Lego Cargo Plane, with a bigger motor, it might just fly.

I thought I might share this.  It's a pretty nice little airplane.

Taking a flying lesson

Saturday I put the first 1.1 hours in my pilots log. It was in a late model Cessna 172 SP.

I had a lot of fun. The CFI was impressed with my ability to maintain altitude and follow course corrections. He said I kept the wings level, and that I was paying attention to the space outside the cabin very well.

The flight was fairly short. The weather wasn't all that cooperative. I got a call around 7am indicating that the flight might be off. I persisted, and the morning haze mostly burned off.

We flew with 6 mile visibility. I found out that it's legal to fly VFR with 2 miles. That's a little disturbing. I did very well until we got into the haze layer while returning to the airfield. I ended up putting the nose down a few degrees instead of maintaining altitude.

I didn't get to land. I am at a complete loss as to steering the plane. I "can" do it, but I weave pretty badly.

I will be going back. :-)

Two months on with a Parkzone Ultra Micro T-28

Flying is fun. Lots of fun. Enough fun that I'm willing to risk my airframe just to fly some more. My little T-28 isn't a very fast plane. And is much less fast when dragging landing gear around with itself.

I usually chose to fly without landing gear, but due to one late evening exercise in stupidity, I no longer have that option. I decided I'd try to fly under the parking lot lights at a local business park. It was quite a bit of fun, but one landing ended up contacting a curb, which ripped off the starboard landing gear. While gluing it back on, I managed to glue the landing gear into the mount.

I've managed to not get any pictures of my plane, really, at all. So while playing with the laser cutter at the pumpingstation I took a shot or two of it.

So this is after "well I've got nothing left to lose" repairs. The plane had started flying like it was carrying 30lbs extra in the air. And i figured it was all my glue and tape repairs. Buying a new airframe seemed sensable, so i did that.

I now have two T-28's. the one that didn't fly right, I decided I was going to dissect and put into a new airframe. Something custom, something more aerobatic. But while looking to take the plane apart, I found that the control horns weren't actually controlling the rudder or elevator.

It's amazing what a little foam safe CA and cardboard will do for control authority.

I still wanted to make a new airframe. .... And because it has a picture of my latest little model aircraft tool, I'm going to give you a preview of what I'm building.

Yes, that was cut on the laser cutter. It's a clone of the Ace Littlest Stick.

Left center you'll see a bunch of E-flite batteries. I have put Velcro on the back of a laminated business card so I can keep track of my cells easily. I hate losing $5 batteries at the turn of my head.

I think we're getting near time to review the T-28. I've put 20-30 batteries through it, so I think we're deep enough that we can say I know the plane well.

Drinking the ParkZone Kool-Aid

It's been a bad weekend for my wallet. But a good weekend for hobbico. A buddy of mine picked up a MCX Helicopter last week. He bought it because his syma S-107 bit the dust.

$80 later he's flying his 4 channel heli around the office. Lucky guy.

I hear his review, and decide I should do the same thing. I bought one on sunday. .... I'm an idiot for not buying one sooner. I'll post a full review later.

Monday rolls around, and while riding my bike after lunch, I stop by my local hobbytown. I'm wandering around, and I noticed that the transmitters for the Ultra Micro series planes, and my MCX are the same.

So later that evening, I'm flying my brand spanking new T-28 around the local park. 17mph winds and all. Turns out I can fly a 4ch airplane.