DAY .. 30.March
2008 - F3J
- First Cup event in F3J this year and it
started out great with a bit of sunshine though
the weather forecast said just rain untill
midday. Sadly it started raining and got rather
windy but we smiled and all the finalists wanted
the finals and did not want to go home. I won
the event but it was not easy since I use
glasses and had to fly forward into the rain
without glasses... Need some wipers ;) I have
written a small report in
Norwegian HERE (also results).
Pictures by Stig
HERE
DAY .. 27.March
2008 - Extra 3meter
- 6-7 flights today in the sunshine. -14C this
morning and -10 when I got on the ice but the
sun heated rapidly and I was sweating by the
time I had my second flight. Model working well
and today the smoke worked (found out why I
think later during charging). Took some checks
on the receiver (plugging in the spectrum logger
after each flight) and at the most only got 4
fades on A antenna, 1 on B and none on L (I use
3 antennas on the AR9100 from JR). No frame
losses and no holds. That is very good numbers!
One frame is 0,013second... (45 frames each
second). But when I charged the 5 cell pack for
the engine and smoke pump I got a bit of a
chock. Put the charger on auto and coming out
after lunch it fizzled and puffed back there
ending in a small boom. The battery failed and
went up in smoke leaving a lot of smoke and heat
inside. Sad... Well this was the only thing left
to change on the model after I bought it so
maybe it was good it failed on the ground and
did not burn up my car (it sits 4-5cm from the
gasoline tank...). I also have to exchange the
throttle servo that is not neutralizing
properly. Btw since I am alone I start the
engine by pulling a rope around the model that
is easily detachable when it has heated up. The
rope is drilled down in the ice. No way I would
start such a large engine without that.
DAY .. 26.March
2008 - Miles
- So many have asked for information about the
Miles 2m designed and produced in Turkey by P.Kolb/M.Esibatir. So here are some first flight
photos I got from Murat. He says it flies just
like a small F3J model. And I agree it looks
cool too! Maybe I have to get the 2m wooden
class going in Norway again...
DAY .. 26.March
2008 - Extra 3meter
- 3 meter ready to go again after 0,5m
glassfiber and the rest of the
Carboplast epoxy I won last year. Great
epoxy btw. Think I will order more from him (no
I am not sponsored). The model flew well again
but it still revs down a bit on right rudder and
a bit in the slow roll on half throttle. And the
smoke system jammed completely today so only a
few minutes of smoke. Need to take it out for a
check. There is also maybe something with the
pump getting some gas from the common supply of
the tank. I say this because today I only used
2-400ml of gasoline on a 10min flight. So maybe
my smoke pump got some suction from the gasoline
tank last time I flew. Anyhow sharing air into
the tanks is going away... Arild took the
pictures of me today.
DAY .. 22.March
2008 - Extra 3meter
- Lovely weather and my Extra 3 meter got a
couple of flights. Made a stupid mistake not
filling her up after flight one and as I learned
I only have 10min flying time.. A bit hard on
the landing and some cracks around the wheel
base. Anyhow good because after pulling it all
out I wanted to do a lot more in here... One
always find some stuff you want to do different
buying used models.
Pictures by Morten HERE
-
NEW Philip
Kolb Perfect joiners (5,5 degrees) in stock
45EUR for 2pcs.
I have
been flying them for a long time and like them
very much when I need to thermal smoothly. Less
input=less drag
HERE is a few
pictures of the guys in Istanbul making them
(original Samba joiner is 4,5degrees 20g -
P.Kolb joiner 5,5degrees 23,5g)
DAY .. 18.March
2008 - Extra 3meter
- After a days work I finished the newly bought
Extra 300 3meter (out with power boxes and in
with a simple 2,4GHz JR AR9100 receiver instead
powered by a couple of A123 2 cells). Ready for
maiden the weather was ok and Arild also had a
maiden on his Extra 330 3meter. Arild was first
up and no worries. Flew like expected and Arild
liked it I think. I was next and as expected
nothing different than on Sunday though a
canister got loose and the smoke system did not
work. During my flight it became rather windy so
we finished up and was happy with what we had.
We also actually managed to get both models into
Arild's car... Yes they are big... 3x2,85m -
150cc - 17,5hp and 32inch props.
DAY .. 13-16.March
2008 - Fagernes Airshow
- 4 days of flying and wonderful weather with
friends from all over Norway. Not the F3J guys
but the powerguys this time. Every year my club
has a big airshow and this was number 33 in a
row. 76 pilots and wonderful weather can not go
wrong. I was speaker but managed to fly both the
Joker2 with camera a couple of times - the Pike
Perfect electro - and the Adrenaline 2meter in
beetween.
AND I just had to buy a model... A "small"
3meter Extra 300... (you can see it on the
smokepictures). Got to fly it on Sunday and fell
in love... (I almost bought a 3,5m but the
dealer did not let me fly it...)
Lots of pictures by me HERE
DAY .. 9.March
2008 - Mainne
- Alf Magne Andreassen left us today and it was
very sad to hear. Mainne as I called him mostly
was the positive and inspiring man that was able
to take care of things in our community. He went
into things that nobody even wanted to take with
gloves and thought about the community like very
few do. I might have seen it coming since we
discussed an article in a National magazine just
short time ago.. Well anyhow I think there is a
lot of people that would remember him and miss
him.
A typical picture of Mainne. Full of life and
always humour in every situation. Good to have
known him!
