Hey guys,

As Mr. Sai had already pointed out in a previous thread, we had a complete ball yesterday at the RCPA airfield.  The guest list was more than 50 people and almost all the flyers in Chennai were there.. It was RC mania there!

I had taken my 50cc Yak and had about 5 flights with it and completely abused it!!    !! And almost mastered a hover on takeoff!! And it was a very different experience flying from pilot posts!! Took a couple of flights to get used to it!!

The best part was yesterday was the first day of helis for me (just got a Raptor 50 Titan)! The first flight on a heli, I took off and hovered for about 3 mins under Aravinds guidance and then proceeded to do circuits!! Did about 4 to 5 circuits and came in for landing!! After that I had about 4 more sorties and was getting familiar with the controls and orientation.. Thanks to Aravind, I was able to fly quite well yesterday !

Would be posting a LOOOOTT of photos and videos in the days to come!!

- Chan

Sounds awesome   

So was it the official opening of the new field ?   

Not cool that you guys are not posting pictures right away !   

Shoi Saabar Ya Anwar   

Chan  was the hero of the place  even though true life hero Ajith was around 

Saju is to blame for lack of photo's from my side can you imagine carrying a discharged camera to the field 

Can't blame me I don't have a camera worth its name at all 

Sai

Lame excuses       Maa yaghder....  Marra thaani maafee 

Wow. The RC activity in Chennai seems to be great !
We, in Allahabad, too had a ball this Sunday, though just with 2 fliers around ( apart from myself ).
I flew my Javellin ( on its 5th flight ) with the Saito 125. Lovely airplane, and flying qualities.
Though in its 3rd flight of the day, had a engine cut and though landed quite nicely the landing gear came off ! I am so surprised at the build quality of these ARF models. What looks good on the top has so much crap within !  Any engineer worth his salt wouldnt have designed the gear in the way it was on this airplane. I would be doing quite a bit of work on this in the next 3-4 days to design a better gear and install it on the plane.
-Gaurav

Virtually ALL of the ARFs I have seen/assembled need reinforcement in the firewall and landing gear areas. I have an IMAGINE 50 and although a "premium" ARF from Thunder Tiger, had virtually no glue around the U/C mounting plate and came off on a normal, albeit slightly hot, landing in grass!

Thanks a lot for the compliments uncle.. We flew till dark yesterday!

And also posting some pics I had!! Would be posting some more!

- Chan

A pic of my Raptor

- Chan

Yes i seem to be realising this . Javelin has been my third ARF. ( Phoenix Tiger and Scanner being the previous ones ). How is the Imagine performance ? Seems like this plane too has a fuse length greater than wingspan, so performance must be pattern like ? What engine do you have on it ?

Chan, Way to go ! My Raptor is still ( and perhaps would remain like that for a while)  in the box, wish I had someone like Aravind to train me too !

Super fun on Sunday at RCPA runway. Chan was the most talked about pilot. His stunts on the gasser and first Heli flight amazed me. Chan macha, you will go down on Chennai's aeromodelling history pages.

Capt Velraj was another pilot who impressed me a lot. A real sad ommission was Ajith's pusher type Jet which he couldnt get started even after so much of effort. That would have been awesome fun to watch.

Excellant flying by Sai sir's son with cool electrics planes. If I ever start flying, its going be one of those models first. It looks quite possible now, Aravind's Helis and now Chan's flight set my pulse up. Ajith commented that since I am into cars, its just natural that I will take to flying. He asked to hang around often with this crowd and they will convert me. 

The FPV amazed me, Cool gadget. Some interesting ideas on the Assan module for my Transmitter, going to work with Sai sir to see if its possible.

Had some excellant runs on the tarmac and offroad with my Truggy and Monster truck. Some straight line runs excited me and hit good speeds.

Thanks for the compliments Ajo!! Your cars rocked too! Am planning on getting a nice car next since my heli dream has been achieved!  And this is mainly because of the numerous car tracks that have popped up too!! Might be interesting to have races on Saturdays and flying on Sundays !!

- Chan

Awesome... Let me know, we will plan it.

Another day at the field..  3 hours on the field, and NOT a single flight. Enjoyed it thoroughly though, with various activities.

Helped some one (who is also a member of this forum) with his first ever RC flight on a buddy cable    He has been preparing with my Real Flight sim for a while.  Some one else offered his high-wing plane and his radio, and I volunteered with my radio as the student one (Futabas). Windy day, so did not do it for long.  Hoping to continue with it next week.

