Ep 221: AMA Candidates, Warbirds & Classics, and Dave’s New Shadow Seeker X

00:00 — Opening

Ron: Okay.

00:14 — Welcome

Ron: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron.

Dave: And I’m Dave.

Ron: No Tommy today.

Dave: Not again.

Ron: He’s not cool enough to join the cool kids.

Dave: I know, right?

Ron: Anyway, he’s probably busy. Hopefully he’ll join us next time. I’m not holding my breath, but it’ll be good. So, Dave, how have you been?

00:40 — Catching up

Ron: I haven’t talked to you in almost two weeks, since the last time we recorded.

Dave: I’ve been good. Fred’s not trying to do something stupid, so I’m good. It’s the small things at this point.

00:54 — AMA candidate interviews

Ron: I want to keep this show a little shorter because we recorded separate episodes with Phil Tallman and Randy Gibson. They’re both running for AMA Executive Vice President.

We have a separate episode with each of them, and I don’t want to give everybody too much to listen to this week. I’d like everyone who can vote to fill out the ballot and vote. Rock the vote.

It seems like the AMA makes the election information hard to find. I searched my email and found one message, around August 28, with the candidates’ statements. It said ballots were supposed to start going out around September 15.

Ron: I got my ballot. Did you get yours?

Dave: I think so. I was cleaning house, saw the AMA name on it, and tossed it because I pay my dues online at the end of the year. I think I threw away the ballot.

Ron: Huey the bird may be filling it out for you.

Dave: He’s filling it out for me.

Ron: There doesn’t seem to be much outreach, and not many people know there’s an election going on. I thought it was our civic duty as podcasters in the RC airplane world to get the candidates on and give them a chance to talk about what they want to do.

I asked both of them the same set of questions and mostly let them talk. That was difficult sometimes. There were moments when I wanted to jump in, but I had to remind myself: this isn’t about me. Let them make their case.

Go listen to both interviews and fill out your ballot. They have to be postmarked by November 6 to count.

I need to find out whether we can vote online, because I may have thrown away my ballot. I’d tell people to check the AMA website, but it isn’t the easiest site to use. I went looking for the candidate statements before the interviews and couldn’t find a link on the homepage. I had to go to the Executive Council page and look near the bottom. It’s not somewhere most people would stumble across, even if they’re specifically looking for it.

The interviews turned out well. Go listen, decide who you want to vote for, and send your ballot in.

05:40 — Dave’s weekend flying

Ron: What’s new with you, Dave? You said you flew last weekend.

Dave: We had a confusing event. No one seemed sure whether it was Warbirds & Classics or just a fall open-house fly-in. It was advertised both ways.

I took mostly scale aircraft, which is what I have anyway. I stretched the definition of “scale” and brought my bald eagle. I flew it for the first time on my new radio. I’d forgotten how nicely that little flying wing flies.

The rubber bands are rotted, though. I kept them in the box they came in, inside the bag, inside a Ziploc, and they still went bad. I’ll have to buy more at Toledo next year. There’s always somebody selling them by the pound.

Ron: How was the event itself?

Dave: Great. The weather couldn’t have been better: overcast, five- or six-mile-an-hour winds, and temperatures in the upper 60s or low 70s. There was a lot of flying. I got ten flights in and didn’t see any crashes worth mentioning.

There were a lot of different airplanes. If you brought it, you could fly it. I had a good day. Sometimes you just need to spend a day flying.

Daniel couldn’t make it. He was helping at a charity fishing event for children with disabilities and took several kids out on his pontoon boat. They caught eleven fish, though I don’t know how that compared with everyone else.

10:30 — Illini Warbirds & Classics

Ron: My weekend was Illini Warbirds & Classics at Eli Field. There were some very nice airplanes. One was a 144-inch V-tail Bonanza with what I think was a 170 cc engine. It had big landing gear and lights, and it won the Pilot’s Choice award by a wide margin.

This was my first time as Contest Director. I drove over Wednesday night, came back home, drove over again Thursday, and stayed in the trailer Friday night. Crystal and Piper came out, and we went to dinner after the event.

We had about 27 pilots. This was really our first year holding it as a full event. Last year the weather was so bad that I was about the only pilot there. This year felt like a relaunch, with people coming in from around the country.

One thing that surprised me was how quickly people packed up after the awards. By around three o’clock Saturday, the place was nearly empty. Many had arrived Wednesday, even though the event started Thursday, and they had long drives home.

I also thought the pilots were very considerate of each other. We had four pilot stations, and people waited their turn. Even when there was a line, pilots gave the person in the air room to fly without someone else flying alongside them.

The feedback was good, and people said they’d come back next year. We are planning to do it again. We need to settle the dates earlier next time; a few people could only come for one day because they had other events on their calendars.

I brought my Hangar 9 Cub, but it didn’t feel like the right fit for this event. One guy joked that there hadn’t been a single Cub there, and I told him mine was there but I wasn’t going to fly it.

Dave: Your airplanes would have fit in fine. They may be smaller than some of the aircraft there, but they’re good airplanes.

Ron: I still feel a little intimidated at events like that, even though I know my airplanes are fine.

Dave: Next year you need to come. It’ll probably be the last weekend in September. We’ll announce the dates once they’re set, but put it on your calendar and come to Monticello.

17:54 — A good weekend at the field

Ron: Dave, I don’t think you finished your story about flying.

Dave: There wasn’t much to it. I paid an extra fifteen dollars to fly for the weekend. It was a nice weekend, with some different airplanes from what we usually see at the field. Just a good time.

