A video collage of the last week

Places my camera has been over the last week.

Playing with Xmas presents

Clear blue sky today but icy cold with significant wind chill. I spent last night attaching a gift to my aeroplane in preparation for flying today.

Some still photos 

And looking back toward me. I am the blodge on the edge of the cut strip.

And some video





This was just a proof of concept test drive today to check for vibration and ensure that I could trigger the camera remotely. It finally got to cold and my fingers stopped working.

This is the camera platform - my Fun Fly Cougar 2000

From cougar2000

Edge 540

First flight of the Edge 540 today. The wind died down after several frustrating week-ends of either snow or very high winds.

The first three flights were all dead-stick landings as the engine is not run in properly yet. She really floats in quite fast when gliding but does slow down nicely with the prop. turning. The next three flights were perfect and the landing were under power. It has unlimited vertical performance and just disappears into the clouds.

Getting ready to fly

This is from the Easter week-end, plane all ready to go but notice the snow falling outside.

In the air

Several weeks ago my CAP 21 clipped a tree during the landing approch and fell into the river.

I only managed to retrieve it by stripping off and swimming to get it. In my haste I ran through stinging nettles, plunged into icy cold water and got covered in these leech type things, yuck. Only once my feet and legs started to thaw out did I start to feel the pain. The CAP is flying again after I recovered the wings and dried out the Rx, servos and fuselage.

Sickness

On Wednesday afternoon, around 3:47pm (approximately), I got sick. Sore throat, high temperature and head-ache. It wasn't the lunch-time soup it was something far more sinister.

I stayed home on Thursday and then Friday - much sleeping, some showering and some reading. Today I feel a little more human - seems I'll pull through.

Annalise feels I have been a little obsessive about radio control flying lately, she may be right as much of the time while in bed I drifted in and out of sleep having numerous hypnopompic hallucinations. These involved fruitless attempts to calculate if a propeller with diameter 10 " and 6" pitch with a rotation speed of 11150 RPM provides a faster maximum speed than one of 11" diameter and 5" pitch rotating at about 10500 RPM. Also which has the lower tip speed and hence is quieter.

No I wouldn't describe myself as obsessed.

This afternoon I did venture out to the flying field. Although the wind was strong (15mph) at least it was straight onto the runway. I took of, flew and landed the CAP 21 after a couple of flight of the Travel Air. It is a big relief that not only does it fly but that I can fly it myself and better yet enjoy flying it.

My Cap 21

She finally flew this weekend.

The flying field was part flooded by the river Mole so much of the runway was under water.

It was meant to be ready to fly on Boxing day but family and Christmas all got in the way. Six weeks total build time from ordering the wood, glue and hardware to the maiden flight.

Ok ignore the elastic band - just a temporary at field emergency safety precation.

I had a better pilot than me fly her for the first flight, thanks Geoff. She was very lively for the first 60 long seconds until the trimming was sorted. For a while I really thought I would be swimming in the river to recover the wreckage.

More pictures here

This weekend

I laid zero tiles although I did do some painting and skirting fitting. Why is it the the tiles look the best in the one orientation requiring the most cutting ?
Bled a little due to sawed finger.
Flew one new radio controlled plane.

Landed above plane a little roughly requiring a later 5 minute patch-up

Spent several hours at the beach

Found a tennis ball

Lost a tennis ball



Soaked up some sun



Had a lazy lunch in a beautiful cottage built AD 1536.

Watched some rugby, yes finally watched some TV.

The rest of the weekend's pictures here

New plane ready to fly

Almost ready to fly tomorrow if the weather is good.

This afternoon I have

1. Test run the previously crashed engine
2. Setup throws all controls
   
3. Configured computer mixing for flaps/airolin
4. Placed tx and rx on to charge over night
   

Still need to

1. check centre of gravity
2. Make/buy bung for fuel tubing (currently using a large nail)
   

It is now a total wreck

What are the chances ? Today another mid-air collision.

The remains



The other plane

No chance of a repair, although the engine, receiver and 3 out of 4 servos seem intact. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing more tiling.

Thursday I did place an order for a new aerobatic model so hopefully I should be flying again next week-end.

Hmmm .....

I wonder if my tutor 40 committed suicide knowing that it was about to be replaced.

Mid-air

I got a real rush from flying on Saturday ...

I felt relaxed enough to try acrobatics I had never tried before and then felt brave enough to add the video camera to the plane for some aerial video photography. This time I was expecting an unstable plane and managed to re-trim the model. The result - some somewhat interesting footage. I'm currently fighting my computer and am unable to convert the mpeg-2 stream from the camera into something suitable for upload to youtube to that will have to wait.

The day did end in disaster however. On the last flight of an otherwise perfect day, I ran out of fuel, called "dead stick" and glided in for my final approach, lined up dead centre of the runway about 40 metres high when another model flew straight through me, the model that is. The model in two pieces, a tail piece - cruelly severed 4 fifths of the way down the fuselage and the rest, plummeted into the ground. The damage was pretty bad - broken tail, fuselage, engine mounts, propeller, wing servo and wing leading edge.

Later on Saturday night, after everyone had gone to bed, I looked over the damage and started gluing, replacing and improvising fixes such that by 4:15am I went to bed with some hope that it may possibly fly again.

Sunday it did fly, like a wounded phoenix it limped skyward held together with tape, a healthy dollop of glue and all the will I could muster. After landing and making a few adjustments it was flying similar to how it had before the crash. I say "similar" because knowing what it has been though I can't get rid of the feeling that it is going to fall apart in the air and come crashing to the ground again.

This weekend I ......

