DAY .. 30. January - 2004
Snow, snow and more snow... But I did fly A little bit today. The club held their yearly meeting and afterwards I flew under the light of the local football field. It was very cool as long as I was under the light. Flying to high made the plane fade away!-) I think I will have to install some light in my Majko soon.

DAY .. 29. January - 2004
My new Superior is ready but there came 20+20cm of snow today.. So I will wait for some better weather for the testflight. But it is now ready and the weight is perfect. I ordered a little bit special version this time. I first wanted a superlight (can only be used up to 2-3m/s) but Samba told me that I would not save much weight on the wing by doing that. So I ended up with a strong spar with all carbon midsection, D-box tips and a superlight X-tail fuse with one ballast tube. I have meassured to types of CG since I normally fly it more backwards than most pilots. The weights are as follows:
Weight for a Pike Superior carbon midsection, D-box tips and superlight X-tail fuse with one ballast tube:
Complete model assembled with screws with CG at 118mm 1995g, CG at 107mm 2055g, Complete wing 1352g
Fuse without screws with CG at 118mm 630g, CG at 107mm 690g, Screws 13g
Equipment: 3xDS368, 2xC351, 1xDS3781, MPX IPD DS, 4x1000mah Hecell, MPX Switch and good thick wires all over

DAY .. 28. January - 2004
New email: jo(a)grini.no (replace @). New domain will also be available when the transfer is ready :-)

DAY .. 27. January - 2004
Wow what a day! It was -10 and fog in the valley but I just had to get some flying done. The winch was set up and the Pike Brio made ready. Today I did not want the Picolario as it changes the weight a bit but hey I found out I did not need it as usual. Just before launch there was a bank of fog coming towards me so I launched and thought there might be some good air in the front of it. All fronts of air one can find usually makes some kind of lift but fog can be difficult as the planes can dissapear easily... After just a minute searching I found the rising air that seemed to also be triggered at a point near land. I could follow the triggered air for several minutes before I had to get back and find a new one. After 5-6 differrent thermals the fog was so much over me that I had to land if I did not want to loose my plane. My clock said 20min so I threw in some landing points with a mark on the ice and a 30sec watch set on the Tx. Looks like I need some practice but on the slippery ice a 90points and 3sec before is ok. I finished of with a speed run with 1/2 ballast before I went home. Looking at my watch I had been on the ice for almost 2 hours.

DAY .. 26. January - 2004
Today temperature was ok with -6 degrees and just a small 0-1m/s wind on the ice. Finally I got some more flights on my Pike Brio. I finished 9 flights in 3 hours and there were even some light lift found. I used the Picolario talk to check my launches and to get the feel of the light lift. The Picolario is great tool to find lift but one has to shut it off to get the right feel of the lift. Every time I found lift the flights became 2-3 minutes longer. The clouds were low at apx 300-400m and the lift never strong enough to get th plane to higher altitudes. It was a super training session for me.

DAY .. 20. January - 2004
Finally the ice on my main lake is well frozen and I managed to open a good 250m for winch practice. We (my club) use a 4x4 small Suzuki that runs all winter so we do not need a big (and heavy) tractor.

DAY .. 19. January - 2004 Denmark ?
It seems to be 3 Norwegians and some Germans for:
21-22.februar F3J, Arnborg Danmark , Hans Dahl Christensen

DAY .. 17. January - 2004
It is damn cold.. so here is some tips on "howto".

Tips and tricks of the trade!

Here is a few tips and tricks on how to assemble a Pike model. They will not help you win a contest but will make your model just slightly more flush and practical.
 

Elevator fitting:

Ever wondered if elevator will keep that tight fit on the joiner ? Well it might not. But if it gets a litle loose here is how you make it tight again.

- A few milimeters from the end of the joiner you use your knife to make a small cut. This cut will raise the carbon fibers slightly and keep that tight fit.

Servocover:

Have you ever wondered how those servo covers are so neatly cut ? They could be cut at Samba but then your servo would have to be on the correct place. Maybe you want the servo to be glued as close as possible to the spar. Or conveniently in the middle of the cut-out hole.

- Start with gluing the servo in or even better glue in a servo frame so that the servo can be taken out for changing of gears etc. Be sure to adjust the servohorn position before you glue the servo in.
- Tape the outlines of the servo cut-out with a masking tape (or any cheap tape you have handy).
- Place the servocover were it fits the servo arm and mark the outlines on the servocover with a pen.
- Cut the servocover at the marked lines and make the corners round.
- The servo cover is then taped in place by a clear tape.

DAY .. 16. January - 2004
Indoor again and 5 pilots were having fun (actually we were 5 but only me and Geir Atle flew...).
My Thunder power LiPo's are capable of 20-30minutes of flying so the X-wing can fly with no stop :-) Geir Atle even borrowed one of my cells so that he also could fly all the time. Hopefully I can get some more flying with my bigger planes soon. Just to fly these wings is not enough for me. I want cruise around with my Superior or Brio :-(

DAY .. 15. January - 2004
Just had to stop and take some photos today. The lake is frozen and the sun is low. Mostly there are no sun down in the valley but in the morning it comes up the valley from the south.

