Ep 110: What a week it’s been

[00:00:04] Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Tom, I’m Ron and I’m dave. Here we are once again in your basement doing a little bit of recording. It’s been a while. And whose basement? Well, Ron’s basement. Okay, I should clarify that maybe we’re in everybody’s basement, maybe we’re in everybody’s workshop- that’s where I would prefer to be- or car, that’s not as exciting. I got bored with that, so let’s move on. Probably not as much rc stuff happening in people’s cars, so we’re.

[00:00:39] Gonna continue going down there huh so we’re gonna continue going down there what about rvs with a.

[00:00:43] Trailer maybe that’s where they do their stuff well that would that would be ideal actually.

[00:00:47] Because hopefully you’d be at an rc event listening to the podcast. Hopefully not listening to the podcast, because hopefully you’re out flying your airplanes. I could see in your mind after you said:

[00:00:58] That you’re like wait that’s that doesn’t make any sense that’s why I have external speakers on my.

[00:01:02] Trailer: oh god, yes, drive people. Everybody could listen. Huh, all five of them at once. Wow. So are we starting over? Are we just going to keep this? No, let’s keep going. So it’s been a while since we’ve recorded which, and you can I apologize. Yeah, we’re a little rusty, but so I’ve been gone a few weeks with work. I went to tucson and kudos to the guys at tucson, one of the clubs there, the field off of valencia- I forget the name of the club. They have more than one there, really.

[00:01:33] And more than one airfield, which is pretty, pretty sweet. But the guys there made me feel very welcome and they got a really slick setup, nice asphalt runway and the pits are really, really nice.

[00:01:45] Why are you smiling and nodding at me? No, I’m just asphalt runway. That’s nice, I know. It just reminds me of something I want to talk about in a minute. Well, you should probably write it down so you don’t forget.

[00:01:53] I okay. So, yeah, thanks to those guys for making me feel welcome. One guy even offered to let me fly one of his airplanes, which I declined. You declined, I did. I didn’t know you ever declined I do. Occasionally it happens, yeah, I’ve never more than so. I’ve never heard of it. So once is more than I know. There you go. So now, what is what made you decline? Just, I didn’t, I wasn’t comfortable. It’s a new, new location. My point was a new location and

[00:02:24] I didn’t, I just I just I just wanted to observe. It’s really what I what. I went and I didn’t have a lot of time anyway because I was working right. It’s it’s a work trip, supposed to be working, right. You have to have some time off. Well, this was during my time off. Yeah, I was able to spend with them, but really sweet setup and not a tree or a power line or anything for miles. I mean corn or beans, beans- yeah, just a fantastic facility and if you can imagine, it’s in.

[00:02:56] A valley right tucson’s kind of, in a valley in the catalinas, I think is the name of the, the catalina foothills, but they’re mountains to us, they live for mountains, but it’s, it’s settled in this valley and the view there’s just like these mountains all around and man, what a what a great setup they.

[00:03:15] They had I sent you guys pictures of them you did I was surprised you didn’t actually take anything to.

[00:03:20] Fly. Yeah, I, I totally could have taken the ultrax would have been. That would have fit on the airplane, yeah, well. But I mean I would have had to have taken my transmitter also and a charger and all that other stuff that goes along with it. And I tend to pack light so and I just wasn’t comfortable with the airline potentially losing my, my transmitter. That I’ve not didn’t mean to cut.

[00:03:44] Yeah sorry do where you’re going before you go there I mean like do you have an address.

[00:03:50] Well, yeah, you should send it. I totally could ps it. Yeah, I could have, and I’ve got an old dx6 but I could have flown. I don’t usually on these work trips I don’t know what my schedule is going to be, so I didn’t know. Yeah, I didn’t know how much time, if any, I was going to have, because a lot of the times we do 24-hour ops on these, on these exercises that we go on, so we do 12 on, 12 off, and usually by the time you’re done with a 12-hour shift, it really ends up being 13 hours because you have to do a handoff and all that for the shift coming on and then it’s bedtime and

[00:04:20] Then it’s: yeah, it’s bedtime and I gotta find some time to eat in there. And so I didn’t. I didn’t know what my schedule was going to be. But I, if I had known what my schedule was going to be, I totally could have and should have sent the, sent the all tricks and the transmitter and all that there ahead of time. But she just bought something. Were there any happy shops around? Well, I’m telling you, I totally I could have, like- is that your new word? Totally, totally. I’ve heard that. Can you tell? I’ve been spending some time with kids lately, and by kids I mean like 20 something year olds. Yeah, those are kids to me, but yeah, totally, I mean that’s like seven, not that I’m counting, but it’s just like he.

[00:04:57] Doesn’t usually say that. That sounds so weird. Yeah, yeah, so it’s funny how they, how they tend to rub off on you, especially when you have to work so closely with them, totally for two weeks. Millennials are fun. Well, they’re not a millennial. They’re not millennials now, they’re zoomers, that’s that’s. That’s the new one, that’s the that, that like the new generation, that I think there’s zoomers. I’ve never heard of them. That’s what they referred to themselves as, whatever. But yes, to answer your question, there was a hobby shop there and it is so cool. I’ll talk about this for a minute. Dave, you probably remember way back in the day there was a what, why, why, you?

[00:05:32] Always laugh when I’ll go take a nap, it’s fine. Well, you might remember, but you weren’t in the hobby. Then. You were alive then, okay, but you weren’t in the hobby. Probably do you remember rich sorenson? He, he ran a hobby counter and it was at a hardware store. Right, that was black’s hardware, black’s hardware, right? Well, you just don’t see that anymore like a hobby shop combined with another business. It used to be very common way back in the day. Well, you just don’t see brick and mortar hobby.

[00:06:04] Shops as much as you used to either these days, which is unfortunate, but anyway, not only one they had. So they had this huge ace heart. It’s probably one of the biggest ace hardwares in like west of the mississippi. I think that was actually their claim to fame, this huge ace hardware. But they have a section of the store blocked off just for our well hobbies, which I thought was just super neat and it just really kind of took me back even when I was much younger, growing up in taylorville, we had a

[00:06:36] Hardware store that had just a counter with rc stuff on it, but this place has not only one, but they have two of these things. Like the owner of the hardware- the ace hardware- there has two ace hardware stores and they’re both very large and they both have hobby shops in them, which is really cool. That is cool, yeah, like fully stock, that they have pretty much everything. Yeah, I mean so within reason. I mean they don’t have kits or anything like that, because nobody has kits anymore, but they had a lot of pretty much a full lineup of all the e-flight bind and fly stuff. Really they had some other stuff. I think they had a couple of flex innovations, mambas or whatever. There I mean.

[00:07:11] Yeah, fully they had. They had the new nx10, I think it was, had a couple of those in the case. He had a full case of hardware like dubro, solvent, like, yeah, fully stocked, nice, and it wasn’t just rc stuff, he had it, that model trains there, they had plastic models there and they even had lego, which I’m a fan. So what did you spend more time in looking at the hobby stuff?

[00:07:33] Or the lego stuff which I guess is all hobby stuff the airplane stuff the lego stuff I feel like I gave.

[00:07:38] Each one a fair amount. Yeah, so did you buy any of anything? No, I didn’t. Well, getting it on the plane back home, that’s. I know I could have, but I know you’re right. But I just thought it was really, really cool. And one of the locations just happens to be very, very conveniently located. It’s like very close to the, to the field I visited, which I mean, how cool is that? Like you like a glow plug or whatever way, it’s just the hobby shop’s like two.

