The consequences of gravity and being an idiot.

I’m not afraid of being self-deprecating or of being open and jocular about my bone-headed mistakes. You may have heard other people say “well, I may be an idiot but at least I know it!” What? No one has ever said that to you? Anyway, at least I know it. Moving along, if you’re reading this, you probably have a passion for RC. I definitely do now. A friend of mine kept pestering me to get into the hobby. Man oh man, is he sorry about that now. Ha!

Just last summer, having no experience flying RC planes, I gave in to the encouragement of my friend. However, I decided to try and do things my way. I knew a lot of people had started out learning with the Horizon Champ. I also know that it’s an awesome little plane even though I’ve never flown one. I was somewhat considering that for my first plane, a good trainer. What held me back was thinking of the future and some of the drawbacks that I learned about it. The main drawbacks, for me, are that it’s not good in the wind and it doesn’t have ailerons. I wanted something a bit bigger to handle the wind that’s here in northern Ohio more often than not. I also wanted ailerons for “bank and yank.”

Why, oh why, do we want to fly?
For some strange reason, the “buddy box” style of learning didn’t appeal to me. My friend is very experienced and a great RC pilot. He even offered but I declined. Was it pride? I don’t know, it could just be that I didn't want to hurt his stuff. So, I decided to get a PC software simulator and a cheapie USB controller in order to learn how to fly. It’s much easier to hit reset after a virtual crash than rebuilding after driving a model into the ground at 40 MPH. And it doesn’t matter what the weather is like, the simulator is always ready to go. Simulators do have their limits but I felt “line-of-sight” is “line-of-sight” whether it’s on a computer screen or in the backyard. Hmm, maybe I should take my video screen into the backyard and see how it feels? (bad humor, you better get used to it)

I made a promise to myself that I would practice on the simulator for two weeks before I would fly an actual RC plane. I tried to put in an hour every day at the least. During that time I decided what I wanted for a first plane. The FMS Easy Trainer 800 RTF. It came with a simple 4 channel transmitter. The plane arrived before the end of my two week simulator training period. I resisted the temptation to throw it in the air before I had “programmed” the controls into my head. I looked at it as a challenge and my friend was interested in seeing how well a simulator could be used for a newbie learning to fly.

Here's a stock photo of the Easy Trainer.

The pixels don’t lie.
But at least they don’t hurt. I have to say that the simulator is a great way to learn. I came at it with the attitude that it WAS NOT a video game. It’s a training tool to learn what happens when I move those stick-like thingies on the controller. I went ahead and purchased the ClearView simulator. It’s pretty cheap, has lots of models, and the demo had proven that it was easy to install on my PC.

I flew several of the simulated models and even let my friend try it in order to get his opinion on how well it simulated the physics of flying. It was very good for learning the controls for flight but it lacked realism in how the planes stall and how landings are. Also, there are some things that are easier to keep track of in real life. Like where the ground is and knowing where the model is relative to where I think it is. But I kept practicing until the controls were getting to be second nature.

There is one thing in the simulator that is unrealistic but it’s kind of a good thing. The landings are very touchy. If I was bringing it in too hard, the model would explode on screen with a crash. Too steep of an approach…crash. Tip a wing and barely touch the ground...crash. This forced me to be smooth and thoughtful about landings and approaches.

Here’s the other thing that my friend suggested I do. He told me to fly at full throttle in the simulator all of the time! His thinking is that this would make me react quicker to how the plane is flying. Then, when I would fly a real plane, it would have trained my reflexes to be able to react quickly to critical situations. Hmm. Well, I took that to heart and even pushed it a bit further. I went into the settings and cranked up the power/RPM of the simulated motors. This would make the planes fly crazy fast. Let me tell you that after that, it made flying normal feel like slow motion. So, that’s how I trained most of the time. Fly crazy fast to hone the reflexes. Oh wait, maybe that just fueled my ADHD. Umm, what were we talking about?

Wait, where’s the undo button?
I think the transmitter that came with my Easy Trainer was defective. It didn’t have an “undo” button. I was told that all of the good transmitters have a button that rewinds time and will un-crash your plane. What’s that? Who told me so? Ok, I made that up. I was ready for my maiden flight but it wasn’t ready for me.

