November 2005
13/11/2005 - A quick (and long overdue) update!
My humble apologies for the lack of updates on this site. Time pressures have been excessive, and I simply have not had time to keep this site up to date.
The Group is still going strong and still meeting every Monday night at Ambrose Stadium, Rolleston.
Membership is strong, with at least eight members turning out every week, and numbers hitting the high teens on some nights. Paid up memberships run at about the 20 mark, but not everyone turns up every week, so there's still plenty of time and room for everyone to have a go. We also get a fairly good turn out of casal fliers, but with casual rates being $5.00/night, versus $20.00 for an entire term, most fliers do not stay casual for long!
As we have a high member retention rate, the experience level of the club continues to grow, with many members able to assist new flyers sorting out their machines.
On the machine front many of the members are now flying T-Rexx helis, with varying amounts of money thrown at them for what is loosely described as "bling". The T-Rexx is now the dominant machine at the club by a long strech, with just a few die-hards (like me!) that dance to their own tune.
This last year has seen the virtual death of the traditional microheli entry points of the MS Hornet and Ikarus Piccolo. Most new fliers today are coming into the scene with one of the many cheap micros that hail from SE Asia. The manufacturers there are continually raising their standards, and we are now seeing affordable machines coming through that are in fact capable of being flown 'out of the box'. Ikarus and MS are both hitting back with a range of later model hi-spec machines, but they are aimed more at the accompished pilot rather than the rank beginner.
Sorry but that's about all I have time for now. I'll try not to leave it for seven months before the next update!
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April 2005
25/04/2005 - Weekly Flying Meet
Sorry everyone, no report this week.
One of my little girls was unwell, so I stayed home to do the Daddy thing. She's much better today .
If anyone wants to fill in the blanks, please feel free!
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18/04/2005 - Weekly Flying Meet
With Rob off with a broken arm, Reg off sick, Keith away overseas and Jake tied up with family commitments, it was down to Curtis, Greg, Jon and Shannon to fly the flag (and the helis) tonight.
Curtis had a great night. After a quick trimming session with Jon, Curtis was really starting to get the hang of hovering. Some of the flights were up around the 15 to 30 second mark, so it won't be long now until he's hovering around with the rest of us.
Greg had a bit of a rough night. He wasn't 100% happy with the way the t-Rex was flying, the tail seemed to be playing up a bit again. He pressed on though, until a total tail failure put the heli into an uncontrollable piro part way through a banked turn. Post crash analsis indicated a failure in the tail servo as the cause and Greg is now in the market for an HS-50 servo for the tail. Despite the horrendous nature of the crash, the T-Rex bore it well, with a broken undercarriage and canopy being the only apparent victims of the crash. Greg got his old fixed pitch hybrid out so that he could carry on flying for the night.
Jon was just burbling around as normal with the Hornet II. Family and work commitments are keeping him out of the workshop at the moment, so he's just sticking to flying 'old reliable'. As Jon said, "I pick it up off the shelf, come out and fly it, and then put it back on the shelf until next week. No mess, no fiddling, just fly and forget :)". That's a big change from the old days of a new mod or heli nearly every week! However, rumour does have it that there's a new Huey Gunship, a refit of the OH-13 Sioux, and an OH-6 'Loach" sitting on the sidelines for when Jon's time frees up a bit.
Shannon had another great night. The highlight would have to have been seeing him fly his FIXED PITCH hybrid INVERTED! Shannon's going CP very soon, and decided that he wanted to get some inverted training in on the 'unbreakable' Hybrid before commiting to such manouvers with his nice new CP machine. To facilitate this Shannon has manufactured an 'inverted' rotor head for the hybrid. Launch is by hand, (inverted of course) with landings executed on the rotor head! Impressive!
We also had a few visitors again this week.
First up a welcome to Tony.
Tony will be flying with us very shortly, having purchased a T-REX 450 V2. Tony is an ex slimer heli pilot (Good on ya mate :)), and is pretty handy with 3-D from what I hear on the grapevine. We look forward to seeing just what he can squeeze out of an electric powered mini.
Our other visitors were none other than Trev and Bev from Zoom Resources.
For those of you that don't know, Trev and Bev are local suppliers of the excellent Prolux chargers that are so popular with our members, and the Apex PSU also used by some of our members. They have some interesting developments coming up that will be of interest to all of us in the group. I can't say too much at this stage, but watch this space!
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07/04/2005 - Weekly Flying Meet
Despite the lack of updates on here, the group has been running along quite nicely. Numbers are holding well, with new pilots coming along to replace those that have moved on.
Our last meet of Term one was a bit of a strange one really. Greg, Shannon and Curtis comprised the flying section, while Jake and Jon both turned up sans helis. And, as is always the way when we have a small flying turnout - we had some visitors too!
After spending a bit of time getting the tracking sorted on the T-Rex, Greg had it up and flying again quite nicely again. Shannon was up to his usual impressive standard, and is starting to get itchy to complete one of his collective machines that he has on standby. Curtis was showing some good promise after a bit of a track and trim session with Jon. Unfortunatley flat batteries brought things to an end just as Cutis was getting into it. Jon divided his time between helping out and shooting the breeze, while Jake lent moral support and provided some excellent beginner's observations and insights for our visitors.
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February 2005
Click on the date links below to be taken to the diary entry.
February 3rd Flying Meet
January 2005
Click on the date links below to be taken to the diary entry.
January 26th Flying Meet
January 17th Flying Meet
January 10th Flying Meet
December 18th 2004 - Important Change to the Group Diary Entries
I've decided to try something new with the group diary. Effective as of last week's meeting (Dec 13th), all theGroup Diary Updates will now be done in their own section on The MessageBoard . I have a number of reasons for trying this out, but there are two main advantages to myself, visitors to this site, and members of the group:
i) By using The Messageboard, I don't have to code html to get the entries up on the net. This will save me a heap of time, and hopefully leave more time for developing other aspects of the website. This should also mean that the Group Diary updates should now stand a chance of getting entered before the next meeting has come and gone (hopefully!).
ii) Unlike the WebSite the Messageboard is interactive. This means that members will be able to add their own thoughts, comments and anecdotes to the diary entries. It will also make it easier for other members to do their own updates, should I not be able to make a meeting.
This is a trial only to see how things go. I'll probably run with it until the end of February and then review the situation. If opionions are divided at that point I'll run a poll to see which option you all prefer.
So if you want to see what happened at the December 13th meet, go to The Messageboard and have a look. And remember, you can add your own comments as well now!
December 2004
06/12/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well what do you know? I made it! Man the place was buzzing tonight, both literally and figuratively. We had a great turnout - Curtiss, Greg, Jon, Reg, Rob and Shannon were all there and into it.
Curtiss brought his Fun Piccolo alng for it's maiden flight . Jon and Rob gave it a few tweaks her and there, and it was very quickly declared ready for action. Curtiss attacked the subject of flying with great enthusiasm, and got straight into the learning process. An 'eventful arrival' led to Curtiss calling it a night, and now he's learning the repair process :).
Greg's heli (and flying) are coming along great guns - the latest batch of mods and fixes seems to have hit the sweet spot. Greg also brought a couple of planks along. I missed the pico stick event, but caught the Mustang flights outside - very very impressive! Rob captured at least part of it on video, so we're looking forward to seeing the results.