[00:08:10] Blocks away from where the, where their field is, which is really- it’s very close, yeah, really neat, so nice. Thanks to everybody in tucson if I didn’t tell them who I was or that it was rc plane, lab Tom or anything like that, because nobody would know, because nobody would know anyway probably. Yeah, the seven. Yeah, I don’t think any of our five listeners live there, but if anybody from tucson happens to listen to the show, just wanted to say thanks for making me feel.

[00:08:35] Welcome it was you should have handed them a card and been like here yeah I could listen to this I.

[00:08:40] Couldn’t, but you don’t like it. You’ll never see me again. Yeah, yeah, I suppose, but yeah, I haven’t had a chance to do much rc related lately, so I apologize in advance for the rustiness of our

[00:08:53] Conversation. Well, and that’s yeah. So when we recorded the previous episode that came out was actually like halfway through our break, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, it’s been weird. Yeah, well, we have done some flying.

[00:09:05] Since that time yeah we went a couple of times before I left and then we went a couple of times.

[00:09:11] It’s so bad. The weather’s been so hot and humid. Yeah, it’s broken the last like week or two, though yeah, it’s been really like compared to what it was before. We went from 90s down to low 80s. Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:22] It still gets hot in the sun but something I’ve noticed it’s a bit off topic but out at the field.

[00:09:29] And I’m probably jinxing it by saying this, but I haven’t noticed the bees. Fred’s been eating them all. Ah, good for fred. Thanks fred. Yeah, like the little sweat bee things that we complained about so much, was it last, last year, the year before? Yeah, they, they have not been as bad this, no, I think. Do you think it has something to do with them rotating the crop like it’s not corn on top of this? Now again to wonder that, yeah, so we should get or ask them to do that next year. Yeah, hey guys, can you just do beans from now on, forever, forever. Yeah, just forget corn. Yeah, it doesn’t make you money.

[00:09:58] Anyway, yeah, probably. I don’t know. I’m not a farmer, I don’t know. I just know I don’t like the corn when it’s in front of us, although the beans are almost just as bad. Yeah, apparently there’s.

[00:10:08] Two airplanes somewhere out there in the beans that cannot be found really yeah.

[00:10:13] See, I bought a locator, but it’s, it’s literally in my box at home. Yeah, it has never been in a plane. Yeah, like that was a waste and the battery is probably dead too. No, I stored it outside, oh, and so it’s not actually in the locator. So it’s not beaconing right now, beaconing, but the awesome thing transmitting, if well, it’s transmitting a beacon, so it’s beaconing. Beacons matter careful, quick and kind, but anyway okay. So what’s cool, though, is those little buttons, little batteries. If you ever need any of them, buy them on amazon. Oh yeah, oh my god, we bought cheap. I know we bought.

[00:10:49] Like a hundred of them for the same price as five and at walmart so I will never ever need to buy.

[00:10:55] Wonder what the shelf life is on those I’ve had some for five years I keep using my car remote.

[00:11:01] They’re fine. Yeah, I mean amazon for the button cell battery for the win. Yeah. So locator, yeah, useless to me, in case any of our five listeners don’t know what those are. It’s a transponder that you can actually put in your airplane. It’s a beacon and if you have the beacon receiver finder, it’s a handheld receiver thing with these cool antennas that come out.

[00:11:26] And I’m motioning with my hands this is yeah that does nothing for people to listen it helps me though.

[00:11:31] Yeah, but you, if you point this at it, the signal gets stronger and if you, you can, you can actually find your airplane if it works, is it? I have yet to see it or something I have yet to see it successfully find an airplane in person myself. Now I’ve heard that it works great. But I’m with you on this one, because you had not seen it. I think it was last year- and then somebody showed you and it

[00:11:53] Worked, kind of it was it was enough to get you in the general direction. Yeah, so we wouldn’t be looking past it, or yeah, because, yeah, anyway, when you don’t know exactly what, like if you have a general idea, when you walk down the field, that whole idea of where it is just goes out the front door. It does.

[00:12:11] True do who makes those like I would plug them but I don’t know I don’t know I could go look.

[00:12:16] But I really don’t care that much right now. Well, you can put it on the link page. Oh, that reminds me I like how you did that. That was good. So we have a links page up now. I finally had some time to do that. So if you anybody has any links they would have put on there, let me know. Yeah, it’s a cool.

[00:12:34] Resource, because I can’t tell you the number of. That was a car, that was a- very loud- yeah, usually we can’t hear those, but if like the number of websites and places like that I have visited just because of what some of our- either our listeners or our interviewees- have told us about, it’s crazy. So it’s surprising that information is just not easy to find for.

[00:13:01] Some well and you don’t think about a lot of times trying to search for new things to look for true.

[00:13:06] So, yeah, I didn’t realize I wanted gliders until we interviewed jim okam. Jim okam, that’s right. Yeah, so he’s the one that first brought up. Yeah, so I didn’t know I wanted a glider until he got on the show and he mentioned- I think it was, I don’t even remember what- free tech, I think it was, or something like that. Well, anyway, it was one of the websites he recommended and of course I went on there and there we go. Here we are five gliders later.

[00:13:32] Which still sucks. High start with the high start. But that’s okay, we’ll figure it out, I think, what we should do- I know we’ve said it before, but I finally have everything switched over- we should take the golf cart out and we should try it that way. Okay, well, that was easy. Yeah, I mean, why not?

[00:13:48] It’s got a. It like it’s a lot of walking, like even taking the thing out in my car and dropping it off, and then it’s still. I mean I should have. I should have started my watch because it was a workout. Yeah, putting this thing out there and getting it set up and, like we said before, you need to do it.

[00:14:05] When it’s hot in order to make use of the thermals, or else, well, 35 second flight, yeah, but if we can drive down to get it, the short flights don’t bother me as much. So, yeah, we’ll see. It’s a good idea. We’ll try that and see how it goes. Before I forget, you said guest, and that reminded me we’re probably not going to have a guest episode next week because I’m lazy. I will take the brunt. Lazy, I will take the brunt of this. I don’t want to get into it too much, but we piper had some breathing issues as

[00:14:35] One is in the in the hospital for four days, so that’s why she’s doing better. She’s doing better now, but still that was time away and I just it’s amazing how quickly you get behind on things.

[00:14:47] Yeah and just like I am so tired right yeah I still feel like I have not fully reconnected from.

[00:14:53] Being gone on my work. Yeah, I’ve been home over a week. Two weeks, I mean that would, yeah, so, yeah, so I’m going to apologize, by the way, to everybody. Now, this episode is going to be one you probably want to fast forward a lot through, because I, I just, I mean, I feel as though. So no guest episode next.

[00:15:11] Week probably however if you want to be a guest on the show and we still sorry we still have.

[00:15:16] People lined up. Yeah, like I need to get in touch with so it’s not that we don’t have anybody. So if you’re thinking, hey, I submitted a, a guest request, whatever, be a guest, thank you on the website. We still need to reach out to you. We know we’re sorry. Like I said, timing just really.

[00:15:33] Messed with us the last. So Ron will get them scheduled. But also, in addition to that, if you want to be a guest, hit us up on the website. There’s a be a guest form on there link. Thank you, and we would love to have you on the show, so, and they’re a lot of fun to do. Anyway, they are, at least I think so I keep coming back with that, yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about reflex. So I mentioned- I mentioned that on the discord one day and it’s like it. It blew everybody’s minds like I thought.

[00:16:04] This was a fairly common term okay hold on let’s let’s tamper that down a little bit I don’t want.

