Evil_Merlin's Blog

Woah, like lack of blogging.

2008-07-29T11:39:00.003-04:00

I guess I haven't been paying much attention to the blog. Mostly due to the fact that no one reads it.

Some highly recommended RC sites:

http://www.rcscalebuilder.com/

Yep, thats it just one. The other two RC sites are mostly advertising with little else. RC Scalebuilder isn't like that at all. Its a bunch of SCALE BUILDERS, not a bunch of people looking for the next dirt cheap ARF's. We are talking about some of the best builders and modelers in the world (and I'm not exaggerating).

The Fokker D.VII is doing much better. The cowl is complete as is the fuse for the most part. Down to fitting the wings and all the carbanes which truth be said, is the most difficult part. You really don't want to make any mistakes here!

A few more updates, and the passing of my grandfather

2008-04-08T15:25:00.002-04:00

First, Monday morning, my grandfather passed away peacefully. He was 94. He was a WW2 Navy vet and Pearl Harbor survivor and served with the Navy in every other major incident till the 80's when he retired as a civilian advisor to the Navy (he was a Master Pipefitter). He will be missed.

I've also done some work with the Fokker:

Keep on Fokkering

2008-03-17T22:23:00.002-04:00

The build continues to go well. As you can see I gotta wait till the woodglue dries!

Fuse is coming along great.

2008-03-17T00:47:00.002-04:00

I've joined the two sides of the fuse. I used Thick CA followed by wood glue to give me the strongest joint possible, and to fill some of the gaps to get a nice square fuse.

Here is a quick shot of the fuse sides before assembly. I'll take some more images tomorrow.

Pictures of the Fokker build

2008-03-15T21:14:00.005-04:00

Well got a lot of work done today. The bottom wing is completed. I still have to finish shaping the leading edge on both wings, but I can really do that at any time. I need to make some type of filtering system to clean the air in my build room. I'm coughing up balsa dust tonight and everything in the room is covered with a nice dusting of balsa...

I started the fuse as well. I will be adding 1/64th ply joiners to all the joints. I think it not only looks good, but adds considerable strength.

Lower wing completed.

2008-03-15T11:29:00.001-04:00

I've attached the two outer wing panels to the center section and started shaping the leading edges. What a lot of planeing and sanding to do. I may just take it out on the porch and do it so I don't end up killing myself with balsa dust.

So far so good. I fully expect to be starting on the fuse shortly.

Pictures coming soon!

Some Fokker D.VII construction images

2008-03-11T23:25:00.003-04:00

Some pictures of the Fokker D.VII's lower wing outer panels and center panel. I need to cut the center panel's dihedral braces down a bit to get a good fit, but it seems to be going well.

Working on the D.VII

2008-03-10T14:53:00.002-04:00

Managed to finish up the lower wings a couple of nights ago. I almost have the center wing panel complete and tonight will be attaching them together.

I ordered a glass fuse from Ty Brown for my Ziroli Stuka. That should help my build process quite a bit. Not sure how crazy I am going to go detailing it yet, but I will build two fuses for the Stuka, the glass one and a wood one (using the kit as cut by Mace Gill).

Pictures later tonight I hope.

Not much to report today

2008-02-28T11:58:00.003-05:00

Had CAP last night. Good news is Cessna 227 will be stationed at our Squadron for a few months, or until Wing sells it. Its an older 1982 Cessna 172, but it flies well. I hope to take it up in a couple of weeks once the weather starts settling down.

Too tired when I got home to do any work on the plane. It was snowing rather bad, and I was in 4x4 (I own a 2007 Jeep Wrangler X) most of the way as the roads were really bad. About 1/2 mile from home some young woman decided its a good thing to speed, talk on the phone, and not pay attention to the weather and rear-ended me. Bad for her. Her car took some serious damage, and the Jeep has a couple scrapes in the plastic of the rear bumper. Nothing bad at all as far as I can tell. I kinda felt bad for her for a second or two till I accounted for the phone, the speeding and the lack of knowledge that driving on packed snow is a bad thing.