Jon was playing it low key tonight, just the Hornet II and no planks as he didn't realise how calm it was going to be out at the stadium. Jon put in a couple of incident free flights, and spent the rest of his time catching up, watching the planks, and helping Curtiss get started.
Poor old Reg is still battling with his beast. More mods and changes are on the way. Reg got some stick time in on Shannons heli, but his final flight of his own heli ended in disaster as the tail went berzerk causing a very nasty crash.
Rob had a busy night, althugh Mr Murphy seems to be stalking him lately. A mysterious total gyro failure cause some initial anxious moments, but ROb was soon up and flying by combining parts from both of his helis. Rob also brought a plank along, a GWS slowstick complete with Video camera and transmitter! Unfortuantley as Rob was getting it out of the car a nasty gust of wind caught it and damaged the tail. Feild repairs were unsuccesful, so we'll have to wait until next tim to see his setup in action.
Shannon's flying goes from strenght to strenght every week, which possibly isn't surprising with the amount of flying he gets in during a week! He's a lot like Andrew was in the early days - putting in as many lfights as possible during the day. He even takes his heli to work with him! With the conditions being near perfect Shannon spent a fair part of the night flying outside the stadium and was also videod by Rob.
November 2004
29/11/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well family commitments meant another missed week for me. My thanks go to Rob for this report.
Monday Fly-in Myself, Keith Birse, Deane,Shannon, Reg, Greg, Curtis ( almost finished Piccolo fun ) ,and a new young fellow who has visited before and now arrived with a nearly finished heli and Dad in tow .
Keith came along with a loaned Kyosho concept 24 ? anyhow quite a nice bit of kit . Japanese assembled and the quality showed .Originally had problems getting any lift from the supplied Nimh battery . Loaned a battery from Greg a 3 cell litho and away she went no problems and a 16 minute flight .
The rest of us did the normal routine fly , prang, repair , fly again.
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22/11/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Another good turnout. Deane, Greg, Jon, Reg, Rob, and Shannon were all up for a fly tonight.
Deane was having some major glitch issues and called it a night early rather risking another nasty crash like a few weeks ago. Greg was battling with wobbly heads, troublesome tail motors and tail blades , but managed to get some flying in. Jon was just flying the Hornet, but did bring a new plank for show and tell. It ended up doing some taxi practise around the stadium! Reg is still having issues, although it's starting to look like it might be batteries. Shannon got Reg flying on Shannon's heli which was great to see. Rob's machine was going great on the new brushless. Lotsa power and good duration too. Shannon was having a great night, and put on an excellent Kamikaze show - plowing his heli into himself in very fine style! Shannon was unharmed, and the heli was back in the air in minutes! Way to go Shannon!
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15/11/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A good turnout tonight. Most of the crew were back on deck. Greg, Jon, Reg, Shannon and Rob were all there along with a few visiors thrown in for added value.
Jon had his video camera and managed to some footage fo the flying, which will hopefully turn up on here eventually.
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08/11/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Yet another one missed, and thanks again to Rob for providing this report.
Greg,Shannon,Reg and myself turned up . Greg broke bits within 5 minutes and spent most of his time with repairs, Shannon showed off his new skills after practising at morning tea ,lunch and arvo tea at work, now throws his heli all over the place with great gusto. Reg having problems with is motor and looking at alternatives . I'm testing out my new CDrom motors and have power to burn , just got to get the right combination but at least the future of these little motors is looking bright .
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01/11/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A real quiet one tonight, just Rob and Jon in attendence.
Rob brought along the new brushless kits that he got from the states. They look very impressive especially at the price! Other than that - we came, we flew, we had fun :)
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October 2004 - The Diary and Website's first BIrthday!
25/10/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Another meet missed! I've been having a bad run with illness in the family lately. Rob dropped me a message to advise that Greg, Reg, Rob and Shannon turned out tonight.
By all accounts it was a smashing night - literally! Rob broke his brand new main blades, Reg broke several(!) tail rotors and Greg smaked into the wall at least twice! Shannon seems to be the only one that avoided all this carnage!
In some ways I'm glad I didn't make it after hearing about that lot. I would have added to the carnage for sure!
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18/10/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
I didn't make this meet :(. Anyone want to contribute something?
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11/10/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Another fair turnout for our second meet of October. Greg, Jon, Reg, Rob and Shannon were all flying. Andrew turned out for a look-see and a visitor or two was also along for a look.
Everyone seemed to have a pretty good night, Greg and Rob were both flying around well, in between helping evryone out and filling our visitor in on background info. Reg's machine was back with new servos. Jon had it trimmed out in short order, and Reg spent the rest of the night working towards controlled hovering. Shannon's hybrid was going well again, and Shannon also brought along an own-design sub-micro that he is working on. This thing is really tiny and it will be interesting to see how it develops. Jon had both the Huey and The Hornet II up again, and had a pleasant nights flying.
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04/10/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A pretty good turnout for our first meeting of October. Ben, Greg, Jon, Reg, Rob and Shannon filled out the 'regular flyers' ranks well, Keith came along for a visit and a fly, and we had a couple of visitors along checking out the scene as well. With it being a busyish night, I didn't get chance to catch up on everything, so if you have something to add, don't be afraid to email me!
Ben looked please to be back up and running again. He hasn't discoverd the reason for the battery blowouts the other week, but he was up and flying again and looking good. Ben's flightitmes were a bit limited due to only having nimhs to carry on with, but he has new bigger batteries on the way, so watch out when they arrive!
Greg's machine was having another fit of the wobbles from time to time - I reckon he should call his heli Noddy <GRIN>. Greg was really pleased though as he had discovered the final part of the cause of his low flight times. In spite of the wobble, Greg managed to get a good bit of flying in. Once he gets the head slop sorted out there'll be no stopping him! Greg also (after some prompting from the sidelines, brought in his slowstick for a flight. It was a bit of a tight fit in the stadium, but he manged to keep it relatively under control while providing some entertainment for the spectators <GRIN>.
Jon was working with the Huey again, and starting to push the flight envelop a bit. He reckons it's almost set now, just needs a new controller to replace the slightly glitchy old Phoenix and a bit of fine tuning in the cyclic throws. Jon's now considering what to do about the finish of the Huey. Whether to just leave it as is, or strip it and try and tidy up the dings and damage from all the protyping work.. It was interesting to notice that although Jon had his Hornet II with him, it didn't get a flight - this would have to be a first!
Reg was along for what was going to be the debut flight of his Hummming Bee. Unfortuntley events conspired against Reg tonight. Initially it was problems with getting the Tx set up right, but that was worked around with a loan of Shannon's 8U. Still it was not to be Reg's night. The servos that were supplied with his machine were nothing short of diabolical! Examination showed that they had a throw to throw tranist time in the order of several seconds! Obviously slow servos are not condusive to heli flight at all, and so flight attempts were abandoned for the night. Reg and Shannon are going to pulll the servos down to see if there is anything they can to to salvage them.
Rob appeared to be having a good night. I'm not sure if this was due to the extreme abundance of spares, or a total lack of crashes <GRIN>. From what I saw of Rob's flights things appeared to be going really well. Rob was also busy snapping pics with his digicam, so hopefully we might be able to get a new gallery up soon! Keith also had a fly with Rob's machine, and received a good-natured ribbing for performing the "Piccolo Head Pop" in very fine style <GRIN>.