[00:16:09] To. I don’t want to say it blew everybody’s mind. No, there was a couple people that were like what the heck is he talking about? So reflex, which I, was one of them, yeah, it’s just. It’s basically just an uptick of the airfoil, if you can imagine. If you look at a wing side on right, you so you’ve got the leading edge at the front obviously and the trailing edge at the back obviously. If you draw a line from the leading edge to the trailing edge, that’s the cord line right. So, generally speaking, most airfoils sort of follow us a similar pattern, like the airfoil on the top of that line.

[00:16:44] Is usually kind of similar to the airfoil shape on the bottom of that line, like the top on a symmetrical wing. Yeah, on a symmetrical wing the top and the bottom half are the same, the same shape. Reflex, symmetrical- yeah, reflex- takes the top of that wing and pulls it down right. So now that you’ve actually got kind of a concave surface on the top and a convex surface on the bottom, so it looks sort of like a banana, if you will kind of except fatter in the front and trailing edge.

[00:17:15] Thinner. So how do you add that? Well, you can do that a couple different ways. If the airfoil is not designed that way, you can sort of artificially influence the airfoil by adding some up trim to both ailerons so you take the clevises and turn them out or in. However, however, your ailerons are set up so that you- so that you move the ailerons instead of drooping- they are actually kind of up a little bit. You can sort of cheat and get yourself a little reflex, and I forget the context of the conversation.

[00:17:43] I think we were talking about the twist yeah somebody was talking about their hanging nine twist.

[00:17:46] And I don’t know what it was, but you said that. And what does that do I mean? Like so to me, for, for, for the twist, I had one and it flew like I didn’t like the way it flew. It was nearly impossible to land the thing smoothly because it just kept wanting to float and float, and float, to the point it would just stall, it would just like, without any kind of warning. So adding a little bit of that reflexes is almost like the anti-flap, the, yeah, the opposite of killing. So it’s, it’s taking a.

[00:18:17] Little bit of a little now it’s not like a drastic depending on how much you add, but it made that airplane fly more sport like and I had more control of the flight envelope leading up to stall. Does that make sense? Like it didn’t float right up to the stall, like it would actually sort of lose lift and fall before it would actually stall, which made it much easier to land smoothly and it was a much better behaved airplane in general after I did that. So it’s kind of like spoilers then, on each kind of kind of yep, yep, except it’s not just doing the killing, I mean because

[00:18:53] You still have the ailerons doing their function and still providing some degree of.

[00:18:58] Lift but just not as much yeah so that’s reflex disclaimer we’re not aerodynamicists right exactly.

[00:19:04] And I don’t think we had to say that I think that’s pretty much and some like really.

[00:19:10] Complicated airfoils like let’s take the horton, for example, which I know you don’t have to say I’m not gonna ask. You’re looking at me, I could tell what’s going through your head. No, anyway, the horton at the root of the wing has- it’s actually built into the airfoil, it has reflex and then as you move out on the wing, it flattens out, flattens out and then it’s more of a symmetric shape at the at the tips. Yeah, thank you, which I find interesting. I don’t know why that is. I imagine it has something to do with the weird shape of the airplane. But yeah, there’s actually.

[00:19:42] Reflex built into the airfoil at the root and then it gradually- interesting, yeah, wasn’t easy to build, by the way, I’ll say that, which is probably why I haven’t worked on it in a while, because I it burnt me out, because it was difficult to build. So, moving on, because that’s, that horse has been dead for a year. So reflex, yeah, that’s what reflex is, and if you want to try that on an airplane that is somewhat difficult to land because it just wants to float, trying half a degree or one degree of deflection upwards of the ailerons and that’ll. Now, is that something maybe you could?

[00:20:16] Do like on a switch to test it out or is it not that different to try it yeah you I mean depending.

[00:20:21] On the, on the capability of your radio and whether you have separated individual servos operating your. I guess I didn’t think about that. Yeah, you could totally program. Program that into your radio. Yeah, you could operate it as a flap. But just, instead of using positive values, use negative values or vice.

[00:20:37] Versa yeah it’s just a flap in reverse yep yeah exactly huh good to know it’s also very common.

[00:20:43] Flying wings yeah okay well the horton that’s what that’s what it is so yeah and why is that.

[00:20:51] Properties well they’re nothing but wing yeah so they probably don’t want a lot of yeah so.

[00:20:58] So there you go. Yeah, interesting. So we joined the monticello model flying club, which we’ve already talked about. That, no, I don’t think we have. I think we did, did we? Yeah? Well then, why do?

[00:21:10] We bring that back up well because you went to the jet rally we did I went with Reggie.

[00:21:18] It. Yeah, I want a jet. That’s what you got out of that. That was my whole takeaway, like there is something. Okay, now wants a jet, I don’t. When I already told crystal I want a jet, like that’s kind of been my theme for the last week or however long it’s been. Like anytime she wants to spend money, I’m like, well, that’s jet funds. I mean, we gotta, you gotta- be careful. But there’s just something about the sound and about watching a jet fly. I don’t know what it is, but it is the big ones, those are so much.

[00:21:48] Fun to watch. There were some huge jets there, yeah, some very pricey, I’m sure, models that would make me, yeah, like I. I can’t imagine flying that like just the- the numbers are going through my head of if I.

[00:22:03] Crash, I could have bought another car, kind of thing. I flew ollie’s jet there one day, one time, a couple years ago really- and yeah, the whole time I was flying. It’s like, okay, if this goes down, this is my expedition. Yeah, which one was that? It was a really large sport jet. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was quite large, unbelievably good flying airplane, though I couldn’t believe how nice it flew. How’d you get to fly that? We were at a fly in there and ollie was there and was just offering people.

[00:22:34] To fly his jet and that’s awesome you can’t pass that up no I buddy box or anything I would hope.

[00:22:42] It was a buddy box I mean for his sake I would hope yeah because he doesn’t know anybody from.

[00:22:48] Anybody else that, if he’s just offering it to people, let me loop it, roll it, flight inverted, wow, really, yeah, it was just fantastic. It’s like, wow, that’s nice, but that’s the same price as my.

[00:22:59] Expedition. Well, that one was, but you can get entry level more inexpensive. They are. They are slowly, they are getting cheaper slowly, but they are, I think. What impressed me though, like, okay, so I will admit I know nothing about jets, like you probably know more than I do, so that’s well, I might, because I do know this- to start them. It’s all done on your transmitter. You program a sequence in it, has a brushless motor built into the front of it. It spins up and gets it to a certain rpm before I think it’s, before it adds any.

[00:23:32] Fuel to it, then it has a glow plug that ignites some fuel when it’s in it and that’s how you start them. I think that’s impressive. That must be new ones, because well, let’s just put it, the ones they had at the jet rally. Okay, that’s how I saw like everybody, yeah off, it goes, like oh, it’s time to go up, bunk, and then you just hear everything go up and I’m like, really that’s how you start them, that’s

[00:23:54] Pretty cool. Yeah, they haven’t always been like I know a little bit, like I know that when they first came on the scene, people were out there with like leaf blowers getting them to spool up and

[00:24:03] Stuff. So they still had those, but after they landed to cool them off, like you’d see, after they land, because as soon as they turn them off, like there’s just all this smoking and stuff that comes out the back of them, and they would go out there with their little makita battery powered leaf blower and go into the inlet and that would cool them down. But I was like I said, here we go, another, another.

[00:24:25] New what’s the word I’m looking for discipline of rc that we need to learn I think so great and.

