14] NHRA, National Hot Rod Association, Monster Jam. But, it's not… It's not NHRA anymore. I forget what it is now.

[00:47:21] But, Monster Jam, yeah. They had that down at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. We go to that. We went to that several years in a row with Cody. That's always a good show. Because, they usually don't care about taking their trucks home in one piece at the end of the night.

[00:47:33] Right.

[00:47:34] But, I think for her at this point, seeing anything would be fun. So, we'll probably head to the one at the county, not county, the state fair this time. The state fair.

[00:47:45] Yeah. I was going to say, if she likes monster trucks, she'd probably like the tough truck competition, too, that they normally have. I get much more tough trucks. With a Billy Bob destroyer. Much more entertaining.

[00:47:58] Now, I don't like when they do the four-wheeler racing. That's always kind of boring. Oh. But, when they actually do the tough truck stuff, yeah, that's a lot of fun. A couple years ago, they did the boat trailer racing. Yeah.

[00:48:08] Oh. That was a lot of fun to watch.

[00:48:10] That would be cool. There was… I think where I was, they were doing… It wasn't the trailer race, but it was a… Oh, my mind just went blank. It was a figure eight, but they were doing the demo derby at the same time. So, the point was to race, but also hit each other. So, it was pretty cool. We used to call those bomber racing.

[00:48:31] Oh, was that? Back in the day, yeah. Okay. It was like demolition derby, but also racing on the oval back then, but yeah.

[00:48:37] Yeah. Good times. It was cool.

[00:48:40] Watch. Yeah, watch the rednecks try to tear up their cars. That's awesome. Just giggle the whole time. I know, right? So, anyway, she liked the monster trucks at RC Fest.

[00:48:50] Yeah, and she also liked watching the monster truck, the RC monster trucks. And then they had freestyle where they were doing that. They had actual bracket racing and stuff, which was… I mean… Cool. Those guys get serious about their stuff. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, Saturday night, we were there pretty much the whole day. And ended up at the very end, like after the fireworks and all that stuff, everybody was packing up. We were getting ready to go.

[00:49:20] She just did not want to leave yet. And so, they were still racing. They had, I think, two heats left on the nitro buggies.

[00:49:27] Nitro buggies, yeah. Eight scale. Yeah.

[00:49:29] And so, that was the first race I actually have ever seen with a nitro buggy. Like, you and I went racing one time indoor stuff, but it was all electric. All electric, yeah. And so, we went to the, like I said, this was nitro stuff, and she just stared the whole time. And she was just engrossed with it.

[00:49:45] Really?

[00:49:45] So, I have a feeling we might be getting into that kind of RC car.

[00:49:51] Not necessarily nitro.

[00:49:53] I don't want to do that. But, the bigger ones like the Rustlers and whatever else. The stuff I have that I haven't gotten rid of yet.

[00:49:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:49:59] So, we'll see. She was wanting to buy, like, a fast car when we were there. Okay. But I told her she's got to learn how to drive better with her rock crawler, and that I already had some. So, we'll see. Yeah.

[00:50:16] So, more batteries I got to buy. What else did you do at RC Fest? So, what else? Hold on. Like our intro music alluded to.

[00:50:24] Well, hold on. Oh, I'm sorry. I wanted to say, so, RC Fest also had that she wanted to do. She wanted to drive a boat. So, they have the RC Try Me station set up. they had cars, boats, airplanes, other stuff. I don't remember what else. So, she did the RC boat, and luckily, she was not all that impressed. Like, I had thought about buying one before we went to Joe Knoll, just to have something to play with on the pond. And stuff.

[00:50:53] And it's just, I can't, like, I just cannot get myself into them. Like, I know I want one that's self-riding, because I'm not going to get myself into a pond where there's fish and stuff, because that's just gross.

[00:51:10] What? Such a priss.

[00:51:12] Can we call him a millennial?

[00:51:13] Oh, yeah. Well, he is. I think I'm off by a couple years. But anyway. Anyway. yeah, I just, I've never been outdoorsy like that. So, the ones that I would want would be the self-riding kind, and that's kind of what she was doing there.

[00:51:29] We've never seen how those work. It's pretty slick.

[00:51:31] It is. It's just the motor goes back and forth.

[00:51:33] They rock the motor back and forth, and it torques it back over.

[00:51:34] So, I guess the ones they had there were version two of the, and I don't remember what it was called. Forgive me for not knowing RC boats. But they had a version one to where you had to manually do it, like, with a throttle. And that one had a gyro. Second version?