I've also been wondering about ArsTechnica. I've been a member (or rather HAD BEEN) since August of 1999. A couple of months ago, I had a rather serious blowout with some of the Mac diehards who all seem to love to complain about my posting style. But from what I gather the rather large influx of paying Mac folks, that all complained to the Moderators finally caught up with me and I got the ol' perma-ban. Mind you, I've posted the same way since the first day I logged in. I guess Ars wants to go respectable or something. And of course, respectable to some folks is not badmouthing the Mac, Apple or anything about them. But its totally fair game to badmouth Windows, Microsoft or anything about them. Even when its 100% total bunk you are not much allowed to call them out on it, at least in my style. I actually find myself missing posting on Ars which is almost sickening...

Got some cool stuff

2008-02-27T10:45:00.003-05:00

Well a couple of things. First here is a picture of my bud Scotty and I at the WRAM show checking out a Roy Vaillancourt Fw 190 F-2 as built by the man himself. What a great looking bird. What you don't know more than likely is this is a rebuild from a rather nasty crash. I'm the guy on the right in the ACU jacket.

1.) Willhobby.com (not the company, but the NY based Ebayer under that name) is a total fucking douche bag. I ordered a E-2C Hawkeye from Ebay from him early in January (like the 2nd). After a couple of days, Ebay sent me a note telling me the auction was cancelled and the guy was banned from Ebay. Problem? Sure, I bought the E-2C from him with Buy Now and payed via PayPal. So after much fighting the plane was FINALLY shipped to me the 1st week of Feburary, or a full month after the item was paid for. Case closed? Not quite. The item, specifically the radome, was nearly unusuable. Opened a case with Paypal, only to get told more or less "Tough luck, he shipped you the product, you are best off working it out with him". FUCK YOU PAYPAL.

2.) I got my Fokker D.VIII 1/6th scale kit from CD Scale Designs (http://www.cdscaledesigns.com/English/Sport%20Scale%20Biplanes/Fokker%20D.VIII/Fokker%20D.VIII%20Titel.html). Its not laser cut, its router cut, but they are well done. Its a very complete kit too, needing only wheels and covering. Just about everything else, including two Williams Brothers 1/6th Spandau machine guns are included!

3.) I don't remember mentioning it, but I picked up a small .50 size Zero BARF from CMP (China Model Products) from NitroPlanes.com. All in all, for $79.00 it was well worth it. I'm just about ready to install the motor (a .52 SuperTigre motor). Its a good looking BARF in all honesty.

WRAM show.

2008-02-26T15:59:00.002-05:00

Wow, back safe and sound from the WRAM show. We left in a rather large snow storm that messed things up but good, but we made it down to New York with little issues other than putting up with a bunch of Giant fans.

The WRAM show wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be, maybe because of the storm, or maybe because of the massive flood of ARF's and such from China.

I did get to spend some time talking to some of the big names like Larry and Judy Katona, both two fine folks who own and operate Precision Cut Kits (http://www.precisioncutkits.com/). A few months ago Larry and Judy bought out Don Smith's stuff as he was retiring from the hobby (they also own Palmer Plans). I figured it would be a good time to pick up a set of Ju-88 A-4 plans so I did so. I'll pick up the kit and glass when I can afford to do so.

The trade for the Royal B-25 was done. Its a FANTASTIC kit, the balsa is in perfect condition as is the box. I could easily turn around and sell this for an arm and a leg but I really wanna build it.

Did a bit more work on the BUSA Fokker D.VII as well. I'm ready to install the upper wing servos tonight and get the three pieces glued together...

Did a bunch of work on the Fokker D.VII over the weekend.

2008-02-19T11:03:00.002-05:00

Managed to finally finsish both the right and left sides of the top wing. Did a lot of work on the center section, that I hope to have finished tonight. Its all framed up and the LE and TE are already done, now its just capping the leading edge, the cap strips and all the work needed to be able to mount the outter wing panels to it as well as the mounting plates for the carbine struts.

Big WRAM show this weekend (http://www.wram.org/wramshow.html) that I'm headed to with Scotty. I'm trading my Jet Hangar Hobbies F-86 for a Royal B-25 kit. While most of the show is now geared to foamies and ARF's you usually can find some good stuff for some short money. Its doubtful I will be buying anything as its between pay days, but you never know what you may find.