[00:24:34] Like I can’t. Just, I still haven’t learned gliders yet. Well, I, this is my two-year goal by my teachers right over here. By the way, what are you doing saturday, by the way? Yeah, I’m teaching class again, but it’s dog classes. Well, that’s not as fun. I don’t know. That’s well, but it’s fun too. Well, it is fun, but I said not as fun. I didn’t say that’s no fun. Maybe not for you. Maybe dave really likes that. Do you like it better than flying? No see, so that’s all I said. Dang it, I’m right again, but

[00:25:09] With the jets. That’s Reggie and I decided, because I went with him, that is our two-year goal. That will probably not happen, because we’ve seen how our goal for the tri-motor went. That’s no fault of our own, though. It is okay. I, I will take some of the some, but because, like I think between the two of us- I don’t want to give up all my balsa, but I think between the two of us we probably would have enough to make a fairly big start on it, true? So, yeah, that’s true, that’s fair, but two-year goal.

[00:25:41] For both of us to fly jets at that jet rally you and Reggie yeah Reggie and I’m sure you’ll be.

[00:25:47] In on that. I am not going to. I’m not going to set that goal for myself, because you will fly one of our jets well, whatever, but I can’t afford one. They’re expensive, they’re not that bad, they are terrible. You’re right, I can’t like. I mean, I try and tell myself, like even an inexpensive, used one is a decent one, is 2500 on average for a decent one, and that’s for, that’s low and that’s a small one. Yeah, usually that’s so. Yeah, that’s just how I can’t. We’re for a new one. You’re probably six to seven grand, but I will. I will be more than happy to watch you guys and help you in any way I can. I will be.

[00:26:23] More than happy to do that too. So I think I need to get rid of a lot of my airplanes like I don’t know. We’ll see. This has been the year of collecting I’ve. I’ve come to notice that we’ve, we’ve been.

[00:26:34] Steadily increasing our hanger not capacity but like I’m not sure everything we’ve practiced jenga.

[00:26:44] A lot more on trying to figure out how to store these things, which I’m failing because they’re still everywhere. Literally, if you look behind me, there is no, it’s my old- yeah, a very nice yak sitting on my counter. Still a good looking airplane that is straddling counter space and the fly is great. I can’t wait to fly it. I’m. I went through it. I had to redo a whole bunch of stuff on. Well, I didn’t have to, but I wanted, you wanted to. Yeah, wasn’t happy with how the radio was set up, because I’m so paranoid with all that stuff I don’t want to lose it. Well, I wasn’t happy with it either, that’s.

[00:27:12] Why I bought the board which apparently didn’t wasn’t going to work either it would have worked okay but.

[00:27:17] I have this one, so I wanted to use that one because it’s better. Do you want the old one back, by the way? Just your power expander? No, it’s okay. Okay, so I added my smart fly eq6 board to this one, and that will be nice once it’s all ready to go. One of these days I need to go out and start it up and tune it and make sure it’s all running right, and all that. But I went through everything, checked all the surfaces, made sure everything was good. So the smart fly board is the eq6- at least the one in here is way overkill because the servos are not matched on any of these surfaces.

[00:27:52] So I bought it for my big yak that has two servos on each aileron, on the rudder, yeah, and then the elevator is split but it’s still two ailerons, and on that you can match the servos, what the elevator is split but it’s still two ailerons. I told you I’m out of it, I’m sorry. So the elevator is split but it’s still two servos. Okay, that’s what I was going to call me out because, like I said that we’ve been, I was

[00:28:14] Tracking and then you said that I’m like not making excuses but after I had like no sleep in.

[00:28:22] The last. So yeah, anyway. So one server per elevator, half, but still, yeah, it’s controlled by the same channel. Yep, at least that’s how it was set up. So with the smart fly board that I had, you could do all the endpoint adjustments, center point adjustments and all that on that board. Yeah, but this, like I said, the smaller yak- this is the hanger 9 carden yak- does not have two per any of them, so I didn’t have to worry about servo matching on that. Actually, I take that back as the. I think there’s two on the elevators. Yeah, so one for each elevator. So that’s overkill, but I like the fact that it’s got the

[00:28:59] The regulator built into it, so I don’t have to worry too much about over voltage and all that kind of stuff. If I wanted to change batteries out and use actual- yeah, like LiPos, yep, and it also has.

[00:29:09] The yeah and you wouldn’t have to worry about the receiver voltage either yeah so you could still use.

[00:29:14] Older receivers with it, if you wanted to, which is what I have in here. I think it’s an ar8000. Yep, I remember. I don’t remember, but it’s not a high voltage. It’s not one of the new- some new ones now. This is old, has two satellites and all that, but anyway. So it has that. And then it has the opto kill switch for the motor, which is all built into the board, which is nice. So I got rid of three whole switches, because I switches to me are another failure point- yeah, absolutely, which I don’t like having so many switches on there. So this is a soft switch that will turn on the whole board.

[00:29:46] And the batteries plug in directly to it. So I like that. I will have to look into something different for my big yak, because this is what was in there. So we’ll figure that out when I get to it. But, like I said, this one looks like it’s all ready to go. We’ll just have to do a couple more things and we’ll take it out to the field now that I have my expedition. You can, I can, and that one, that one.

[00:30:07] Will handle the grass with no problem, no matter how tall it is. My hope so, because we went flying recently didn’t want to bring that up. Well, we can bring this up in a manner that is not accusatory, okay, so the grass happened to be a little bit long and it’s been very wet and it has been. Yeah, we’ve had a lot of rain lately so we have like it grows fast and there’s, but anyway,

[00:30:31] Yeah, so you took the small yak and I took the carbon z yak, which is a little foamy yak. That hanger nine makes it. Ironically, I got off of youtube. It’s like I get all your hand-me-downs. Well, I wouldn’t.

[00:30:44] Call them hand-me-downs. Hmm, maybe I didn’t give it to you because it flies bad or anything like that. It just didn’t have room. Well, you didn’t give it to me either. Well, you did kind of give it to me. Well,

[00:30:54] No, you gave me all your nitro motors, but anyway, no, is that, was that in that, I think? So, yeah, I remember. I don’t remember that doesn’t matter. But that one like I. I was having problems with the AS3X on the ailerons, which is very twitchy, when I went oscillating and I just, yeah, I could not like I was upset with the length of the grass because every time I landed it would flip over. It did and made me feel like a terrible pilot, even though it’s not really my fault, right. So I just I.

[00:31:27] Flew it twice, didn’t get everything set up right. I will deal with that. When the grass is cutting in and you want to break it, I mean, like that’s the problem. Every time it flips over I’m like, oh, that’s one more smack on the back of this airplane. Yeah, making everything weaker. And to be fair, to be fair,

[00:31:43] There, even my stick, my trusty old stick, was having issues 60 size. Yeah, I had to take it off on the on the road on the rock. Yeah, on the rock road, which is not good, which is not ideal. No, but made it work. But yeah, grass was a little long that day, but yeah, I, I, yeah. We don’t need to say

[00:32:04] Anything more about but not long enough to stop my fokker that ran into your plane well I wasn’t gonna.

[00:32:09] I wasn’t gonna mention it, but since you did, you were having issues like that was the most trouble I think I’ve had. I’ve seen you have with a world war- one airplane ever. This thing had a mind.

[00:32:20] Of its own, like every single time tail would come up. As soon as the tail come up, I know there’s gonna be torque and it’s gonna go to the left. This thing hard 90 degree turn every time the tail came off the ground. Yeah, and I. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown this airplane and I know it’s a little twitchy on.