[00:51:48] No. So, if some have a gyro, and they know when they're upside down, they'll just flip themselves back.

[00:51:53] No, no. So, this one didn't. It's still one of the entry-level cheap ones that she was doing. But it just had a button that would automatically flip the motor forward and reverse to do it. So, you weren't, doing it with the throttle on there.

[00:52:04] All right.

[00:52:05] So, it did the modulation for you. And I did see a couple people go upside down. And then the opposite of selling point, what do you call that? Like when you're turned off on something? Negative? Yeah. So, from Dave's world, Piper actually sunk her boat. What? I don't know how she did it. Battery was almost completely dead towards the end of her because they give you like two minutes. And so, she's going. And I don't know if they didn't have the top on right or what.

[00:52:38] But so, she's just driving around and stuff. And it's slowing down. She said the battery's dying. I said, yeah, it looks like it is. And then she's turning. And as she's turning, it's not really on plane. So, it's just kind of getting the top part underwater and stuff. And then it just gets to the point where it just plops down. And then the top comes off. I was like, ah, luckily it's only like a foot deep. But here's the transmitter. We're done.

[00:53:01] Thanks for trying your boat out.

[00:53:02] Here you go. Good job, Piper. Yeah, no, but she had fun, but not enough fun to where she really wanted the boat beforehand, did that, and then she didn't ask for one the rest of the time we were there. Good. So, it was pretty cool. She's now interested in submarines. Yeah. Oh, God, I hope not. That's even more. They also did the candy drop.

[00:53:28] Oh, okay. Guess what they were using? A telemaster.

[00:53:32] A 12-foot telemaster. Yeah, go figure. Piper went out and did that a couple times. She had fun with that. So, she was a little nervous the first time, but after that she was pretty cool and went out and had a lot of fun. I talked to the guy to see how he had his setup because I still want to do that on mine.

[00:53:50] Yeah.

[00:53:53] I overthink things.

[00:53:54] You do.

[00:53:55] Like, I very much overthink things. His is set up to where he can't close it. Like, for some reason, I wanted to be able to close it after I opened the hatch. I wanted to be able to close the hatch back up and just have it look finished again. I don't know why. But he can't do that, which makes a lot more sense when I was talking to him about how he had it. So, he has one servo setup, and he has two doors.

[00:54:17] They're Bombay doors, whatever, where it's one side opens first. So, he has a switch, and then the servo on that, or the setup for the doors, the pin on the servo goes through both doors to hold both of them shut. Obviously, that makes sense. Because when he pulls the switch halfway, then it only pulls the servo far enough back to open that hatch for one door to open. So, he can do two candy drops because he has it actually separated inside.

[00:54:50] So, he was able to do one beginning part of the runway and then one at the end part of the runway. And he showed me how it was all set up and stuff. So, I think it's going to be a little simpler to do than I was planning. So, yeah.

[00:55:01] Good deal.

[00:55:02] I'd like to set that up.

[00:55:04] Yeah, that'd be fun.

[00:55:05] And Piper wants me to set that up, too, because she wants to do a candy drop here at home, she said.

[00:55:08] I told her there's no way. Why not?

[00:55:10] It's a 12-foot telemaster. That's why not. Yeah. So, and actually, I don't know how I forgot. I did sit down and talk to Crystal, and then I talked to Piper about their experiences. Would you like to hear it? I would. Well, let's start with Crystal. So, Piper's, okay. When Piper did her little interview, she did not want to sit down and talk to me. She wanted to take it to her room, so she wasn't embarrassed for some reason, she told me. It's like, that's fine.

[00:55:43] So, she's kind of hard to hear at first, but then gets better towards the end. But we'll start with Crystal. This is what, when we were going, I think it was last, yeah, last night before we were going to bed, but we were walking around the house and stuff, and we started talking about it, and I was like, just let me get my recorder. We'll talk about it on there. So, this is Crystal's impression of RC Fest?

[00:56:02] This is what Crystal thought, yes. Okay, cool.

[00:56:05] Got to love her. Here we go. So, I'm here with my wife, Crystal. Say hello, honey. Hello, honey. Jesus. We went last weekend to Monticello for RC Fest.

[00:56:18] And?

[00:56:20] And a tour of Horizon's headquarters.

[00:56:22] That was awesome.

[00:56:23] What did you think?

