Post by N4768Z on Apr 26, 2010 5:41:22 GMT 1
The weather was great for flying today. Slightly breezy, but just enough for that take off and landing...very nice. The kid and I decided to head over to a new location. It has a huge graveled area. The gravel is less than BB size, like the stuff on a non paved school track. It's the size of 1/2 of a football field. Ideal for take offs and perfect for landings. We had a nice flight taking turns, a battery each. I attached the onboard cam and got some footage but it was all wrinkly. It really sucked because it was a nice day. More on the camera later. When we finished up we headed for the car only to be greeted by some guy that claimed to be an employee of the school. He didn't beat around the bush in telling us that we were not welcome there. I started to pull out my smartass card but...I had my son with me. 
The guy finally relaxed and said that he was sorry but another RC Plane had crashed into the school and did a good amount of damage. So...my new amazing flying area went just like that. 
The kid wanted to hang with his girlfriend so, I charged the batteries, added the floats and big prop and went to try my hand at float flying. The lake was nice. I attached the cam, sat her in the water and took off. It looked great flying around the lake. There were a lot of boats out there fishing. This is a small lake so it was trolling motor only. I flew the plane over their heads and everyone watched my flight. I was so nervous about it that my thumbs could hardly control the stix. I decided that it was time to try my hand at landing. Because of the boats around were I was flying I couldn't really set up for an "into the wind approach". Behind me was a very busy road and to each side of me was a tree. I was pretty nervous about getting it right because there wasn’t much room for error. Sure as @%$* I brought her down ok but a little late with too much speed still on. With no breaks and traffic behind me all that I could do was try and block it as it came up onto the beach. It slammed into my legs. The plane was ok but the floats exploded. The rear plastic brace broke in half, a large chunk was torn out of the left float from one of the rods that came loose and the rear mount was almost ripped off.
I took the plane home, put the wheels back on her and took her over to the kid’s school. She flew great until I misjudged my depth perception with the fence. Smack! It fell on the inside of the field fence where I couldn't retrieve it. I had to call my wife and have her come over and squeeze through a small section of fence for me. Broken prop. I quickly did the prop change and flew on the last battery, all went well finally.
End of the day damage:
Non repairable floats
Broken prop
Scuffed cowl.
It could have been much worse.
I have video of the fence incident. Will post when I get it together.
A quick note on my camera, it works 50% of the time. I don't think that it's operator error. The blue light will flash as though recording. i get it home and no video!
Other times, flashing blue light...I get video. It's hit or miss. Very irritating because i could have had some cool video of the lake and the crash today.
Also, there may be a post on this or you may have already figured it out by now. The wobble that you get in the camera...I'm convinced it's due to movement. I had wobble in the morn and other times, and then i reinforced it with tape. I made sure that it didn't move. The video came out wobble free with the exception of when the plane was under some stress or shudder while diving...minor wobble.
Secure that camera and it should take out the vid wobble. My two cents.
P.S.
I love my new DX6i and elects!!
The guy finally relaxed and said that he was sorry but another RC Plane had crashed into the school and did a good amount of damage. So...my new amazing flying area went just like that. 
The kid wanted to hang with his girlfriend so, I charged the batteries, added the floats and big prop and went to try my hand at float flying. The lake was nice. I attached the cam, sat her in the water and took off. It looked great flying around the lake. There were a lot of boats out there fishing. This is a small lake so it was trolling motor only. I flew the plane over their heads and everyone watched my flight. I was so nervous about it that my thumbs could hardly control the stix. I decided that it was time to try my hand at landing. Because of the boats around were I was flying I couldn't really set up for an "into the wind approach". Behind me was a very busy road and to each side of me was a tree. I was pretty nervous about getting it right because there wasn’t much room for error. Sure as @%$* I brought her down ok but a little late with too much speed still on. With no breaks and traffic behind me all that I could do was try and block it as it came up onto the beach. It slammed into my legs. The plane was ok but the floats exploded. The rear plastic brace broke in half, a large chunk was torn out of the left float from one of the rods that came loose and the rear mount was almost ripped off.
I took the plane home, put the wheels back on her and took her over to the kid’s school. She flew great until I misjudged my depth perception with the fence. Smack! It fell on the inside of the field fence where I couldn't retrieve it. I had to call my wife and have her come over and squeeze through a small section of fence for me. Broken prop. I quickly did the prop change and flew on the last battery, all went well finally.
End of the day damage:
Non repairable floats
Broken prop
Scuffed cowl.
It could have been much worse.
I have video of the fence incident. Will post when I get it together.
A quick note on my camera, it works 50% of the time. I don't think that it's operator error. The blue light will flash as though recording. i get it home and no video!
Other times, flashing blue light...I get video. It's hit or miss. Very irritating because i could have had some cool video of the lake and the crash today. Also, there may be a post on this or you may have already figured it out by now. The wobble that you get in the camera...I'm convinced it's due to movement. I had wobble in the morn and other times, and then i reinforced it with tape. I made sure that it didn't move. The video came out wobble free with the exception of when the plane was under some stress or shudder while diving...minor wobble.
Secure that camera and it should take out the vid wobble. My two cents.
P.S.
I love my new DX6i and elects!!
Fly slow and don't try anything fancy. Plan your landing before you take off. Always land into the wind if you can; if not, land cross wind but never with the wind. With the floats you have to slow down to a crawl or you can tip over on a wake from a boat. Thank god the floats are just $25. ;D
. My landings all day had been on the money with the exception of the float incident. 