[00:32:36] The ground. Oh my goodness, yeah, it was so. I don’t see dave flustered very often, no, but you were definitely. I was not having a good job aggravated, this would be a good, so I’m going to take this.

[00:32:52] Time just to say dave knows how to fly. Dave taught dave well a lot of people how to fly, so he’s very good at it. Yeah, so he’s not like this guy that has no clue what he’s doing. So to hear him say that this airplane has problems on the ground, I completely believe him. Oh, yeah, it’s not like you could say he said that. Like I would be like: okay, yeah, I don’t believe you. Like, if dave says that, I believe it, yeah. So putting that out there like yeah, trying to make sure that people don’t think dave’s like Reggie jr, what I mean, well, no, I mean I don’t think it has. It has occurred to me that ever

[00:33:25] Since we started doing this, I’ve had more than my fair share of incidents. I’ve gone for years without any issues and then this summer it’s our bad juju. Yeah well, I don’t like your biggest problem has.

[00:33:37] Been one plane though and that plane is no longer with us well it took care of itself well we’ve had.

[00:33:44] Another incident yeah what so we went out and you were you were when I was up in the hospital.

[00:33:51] And so we, we were gonna have a night fly night. Yes, and this is what sucks, by the way, I set this up. Yes, like this was my idea, to go out there friday night I had. Oh, anyway, that’s, I’m not yeah.

[00:34:04] So, yeah, we, we went out there and Reggie was there, and I guess it was just three of us, wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah, and dave, dave took his big l4, which you would have loved. Oh, I know, I want to see that it’s.

[00:34:18] Like that’s it’s such a that’s a plane I would love to own one day and I’m gonna I’m gonna go ahead.

[00:34:23] And throw it out there. He has a yellow cow, so it’s a. It’s a green l4 but it has a yellow cub cow and, of course, me being an idiot, dave, you’re not gonna fly with that yellow cow. Well, the model that it is actually modeled after- after, actually that’s, it flew with the yellow cow, but anyway, he didn’t get to.

[00:34:45] Fly it, unfortunately. What happened? Well, we put it together, which is a little bit of a hassle, it’s. There’s a lot going on with it, with struts and everything worse than a lot of biplanes. Yeah, my honestly, my triplane is easier to put together in this thing. Yeah, well, in that case, I’m rethinking my wanting one. Anyway, we’ve got it together and this is a third scale. Sorry, this is.

[00:35:09] A third scale. So it’s: oh, I’m sorry, it’s a big airplane, so it’s quarter scale. Then you’re: it’s 100 inch, 108.. Big plane, it’s a big plane. Big plane, pretty, though, so I’m standing at the front of it.

[00:35:22] Squeezing my fuel bulb because my gasoline can doesn’t use a real crank pump. Like everybody else, I’ve got this old outboard primer that I use, so I’m squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and building up my hand strength like I need any more hand strength walking on crutches all day, but right.

[00:35:37] I’m squeezing and squeezing yeah you were down there filling the tank for a long time how.

[00:35:42] What’s going on. So I gotta step to the back of the airplane so I can look through the door at the fuel tank, because you can see the fuel tank. At that point I realized there’s fuel running out the back of the airplane, like not just running the back, the very back, like by the tail wheel, yeah, and then seeping out through the entire fuselage bottom. It’s just dripping, yeah, oh no, I’ve probably put

[00:36:04] 20 Ounces of gasoline at least 20 ounces because that’s a probably a 16 ounce tank yeah it’s a 16.

[00:36:10] That’s. And it was full and it was still pumping away. Yeah, so the tank was full. No, the tank was not full, not a drop. Not a drop of fuel in the tank, that’s right. It all, remember, bypassed. The fuel lines had broken at the tank, oh, with the front of the tank, like the whole front of it, both of them, which was really weird- and the fill line. Both had broken and from squeeze one, I had been putting nothing but raw gasoline into the fuselage, which is a big airplane, so there’s a lot of fuel in this.

[00:36:41] Airplane. A lot of crevices. You picked up the tail and it sloshes. Yeah, oh no, yeah. So what, what do you do? Like? Just let it drip? Well, we turn it up on its nose and let it drain back through the hole at the front. Yeah, because the firewall is not completely sealed up so it was able to drain out. But yeah, it’s running out all the seams on the covering the fuselage, out any hole in the tail for push rods. There’s fuel seeping everywhere, mm-hmm. And what? What’s that covered with? Because that’s coming.

[00:37:15] In a cover all roll with paint. Oh my gosh got lucky. It did not damage any of the paint. That’s awesome. However, I did find that apparently, gasoline reactivates the stick it that you use to put the cover all on. Oh no, because now the next day when I go to work on it I can’t get the hatch off. It’s react. It’s basically glued the hatch, the hatch on. But anyway, we take a quick, quick post-mortem. At the field, we yank the engine off because I have access to the fuel.

[00:37:46] Tank from the firewall. Pull the hatch cover off, pull the fuel tank out and there’s no fuel lines attached. Yeah to it. Now, on the weird side, I’ve never had this happen before. You expect these fuel lines to get hard, brittle and crack. These things were soft and supple, really. You pull on them, though, and they come apart like a gummy worm. I’ll be darned. I’ve never seen that happen before. They’ve always gotten crispy, just crispy. Yeah, now is that the regular tigon? It is tigon, but it was the kind of clear stuff, not the opaque stuff. I had a bunch of opaque and I had a bunch of clear at home and all.

[00:38:25] Of my clear stuff, which, older, which used stuff, was soft and gummy like that. The opaque stuff was not. Yeah, yeah, that usually just gets hard. It’s hard, yeah. So I had to completely re-tube the entire airplane. I brought it home, stood it on its nose, opened all the doors up on it and put a box fan on it all night in the garage. By the way, it was a long drive home, I’m sure I bet, did you remember?

[00:38:47] I was gonna say do you remember any of it because I wonder how many brain cells that killed did you.

[00:38:54] Did you get it out of the vehicle that night yes I did get it out of the vehicle that night.

[00:38:57] Fred was a little loopy. But fred the dog, your garage smelled good for a few days. Yeah, it still does. Got that all taken care of, changed the fuel lines, everything looked good. We did pull the battery out of it at the field and I was a little nervous pulling that apart. Yeah, because it was. It had been completely submerged in an inch and a half of fuel, of gasoline. Yeah, and what happens when?

[00:39:24] You unplug things sometimes that are electric yeah luckily we it didn’t there was no sparks thank.

[00:39:30] God, I, I pulled it apart as fast as I could, yeah, but yeah, I don’t know fast is better or not, though I didn’t want it to spark twice. Yeah, might get away with one, might get away with one, but a second time.

[00:39:43] God. But yeah, it was. I’ve never seen a fuel tank do that like. I’ve seen lines break and that, but I’ve never seen two of them completely, completely come off. And you’re right, there was not like a drop of fuel in the tank. None of it had made it to the tank, but it would have been a full tank because you were squeezing for a while. I’ve been there a while, yeah, and I know about how many squeezes.

[00:40:06] Not counting, but I know about how long it takes to fill this tank and after 20 minutes you’re like: wait a minute, why is my five gallon can empty? Yeah, started full, so that was safety message. Make sure we have a fire extinguisher at the field, yeah, and if ever there was. By the way,

[00:40:24] Yes, we do. Yeah, there is okay. Where is it, if ever? The old frequency board? Oh okay, this is one of those small like under the sink ones. Yeah, it’s enough to save, it’s enough for a minute or two, but then get away from it, okay. But yeah, this plays into. I mean, the end of the season is coming, so time for going out those fuel lines, because you don’t want to fill up your, especially if you’re doing nitro with the high oil content and that stuff. You don’t want to soak an airframe with that.