[00:56:24] It's a lot bigger than what I expected. Okay, yeah, yeah, you threw me off. Okay, but no, I mean, it was a lot bigger.

[00:56:34] And what about RC Fest?

[00:56:37] Let's see, I would say, I always love going there. I think my favorite thing was when they talked about the history of the full-size aircraft when they were flying the model. Piper got to drive her little crawler around quite a bit, went through a few batteries.

[00:56:58] She made a couple friends.

[00:57:00] Yeah. So, she had a blast and, of course, a sugar rush, but, it was a weekend. And she loved watching the races Saturday night. Oh, my gosh. She was in heaven.

[00:57:16] Yeah. Yeah, I'm afraid she's going to be wanting to get more into the fast RC cars and the crawlers she does now, because that's going to get more expensive if she crashes. Yeah.

[00:57:25] Yeah, she probably crashed quite a bit.

[00:57:27] But she also did the candy drop.

[00:57:30] She had fun doing that when she got up the courage to go out there with the other kids. I was a lot of kids.

[00:57:37] There was a ton of kids.

[00:57:39] So, and then I think, of course, I love food. So, they had a chicken truck there. And I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:57:47] And you got three meals.

[00:57:48] Well, I did spread it out over, the two days. And we all shared it. So.

[00:57:55] I think the only reason you went back Saturday was just for the chicken.

[00:57:59] Maybe. No. No. It was fun. before going, it's like, oh, my gosh, you want to be there all day. What am I going to do? But the day went by so quick because, you're watching everybody fly the plane. They're watching Piper, do the crawlers and everybody else. It was just so much fun. So.

[00:58:23] Yeah. And they had the full-size car crash.

[00:58:26] Yes, they did. So, the second monster truck just kind of, yeah, broke down.

[00:58:34] But it was so fun. It happens.

[00:58:36] Yeah. Anything else you want to say? Oh, the ring of fire. Yeah. That was a fun one, too. So, that was your little moment. You were kind of shaky out there.

[00:58:50] I was quite nervous, yes.

[00:58:52] But did you have fun?

[00:58:53] I did. It was worthwhile because it ended up being cheap.

[00:58:57] Yeah, that surprised me. I'm really glad, though. That way, you don't have to buy another one. I'm glad I got the crash on tape. Or, no, tape. Gee, showing my age. On my phone with the camera or the video.

[00:59:10] Me, too.

[00:59:11] So, that was fun.

[00:59:14] Go back next year?

[00:59:15] Of course.

[00:59:16] That's all I needed to hear.

[00:59:17] Yeah. If they have the tour again at the plant, I'd love to do that, too. Again. I don't know why. I mean, it was fun. So.

[00:59:26] Okay. Well, thank you for talking to me as we walk around our yard getting ready for bed. Anything else you want to say?

[00:59:35] I think I'm good.

[00:59:37] Goodbye.

[00:59:38] Bye-bye. Thank you.

[00:59:42] So, that was her thoughts on RC Fest. It's good that she had a positive experience. That way, it'll be easier for you to go back next year.

[00:59:49] I know. And this was actually kind of funny talking to her. And believe it or not, so I brought up the topic of needing a trailer. Because, honestly, I'm going to need to buy a trailer here before too long. And the one thing that she actually brought up that was a plus for it is she said, Well, yeah, if you got one, it would be nice to be able to take, like, the griddle over there and just make a full day of it. We can cook, we can sit, we can, just hang out.

[01:00:21] That's exactly what you and I have been talking about.

[01:00:23] I know. That's good to hear. That she's the one that brought it up. Yeah.

[01:00:26] That's cool. I don't know. We'll see.

[01:00:29] Yeah.

[01:00:29] Maybe next year I'll have a trailer. That would be good. I need to.

[01:00:32] Yeah.

[01:00:33] That's to the point. Like, honestly.

[01:00:34] I'm glad she had fun, though. Because, like I said, that will ultimately make things easier.

[01:00:40] Yeah.

[01:00:41] And, then she'll also realize when you go there, then you're going to be having fun, too. And, of course, she wants you to have a good time.

[01:00:49] So, yeah. Cool.

[01:00:52] I'm glad she had fun. I'm surprised that she wants to go back to see the Horizon Tour, though. I was, too, actually. That's kind of a.

[01:00:58] You see it once.

[01:00:59] Yeah.

[01:01:00] Nothing really changes.