Still fighting with WillHobby.com (not the Chinese ARF maker, rather one of their resellers) over my E-2C Hawkeye. The plane was nearly a month to ship, and then when I finally got it the radome was completely smashed up. Of course the guy isn't responding to emails so I have to open a Claim with PayPal which is an adventure all its own.

I will post some pictures tonight

Damn its been a while

2008-02-06T16:33:00.000-05:00

Not much to report. Building the D.VII continues. I have both wings mostly completed, but a lot of more work to do before it will fly. I'm REALLY hoping to have it done before Sprint, but thats asking a lot.
I picked up a couple more planes, a Hawkeye E-2C (Chinese ARF), a .50 sized Zero (Chinese ARF) and a Fokker D.VIII which is coming from Germany in the next couple of days.
With SOME luck I'll be posting regularlly again.
PS, picture from what I was doing this weekend:

Construction Started on my BUSA Fokker D.VII

2007-11-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned before, I bought a 1/4 scale Fokker D.VII from BUSA when I was at Rhienbeck this year. I'm going to do it up in Jasta 10 colours (yellow nose, green fuse, 4 color lozenge wings) and Scott (my buddy with the D.VII below) is going to redo his in the same colours. Nothing like two different pilots flying similar aircraft from the same Jasta. Formation flying is just plain nice.

Looking for a decent RC biplane

2007-10-16T13:38:00.000-04:00

Since I'm now sitting on like 10 planes to build (the Meister Scale FW 190D9, the ImpScale MiG-3 and the JHH F-86 are all on the list to build this season), I need to find a nice ARF bi-plane. Looked around and couldn't find anything very interesting.

I did buy a TopFlite Elder 40. Looks like a quick enough build.

Anyone got any ideas for a decent under $300.00 biplane ARF?

What the HELL is wrong with people these days?

2007-10-09T13:54:00.000-04:00

So this weekened I did a nice RC Air Show with the Millis Model Aircraft Club (AMA Charter 1463). It was a blast.

A good time as usual... right up till some kid decided to take a header, fall on my F-22 and destroy the right wing. Now by itself, its not big deal, things happen. But nope, the parent (mother) of this kid (one of three mind you) scooped up all three kids, and high-tailed it outta the park (the event was held at Plains Park in Milford).

So I didn't get a chance to fly at all this weekend. Which will more than likely be one of the last flying weekends for the season, as things shut down rather quickly come the late fall in New England.

So most people will now ask, what about fixing the wing! Sure, but I found three crushed ribs, from the stringer to the leading edge, the leading edge itself broken in three places, the sheeting on the top and the bottom crushed and the outer rib destroyed. Replacement wings you ask? Well since it's an ARF they are available... $99.00... how much does a whole new plane go for? $159.99...

So I'm kinda stuck. Time to strip all the stuff outta this plane I think.

Spektrum Radio is here...

2007-10-05T15:50:00.000-04:00

OK, this is a NICE radio. I've been a Futaba guy for a while, but other than pot flap controls, there is nothing else I would put on this Spektrum radio (the Futaba 6EX radio I have uses a pot for the flaps so I can fully adjust them from full up to full down and everything in between). The Spektrum is only three position, up, mid and full deployed. Since I fly some BIG planes this could get nasty if I am not very careful.

I also picked up a new Tower Hobbies .75 engine. Was in new shape and paid less than $60.00 so it was worth it. I may put it in the P-39 I am building now...

this weekend I have a great fly-in in Millis. Mostly just showing the town the planes and stuff. Should be good weather too.

The F-22 is going, as is the Super Chipmunk. I'll bring some of my partially built stuff too so people can see how they are built...

new radio...

2007-09-27T17:44:00.000-04:00

The past few times flying I've noticed a lot of people using the new 2.4Ghz Spektrum radios. People seem to swear by them... and its quite handy at most of the larger RC shows as you don't have to impound your radio which takes some time at the bigger shows.

So I bit the bullet and ordered me a transmitter. I figure I'm going to buy everything in bits so I don't piss off the boss (IE my Wife) by spending $450 on a new radio and enough servos to do the work in my planes.

I did manage to find a few really good Ebay and RC Universe deals as of late especially for the larger 1/4 scale servos I need for the 1/4 scale Meister Scale Fw190D9.

Been a while for updates...

