My Wild Hawk Experience

It's Hard to Keep a Wild Hawk Down

2014-05-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

As much as I like my Wild Hawk, there are times when I try things that are too much for me. This time it was flying in stormy weather on Superbowl Sunday. I just had to go out before the start of the game and get some flying in. The wind was quite strong and it was just drizzly. I thought I would have lost it on the launch, but favor was with me and I was able to get in the air without incident. Once up I found that I had enough throttle to over power the wind. I used this to fly down wind and then slowly cruse back into the wind. I drive a Jeep Cherokee, and with the Jeep nosed into the wind, I took advantage of the shelter under the lift gate. I was able to hover my Wild Hawk just 30 feet out for quite some time through judicial use of the throttle and flight controls. I had a lot of fun doing this.

Just as I was about to conclude my flying, I took one last flight down wind. The wind had picked up and I was finding it quite difficult to turn around. Then it happened. I was way down wind, struggling, and lost my orientation. The next thing I knew my Wild Hawk was heading quickly into the ground. I then saw pieces fly up into the air.

I recovered all the pieces that I could find and headed home to review the damage and watch the game. Needless to say, I will be performing another full rebuild of my Wild Hawk. The following are photos of the damage and reconstruction.

From this photo you kind of get an idea of the amount of damage. Fortunately the wing survived quite well!

This is back home on my table. I took all of the pieces apart as well as completely removed anything that was hanging together. I find it easier to re-glue whole pieces together rather than trying to work glue into cracks.

I took everything apart.

I do mean everything!

Again, I found it easier to reform pieces and fit them together by taking them completely apart. I even pulled out hot glue seams that I did not like and re-glued them.

This time I did not use hot glue, but my new favorite foam glue, Gorilla Glue. I really love this stuff! I get a nice strong joint that is light weight. Also, this glue has the added benefit of expanding to fill voids.

I worked on keeping the pieces as straight as possible, making them into bigger pieces and then putting these bigger pieces together.

Here it's really coming together but I did decide to completely redo the motor mount and give it a more correct thrust angle. For a pusher, the thrust should be strait into the CG point.

More pieces of foam glued in place to fill in the gaps.

The final look of the motor mount. Also the nose is back on and some of the electronics as well.

I did later discover that this was just a little too steep of a thrust angle and ended up putting a few millimeter washers under the top motor mounts.

This all took a lot of patience as it does take a lot longer for Gorilla Glue to cure that hot glue and it took some time to take all the pieces apart and remove the old hot glue. But, it was all well worth it.

I don't know why I did not get any pictures of the completed plane, but it came together nicely and continues to be a fun plane to fly.

So, if you completely trash your Wild Hawk in a horrific crash, never fear. With some time and patience you can have it in the air again and have it flying better than ever.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

What Mods to make to your Wild Hawk

2012-11-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Once you've played with your Wild Hawk and have become comfortable flying it, you can get the bug to take your Wild Hawk to the next level. With this in mind, these are the mods I would recommend, and have made, to my Wild Hawk.

Here are the mods that I recommend and the order that I would make them.

First mod: Fix those tail hinges

I originally thought of putting this in with what I would do with a new plane out of the box, but decided it was too much of an upgrade to include there. What I propose here is to cut the movable rudder and elevator surfaces off and replace the factory foam hinges with tape hinges. This is a little more complex than it sounds on the surface. Once the parts are cut away, they need to have the old hinge surfaces trimmed up. The elevator surfaces should have the plastic connector piece removed and then they should be reconnected with a bamboo or other dowel. I recommend increasing the gap between the two surfaces (the gap for the lower portion of the rudder) by about 1/8 of an inch. This will help to ensure that the rudder will have the most motion possible and not hit the elevator. Now you can follow my hinge post on how to do the actual tape hinges.