[01:01:01] I was kind of thinking the same thing.

[01:01:01] I mean, they've been there for a long time in that building.

[01:01:03] I'm sure they've renovated the building and stuff since the last time I was there.

[01:01:06] But, like, I used to go there and pick up fuel because it was crazy expensive to ship it to the hobby shop. So, I used to just drive over there and pick it up.

[01:01:14] But at the place they're at now, the new building.

[01:01:17] On Fieldstone?

[01:01:18] No. Now they've moved. It used to be 4105 Fieldstone. Yeah.

[01:01:21] Now it's Research Road. They're in the old Habaco building.

[01:01:24] Oh, okay. Well, I know where that's at, too.

[01:01:26] Yeah.

[01:01:27] Okay.

[01:01:27] But, like I said, it went on a lot more than I expected it to.

[01:01:31] Okay.

[01:01:32] Like, I thought we were done. And, oh, behind this door, here's a whole bunch more stuff. Oh, okay.

[01:01:37] Cool.

[01:01:38] There was a lot of neat stuff in there. But, yeah, once you've seen it once. I mean, but if she wants to go back, I'll go back through it again. Whatever. Yep. It was interesting enough.

[01:01:49] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:01:50] There was something else I was going to say, but I completely lost it. That's probably my fault.

[01:01:53] Oh, it's me getting old. So, anyway, Piper's impression.

[01:01:57] So, yeah. So, here's Piper. Piper, bear with us on this one. Here we go. Okay.

[01:02:03] I'm Piper. I'm on the podcast. Yeah. I want to tell you about our Seafest. It was, like, really quite the size. It was really fun. And you could, like, see a lot. But, like, my favorite parts were the monster trucks. I did the candy drop, and I got seven pieces of candy. And my mom let me eat all of the seven pieces of candy. And I'm seven myself. I got a lifesaver. I also have, gotten, like, so, I've got, I had a lot of chocolate candies.

[01:02:58] Like, the chocolate candies, but my mom said they were, like, bars. There's those little squares. So, yeah. I had a lot of fun. I saw the fireworks Saturday. the monster trucks. Yeah. When that happened, I was sitting on my dad's shoulders because I went with my mom, dad, and I went. yeah, we all went together. I was sitting on my dad's shoulders, and there was a cicada that flew by, and I jumped. And it was really funny. and, like, I had my day. Had fun.

[01:03:44] Did the candy drop twice. yeah. I went there early. on Saturday, I went there after my mom and dad got home Friday because we all went together both days. Yeah. So, yeah. It was pretty fun for what I said. Like, not, like, said there, but, what I did. Pretty fun. So, yeah.

[01:04:13] Okay.

[01:04:14] That's the mind of a seven-year-old with no prompting. Yes. She's just, yeah.

[01:04:19] All over. Well, she, the, it's scattered everywhere. Yeah. Well, the monster trucks really made an impression. I know. And the candy drop.

[01:04:26] I was.

[01:04:26] So, all seven pieces. All seven pieces. Chocolate bars and a lifesaver. Which, the chocolate bars with a small, like, yeah. Okay. But mom and dad got, they, kudos to mom and dad for letting her eat all of it. Yeah.

[01:04:41] Yeah, I would have anyway. But she, she got her fill. I made the mistake of, I think it was Saturday night. I don't remember what night. It doesn't matter. I made the mistake of letting her have cotton candy. She doesn't have sugar very often. And she ate, like, a lot of cotton candy. She was wired. We didn't get home till after, that was almost midnight, actually, when we got home. And she was up till, like, 2.30. I was figuring you were going to say, you got it back.

[01:05:08] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was,. Usually that's what happens, yeah. It was a long night on that one because she was wired. yeah. And then coming home, too, I, for some reason, missed our exit. But I, I don't know why, like, Crystal was sleeping, Piper was in the back, and I was just like, I don't know if I was talking to her or daydreaming or what. And then all of a sudden I was like, wait, I shouldn't be here. So, we went 20 minutes out of our way to get home.

[01:05:34] -huh. But the highlight of it all. Yeah.

[01:05:40] The highlight for me. By far my favorite event of RC Fest. I'm sorry I missed it this year.

[01:05:47] I am, too. Next year. So, I took my slow ultra stick to do in the Ring of Fire. And I'm going to be honest, I was quite anxious. Yeah. I was shaky. When it was time to go up there, I, I mean, like, because there's a whole bunch of guys. There were literally, like, thousands of people there. There was a, and I'm not exaggerating on that one. I believe there was a ton of people there at this one.