2007-09-24T17:14:00.000-04:00

I've been way too busy lately.

Moved off to a new job, less stress, better technology and working for a great boss...

Anyways, the F-22 was madiened and flies very well... I had it maiden on a 11/8 prop. It took a long run to take off, but once it was in the air people were rather impressed with its flying. You can alieron roll the plane all day long. Flight time with the SuperTigre G51 was about 15-17 minutes. However before I could take it up for a second flight, I developed some type of engine issue. We (my flying buddies) and I think it may be the exhaust gasket. We also figured we would move to an 11/6 which we think will give it some better speed on the ground to get it into the air faster. While the dual rudders are very small, they work quite well.

Make sure you glue the cowl screws down, as my cowl lost two of them. I took off the cowl for the 2nd attempted flight.

Not a fan of the weird prop nut and no prop washer (which I will be using going forward as I munched up a wooden prop).

Since I last posted I picked up a few more goodies.

Meister Scale Fw190D9. Dino owns this fine company, PJ does the cutting and they are one of the best bunch of people around. I'll post some images of what I have so far (I've done some work but stopped as I need some other pieces cut for the kit).

TopFlight P-39 Aircobra. Got the wings framed out, the tails mostly done (need to do the feathers) and the fuse half done. I'm going to try to finish this up quickly.

BalsaUSA Fokker D.VII. My flying buddy has a nice red and white Fokker D.VII that flies like a dream, so I couldn't help myself and ordered myself a kit at the Rhienbeck Aerodrome fly-in this year (complete and utter fun, if a little hot!).

I also have a Jack Stafford L-19 Bird Dog on the way.

Well thats it for now. I'll try to post updates soon.

BAH!

2007-06-25T10:03:00.000-04:00

Well I've done all I can on the F-22... That is until the large servo arms I ordered come in.

I ran all the cables for the servo's and we are good to go, but I seemed to have misplaced three long servo arms that the alierons and flaps require. I'm not 100% sure how I am going to set up the flaps as they work in conjunction, not opposite, so a Y-cable isn't going to do it. I don't have a reverse servo either. I think I may just mount the servo in reverse and see if that does it. If not I'll fly it with fixed flaps for a bit.

It's really a much larger plane than I thought it was going to be!

The new radio and servo's did show up, now I have spare servos coming out the ears which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I have four spare JR Sports and 2 spare Futaba 3004's, but no spare reciever. So I think I'll hold off on getting any other airplanes.

Our landlord (one heck of a nice guy) just gave me carte-blanche to do what I will with the 3rd floor. I'm going to get some milk crates (12 I think) and get a nice hollow door core and build a nice build table. The one I have now is only 3x4 and isn't big enough for my larger models (Ziroli Stuka, and Romain Research MiG-3). The only "issue" is that I need to move all my stuff for building upstairs! *grin*

F-22 nears it's first flight.

2007-06-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

With a little luck from FedEx I will be installing the radio in the F-22 today.

I set up three of the four required wing servos (one for each flap and alieron section).

The Futaba servos I typically use (3004's) don't fit in the cutouts in the fuse, so I have some JR Sport SR47's on order along with the JR Sport SX600 radio system (I don't wanna move all my radio gear out of my Kaos right now).

I am HOPING to be doing engine tests this weekend.

New toy! F-22!

2007-06-18T21:47:00.001-04:00

Kaos 40 updates, Super Tigre G51 Engine

2007-06-13T16:58:00.000-04:00

The Kaos 40 is nearing completion.

The pushrods and control horns are installed as needed. All I really have to do is install the servo arms and get everything tied down.

I still need to glue the belly pan on to the wing bottom.

I SHOULD be ready for engine testing this weekend with it.

The Hangar-9 F-22 is on the way here and should be here on Friday. The SuperTigre G51 engine showed up today and is ready to install in it. I have 5 new Futaba S3004 servos on the way for the F-22 as well. Found a cool place that sells servos CHEAP. Looks like mostly a robotics place, but S3004's are S3004's. (PS: http://www.ServoCity.com).

Well since I started typing this, I finished up the servo and pushrod installation.

Everything is looking really good!

Nothing much to say today...

2007-06-11T10:21:00.000-04:00

Of course more was done on the Kaos 40 over the weekend.

