My Last Flight for the Year

I admire your quick builds and hard charging Yabby!!! Keep going friend!!!

Carl Goldberg used to advertise that his half-A Li'l Wizard profile trainer could fly on 52 foot lines, and you proved that you could do that with yours no sweat, Yabby, so I don't think you were too far out!

Fantastic description of flight successes, and except for the last prang, which goes to show your design is sound, looking forward to your next reproduction!

Good for you Yabby, out there and doing it.

Fly at the limit, smash them up build them back. Profile, flat wing makes life easy.

Hi Yabby,

50ft long lines on that...
You might have an F.I.A. record !
Nice flying !
Fireworks in Canada going off in 3hrs time,
Happy New Year !
Cheers,
Dave

Hey thanks for the encouragement! I live remote and fly on my own, so I value the forum and experience of those on here as it helps me gain greater enjoyments from the sport the way I like to fly. Never a stunt pilot will I Be. (Yoda). Lol. I will always be a sport pilot, (show off, cant do the stunts properly and flys erratically always on the verge of crashing but looks good to those with no knowledge) . Flew the plane I built yesterday, this morning went great. Started figuring out where to start the horizontal eight in respect to the wind so as that I could get back over without dramas. I flew 42 ft. 10 pound Spectra fishing line. More tension, but much less sky. But plane flew very well. This one was 2.0mm all through rather than 2.5mm and used all super glue to get rid of the expoxy weight also. When painted it was only dusted. Lets face it, It wont die due to fuel rotting the balsa. On a dead calm early morning or evening I reckon I could fly it on 52 foot steel again. I am reasonably comfortable without lots of line tension, as it is so windy up here in general you learn to fly with little line tension and the plane getting blown back at you a lot or you dont fly. But you also learn that your control movements still control the plane when the lines go slack and if you have enough height or are level and its coming back at you, it will fly back out again quite soon. Running around to get tension back is very rarely needed and when it happens that bad consistently, I figure it is time to go home.Learning to fly like that has helped me when I chose the wrong lines. I definately will fly them on 52ft steel when the weather is ok for it, especially now that the latest design is so light and controls very smoothly.

I built my engines using standard surestart crankcase, No friction spring, TD cylinder, killer bee crank, steel reid, and standard cox glow plug with a safety 5 x 3 prop, on 20 Castor, 25 Ntro, 55 methanol,( home brewed) and find I get a lot more power than I had expected. I think the killer bee crank makes quite a difference to compression as there is much more bearing surface with them, and I prefer the steel reid as its not prone to flutter. The engine combo makes good power, starts easy and is tough! There are options to get more power but at the moment they run great and are doing the job, so best left alone!

Yabby

Hi Yabby,
10 minutes to fireworks here,
You have last and next years records here !
Keep flying !
Happy New Year,
Dave,
Canada

HalfaDave wrote:Hi Yabby,
10 minutes to fireworks here,
You have last and next years records here !
Keep flying !
Happy New Year,
Dave,
Canada

Thanks Dave! Happy New year.
And Likewise Keep Flying! And more importantly fly the way you enjoy!

Yabby

Spent New Year's Eve at a local island beach resort, staking our claim for a nice grassy position for around 4 hours to see the fireworks, only to have people arrive ten minutes before the show sit in front of us and encroach on "our spot". Mind you, it was a great display but I'm not sure if we'll do it again next year. The crowds just drive me nuts. Crushing crowds at the end of the show as people made their way either to their car to drive home or to a pub/club to party on. Took half an hour to manouvre the van out of our parking space.

If they have sore heads today I have no sympathy for them. I've never experience a hangover and never will. Watching others making fools of themselves is the best deterrent.

To save driving all the way home Janet and I made our way to a private secluded spot we found in a quiet nearby fishing village and bunked the night in my Toyota van. Woke to a stunning morning beside the bay, having breakfast as we watched the fishing boats coming and going. Ah, the serenity.
Turned out a pretty hot day today with beaches attracting thousands of folk- More than I've seen before.

Anyway, no New Year's flying for me Yabby. Just our best wishes to all for a happy, secure and rewarding 2023.

Oldenginerod.

Oldenginerod wrote:Spent New Year's Eve at a local island beach resort, staking our claim for a nice grassy position for around 4 hours to see the fireworks, only to have people arrive ten minutes before the show sit in front of us and encroach on "our spot".  Mind you, it was a great display but I'm not sure if we'll do it again next year.  The crowds just drive me nuts. Crushing crowds at the end of the show as people made their way either to their car to drive home or to a pub/club to party on.  Took half an hour to manouvre the van out of our parking space.

If they have sore heads today I have no sympathy for them.   I've never experience a hangover and never will.  Watching others making fools of themselves is the best deterrent.

To save driving all the way home Janet and I made our way to a private secluded spot we found in a quiet nearby fishing village and bunked the night in my Toyota van.  Woke to a stunning morning beside the bay, having breakfast as we watched the fishing boats coming and going.  Ah, the serenity.  
Turned out a pretty hot day today with beaches attracting thousands of folk- More than I've seen before.

Anyway, no New Year's flying for me Yabby.  Just our best wishes to all for a happy, secure and rewarding 2023.

Oldenginerod.

Cheers Rod, Likewise all the best for the new year to yourself and Janet. After all that, I hope you enjoyed the fireworks.! I cannot handle crowds.! I get genuine anxiety verging on panic attacks in packed crowds these days. And having my spot encroached on would probably illicit a response that meant my wife and son were then angry with me. Lol. My son is 28 and has never drunk Alcohol because he doesnt like the effect it has on others and he doesnt want to be like that himself. My wife and I drink, so we didnt put it on him. He just never saw the point. A great and brave decision for a young bloke.