[01:06:09] Like in the videos, yeah, you can see there's quite a crowd.

[01:06:12] And that, what you saw was half. Okay. Because the other side, it was just as full.

[01:06:17] But we were on the, what would that be, the left side of the runway, whatever it ended up being. So, as we were getting everything together, I went ahead and made sure I was standing to where I wasn't off kilter to how the, the ring was set up. So, I was looking straight through it, thinking that would give me a, what? I'm sorry.

[01:06:37] Go ahead. What? You stood in a position where you knew you would be able to fly right through it. Yes.

[01:06:44] Failed. But, so, I didn't feel terrible, though, because the guy that was standing next to me, I was talking to him before everything started, and this was his second year doing it. And he told me that he had not made it through the ring yet. And, to this day, it still continues, because his first time going through, he smacked the side of it. So, I don't feel terrible that I'm a one-yearer that didn't, although, technically, I guess I did make it through.

[01:07:12] Well, the airplane did make it. Both pieces went through.

[01:07:15] At the same time, it didn't make it through. Connected, no, it did not make it through.

[01:07:19] No, they were not connected when they, when they successfully traversed the ring of fire. But, so, here was my plan.

[01:07:26] Okay, as they, okay, so the ring of fire, for those that don't know, it is a, well, it's a 16-foot trampoline that actually. Frame. Trampoline.

[01:07:36] Trampoline frame.

[01:07:37] Yeah, that has a whole bunch of copper tubing and holes and all that kind of stuff in it to make big flames.

[01:07:44] Yeah, they run natural gas or whatever through it. Propane.

[01:07:46] Propane. Five bottles of propane is what it takes to run this thing.

[01:07:50] Oh, my.

[01:07:50] Because it's in quadrants. Yes, and then they actually have a flamethrower that is controlled by somebody with a transmitter. So, you can shoot flames up when planes are going through, which I found out, a little off topic, but this actually started in Germany at, I guess, their air meets or whatnot. They have a ring of fire event over there, which they actually use. I'm trying to think what they said.

[01:08:17] It was rags soaked in some sort of fuel, and they just light the rags on fire, and that's what they go through. This, to me, seems a little safer because you can turn off the propane if something happens. But anyway, so nice big, big, big area you think would be easy to get through. So, my plan is we're all sitting there because, I mean, all these planes are lined up. There was, I would say, easily 20 to 25 different airplanes there.

[01:08:43] I was the only slow ultra stick, by the way, which, yeah. So, as I was taking off, I was lined up right there. I'm like, I'm just going to fly right through it the first time, take off straight through it, go around, and come again. No. You would think, and like I said, I was very nervous. Like, my fingers were literally shaking. Like, I don't know why I was so just out of whack.

[01:09:10] Kind of like our first pylon race. Yeah. I was kind of shaky for that at Joe Nall.

[01:09:15] Me too.

[01:09:16] So, anyway.

[01:09:16] It was a lot like that. But, so, as soon as I missed it the first time, like, I thought I was going right through it, and then I pulled up because I thought I was behind, and I was way in front of it. Like, I was nowhere near being through the ring of fire. So, I kind of came around to the left, and I was going to aim to go through it again. And after I missed it the first time, I calmed down. I was like, all right. It doesn't matter. We're good now.

[01:09:40] Yeah, we're just having fun. Like, I wasn't, had no issues, nothing like that. I was calm, and I was coming around, and there was actually one plane that was slightly ahead of me, and then there was one that was ahead of both. Both of us, a little bit farther. And so, I'm kind of making sure I don't run into those airplanes at the same time as I'm trying to line up. Well, the first guy goes through, I shouldn't say that, first guy didn't go through.

[01:10:09] He smacked into the right-hand bottom side of the ring, and then the guy that was right in front of me, probably five feet ahead of me, smacked into the left side part of the top left part of the ring, and then I almost hit the exact same spot he hit right behind him. Both of my pieces of airplane did go through. So, I can say I, it's a stretch, but I can say I flew through the ring of fire, but I did do the event. So, I can at least say that.

[01:10:43] Slow Ultra Stick, before I flew in there, Crystal was asking, what plane are you taking and all that stuff? And I explained to her, that's the one I was taking. She said, well, why do you love that plane? I said, yes, but they have them in stock. So, when I crash it, I didn't even say if, I said when I crash it, I'll just buy another one. Well, she, well, how much are those? So, we went through all that stuff, and I was like, I shouldn't have said that.