Second mod: Update that battery

I really feel that the next mod it to replace the NiMH battery with an upgraded LiPo battery. The energy density of new LiPo batteries is just too much to pass up. For about the same weight you can almost double your mAH rating and run time. This is done by checking out your favorite hobby supplier and seeing what LiPo options are available. I recommend 1300mAH to 2200mAH, 3 cell (series connected cells), LiPo packs. Most likely these new battery packs will not come with the same connector and you will need to replace the connector on the battery pack to match the speed controller, or replace the connector on the speed controller to match the battery pack. This is easy enough to do if you know how to solder. If you don't, find a friend or hobby shop person that can do this for you. This new pack will also supply more voltage to your motor. Your new 3 cell LiPo pack will provide 11 to 12 volts as apposed to the 8 to 10 volts of the NiMH pack. This will give you more RPMs out of your motor and more thrust. I think you will find this especially helpful during take off. Some people have warned me about the possibility of burning out the stock brushed motor. While this is possible, I have not noticed any issues with this and have been pretty harsh on mine.

I did a pretty severe mod to make sure that my battery fit the way I wanted it to. I actually cut off the top of the nose and used a soldering iron to melt the foam until the battery fit snug. Then I hot glued the top of the nose back on.

Third mod: Cut in some ailerons

I feel that this is an interesting mod because it can be done before upgrading your transmitter and receiver to more channels. As I found out, it's actually just as easy (if not easier) to fly with just elevator and ailerons as it is with elevator and rudder. I detailed my aileron mod in this post.

Fourth mod: Upgrade your radio

The fourth mod that I would suggest is to upgrade your radio to a 6 channel radio. I would go beyond a four channel radio (which would be enough for all the controls needed on this plane) only because I really feel that 6 channels is the minimum for a really useful radio setup. This is probably the easiest mod that you can make to this plane. The hardest part is deciding what radio you will upgrade to. I purchased the least expensive 6 channel 2.4GHz radio that I could find because I wanted the benefits of 2.4GHz (small antenna and spread spectrum technology) and I'm a cheep Dutchman. My cheep radio is not the easiest to use, but has not let me down.

So this mod is as simple as replacing the stock receiver with your new one. You will need test and make sure that you get the servos plugged into the correct locations and make sure that you get the polarity right.

Fifth mod: Upgrade your speed controller and motor

This is probably the most gratifying mod, as when it's done right, it can really boost your plane performance and enable you to do some really fun things. The things you can do? How about belly take offs without landing gear and vertical flights to high altitude. The biggest thing to take note of here is that this plane is limited on the size of the propeller that can be installed. I've only been able to upgrade to a maximum 6 inch propeller. This means that you will need to turn this propeller faster to get the extra thrust needed to be able to do the things I mentioned above. So, the Kv rating of a motor becomes an important factor to keep in mind. The Kv rating refers to the RPMs per volt rating of the motor. I recommend 2200Kv brushless motor. This is a bit high, but a 1400Kv motor, while certainly enough power, will not give the really fun performance we're looking for. We also do not want a motor that is too small and so we will want to look for a motor that is rated in the 250 to 400 watt range. This will ensure that the motor will handle the current and voltage without overheating. Once your motor is selected, then you need to find a speed controller that will handle the current rating of the motor. Also look for a speed controller that will be easy to program or need no programming, and has an adequate BEC to power your receiver and servos. Depending on the pieces that you put together you may need to modify your power connectors at the battery or motor. I was able to purchase my battery, ESC, and brushless motor from the same company (Turnegy) and so they all fit together without any changes needed. Unless an in-runner brushless motor of the same diameter is found, you will be using and out-runner that will need special mounting. I cut the motor nacelle back and added a wooden fire wall. This was placed such that the propeller would be located in the same place as the original. This post will show exactly what I did to upgrade my ESC and motor.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Wild Hawk Flying Fun

2012-10-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

This post will be a double post as this post will serve both my Wild Hawk blog and RC Flying Fun blog. How you ask? Well, I found a new place to fly and I flew my Wild Hawk for my first outing at this location. This is also the first time flying for me in several months. Wow, a person can sure get rusty! This new location is on a road stub near an abandoned mall construction site. This road stub is off of the main road and across from the abandoned mall. It is also surrounded by farm land used for growing hay. There is a small group of flyers that get together each Sunday at this location. One of the best features of this location is that it is only about ten minutes from my house.
why did I pick a place like this instead of a formal club with a real runway and amenities. Well, I already joined the AMA (I recommend this membership for everyone in this hobby) and money is really tight right now (you folks with kids in college know what I'm talking about). So funding my hobby and paying club dues and AMA dues is out of the question. This site fits my budget and still gives me a good group to associate with.
Any way, here are some photos of this location including pictures of my Wild Hawk airplane getting ready to fly.

