Ep 72: TRUST, and a Bunch of Other Stuff

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom. Well, we’ve had a busy couple.

[00:00:10] Weeks. Yeah, we actually did stuff that we said we were going to do on our break- which we’re not on our break anymore- but we got some stuff done. So, yeah, we went to the field, we did, I went.

[00:00:20] Twice, I went well, you went. Once. Well, I went once. Right, I went twice, you did. It was actually kind of funny. So the first time I had no plans on going to the field and I got a text from one of our buddies and said: hey, I’m at the field, where are you? What do you mean? Where am I? Maybe?

[00:00:35] Text me beforehand and say: hey, we’re going out. Would you like to meet us there?

[00:00:39] Or whatever. Well, actually I didn’t have a lot of time. No, I didn’t have any time, but I had to rearrange some stuff and my wife did everything that I was supposed to do so I could go out and have some fun. So very kind of her. I enjoyed that for letting Ron go out and play. But so there was a guy there- and you’re a nitro guy. Yeah, he had, I think it was. Is it os 55? Does that make sense? Okay, so he had an os 55 and it had a tuned pipe on it. 55 Ax- yep, very nice sounding engine. Oh yeah, I mean like it. It screamed: yeah, very, very fast, the plane was fast, the motor was fast, you could hear the prop.

[00:01:13] Even like ripping. Yeah, it was pretty cool for a plane that size, yeah. However, he had to change the glow plug after every flight. Oh dear, like he would try to start it up after he landed to go up.

[00:01:27] Again, especially now. Look, not cheap. I don’t know if you guys have noticed right now, but like iridium is apparently hard to get, so there’s not like I mean there’s still glow plugs out there, but they’re they’re a little pricey, yeah, what are they like? Nine bucks, ten bucks, nine to ten bucks? Yeah, I remember.

[00:01:43] When I started with cars it was like a dollar 99 a piece. Yeah, you could get the mccoy mc59s.

[00:01:49] Whatever it was, yeah, for not a clue. Yeah, two bucks a piece, but yeah, not anymore. But okay, so. So back to

[00:01:55] This guy. So he was running it and after every flight, like I said, he had to change it. Yeah, so you weren’t there, right? But based on what I told you, tell me exactly what was wrong with that.

[00:02:08] Wow, exactly, I mean exactly, yeah, with no margin for error. Well, no, of course not.

[00:02:14] I mean like would it be like a plug? That’s the wrong temperature, or because it could lean, it could be.

[00:02:19] Well, it’s probably what it is. It’s a combination of factors, it’s probably not any one factor. Okay, initial impressions, and I’m familiar with the airplane and the engine combination you’re talking about. I’ve seen them fly that before and yeah, it does rip. I mean it screams, it’s very fast, smooth airplane too, which has nothing to do with why the engine runs that way. But yeah, I think I think number one, he might be running it a touch lean so it’s getting hot. Obviously, number

[00:02:50] Two, I think he may have it under propped, like he’s got it propped for max rpm, which fine, at the expense of premature engine wear and obviously the changing of the plug frequently. I wouldn’t think it would cause every flight, but wow, well and I, I, once again I was.

[00:03:08] Out there saw three flights and he had to change it after the reason that he did yeah, when I saw him change it before he flew it, so I don’t know if this is normal. He didn’t make it sound like it.

[00:03:17] Was: no, you shouldn’t have to change a plug after every flight. Well, he didn’t make it sound like it.

[00:03:22] Was normal for that airplane, so I don’t know what would be different this time, as opposed to like how.

[00:03:26] He usually flies. My guess number one is it’s, it’s too lean. And number two: I don’t think he has a big enough prop, either he needs more pitch or more diameter. And then number three, it could be the plug if he’s running. I mean the os 55ax is a is a great engine. It’s a great sport engine. It performs very, very well. It doesn’t require a special plug like an os. Number eight plug should run in that engine in optimum conditions for seasons on one plug. So my guess is if he’s using a number

[00:03:58] Eight plug. He’s probably got it too lean and under propped would be my guess, and under propping will cause too much rpm, gets hot and you’re causing more heat and it’s just bad for plugs.

[00:04:10] So if you’re running an rpm that’s too high, is it possible you’re not getting enough fuel through? They’re making it leaner too. Yeah, I mean like will it? Will it turn faster than like the fuel can flow?

[00:04:21] Through, or is that not a thing? Well, no, the fuel, the limit of the fuel flow, will limit rpm. Okay, you’re not going to turn more rpm than then. Well, I didn’t know if it would like lean out more, but it can’t go faster. But I mean more so than leaning out, you’re just making things hot. Okay, you’re not giving the, the oil that’s in the fuel, long enough time in the engine to actually carry heat away with it to cool it down. Okay, so that’s my guess. Well, that was interesting, yeah. But yeah, man, that thing does rip. I’ve seen it fly a few times. I don’t remember him having that problem before. He may, just he may.

[00:04:54] Just have a little eighth of a turn too much on the needle, cool. So that was. That was that day.

[00:04:59] I saw a couple other guys flying stuff and, like I said, I didn’t take anything out because I didn’t

[00:05:03] Have time to do anything because I didn’t notice. Yeah, you got about 10 minutes. Hey, I’m here.

[00:05:09] Where are you? Well, and originally I told him I said, well, I’ll be out there after I do my running. And I said I can get out there probably by noon, right? He’s like, well, that’s what time I’m supposed to leave. He said I, he’s got other things going on, right, so I got to be out of there by noon. Yeah, it’s like: well, shoot, let me. Let me see what I can do. So I ended up getting out there by 11.. I was proud of myself. That’s pretty good, actually. Yeah, and he didn’t leave till about one.

[00:05:34] So okay, yeah, well, I mean, but I got to see him fly. He flew three airplanes, he had the s-bac.

[00:05:41] The big one. The big one, oh beautiful it is. He’s getting a lot better at it. Good landings, look nice. Takeoffs, look nice. Well, that airplane makes I mean they’re, the bigger they are- oh yeah, you can say that- the better they fly that. Well, what is that? One that’s a. That’s a 42 percent. No, it’s not 37. Excuse me, is it that? I think so? I didn’t think it was that. Yeah, it’s a 37.. It’s only like 107 inch wingspan, yeah, but I thought it was a little bit bigger. 112, I thought, but whatever, yeah, it’s got a number, it’s kind of dle 111 on it. So I mean it’s. It’s not a small airplane, no, it’s not.

[00:06:16] Okay, and he had the. Was that the, the, not a rascal? What’s the? The blue one? That one better than I do. Cadet, cadet, yeah, with a 46.. Yeah, that he has to fly at full throttle so it doesn’t fall out of the air. Yeah, and then your old mustang. Oh yeah, marie, yeah, marie, with the evolution now.

[00:06:36] Is that a nine or ten cc? So eight cc is what sticks in my head. It was a weird, oh yeah, it was a weird size that evolution did for a short. It was like their smallest gasoline gas one, yeah, engine that they I think they ever made okay, but always ran good when I had it. So well, no, it ran.

[00:06:56] Good then too, but yeah, excellent. There was just discussion. Nobody could remember if it was a. He thought it was 10, somebody else said nine and I was like I have no clue. I’m pretty sure it’s an 8 cc, but now that you say that, that makes sense, because I think that was the smallest one they’ve ever made.

[00:07:09] Yep, so yeah, that was. Did he have safe mode on or off, do you remember? I don’t know. Yeah, that’s actually a really good flying airplane. Even with the safe mode off, it flies really nice, I mean for a mustang.

[00:07:22] Well, that’s a trainer, I mean it’s not really. It’s got a flat bottom wing and it’s a little more. It’s marked like a mustang right, but it’s not really kind of shaped like a mustang, it’s like a.

[00:07:32] Cartoony mustang to make it fly better. Yeah, but it does fly good. Yeah, but- and speaking of mustangs,

[00:07:36] Our buddy also had a that bigger mustang that you, you had retuned the engine. Yeah, yeah, the big.

[00:07:43] I think that had a 35 that has a 35 cc evolution on it, gt 35 yep or 33, I think. Yeah, he’s at something.

[00:07:52] Like that: yeah, single head. I mean that thing was just like shoved in that thing. But yeah, apparently.

[00:07:58] That had been crashed before. Yeah, I think he had. I think he had an issue with that. Somebody had flown it, got it trimmed for him, then he flew it, I think in the engine died over the corn and he put it in the corn, minor damage, had it rebuilt and then I think that was his first time flying it after.

[00:08:13] The rebuild. I think it was a hairy takeoff. Yeah, you said it looked like he was down on power. It didn’t seem like it had the full rpm, but it just it sounded slow. Yeah, we tuned that a few days before in my.