I installed the fuel tank, engine and the servos. I'm still working on the pushrods. I really hate working with cheap pushrods, but to replace the ones that come with the kit isn't really going to be easy at all.

The throttle line is connected and ready for testing.

The elevator lines are run but need to be joined (the Kaos 40 uses two pushrods, one for each side of the elevator, the pushrods are connected with two connectors).

The rudder isn't even close to being done. I have issues with the amount of motion in the front gear. It also seems to get hung up a little bit in certian areas. I guess thats why I went with a high torque servo anyways.

Both sides of the elevator and the rudder need to be hinged too...

I got a Hangar-9 F-22 (in grey) that should be here on Friday. Nothing wrong with multiple trainers!

Kaos 40... 7/7/2007

2007-06-07T22:09:00.000-04:00

Woah, 7/7/7... nice...

Anyways, lots done on the Kaos40. Alieron servo and pushrods completed, servo screwed down and ready for action.

Main gear installed, wheels attached.

Belly pan cut and ready for epoxy.

Next! Installation of the fuel tank & engine, and finishing up the tail feathers!

Kaos 40 Build Continues

2007-06-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

Wing is just about done. The servo tray has been added and the wing bolt plate added and drilled out. I need to drill it out a little bit more as the long wing mounting screws don't extend out of the wing at the right angle. I also wanna go back and fill the small gaps between the wing halves with some epoxy just to make sure all is good.

The alieron throws seem good, if a little tight, I guess the CA hinges Tower ships with the Kaos 40 are rather good after all.

I'm not happy with the belly pan that attaches directly to the wing, so I'm doing some rework on it.

Kaos 40 Build

2007-06-05T09:50:00.000-04:00

Finally got some time to work on the build of the Kaos 40.

Well actually I did a bunch of stuff the past few days.

I got the field box from Tower Hobbies (a Hobbico) as well as the control panel, battery and all the other various goodies a field box needs for both gas planes and glow planes. So I built that box. It came out rather well with the exception of the draw which is a little crooked. Nothing I cannot live with at this time. I need to sand it down and prime & paint it this weekend I think.

The Kaos 40 wing is epoxied together, and the ailerons have been attached as needed. More than likely tonight I'll install the servo as needed and get the pushrods all set.

I did a little work on the fuse, getting the nose gear pushrod installed and epoxied...

And thats that for now!

Nothing to report today...

2007-05-31T11:54:00.001-04:00

I really didn't get any work done on the Kaos 40. I spend the night watching "Friday Night Lights" with my Wife. She got me hooked on that damn series and I hate football (the only real football is soccer). I really like the fact that NBC has put most of it's shows (the entire season usually) online. Both of us have bigger flat panel monitors so it works out well.

Anyways, back to the RC talk... All I was really able to do was drill the hinge slots in the right wing. The plane ships with CA hinges which I really don't like. I was thinking of possibly moving to Robart pin hinges or Dubro leaf hinges, but from what I've read the CA hinges work fine...

I'm going to TRY to have the wings mostly done by tomorrow.

Looks like all my starter stuff and field kit will be here from Tower Hobbies tomorrow, but I said that last time too...

Oh yeah, a good friend of mine traded me a nice Jet Hangar Hobbies A-4 Skyhawk for my Thor 45 gasser engine. I'm not going to start on it for a while, but its good to know I have a jet out there I'm going to eventually build!

I'm going to do a later Vietnam era US Navy jet I think, possibly Marines... but no Blue Angel bird thats for SURE!

Building the Kaos 40

2007-05-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

Well UPS finally came thru and delivered the Kaos 40 to me last night. Mind you there is still no tracking information on the UPS site. I didn't know where the package was so I ended up calling UPS who couldn't find it either, so UPS had me call TowerHobbies to get a tracer on the package. They said they would call me back when they found it... so when I got home last night, what was stitting on the porch? Yep my package.

While kinda miffed it took so long to get here, I was at least happy to get it.

I was actually kinda shocked to see how well built the plane was. I was expecting to see wrinkled covering and some other problems, but no, not a one, other than where the gear plugged into the wings, and that material would be cut away anyways to put the wire gear in.

I really didn't work on it too much last night other than mounting the front gear steering system and the motor mount.