Shannon was along again with this much modded machine. I didn't really catch up with where he's at with it, but on the occasions that I saw ti flying it was looking good. Shannon's own design blades and motors have produced Fixed Ptich machne with a high headspeed. The flight style is very reminicient of the fixed pitch MS Hornet, but without the mechanical complexity. Very nice!
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September 2004
27/09/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well at least we all maganged to be there at the same time this week! Greg, Rob and Jon all turned out to fly this week, and we had a couple of visitors too - Reg, who has been out a couple of times before, and Shannon (hope I got that right Bud!) who came along with a very interesting micro-heli.
Greg was looking most pleased with his machine. He's put the larger maingear on and dropped the ratio as low as he can get it. His flight times are up and battery and motor heat are both down. He's going to try re-timing the motor next to see if he can get a little more duration out of it yet.
Rob had yet another bad night. He packed a whole heap of spares this time so that he wouldn't be grounded, but Mr Murphy struck in fine style. On his fist flight he chipped a mainblade, and you guessed it , it was the one piece of kit that Rob didn't bring along! Might pay to start bringing a whole spare heli along Rob! <GRIN>.
Jon had a good night, the re-constructed (again!) Huey was back after a long weekend repair session in the workshop. Intially it was flying not too bad, but Jon wasn't completely happy with the handling. After about 10 minutes of flying he found the cause of the problem, the main blades had drifted slighly out of track. A quick adjustment restored the Huey's handling and Jon was a happy man again. Jon also got Rob to do another temperature check to see if the new cooling system was helping and it sure is! A post flight temp check revealed 78C at the motor. Although this is still a little warmer thn Jon would like, it's a 20C drop from the previous tests, so Jon's a lot happier. Jon also had the Hornet II out as usual, and was pleased to finish the night with two intact, still operative, helis <GRIN>.
Reg didn't bring a heli out this time, he has sold his old machine, and is in the process of getting a SkyTech AeroHawk up and running ready to join us at the hall. Reg is keen to get into flying and has joined the Core Group for Term 4. Welcome Reg!
Shannon came along for the first time, and impressed everyone with his heli. He purchased Reg's old Dragonfly (I think) and then proceeded to set about turning it into a viable heli in short order. The heli now sports home built brushless main and tail motors powered by a pair of Phoenix 10s, a modified head, and home built main and tail rotor blades. Not only did Shannon do all of this desigining and building himself, he also taught himself to fly, and after only three weeks has got tail and side-in hovering down ot pat, and is working on circuits! Well done Shannon, a most impressive start! We look forward to seeing you and your heli develop over the coming months.
Oh yeah, just to let you know - I had an email the other day from Mike that used to fly with us at Halswell Hall. He advises that he's still pretty busy at the moment, but he's hoping to get out eventually, even if it's just on a casual basis. He also said to pass on his regards, to everyone. Thanks Mike!
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20/09/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Hmmm, you might call this week "shift work week" :). Ben, Jon and Rob all turned out this week, but at different times..
Rob was first to arrive, but by the time I got there he'd left. Rob did drop me a line though with his commentary for the night, so over to Rob...
"
A cold and lonely night was had , Me myself and I were the only participants in last nights flyin . I came I flew I crashed and went home about 8pm . I was doing some nice gentle pirouettes and decided to go faster and the head flew off and that was that , splat !".
Sounds a bit like my night Rob, and you only missed me by a few minutes!
Jon turned up shortly after 20:00 and brought the family along, only to find that the place was deserted! Never being one to miss an opportunity, Jon got the newly re-fitted Huey cranked up and took off. It was flying beautifully, by far the best it has ever flown, and was really looking the part in the air too. But! Jon had no sooner commented to Carolyn about it being a pity the other guys weren't there, and wishing the he had brought his video camera along, when you guessed it... Boom! A moment's mis-orientation put it into the wall in a most spectular fashion! It looked pretty bad - blades cracked and tail boom in mulitple pieces. Jon was just in the process of picking up the bits, when you guessed it - Ben turned up.. Ben missed the flight (and the carnage) by a matter of minutes.
Ben was ready to let rip with the now re-batteried LMH. A paralled set of 3S Etechs should have really done the job well. However the machine was severely lacking in power and most reluctant to pull out of GE. Ben put it back down, and pulled the canopy to see what was going on. One of the Packs was rather hot, so Ben disconnected. And the pack got hotter and hotter and hotter - ouch! Looks like one or perhaps both packs are fried. No indicators of why yet, but Ben retired early to investigate further.
Jon flew out the rest of his batteries on the Hornet II which was behaving pretty well.
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13/09/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Another quieter one this week. Ben, Jon and Rob were all flying.
Rob was going great guns with his FP Piccolo. He was doing some nice circuits and was showing some good stability in his nose in practice too. Robs Pic is really sorted and flies very nicely, so what's next for the flightline Rob?
Great to see Ben back again. Be's currently flying an LMH (he brought Sean's one) and aside of low flight times, i's really going rather well.
Jon was just out with the Hornet II tonight. The Huey is in the workshop for (another) major refit! Jon was going well until he tripped over rotors while doing low altitude banked turns. Crash! Ooops! No real damage was sustained though, so it'll be back as usual next week no doubt!
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06/09/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A bit busier this week with a resonable turnout of men and machines. Deane, Greg, Jon and Rob were all flying, and it was great to get a visit from Andrew again.
Andrew isn't flying (models) again yet, but the good news is that he is almost ready to start replacing the equipment that was stolen from his house. Another bit of good news on that front was that the Police caught the perpetrators - well done!!!
Another great piece for news for Andrew is that he has completed all his-full sized heli training, and now holds a Private and Commercial Helicopter Pilot licence, along with both Turbine and Instructor Ratings - well done Andrew! He's also secured full-time employment with Christchurch Helicopters,
so it looks like Andrew really is going to be "living the dream"!!l
Deane was pleased to back again, and put in a really nice flight or two with one of this two Piccolo Pros until a really nasty glitch put the heli in with some fairly substantial damage. Hopefully he'll be back up and running for next week. Dean also had one of his foamy planes at the hall, and put in a couple of flights, but seems to be plagued with power issues. Rob's power analyser indicates that it's either over-geared or over-proped, so Deane's going to try a smaller prop for the next session.
Greg was still battling with low flight times. A power test using Rob's new power analyser revealed that the motor that Greg is running is way too 'hot' for the machine. Greg's was heading home to reduce the gearing to see if that will help get the duration up a bit.
Jon had the Huey out again, this time with the Hacker back on line. Some mucking about with headspeeds got the machine into an almost controllable state, but there's still some work to be done there yet. A post flight temp analysis of the motor (Rob and his hi-tech toys again - a temp gun this time!) showed that things are still getting way too hot inside the Huey, with the motor showing 98 degrees celcius after a 20 min flight! Jon's got a few ideas to try for cooling things off, so we'll see how it develops. Jon also had the Hornet II along, and it was flying just fine as usual.
Like Deane, Rob also got hit bad by the dreaded glitches, although the damage wasn't perhaps as bad as Deanes. We kept Rob busy though, running around with his scales, temp gun and power analyser, sorting out all out issues! Thanks Rob!!!!