[00:08:25] Garage which you were. You were there for, or I was there after, but yeah, and it seemed fine in the garage. So I don’t know we’ll have to, we’ll have to do more work on that one, I think. Yeah, it’ll be.

[00:08:36] To get him some extra power somewhere. Interesting to see what rpm it’s actually turning. Just maybe my ear is off. I mean, like I said it, it doesn’t or it didn’t sound like it had a good speed to it, but I’ll.

[00:08:48] Be honest, when we tuned it in the garage, I didn’t. I didn’t whip out the tack to see what it was doing, but by ear it sounded normal. Yeah, so, and we didn’t have one with us to check either. So we’ll get a tack on it next time he and I get together and work on it. Get it going. That brings us to today. Today, yeah, four successful flights for me, a couple full flights for you. Yeah, it was a good.

[00:09:09] Day. Well, yeah, I mean yes, okay, all things considered. Yes, I mean crashed. It’s a good, that’s true, but it was windy, it was a little windy, it was a lot windy. I mean like for your bigger planes. Like I just took out a small air tractor, so the e-flight air tractor, so I didn’t have anything that could handle it well.

[00:09:27] Right, and it just man, it got. It was hard to get bumpy, yeah, yeah, there towards the end of the day, that was just when I flew, exactly because it took you a while to build up the, the courage to go fly.

[00:09:42] So here’s the thing- and I shouldn’t say this, but, honestly, here’s the thing. So my ama membership has lapsed, yeah, which I didn’t realize. I thought it was the end of july that it.

[00:09:52] Expired, but it was the end of june, so june 30th is why I think mine did too. I don’t think. No, I renewed mine. Okay, I’m good. Well, I took me a minute to remember. It’s like: what did I renew? I did. Well, I tried.

[00:10:05] To. I tried to on three different computers. No, sorry, two different computers and my phone. Anytime I went through tried to. I tried to. Okay, so anytime I went through, because I signed into my account and all that stuff, right, when you go to your cart. It showed me one year membership, right, and I tried to do the auto renew from now on too, yeah, and then it would go to the to show you your page, not your page, but your, your cart. There was no checkout button, like I would start to go through the checkout process and then it would get to the part where it was showing me.

[00:10:35] Everything right. Ask me if I had a coupon code and then there was no pay button on it. Whoops.

[00:10:41] So I emailed them. Haven’t heard anything back. So, yeah, ama, if you’re listening, if anyone from- I’m sure they are, why wouldn’t you? Yeah, yeah, if you’re listening, fix the pay issue. We some folks would like to renew online and if you don’t, make it so that they can pay you.

[00:10:58] They can’t renew. Yeah, so that was my. That was kind of what stopped me from being sure if I was going to fly or not. Yep, but then you’re like we’ll just fly as my guests, and so we, we buddied together and

[00:11:10] Did it and took care of stuff. So we were cool, yeah, but all the airplanes came home in one piece- well, I mean there- and we took them apart right to put them in the cars. But, yeah, no crashes. Like nobody crashed today while we were there. Of course, it was just the what? Three or four.

[00:11:24] Of us. Yeah, there was four different ones that are there, which surprised me. Yeah, it was a nice day.

[00:11:29] I figured there’d be. There’d be more nice day after the holiday, a little windy, yeah, but

[00:11:34] Everybody had the day off. Well, I shouldn’t say that most everybody had the day off. Why wouldn’t?

[00:11:38] You go out for everybody. Well, I said most. True, I fixed myself, you did, I checked myself, but it was a good day. I mean the temperature wasn’t too bad, it was a little. It was hot- well, it’s not as hot as it could be in the- and there’s a little honeybee sweat bee things weren’t out. No, not bad at all. Nice, yeah, because I remember last summer being out there that one day. Man, oh the bees, oh my.

[00:12:01] Gosh, yeah, I remember that too. That was terrible. I think we did an episode about bees.

[00:12:04] It was not fun, no, but today. Today was a good day. I flew the big s-boc and took out the yellow stick and, like you said, you had the air tractor. It was a good day and I was out there with his giant- he calls it the splat plane- which is a matt chapman cap 580 great flying airplane which

[00:12:25] Then you tell me you were selling all of your big airplanes. Well see, I keep, I’m waffling, I can’t.

[00:12:33] Make up my mind like: so our friends have generously offered many, many, many times to say: hey, Tom, fly my, fly this big airplane. Anytime you want to fly it, come get it, fly it, treat it like it was yours. And you’ve heard them. So I’m not lying, absolutely so I mean, I’ve heard one guy say: I feel like this airplane is ours, which have added: I don’t understand that, but cool, sure, yeah, cool. So that got me to thinking like: so I don’t know how, how our listeners are, like any of our listeners that have

[00:13:08] Been listening for a while. I mean I’m sorry, so I just took a drink of my water and it tastes as though.

[00:13:16] It was in a refrigerator with celery. That is gross with celery- how that just smell gets into everything. Yeah, yeah, really. So that’s okay. Well, I’m glad I’m not drinking that water. Yeah, I don’t know if I want to anymore. Do you want to try this one, see if it’s any better? Yeah, sure, throw it over.

[00:13:34] See if that was better. Nope, the same thing. Really. Yeah, that’s bizarre, okay, anyway, that’s really strange. So, anyway, you’re selling your big planes, but yeah, so friends have offered to let me fly their, their big airplanes anytime I wanted to, and so I got to thinking before I get to that, when I go downstairs at my house into my hobby area, the clutter is driving me nuts. We’ve been so busy. I.

[00:14:06] Haven’t had time to organize or clean, and I usually do that in my area about twice a year, usually at the beginning of summer, and usually at some point during the winter when I’m in the middle of building something and I just gotta clean everything so I can move on to the next step or whatever. So it’s the clutter is so bad, like when I walk down there I could feel like this giant weight just like on my shoulders, like, oh, I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done, but before I can do this, I gotta clean this off. But before I clean this, I gotta find a home for that. And it’s just

[00:14:38] Yeah, I hate the fact that I have to move stuff out of the way before I can go on to the next step, whatever that is. Yeah, it’s an extra barrier to doing something right. And, I’ll be honest, when I go downstairs and I look around at the amount of work that’s in front of me to do, I get somewhat- I don’t want to say discouraged, but like it’s like I don’t feel like dealing with this right now, so I’ll just turn right around and go back upstairs and waste time doing something else, and that’s not productive. No, so, and we’ve got a big project that I really, really am excited about and I want

[00:15:13] To get started on it. But before I can do that, here we go what I’m saying. So, yeah, so I have these two big airplanes, I have the tri-motors- what you’re talking about, by the way, yeah, the big project we got coming up. So I have this big s-box that flies wonderfully. Who flew it today? And then I have another similar size yak, which is also a great flying airplane. But they just they. I mean, I’ve flown the yak once in the last two years and I’ve flew the s-box maybe two or three times, so I don’t.

[00:15:43] Fly them that often. I always find myself taking the smaller airplanes out because, number one, they’re just super convenient, I can throw them in the back of the car, and number two, they’re, they’re, they’re low investment. Like, if I lose one of those small ones, like we’ll build another. Yeah, I’ll be sad or whatever, but I’ll build another one and off we go, these bigger ones. They’re just, they’re more of an investment of time and money. If I can sell the two big ones, then that’ll free up some space so that I can move stuff around to get my, my space organized and then

[00:16:19] They’ll just be out of the way. I’m I’m afraid I have the. The yak is kind of out of the way in the back of the workshop way up high, which is probably why I don’t fly it, because it’s difficult to get out, yeah, and then the s-box sits on the floor. Now, granted, it’s off to the side underneath my plane rack, but I’m just afraid that it’s going to get kicked, or the dogs are going to go down there and break something, or I’m going to drop something on it. It would just be better if it was somewhere else. So I, but I flew it today, and now I want to keep it again because it flies so good.

[00:16:49] What I mean. Well, it went together easy. I mean it’s not like it was difficult to put together or take apart, right, so I wouldn’t sell it. And it was easy to transport. I could transport it and you.

[00:17:00] Know this is a 50 cc sized airplane, so 33, maybe 30, whatever. So it fits in my vehicle, so there’s no worry there. That’s usually 25 give or take. I thought, okay, well, whatever those works out, I think it’s a 78 inch wing or maybe a little bit 80, but whatever it is sure. So yeah, I don’t know. I mean I keep going back and forth. I could get rid of these big airplanes and then fly someone else’s big airplanes, but then that’s a whole other thing. I crashed someone else’s.

[00:17:31] Airplane. Now I’m on the hook, for I would feel like I was on the hook. Some people don’t feel that way, but I do. If I’m flying somebody’s airplane, I crash it. I feel responsible.