I did have an accident and crashed hard after failing on an outside loop.

It looked bad but I was up and flying again after some minor repairs and a battery swap.

I flew all three of my batteries this day. The only unfortunate thing was that on this day there were no other flyers that showed up. I had a good time anyway and could fly and land anywhere I pleased.

Before publishing this post I got a chance to fly again and made a video from one of my flights. Enjoy this areal look around.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Blown Motor

2012-05-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Recently I got a little ambitious and decided I wanted to fly my Wild Hawk in the wind again. We had a few good days of wind and I got my opportunity on a recent Sunday. My oldest daughter is home from college and she graciously offered to spend some time with her dad and be my film crew.

We headed out to the nearby park that I like to fly at and setup for a windy day of flying. We were all set to go and then this happened (see the video below)

Not but a few seconds in the air and the motor suddenly quit! My big head gets in the way so you can't see the crash landing. Fortunately it is spring and the local growth in the wild life area is about three feet high so, no damage at all.

After retrieving my Wild Hawk, I tested things out and the following video shows what I found.

You can see that the motor would do little more than stutter around and mostly not turn. I was so disappointed because this meant that most likely I was buying a new motor.

Time to take this plane back home and check everything out.

Testing the ESC

I suspected that the motor was at fault but the first thing that I did was to check the speed controller with another motor, just to make sure. This picture shows another motor connected as well as my servo tester. This test showed the speed controller to be working just fine.

Now I have to dig into the motor itself to see what is going on. I started by taking it apart. This was easy and just required the removal of a snap ring and the can with the magnets just slipped right off (OK, I had to tug pretty hard to get past the magnetic pull). I then gave it a good inspection looking for obvious problems like broken or shorted wires.

Problem found

Since I did not find anything obvious, I then used a multi-meter to test the windings. I had continuity between the black and yellow wires but not between the red and any other wire. This meant that there was and issue with this part of the wiring. After some closer inspection (this included the high tech method of tugging on the wires and connections), I found that the bullet connector had a cold solder joint and actually pulled right off (yeah, tug test found this one).

The repair

This merely required the correct application of heat and solder to fix. I also found it helpful to make sure all of the heat shrink was where it was supposed to be before I got too far. Next time I'll be more careful with this.

Any way, this fixed my problem and within 30 minutes my daughter and I were back out at the park and flying in the wind. See my next post for that experience.

As usual, thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

How to setup a brand new Wild Hawk

2012-04-01T12:54:00.001-07:00

Hello all,

"Thinking out of the box"

There are people who have expressed an interest in how to best setup their Wild Hawk out of the box and there are those who complain that their Wild Hawk is a piece of crap and does not fly. The information that both people need is the same. There are several configuration updates of a stock Wild Hawk that are important to make it the good flying plane that people love.

This is what I would do to setup a brand new, out of the box, Wild Hawk:

Glue tail surfaces
While the double face tape used to secure the tail surfaces on the Wild Hawk is adequate and will hold the parts together for quite some time, it will come loose. My recommendation is to just glue it up from the start and don't risk them coming loose in flight (yes, I have experienced this).

This shows the elevator flush with the end of the tail spar.

The first thing that needs to be done is to remove the double face tape. If you skip this part, you risk your parts coming apart as your gluing will only be as strong as the tape. Taking the tape off is not easy, but can be done with just your fingers. Using tweezers would probably make this task much easier. Now that all of the tape has been removed, its time to glue things up. It's important to glue the elevator in first and them add on the rudder. Take your time with this step and make sure the parts line up. The elevator should line up at the tail end and not the front edge like it might seem. If you don't line it up this way, you will risk the movable surfaces hitting they tail spar and not moving properly.

Re-position the battery

I don't know if it can be clearly seen in this photo, but the battery
us upside down. It will be rotated counter clock wise and slid
forward as far as possible.

