A bit of time off was what was needed. Yesterday I had to go into work for only a few hours. So I packed up two 130x's, the Inverza 280, Twisted Hobbies Crack Pitts, and the Sukhio 29-MM.
Finished work and headed to the flight field near there, man was it crowded. I watched 1 flight from the van and thought to myself, "You should be the one flying!"
Set off for the 3/4 hour drive home and thought through some of my flight plans. Arrive at my local field and it appeared that they just cut the grass yesterday or earlier this morning. The greenskeeper was on his tractor putting down some chalk lines.
I took the flight cases and birds out to the close side of the field and set up in the shade of a tree. Put the wings on the Inverza and Sukhoi in the van and carried them out to the flight line too.
Set my Bluetooth JBL speaker in the tree, kicked on the mp3 player on the phone, and looked at my flight options.
MY old 130x was first out. 1 battery, very fast forward flight. Lots of head in passes, rolling to the left or right almost skids straight out turns. Ran 3 minutes in Stunt mode. Noticed the lack of bogging down while in stunt mode. Just have to learn where that throttle hold button is during flight to be more comfortable. No crashes, full battery in flight.
Next, most recent 130x purchase off a neighbor. Basically stock with a Microheli tailbox. This was sold to me with no tail wag. By far the most stable 130x I have had. I am using this one to reference and set my other and the Red Bull. Once again, full battery in flight. One good loop in Stunt mode, and tried a right aileron roll for the first time. Not pretty, or tight, but mission accomplished. Set her down and eyed up the biplane.
A full battery without any ground touches. Wind practically non-existent, I was able to square off some of my moves, sharper corners, exiting rolls at the correct time, combo moves with pauses between stick movements, and nice dives with 90° pull-outs at inches above earth. Fun and quite exciting pushing myself without wind throwing me curves.
Inverza is on the deck and waiting. PUt the battery in and noticed a bit of transport rash on the right elevator. Saw a crease and saw the skin was cracked on the other side too. A crack and not just a crease. Well, it did fit together snuggly, but I had no tape or glue to make the repair. Powered her up and tossed her in the air. Flew pretty well, but I could feel the deflection and had to resort to the trim switch on the TX front to level it out. Started some rolls and loops. This thing has some speed, and I noticed the loops were not what they used to be. "Did I change something on my TX?"
On a dive I was going for an exit and lost the authority I had earlier in my elevator. All I could do with the sticks maxed was watch the bird twist into the ground at more than 3/4 speed. Wow, looked like a party favor the way the foam bits flew into the air. Elevator have way and caused my/it's demise.
Wings, tail feathers, all servos and all electronics made it. Fuse will make a nice piece of art anchored on the wall to look like it flew into it.
Well, well, well. Do I take that as a sign and not even touch the Sukhoi?........
I have to power her up to see what kind of power she has, right? Battery in place, i powered up the TX, then flipped the RX power switch to initiate startup sequence. A couple seconds later the control surfaces give me a wave and tell me she's ready to go. Check my throws, flip my flight mode switch to see the difference, all seems more ready than I am.
Put up some throttle an no motor start up. Hmmm. Stick down and try it again. Instant motor response, nice.
Throttle up a bit more and she wants to pull through the grass, but it is a bit thick. More throttle and a bit of elevator to keep her from nosing down and she is taxi-ing, and piking up speed. "Now or never!", I say to myself and continue to pull up the smoothest takeoff I have ever dome. Mind you, I have been hand launching most of my flights. Only the Inverza and Pitts have been ROG takeoffs.
She is up and handleing well. Seems my mechanical setup as nearly spot on. In 3D mode, the RX will toss on self level with no stick movement for a second or two. I find that flying calm relaxing style causes the AL to kick in. So a nice smooth pass across the backfield, you are tracking perfectly, so no right stick is necessary. Throttle and rudder are where they should be, so that stick is moving minimally at best. The plane kicks into AL and you get a slight dive in your smooth, laserlike trajectory you were just experiencing. Seems Stagility mode will be the cure for this problem, so kick it into stagility mode. Now that tracks alot better, and if the AL kicks on, it has a lot less throw.
I should have thought that last statement through, tried a bit slower flight and found I lacked the tail movements necessary to roll or tight loop. Got to kick it back into 3D to do those moves. Took it up and tried out the Panic level function. Put her into a right roll held her at 90° and hit the panic button, Leveled off straight as an arrow. Tried it again in an upward climb and again, nose down to a level flight. Nice.
Tried the 2 second stick recovery test, and the plane drops low and to the right. Attempted from a different approach and got the same results. This is something I will have to look into. Seems I am mechanically set right with how normal flight and Panic are working, but we will see.
Timer goes off, "5 minutes already?", and time to actually land this baby. No damage so far, and I want to keep it that way. Kick on the stagility mode and made my approach, man this thing can float. Come around for another pass and this time approach into the slight breeze. Slow and smooth she is inching closer, then airspeed crossed the line and the nose started to drop. I put a bit more throttle in and pulled that elevator back to help flare it out.
Damn stagility mode does not give you that throw needed and she came in heavy on the front gear. Walked out to see her and everything was still in perfect shape. I have survived!!!
Took me about 10 minutes and a 1/4 of my remaining coffee to get my feet back on the ground.
Ran through another round of batteries in the remaining fleet before strapping the keycam onto the hat for the next "Maiden".
And after further review, I don't like the wide angle keycam, only the take off, a couple close passes and the landing are truly watchable.
But here it is.
[video=youtube_share;0EL5LIUybfE]http://youtu.be/0EL5LIUybfE [/video]
My day did not end there, 4 more batteries in the combined 130x's, 3 more in the Pitts and 2 more in the Sukhoi.
You know, sometimes you Do feel it!!!
More batteries going in this afternoon. I hope to catch a better view for you all.
sometimes i listen and regreatfully i have come back in and wished i had