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August 2004
30/08/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well this was the quietest one I have ever been to, just Greg and Myself flying tonight, although Rob and Deane would both have been there had it not been for prior commitments.
Greg was going relly well, having tracked down the cause of his wobbles. It turned out to be slop in where the head runs on it's bearings.
Jon had the Huey out again and put in one very creditable flight, but has decided that it is defintley underpowered with the 310 brushed motor. Jon's Hornet also saw action tonight and was flying really well as usual.
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23/08/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
I was unable to attend tonight after being laid up all day in bed crook. Rob advises that it was a quiet night with just himself and Aaron attending. Aaron was practising hard out as usual, but Rob got bitten by another tail failure and no spares on hand.
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16/08/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well it was looking to be a good line up for the night. Aaron, Deane, Greg, Rob and myself were all in attendance. I don't realy know how the night went, as I was called home very early in the piece. I managed to get one brief flight in with the Huey, but it seemed to be seriously underpowered with the 310 brushed motor.
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02/08/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
(Filed by Rob)
Another busy night. Ben, Deane, Greg, John, Sean and Rob all turned out. The plank flyers had a busy night of it!
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July 2004
26/07/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
(Filed by Greg)
Had a fun night last night as only 3 guys turned up. Gave us all a good chance to test the limits of the hall. I put some cut down blades on my bird and it improved forward flight a bit and gave better bat time. But this was at the expense of some response time to imputs as a result the last imput the heli got was in the form of a wall. No damage tho. John Ben and me turned up with helis and Andrew turned up later on for a look. Cheers Greg
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05/07/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
(Filed by Rob)
Pretty quiet night. Dean , John, Me and a new dude - Aaron with a dragonfly lookalike . Deane did a loop !! Kept on giving him grief about running out of excuses. Anyhow up she went over the top , upside down for a few seconds then a bit of panic what next and splat going out of inverted . Not much damage broken skids , fancy fins snapped off all in all pretty impressive. Cheers, Rob.
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March 2004
18/03/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Work and home commitments have made it difficult for me to keep up with the weekly diary over the past month. Sean has kindly offered to pick up the slack on the diary front, so without further ado, here's Sean's first contribution. Thanks Sean!
The new venue is all go..and its huge! No-one seems to be missing the old Haswell hall at all, well maybe the close location but thats about it.
The usual suspects arrived tonight at the stadium,Jon, Greg, Deane, Andrew, Ben, Rob, Myself (Sean) plus a spectator or two.
Jon was as doing some really nice big circuits with the H2 and even a glitch here and there didnt bother him, the new hall has really opened up Jons flying and its great to see the H2 is responding accordingly. He is also very pleased with a new GY240 gyro installed.
Deane has the PRO running dead smooth and really quiet, in fact completely slient in the company of Jons H2! Deane was flying the PRO tight and in full control as always, I even saw a little backwards flight. As a surprise he presented his new Hummingbird with scale body and (soon to be) retracts, really a fantastic looking machine and only awaiting electronics to get going.
Greg has been getting better hovers from his FP hybrid and the little beast is putting up with some hammering, even a broken boom didnt slow it down. However it really does seem now its the heli holding Greg back and a few mods are in order. Cut blades anyone?
Andrew once again showed up but forgot to fly.. Andrew is always busy troubleshooting other helis and gasbagging :) its a problem because his flights alway prove an inspiration to me and I look forward to picking up pointers. However its good to have his valuable input on many aspects of heli fine tuning.
Ben had his new H2 along but is still grounded awaiting a new transmitter capable of driving a collective heli. Hopefully it arrives soon.
Rob had the Piccolo zooming around the hall, I also noted his many fine landings on the stadium seating (he also takes off from there) its like a base and the heli shalt not touch the ground in between....
Finally I got out the dragonfly, sporting its new hornet style cut blades it produced a 1700rpm head speed and has transformed its handling. Shame the brushed can motor couldnt handle it for long and died at the end of the night. No worries though as the LMH is as reliable as a Toyota Hilux Diff and never lets me down, apart from almost removing Gregs legs at the knees.....everyone seems to hide when the LMH starts winding up, its like the bully at school.
Bring on the next session!
Sean.
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11/03/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Our second meet was somewhat quieter in flying numbers, but made up for it in enthusiasm and spectator numbers.
Alvin was back, still without his much needed batteries, but brought a couple of friends along for a look see.
Andrew and Ben both had work commitments that prevented them from making it.
Deane made it, despite being on baby stitting duty. He left early as he had his girls with him, but still manged to get some good flights in. Deane was making good use of the space available and put in some really nice flying for the short time that he was there.
Greg was having another funny night. When the heli was behaving it was flying really well, but was still plagued by a few odd moments where it took on a mind of its own!
John was continuing on with the Hummingbird. Jon got it trimmed out for him, and John had a good night of practise up until when he retired due to a breakage.
Jon was just buzzing around with the Hornet II, although he had a great session later in the night as everyone left early, he had the whole stadium to himself!
Rob's machine just seems to go from strenght to strength. It's looking really fine in the air, very settled and controlled. Rob attempted a landing on the viewing area while flying from down on the stadium floor. It all went really well, until it slipped backward off the wall and fell to the ground - ouch!
Sean
brought along another new heli (What is it about this new venue? We seem to have a new heli every week!). A GWS Dragonfly this time. Although it looked fine in the hover, the tail authority in anything resembling forward flight was non-existant. Sean is going to take it home and give it a thorough modding to see if he can get it flying nicely. The LMH was also looking good in the air, although a decent SPLAT into the floor caused Sean to also retire due to breakage.
Jon
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04/03/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well this was the big one, our first meet at Ambrose Stadium, and it was huge! We had a full turnout of flyers, plus spectators and a new prospect. I'm doing this report from memory, so please forgive me if this is a little brief.
Alvin is the newest addition to our merry band. He has a number of helis, and tonight he brought his nearly completed Zoom 400. This is a new heli in the Hornet II/Pro Piccolo size range, but featuring many features from its larger brethren, such as a dual cradle frame. The Zoom is almost ready to go, merely awaiting the arrival of batteries to get it into the air.
Andrew was taking advantage of the extra space, and really giving the Hornet a workout, putting on a most impressive display, in between helping others out.
Ben is still sans heli. The Hornet II is very close to ready to go, with just the lack of a transmitter holding him back now.
Deane was settling into the new location nicely, getting a feel for all the extra space available to him.
Greg was having a bit of a battle with the hybrid, having random attacks of the wobbles.
John was fielding another new heli! This time its a Hummingbird - something for him to practice on while the Hornet II undergoes a re-fit. It was also suffering from the wobbles, but flew nicely when it was behaving.
Jon had the Hornet II out, and like Deane was suffering a little from the extra space. However towards the end of the night he was starting to get a feel for flying the heli further away thatn he was used to.
Rob was revelling in the new environment, really mixing it up with some high altitude flying. Rob was also the first to try a launch and flight from the observation deck, which he pulled off quite nicely.
Sean was having a ball with the LMH conversion. The extra room available allowed him to go to town with his flying, high speed passes up and down the hall along with high altitude piros were the order of the night for Sean
All in all it was a great night. The new venue is really paying off with as many as four helis all up and flying at the same time, and plenty of room for everyone to get some good flying in.
Jon.
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February 2004
23/02/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well it was the end of the flying month, and the end of an era for the Christchurch Microheli Group. Our last meeting at Halswell community hall.
