Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Breakfast with the Guys

This morning I went to breakfast with some of the regulars from the River Valley Flying Club. It was a relaxed get-together and as always I learned something new. Perhaps “Reaffirmed” is a better term. Recently I rebuilt a wrecked model and went out to the field to test it. When I took off the model sheered to the left and slammed into a table in the pit area. For the past week I’ve been repairing the model, concurrently trying to understand exactly what happened.

The first thing I learned is that when taking off don’t “Slam” the throttle wide open. A single cylinder glow motor is inclined to pull to the left and ground loop. Full throttle really accentuates that tendency. Rather, the model should be allowed to gradually accelerate and the pilot should be prepared to apply right rudder to the left gimbal on the transmitter. Concurrently pull back slowly on the on right gimbal, which raises the elevator. The gradually increasing momentum, coupled with the rise in the elevator should allow the model to take off in a controlled fashion. An RC model, thus in its design, has the engine mounted to the firewall with about a degree down and to the right. Since the engine flew off when I hit the workbench I needed to reinstall the forward bulkhead with that orientation.

Another thing I found out was that our President Elect, Wayne, used to own the U-Can-Fly-3D airplane I’ve been working on. He told me he had a Hundred-Twenty-Five motor installed and it flew perfectly. I’d gotten the model with no engine and installed one that was Sixty-Sized. Thus, it is easy to understand why the model was tail heavy. I have a bigger heavier motor and intend to install it instead of the old one.

Linda was after me to get home early because she’d made arrangements with friends to go to the movies this afternoon. We will be seeing a movie about that cargo ship that was commandeered by the Somalia Pirates. I’ll let everybody know what I think about it.