My friend came over and I showed him the Easy Trainer plane and we went through pre-flight checks. That's the other thing a simulator can't prepare you for – proper setup and configuration of a real model. I had been reading all kinds of stuff online about proper setup and my friend gave me lots of help. The battery was charged and installed securely. We checked CG and it seemed to balance right where the manual specifies. All of the control surfaces were trimmed flush, they moved freely and in the proper directions, and the motor spooled up smoothly.

My friend agreed to hand launch it so that I could keep my thumbs on the sticks. I put the throttle at about 70% and he gave a perfect throw out over the bean field. I was in the air! Got some altitude and started banking to keep it relatively close to us. My nerves calmed after a few seconds when it didn’t fall out of the sky. It’s an awesome feeling. I kept it up for about 3 minutes and then I wanted to bring it down. Well, the simulator training had done its job but landings are a B! As in BEAR!

I was bringing it back towards us and had it about 40 feet away and a little over 10 feet in the air when I decide to push the elevator stick forward. Doh! Nosed it into the ground at a little less than half speed. Thump! That was a sound that the simulator doesn’t simulate well. It’s also a sound that I have heard way too many times since then.

The damage wasn’t too bad. Let me tell you, the FMS Easy Trainer is a tough little sailplane. It wrinkled the nose a bit but was ready for more action in no time. I did a couple more flights that day and started coming to grips with belly-landings.

If you use it, you will eventually abuse it. Or is that just me?
Now I had tasted the sweet, sweet nectar and I wanted more. Living in northern Ohio isn’t the most ideal location for flying. I do have a nice farm field behind the house but the wind is a killer. Belly lander models are good for me since my yard is pretty big and touches right up against that field I mentioned.

I really enjoy my Easy Trainer and it quickly became dinged up enough that I started modifying it. For fun, I stuck a 3s 600mah battery in it (it's rated for 2s) and I loved the performance! But then I noticed that the ESC was melting into the foam and the motor started to baulk and screech when I was pushing it hard on 3s. Did I mention that I am an idiot?

Speaking of idiots, hello, I’ve learned a bit about flying at dusk – the simulator doesn't do that kind of scenario. What did I learn? I learned that I shouldn’t do it! I was over at my friend’s house, flying with him and another one of our buddies that has a Champ. It was getting later in the evening and the Sun was going down. My friend took his micro Champ up insanely high in the sky! It must have been up there over 1000 feet! I was flying around him and decided I’d come back down. I noticed that it was getting a bit too dark when I decided to bring it in. I started an approach and then lost complete orientation. I could see it racing towards the ground but I didn’t think to kill the throttle. Thump! It went in hard. The nose was bent horribly and almost cracked off. A chunk of foam had popped off from under the canopy as well. Uggh!

This next part is kinda neat though. My friend told me about using hot water to let the foam form back into place. I looked at him incredulously in disbelief. But I took it home and stripped the electronics out of the Easy Trainer. I got a good sized container and filled it with hot water and then heated it a little more in the microwave. I got it hot but not boiling hot. I stuck the entire nose of the Easy Trainer into the hot bath and what do you know! It started to straighten back out. It was bent almost over an inch and a half out of straight and it magically moved back almost into original form. I only had to tweak it a tiny bit to get it back to perfectly straight. I had to apologize to my friend for not believing him. Even most of the wrinkling came out of the nose that was from the maiden flight crash.

The next thing I did was order an extra servo, control horn, and push rod to give it a rudder. I read that some people actually received working rudders when they ordered that same model. I used a baker’s bench scraper to crease the foam and form the hinge on the vertical stabilizer. It was cool to now have a full four channel plane. I started putting different colored striping on to customize it. I even switched to a 3 blade prop for a little extra thrust. My learning continued and I started to think of what I would like to fly next.

Here's the nose of the Easy Trainer after re-forming it with a hot water bath.

Here's my Easy Trainer all back together after being "broken in."

If you build it, they will...umm...they might..ahh...how does that go?
Well, I had the trainer for several weeks and I started getting the itch for something new. I had read a bit about scratch-building and it piqued my interest. I was already familiar with the idea of a pusher prop design since that is what I was learning on. I got ahold of some Elmer’s foam board and printed out a scaled down version of some free PDF plan for a delta wing pusher. (sorry, it wasn't an FT design) Very simply, I cut it out of a single sheet. It was colored black, both the paper and the foamcore. I thought it looked cool but it may not have been the best choice now that I look back on it.