It was a full turnout, Andrew, Deane, Greg, Jon, Mike, Rob and Sean were all flying. Ben and John were both present despite being grounded, and some visitors turned up for a look as well. It was a pretty busy night with quite a few heli issues, and lots of questions from our visitors, which means this report may not be as in-depth as usual.
Andrew was doing his "Doctor Heli" act again, once again assisting the other pilots out in between getting in some flying of his own. Andrew has now passed his Commercial Heli Pilot licence, so there was a lot of begging going on for check rides of our own :). Rumour alos has it that Andrew may be planning a new micro-heli purchase in the not too distant future.
Ben is still grounded, but his new machine is on the way! He's still trying to sort out a transmitter though, and is hoping to be good to go for next week.
Deane was fielding his new Ikarus PRO Piccolo. It was running with the stock 410 motor, which was putting on it's usual lethargic performance with a 2s2p Kokam pack. Deane borrowed one of Jon's 3s1p E-tecs to try and inject some oomph. Unfortunately, Dean's electronics screamed enough and a blown FET on the Picoboard was the result. This all seems somewhat peculiar, as Jon and many others have been running 3s1p on Picoboards for over 2 years without incident.
Greg was up and about with the hybrid. It had suffered an 'air to house' collision earlier in the week, but despite being somewhat battle scarred, was still flying. Greg spent a good part of the night coming to grips with the peculiarites of our little flying machines.
John was also on the grounded list. His speed controller was burnt out after last weeks attempts, but a crash related cause had been found, which was somewhat encouraging. John has decided to dispense with the brushed setup completely and had a brand new brushless on the way. He's also ordered a HummingBird heli for practise, before cutting loose on the Hornet II again.
Jon turned up with another new machine! This time it was an Ikarus Bell UH-1 Huey. Another stock (for now) machine, it has been built around the now retired FUN Piccolo from last week. Jon was initially plagued with horrific glitching, which after nearly an hour of mucking about, disappeared without ever revealing the cause. A brief demo flight for a photo op ensued. Rumour has it that the machine is now reporting back to the skunk works for major mods and a personality transplant.
Mike brought his CP Hornet for its last flight for a while with the group. Mike is unlikely to be able to make the Thursday night meetings, but is looking forward to returning with a vengence once the Term 2 Wednesday night sessions start.
Rob was buzzing around with his Piccolo, in between taking photos and helping out with all the heli problems that were occuring. Jon had brought a different camera along to trial, so we finally got some shots of Rob, and his machine in flight. (New gallery to come soon).
Sean was having a good beat up of the hall with the LMH. It's going really well, and Sean is looking forward to the extra space in the new venue. Sean also has the parts to fix his PRO on the way, so we look forward to seeing its return soon.
And so, the Halswell Hall era drew to a close. It has been a great venue which has met our needs for a long time. But it's time to move on now to larger pastures. The next diary entry will be coming to you from Ambrose Stadium - look forward to seeing you there!
Jon
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19/02/2004 - CONGRATULATIONS ANDREW!
On Thursday 12th February, Andrew sucessfully passed his final check ride for his Commercial Helicopter Pilot Licence. Well done Bud!!! We'll all be round to see you in the weekend for our own check rides :).
Jon
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16/02/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Our second-to-last meeting at Halswell Hall proved to be another busy flying night. Deane, Greg, John, Jon, Rob and Sean all turned out to fly and Ben came along for a look.
Ben is still grounded, while he gets his orders sorted out. He's having a bit of a hassle getting his Tx ordered, but is hoping to be up and running in time for the first night at the new venue.
Dean was continuing his work with the U shaped throttle/pitch curve, and was putting on a really tidy flying display. Dean has added another PRO Piccolo to his stable, this one to be set up with separates in the electronics department. No indicators of when it will be at the hall and flying, but I think he's aiming to be ready for the new venue too.
Greg had the Skylark/Piccolo hybrid there again, but is getting very frustrated with the short flight times form his lethargic battery packs. Panic not though, Greg has some E-Tecs on the way, and when they arrive there will be no stopping him!
John brought his finished machine along. Unfortunately he'd had an 'incident' the previous day (wrong model mode) which had caused a bit of damage. Although he'd gotten it repaired, he was forced to use a 12t pinion as his 11t had been stripped in the crash. This proved to be not a good idea. What appeared initially to be a battery pack problem turned out to be overloading from too high a gear ratio. A couple of abortive attempts at getting the heli properly airborne led to a suspected burnt out ESC. John decide to quit while he was ahead, and is going to check the ESC out and await his replacement 11t pinion. Not a great start, but hey, things can only get better.
Jon turned up with the Hornet II, and a big surprise - a brand new FUN Piccolo! Jon explained that he only brought it as a 'spare parts box' but then decided he should at least build it and give it one fly before being decommissioned for spares. So after two abortive attempts due to Jon's ancient NiMH packs, Rob came to the rescue with a 2-cell Etech, and the machine got its maiden, and final, flight. Jon also had a flight or two with the Hornet II, continuing on with his practice from last week. It was also noted that Jon had no less than FOUR charged E-Tec 1200 packs ready to go - another one preparing for the new venue perhaps? :)
Once again I missed out on most of Rob's flying (sorry Bud). Along with flying, Rob was also doing some stirling work with the camera, capturing the moments as we approach the end of our stay at Halswell Hall. Look out for another Album in the next three weeks or so - thanks Rob!
Sean nearly wasn't flying at all. He had put his car in to be painted, and forgot that his Tx was also in the car! Fortunately a good mate saved the day with the loan of a tx. Sean was flying the electric conversion LMH again, and was beating up the hall in fine style. A 'power check' on his 7-cell pack nearly caused an incident, but Sean did a great job of saving the day (and his heli!) :). Sean's buddy also had a fly of the mean machine, but declared that fixed pitch electrics were definitely not for him :).
Jon
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09/02/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Wow! What a turn-out! Our 2nd meet for February must have been one of the busiest ever. No less than eight pilots turned out to fly, two of whom made their debut flights. We also had our two 'grounded' pilots along, plus visitors, making for quite a squeeze along the stage front.
Being such a busy night, it was hard to keep track of what everyone was doing, so apologies to anyone that doesn't get as big a mention as they deserve!
Andrew spent a good part of the night getting Greg's Skylark/Piccolo hybrid sorted for him, so he ended up waiting until quite late in the night before getting his flights in. Andrew has his Commercial Helicopter check ride on Thursday of this week, so we all wish him the best of luck with it.
Ben was one of our two 'grounded' pilots for the night. Ben is between helis at the moment, but was muttering about getting his Hornet II ordered this week. I think the inactivity is getting to him :).
Dean was working on the PRO's setup, he's moving over to a U shaped pitch curve using idle-up throttle (in preparation for inverted flight perhaps Deane?)
John was our other 'grounded' pilot. John's electronics for the Hornet II got held up in customs, and then went missing for a few days, with the result that he only received them today. John is dubious about being ready for next week's flying session, but he's going to give it a go and see what happens.
Jon was getting more adventurous with the Hornet II. Despite only having one pack, he managed to get two or three flights in, and was working hard on multiple piros and tight circles.
Mike was progressing really well with his hovering on the CP Hornet, showing more and more control every time he turns out.