[00:17:41] For that. So really, yeah, huh, you’re looking at me. That’s fine, move on. No, it’s okay. I mean go ahead. You crashed one mine. You never replaced it, but that’s okay. Was that the pizza box airplane? Yeah, I missed that one. Well, let’s make another one. Yeah, granted, it was like a dollar fifty worth of foam.

[00:18:00] Let’s make another one. I mean, it did fly, okay, I should. It flew. Well, yeah, it was fun, but anyway, for a big square sheet of foam, it was literally that’s all it was, yeah. So anyway, yeah, I’m, I’m thinking about selling the big airplanes, but then after today, after the good, the good day we had, it’s like, well, it’s really not that big a deal to move it out of the way every time. But then as soon as I- it’s still out in the car because we came from the field straight to here- as soon as I get home and I unload it and put it back in its storage place, I’ll probably be right back where I was. But

[00:18:33] Here’s the thing: first things first finish the horton, and then I know, then see how you feel, yeah and that.

[00:18:41] Project boy. I’m at a point in that project where I it’s a, it’s a part of building that I really don’t enjoy. Yeah, gear doors. I mean gear doors. Well, and it’s not even your airplane which.

[00:19:00] Makes it. There’s not the interest in getting it done because it’s your airplane or it’s.

[00:19:05] One that you wanted. Well, and then, like you brought up when we were at the field. Today, it’s like I feel guilty anytime I work on anything of my own or someone else’s, because I feel like, well, I really ought to be working on this horton, because I’ve had it for two or three years, and it’s been over two years now. Yeah, dave’s been great, though I mean, he’s the guy I’m building it for. Yes, he’s no pressure whatsoever, but I feel bad for him because I’ve made him wait so long. I mean, I’d say

[00:19:30] By the end of the decade it probably ought to be done. Thanks Ron, your sights low. We aim for.

[00:19:39] Okay, yeah, yeah, hey, speaking of doing things for other people, I had one of our listeners do something for me- very nice guy, very, very nice. So I’m going to call him out by name, okay, if that’s okay with you, his name, and I apologize if I mispronounce his last name, but james guyton. I would say that’s what I would say. Yeah, he was kind enough, he heard our diesel engine conversation and he sent me one in the mail, as opposed to, I guess, some other way ups maybe, yeah, but anyway, yeah, he sent.

[00:20:13] Me an engine. I said: here you go play with this and don’t bother sending it back. So, james, thank you very much. I did get the engine, yeah, yeah, very generous and it’s actually quite an interesting little engine- did a little internet digging on it and so, yeah, it’s a. It’s a. It’s actually called a silver swallow. It’s a 2.47 Cc, which is about a 15.15 Cubic inch diesel engine. It’s pretty small, yeah, and so these things were made in china from the beginning, like

[00:20:49] I guess the, the, the in from the beginning. Well, so there’s a long story with this particular engine or company. So back in the mid 60s- we’re not sure exactly when the production began, because they were actually came from china- at when the, the whole iron curtain, bamboo curtain thing was, they didn’t, you didn’t know what was going on in china because they it wasn’t like it is today. So we’re not really sure how far back the, the design and the

[00:21:27] Production of this engine goes, but it was. It first appeared in the states in about 1968. Okay, and they’ve remained, relatively, except for some small changes, unchanged from the time they were introduced in the states until they quit production in the early 90s. Wow, so 20 plus years of production with minimal change. So that’s, that’s very either a good design or a lazy design. I don’t know which, well, it could be, it could be both. But if, if you do a youtube search and just silver swallow 2.47 Or even

[00:22:01] Silver swallow diesel. You’ll find people that have run these and they appear to run okay actually.

[00:22:08] Production quality varied, like early production engines are like really nice, really well machined and manufactured, and then I guess as time goes on the production quality kind of declines a little bit until another company takes over another chinese company, after the kind of the curtain fell right in the 88, 89, whatever that was, and then the production kind of went up when this other company took over. And I forget what they were called then. They were still called silver swallows, but they made them in two sizes. There was a 2.47.

[00:22:40] And a 1.6 Something I think it was. Oh, so this is the bigger of the two. Yeah, wow, yeah, they made a 0.09 Version and then this 0.15. So when? When was this one that you just got made, so best I could tell from? So I’m gonna say, like there’s an enthusiast out there for everything, right, like this microphone stand, there’s somebody out there that has that knows the complete history when it was made, and they’ve got like

[00:23:11] Multiple examples. I’m saying like there’s an enthusiast out there for everything, and I found an enthusiast for these little engines and a collector and he has his own web page and very, very detailed history of this particular engine, which is pretty neat. I thought the guy has taken a lot of his own time and this is hobby and he’s made this whole web page. It’s pretty cool. But anyway, and I forgot where I was going with that- when was it made? Is what I asked. Yeah, so yeah, to get to that.

[00:23:45] On this web page. This guy did a legacy, did all the research and you can date the engines. Like the early engines they actually had date stamps on the mounting lug. Well, they quit that in about 1970-ish, 69, 70. So there’s no date marks on this engine, so it’s not a pre 70 engine. So then you go to the components of the engine and how they were made. So this particular engine has- so it’s a diesel engine, right? So it has a compression screw on the top of the head. That

[00:24:18] You screw in and out, change compression and then to lock that screw in place, there’s a

[00:24:25] Locking lever, right. So how that lever is made. You can sort of date the engine by that. So the one on this engine is stamped steel, right. So that means it was probably made sometime between the middle 80s and the end of the production, which was 93 or 4.. Prior to that locking lever was a machined piece of round aluminum bar stock. So you can date those engines by roughly 1972-ish or.

[00:24:55] Whatever it was, to the mid 80s when they went to the stamp steel because it was cheaper. So yeah, this one was made sometime between the mid 80s and the late 80s. Because it’s not a 90s model, because the- I think it was the thrust washer was not stamped and not machined. So yeah, there’s a few things you can look at on these little guys to give you a rough estimate. Rough, yeah, yeah, there’s no way.

[00:25:25] To get an exact date because they there’s no date stamps on them. But yeah, and that’s, it’s that way for.

[00:25:30] Most, most engines it is. I mean, yeah, but still it’s kind of good range. Yeah, an actual range of when it was.

[00:25:37] Yeah, so kind of cool because- thanks, james, I appreciate that I can’t wait to. To give it a whirl, I’m going to mix up my own diesel fuel, because model engine diesel fuel is not easy to find. So what’s diesel fuel then? So yeah, it’s not a standard diesel fuel. You have to use a model specific.

[00:25:56] Okay, that’s what I meant. What kind? How are you going to mix? I mean, like I know you said you can’t just

[00:26:00] Go buy diesel stuff. From everything I’ve read, it’s a one-to-one mix. One-to-one-to-one mix of kerosene, castor oil and ether. Yeah, yeah, ether. They use ether in the to assist in the combustion process. Where do you find that starting fluid? Just take a can of starting fluid and spray it in a bottle, whatever. Yeah, okay, that’s that’s what I’ve read. How most folks have done. I thought I read somewhere that somebody said that they had taken a bottle of that and froze it like in the

[00:26:33] Freezer, and I guess something about the freezing process takes away the pressure of the toluene or whatever they use as the propellant like, because aerosol- it’s an aerosol on you, but yeah, and then you could just slice the can open and pour the contents out. I’ve read that too somewhere. I’m not sure I want to try that. I don’t think I would be up for trying that one. I’ll just go outside and spray it in a jar and try not to get my face in it. That stuff evaporates pretty quick, doesn’t it? Or am I thinking of something else? Well, I think it does actually. So, yeah, sealed container. Good luck, don’t know how. That’ll be interesting, yeah. So yeah, I’ll find some.

[00:27:09] Ether. I’ll get some ether somehow and mix up my own fuel and give it a whirl and then hopefully, yeah, we’ll make a, we’ll do a video of that so you guys can see what- what the heck- we’re talking about.

[00:27:19] So you can see that we don’t know what we’re doing and oh, I’ll be honest with you, I have

[00:27:23] No clue what I’m doing. I’m just reading stuff on the internet and watching youtube videos, isn’t that?

[00:27:28] How you learn these days, though, honestly, oh yeah, I mean, anytime you need to know how to do something, it’s straight to the internet. Yeah, everybody is now smart. Yeah, with what they want to be smart with.

[00:27:38] Yeah, communal knowledge works fine for me. Yeah, it’s kind of what we do. I’ve fixed my car many times with stuff I’ve seen. Oh, absolutely so. So that’s how I’m gonna mix my fuel and I can’t wait to give this thing, give this thing a run. I’m gonna wear earplugs because apparently these things are pretty loud really. Yeah, no muffler. If you’ve ever- I guess that makes sense- if you’ve ever ran one of those little cox 049s, imagine that only louder. So there you go. I can’t wait to hear it. So I guess

[00:28:11] We’ll do it out of my house then, since we’re in the country, yeah, we’ll definitely do this at your house, okay, once again, yeah, thanks, thanks, james, we I appreciate that and I can’t wait to.