This modification require the removal of the foam ridge at the forward most edge of the battery. This piece of foam it not that easy to remove but it can be done without too much trouble. Once this is removed, the battery can be placed back in upside down and with the power wires still in the side cut out for them. Since the Wild Hawk is notoriously tail heavy and does not have a proper center of gravity (CG), this is the minimum that must be done to make this plane flyable. This does not resolve this plane's CG issues, but give you a good head start.

Don't install the landing gear
While you're learning, you will not need the landing gear. Don't even bother installing them, they will just get in the way. Just make sure that you are flying near a nice grassy area and learn to belly land your Wild Hawk there.

Tape up fuselage
This is an important step to help make sure that your Wild Hawk is as rugged as possible. I have a whole post dedicated to this and it can be seen here: How to tape a Wild Hawk

Tape up wings
This is another important step as well in making sure that your Wild Hawk is as rugged as possible. This step is also covered toward the end of the above blog post link.

Balance for CG
This is an important step in making sure that your Wild Hawk is as flyable as possible I like my Wild Hawk leaning toward the nose heavy side and so I have my plane setup to balance at about 2 1/4 inches from the leading edge of the wing. This is my CG and is just forward of the embedded wing spar. A lot of people have theirs set for a CG of 2 1/2 to 3 inches from the leading edge. This will require the addition of weight to the front of the plane. I started by literally taping washers to the nose of my plane. This worked fine and has worked fine for others that I know. I decided to do something that I felt would be better and more permanent for mine. What I did was to tape fishing split shot to my plane nose until the CG was right again. Then I used my solder iron to melt some holes into the nose to hold the split shot. When this was all in place, I used hot glue to secure it all. I have a post here that shows how I did this: Weighted Question. This post shows how I made a CG finder: CG Finder

Now your Wild Hawk should be very flyable and ruggedised. If after all of this you are having issues flying this plane, the problems are not with the plane.

As usual, thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Wild Hawk vs Wind

2012-03-22T14:53:00.001-07:00

For all of you who think you can't fly a foamie in the wind, let alone a Wild Hawk, I'm here to tell you you're wrong!

I had the opportunity to go out flying with my Dad (for my birthday,thanks Honey) this past March 10. I like to go to his place because he has a really nice park to fly at, with lots of room and either dirt or paved areas to use as runways. The week up until then was beautiful and really fooled us that the weekend would be great also. Well, by the time we got there, the wind had really picked up. We waited around his place doing misc. fixes and playing with other stuff hoping that the wind would calm down. No such luck! We decided to just go and see what would happen.

We got there and I think the wind was worse. Easily a 15mph steady wind with gusts from 20 to 25mph! There was another person their flying a 40 class Cessna style plane, and struggling with it. He soon landed and started to pack up.

I decide what the heck, I'm here to fly and I'm gonna fly!

Now my plane is a bit modified with substantially more power and equipped with ailerons, and that really helped my confidence. (Click on some of the pictures for a link to the item I added)

So I took out my Wild Hawk and struggled to get the wings on without them being blown out of my hands by the wind. I got everything together and walked out a ways from our cars and set the plane down facing into the wind. We were all worried that the wind would blow it away. A test bump of the throttle showed that it would push into the wind. I sent the plane off and it popped right up into that head wind. I flew full power and my Wild Hawk had no problems climbing. It did take a lot of aileron to keep the plane level and to keep it's heading as the gusts really bounced it around, but it flew.

I made many passes flying full power into the wind and then shutting down the motor while banking over to let the wind take it. I would let it cruise by with little to no power and then bank it over again with full throttle.

Considering the wind, my beat up and mended Wild Hawk flew like a dream. I even did many touch and go landings with now crashes!

I really had a good time! Easily one of the best times flying yet.

Servos connect to the fuselage

I do have to admit that I did crash twice. The first time I came in too low and turned the wrong way with the wind and ended up cartwheeling the plane. No damage though (thank you tape)! The next crash was kind of crazy. Some how a gust of wind moved the wing enough to pull out one of the aileron servo connections and I could only bank one way, the wrong way! I ended up out of control in a kind of death spiral and into the group watching! Fortunately there were no injuries, and the spectators were OK too.

I had hoped to post some videos of this but my little video recorder was on the fritz and I got no usable video at all. That was a real bummer. I am posting this video because it is the same site and it too was a bit windy, not as much but fairly steady 7 to 10mph with gusts to 15mph.