I missed out on most of Rob's flying, as we tended to be in the air at the same time. Rob was giving the FP Pic a good work out though, and I reckon it's time to go to CP Rob!!!
Sean had his electric conversion LMH out, and it appears to to fly pretty darn well. Sean is going to do a bit more work on the tail, as it was lacking a little authority in one direction, but for a first time out it was impressive.
We also had two pilots making their debut flights tonight.
Greg got his Skylark/Piccolo hybrid in the air for the first time, after some set up assistance from Andrew, and loaner rotor blades from Deane and Rob. He looked pretty happy with things, and is looking forward to becoming a regular.
Nathan also had his debut flight using Sean's LMH. Nathan's efforts were pretty impressive for a first attempt, it looks like all that simulator time he's been putting in has paid off well. The question now, is how long will it be before Nathan gets his own heli?
There was some discussion about the new winter venue, with the general consensus being quite favourable to the move. In light of the crowd that we had at the hall tonight, Jon is going to investigate the possibility of moving up the change-over date to the start of March, and will report back ASAP.
Jon
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02/02/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
An excellent turnout marked our first flying meet for February. Andrew, Deane, Jon, Keith, Mike and Rob were all flying, with numerous non-flyers about too.
We had a surprise visit from Chris Hellyer (electricflight.co.nz) and his family. Chris and I have been corresponding by email for a while now, so it was great to finally meet him in the flesh. Chris had his camera with him, so no doubt we'll be seeing some pics appearing at electricflight.co.nz sometime in the future.
Welcome also to Greg. Greg has purchased Dan Meier's FUN Piccolo and will be flying with us as soon as his replacement blades turn up.
John and Sean were both in attendance. John is still waiting for the electronics to turn up for his Hornet II, hopefully they'll be here for next weeks session. Sean was also heli-less. An incident with the PRO has it grounded at the moment awaiting parts, and he is still waiting for a pinion to turn up for the LMH Corona. Sean is hoping to be up and flying again for next week's session too.
Andrew was flying well as usual, putting on a good display for the visitors. He had an incident later on that damaged a set of blades, but out came the spares and he was back in business in no time.
Deane brought the PRO and his completed turbine. The turbine attracted a fair bit of attention, with a lot of questions and answers flying back and forth. The turbine is all finished and good to go, Deane is just waiting now on the airframe to fit it to. Deane also got a few good flys in with the PRO, although he reckoned he was pretty rusty, not having flown it for nearly a month. Looked pretty good to me though.
Rob was continuing on from last week with circuits, and Keith got some flying in on Rob's machine too. Mike was getting in some practice, and is really starting to get the hang of it. Last but not least, Jon was having a quiet nite pottering around, mostly due to being down to one battery pack.
Jon
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January 2004
Pictures from the December 2003 and January 2004 are now available in the January 2004 Gallery
26/1/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
It was a pretty quiet evening on the flying front tonight. Rob, Sean and Jon turned out to fly, with Mike and Ben putting in cameo appearances. Several visitors also came along for a look.
Rob started off the night with a stunning flying display. He's obviously been practicing hard, and has pretty much got circuits and piros down to pat. Later in the evening an unscheduled arrival caused some damage, a suspected gyro element failure, so Rob retired early to get started on diagnosis and repair.
Jon had what was probably his shortest flying session ever. The flight consisted of take-off, followed by uncontrolled backwards flight into the stage. Post crash analysis revealed that Jon had forgotten to switch model memories after working on an experimental over the weekend - oops! Fortunately the only damage sustained was a sheared rotor drive pin. As that particular part is awkward to replace, Jon gave up flying for the night, but stayed around to watch our sole remaining flyer.
Sean, in total contrast to the other two had a great night. He has lowered the gearing on the PRO, replacing the 10t pinion with an 8t. The PRO was flying very nicely, and
Sean made the most of having the hall pretty much to himself :). Sean also brought his LMH along for a 'show and tell'. The machine is just waiting for motor and electronics to convert it from the i/c to electric version. It's a slightly bizarre looking machine, with everything being about 20% larger than the average micro, except for the rotor span, which is darn near the same as our micros - most peculiar.
Mike put in a cameo. He has started researching possible alternate flying locations. He has found a hall that is approximately twice the size of our current venue, but we still need to approach the owners to see if they are interested in hiring it out and what the likely costs might be.
The "Surprise of the meeting" award would have to go to John, our visitor from last week. John turned up for a another look, accompanied by his brand new Hornet II! John's machine is about half built, so we look forward to seeing it finished in the very near future.
Ben had news on his heli developments. Both the DragonFly and the Nexus are sold, so Ben is planning to order his new machine sometime in the coming week. Ben has had a slight change of heart re the model, and is now planning to order a Hornet II too!
Rumour has it that Jon is starting to wish he was getting commission all these new Hornet II purchases :).
Jon
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19/1/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A somewhat different line-up for tonight's meet. Rob and Deane are both away on holiday, so we were expecting a pretty quiet one. Andrew and Jon were the first to show, along with a new visitor John, who appears very keen to get into the hobby. Next in was a surprise visitor - Sean is back, and with a Micro too! Good to have ya back Bud. Mike turned up a soon after with his machine, along with Ben sans machine, so a predicted quiet night turned out quite busy.
Andrew was still battling with the Hornet, but a blade change soon fixed the problems, and Andrew got into the groove and was putting on a nice display of flying as usual.
Jon was flying the Hornet II around pretty much as usual, and managed to get in three or four really good flights. Later in the night he got some coaching from Andrew to try and sort out some of Jon's weak areas in piloting skills (what do you mean ALL of them? :) ). Thanks Andrew, a second pair of eyes and your timely advice was great.
Mike is coming along well, showing ever increasing control over the CP Hornet. Some of his hovering is looking really good now, and it's just a case of extending the periods of control. Keep it up Mike!
Sean brought his PRO Piccolo along for a fly. A bit of tweaking got it looking pretty nice, but the "Halswell Hall Triangle" bit with a nasty glitch and put the PRO in big time. Sean went flat out with the CA and managed to get the machine back together and flying again in pretty short order, and a few minutes of hovering around soon restored his confidence in the machine. Nice to have you back Sean!
Jon
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12/1/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
A slightly different mix for flying tonight. Andrew, Ben, Jon and Rob were all flying, and Deane and Mike both put in non-flying appearances.
It's great to have Andrew back again. Andrew is now part of the Christchurch Helicopters fire-fighting ground crew, and has missed the past few fly-ins due to being away fighting fires with real Helis. It was touch and go as to whether he would make it tonight as there had been a fire up on the Port HIlls earlier today. Andrew has now passed his Private Pilot Licence (Helicopter) and is well into his commercial rating training. On the model front, Andrew's Hornet was being a little grumpy tonight, but apparently it's overdue for its regular service.
Ben was going great guns with the repaired Dragonfly, but apparently it will be the last time we'll see the machine at the hall (under Ben's piloting anyway) as it has been sold. Ben's just waiting now to sell his Nexus to fund the purchase of a Hornet CP-X.
Rob was going well with his circuits and Piros on the Piccolo, but a tail drive failure caused a bit of a prang so Rob called it a night.
Jon has gone back to the PG-03 gyro on the Hornet II (some rumour about a new project that needs the CSM) and was trying a lower gear ratio out. The low ratio didn't really work out, so he swapped back to the 11t pinion and the Hornet was back in business in no time...
