Diary September month 2006

DAY .. 30.september 2006
Me and Arild went to Leirin airport since Arild wanted to try big sailplanes. But I was first in the ASK21 and got a short flight (low clouds) and after that the weather got worse. Cool to fly again as it is a while ago. Took a while to get into it again and more work on the way up than I remembered... I also finished up my friend Inge's Feather that he have had laying around for many years. It came out at 290g and some time ago this was THE model to have. It flew ok and better than expected. Erik (another model flyer in my club) was also there and had a flight.

DAY .. 29.september 2006
Me and Arild went to Klanten airport to fly his 2,6m Velox (with DA100) and my Katana 2M (with Hacker C50 10s5000mah). His Velox flew very nice and I got to spin it around a flight. My Katana got 20min flight time today and with the new Flight power cells I have more punch in the vertical than before (Graupner/Kokam 10s3200mah). A great evening out if I must say. Earlier in the day I took the Joker heli out for a few pictures of the progress of the local football field.
More Velox pictures HERE

DAY .. 28.september 2006
Packed the car for sailplane flying today but it started raining so I prepared my Joker for night flying instead and got some late night flights. Rune took some photos with my camera. More photos HERE

DAY .. 27.september 2006
Me and some friends in the club went over the hill and visited a local hobbyshop. I got some new batteries in the mail from Griffin and wanted to test them in the heli. They are 10S5000mah flightpower and can take 100A continuous so I they should take my abuse. So I took some late afternoon photos of the shop we visited and also some high pictures to show the shop and the airfield behind (not shown here). He did not want to buy the pictures (not even exchange for 8 metal threads for the sum of 5EUR..) but I understand that. Geir Atle almost bought a 2m model but reasoned and we went for pizza next door instead.

DAY .. 23-24.september 2006 - National Championship F3J 2006
This weekend I should have been to the Soaring Masters in USA but we had to move the National Championship F3J and that is important to me. I was in the organizing committee this weekend so I had a lot of stuff to do but it was fun from one end to the other. Saturday we had splendid weather all day with different conditions and medium winds mid-day. Some thermals and some waves made it exciting as it was difficult to make decisions on when to follow the thermals. Sunday the wind was calmer and the thermals started strong but ended very weak with cloudy and very calm conditions for the finals. I won 7 of 8 preliminary rounds and my team also did very well with 1,2,3,9 and 19th position of 22 competitors. I got a good grip on the finals after a full first round and did well finding my own weak thermals. The last final I could have taken a restart since I got caught at the wrong end of the field not reaching past a small rain cloud. But I decided I had enough points to just cruise around it and home. I am very happy to say that I can call myself National Champion F3J for the 5th time in a row. I flew my Pike Perfect for all rounds and would like to thank my team and especially Tor and Thomas for spotting me.
Links: Results - Pictures - Report Vingen (Nor txt) -

From left: 2.Silver Arnfinn Lie, 1.Gold Jo Grini, 2. Bronze Tor Midtlund

DAY .. 22.september 2006
On my way to the National Championship F3J I stopped by a local hobby shop and took out the helicopter for a small photo mission. Not an easy job since I had to fly in the main street and just above the big cars driving under the helicopter. But I got some good shots in just two small lifts. Later I arrived at Spydeberg and got some flights in with both Pike Perfect, Supra and Pike Brio. I ended the day with acro flying the Joker helicopter for the first time and blew up a cell on the battery! Dammit!!!

DAY .. 21.september 2006
Tomorrow I will travel to the Nationals F3J this year. It was supposed to be earlier but was delayed of various reasons. Maybe I should have flown some sailplanes today but lack of time and hopefully practice tomorrow instead will be better on the right field. Maybe it is too easy to take the helicopter out of the car!
Took some pictures of places I have been before but try to improve myself. All pictures are now in focus and more than before is usable! Next is I think that I need to use more zoom and fly further away in some pictures.
More airpictures HERE

Left: The chairs are mounted. Right: Me and Arild

Left: A typical pictures you get from planes. More pictures of farm HERE
Right: I can fly on the inside of the valley and get both the farm and the view

DAY .. 20.september 2006
Yes more helicopter today.... Packed the car for DS but the wind was not the direction I wanted :-(
Made some adjustments to the camera mount on the helicopter while I waited. Now it is very easy to both change position (other side) and to take the camera of for checking the pictures. Incredible how fast the turnaround time is for checking pictures on an electric helicopter.

DAY .. 19.september 2006
Second day with Joker and I managed to destroy both a charger (did not manage one cell 2,5A charging!!! software problem?) and my old Kokam 3200mah cells did not like continuous 25A usage in the air. One cell got a little thick. This pack has been with me for a long time and I have changed a cell before so it was maybe not expected but it happens. I did some final adjustments on the Joker and with 10degree pitch it draws 28,4A on full power. I expected more so it shows that I can probably fly full aerobatic safely for 12minutes or so. In hover it draws less than 20A so I can get 20min with a low rpm. I have not yet found the best rpm (lowest amps). That will be my next mission ;-) What really was cool was that now ALL my photos is in focus. After I got the heli adjusted there is almost no vibration. Maybe not as steady as the JR Venture in flying but I think that is mostly the weight that is lower on the Joker. More heli-pictures HERE