[00:28:22] Run it and make a video of it for you, be fun, and for us, yes, yes, all right, let’s move on. All right, so a couple other things. We’re on patreon: yep, if you like what we do and want to help support us, become a patron. We have. We have been talking back and forth for a long time and we still have no clue, by the way, so this isn’t like an announcement or anything. No, we’ve been. We’ve been talking about what we can do to thank our patrons, because we really appreciate.

[00:28:56] The support they give us and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I, I always come up blank like I.

[00:29:02] Don’t know. We- let’s put this in perspective- we don’t have like thousands and thousands and thousands of patrons- oh gosh, no. But the ones we do have, we really, really appreciate and, like Ron’s saying, we’ve- we’ve kind of come up against a brick wall as to what we can do to thank you and how we.

[00:29:21] Express that, yeah, so we’ve had some come and some go. I mean, some do it for a month, yeah, and cancel off, some do it for a couple months. That’s cool, whatever that’s. I think what we’ll start doing, though, and tell me if you’re okay with this, is, every, maybe every month, we’ll just read a list of everybody to say thank you, oh yeah, I mean, is that? Yeah, I think that’s fair. I don’t, I don’t know.

[00:29:41] What else you’re giving away our secret, though. What’s our secret? Well, how many patrons we actually have. Why is that a secret? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t care if people know. We only have like two patrons. We have nine. Oh well, see, that’s better than nothing, that’s better than two, yeah well, yeah, I.

[00:29:58] Think that’s a great idea. Okay, so let’s do it then. Well, let’s do it. I will read the names. Okay, so thank you very much to don oh boy shack. Don shake shack, that’s how I would pronounce that. So, first off, I’m going to apologize to anybody- anybody that we mess up your name, don, I apologize.

[00:30:16] I’m sure I probably mispronounced it, but if I did, let me know. There you go, yeah, and we’ll fix.

[00:30:22] It next time? Yeah, absolutely, don shack, don shake. Thank you very much, jeff flight team. We appreciate you. Garrett newhart, thank you, jason varis. Thank you very much, Ron stress. Thank you also, rob alexander. Greatly appreciated, rick maddox, you’re awesome. Jeffrey arsenalt, why are you laughing at me? I’m not.

[00:30:46] Laughing, laughing at me. I’m smiling because of all these supporters of ours. I like it. It genuinely warms my heart that so many people have given their own cash to help make, help keep this thing going. That is true. It makes me really happy. Well, I thought I was doing something wrong. No, not at all. I’m not gonna stop looking at your list is longer than I ever expected it would be.

[00:31:09] Jeffrey arsenalt, thank you very much, and matt leeroy, we appreciate you also. So, guys, thank you.

[00:31:17] Yeah, thanks all of you guys. We really appreciate that. So here’s the other thing too.

[00:31:21] So we’ve had multiple people. Yeah, reach out to us and complain about patreon. Yeah, I don’t, patreon is the devil. I know. I think one of them actually said that I, maybe I, so I don’t get it like, I don’t know, I haven’t looked into it. Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with it. If you want to support us in other ways- paypalme, RC Plane Lab- if you want to make a donation that way, you can do that also. Yeah,

[00:31:48] We want to make it easy for you to give us your hard-earned cash. If that’s what you want to do, I certainly don’t want patreon to be a limiting factor of somebody wanting to support the channel or support the show. Yeah, so, yeah, so that’s that. Yeah, okay, if you don’t like patreon, hit us up on paypal if you want to. If you want to pay us- I mean, I am so bad at asking for money like I. I hate it. I know I do too, but it does make it easier for us to do what we do. It does help a lot of the content.

[00:32:20] That we produce is made possible by some of the some of the generous donations that we’ve received and the ideas that we’ve received via our survey. Yeah, yeah, want to hit you guys up again. That survey is still out there. If you’ve, if you’ve filled it out once and you’ve changed your mind about something you put on there, fill it out again. Let us know what you think. Oh yeah, your ideas are very important.

[00:32:44] To us and your ideas actually make it to the show. rcplanelab.com, yep, okay. Anything else, I mean yes, we.

[00:32:50] Have other things, but anything else on that. Nope, that was okay, that was all I wanted. I don’t want to talk about asking for money anymore today. It does make me uncomfortable because I, oh absolutely.

[00:33:02] I can’t, I’m just not. That’s not how I’m wired. Nope me. Neither I’m usually the one like: here you go, yeah, yeah, you need lunch here, I don’t care, whatever, just don’t talk to me again. No, I’m kidding.

[00:33:14] Don’t talk to me again, okay, so no, feel free to talk to us. Reach out to us in all the available.

[00:33:21] Forums we have for you. Oh yeah, I didn’t mean you guys. Okay, I swear, I know that wasn’t you well.

[00:33:27] Trust. Do you trust yourself? You’re ready to move on to trust? I am. This is this is exciting to me. This is exciting. Is it exciting? It’s kind of dingy well, yeah, so trust. Yeah, you want to talk about trust?

[00:33:43] Trust. Okay, let’s talk about trust, do it. So I got an email, by the way. Yeah, I think everybody, everybody did. Yeah, I wasn’t saying I was special. I was just saying I did receive an email- you’re special- from the ama telling me that the academy of model aeronautics is now an faa approved test administrator for the recreational uas safety test.

[00:34:11] Trust, since the government likes acronyms. Oh, they love them, trust. And it’s funny, because they actually like acronyms so much, they use an acronym in their acronym. Yes, so the u in trust stands for uav, which actually means this is not the TRUST test, this is the true avest test.

[00:34:32] True avest. True avest like if: yeah, if you want to get technical, it’s the t-r-u-a-v-s-t test.

[00:34:39] But we shouldn’t use the t for the and we really shouldn’t use the t at the end for test. No, because now the only way to say it is trust. You can’t say the trust, you can’t say the TRUST test.

[00:34:53] Because that’s right. It’s like the whole rpm versus rpms thing. Yeah, it’s not revolution. Per minutes rpms it’s really yeah, ours per yeah anyway. So yeah, it’s a. It’s a bit of a tongue twister, weird.

[00:35:11] Whatever, like. I wonder how long it took them to figure out this is what we’re going to call it, so we can make it this snazzy trust name. Like you deal with it all the time. I feel like I feel like you’re very jaded and negative about this. I’m sorry you don’t. You should. The t for the should not be in there. The t for test should not be at the end, because now you’re gonna. Yeah, I already said

[00:35:36] I know the button. There are things that set me off. Now we know that’s one of them, so we’ll get to the

[00:35:45] Test itself in a little bit. Yeah, I thought, since we’re going to be talking about this new thing, they

[00:35:52] Have out with a trust. No, I’m sorry, with trust, you can’t say detrust. Yeah, I did it before we talk.

[00:35:59] About trust. See, this just sounds like I don’t know. And thanks faa, yeah, fa, fa, yeah, thanks fa. So anyway, before we talk about that, okay, I thought it would be interesting to kind of talk about what it takes to legally fly a an RC airplane in the united states. Yep, for recreational purposes. Yes, that’s the important.

[00:36:29] Part. That is the important part. That is a that is a very important distinction. That is the important part. Yes, yeah, you look so serious when you said that well it is because. Well, we’re gonna get to that.

[00:36:41] So all radio controlled airplanes under 55 pounds fly under what faa calls the. I don’t know what this means, but it’s 14 cfr. Part 107. What’s this? I mean, I’ve heard of part 107, but I don’t.

[00:36:57] Know what? The 14 cfr? Okay, you don’t either. So okay, certified flight rules: oh okay, those are certified.

[00:37:05] Flight rules under the faa code. Okay, so well, this one is called the small uas rule. Yep, isn’t that interesting. Why isn’t that called the saw or the sir? I mean seriously, you’re really upset, the suasser.

[00:37:24] Nice, I like that one suasser. So if you want to fly an airplane or an airplane, an r plane, an RC airplane, right, for nothing but recreational purposes, yep, there is an exception built into part 107 that allows us all to do that, and it’s called the recreational flyer rule. That’s for the exception to the swasser. The swasser, yeah, I love it anyway. So this, I’m gonna read this right off the faa’s:

[00:37:57] Website. The exception for limited operation of unmanned aircraft usc 44809 is the law that describes how, when and where you can fly drones for recreational purposes. And okay, go ahead. Well, you just told me.

[00:38:10] To stop and you told me to go. No, finish that. And then I’ve got, because it goes. It says it again: go.

[00:38:15] Ahead. Following these rules will keep people, your drone and our airspace safe. There are nine rules, according to the faa, that we must follow to fly under the recreational drone exception. Okay, and here.