I should be able to finish the wing up tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures of the process as well.

The rest of the gear from Tower Hobbies is showing delivery on the 4th-6th. This weekend I'll head up to Nashua, NH with the Wife and pick up some glowfuel and a glow plug for the .46FX.

More on the build later.

More stuff ordered

2007-05-27T20:31:00.001-04:00

Well I figured I might as well bite the bullet and get everything together for the glow/gas planes.

I ordered some more goodies from Tower Hobbies, a Hobbico Field Tote and a bunch of the stuff to go along with it.

That should cover the field stuff for now.

Just gotta order some glow fuel.

I really need to get my ass in gear on the lager planes so I can move back to gas. It's just better than glow in the long run...

I'm not having a good weekend.

2007-05-26T23:46:00.000-04:00

Well UPS lied. The Kaos 40 was supposed to be here Friday, and all the tracking said the same. Friday came and went and no plane. Now the UPS site simply says "In Transit" with no delivery date.

That put a HUGE dent on my weekend, as I was planning on taking my Wife flying on Monday. The electric planes are OK, but still rather limited due to the battery charge which is only good for 10-15 minutes. I know on a 10-12 oz tank with the OS .46FX I would more than likely get a good 30 minutes...

So instead I've just been sleeping. I'm going to start work on my JEMCO FW 190D9 tomorrow and see how much of the wing I can finish up...

Ready for the field again tonight

2007-05-24T11:06:00.000-04:00

Got a new prop for the Typhoon. My last landing last night bent my prop a wee bit, just enough to send shudders thru the entire airframe last night, so I replaced the prop. I found a spare spinner as well so all is good for another flight tonight. I really hope it goes as well as it went last night.

UPS tracking shows my Tower Hobbies BARF (Kaos 40) well on the way here with delivery date tomorrow. I figure I MAY be able to get it done by Monday (Memorial Day, thank God for a day off, and thank God for our true American Heroes that put it all on the line for us every day, and those that lost their lives for our freedom and the freedom of the world) and try to get it in the air. I do have to pick up some Glo fuel and a pump and a caddy, so I may drive up to New Hampshire (Nashua) to RC Warehouse.

I forgot just how much I love RC flying.

OK so I couldn't wait. I went out and spent my lunch flying. I'm glad I did. The front canopy hold down pin popped and its gone for good. The first flight the canopy flipped open and was causing all sorts of evil problems in flight, so I brought the plane down, and just took the light flexible plastic canopy off. The battery is held in by a nice velcro strap, and the reciever is buried so far into the foam there is no chance of it falling out. Then she flew QUITE well. The down elevator is a bit heavy, about twice the power of the up elevator, so I need to adjust the clevis for that. I did a few nice alieron rolls and some stalls. It felt very good to see this little cheap plane doing those type of things. The feild is damn near impossible to land on due to the ruts so I just brought her in close to the ground and let the airspeed bleed off till she balooned in. Of course right into a deep rut and she flipped right over. No damage done. I did notice though that the wing joiner is only one screw and it doesn't really do all that much. The right wing was working its way loose. I'm going to have to fix that with a bit larger screw tonight before I go flying again.

Finally some good flying time

2007-05-23T21:11:00.000-04:00

I took the Typhoon to my local flying field (http://www.burlington-rc.com/), where one of the club members was flying a nice looking Hangar9 Twist3D 60. Rather good pilot, still getting used to the whole 3D flying (which I still don't understand yet). He was having a grand old time doing verticals and high rate spins, but mostly practicing his landings. He powered his bird with a nice Saito 90, and it simply sounded stellar.

It was a little windy so I didn't take my Typhoon out of the Jeep but he finally convinced me to give it a go.

I'm glad I did. It was my best flying ever. A good 12 minutes two ROG's, one good landing, one not so good upside down landing... but I felt damn good of the flights. The wind was a little heavy but at 50% throttle the Typhoon didn't have much of an issue cutting thru the winds and was nicely responsive. I didn't use the high throws as full right rudder made the servo sound rather sick (I think its stripping which is common on the Typhoon's stock servos), and I'm not at all familiar with flying birds with such large control surfaces so I just did what I could. And I had a total BLAST.