So, If any one says that you can't fly a Wild Hawk in the wind because it's a foamie, send them to this site and I'll set them straight!

As usual, thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

How To Tape A Wild Hawk

2012-02-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

As I have had lots of people asking about, and have seen a lot of questions about how to taping up and re-enforce/protect a Wild Hawk, I thought I would use this post to show how I do it and what I recommend to others.

Note: The techniques shown here can be used on any similarly configured airplane like: the Hawk Sky, the EZ Hawk, the Easy Star, the Bixler, the Floater-Jet, and the Dolphin, just to name a few.

Before we start, I would like to review the type of tape I use. I use two kinds of tape depending on what needs to be accomplished. For most of the structural re-enforcement, I use a good fiberglass re-enforced strapping tape. I've seen some that sure, they had fiberglass re-enforcement, but they were few and far between, about 6 to 10 strands. I use a brand that has some 18 glass strands for the one inch wide tape. Initially I looked for a 3/4 inch wide strapping tape, but all the locations I checked were out of the 3/4 or only carried the 1 inch wide tape. So I bought the 1 inch tape and have not had an instance where I wished that I had the 3/4 inch wide tape.

For preventing puncture and tearing damage to the wind leading edge and part of the fuselage, I use a good clear wide packing tape. This tape is not that critical just as long as it is not the real cheap and easily torn stuff.

Now on to the taping. For demonstration purposes I used 1 inch wide blue masking tape. I figured that this would provide for a good contrast and the best viewing.

I like to start off with the nose as it really needs the most attention as it will bear the brunt of most landings and is the most susceptible to being damaged.

Now I'd like to stop here for a moment to make an observation that taping up your plane in this, or any manor, will not stop damage from happening, but will only reduce the extent of the damage you inevitably will encounter.

OK, back to work!

Starting the tape job

Contouring around the nose

I start with a strip running from the nose, just under the cockpit, to the back wing support. I use my razor knife to cut slits in the tape so that it contours nicely around the nose (it does not look as nice with the blue tape). I like to make sure the strip is long enough to wrap around the root of the tail spar.

Bringing support all the way back

Getting around obstacles

This is then repeated on the opposite side, crossing over at the nose and tail spar (just under the propeller). I feel that this accomplishes one important thing, it provides some structural support in helping keep pieces from coming apart.

Start by centering the tape strip

Around one side...

Now we start wrapping the nose. This will give the nose foam added structural support and help keep it from deforming and coming apart in a heavy crash. You can see that because I have a cutout in my nose (for fishing sinkers to help with CG), I have started a little further back than I normally would. I start this by pulling off a length of tape that looks to be the right length. Then, holding both ends of the tape I center it over the nose.

....and under

Around the other side...

Now I let the tape follow the contours of the nose and wrap around under neath. I do the same with the other end until it crosses the other end on the underside.

...and under again

This ends up producing a nice "X" on the underside.

More taping of the nose

Around one side...

This is repeated again with another strip of tape across the nose just on the edge of the cockpit. And again, each side is wrapped around so that they cross underneath.

And finish underneath again

...and the other (more obstacles)

This again results in a nice "X" on the underside of the nose and cockpit.

You can see from the picture at the left that I had an obstacle in the way. I just taped over it and then cut slits in the tape so it would lay flat.

Now for the cockpit and wing support

Tying around the top

Wrap around the bottom

Bringing it around again to the cockpit

Now I start a strip of tape that re-enforces both the front wing support and the back portion of the cockpit. I like to start this with a strip of tape (again, I just guesstimate the length) laid right down the back slope of the cockpit opening. This piece wraps over the top and into the wing slot. The other end wraps around the bottom and back up and over the side edge of the cockpit. This is repeated again around the other side as well. I feel that this re-enforces the wing arch as well as the back side of the cockpit.

Now again on the other side

And tying it all together again

These two pictures show what it looks like doing the other side.

Securing push rod guides

Two inch tape on the top

Now we can move on to the final portion of the fuselage, the tail spar. I start with two strips rounding the circumferences of the root of the spar and just in front of the rudder. These give support as well as hold in place the push rod tubes. The next piece that I like to apply, is a two inch wide piece of packing tape across the top of the tail spar. This reduces down flex and protects against dent and puncture damage.