[00:38:27] Is where a lot of people, including myself, get tripped up on all of this, on all this code right, drone, okay, according to the faa, a small unmanned aerial system swass. A swass is anything that is remotely piloted without a, obviously, man in it, so it’s anything that’s small, a model airplane, a model helicopter. A drone is, if it’s over half a pound, a free flight, even airplane.

[00:39:06] Is a drone according to the faa, and I hate that. I hate that name. Well, I hate the fact that. Well, I hate the fact because it generates or it allows confusion, because I know when all this first started out, when the faa first really kind of started getting involved and sticking their nose in it, they called everything drones and the assumption, at least by me, was: oh well, they’re talking about drones, they’re not talking about model airplanes, recreational flyers like me or

[00:39:39] Whatever, but they are, they absolutely are talking about all of us. See, I came across it a little bit.

[00:39:45] Differently, because I always like okay, so I did assume I didn’t. I shouldn’t say it. I did associate drones with quadcopters, yeah, but I have always called them quadcopters. Yeah, so whenever I want to fly my quadcopter, that’s what I would call it. Yeah, I wouldn’t say I’m going to fly my drone. That just wasn’t in my lexicon. So I think it’s probably been easier for me to kind of realize that they’re talking about everything and anything. Yeah, no, I get that, not just quadcopters. Yeah. So, but for us old

[00:40:20] Farts out there that have been flying forever- not forever, but for a long time. You were there when the wright brothers did drones. That I mean that it’s just. It was like it’s like a separate segment of the hobby. There were drones, well, and then there were model airplanes- what I’m

[00:40:37] Saying you worked in the hobby more than I did like true, you actually worked at a hobby shop and all that kind of stuff. So I think you dealt more with that side of things to where you got the terminology. I don’t want to say right or wrong, but just differently than I would have picked it up, I didn’t

[00:40:51] Mean to get off on a tangent, but anyway, no, that’s okay. I dislike the fact that they- I mean I understand they had to- they had to call everything something so it could be uniform throughout the regulation. I get that, but man, anyway, small, I’m over it. Unmanned swasses, aerial vehicles- swabs, swabs. Where did I get?

[00:41:10] The s. I don’t know systems, maybe I don’t even know. Okay, so, oh no, the small uas rule. What is that swass? What’s the uas? Is that unmanned aerial system? Okay, yeah, so not unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned whatever. Actually, that would anyway it worked, yeah, okay, so rule one. Rule one is: fly only for recreational purposes, which means you can fly only to have fun. This is the one that’s going to trip a lot of people.

[00:41:41] Up? Potentially, yes, what do you consider? Flying just to have fun, right, as long as you’re, yeah, not getting compensated somehow? Well, that’s where it gets tricky. So whether or not you’re getting paid for a flight isn’t necessarily what makes you eligible to fly under the recreational flyer exemption. So what does that mean? Once again, this is straight off the faa’s website. Oh boy, non-recreational purposes include things like taking photos to help sell a property or service roof inspections, or taking pictures of a high school football game for the school’s website.

[00:42:16] That one got me like, honestly, that one. Okay, you can’t do that. Non-recreational purposes. So this means purposes other than recreational, which means part 107, not the recreational exception. So if you’re taking photos to help sell a property, I understand I get that sure roof inspections you’re making money off of it. So potentially somebody’s probably going to make inspection money off that okay.

[00:42:44] Taking pictures of a high school football game for the high school’s website. That’s that, straight off the side. Well, no, I got it. I mean that’s no. I have a little issue with that too. I mean, you’re not getting compensated, maybe, is it? Is it recognition? Is that it? I have no, thank you to Ron hole for these great photos. Don’t say that Ron did not take any photos during the recording of this episode. I didn’t, but anyway, but what I’m saying? It could it be. Could it be the recognition?

[00:43:19] Like: hey, I’m trying to establish a business. Here’s some free photos. Maybe that’s the line of

[00:43:25] Thinking: I don’t see, I don’t understand, because, like, the way I look at it is- and maybe it should be, depend on who does it- but, like, if you have a drone club at your school, oh yeah, and you have a school newspaper, yeah, why couldn’t you, yeah, marry the two? Yeah, yeah, our drone guys are going out as part of class to fly and they’re going to take pictures of this and put it on the website.

[00:43:48] Yeah, thanks to our drone club. Yeah, I don’t quite, I don’t either, but anyway, so continuing.

[00:43:56] On directly off. Goodwill or other non-monetary value can also be considered indirect compensation. This would include things like volunteering to use your drone to survey coastlines on behalf of a non-profit organization. Recreational flight is simply flying for fun or personal enjoyment.

[00:44:15] Yeah, I’m not sure how you would. I mean, I get the point they’re trying to make, like

[00:44:23] Recreational flight, as I’m just going to fly around and not do anything with it. Well, yeah they, they had.

[00:44:29] To they had to define it somehow. Yeah, and these, these are clearly lawyers probably coming up with a lot of this, trying to come up with every conceivable way that you could potentially blur the line between recreational and non-recreational. So I, I understand the detail that, but some of these are just silly. All right, so that’s, that’s. That’s rule number one. That’s one.

[00:44:57] Fly only for recreation. Rule number two: this- this one makes me smile- follow the safety guidelines of an faa recognized community-based organization or cbo. Okay, this is directly off of the faa’s website. Note: we have not yet begun officially recognizing cbo’s. Recreational flyers are directed to follow the safety guidelines of existing aeromodeling organizations or use the faa provided safety.

[00:45:29] Guidelines. So, really, as long as we follow the guidelines set out by the ama, yeah, we should be fine, even though there is no official recognition of the rules by the faa. It’s coming. Is it, though, when?

[00:45:45] Like I mean I, I mean I, I think they have to. I mean that I think they have to federally recognize the ama as a community-based organization. They have to because let’s define have to. I mean they should.

[00:46:00] Well, and I’m sure they will, though, but I don’t think there’s anything that- no, they don’t have to do.

[00:46:04] Anything. Yeah, the government doesn’t have to do anything, but I mean it just makes sense. Yeah, it’s just funny that they say ama has had a safety code which the faa has pretty much modeled their have copied off of off of for 40 plus years. Yeah, and in my opinion the ama has done a really good job of that face- I’m sorry, it’s gross water- has done a really good job of education and giving back to the community via school grants and things like I mean. So

[00:46:40] It just makes sense to me for the fa to recognize the ama as the community-based organization that.

[00:46:47] You could model yourself off of. But I would just think that before you made it a rule that you had to follow something, hey, let’s pick one, let’s let’s do it first, instead of saying, hey, you have to follow this. By the way, we don’t know what this is right, I mean? Yep, that’s the part that kind of makes me.

[00:47:03] Makes me chuckle a little bit. That’s the government for you. Rule number three, number three, number three.

[00:47:08] Is: keep your drone within the visual line of sight or use a visual observer who is co-located, which means physically next, physically next to you. It has to be right there, like holding hands, and in doesn’t say holding hands. Oh, I just assumed. Well, that’s what we do.

[00:47:27] Are we doing it wrong? We must be doing something wrong. Huh wonder why we just so much anyway.

[00:47:32] And in direct. I’m gonna start that one over because we got off. Keep your drone within the visual line of sight or use a visual observer who is co-located physically next to, but not holding hands.

[00:47:44] And in direct communication with you, talking in your ear, yeah, whispering sweet nothings. You’re flying beautifully. It’s weird that we both went there at the same time, so it’s because we hold hands when we fly, so they’re they’re addressing fpv here. Yeah, that’s.

[00:48:02] Exactly what they’re going after. Yeah, so they are now giving you the ability to fly fpv because technically, if I remember, right beforehand, there was no official recognition that it was okay, you’re right.

[00:48:14] Yeah, I don’t recall reading that in the first round of this because it was supposed to be always line of sight. Yeah, so now you can have your buddy next to you. Now you can do fpv as long as your drone is in the visual line of sight of your observer, who is co-located physically next to, but not holding hands.

[00:48:35] Next to you. I guess that’s just so they can say, hey, you almost hit that person, right? I mean, I don’t.

[00:48:41] I don’t, I don’t. Hey, you almost ran into that airplane. Maybe job for missing it, maybe it’s if.

[00:48:46] If you lose signal or something on the on the goggles, they can. When you pull the goggles off, they

[00:48:52] Can say: hey, you’re right over here, so you’re not searching the sky. I mean, it’s not a bad idea to have someone spotting for you anyway, if you’re doing fpv probably. Well, we- I mean like really we- spot for.

[00:49:02] Each other when there’s more than two or three people out flying at once. Anyway the field? Yes, we do. It’s just nice to have extra eyes and ears out for, oh hey, somebody’s taking off, yep, somebody’s landing. Stay out of the way, just to yep, keep the communications open. Yeah, so rule number four take.