[01:11:10] But oddly enough, so you saw the video. I did. You saw the pictures.

[01:11:14] Yes. The only thing that happened was I broke a propeller. Like, looking at the picture and the video, that really surprises me. Because in the picture, especially the still, the close-up still, I don't know where that came from, but it looks like there are, like, foam shrapnel surrounding what is your wing in the photo.

[01:11:41] I think that was the plane before me.

[01:11:42] Before you, yeah.

[01:11:43] Yeah.

[01:11:43] Because that plane did actually confetti, yeah, when it hit the ring. So, the fact that you came away with a broken propeller and a scuff, burn mark, whatever, on the left wing, it just slays me.

[01:11:59] So, I'm going to say I lucked out with where I hit it. Because I think, and especially the way this plane is made, it's very simple. There's no actual fuselage that's going to rip because it's a piece of aluminum tubing. So, when I hit, the wing separated. And by wing, I mean the foam, not the piece that actually holds the wing on. That stayed on the plane.

[01:12:22] Oh, okay.

[01:12:23] Right. And so, that's actually a two-piece wing that has a single servo that sits in one of the wings. Yeah. And then it goes, the control horns on each, or the servo controls both ailerons on separate wing panels.

[01:12:40] Right.

[01:12:40] Now, when they're together, they're actually together. I mean, there's a wing tube and stuff in there. But it ripped the wing panels apart just enough to where the wing tube was still in there, but it looked mangled when I got to it. The ailerons were all wonky and all that kind of stuff. And so, I picked it up. I was like, oh, this is, oh, wait, this isn't actually all that bad. So, I just kind of pushed it back to there. I was like, this wing looks fine. Yeah.

[01:13:03] Like, this is nice. And so, then I started looking for the fuselage. And it's, I mean, I can't find it. Like, I could not find it anywhere. All the other guys are, oh, there's my airplane, picking them up and walking them away. And I'm still looking. I'm like, all these airplanes are gone. Did somebody pick up my fuselage? And that's what I thought. So, I started to walk back up thinking somebody grabbed it, no big deal.

[01:13:23] And then one of the guys who was walking away said, hey, the fuselage for that wing is in the field. I was like, in the field? So, I walked back and probably 20 feet past where I was looking, across the little ditch that's on the side with all the tall weeds, there's an actual field back there, is my plane just sitting there, like on its wheels, in the field, with a broken propeller. And I was like, there's got to be more.

[01:13:51] And so, I'm looking at it, I'm like, oh, the ailerons don't work, obviously, because nothing's plugged in, but I still have a motor that'll spin.

[01:13:58] Yeah.

[01:13:59] I still have an elevator that works.

[01:14:01] Yeah, because you forgot, you told me you forgot to pull the throttle after the impact.

[01:14:05] Well, after the impact, yeah, I was, I think I probably could have saved it without a broken prop had I just gone straight to no throttle.

[01:14:11] And that's probably why it ended up as far into the field as it did, because you were

[01:14:15] Still on the throttle. It brought itself on the plate. I think I was in shock, actually, when that happened, because I have never done that before. And then all of a sudden, it's like, poof, it's gone. I don't know why, I don't think I was expecting that to happen the first time. I thought I would get at least one pass through. But anyway, yeah, so everything was still working, battery was still plugged in, and I was very impressed with the lack of damage.

[01:14:42] Yeah, the fact that it didn't bend the aluminum boom is surprising, too, because that's quite a, like, if you look at the wing, you hit the ring pretty far out on towards a wingtip. Two thirds, maybe three quarters of the way out. So that's like a lot of torque, on that boom or whatever, and it's straight as an arrow.

[01:15:02] You didn't even factor the landing gear, which is notoriously weak on that airplane.

[01:15:06] Yeah, notoriously.

[01:15:07] Landing gear's not messed up, like the mounts for the wings and stuff.

[01:15:10] Like, you did more damage flying it into the tree. I did. Than flying it into the ring of fire. I did.

[01:15:14] I was surprised. Like, I fully expected to be buying a new airplane, and I was okay with that. Like, that's… But how cool is it that you don't have to? I know. That's really cool. And I already had a propeller on hand since I did fly it into the tree before. You're welcome. So I was able to come home. I think the next day I fixed it. It was really windy. And the day after that, maybe, I went ahead and flew it. So I have flown this airplane.