[00:40:53] Stuff unless airplane would have been really bad if that was nitro fuel yeah so another reason to.

[00:40:58] Stay away from nitro. Well, I mean, I wanted to ask, before we get way too far off topic, what fuel lines do you remember are in this? This yak should be taigon. They’re yellow but they’re very silicony.

[00:41:11] I think it’s that I saw that earlier I think it’s that solvent stuff oh is it the bright yellow stuff.

[00:41:15] Yeah, yeah, get rid of that. That stuff sucks, oh, okay, I’m sorry, but it I don’t like that stuff at all. It collapses. It’s flexible, which is great, but when you put pressure on it or negative pressure on it, like from suction, yeah, they collapse and close off your fuel supply. Okay, well, I probably won’t fly that until that’s all done. Well, I’ve got it. Just so happens, yesterday I went to the farm store and I bought eight feet of taigon. Oh, did you? So if you need some, I will need some. Okay, but I’ll also.

[00:41:42] Probably just need to get my own well okay because I had to re-plumb this b25 thing I’m working on.

[00:41:47] Anyway, I can’t wait to hear about that. That’s a fun one too. Next episode I’ll talk about it. Really, I want to get it running first. Okay, that makes sense, and then I can talk about how much of a pain it.

[00:41:57] Was to get it to that point because I’m not there yet. You will, one of these days, well, closing out on that. I just want to make sure everybody knows that I’m not this accident. You’re really not. I can.

[00:42:10] Vouch for you. Dave is usually well, he’s not usually. He’s always the go-to guy if he’s at the field. He’s the guy we go to for any. He’s the guy you go to when you have problems and you’re the go-to guy for anybody else that doesn’t have problems. But yeah, dave is not accident prone, he’s. He’s a like, he would be a profession, what I would call a professional. Thank you, which. But unfortunately, because of his association with the podcast, he’s had some accidents. You just built him up, but I have

[00:42:39] To say that we have to take him down. Well, no, I’m not going to take him down, but the one part that I don’t think we said. Correct me if I’m wrong. So you said you lost control over your- whatever that plane was. You’re flying, that when you took off it had a little 40 size fokker d7. Yeah, that little fokker- what? I was a little fokker that day. Oh my goodness, sorry, I can’t. So what happened to it? Like you said, you lost control and kind of ran off to the side. But what, what? What stopped you? Well, the

[00:43:11] Last time I tried to take off with it, I think it was tommy’s-bock. Tommy’s 50 cc s-bock is what stopped dave’s plane. 150, 65 Four-stroke powered toy- oh, they’re all toys. They’re all toys, yeah. But

[00:43:31] Funny thing though yeah I don’t know how you lucked out to where you guys like you ended up going.

[00:43:37] Straight nose to nose. I mean it was. It was his look like a higgly heavy hub is what it was: just a hub, yeah, like straight into the spinner and like not, not even a scratch, no damage, no broken propeller, no covering nothing. It knocked the screen out of my radiator. Oh, did it? Oh well, I’m sorry, oh geez, I.

[00:43:56] Don’t know if I can fix that well now if that was me and that happened I would rather have something.

[00:44:02] Happen to my plane than somebody else’s oh absolutely yeah so yeah but it’s just me just scratching.

[00:44:07] Tom’s plane was still unthinkable. It didn’t. It didn’t leave it. Well, let’s be honest, let’s get real here. That s-bock is not like the most beautiful s-bock out there. I don’t know if you’ve looked at it up close. That’s a 20 footer, it’s a 20. Yeah, thank you. So even if it had left to scratch, I’m not sure I would have noticed it. Wow, but yeah, maybe, but depends where it is. Yeah, I mean it didn’t. I mean it’s ready to fly again. So, whatever, and no damage at all. Well, you flew it after that, didn’t you? Or did you put?

[00:44:37] I say I don’t remember that the rest of that night I was kind of thinking you did I think I did fly it.

[00:44:41] Again, yeah, yeah. So yeah see, no harm, no foul, that’s just feel bad. I did. I’m not gonna lie, it did make me nervous a little bit when I saw that d7 heading directly for it. But well, that would make.

[00:44:57] Anybody nervous yeah I mean like no matter who’s flying well honestly that little fokker what I was.

[00:45:02] Thinking I was thinking that my carbon prop was going to go through your wing and I couldn’t care.

[00:45:06] Less well I was going to throw the airplane in the trash can at that point well you were you.

[00:45:10] Were a little frustrated. That’s yes, he was so, but anyway, yeah, that was exciting, and I think the length of the grass might have had something to do with that too. And this airplane has no tail.

[00:45:22] Wheel so it kind of has a mind of its own sometimes yeah just a skid yeah and yeah they’re harder to.

[00:45:27] Control that way too. And you’re right, grass was tall, it was very tall, so what else? So we mentioned: oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say what else happened on the night, that I wasn’t there because you.

[00:45:38] Guys, we got bitten by mosquitoes, like as soon as the sun went down behind the trees. It was like somebody had turned on a switch and let all the mosquitoes loose, because they came at us with a vengeance and they were attacking my hands. Yeah, while dave was trying to fly, they were getting his hand. He took the, the radiant, the night radiant out- not enjoyable. No, I’m done. Yeah, now was that your.

[00:46:02] First time flying it with a new light controller in it in the dark, in the dark, yeah nice. I’d had a couple twilight flights with it, but it did look really good. You guys actually flew at night.

[00:46:12] Yeah, it was pretty dark by the time, by the time we got done, done. But yeah, man, the mosquitoes were whoo that’s, and there weren’t any at all before. No, none. It was weird. It’s just like somebody had flipped a switch. It’s probably all the rain. Well, I mean, like it’s the rain. We’ve gone, luckily we’ve gone.

[00:46:31] Most of this year without bugs being bad yeah like they’ve been bad before and I’ve not noticed.

[00:46:37] Really any of them this year I didn’t notice the buffalo gnats this year no there was a well there.

[00:46:43] Was a little at my house like but now they’re always but not comparatively speaking to like.

[00:46:48] The last few summers yeah they’ve not been bad at all not annoyingly yeah I flew the.

[00:46:54] Ultrax. I had the little mini ultrax there, umx, yeah, umx one. And then Reggie had a. He was flying the cessna 150- the cessna, that’s right- and he got like one kind of scaring me.

[00:47:06] On nav lights only I was gonna say he doesn’t have a night flyer no nav lights only just the.

[00:47:10] Nav lights. Yeah, I mean he didn’t. He didn’t crash it, so it I’m having trouble seeing the fully lit. Yeah, right, and now it’s weird- you mentioned it at the field and I don’t know if anybody else has this phenomenon, but like when it got pretty dark, like looking at the airplanes, they looked grainy to me, like my vision is like grainy. I know it’s because we’re older and that’s probably it. I’m kind of like here’s there is your opportunity to, because I’m there with you, are you?

[00:47:41] Grainy as well. Well, I don’t know about grainy as much, but I’m definitely to the point where, if I have to read something up close, the glasses come off. Well, yeah, but I mean as far as your, your,

[00:47:52] Vision and darker not so well lit I don’t know if I’d say grainy like I think I know.

