Hey all, I wanted to share some of my newbieness. After thanksgiving i posted my First flight failure report. Glad to say im doing a bit better.
6-pack of new propellers arrived so Me & the guys from the office took the SlowStick out again the other day at lunchtime. During the range check, keith noticed the servos were reversed on the elevator AND rudder. Possibly why i turned LEFT into a tree and crashed only a few seconds into her maiden voyage. Still a dumb mistake, but somehow i feel better about it.... Straightened things out and we flew nicely, properly, heck - almost like we knew what we were doing. SInce we were passing the Tx back and forth, 'we' pretty much experienced the same things. Had a couple of deadstick landings from when the battery got low and the motor shut off. Anybody with a SS knows that she doesnt really fly any differently without the motor, so the landings were actually damned fine if i do say so myself. With a nice stiff belt of Baileys in my coffee, i got up the nerve to try some fancy stuff. Dove straight down and pulled a couple of nice loops not 6 feet off the deck. I havent been this excited since the first time i got to 3rd base ;) I did crash into a baseball field backstop, and also crashed when a gust of wind (maybe 10mph) caught her mid-turn and she got into a death spiral. Ive since figured out that full throttle and hard 'countersteering' can usually save the day. Boy, she hates wind though. Next day was really way too windy, but WTH. Kieth took her up, wind caught her badly and he managed to keep it level, but couldnt fight the wind, so he ended up landing in a tree about 4 feet up. I took her for a spin and after a few minutes i wound up in a tree also. About 30 feet up. I have no excuse, wind wasnt to bad at the moment. My depth perception was telling me that i was 20 feet in front of the tree. Oh well. Havent shimmied up a tree in ages. Didnt do badly for an out of shape computer luser. Need new glasses. So far, in maybe 8 flights weve broken 4 props, and dented a wing from throwing snowballs to get her out of the damned tree. crashed maybe 12-15 times. Some pretty hard too. Gotta love this plane. Weather this week is supposed to suck, so i gotta get my jollies with FMS for a few days. Cant wait to get out again. Seems ive got this big fish hook in my cheek pulling me towards the field....Thrills and chills at 6mph. Thanks y'all, Mike