DAY .. 18.september 2006
Since I bought a Joker 2 yesterday I used most of the day to set it up properly and make a camera mount. Still have some work to do but it is getting there. With the heli I got Tanic 6000mah 10cell Lipo (with some strange cells) but I also have Kokam 3200mah that I can use. With the Tanic batteries the weight was 4820g and with the Kokam 4110g. That is much lighter than the JR Venture and yet it seems to have a lot of power available. The size of the Joker is just a tiny bit shorter (1cm main rotor to tail) and the rotor diameter 71cm versus 69,5cm. Oh btw I guess I need to make a new color scheme... Photos by Tom Olav

DAY .. 15.september 2006
A few more pictures of the stadium that is starting too look as it can be finished soon. Also a pan photo of Fagernes the town "below" the stadium. On the left of the pan photo you can see they are making ready for new apartments with great view.

Pan of Fagernes

Yes they are a bit high but are only for showing progress. Then you need height.

Chairs being mounted

DAY .. 14.september 2006
A couple of flights with the Venture again... No photos just practice at the local football field. Getting the hang of this now.

DAY .. 12.september 2006
Sorry for so little sailplanes but I want to learn this heli stuff... Early in the day I took a small photojob for the local athlete club showing the local school class working. Later I went to the mountains so brought the Micro Swift. But lack of wind made me go look at a big photojob some friends do instead. P�l Vindfallet had said that Vision Completed was making some shots at Tyin today so I went up there. They did photojobs both with big helicopter and with RC-heli and I also got a flight while they waited for the sky to clear up. SO what did I learn today? Well first off all set the camera properly before you take of... I had taken some other shots and had worked the program in the camera a bit. So it got me too low shutter times and not 100% focus... More pictures HERE

DAY .. 11.september 2006
A friend of mine bought a cheap car from a guy with a small garage. I took some test pictures of his house and garage since it was difficult. Cloudy and I had to work around some trees to get far enough away (+/- 3m from the trees). Got some good shots but should have moved the cars. But it was not a paid job so I did not bother...
More pictures HERE
BTW I have ALSO bought a cutter/printer. So I can now make commercial film for cars, wings, signs, whatever you need. I can cut AND print 58cm wide and as long as you want. Have some basic colors and offourse no color film that I can print on. Print in CMYK colors and also silver/gold if that is needed. I should be very competitive in prices and anyhow it is cheap now untill I am an expert ;-) Will put out some tests to show of later but have already made a lot of cool stuff. Dont you want you FAI number on your plane? or Maybe a cool sign or logo on your wing?
BTW 2: I will get 20 Nemo's (Mini DLG made in moulds) to Norwegian customers in November... Some are sold and some are not. Dont know price on final yet. http://www.Nemomania.com/

DAY .. 9.september 2006
Me and my son went for a little drive to one of the biggest airshows in Norway. We arrived a bit late (at 13:00) and got start number 66. Weather was great with sunshine and so warm that shorts was needed.. I took my Katana 2M electro and the Venture heli. Got some nice pictures with the Venture and the Katana got one flight before they ended the flying at 16:00 (they took away the frequency pins). Great show with lots of action and some crashes (yes always exiting for spectators... sorry :-). One 4 motor B17 crashed last year but crashed agin this year. The little I could see sounded like the engines was not stable. Interference from ignition? Anyhow a sad wreck. The other one I could see was while I flew myself. I flew a flyby together with Mustang? or Spitfire? and I was a few meters behind him when it suddenly went straight into the deck. scrubadubbdubb. Nice airshow and good hotdogs. Never tried the waffles as they were empty...
Lots of pictures HERE

DAY .. 8.september 2006
Out testing a new setup for the camera on the helicopter. Seems to work much better as I get fewer pictures that are blurred. A little refinery on this setup and it will be good I think. Took some pictures of a local skatepark and a local stadium that are having new seats.

DAY .. 3.september 2006
Nationals finished and I ended on 4th. More updates later.
Results: http://www.cirrus-rcfk.no/?main=f3b/2006/resultater.shtml
Update 9/9: Cant seem to find time so here is a bunch of photos.
But anyhow it was a good event since we got 4 complete rounds in even without flying Sunday (we had a little rain before the timelimit). I got to be nr.4 and is angry on myself for a distance round that I did not see the others flying 5 laps faster. "Could" have won with 1000p here but as always that is a "could have". Flew the Crossfire all the way and actually got 1000p in all duration rounds. My team was Espen (the winner), Alf Erik and Tor. Tor had a misshap were when Espen got the leading edge in the back of his head so we had to tape the model. In the next start the model blew up in the launch when the leading edge opened up we think. It was a cool blowup and rarely can one see small pieces like this coming slowly down... Another more dangerous thing happened when a turnaround broke and landed 1m in front of the winchline!!! Check your equipment now and then! This can happen and the power of a flying turnaround is big. The unlucky pilot got a zero offcourse but I am not sure I agree with the rules here. It was not his winch but his team mate.
Had a nice weekend in the cabin of the hosting club with Inge and Tor.

DAY .. 1.september 2006
First day of Nationals F3B. Results so far here: http://www.cirrus-rcfk.no/?main=f3b/2006/resultater.shtml
After banquet and stuff we sat down watching a cool fire far away. Got some cool pics I think...