Jon
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5/1/2004 - Weekly Flying Meet
Well, the start of the new year got off to a quiet start. Rob, Mike and Jon were flying. Jon's brother David, and nephew Cody came along to see what all the fuss was about.
Ben was also with us, but without a heli. The Dragonfly is suffering broken blades, and Ben's looking at replacing the whole machine with a CP Hornet of some kind in the near future. Ben's leaning towards the CP-X, which if he goes that way would mean that we a have a representative of each of the major Hornet variants flying in the club. Quite a change from the first few years, when it was all Piccolos except for Andrew's sole Hornet.
Cody (aged 6) brought his own micro heli along - one of those 'pull the handle to wind up the rotors and launch' free-flight jobbies. Apparently it was an xmas present from Uncle Jon. A case of trying to steer him in the right direction perhaps? Cody put up some creditable flights, and also seemed quite impressed with the 'real' ones too. Any funny comments about Cody's flying abilities being somewhat better than his uncle Jon's will be severely frowned upon :).
Rob's busy working on the whole circuit and nose-in scene. As usual for us Pic pilots, the clockwise circuits are coming along nicely, but anti-clockwise is proving somewhat elusive. All in all Rob was putting in some really nice flying tonight. A couple of casual comments about 'pitch-up' makes me wonder if Rob is considering the jump to CP too?
Mike continues to work on his hovering. The 'moments of brilliance' are definitely getting longer and spaced closer together, so it's just a matter of time and practice now. Mike wasn't going to push his luck tonight, so he called it quits for flying after one session, but stayed around to yarn with the rest of us ..
Jon was buzzing around with the Hornet II again. An extremely calm evening eventually coaxed Jon outside with the Hornet II for the first time. After a good 20 mins flying outside, Jon returned inside and proclaimed, with a grin from ear to ear, that it was "Good - very good" ...
Jon
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December 2003
30/12/2003 - 2003 - Webmaster's "End of Year" comment
Well, the end of another year approaches, and I think it's been a good one. We've done a lot of flying, talked and laughed a lot, spent a lot of money, and had a load of fun along the way.
I think the close of 2003 shows great promise for the group for the coming year. In the last couple of months we've seen Mike, and now Ben, attending and flying on a regular basis, putting our 'regulars' number at a steady 6. Jason has also recently returned to the fold, and we know of at least one new flyer that will be starting with us early in the new year.
If our visitors are anything to go by, we have quite a few other 'prospects' waiting in the wings so to speak, and with the rapid growth in the Micro Heli marketplace I think we can look forward to a another good year in 2004.
If growth continues at its present rate I hope that we may be able to look at moving into a larger hall in the coming year - at the rate things are going we will certainly need it! :).
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support of our group, this web site, and each other, over the last year. It's been a great year for us. Thanks Guys....
Before I start getting all soppy :), I'd just like to wish you all the very best for New Year's, and I look forward to having another great year of flying with you all in 2004.
Happy Hovering,
Jon
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29/12/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
Our last meet of 2003! It was a relatively quiet night, Ben, Deane, and Jon turned out to fly, with a very late visit from Don, who just missed out by arriving just as we were packing up.
Ben brought his Dragonfly along. Unfortunately the tail motor he got from Rob last week had died within minutes
so he was grounded again. A dig thru Jon's tool box located a spare Piccolo tail motor (which I think came from Deane originally!). Ben fitted it up, and was up and flying in no time. I've grabbed some video and a couple of photos of the event, so I'll get them posted soon.
Deane was busy with his newest toy, a brand spanking new Futaba 9CAP transmitter. It's a very nice piece of kit, and makes my battered 8UHPS look decidedly ragged. Deane spent most of the night getting the Tx dialled in right for his Piccolo PRO. As luck would have it, just as he had it almost spot on, Mr Murphy came to visit and knocked his bird out of the sky. Fortunately there was no real damage incurred.
Post crash analysis revealed a fractured tail motor power wire at the Pico Board, but whether this was the cause, or the result, of the crash is unclear. We're leaning towards it being the cause as Deane had been unhappy with the tail most of the night, and a wire fracture could very well have caused the glitch that resulted in the bird crashing.
Jon had a great night with the Hornet II again. Jon was 'hall monitor" this week as Andrew was away, so he managed to sneak in 20 minutes of flying before anyone else arrived. The Hornet II is flying great and Jon is starting to push out of his comfort zone, inspired by the great handling of the Hornet II. It's been three weeks since anyone has seen Jon's Piccornet or CP Piccolo, but rumour has it that they are in fact alive, well, and taking a long earned rest in Jon's workshop :).
Jon
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22/12/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
Well another busy week... Andrew, Ben, Dean, Jon, Mike and Rob all turned out tonight. This week's report will be a little short as I had to leave early, but from what I hear everyone had a great night.
Andrew and Ben spent a good part of the night trying to get Ben's GWS Dragonfly sorted. A spare tail motor from Rob helped the cause considerably, but I wasn't around to find out the final outcome.
Deane was getting some great flights in with the PRO Piccolo. His machine is really well sorted now, looks great in the air and is flying really well. Deane had a bit of bad news in that his Raptor had augured in over the weekend - suspected battery pack failure.
Rob was flying around in fine form, although an attempt at giving Deane an unscheduled haircut with the Piccolo nearly cut Rob's flying (and Deane's hair) short :).
Mike was back with the CP Hornet, now sporting much more throw on the tail rotor pitch. Some quick test flying by Deane, and some further tweaking of the gyro got the CP Hornet pretty much 'in the zone'. I wasn't around long enough to see how Mike's flying is going, but hopefully he's finding it easier now the tail is sorted out.
Jon had the Hornet II there again, and no Piccolos again... Jon only got a couple of quick flights in as he had to leave early. As usual for Jon, the Hornet II has now been modded! It stayed standard for a week, which is probably a record for Jon :). Unlike the Piccornet, this mod set is nothing radical.
A ChrisR swashball for the swash, Andrew's CSM heading hold gyro, and an Astro 10 Heli brushless motor coupled with a Castle Creations Phoenix 10 Controller. Jon's back to running in governor mode now, with the head speed governed to 2100 rpm.
Jon reckons the mods have just put the icing on the cake and made a great out-of-the-box heli simply brilliant! However, a really bizarre wag developed on his last flight, which was finally traced to the main motor bolts having worked loose! Some fast work with an allen key resolved this issue, and Jon has added 'check motor bolts' to his pre-flight checklist :).
Jon
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15/12/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
A slightly busier week this week. Andrew, Dean, Jon, Mike and Rob all turned out tonight. Andrew had to leave early as he had a full-size heli exam the next morning, but waited around long enough to see Jon's new toy take to the air.
Deane was getting some good flights in with His PRO Piccolo. A little gyro adjusting later in the night really brought a smile to his face, as Deane hasn't been overly happy with the PRO's tail up until now. A few minutes of flying after he'd adjusted it, and he was a happy man.
Rob was flying his latest paddle design for the fixed pitch ECO Piccolo, and they were looking really good. The blade tracking was spot on, and the heli certainly seemed to be responding really well. Rob was on for some VERY nice slow piros, and some good circuits were forthcoming as well.