[00:49:20] It. Oh, give way to, and do not interfere with, manned aircraft. To me that sort of seems like common sense. It should be common sense, I mean. But yeah, give way to yield to manned aircraft, please. They always have the right of way. Yeah, because guess what, if you collide, it’s your actual people on board. Well,

[00:49:45] There’s that. Yeah, that’s how I look at it- like yeah, yeah, yeah anyway. So a little off topic, and this, this kind of upset me last night. So last night was fourth of july, we went before the july everybody. My gosh, that was loud. Oh, I’m sorry. Happy fourth of july, everybody. Anyway, much better. So we went up to our, our local town’s fourth of july fireworks- and keep in mind they started at nine o’clock, which is that’s kind of late, oh, but I mean, it doesn’t get dark around here till if it’s not dark.

[00:50:18] It’s kind of boring, but anyway. So it started at nine o’clock and it was almost dark, I mean, like it was. It was still kind of light out. You could see a glow in the sky, okay, there was a guy flying a powered parachute. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. Laugh at the, the ridiculousness of it, okay, like.

[00:50:40] He was not. Parachutes make me laugh for some reason why, I don’t know. They just: oh, I want one like. I want one. So bad, I think that was so fun. Like you say, powered parachute, but in my head

[00:50:50] I hear flying launch air. Well, even so, that would be cool, right, I mean I’d be if I’d be fine with that, so anyway. So anyway, this guy is out flying by the fireworks, like not far away from the fireworks, like you could hear him plain as day. It sounded like he was close, plain as day you could, he was close, sorry, and it was just like first off. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to fly those after dusk, like I think there’s a rule that because there’s no lights on it, there’s nothing like that. So you

[00:51:21] Cannot be flying anything right at night, and this was night and he was just he kept coming closer and then we would go around and then kept coming closer, I mean like you could actually see the guy on.

[00:51:33] It. He was so close. Did they hold up the fireworks for this guy? No, no, so they went ahead. They just kept gone, perfect, but I mean how they were actually aiming at him. It could have been. How irresponsible can you be? That’s pretty, that’s pretty. Well, I mean, that’s pretty reckless, honestly. I mean, can you imagine the view he must have had though? Well, I, I’d like to see the video right, but still, like, still, you should not be doing that. Yeah, very dangerous. If you fly a flying lawn chair, please don’t fly it near.

[00:52:07] Fireworks. So are you gonna make fun of me when I get one, then yep, oh, yep. Are you gonna try it? Yeah?

[00:52:12] No, really, yeah, I just- they don’t know I, I’m dangling from a parachute with an engine strapped to my back. I like engines, right, yeah, and that scares me a little bit. Well, it’s parachute. Well, number five with a backup parachute, right, so you just fall. Gracefully, fly at or below 400 feet in controlled airspace which is class b, c, d and e, and only with prior authorization by using the lank or drone zone.

[00:52:43] So we’ll get to lank and drone zone here in a bit. That’s another acronym. No, I get it, that’s just dingy. So I’ll touch on class b, c, d and e airspace here real quick. Is there a class a? There is actually so.

[00:53:04] I don’t have them memorized, but there’s a handy little cheat sheet on the drone zone, the faa’s drone zone website. That shows you all the different types of airspace, but basically it’s all controlled airspace- well, not all of it. There’s a ginormous amount of airspace that is uncontrolled in the united states, but pretty much anything obviously that’s not uncontrolled is under some sort of a control. So when they say fly at or below 400 feet in controlled airspace, they may as well be saying fly at or below.

[00:53:38] 400 Feet period may as well be saying it. That is number six, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve read through here. Number six- oh there it is. Number six is fly at or below 400 feet in class g or uncontrolled airspace. Pretty much all they’re saying is between which these rules are dingy to have two different ones. Yeah, five and six is just saying, hey, do this everywhere, but if you’re in controlled airspace, which is b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, p, whatever, if you’re in those, you have to have prior authorization, right?

[00:54:15] To do anything. To do anything, yeah, like, which is actually really super easy to do. Yes, there’s even for an old fart like me. I, I had no trouble at all pre-coordinating our flights today. Oh, you did that. Why? Just to go through the motions to see how it was. Yeah, it was super easy. Yeah, I didn’t, because we’re in class g airspace, I know, but I mean, I, I went through the motions and, like I said, it was super easy to do. So what did you use drone zone? I went to drone zone and did the. Yeah,

[00:54:45] I did the whole. It linked you to the like it was super easy, like it took five minutes and what so.

[00:54:51] Walk- I did it while I was charging batteries- actually walk us through the steps, because I’ve not.

[00:54:54] Done that yet, for so, yeah, I went to the drone zone website and then there’s a link to the link and you click on that and then, if I remember correctly, there’s a map and you just basically pick your point on the map and then it tells you whether you need, what sort of authorization you need, and, of course, I didn’t need really an authorization for where we were flying, except the fact that we’re close to holmes airport, which is technically a controlled airspace. So it did.

[00:55:24] We’re out of holmes airport. I mean, that’s yeah, so it’s not close to it. You’re in it well, but I mean

[00:55:30] Yeah, we’re close to the helipad where they do this stuff, that’s. But yes, we are at that location, so it I clicked on that link on the map and it told me everything I need to do and I just put in recreational flying at club field or something like that and hit submit. There’s a little submit, but, and then like instantly it came back: approved, yeah, I’m sure, and then I was covered. There’s nobody watching. It tells you, probably not. You can pick a time or a time slot. I think it was. I can’t.

[00:56:04] Remember now, it was like I was doing it while I was charging batteries and I was about half paying attention, but yeah, it was really easy. Good, I mean, they guide you through every step, yeah, and there’s like two steps, so through both steps, yeah, and that’s honestly, that’s something I probably will.

[00:56:18] Never have to worry about doing because of where I fly. Right, so we don’t fly in controlled airspace. Yeah.

[00:56:26] We don’t have to pre-coordinate because we are- well, that’s another subject. We probably will be eventually- an established, what was it called? Fria f-r-I-a I think it was. Of course, it’s something that stands for something, right? So you won’t have to pre-coordinate it if that’s where you’re flying. But yeah, yeah, well, I’m glad, like if we were gonna go like behind, if we’re gonna go in some church parking lot, that’s like not a fria, then you would have to do this and it, like I said, it’s so easy.

[00:56:53] Yeah, I would not fly out of a church parking lot. But that’s just me anyway, not pointing fingers, nope.

[00:57:01] So yeah, and that’s, like you said, pretty simple. I’ve not done that before, but so for the rule number six about the uncontrolled airspace. It also says flying drones in certain airspace is not allowed. Classes of airspace and flying restrictions can be found on our before you fly app or the uas facility maps web page, and you can that you can also link all that stuff from the drones on website. Yeah, so that before you fly, which, okay, here we go before- is b-e-f-o-r-e.

[00:57:33] Right, I mean u is y-o-u, but the, the app is the letter b, that’s a loud drink. The app is the letter b, the number four, the letter u and then clever. It’s clever, come on. No, it’s not before you fly, but like, for some reason, when I look at it I see blue fly. I don’t understand why. That’s just how my brain works, but anyway, so the before you see blue fly, yeah, when I just glance at it, really quick.

[00:58:04] On here. Huh, maybe I’m okay, I don’t know I need. I need new glasses. I know that for sure. Yeah, we had.

[00:58:12] That conversation earlier. But anyway, so the before you fly app: I did go through that on the on the, not through the app- I haven’t downloaded it- but through the computer web page, just the website they have. Yeah, it’s actually pretty cool. Like I got lost just clicking around and seeing like everything that was around where controlled airspace was why you couldn’t fly there. Yeah, something that surprised me. There is not a no-fly zone set up around the capital like the state capital here, but there is around lincoln’s home. Really, yeah, there’s a big red circle over there.

[00:58:45] People making money off of the abe lincoln home with their drones? I guess not, but you’d think like.

[00:58:51] The state capital. You would think would have that also, but no, there’s nothing on there. Anyway, let’s move on. Ah, number seven: here we are. Take trust the, the recreational uas safety test, and carry proof of test passage. So we both took that, rolling my eyes. I’m sorry. We both took this. We did. I’m gonna be honest. When I took it I didn’t know I was actually taking a test, like I thought it was like the pre-study.