[00:47:59] What you’re talking about like almost like pictures when you take pictures in the low light. Yeah, so you don’t get that. But I just have a hard time telling like what’s up, what’s down, what’s coming at me. But

[00:48:08] Even your airplane, which was very well lit, I would say I was having trouble. I mean, I knew which direction it was going. I could make that. I never had any problem with that, but it just wasn’t crisp exactly. There was no detail at all. So you think maybe it was getting a little bit.

[00:48:23] Like not fuzzy but a little hazy out or anything. No, I don’t think it was. It was pretty. Was it damp? I mean, was it like, did you feel balmy or anything like that? It really wasn’t a super humid evening, not really. I mean, it was a really pixelated than fuzzy. Yeah, just well, it shouldn’t have.

[00:48:43] Anything to do with it. Like my little ultrax I was actually normally I’ve- like any other time I’ve flown it has been no problem at all, no matter how dark it was, but for some reason that night even mine just appeared. It just didn’t. So if there’s any optometrists listening to this,

[00:49:02] It just wasn’t crisp. So how much of that gas did you guys inhale before that? Well, I mean, were you high and just didn’t know it? I don’t know. Hey, speaking of ultrax, not to

[00:49:15] Oh, yeah, okay, but we got a message from rick. Oh, we did read it. It says rick sent us an email. He says I’ve had the small and larger ultrax. The bigger one is his go-to. He says they like to get five or six of them in the air at one time and hover around trying to see how close they can get to one another. So that sounds awesome. That does sound a lot of fun, except I still can’t hover. I haven’t, like, taught myself to hover yet. Well, you need to practice more. That’s definitely the airplane.

[00:49:48] To learn on well for sure but I don’t have the big one I have the small one does it ever as good as.

[00:49:53] The big one because he says the bigger one is his go-to. Yeah, and I find that strange. So, okay, I have flown the big one a couple more times, like I have not had as much stick time on it as I wanted, but it’s been around the house here so I haven’t. I didn’t want to mess with CG and all that kind of stuff, not knowing how it was going to fly, not having the expanse that you would at the field. Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense. I just want to get more of a feel for it and actually get a couple batteries through it. I think it’s going to be fun, but not for the exact same reasons that the small one is.

[00:50:26] Like: it flies really good, it’s very stable, it’s, it’s a lot of fun, but just not. It’s not as snappy, it’s not quite exactly the same as the umx one. So, okay, well, it’s bigger. Yeah, and what we always say about bigger, bigger flies better, bigger flies better. But I just said the smaller one flies better.

[00:50:47] So that’s counter to what we normally say. I don’t know, but we’ll have to get the bigger one would be easier to learn to hover, because maybe it reacts a little slower. It might, if you.

[00:50:59] Want to learn to hover, that would be the one. No, the one that I’ve actually been practicing on quite a bit is that umx yak, like the profile one that’s made to actually teach you how to hover, because that thing is I mean I can’t hover on anything else, but on that one, just with AS3X I can hover. Really, it’s very forgiving airplane. I love that little thing. Maybe I’ll have to fly that one. Yeah, it runs on a little 150 one cell batteries and it’s just like. I flew it like four times the other night, went through all four batteries I had and it was nice, yeah, sweet.

[00:51:35] So I don’t know much about this, I’m just going to be honest. But l3 industries, l3 harris, excuse me- sky warden, like tell us, tell me about this thing. So I don’t know much about it either, except.

[00:51:48] Well more about it than I do dave knows about it too I think oh does he yeah I’ve seen a.

[00:51:52] Couple youtube articles on it and other things okay well I will tell you what I know about it and.

[00:51:58] Then you can take over because I know very little other than I love the air tractor okay love the shape.

[00:52:05] Of it and this is the military version oh see you do quite a bit more about it so I don’t know.

[00:52:11] What that actually means as being the military version but it’s the military gray it looks cool.

[00:52:18] With hard points. Oh, oh, oh. So it’s like a. I think they call them lsa, not lsa. It would replace the o2, yeah, yeah, mm-hmm, but with hard points, weaponized. Oh, I like that. I yeah, but that was just greek to me. However, it’s gray, so it looks really cool. So do you think it would be? Do you think it would be hard to repaint an l tractor, an l tractor, an air tractor? So it’s funny you say that this week’s tool

[00:52:49] The week. It’s time for rc plane labs tool of the week: airbrush and air compressor. So I brought, I bought on amazon. It’s a really cool. So okay, you gave me an airbrush a while ago. I admit I know nothing about how to power them, like what kind of compressor it takes and all that kind of stuff. So I kind of started looking around. I couldn’t figure it out like I don’t know what size fittings use on that. So I found amazon for like 60 bucks was a really what seemed like a very nice air compressor.

[00:53:23] That came with. That came with all the things you needed to actually start airbrushing, so that’s tool of the week and that’s what I bought. Silly because I saw that article and I want to make this.

[00:53:33] Into a military version are you gonna are you gonna post your progress on the facebook group well let’s.

[00:53:39] Not get too far ahead of ourselves. Okay, and we can paint the a10. Hey, that was my other thought behind that too, honestly, because I knew I needed to paint that also first need to finish sanding and smoothing, right, but it still needs painted Tom. Thank you very much. Yes,

[00:53:57] That a10 is my horton, is it, though? I hope not. I think the horton beats the a10 for the amount of procrastination that has been going on with that project. Well, I understand, but this is my procrastination project, yeah, although your yak has been sitting for a long time too. That hurt your big.

[00:54:17] One that hurt a lot. Well, has it not? Okay? Have you noticed, though? Did you notice when you came over? I have started. I peeled, peeled the covering off. Yeah, that’s a big step. I took all the servos out. I need to go through and do a whole bunch of stuff on it, but that is okay, my goal okay, but I can’t okay. So I like:

[00:54:36] The idea of repainting the air tractor though I really like because I wanted to do something.

[00:54:41] Huh I was gonna go back to the yak oh I’m sorry go ahead I’m I’m not in the mood now.

[00:54:47] No so what I was gonna dave is so enthralled with our conversations and he’s he’s texting someone yeah.

[00:54:56] Oh, he’s okay, he’s researching. Oh good, I would prefer that as opposed to hi, mom, how are you? No, but anyway, so I was pulling out my like my plan. Honestly, I’m finally getting back into getting the act done, the big yak I wanted to go through: take all the servos out and send them into horizon. They’re the old jr 8711s, which were great servos, great servos, stupid expensive, which is why I wanted them checked out. Yes, since we are members of the monticello model masters.

[00:55:27] Some of the horizon guys work there. Yep, I’m sorry, some of the horizon guys fly there that work for horizon, which is why the horizon guys, otherwise it’d be weird to call you that, I guess.

[00:55:40] Oh, this has been a great day- and I asked- I asked one of the guys there if they still, if I could just send them in and stuff, and he said no, we don’t actually work on those anymore. They have been discontinued. Well, they’ve been discontinued for a while, but at least they worked on them for well they don’t anymore. So I am sol support them and I don’t know what I want to do. Like, honestly, the best thing to do would be get new servos. I need eight servos and they are 220 a piece, I think. So I don’t know. We’ll have to look it up and just kind of see what I decide to do on that.

[00:56:16] Because I look at that and I think, well, there’s my jet price. That is badass. I’m sorry, that’s really cool. What is? You’re not obviously talking about what I am talking about. Well, dave, just.

[00:56:26] Handed me his phone because this is what he was looking at. Yeah, the skywarden. Yes, that is now. Do you see why I want to repaint mine? That is freaking amazing. I love that. That would be so cool you.

