Did you Fly today?

[The Dude]

Shoot, I am sorry Doozer, we must post at the same time.

[Gabe]

I got a good chuckle at your 10 attempts in the beginning! We all started very similar to that!

Seems like you got the hang of it now though. Welcome to the addiction.

[19000rpm]

Yep, that was some great flying. I doubt anyone on his second flight would have greased a landing with all the distractions.

Gorilla glue is one of my favorites for foam repairs. As it expands it fills any voids in the foam. You need to monitor it as it cures and wipe off any excess before it hardens all the way.

Other choices are Welders an 5min epoxy. Since you have, from what I see in the video, tears rather than breaks all the way across, or major structural damage, I might use the epoxy. It's the cleanest and quickest. Wipe the excess off with cloth and you may not even be able to see the repair.

If you do find major structural damage, like the spar is broken, or there's a crack all the way through the wing, then I'd suggest you reinforce the wing by cutting a channel on the bottom of the wing and run a 5mm CF tube through the area.

Since you're an ace with the airbrush, you can fill any surface voids with light weight spackle and spray the area with matching acrylic paint.

[Doozer]

Oct 26, 2011 22:28:14 GMT -6 The Dude said:

Shoot, I am sorry Doozer, we must post at the same time.

nah man you didn't do anything wrong. I probably should have posted my second flight somewhere else. No need for an apology. I do like where you fly too!

[Doozer]

So I go to the field to fly my Stinson. I get out of the car, plug in the power, buckle the wings to the struts then screw the wings into the fuse. I do a pre-flight check of the servos to make sure they're doing what they are supposed to do, and going the right way, sub trimmed...etc. I get nothing from the ailerons. The sun is going down and it's getting a little chilly. So I hurry up and unbuckle the struts and unscrew the wings, and looks like while I was attaching the wings, I pulled the y harness for the ailerons out of the rx. I pushed it back in, turned the radio on, powered the plane up and tested the servos... golden. I screwed the wings back in and took off.

Immediately I could tell something was wrong because the plane kept trying to roll left. After some furious trimming I gained enough stability to fly a little bit. I flew around did some loops, rolls and stall turn. I started doing some figure eights when both wings folded. I first thought that my patch job from the last crash failed. Then as I got closer to the carnage it hit me.... I didn't buckle up the struts. The wings actually snapped in a new place, and the epoxy held like a champ.

So lesson learned. I'm glad I did that with this plane and not another. I need to develop a checklist. I think I could glue it up again. If not, I've got some spare parts for another project down the road.

[akent]

More glue, Doozer! That's all it needs!
You wouldn't believe some of the foamies around here, including my Stryker Q now!

They are pieced back together with glued in and later carved chunks of foam, even!

You can straighten crunched foam by ladling boiling water over it. Just hold the part over a large pot of boiling water. Then just ladle water onto the crunched area while working it out with a gloved hand. I've done that a few times.

I nosed in my Stryker Q a couple of weeks ago. Rather than buy new parts, I did the boiling water trick to the front end. It took some trim to get it flying straight, but hey, it flies almost like it did when new! It sure is getting fugly now, though!!

I have decided that I like thrashing planes as well as anything! You can't see the ugliness once in the air, so I hardly notice it!

Now, my crunchies are another story. I like my Revolver and Formula 1 racers to be as perfect as possible. They still look pretty good.
I'm a little surprised though that my Revolver still flies. I have started to do the thrash mode with it! Like WOT to JAM THE STICKS IN THE CORNERS!!! It suddenly goes from 100mph (it is pulling around 2,000 watts on 6s at WOT, 12x6E prop) to zero with a sudden whirring motion!!! It sounds nasty when I do that!

Ahh, the fun of it all!!
Kent

[Doozer]

I'm going to start gluing tonight after work. It's gonna be ugly.

[19000rpm]

That's a bummer, but make as many mistakes as you will on the Stinson. It is, after all, your trainer.

Good for you: picking up the pieces and moving on with it. You can repair it. That is the true beauty of foam. The epoxy is stronger then the foam around it, so you will very rarely have a break in the same place.

I'm a big fan of checklists. Particularly when you actually have to assemble the plane on site. Lists for control checks, post flight and pre flight inspections can save a lot of rebuilding time.

[Gabe]

Oh wow - that sucks. We've all made those kind of mistakes though. This hobby is truly "learn by experience".

You may consider taking some cf tubing and creating a spar in each wing where they folded. That will prevent the. From folding on you again. Gorilla glue or epoxy plus the spar will put you back in the air safely. I've done it a bunch and never had an issue.

[19000rpm]

It was one of our first snows today. A couple of inches. Nothing like the blizzard in November last year.

It was about 27 degrees when I headed to the HS track; one of my favorite operating areas this time of year.

I had a few flights with the usual flyers, the Ultra Cub and and hand toss P51.

I'd never flown any of my hand toss EDf's when there was snow on the ground. HMMM. Would snow in their intakes create a problemo? HMMM.

Well, heck no, The F-86 just took a bit in and didn't complain, or short out. Yeah!

So, I took out the F-16 for a brief sortie.

On landing, the F-16 got packed from intake to exhaust. No problem. Tapped the snow out of the intake and blew the snow out the exhaust with a bit of throttle.

I guess I won't be hanging the jets from the ceiling anytime soon. ;D

[Doozer]

do they sell ski's for your landing gear? Do you use a tx glove?.... I don't think I could fly in the cold. It's bad enough flying in 50 degree weather.

[The Dude]

This is a guy in my club, from last week.

[19000rpm]

Dec 4, 2011 18:36:05 GMT -6 Doozer said:

do they sell ski's for your landing gear? Do you use a tx glove?.... I don't think I could fly in the cold. It's bad enough flying in 50 degree weather.

I use Dubro Park Flyer skis or larger one's for .20-60 planes.

Floats work too. Skis for crusty snow, floats for fluffy snow.

I haven't tried the Tx glove. I use regular insulated gloves that are thin enough at the finger tip to feel the sticks. I fly down to about 10 degrees with frequent trips back to the truck to warm up.

[Doozer]

Nov 29, 2011 20:52:37 GMT -6 akent said:

More glue, Doozer! That's all it needs!...

Repaired, and I'm surprised. I thought for sure there was no coming back from that crash. Not too ugly I guess. The cowl is chewed up, and doesn't look all that good. The trailing edge spar was broken so I repaired it. I built a little dam around the break then I glued it first and used some clear post office packing tape to reinforce the glue (not a bunch, just a little). The wing is just about as solid as it was right out of the box. One side of the landing gear had ripped out of the foam and I glued that in... It rolls straight! I'm going to give it 24 hrs for the glue to cure. It's been rainy and cold here so the glue is taking longer than normal to set up. Also, I'm not real sure I used the correct amount of hardener when I mixed up the 5 min epoxy. I'll put it in the air tomorrow, and I'll make sure to get some video.

The best thing of all.... I didn't spend a dime to fix it. I used materials I already had.

[19000rpm]

Yikes! I saw snow in Scottsdale this morning on the weather. That's quite the event. Hope it warms up for you. One thing for sure, the snow won't last. Wish we could say that here.

See, we told you, foam is a miracle material when it comes to repairs. No matter how bad the crash looks; it usually can be repaired. And, for the most part, the plane is going to fly as good as new. Maybe better.