[00:59:21] Guide thing, like how normally they go over it, and then at the end there’s questions on: yeah, here’s the test we’re starting now. Yeah, so I didn’t read everything before I took the test, like I didn’t read about it, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just the first time I went to do it. I was watching tv, checked my email, ended up going through. I saw the email come through on and stuff and I was just clicking through links and just halfway paying attention to it, and so it’s asking these questions and I’m answering the questions and then it gets to the

[00:59:55] Next thing where it starts a whole bunch of text, and then I just ignored that and went through and got to the question. Well, I got almost to the end and then the next time, like the next time I tried to go to a web page. Like the next time when I- when I click next is what I’m trying to say- you threw me off because you were looking at your watch like we’re taking too long. Oh no, I was just seeing what time it was, okay, but anyway. So when I clicked to go to the next page, it aired out and so I lost everything. I was like, well, whatever, and I just did. You just, oh, my goodness. I know the feeling because

[01:00:29] The same thing happened to me more than once. Oh really, yeah, yeah, I actually go ahead. No, I was gonna say, it only happened to me once, so it was like three times it timed out on me. That’s annoying. Yeah, I thought maybe I said that because it was frustrating. I thought maybe it was just because I was on my

[01:00:46] Phone. Oh okay, well, so I got on our desktop computer and I redid it the next day and stuff, and then I knew what was going on. Well, I wouldn’t even say that because it’s so simple. It is simple, took it, it was easy. Yeah, printed out my little thing. I got it printed and got it laminated now. So

[01:01:05] It’s official. Wow, I know it’s so nice, went all out. Well, I don’t want to have to take the test.

[01:01:10] Again if I lose it. Well, so let’s talk about this test. Okay, simple questions that you cannot. I repeat, you cannot fail. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s almost pointless. Yeah, yep, okay. Well, I’m glad we talked about that then.

[01:01:29] Thank you, good conversation. You’re right, you can’t it. I don’t, I can’t imagine a scenario where you would fail this test. No, no, when I say you can’t fail it, I mean, I didn’t actually try.

[01:01:45] To fail it. No, no, what I’m saying is, when I say you can’t fail it, I’m saying they don’t let you fail it. You fit you. I’m not saying you, you’re not smart enough to pass the test- no, I get. I’m saying nobody can actually fail it. So if you take it and you choose the wrong answer, they tell you the right answer. Oh, and then move on. And then I think you have to, you might have to choose that right answer.

[01:02:08] When it comes back up. So typical of government organizations: they, they, their focus is getting the information out there. They don’t care whether you retain or not they’re, they’re. They’re satisfying a requirement in a regulation somewhere to get the information out there and then test people on it and show that they’re tracking whatever. So if something happens? Yeah, so I’ve been in government service for a long time and this is- this is nothing new- like lots of

[01:02:39] The computer-based testing that I have to do at work. Same thing you. You can’t. You can’t not pass it because, like you said you, you can choose the wrong answer. But then it’ll, it’ll correct your answer for you and tell you what the correct answer is. And then there’s a next button. You click next and it takes you to the next part of the training. That’s nothing like. That’s government.

[01:03:02] Well, yeah, it was nervous when I started, like when I knew it was like a test. I can’t fail this. No, no, I really can’t fail it. So it turns out, so don’t worry about it. Yeah, don’t.

[01:03:14] Worry about taking a test. If you- I mean- take the test, well, you have to, you have to, you have to take the test, but you can’t, you can’t fail it. No, and it’s really. I mean, even if you’ve only been casually paying attention to the faa stuff and ama’s involvement and you get your ama magazine and you maybe just skim through the, the faa stuff, even if you’ve only just barely touched the subject, you’re not going to have any problems with the test. No, it’s all the. The questions are very, very

[01:03:46] Basic- yeah, basic- knowledge. You’ll be good and probably you already know the answers to it. If you’ve, like I said, if you’ve even just been a casual observer to the, to the faa stuff, you’ll, you’ll do just fine. Yeah, it’s easy, so don’t sweat it. We are now. We’ve passed. Yeah, we passed. I didn’t go through the trouble of laminating mine, though I should have done that. Well, still not too late. I.

[01:04:07] Would hope you have it. Well, I didn’t print it, I mean, I just saved it to my to my home screen and I sent myself a pdf on my phone. Look at you. Yeah, yeah, I printed mine. Nice, probably shouldn’t have.

[01:04:19] But whatever, well, I like me, I like tangible, I like I know which is weird, because

[01:04:24] I’m usually the guy that just I want digital, I don’t want to deal with it physically. Yeah, that is.

[01:04:28] Weird. It’s like we switched roles or something. Yeah, yeah. So I didn’t want another thing in my wallet. What well? To make it thicker, I just cleaned out my wallet, so now I have room, so I’ve got to fill.

[01:04:41] It back up, wrap in it. Okay, moving on, yes, the test that, no, that was that, that was the test, that was the test. Trust, not the test, but trust, trust, that was the TRUST test. So I’m gonna say from now on, just to keep people off, it won’t, it won’t bother me. Oh well, it will me, so maybe I shouldn’t. Okay, number eight, rule number eight: have a current registration comma mark when- yeah, that’s sorry, I read that wrong. Have a current registration mark. Your drones on the outside with the registration.

[01:05:15] Number and carry proof of registration with you. I will admit I don’t carry proof of.

[01:05:23] Registration. I don’t either, and I have not sent myself a pdf of the printout of the page where I’ve

[01:05:29] Registered all of my airplanes. Yeah, but I like honestly, I figured for that. I can get to that anytime I want, just by signing into the site on my phone, so I have access to it. That’s kind of how I.

[01:05:42] Figure that as well. But I mean, really I have to register every single airplane I fly. No, you don’t on the recreational flyer rule. Well then, why do they allow you to?

[01:05:58] Well, because if you’re flying for part 107, yes, you have to register each one. Yes, right, yes. If you’re flying under the recreational rule, yep, you get one faa number, one faa number, yes, and that goes on every.

[01:06:14] Single airplane you have, yeah, but you can also under the recreational flyer umbrella. You can also register each one of your drones. Air quotes here, drones. Try it. It will let you list 500 of them. I’m sure it’ll let you, because then it’s five bucks a piece. No, no charge. You just put them in there one at a time.

[01:06:40] I did. It didn’t charge me anything, it’s and it’s under my recreational flyer umbrella. Well then, why do you do it? Just to, if you, I don’t mean just because it looked fun to put all my airplanes on the one screen. There is like kind of like a test, like could I name every airplane I owned? Oh, absolutely not, but I could. Yeah it. It will allow you to register every single one of yours under the recreational flyer umbrella, which maybe it was a glitch in the system, I don’t know, but yeah, it will. I was talking to.

[01:07:09] Somebody at the, at the field the other day when I was there and they asked: and what kind of airplanes do you have? My mind just went blank. I was like I, I am, I’ve got a few at home. I don’t know what they are. I mean, they thought about it, you would, you would be able to name them. But then I feel like an idiot just in that. Well, hold on, let me get back to you. Hold on, give me a minute. Give me a minute to think.

[01:07:34] About and sort in my brain the number, sheer number of the ones. Yeah, there’s not that many, I just can’t.

[01:07:40] Pick out any of them. I mean like I’m I’m not that smart and I’m not that smart when it comes to that.

[01:07:46] Kind of stuff. Well, and when somebody says, how many airplanes do you have? Okay, do I count the ones that are flyable or do I count the ones that are in various states of disrepair in my basement? That’s a vastly different number, it’s a whole other subject. Do I count other people’s that are? I’m

[01:08:03] Supposed to be finishing here before I start on another project. Thanks, you’re welcome, I’m glad.

[01:08:08] You picked up on that, all right. Rule nine, last rule: do not do not operate your drone in a dangerous manner. I’m gonna stop right there. That’s a. That’s a bit subjective, don’t you think it is. Some people would consider 3d dangerous maneuvers or dangerous manner. Really, who some- well, some people might like: I mean, you’re hovering, hovering an airplane right over the runway, which you’re not supposed to do, and doing the flips and the waterfalls and the blenders and whatever all these.

[01:08:46] 3D terms are called, and if you’re not like in the hobby and not familiar with that saying that sort of thing, the plane would look somewhat out of control, would it not? But that doesn’t mean it’s.

[01:09:00] Dangerous. It does it, did you say it does it, I did does it. Oh no, I mean what? I don’t even know what.

[01:09:11] I was asking or answering anymore. Could that be considered a dangerous manner? I think so.

[01:09:17] No, I don’t necessarily think so, and here’s why. Okay, what’s the danger to spectators if you’re far enough away, well then it’s not dangerous, right, and you’re not supposed to do it. You’re not supposed to fly over crowds, you’re not supposed to do any of that stuff. Yeah.

[01:09:35] So what I mean? I guess I’m just I’m confused. So I’ve been a. I’ve been at the field before and watching guys do 3d, which great I’m. I wish I could. I wish I could as well. I’m not a 3d pilot and the skill it takes to do that, but it’s wonderful. You almost crashed your airplane today, by the way that.