1. Terrified myself by flying a video camera in my airplane. The model was out of trim and required all my skill to get it down in one piece. The video makes me airsick to watch. I will try again next weekend as I think I know now what went wrong.

2. Finally signed up to facebook. It was fear that if I didn't I'll be ostracized and placed on an ice-flow to die a slow and lonely death.

3. Resisted spending any money, despite incredible temptation, at a model air show I went to today.

4. Did some work on my bike to ensure it was ready for next week. I noticed that my tyres are very worn, checked my cycle computer and estimate that I have ridden about 3700 km in the last 18 months.

5. Washed the car

6. Got the car dirty again by driving it in dirt.

Aerial Photography

I managed to mount the video camera inside the fuselage, right on the centre of gravity. It does add 300g to the weight. This is 16% weight increase. My rudimentry knowledge of aerodynamics tells me I need a 4% increase in speed to compensate.

Either I'm correct or I'll be fishing a soggy plane, with video camera on board out of the Mole river.

Flight exam

Today I passed by 'A' test. One month and one one day after my first flight. Now I can rack up much more flight time. I spent my immediate freedom from supervision by doing some loops and rolls - at least thats what I called them - purests would probabily disagree.

Next up

a) Master some simple, clean aerobatics
b) Do some aerial photography - I need to experiment with methods of mounting the video camera underneath the aircraft

Weekend activities

Today we went climbing in Portland, Dorset.

We've climbed there frequently, it is mostly (perhaps all) sport climbing on short 20-30 meter cliffs with the waves crashing below. Not much of an adrenaline rush, more "soak up the sun" kind of climbing. The worst the kids can do is fall in the sea while they are not climbing.

The rest of the pictures from today are here

On Saturday I went flying. There was some really good discuss launch gliders being flown - similar to these. I was kindly given a Zagi flying wing which I hope to use for slope flying although it needs additional harware and some work before it is ready.

Regarding the the powered flying I added another 2 flights to my flight log, practising dead-stick landings and figure 8's. I hope I'll be able to take the "A" test soon and so be able to fly without needing some-one watching over my shoulder.

Flying

This afternoon was perfect flying weather. I took my camera and aircraft out to the flying field.

I loved watching this amble around the sky while soaking up the sun.

My first landing was a little rough but I think it was caused a broken nose wheel linkage - or did it work loose as a result of bad landing ?

During my next flight I was practicing landing approaches when I decided to abort a landing so I could go round again. It must have looked quite chaotic from the side lines. A perfect approach and then from less than a metre above the runway I applied full throttle and full up on the elevator, followed by hard down on the elevator to prevent the stall, hit the runway hard, cut the engine, bounced a couple of metres high before "landing" very hard. Only damage was a bent undercarriage and dented ego.

These aircraft were a little harder to catch within the camera viewfinder.

I spent half an hour this evening getting the plane air worthy for either tomorrow or for the Bank holiday Monday. We are also trying get a climbing trip in this weekend as well.

The rest of the pictures are here

Lessons of the day

• When coming in to land at the local model flying club use the large oak tree to line up for the final cross-wind turn before landing.
• When making fudge pour the fudge into the tray before it starts to set - it pours easier and sets evenly.

I soloed this morning - ie a take off and landing without assistance. I had three flights Wednesday, another three yesterday afternoon and today I was determined to land without help. Oddly after completing this milestone the world remained much the same as before - the birds still chirped, the clouds continued to drift across sky and there were no choirs of angles nor throngs of groupies wanting an autograph. Was this a hollow goal all along ?

Tonight was my turn to cook as part of the cooking competition. Curry with fudge for desert. Finally I produced fudge that looked like fudge and not pieces of mud scrapped off the ground. The curry is a dish I often make although because recipes are tedious, like "colouring in between the lines" it never tastes quite the same.

Voting is on Monday night after Annalise's dish.

Back at work tomorrow :-(

Bike is pumped, just need to locate my security pass.

Flying, hearts and happy times

Today I had three flights of about 6 minutes duration each. Very cool. The flying field seems to have grown a bit larger and the trees are now a little lower.

The foot and mouth outbreak makes overflying the surrounding farmland a little more risky as the farmer would be unhappy with people tramping across the fields to effect a recovery. I had only one scary moment when the wind seemed to blow the plane overhead as it approached me with the sun behind it. I recovered but only because I had enough height to recover from the resulting stall. The next fly pass revealed that I had lost a wheel. At this point I handed back control to my instructor who effected a "crash landing" on two of the three wheels. No harm done except that an additional wheel came off in the process. I paid so much attention to the flight controls that the wheels had seemed kind of cosmetic. Ah well we learn from mistakes.

Earlier in the day Annalise and I spent some time at the hospital where she had a ultra-sound of her heart. Now I know hearts, we've all seen them on valentines day cards, and what she had was not in the distinctive heart shape or red colour - it was black and white and rather grainy, almost but not quite like each of our children on their last ultra-sound scan before we met them in person. That the radiologist did not pick up on this alarmed me - she seemed to think everything was normal. We await the doctors opinion as to whether her heart is several sizes to small - like the Grinch.

Tomorrow we, me as the policy holder and Stephen as the dropper, have a telephonic interview with the insurance company over the claim for the broken camera lens.

After this we will likely either walk or drive around the country-side until we find a picturesque pub and them "waste" the lazy afternoon reading the paper or a book and having a drink. Four days of holiday remaining.

Tonight we started the our festival of "five nights, five chefs and five meals". Each member of the family gets 10 pounds to spend in ingredients and prepares a meal of their choice - nutritional constraints apply. We all vote on the best meal at the end of it. Emily produced marinated chicken kebabs with a peanut-butter based sauce and brownies for desert. Yummy. Tomorrow is Sophies turn.