[01:15:38] It now has a sticker that I made that has the ring of fire on it with a date, 2024. And it's right up here by the… By the day. By the scuff.

[01:15:48] Scuff, yeah. I mean, there's a little bit of a dent and burnt foam. I know, but I love it. I do, too.

[01:15:54] Yeah.

[01:15:55] Kind of like the extra or whatever on the side of your conchendo.

[01:15:59] Yeah. It adds character. Yeah. So that is now for sure my favorite plane. And that's the other thing that I think worked against us. It was very windy. Like, I mean, I think we had 30-mile-an-hour wind guests that day, too.

[01:16:14] Oh, goodness.

[01:16:14] So, like, I wasn't even sure if I was going to do it because of how windy it was. I mean, the guys that were flying, I mean, like the jets and stuff, you could tell they were still having issues, but it wasn't as big of a deal to them.

[01:16:27] Yeah. They're heavy.

[01:16:28] Yeah. But a bunch of them flew Aero Scouts at one time.

[01:16:33] And they were… Yeah. I think there was… Where did they get that idea?

[01:16:37] I don't know. I think there were 18 Aero Scouts that flew at once. Oh, that's awesome. And it sounded like a swarm of bees. I mean, like, it just… Well, they turn a lot of RPM anyway. I know. Aero Scouts do. They fly good. They do. But let's just say the flights that you watched there were not good sales flights because

[01:16:57] It was just that buffety.

[01:16:59] It was just that bad of wind.

[01:17:01] Yeah.

[01:17:02] But the nice thing about the wind is even though it was low to mid-80s, it didn't feel bad at all. It was pretty cool wind-wise.

[01:17:11] Cool.

[01:17:12] Yeah. So, I wasn't sure if I was going to do it. Then it kind of got to be a little bit darker. Wind died down. And I was like, perfect. And then, believe it or not, the wind picked back up afterwards. Like, as it got dark, it got really windy again. I actually took my Night Radian. Yeah, my Night Radian. I was going to fly that. Because I haven't flown it yet since I put the lights on. So, I was going to do that after everything was closed off. Too windy. Too windy. Yeah.

[01:17:41] Sorry. It's okay. But they did. So, the other guys that were there, there were four Night Radians that flew during the fireworks. how they, like last year, they're actually flying through where they're shooting out the fireworks? Yeah. One of them got taken out by a firework.

[01:17:54] Oh, really?

[01:17:54] It was the first time I saw it. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So, I went up afterwards to look at it and stuff. And sure enough, it had a hole right through the rear of the fuselage. And, like, the plane was still in one piece. But I guess it messed up whatever rods or something that were in there because he said he had no control. No control of the tail whatsoever.

[01:18:13] That's a one shot in a million.

[01:18:15] I know. That just doesn't happen. Yeah. I mean, there were a lot of fireworks, though. I mean, it was about a 20-minute fireworks show. Yeah. Cool. So, I fully expected somebody was going to get it one time because they were flying right through it. Yeah. But it was a lot of fun. You should get a Night Radiant, Tommy.

[01:18:31] I would like to get a Night Radiant.

[01:18:35] Come pick it up.

[01:18:37] Well, I got to give you something for it. But, yeah, I would – those are great Night Flyers, I think.

[01:18:43] Yeah. And especially the – like I said, with the Wingnut Tech controller board in it.

[01:18:50] Well, you did, like, the headlights and the – or not headlights, but the – Front and rear-facing. Yeah. I can't wait to see how you like it after that.

[01:18:58] Me, too. After that. I'd like to fly it sometime. Yeah. But, unfortunately, I was busy the night Dave and Daniel went out.

[01:19:04] What was I doing? Oh. That's right. You were tearing apart a BMW. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:09] But, so, yeah. That's my story.

[01:19:12] Cool.

[01:19:12] And it was fun.

[01:19:13] Yeah. RC Fest is always – well, I imagine it's always fun. It was fun the one time I got to go last year, but – Yeah.

[01:19:21] I definitely want to go again next year.

[01:19:22] Make it a point.

[01:19:23] Yeah. Put it on the calendar. Don't let anything get in the way.

[01:19:25] Well, the only reason I didn't this time was because of the car project.

[01:19:28] Which could have waited.

[01:19:30] Look at me, Wink. I know. I see you, Wink. But that's not how I am.