Today rated my best flying in about 2 years... hopefully the wind will die down a bit more tomorrow and I can get some more stick time in. At the end of the week I think I will swap my radio gear from my Cessna 182 (FlyZone) into the ParkZone Typhoon. While the FlyZone's radio isn't the best, its certianly better than the ParkZone's!

Last nights flights...

2007-05-23T11:53:00.000-04:00

So I took my wee-little Typhoon out last night for a few flights.

Blech. Something doesn't track well on it. The plane is balanced fine, the control surfaces seem to be set neutral, but it just doesn't fly too well.

The grass on the feild I use was a bit tall so take off's on the stock wheels was horrible. I ended up having to use the "Rest Area" or Pit Area as my runway. The take-off seemed fine, and I tried to gain some altitude to start trimming, but it just kept climbing even at half throttle. Every time I tried to turn the plane, it would start climbing again. It got so bad, I ended up in a flat spin right into the trees. No damage done other than the loss of my spinner...

I'll try to re-trim today, but it may be a bit too windy today.

Tower Hobbies shipped my BARF... should be here Friday.

I hate fanboi's

2007-05-22T16:04:00.000-04:00

Yeah I know, I've been called a Microsoft fanboi a few times (mostly by Mac folks), but damn fanboi's REALLY piss me off. Almost as much as those rabid anti-Microsoft folks who don't like Microsoft simply because they are doing well... monopoly or not, they do make decent products. Vista, Office 2007, Xbox 360, Visual Studio, Exchange, SQL 2005 are all excellent products.

You know I've wandered over to http://sharikou.blogspot.com/ run by some guy who claims to be a PhD, yet was outted not long after claiming to be one, to NOT be a PhD. This guy makes even the Mac fanboi's look a little less insane... be prepared to laugh if you read the blog. Its simply stunning to see the crap he dishes out and some of his lapdogs who lick it all up... scary.

I started in the computer industry over 17 years ago. I was a Mac guy thru and thru until Apple screwed the company I was working for over. Since then I've used Windows, from Windows 95 on up to Windows Vista. I was lucky enough to be a Microsoft MVP for 6 years supporting both XP and Windows Server 2003. But I still managed to keep learning Macintoshes and more importantly MacOS X. I still own two Macs, a middle of the line iMac and a top of the line MacBook Pro. The iMac is running OS X 10.4.* and my MacBook Pro now runs Vista, since its more usuable with Vista on there now...

To say the least, I've been managing systems for a long time. I've been around HP hardware mostly, with some Dell stuff. From the 2500's all the way up to the C-Class blade chassis. From the 2450 to the 2950's and the 2550 blades. So I tend to speak my mind. When you work for a huge financial company you tend to use what you have to, so I've used Intel and AMD based servers (I now use mostly Woodcrest because of cost/peformance, especially now that the quad-cores are out), I've used SAS and SCSI, Windows and Linux... so yeah I tend to be opinionated, but chances are I've seen the stuff first hand...

I hate these idiots that stand blindly behind a product because its X or Y for no other reason. Its amazing watching some of the Mac idiots claim loyalty to Jobs because he is Apple and for no other reason. I hate the idiots that stand behind AMD because they are AMD. I hate any of the idiots that don't see the fact of the matter is that sometimes it just isn't the better product....

So much fo flying today...

2007-05-21T09:47:00.000-04:00

Well I figured I would take the Typhoon out today and get a couple of quick flights in after I rebuilt her.

During it's first test flight, while doing ground tests, the entire firewall ripped out of the fuse. That probably what I get for buying planes from Ebay but I really need to get my flying skills up and the ParkZone Typhoon (http://www.parkzone.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=PKZ4100) seems to get decent reviews. I've replaced the stock crappy servos (lots of reports of them stripping gears after only one flight) with Futaba 3004's (ball bearing and quite a bit better than the crap ParkZone ships with, but then again you are paying a platry $220 or so for a plane, 4 channel radio, battery & charger, so I can't complain too much). I did all my balancing and throw testing last night and it all looks good. So this morning I look out the window and lo-and-behold its nice and sunny. Mind you it's been raining up this way for a good five or six days straight. But its windy as all hell... so no flying today...