18:30 — A production-ready laser cutter

Ron: Thursday night, one of the club members invited several of us over to see his laser cutter. He does a lot of kit cutting and showed us more about how he cuts than how he designs.

It’s a 130-watt laser with a cutting area, I think, of 36 by 52 inches. I’m in love. The speed and accuracy compared with what we have are amazing. Now I’m looking for a bigger laser because I want something with a larger work area.

Dave: You’ll have to rewire the house.

Ron: No, it runs on 110 volts, and you don’t run it at full power. The exhaust system probably takes more power than the laser.

It’s amazing how much things have changed. Lasers that used to cost $150,000 can now be bought for around $10,000. That’s still a lot of money, but it’s much more within reach than it used to be, and you can do a lot more with them.

The room is the biggest problem. I’d have to remove some cabinets in the garage and figure out the smoke control. I already vent the small laser out a window, so I’d do something similar.

21:02 — Weather and a quick pause

Dave: The weather has been wonderful for flying, but I’m trying to get in as much as I can before the cold weather arrives. Sixty degrees, no humidity, and no wind—it won’t last.

Ron: Did you keep everybody’s attention while I was gone?

Dave: I told them to look over here. I don’t know if it worked.

21:34 — E-flite Micro P-47 Thunderbolt

Ron: I wanted to talk about a new release from Horizon because it’s an interesting airplane. It’s the E-flite Micro P-47 Thunderbolt, with a 24.6-inch, or 625-millimeter, wingspan.

It’s a little bigger than the UMX models. A lot of the newer small models are moving to 3S batteries, and this one uses a 3S 600-to-850-milliamp-hour battery.

The cool thing is that it has a clear canopy, flaps, navigation lights, and retracts. It’s supposed to be available in October. The price is $249.99.

Dave: Retracts are interesting, but you’d need a smooth asphalt runway.

Ron: It would be nice if there were a way to cover the gear doors and remove the retracts for people who don’t have access to asphalt—or offer a version without them for less money.

I’m not a huge P-47 fan based on its shape, but it’s interesting to see all those features in an airplane this size. The price is getting to be the new normal. Everything is more expensive. I’ll keep buying used when I can. That’s the good thing about swap meets.

24:23 — Dave’s new Strix Shadow Seeker X

Ron: Dave, you have a new airplane. You walked in with it. Tell us about it.

Dave: In 2024 at Joe Nall, we bought two Ready Made RC Shadow Seekers. We’ve enjoyed them. I’ve talked with one of the owners at Joe Nall, Toledo, and other events. He’s a really nice guy, though I can’t remember his name right now.

We thought the new version would be a Shadow Seeker V2, but they renamed it the Shadow Seeker X. It’s a complete redesign. It seems to use the same airfoil, but the wings are a little shorter and it has a straight center section.

It has a stronger motor and very large aileron throws. The original had a two-blade prop; this one has a three-blade prop. I don’t know whether that’s for clearance or because the motor needs a different prop. It’s the same sort of drone prop they use on the McTwist, and it is noisy.

Ron: That was probably the most beautiful hand launch in the history of man.

Dave: Thank you. I was expecting it to be a nasty toss and for me to have to fight it back. I’d guessed at the reflex because the instructions didn’t mention it, but apparently I guessed right. I let go, moved my hand, and it flew away. It was a non-event.

I cut the rates down from the recommended 100 percent on the ailerons. I flew it at about 80 percent, then on mid-rates around 60 or 65 percent. It was plenty maneuverable. I want to try it in a bigger area so I can really let it go.

The three-blade prop is noisy, and I may experiment with it. The airplane has nice lights, but the top and bottom look very similar, so I may add something to help tell them apart.

It looks like a fun little airplane. I think it’ll be more aerobatic than the regular Shadow Seeker, though probably not as maneuverable as the McTwist. It has a manta-ray look to it.

I had to add two and three-quarter ounces of lead to the nose, even with the recommended battery. That concerned me, but it glides beautifully and flew well. The kit, with motor, props, servos, speed control, and lights, was around $150. It came with four props—two clockwise and two counterclockwise—so you can reverse the motor and use the other pair.

It’s made from very dense foam. I ordered it after getting an email that it was back in stock, and it was at my door in about 48 hours.

33:18 — RCPlaneLab.com website update

Ron: We’ve updated the website. It’s no longer just a place to put our podcast episodes. We’ve added a lot of resources to make it easier to find help, especially if you’re new to the hobby or trying to solve a specific problem.

There’s a Learning Library, a glossary, and a Troubleshooting Center with common problems and ways to fix them. We’ve added calculators, including watts per pound and a servo calculator to help figure out the torque you need.

All of the podcast episodes now have transcripts, so you can search for a topic and find the episode where we talked about it. That should be handy, because we don’t always remember what we talked about.

The site isn’t finished. We’ll keep adding and changing things, but it’s in a much better place than it was a few months ago. I’m actually proud of how it looks now.

36:02 — Closing

Ron: Like I said, this is a short episode. We wanted to give people time to listen to the candidate interviews. Go check those out. Dave, anything else?

Dave: I’m good. I’m hoping to have better stuff for next time.

Ron: We all hope that. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Until next time, I’m Ron.

Dave: And I’m Dave. Good night.

Ron: We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. To give feedback, connect with us at RCPlaneLab.com, email Ron at Ron@RCPlaneLab.com or Tom at Tom@RCPlaneLab.com, or text or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.