I didn’t know what I was going to do since the original plans were for a much larger model using thicker depron foam board that was built up to make a fuselage. So, I took the freshly cut main wing along with the elevons and vertical stabilizers over to show my friend. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to glue things up. I didn’t even know where my hot melt glue gun was in the house. I also didn’t have any components at that time. No motor, ESC, servos, linkage, horns, receiver, or programmable transmitter. Nada! To be honest, my friend was a bit discouraging about it and said it would be lots of work to make it fly.

I went ahead and ordered a cheap combo for a motor and ESC. I ordered some props and the other items I needed too. When everything arrived, I started to contemplate how I wanted to glue this baby up. Do babies fly? Anyhoo, I dug into it and did most of the design on the spot as I was assembling it. I had saved some puffy foam packing material and decided to use that for the fuselage to secure the electronics. It almost started to glue itself together.

In the meantime, I made the decision to get the Turnigy 9X as my first programmable transmitter. My friend had been telling me how adjustable control rates and exponential rates were features I couldn’t do without. Well, he was right. I had been using that plain 4 channel transmitter, so I was excited to get a more advanced setup. Also, being able to store settings for different models is much better than flipping DIP switches. I received the new radio and hooked it up to my newly built delta wing. It didn’t take too long to run through the setup for elevon mixing.

I had flown my trainer and I had practiced in the simulator. I was ready to maiden my first scratch built plane. I met up with some friends and pulled out the new plane. I didn't know if I had enough travel on the control surfaces and I didn't know how fast, or slow, it would fly. I got to the edge of the parking lot, gave it some throttle, and launched it into the air. It stayed up but I could see it starting to drop quickly. I gave it full throttle and pulled back on the elevator. By my guess, it was barely doing 10 MPH. I had to keep it at full elevator stick pullback just to barely gain altitude.

I was able to bank it to the right and made a pass in front of where we were all standing. Then I tried to turn it to come around for another pass. Well, the steep bank made it start to lose altitude and I panicked as it headed towards the ground. As it rolled over, I kept pulling back on the elevator and basically did a half loop. Right at the bottom of the loop, the plane hit the asphalt pretty hard but flat on the bottom. It snapped off one of the vertical stabilizers and bent the main wing. Not bad but it needed some hot glue.

Here's a photo of my first build after just a few flights.

That was it. I was hooked on scratch building. It wasn't a pretty first flight but it was thrilling nonetheless. I fixed the speed issue by getting a faster kv motor and flew it a lot more during last season. Now back to the color scheme as I hinted at before. I had used all black foamcore board and added some green stripes, I thought it looked cool. But in flying this several times, I found myself losing orientation because the top and bottom weren't easy to differentiate. I now try to make sure the color scheme is easy to see.

Here's a photo of my first build after many flights.

Ancient Chinese proverb: He who dies with the most planes...wins!
I started into my second build after getting the power problem figured out with the first one. I was making it up as I went and tried laminating the foamcore board in order to make a fuselage. I didn't really get the whole “keep it light” philosophy when it came to aerial vehicles. My friend kept warning me but I only half listened. Ask him and he'll confirm my idiot status. I built several more this way and they just weren't as nice as having a light weight fuselage.

Here's my second build. (it's been banged up quite a bit and the motor and ESC are in use elsewhere)

I was trying to learn as much as I could and experimenting with different designs. I used some packing foam for my first build's fuselage and I eventually had to go back to that because it was so light weight. In the matter of about three months, I built 15 planes. Most of them are simple delta wing models.

Before the end of last year's season, I was able to maiden all 15 different models. With any of those planes, I didn't want to crash and destroy them even though I knew I could just build more. With each flight, I was learning that gravity always wants to pull my planes back down to the ground. Funny how that works. Eventually, I figured out how to crash very softly in a fashion that some might call “landing.” During this winter, I've built a few more but the weather just isn't allowing me to do much flying.

The whole enchilada.
I still use the simulator to keep learning to fly better. I still have a long way to go. If I ever get this gravity thing figured out completely, I'll be sure to let you know. However, so far, there's no cure for idiot, that will be with me all my life.

Here's one that I'm proud of. (photos below) Later, I'll do a write up on it with specs. I based it loosely on an Edge 540 but it's a bit less refined, so I named it Sledge.