Also Sunday I ordered a new plane, I need to get an ARF to keep flying and need to get my glow engine going (OS .46FX) and because I really need to get more low wing flight time... So I picked up a Tower Hobbies Kaos 40. (http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0001P?&I=LXZT80). We will see how she flies soon...

Anyways, thats it for me till tonight.

Planes I'm currently working on...

2007-05-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

Since it's going to come up sooner or later here is a list of stuff I am currently building:

1/4th scale MiG-3 from Romain Research. This is an older set of plans, but I managed to find laser cut wood, all the fibreglass and a nice spinner for a really good price. I'll get started on this one once I knock out a couple of other planes. Here are some images of the plans and the kit:

A ImpScale (http://www.impscale.com) 1/5th scale MiG-3. This one I worked with ImpScale to redesign the plane as a more scale bird. Some changes included updates to the fuse, a little thinner cross section wing and some other goodies. I have the wing mostly done right now, well somewhat done. It's framed up but I still need to get to installing retracts (once I buy a set) and joining the three sections.

In the background you can see a few other planes I am working on... the SkyShark RC 1/6th scale Bf 109E and a 1/5th scale Jack Devine FW 190 A8/R2. The little white and purple job is a Great Planes Lancair ES, which I really have to just do the push rods for and get flying... but I'm lazy...

Some other planes in my collection include:

A 1/7th scale FW 190D9 by JEMCO. Its a bit old, but nice, very complete kit, built up balsa and ply fuse, foam wing. I have the fuse done, and hope to start on the wing soon. Its a shame these guys went under. If I'm not mistaken JEMCO used to be run by Jim Meister who ran Meister Scale for a long time before he passed. Meister Scale is very much still around and still adding new planes under its new owner: http://www.meister-scale.com/. In my honest opinion Meister Scales stuff is one of the best entries into larger scale R/C building.

A 1/6 scale FW 190D9 by Fibre Scale. Another nice kit with a VERY detailed epoxy glass fuse and foam wings. I've got the wings ready to cover for this one. Need to get some Hydrosol to do the mounting of the fuse formers to the glass fuse. These guys have been outta business for a while, and by the kit and knowing what they sold for new, I can see why. They could have sold these kits for a LOT more money.

A 1/5th scale Jack Devine FW 190A8 (as mentioned above) the fuse is mostly done, but I had some issues with the wing and recently got a new wing set from Jack. Jack's site is here: http://www.jackdevinemodels.com/. Be aware that Jack has a full time job and is recently a new father, so he runs a bit long for kit delivery, but they are WORTH EVERY PENNY and the wait.

A 1/5th scale P-51C with Malcolm hood from Jack Devine. Yep another one. Love his kits and couldn't pass up the deal when I saw this one for sale! Haven't really even started on this one yet.

A 1/5th scale Bf 109E from ImpScale. (http://www.impscale.com). Not even out of the box yet!

A 1/5th scale Ju-87 B2 Stuka from Nick Ziroli Plans (http://www.ziroliplans.com). I have a couple sets of plans and two sets of wood for this kit. I did up the horizontal stab once, but am going to do it again with the better cut wood. This is my 2nd largest plane with a 100" wing span. The horizontal stab itself is just over 36" long... as seen below...

A 1/10th scale Bf 110C from Velkom. They are no longer making this kit, but its a nice one with a full epoxy fuse, precovered foam wings and all the goodies needed. I have done work on this one on and off, but really didn't do much yet.

A 1/4.5th scale Me 163 from Joe Saittia. I'm converting from the built up wood wings to foam wings as I am more than likely going to try an usual propulsion method for this one...

I also have a couple of other little planes floating around, mostly for something to do when waiting to have enough cash to buy retracts or motors. Currently I'm flying a ParkZone Typhoon, Spitfire and a HobbyZone SuperCub. Yeah mostly foam electrics, but it keeps me flying!

Welcome to Evil_Merlin's Blog

2007-05-20T17:40:00.000-04:00

I guess it's time to get started. I have a minor blog over at RC Universe, but it's getting a little too annoying to post over there. Its really not made to do what I need to do...

So I figure I'll get started over here.

Look for some blogs on my RC plane builts, my general distate of the Mac (even though I own a couple) and some random bull that pours out of my head occasionally...

So welcome! Feel free to email your complaints, comments or what not as well as post them as needed.