DAY .. 11. January - 2004
There is always a smile onmy face after a successful first flight. And this time I even handcatched on the first flight. It is so good to have a big weapon in the air and a Brio is a gentle and nice weapon... I made 5 flights today and in the snow I tweaked the CG to give me a maximum flight time (we start the season on the ice in March so flying smooth is important). Pictures were again not by me but Frode Kjørli that tried to take off with his motor model but were stuck in the snow.

DAY .. 10. January - 2004
Out flying today but only for a small flight since the temperature was fine with only -2 degrees but the wind was cold enough. The weapon was the Majko as usual with LiPo cells. Arild Hagabråten choosed my camera as a weapon and did a good job. He even took a picture I like as wallpaper. It kind of shows just how dark it is down in the valley and how the sun wants to get down here (here in Norway the sun is low on the horizon this time of year).
Home again I finished my new Pike Brio and ended up on a total weight of 2038g (my wife got a new great kitchen weight for christmas :-). I was happy with the weight as my new Brio is a strong one with double carbon in the midsection and X-tail. Hope to get a testflight soon. BTW the design is the new Zebra from Samba
 

DAY .. 9. January - 2004
Finally I have started the work on my new weapons for 2004. First out is my new Pike Brio and it is now nearly finished. The all up weight is not ready but the fuse (X-tail) ready with correct CG and elevators is 610g.. I have also a new Pike Superior that I have not started on yet.

DAY .. 8. January - 2004
Out flying the Majko again. I even moved the CG back to 84mm (have normally flown it at 74mm) and it is still very gentle and nice to fly. And with the LiPo cells that are kept at +20degrees in the car I can fly for atleast 10-15min before they start to give me trouble. But now I have gone to competition mode on my Kontronik controller so the motor will not cut anyway.
 

DAY .. 7. January - 2004
The sun is barely over the mountain so the Valley is dark and cold with -10 degrees.
But a little higher the temp. is -6 and the sun shines in my face. The Majko was taken out and one flight were made. But after 10min of flying I was satisfied and I went home.
The light today makes it fun taken photos. A pitty that not someone else is out flying.

     DAY .. 1. January - 2004 F5J-contest
Today there were F5J-contest together with the rest of the world. -20 degrees, snow and low clouds were not what I wanted but I was eager to do the event no matter what the weather was. The day did not go well for me. I wanted a test flight with my Superior before the contest so I was up early. Earlier I have had some problems with the cables that connects my aileron stick. The cables seems to break just 1cm from the potentiometer were they are secured to the stick. Sadly this time it happened just after I had thrown the model up in the air and a half roll/loop later I ended up in some small trees with some damage on the tips. Luckily the trees took most of the power and I managed to get full crow and stop the motor before it stopped. But hey does this stop me ? 20min later I had soldered the Tx and was ready with the Majko instead.
Competition: I knew the -20 degrees might cause problems so I started with freshly charged NiCd-cells and warm after the charging. First task is 8min duration. 12sec. climbing and everything was ok. There was no lift around so I just let the model glide around the whole area. The place I flew today is a football/running stadium and snow on the football field has been taken away for practice even in the winter (good for me:-). But there are big lights all around the field so the flying is a bit limited. I found the trees to be the best place to glide over but there was not enough lift for anything to cheer about. Second time I started the motor the cells had probably cooled down too much.. After only 6 seconds run they stopped and stopped and... But I did finish the task and got a good landing but with too much motor time compared to a normal day.
Second task was 10min duration and now I had charged (or topped) my LiPo-cells. I knew they only gave me full power for 5-10seconds before the motor stopped but the model became lighter and weight is important when there is no lift around. Again I ended up with a lot of motor time but a ok landing.
Third and last task was 12min duration and again I used my LiPo cells. I only charged them for a short while to keep them warm but that was a mistake. After 8-9min of flying they only gave me 2-3sec of burst before the motor stopped. And with no lift I did complete the 12min barely.... That actually costed me a lot of motortime-points as it was the Tx that counted motor-run. I had to start/stop several times to get a climb. And everytime the motor stopped I lost 1/2 a second or so + climbrate.
So why do I do this ? And why do I fly even after crashing a model ? Well I love to compete and I need all the competitions I can get this season. Even with this "just for fun" competition my blood went pumping and the adrenaline had a tiny small peak. That's what I love. To control the adrenaline and do something together with others (even though "the others" might be on the other side of the world). So a big thanks to Robert Burson that held the event and to all the other pilots that was out at this time of the year!
I think the results will be HERE during the night or tomorrow (a bit of time difference between here and USA..)

January - Won the first F5J extreme postal competition and first flights of both my new Brio and Superior. 9 days of flying in total
February - New Pike Superior, won Arnborg F3J winterflying (Denmark) and bought a Caracho as a spare F3B-model
March - Good practice on the ice, Indoor and Fagernes Airshow
April - DS three times, new and bigger Brio for F3J, electro fuse for Superior/Brio and the AVA
May - Started editing

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