I've never really done a "what's going on in the hobby for me" type thread so I'm thinking I'm going to give it a try.

The last 6 weeks have been pretty tough with a lot of travel for work. I've spent a total of 11 nights at home in that time period. I arrived home a little before noon yesterday from 11 days in Argentina. I sat next to a professor from Argentina but working at Azusa University in LA so we had something to talk about since my brother and his family are in nearby San Gabriel. Had to deal with a toddler a few seats away though that was having a bad time with the flight and screamed on and off for the entire 11 hour flight from Buenos Aires to Dallas. Wasn't much that could be done about it so I spent yesterday recovering from all the travels. My bosses daughter by random chance was also on the flight to go visit her brother in Iowa so he asked me to make sure she got where she needed to be since it's been a long time that she traveled to the US. It was nice to have someone to talk to even though she didn't speak much english.

Anyways it's finally warming up here in the panhandle and the weather was pretty nice today. Winds were mostly calm with occasional gusts to around 15 mph. I was still pretty tired but I didn't want to pass up the nice weather so I charged up the batteries for the Slick, a few packs for the 300X, and the flight pack for the 600N. I also had to mix up some fresh gas for the Slick but that was just a minor nuisance.

I flew the Slick once, the 300X twice, and the 600N once. I just mostly wanted to burn some fuel in the 600N and Slick. I also notice the Slick was kind of slight rolling back and forth while it was in the air and discovered that the wings were loose and had probably been for some time. I traced the root of the problem back to the anti-rotation dowel pins which is an easy fix.

One of our club members who also has the 89" Slick had his fairly new 104" Slick out too. He was trying to get it started before I went up and couldn't get the motor to fire. I helped go through everything since he had made pulled the Redwing power distribution panel out and went to a JR Powersafe receiver. He had also made some programming changes and I helped him figure out where his mistake was and got it running. He was happy for the help.

Neglected to take some pictures from the field so I'll be sure to do that next time. Got home and turned on the Stars game. I set the Slick up on the porch to work on it while I watched the game. The weather was nice so I could leave the door open without the house getting to hot or cold. The flies and mosquito's aren't out so no worries for pests either. I cut some pieces of light ply and drilled holes for the anti-rotation pins. I had to be careful and under drill some of the holes and slowly get them to the right size. There was play but not enough to really make a difference on the incidence.




When it was all done, I cracked open one of the bottles of wine I brought back with me.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

Welcome home Ben! Sounds like a rough stretch. I travel for work as well and while I'm most eager to get back to my wife and kids for sure, followed by my gigantic dog and satanic cat, there is nothing line a good day at the field to get your head straight.

How was the Pinot Grigio?

Tom M

It was pretty good. I brought back a total of 3 bottles. One was a gift and a pretty fancy bottle of wine apparently, the Pinot, and then a bottle of Sauvignon blanc for some friends getting married. All three are nice wines but the total cost was probably around $25-30. I was afraid that my suitcase was going to be too heavy but I somehow stayed under the 22.5 kg weight limit. Maybe the scale at the airport was messed up.

Very glad to be home though and it's back to the grind stone!

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

Surprisingly good flying weather this weekend. Light winds and warm temps...

We also had a roadrunner running around the site.

I had an appointment in Amarillo at 5 but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity so I just took the Slick and the 600N. My DA 60 seemed too rich and so I leaned it out and maybe too much by the way it sounded on the 3rd flight. The Slick was rockin' today in the calm winds and I was able to have some fun with it. Now that the wings aren't able to move around, the harriers were rock stable.

The 600N seemed really twitchy last time I flew it. I put in some more expo and that seemed to the trick and I was much comfortable with it. The tweeting noise is gone now too so I'm assuming it's safe to say it was coming from the bearing in the old one.

Hopefully I'll get to do some flying tomorrow too. I'm hoping to get the E7 back in the air if I get to go. I'll take the 60N too to get some warm up heli flights as well.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

Didn't fly yesterday as I really wasn't feeling it in the morning and then the wife wanted to go do other things. But I did tinker with RC related stuff. I started working on my Twisted Hobbys Edge 540 and I also put a pilot figure I had in my Slick canopy.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

Tinker time is fun too. Sometimes I think I enjoy it more than flying.

_________________
Chris Boultinghouse

I was going through the manual at work this morning and realized I had missed a couple steps on the TH Edge 540. So I spent the rest of the day at work somewhat preoccupied with how I was going to fix it.

Wasn't really bad because it kept my mind off of work just enough to break up the mononoty and stay focused so I got a lot done anyways.

I was going through the different steps of how I was going to carefully disassemble the Edge when it awned on me. I just needed to do a little rhinoplasty so that's what I did. I had also forgotten to put in the CF stiffeners in the fuse.

Upon inspection, I didn't have a good glue joint between the fuse and the wing, which wasn't surprising considering the strain. I began by cutting away the front part of the wings from the fuse and then I removed the front piece as I was supposed to. In the rear, I was able to gently remove the tabs and get the fuse flush with the joiners. It was then that I noticed that I was able to peel back the rear of the wings and get the CF stiffeners in. I then put a bead of Welder's between the wings and went away for about an hour. I used masking tape to hold the wings to the rear fuse section.

Later, I put Welder's between the spar and the rear fuse section and then put some where the wings and spar would meet up with the front section. I put them together and then pulled it apart to let the Welder's tack up. After 10 minutes I put it all back together and taped it up with masking tape. I will let it cure overnight.

Oh, turns out I just need to find the original servo arms I had for the servos. If I can't find them, I'll just order either some OEM or DuBro's. Chances are it'll be DuBro's since I can get shipping for a $2.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

Oops!

I would have so done the same thing...

_________________
Home of Burntwood RC

Got some more work done on the Edge tonight. I was going through my servos and I had a SM-22 with a stripped gear and busted lower case. All of my Futaba 3114's seem to be in good condition and I have servo arms for them.

One key aspect is to not put any glue where the elevator servo goes. I made a couple of marks with a sharpie to avoid putting any glue there.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer

I wasn't able to get much done last night due to work related things. I got the slots for the horns cut and installed and installed the truss supports.

I also broke one of the aileron horns and I glued it back together with medium CA. I will test it out before flying and if it needs to be replace, TH sells the parts.

_________________
A.K.A. ben_beyer