[01:19:33] Actually, I probably couldn't have waited because you're leaving for work stuff again. But other than that, I could have waited.

[01:19:39] Yeah. But that's not who I am. I can't leave projects like that. Once I am into a project, I got to –

[01:19:44] Yeah.

[01:19:45] How's the nose on my glider going? It's not boring at all because I've been working on this other project.

[01:19:51] I'm just joking, by the way, because I haven't done anything else on my glider.

[01:19:53] Because that's the other bad thing about me is I can only work on one thing at a time. Like I can – I only have enough brain cells to focus on one thing at a time. I wish I could do that, to be honest. A lot of people – well, I wish I could do more like what you guys do, work on multiple projects at a time.

[01:20:06] What?

[01:20:07] Don't finish anything? Well, you work on multiple projects at a time.

[01:20:10] We'll just leave it at that. I like how you word that. Yes. Yes, I do.

[01:20:15] But Dave can do it, too, and complete them.

[01:20:17] So, yeah.

[01:20:18] I don't like to, though.

[01:20:19] I like to log in on one and just do that. Yeah.

[01:20:23] That's my preferred – yeah.

[01:20:25] I mean, I finished the Phantom project and I started stripping out the cub.

[01:20:28] Which the Phantom looks fantastic.

[01:20:30] Thanks. It really does. I can't wait to see you fly it.

[01:20:34] Just don't have Ron launch it for you.

[01:20:36] Oh, my God. I wasn't planning on it anyway. You need to put the little handheld, like, thing on the bottom of it, like what's on the Haboo.

[01:20:45] Well, there's no – it's flat. There's no place to put that on the Phantom.

[01:20:48] Sure you could. Just recess it just a little bit. That's what the Haboo kind of looks like. It's a lot more work.

[01:20:56] Probably true.

[01:20:58] It's got a new design skeg on it anyway.

[01:21:00] I actually like the skeg. The new design, it feels much more solid. Yes. I mean, I like the retractable one because it retracts and you don't see it.

[01:21:08] I don't think you're going to see this one. I don't either. Plus, it needs it for landing so the wingtips don't dig in because, it ripped the pointy parts of the wing off.

[01:21:18] I think it was a bad design on the launch mechanism, even though you'd launched it several, several, several times beforehand. Yeah, it had been launched quite a few times prior to – but, yeah. Well, let's just throw it up to – it's not my fault. No, it's completely my fault. I get it. I understand.

[01:21:37] But anyway, yeah, you did RC fast and flew in the ring of fire, and that was awesome. Anything else?

[01:21:44] That's all I got. Dave? Yeah. I think we've hit the end of the road.

[01:21:48] For this episode, for sure. You guys are going to be on your own next one for the next release. Sorry. Unless you want to delay it by a week, then maybe I'll have something. Because I fully intend to, as I did last time I was in Tucson, to visit the club field there. Hopefully, I'll be there over a middle weekend. So, I would like to maybe go talk to them.

[01:22:11] Yeah.

[01:22:12] And maybe fly something on there. I don't think I'm going to be able to fit the Ultrix in the luggage this time because I'm not – I'm just taking – I'm just going to be gone for two weeks. I'm not taking my big back. Yeah, but maybe one of the club members there will recognize me and let me fly their airplane. We'll see. But I do – so, I'll have something to talk about is what I'm saying.

[01:22:34] Oh, that's the point. Okay. I wasn't sure where we were going.

[01:22:37] Yeah. I guess I should have rounded that.

[01:22:40] Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see what – I don't want to delay. So, we'll see. Okay. Then again, a sucky episode is not very good either. So, who knows? We'll figure it out.

[01:22:49] Who knows? Maybe between now and the next episode, Horizon will come out with another timber.

[01:22:54] I mean the – Or two.

[01:22:56] Who knows?

[01:22:57] The chances are good. Very good. Oy vey. Okay.

[01:23:02] If they do, oh my God. Oh my gosh. That would be kind of funny actually. There will be a lot of quiet.

[01:23:07] There will be an uprising. Yeah. I mean, they do fly good. They do. I wish we had gotten to fly the super timber.? Yeah. I would like to have flown one. Yeah. While they had them there at Joe Knoll.

[01:23:28] Yeah.

[01:23:28] I just had to get one more in there. Okay.

[01:23:32] I'm done. Me too. I'm out. All right. Good night. Good night, guys. Good night.

[01:23:36] I hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab Podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.