[00:56:39] Should totally do that. I plan on it, yeah, maybe. Yeah, I complete with bombs and everything or whatever those I could do that ordinance of some sort? Oh, is that even by hardpoint, like hardpoint to mount? Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah, okay, look at me learn. Yeah, so see, anyway, you can learn at any age. But yeah, servos for the yak serve. I don’t know what I’m gonna do on that yet, but I did find out. If I could make a recommendation, I would. I love recommendations. Something that’s made in america, something that

[00:57:08] Is really, really super high quality. Okay, kind of silly expensive pro modeler- what’s kind of silly expensive? Well, they’ll be price wise up there with the 87 11s, but infinitely, in my opinion, infinitely- better. Now, granted, I don’t own any yet, but I have done the research and I’ve talked to a few people. When I was in tucson I talked to a couple of guys that had them, because I’ve been thinking about putting them, buying them for the tri-motor project, because I want good quality servos.

[00:57:42] But yeah before you buy any other servos at least have a look at them well I haven’t even.

[00:57:51] Decided if I’m gonna buy new ones yet or not. Okay, like I, that’s. That’s what’s so hard like making that decision of. Yeah, new ones can break too. That absolutely true. New ones can stop just as good as the old ones can stop. That’s absolutely true. So, these old ones, they’re, they’re good servos. Yeah, until they’re not. Until they’re not, but that’s the same with any, any servo. Yeah, but some.

[00:58:11] Servos, give you, give you more yes than no. If that makes no, yeah, and you worry less about them. This guy, I at least, yeah, at least look them up and read. I will because, like I said, the ones I was looking.

[00:58:27] At through spectrum were like 220 bucks a piece. Well, these aren’t quite that bad. They had something like 180, but for the actual going all out, yeah, like it would be nice and all that, yeah, because you’re.

[00:58:41] Not going to need high well for that big one yeah you will yeah for the small one I don’t but and.

[00:58:44] That’s the other thing. So I’ve I’ve been looking too. I haven’t quite decided yet, because god, it just hurts me so much to pull or to spend this much money on a receiver. But they have their new power safe receivers now for like 380 bucks- I think it’s right around there- for the power safe receiver with like three satellites. I mean it covers a bunch of stuff- built-in telemetry, which would be nice for this big one. I’m thinking about getting the 20 channel. It’s going to be a little bit more expensive, but then I have some redundancy if I upgrade to an ix20 later. Yes, because for that price, I mean there’s

[00:59:19] Really no reason not. Or to just stick with the 14 channel one. Does that make sense? That makes total sense. Yeah, so I don’t know. The one- okay, way off topic, but I was excited about this because I asked them on at horizon. So all these other ones, you used to have a matchbox. This is going way back. When you had two or two servos per aileron control service, you had the matchbox that you had to do. Well, I got rid of those by replacing with the smart fly board the new receivers. You don’t need any of that stuff with the ix12 I don’t know about. I’m sure the ix20 is the same way I don’t know about.

[00:59:54] The dx series or nx series, I’m sure they are all the servo endpoint adjustments and middle point is done on the receiver, on the transmitter. That’s pretty cool. How cool is that? It’s very cool that simplifies things by so much. That’s one less thing to go wrong, unless one less connection to yeah to go bad. So I’m a big fan of simplification over that kind of stuff. Yep, I like it, yep, anyway.

[01:00:18] How are we doing on time we got time for the tent story I love this yeah if you love the story.

[01:00:23] We will let this one take us out. How’s that sound? Okay, this will be the. Unless dave has anything, we’re going to go out. We’re going to go out on a hilarious. Yeah, this is awesome. So, jeff arseneau.

[01:00:34] He has been a guest on the show. He has really, really cool guy. He sent us an email. He says: hi guys, I thought I’d share something you haven’t seen before, so I’m always up for something.

[01:00:46] That I haven’t seen before. Now, when I read that, I’m like: how does he know what I have seen and what I haven’t seen? Well, he knows. So I’m thinking: okay, here we go. What is this story going to be? Yeah,

[01:00:57] Okay, all right. So he says, if I live to be a hundred, I won’t see anything crazier than this. So right away I’m thinking, okay, well, maybe this is something right. That piqued my interest. Also, it’s up there. The rhode island aero modelers had a two-day fun fly camp out last weekend in celebration of national model aviation day. Which, by the way, did you fly for that day? I didn’t even know that.

[01:01:20] Was a thing I think it was a 13th maybe it was that it was a saturday I had no idea that was a.

[01:01:26] Thing. Yeah so, but I do. Now he says a bunch of us camped out at the field and had a steak fry that evening, also something I am not familiar with. A steak fry sure beats our hot dogs. Yeah, well, I think.

[01:01:37] I think it’s hot dog fry like for people to have more money that could be he says this was.

[01:01:46] Followed with a pancake breakfast. The following morning. After breakfast one of the members was cleaning up and broke down his 10 by 10 tent. He moved it out to the middle of the parking lot to dry out in the sun, because probably the dew ours get that one too. He says we had a crazy burst of wind blow through the area around 10: 30 on an otherwise calm morning. Airplanes were scattered everywhere. The wind somehow inflated the tent and it got caught in an updraft. It easily rose to 150 feet, flew over a densely wooded area and was never to be seen again. The ufo looking thing in the photo.

[01:02:23] Is a 10 by 10 tent. So he sent us a picture and, oh my god, I laughed at this. I probably laughed at this for a solid 10 to 15 minutes, because I’ve never- he’s right, I’ve never seen anything like this.

[01:02:35] And it does look like a ufo I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be on the secrets unknown or something yeah.

[01:02:40] It totally does. And here’s a picture and you could tell it’s quite a ways away because it’s a 10 by 10, 10 and in the picture it looks tiny. So it’s a ways away, above the trees, just in stark contrast, out there completely by itself in the sky, like so yeah, I love the fact that somebody thought: oh, there goes my.

[01:03:01] Tent yeah I need my camera yeah so I will put that on the on the website by the way yeah the picture.

[01:03:08] Yeah, and he goes on to say: such a great picture, yeah, it’s an awesome story. He says the guy that lost the tent fully admits it’s the best 200 story he’ll ever tell. He says: hope you enjoy and are having a good summer. Glad the show is back, jeff arsno. So thanks, jeff, absolutely never seen anything like that. Now we know dave and I have talked about it and yeah, we’ve.

[01:03:31] Seen tents destroyed like an easy up or whatever rolling across the field yeah but I’ve.

[01:03:37] Never seen one go flying away to never be seen again and that high that yeah imagine that with.

[01:03:43] Your glider. Oh my gosh, you would be so high. Oh yeah, oh man, what’s it like to fly a glider and have the wings get ripped right off of it? I don’t know, oh, but you do.

[01:03:57] Yeah, hit him while it’s fresh. Yeah, sure, well, that’s all I got, guys. I just wanted to end on that. That’s an awesome story. I love that I. I legit giggled at that for like 10 minutes looking at the.

[01:04:10] Photo, reading it, the yeah, it was awesome, absolutely all right. Well, it’s been fun. Yeah, it’s good to be back in the studio basement. Whatever, yeah, whatever we want to call it. Oh, that’s how.

[01:04:24] About that, our recording area. Yeah, I’m looking forward to hopefully flying this weekend and closing out the summer by closing out my spreadsheet. I was gonna say summer’s not that close to being over, right. Well, no, but I mean by the time this airs, I mean it’ll be fairly two days.

[01:04:41] By the way, is when it’s: oh okay, well, never mind, we’re not ahead, all right. Well, until next time, guys, I’m Ron, I’m Tom and I’m dave. Good night. Good night. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the rc.

[01:04:54] 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.