[01:09:54] Reminds me, you said 3d because you ran out of elevator flying upside down. I did anyway, sorry.

[01:09:59] Anyway, yeah, we can talk about that if you want. Make fun of me. Well, you didn’t. So yeah, the 3d I mean I know when I’ve been to fly-ins when they’ve had semi-professional or professional guys come into our fly-in and do their 3d shows. It’s impressive, oh, absolutely. But at times I mean it looks like the thing is out of control and even if they’re doing it out over the cornfield, at certain times the airplane is pointing at the crowd before it does some weird violent elevator flip, whatever, and it looks and it

[01:10:33] Could be, especially to somebody who’s not familiar with the with, with the style of flying, could probably be somewhat- I don’t want to say scared, but like: oh, this thing’s coming, oh, okay, now it’s going away from me again. Oh, it’s coming out, oh, it’s going away. It could be considered dangerous because if, if that airplane goes out of control or loses signal, whatever when it’s pointing, I mean if it goes out of control, it’s going right at the crowd, I mean I don’t know, I feel like this, this is.

[01:11:04] It could be worded differently. Oh, it could be worded much better. Yeah, I agree, that’s really what I’m getting at, but I guess just because it scares somebody doesn’t mean it’s dangerous.

[01:11:17] That’s true just because you’re, they’re not mutually exclusive, exclusive right. Yeah, no, you’re right. I just I guess what I’m getting at is this rule nine, I feel like could be reworded.

[01:11:30] Better. But have you read the examples on there yet? Well, yeah, because they don’t really help too much, because it’s simple stuff that we should all know, right. So, for example, you want to take? It sure, how?

[01:11:43] About it number one: do not interfere with emergency response or law enforcement activities.

[01:11:48] Well, duh, but here’s my thing too. What do you consider interfering like? That’s the other problem I have. Like they almost need to have a big, okay, so we had a plane crash not too far from here within the last year. One of the guys I know is on the fire department. He said there was a couple drones. Actually, maybe it was just one, doesn’t matter. There was a drone out flying way too close to them to where it was actually getting in their way when they were trying to really put the fire out.

[01:12:21] And all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that’s just irresponsible. Well, that is. But what makes it okay if you’re 100 feet away, if you’re only 50 feet, like what? What considers interference, I guess, is what, once again, kind of leaves it up to interpretation. Yeah, and I don’t like that. So there should be some sort of exclusion zone, I think. Yeah, I think you’re right, yeah, like a, like a bubble, and I don’t know if I made this up or if I was dreaming, but I thought I read something or heard something about somebody had

[01:12:57] Come up with some sort of like jammer or something like that will, like, take drones down out of the air. Oh really, once again, it could be completely wrong on that, or maybe that was something I wanted. I would have no problem with that if it was flying over like something along those lines like: take it down, yeah. Spray with your water hose, do whatever you want, get it out of the way- yeah, no. And then turn that person into the faa, right, because I think that is yeah well, it’s disrespectful.

[01:13:24] What is? Yeah, people died on that. So, yeah, you’re right, disrespectful, I think. Okay, number two here under the do not operate your drone in a dangerous manner. The second example is: do not fly under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I mean, I get that. Yeah, I’d probably go along with that. I mean, I’ll be honest, many years ago, when we were a little more relaxed society,

[01:13:55] Occasionally there would be adult beverages at the field in a cooler that you would, at the end of the day’s flying, maybe have one with the your fellow flyers and talk about the day’s activities, but as long as you weren’t flying while you were doing that, no one ever had any trouble. So continue that. Yeah, just don’t fly while you’re under the influence. What’s like? What are they considered under the influence, though? I would imagine 0.08, Yeah, which is what was here. So

[01:14:25] Yeah, it’s not saying no drinking right, it’s okay. I gotcha, yeah, kind of like they’re probably just going to be using the same thing as cars, I would imagine. Yeah, if you’re under that, you’re okay. Which?

[01:14:37] I don’t know. Yeah, oh yeah, that’s the two examples they give and you’re right, that doesn’t do much to clear up. But, like I said, I feel like that rule nine could be reworded. I don’t like the way it’s written. Well, I think there’s a lot of this that needs some- well, it’s still early- need some power. I mean, this is still. We’re still sort of just kind of trying to feel things out. You.

[01:15:00] Know that everybody’s trying to get in there, and early. Yes, but these are rules we have to follow, yeah. So before you make it a rule you have to follow, let’s- let’s polish it a little bit and let’s get that.

[01:15:11] Yeah, hammered out. Yeah, so if you would like more information on that, you can read the advisory circular 91-57b, and you can find that about anywhere. You could also google search it and it’ll pop right up under the faa stuff and there’s a lot of, actually a lot of good information there, especially regarding airspace and stuff like that. So, yeah, it’s very interesting. Like I, I learned a.

[01:15:33] Little bit of stuff on that before you fly app, which is named terribly, but anyway, like I said, it’s it’s this thing about acronyms. You have no idea, but no, it’s fun. Just kind of play around on it and just see what’s what’s around and, yeah, kind of get more of an idea, I guess, on the airspace.

[01:15:52] That’s around. For all the for all the complaints I have, I mean it’s still. It could be so much worse, oh yeah, and they still haven’t really addressed the Remote ID really yet. But that I really don’t think that’s going to be as big a deal as initially it was. So yeah, I don’t either. I still feel pretty good, I still feel like we’re in a pretty good place and for the most part,

[01:16:17] Where we fly, we’re going to continue to fly. Be any differences? I don’t expect anything to change, yep, but right on anything else, anything else. I think we board our listeners with faa talk for enough this episode. Well, like I said, though, I thought it was interesting where we’re at now, yeah, with the rules and regulations. So hey, and you guys out there.

[01:16:40] Listening, take the test or, I’m sorry, take trust. Right, yeah, take, take trust. Take not that trust, or don’t take the TRUST test. No, you can’t just go take trust and let us give us your feedback. See what I’d love to hear what you guys thought of it. I thought it was super easy but, like Ron, I was not exactly sure that I was actually taking trust when I was taking trust. That just sounds so weird. Thank you, I appreciate that so, but yeah, that’s all I was going to say.

[01:17:16] That. One more thing. So the ama does the test. There’s also there’s a list of- I don’t remember if it was 10 or 11- other sites. Oh, the administrators that can, you can actually get trust. Take the test on, take trust on whatever. So I did go through a couple other ones. Oh, you did just to kind of. Is it the same? No, oh, it’s different. The, the stuff is presented differently, and the ones I don’t remember the other two I went. One was the, the boy scouts I know of america, or something like.

[01:17:48] That was one of the links I clicked. I went through and there were. There was one other. I looked at the ama one. I think is between those three that I saw the easiest one to do. Really, it’s like laid out.

[01:17:59] The best. Oh, and here’s. Here’s a little tidbit. There was some concern initially when, when the fa first announced that they were going to do a test of some kind- yeah, that there would be. They would charge the people, these places would charge you for it or whatever. It’s free. Yeah, like the trust doesn’t cost you anything. Trust does not cost a thing. Like you don’t even have to, I think. Even if you want to take trust on the ama website, I don’t even think you have to be an ama member because I

[01:18:30] Don’t recall having to log in to take the. No, I didn’t have to and it’s funny because I mean it’s so laid back. Yeah, you don’t. You don’t enter any information, nope, like they don’t get a name. They don’t get any of that stuff. They do get a name at the end, but hold on, sorry, they don’t get a name, they don’t get any of your information until the end, after you pass it right, and then all you do is put your name on there, yeah, and then it gives you the little and you don’t even have to put your name if you don’t.

[01:18:57] Want to. No, john, do someone else’s name. Yeah, I’m not saying you should take the test for someone else. Why would you? If they’re nervous or whatever. I’m just saying you put a name in at the end of the test or let no anyway. I’m just saying I can’t believe. You just said that, what you just. I’m just saying at the end of the test, you put a name in, you put your name in. Well, play by the rules. You can put your name in, play by the rules. It doesn’t say you can’t put someone else’s name in. All right, I’m done, maybe no.

[01:19:27] One else has a. Maybe someone needs to take trust and maybe they don’t own a computer, maybe they’re not online, maybe they’re not plugged in, but they need to take trust, so they have their buddy login and then their buddy types in their name for them. That’s what I was talking about.

[01:19:44] What do you think I was talking about? Why wouldn’t they just sit at the computer and do it themselves?

[01:19:48] At their buddy’s house. Maybe they, maybe they don’t have fingers and they can’t type, or something.

[01:19:52] Oh, you are, okay, I’m done anything else? No, that’s all I got, okay, good, all right until next time. Thank you for listening. I’m Ron, I’m Tom. Good night, good night, really. We hope you enjoyed this episode of.

[01:20:11] 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.