I was lucky where I am at Fisherman Bay on South Oz is a small beach shack community 5 km out of Port Broughton on the Yorke Peninsula and only has about 50 permanent residents. The others are all shacks people use for their holidays and weekends, and even better is that hardly any are rented to tourists. So its very stable and known. Lol. But the fireworks here are just amazing! on the actual beachfront, the shacks right on the beach. Some of the poeple have very big , money and spend many thousands on somehow getting hold of serious sized commercial fireworks. One of the fellas owns a major Fuel distribution chain and another owns a chain of hardware stores.........

People were just launching fireworks from their shacks. Lol. My neighbour had a pile of fireworks that had about a 10 inch mouth like a cannon and when they went off the ground shook. One of the dudes here owns the Fireworks and Explosives company that was run from a small mid north town, till they blew the house up and someone got killed working there some years ago. They have since moved to Darwin, but he still holidays here and rumour has it, that some of the fireworks that are seriously outrageous are his. Most people have boats and lots were letting off their expired flares as well. The poor coppers Lol, not a hope. :-) they just drove around now and then as if nothing was happening.

It used to attract huges groups (thousands) of people here who would sleep anywhere and party like crazy but then stuff got damaged and thankfully the coppers clamped down one year and made it hard for those that didnt have a shack to stay here and sleep on the ground or in cars. Shame for the people like yourself and your wife, as many just like yourselves came here for it. This year, Port Broughton nearby put on a display from the Jetty and lots of people went to that. We could see many of their fireworks from here also. But no doubt the combined highly illegal 3 hour display from Fisherman bay Dwarfed the Council etc. sponsored event is fireworks scale. Lol.

We are very lucky here in Oz with the things we can still do and see etc. Its just finding the places where it still happens and making it work for you. I certainly didnt have a hangover either Lol. and was up running some Cox engines quite early, got the lawn cut as well and then went flying. HaHaHa. Its all fun. :-)

Have a good one.

Yabby

Yabby, don't sell yourself short. When you say, you will never be a stunt pilot, I find that's just not true. If anyone that flies control line and can fly inverted without crashing, YOU JUST BECAME a stunt pilot. What this means is that once you fly inverted, you can fly every maneuver in the stunt pattern. You just need coaching where to place the motions of the particular maneuver. That's all there is to it. One needs to learn when to place neutral on the handle and when the plane goes inverted to offer opposite inputs to the handle. I learned this flying Sterling Beginner series 1/2A's. Once I mastered inversion, I went to the .35 size planes and man did I break some stuff up. So not only do you learn to fly stunt, you become a master builder due to all the stuff you repair and build again.

X2 on what Ken said. It was a proud and memorable moment the first time I flew inverted (intentionally and succesfully.) After that "stunts" came easily.

Thanks everyone for the positive comments and encouragement. I really enjoyed more than ever my last couple of flying sessions, and that is my sole aim in the sport. To just have a blast. I think I am closing in on a plane, engine, launch combo that works really well for me at this stage of my learning. Building my last Jigger even lighter made a definite positive difference to the way it flew and ease of flying it, and I dont think it made any difference to the amount of damage when I stuck it into the ground. I was actually quite surprised how much difference just a small amount of weight reduction made. I guess a small amount of weight on something that doesnt weigh to start with proportionally more than it seems at first. I basically need to find the point where its built as lite as possible without it breaking up in the air or breaking up when it runs out of fuel and lands.

Im not sure the stunts will come easy for me. Lol. But I am going to enjoy flying and trying things. I have absolutely no idea on how to do any of the stunts and there is no CL clubs anywhere remotely near me (I have seen a number of good videos of what people can do on youtube and here on the forum and they definately help!) . So I just sorta think what I want to do and try and work out the sequence of control I need to feed the plane. I actually surprised myself when I did a set of horizontal eights and very much surprised myself when I went inverted from a wingover. I will keep working at them and try to get to where I can do controlled level laps inverted and not plant it when im inverted due to wind gusts. Next session I get to have and the wind is sane I want to try going from inverted back to normal flight via a wingover. The wind here has just been constantly over the 20 knots for so long now its driving me mental. Lol. If it doesnt abate soon, I will finish covering my Dominator and Liquidator and fly them with my Enya .15 as I expect they will handle the wind better than my Half-A Jiggers. Its just that for some reason I really enjoy flying the Half-A. Might be because the builds and repairs are easier than with a bigger plane and certainly cheaper!

Im thinking of putting small flaps on one of my Half-A planes. Ive read up about them and the opinions as to their value with Half-A jiggers certainly varies. I think I will build one with them just for the sake of it. But I suspect the extra weight, build effort and complications wont be worth it. But I reckon I will do it on one plane and then I can have a go and find out for myself. If the wind doesnt settle in the next couple of days I will drive to a town further inland on the other side of the hills and fly on their oval, as I reckon they will be protected more so. I can always look it up as to the wind at other small country towns nearby. And and added bonus of doing that, is I can share the noise around between a number of places so as that I dont get people complaining.

Yabby

Yabby wrote:......My son is 28 and has never drunk Alcohol because he doesnt like the effect it has on others and he doesnt want to be like that himself. My wife and I drink, so we didn't put it on him. He just never saw the point. A great and brave decision for a young bloke.
.......
Yabby

I believe this says more about you and your wife's parenting skills than anything else.  You have obviously raised a son capable of making his own decisions and who possesses an ability to stand on his own, not to be influenced by peer pressure.  Good on you.

a--

Thank you very much Andrew! Those are very kind words and greatly appreciated! We are very lucky to even have him, letalone his developing into the young man he has.

Yabby