Helped someone with test flying his Trex 600 Nitro heli.  He was a seasoned airplane flyer (about 10 years), but recently got into helis. Did one tank with him on a JR buddy setup (he was well prepared, came with two radios etc).

The lowlight was that a 30 size heli crashed due to the mismatched servo arm issue (http://www.rcindia.org/rc-general-topics/servo-arms/)    In the attached picture, the white servo arm disc is a futaba one (shown removed and dangling), and the servo near the nose is a JR one. 

If anyone noticed, the pull start was a highlight of this 30 sizer !

another flying video of twinstar

not much flying these days, but we performed air shows in iit guwahati and thapar university patiala last week
followed by chuck glider workshop.

Can you expand on what was involved in these ? 

Would love to see some pictures from the chuck glider workshop.

It IS a pattern ship and flies like one. Smooth, and predictable. No apparent vices. I have an RCV 58 on it.  Not fast like a 2 stroke but oodles of power. The plane is good but not worth the premium price. The build quality and fit of some components ( like the dihedral brace) was worse than some of the Chinese ARFs.  A CM Pro Magpie or similar plane should be just as good at a considerably lower cost.

BTW I have a Javelin too that has not been flown yet.

Is that a Javelin 90 ? I have always been interested in Pattern. Have you tried the GP Venus or Venus II ?

No. It is the Javelin II - 45. I have had the Venus. It is (was) an excellent airplane. Would rate it a bit better than the Imagine. Used the same engine on it.

Yet another day at the field, mostly in trainer role on buddy cord setups.

Flew my brother's Kyosho Minium. It is so light, it is perfect for indoors, and absolutely a bad choice for any amount of wind.  Had a tough time keeping it in the air with about 5 knots wind. 

And the good thing is that it can fly almost for 10 minutes on a single charge, and the batteries are available for $1.99 each in Hobbycity (http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8864) !

Got to take some pictures of the work in progress bipe being built out of two Calmato 40 elevator sets.  More at :

http://www.rcindia.org/electric-planes/a-small-balsa-bipe-built-using-elevators-of-another-plane/

LOOKING FOR MY RC BOAT    COULD TRY IT OUT AT VENKAT'S SCHOOL GROUND OR SOME STREETS AROUND
PLANES ARE NO GOOD THIS WEEK END   .

well not this week but the week earlier i flew the slowstick again and it crashed after mud being trapped on the battery connectors and it lost contact and my slowstick came down and thud !!. i broke a fin off the edf have to order replacement though i have two more edf's and my front fuse is shattered but i must say i almost did a rol on this slowstick on the earlier flight though it took  more than the whole runway to accomplish and as usual the pulama was great

subbu

Did 18 flights of my Javelin-90 over 3 days Fri,Sat and Sunday. Practised pattern, slow rolls, knife edges, square loops etc.
Seemed to have some problem with the engine yesterday on the first 2 flights, and found out that the exhaust pressure tubing had come off.
Did a couple of deadsticks but after that the Saito 125 flew like a charm.
Till now i have had around 2 gallons of fuel through it, and consider the break in period to be over.
On agenda to further improve flying :
a. Seal hinge gaps
b. Re-mount aileron servos ( seem to be a little loose )
c. Re-mount the cowl - vibration seems to have shaken out the nuts
d. Trim has come off in several places. Re-iron and fix.

Next flight should be on Friday if all of above goes well.

Hey guys,

As Mr. Sai had previously mentioned, it was a really wet weekend.. Restrained myself from venturing out with my planes / heli on Saturday but was unable to hold myself on Sunday! Finally, at about 11am I set off with only my heli.. Went to Sholavaram and waited a while till the rains died down, then put out the heli and then I noticed that I did not have the hex starting rod !! Managed to get it started with my hex driver coupled with my torque starter !!  Did my first solo flights yesterday!! I hovered and did some gentle circuits in the first flight and the second flight I went all out!! Did nice high speed circuits and fast turns!! Landed exactly where I wanted it to land (but the way it lost altitude should not be questioned!! )... Managed to get it packed up and then again the skies opened up!! Was very content at having managed that couple of flights!!

- Chan

Can't wait to see Chan doing weed-whacking inverted

One flight on the Trex 600N (mostly trying to get 4-point tic-tocs right).  The rest was testing and setting up planes for others. 

The star of the day was a Magic "high-wing" 3D plane brought in by a fellow flyer.  It could not sustain knife-edge flight, but other than that it was doing many/most other maneuvers including hovers and torque-rolls.