DAY .. 8.March
2008 - Gjøvik Flyshow
- Was invited to fly my DG-600 at Gjøvik airshow
so I took the trip over with my DG-600 and used
the small tips (4m instead of 4,8m) for some
aerobatic. Oddvar took me up 4 times and even
though the visibility was low due to wintersun
and low clouds I got some pretty good runs. I
was happy with the two first ones but lost some
energy on the last two. Rolling on line and
lowpas inverted is always fun ;) Photos of the
sailplanes was by Randi.
More photos HERE
DAY .. 1-3.March
2008 - Small trip to Turkey
- Needed a new Skymax 4 and since Philip is
making them in Istanbul I thought nothing is
better than to head down there for a few days. I
brought my old one for some flying (it was
starting to wear and tare a bit) and after a 3
1/2 hour flight Philip met me at Ataturk airport
with a smile as always. Philip has been living
down here for quite a while now learning how to
do business and establishing some for his own.
We headed to Philip's apartment and Philip made some
dinner (Paolo Panfilo exclusive) and I put
together an Ikea chair while we waited for Murat Esibatir and
his girlfriend. Murat runs the Mustang Hobby in
Istanbul and is a guy who knows how to do a show
off hobby shop (nice). Philip and Murat has done
a joint venture project that is very cool
("Miles" 2m competition plane that will be
produced in first batch 250pcs). As we
all know there is a long time since we have seen
any good 2m sailplanes in all wood. All over the
world including Turkey they fly all wood classes
so Philip and Murat thought it was time to do a
really good plane with rudder/elevator (optional
spoiler). I got to see the kit and so far it
looks as a killer for any other wooden sailplane
on the market. Good luck too you guys. If there
were a 2m wood class in Norway I would certainly
need one. In the night we headed for a pub and
watched the Turkey girls move their hips (and
they know how too!!). Sunday we headed for one
of Istanbul's slopes just 40min away from
Philip's place. Not gigantic frontside but nice
scenery and a VERY nice backside! Good thing I
brought my old Skymax 4 and not a F3J model!!
Conditions were great with wind 30-40 degrees
offset but since I did not care about the
frontside I never really flew much there...
Philip flew his Monster Perfect in DS (double
carbon) but had to be careful not to overstress
the airframe in the DS zone.
Winds were 5-8m/s
and with thermals going thru and making it a
hardcore DS site from time to time.
I flew my Skymax 4 probably 80% on the dark side and just
before we was to head of home the wind picked up
a bit for a last session.. I said to the guys
(We were 7-8 pilots on the slope) that now it is
time for the Turkish born Skymax to die in its
home country... So it did kind of. After some
extremely fast turns (probably well above
300km/h) one aileron said goodbye and I lost a
bit of control since the other one was stuck. I
was actually all smiles from ear to ear since I
am totally addicted to this ;) Philip and Murat
also flew their home designed "Smile" flying
wings (looked like a well designed and nice
flying wing that they said thermalled well) and
also some other small stuff. Serdar Sualp also
joined us (and some other guys I dont remember
the name of). A very nice day out and some
lovely DS. Sadly we did not have a video camera
and the Soarist club really need a radar gun
when Philip is soon ready with his own DS Skymax
4. In the evening we (Murat, Philip and me) were
invited to Mustafa Koc's house in Istanbul for
some dinner and we had a very nice 3 courses
dinner (luckily Mustafa stopped the chef from
serving Norwegian salmon ;))))) with finishing
discussions over some nice Grappa reserva.
Mustafa is a very down to earth person and can
talk about almost anything and his wife is half
Swedish/French.
Monday I could have gone sightseeing but wanted
to watch Philip build his new Skymax 4 DS. I
think he loved looking at me flying DS so in the
morning they started painting up the moulds for a
cool looking and pretty strong DS Skymax 4. One
does not need a solid plane for DS but to be
able to enjoy a session of DS without being
afraid of your plane it needs to be more than a
F3B version. We had already seen that my model
did not bend at all and could take extreme
forces. Probably the ailerons went off because
of either torsionflutter or bad linkages. I took
a look around the neighbourhood of the Soarist
workshop and is more and more amazed about
Istanbul. Here you can see all types of shops
from the best gold stores to the poor shoe
salesman side by side. This is a city with
possibilities for all if one wants too. Philip
has done a lot of different stuff but right now
he has learned 3 Turkish men how to build Skymax
4 and they now pretty much how to both build and
work on their own now. Cool to see that one can
build top of the notch F3B planes in Turkey.
With me home I got 3 Skymax 4's (squeezed into
my box together with the broken one). We
finished of the day with some walking in
Istanbul late night and some drinks at "Bar 360".
a roof bar looking 360 degrees over Istanbul.
Cool.
Philip has learned one thing very important from
the Turkish guys and that is to take care of your
visitors. There is not that many places in the
world you get picked up and treated as you do
here (and certainly not on F3J competitions). So
nice to be able to order a ticket and and know
that you will be taken care of when you get
there by what I call close friends (typical F3J
I would say). There is also nothing but smiles were
ever you are in Istanbul. I need to establish
also that: 1. They have better temperatures than
Norway. 2. The girls are pretty and smiles more.
3. There is NO war to be seen here (think all
those guys have moved to Norway...). Some photos
by Murat and Serdar.
Lots more photos HERE (some of them with
mobile camera)