Mike was up and about with his CP Hornet and looking good. I don't think it will be long now before he's performing sustained hovers. I think the time is getting close for loosing that training gear Mike :). Deane also had a go with Mike's Hornet, and was not too happy with the tail response. Further examination reveled that the tail has only half the required pitch range, so Mike's going to look into that further to find the cause. Having seen how limited the tail is at the moment is a real credit to Mikes piloting - we all think he'll come on with a whoosh and a roar once that tail is sorted out properly.
Jon.. ah yes.. the boy with the new toy :). Jon had managed to sneak under everyone's radar, and quietly purchased the new MS Composite Hornet II from the states on the day it was released. Apparently a lot of midnight oil was burnt over the weekend, as it didn't arrive until lunchtime of the Saturday before the meeting. Anyway it was there - and finished too! Handily, Mike's 'old' CP Hornet was there for direct comparison, and yes there are a LOT of changes. It flew well, considering that Jon is still in "set up and fine tune" mode, and a rather nasty 'arrival' late in the evening, gave testament to the machines durability. Rob took some photos for us, and we'll get those on line in the near future hopefully.
Jon
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8/12/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
A bad week for me - I didn't make it this week due to illness - thanks to Rob, for filling me in on what went on.
Andrew, Deane and Rob turned out from the regular crowd. Daniel didn't end up making it, but Ben, a friend of Daniel's brought a DragonFly along. Apparently it was afflicted with no-lift disease, so Andrew spent some time assisting in sorting it out. Rob was trying out some new paddles that he's been designing/moulding. Not much luck with this weeks batch due to a too-short fly-bar, but he's already got the Mark IIs under way.
Jon/Rob
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1/12/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
Another quiet week - Andrew Rob and Jon flying tonight. We also had a visit from Daniel, another micro flyer. Daniel has a couple of machines on the go, including a PRO Piccolo. and we're looking forward to seeing his helis soon.
Everyone had a pretty good nights flying - no major incidents, and we all seemed to get a goodly bit of flying in... Jon was getting Andrew's CSM gyro dialled in on the Cobra and was looking pretty pleased with things. Rob got some good flights in, and Andrew was having a fun time too.
Later in the evening, as it was dead calm and mild, Jon and Andrew went out and had a bit of a fly around the hall car park in the dark, a pleasant conclusion to a good evening's flying...
Jon
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November 2003
Pictures of the November 2003 meetings are now available in the November 2003 Gallery
24/11/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
Another short one I'm afraid... This week had a slightly different line up - Andrew, Deane, Jon, and Rob turning out for a fly.
The highlight was both Deane and Andrew bringing their larger helis for a look-see. Andrew's Voyager was there as an organ donor for Jon's machine - Jon's borrowing the V-E's CSM gyro for some experiments. Deane brought along his brand spanking new Raptor V2, which made for a perfect photo-op with the littlies and biggies all getting together for some shots. Another gallery item yet to be done I'm afraid!
The only real downer for the night was a series of weird glitches affecting both Deane's and Jon's machines. Jon had a couple of close calls, but it was poor Deane's Pro that bit the dust hardest with a nasty boom strike putting paid to Deane's flying for the night. I hear that Deane had been busy repairing, and the Pro will be back for more at the next meet.
17/11/2003 - Weekly Fly-in
Just a short report this week - problems on the home network are pressing heavily on my time. This week saw Andrew, Jon, Mike and Rob turn out for a fly.
Rob's FP ECO Piccolo was sporting a new set of MS Hornet paddles, Rob reports that they have quickened the response of the Piccolo quite markedly.
Mike is coming along nicely with some controlled hovering starting to feature in his flying repertoire. A 'bad luck' slip tail-first into the ground caused a nasty boom strike, but Andrew came to the rescue, repaired the boom and got MIke flying again.
Andrew, bedsides acting as "Hornet Surgeon", was putting on his usual display of fast accurate flying.
Jon managed to field two helis tonight (thanks for the tail motors Deane!) and had a quiet night without crashing or equipment failure.
Jon
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10/11/2003 -Weekly Fly-in
Well, what a turnout. SIx helis, seven pilots and a couple of visitors as well! The stage was set for a busy and interesting night. We had Andrew, Deane, Jason, Jon, Keith, Mike, Rob and all having a fly tonight - the air was fair buzzing, with up to four helis in the air at once.
Andrew was having a great night. He's started doing sling loads on his full-size heli course, so he decided to get some practice in with the Hornet! He was buzzing around for most of the night with a weight slung under the belly of the Hornet. I managed to get some video footage of it, so I'll put it up in the gallery when I get chance.
It was great to catch up with Deane again. I haven't seen much of Deane lately - we never seem to be at the hall on the same nights. Deane's Piccolo Pro is flying like a dream, and I managed to get a few shots and some video which I'll also put up when I can. Deane also brought his turbine along for us to have a look at - very impressive indeed! It certainly captured our interest! Photos of that also to follow soon.
We also haven't seen Jason for ages, so it was great to have him flying with us again. Jason flies a mildly modded Fixed Pitch ECO Piccolo, and was certainly making up for lost time tonight! Watch out for Jason and his heli popping up in the Pilot and Heli profile pages soon.
Jon was having a better night. He's still flying the bitsa, and still hasn't decided what to build next.
Both man and machine seemed to be 'on' tonight, and it was nice to see him finish up a night with no crashes and no equipment failures :).
Keith, for those of you that don't know, is kind of an honoury member of our group. We haven't seen him for a while (I seem to be saying that a lot tonight :) ) so it was great to have him back. Keith had a couple of flights with Rob's Piccolo and I think I got photos and maybe video of that too.
Poor Mike seems to have caught Jon's run of bad luck. Andrew was getting the Hornet trimmed out for Mike when something went a little awry. The upshot was virtually a repeat of last week for Mike. By the time they had the Heli sorted again, the batteries were too flat to fly. Better luck next week we hope Mike!
The bad luck bug also decided to bite Rob tonight. After having a couple of nice flights and Keith having a go too, Rob's Piccolo suddenly lost left/right cyclic. I didn't get chance to catch up with Rob to see what the problem turned out to be, but a failed servo was suspected.
So all in all it was a pretty busy night. I'm between computers at the moment, but as soon as I get the home network back in order I'll get the photos and videos of tonight posted here. Seeing what a great night it was, I might even do a Nov 10 2003 Gallery, and put everything in one place. Stay tuned....
3/11/2003 -Weekly Fly-in
Our first Monday night flying session. Andrew, Jon, Mike and Rob were all in attendance.
Rob and Andrew were both flying fine style - Rob is really starting to get the hang of circuits. Jon was playing with his new camera (again) and filmed a short clip of Rob hovering about. The video clip can be downloaded on the gallery page if anyone is interested, it's only 45 seconds, and about 1mb in size.
Mike was having issues with tail vibrations on his Hornet. Some timely tweaking by Andrew got it sorted out, but not before they had nearly flattened the batteries sorting it. So a short ground hog session was all Mike got for the nights effort.
Jon is still flying the bitsa, pending a decision on what war bird is going to be next :). He's acquired Rob's partially completed cardboard Cobra, so odds are that it will be appearing in flying trim soon. Jon got a couple of good flights in with bitsa, before it started making the most god awful noise. It sounded suspiciously like a run bearing, so he quit while he was ahead.
Jon
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