Left underside runner

Left and right side runner

Now I move on to nose to tail, skid and flex re-enforcement. I start by laying out two strips that run from the nose to about halfway down the tail spar. I run these down either side of the bottom leaving just short of the width of the tape at the widest point so that when the center strip is laid dawn, there will be some overlap over the whole length.

Final nose to tail runner

Contouring the nose again

The final strip down the center runs from over the nose all the way down to the tail wheel. Again, the nose piece has slits cut in it so that it will lay down nicely.

These three pieces provide for a good skid surface for belly landing and help to reduce flex in the tail spar.

Leading edge re-enforcement

Fixing the tape around the contours

The final part to cover is protecting and re-enforcing the wings. I start out by protecting the leading edge of the wings with a long strip of the 2 inch wide clear packing tape. If you start out at the wing root, this should be easy enough to do. Put the leading edge of the wing right in the center of the tap and then roll it out down the wing.

Top view of tape out at the tip

As you come to the part where it starts to bend up, just follow as best as you can. This is another area where you will benefit from cutting several slits in the tape so that it can better contour to the shape of the wing. You can see from my wing tip pictures that I was not too careful with this and it still worked out just fine.

Wing support

These last two pieced of strapping tape that I put on are used solely to re-enforced the wing and help to reduce wing flex considerably. In fact, this is all that I used before I cut in my ailerons. Once I cut in ailerons, I had reduced the strength too much and added bamboo rods (One of my other posts covers that). Now normally I would just run one strip down the center of the wing from root to tip, but I put my aileron servos right in the way. I came up with this "X" pattern to get around that and it also allows for the shorter piece to cover the wing spar and the bamboo rod I added.

Gouge repair

I have two more items that I would like to cover. The first one is how I deal with damage to the leading edge of the wings. While the 2 inch tape does a good job of reducing damage, some times it still occurs. To help with these I just cover them up with short strips of the strapping tape.

Fixing a loose wing

The last item that I just started doing is running piece of strapping tape around the root of my wing to help snug up the fit. My wings have been getting so loose, that they have actually been moving in flight. Well, this really helped to reduce this issue.

So, there you have it. I hope this is easy enough for everyone to follow and gives you as good of results as I think I have had.

As usual, thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

New Wheels for the Old Bird

2012-01-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

As you know, if you have been keeping up on my posts, that I have been trying to get used to using the landing gear on my Wild Hawk. In using the landing gear, I have noticed that the wheels do not work very well on the rough surfaces that I have as runways. My Dad's place has a lot of grass, dirt, and gravel. While my landings have been successful on these surfaces, the wheels really plow in the gravel and dirt and catch on the grass.

So I decided to change the wheel size in the hopes that it will help ease landings and take offs. Because I did not want to wait, I went down to a local hobby shop and purchased a nice pair of 2 1/2 inch diameter wheels. They are light weight plastic rims with foam tires and almost as light weight as the original ones are. At least they do not seem to weigh that much more.

Carefully twisting off retainer

Comparing old and new wheels

It did not require too much effort with a pair of needle nose pliers to take the retainers off of the axles. I did take care to not damage them as I did not have anything readily available to replace them if the would not go back on.

Close up view

How it looks on the plane

The new wheels had slightly smaller axle holes and so I needed to do some reaming and working on them to get them to go on. They go on alright now, but they only just barely spin without too much effort. This should have gone better, but I could not find the needed drill size in my tool box. I could have used some sand paper on the axle, but I couldn't find that either. Oh well, close enough.

Now it's of to some test flights, or take off and landings.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Vindication

2012-01-15T11:59:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

After my last flying experience with crashing my father in-law's Wild Hawk, I needed something to redeem myself. As chance would have it, the following week was beautiful flying weather and my father in-law had repaired his plane, so I worked on scheduling another outing over the weekend.

When I woke up on Saturday, the wind was blowing like a tornado! No flying today and most likely not tomorrow either. It looked like it would be another week before we would have an opportunity to fly, and me an opportunity to redeem myself.

Amazingly, Sunday morning was as calm as could be. Perfect flying weather! I quickly scheduled a time with my father in-law to go flying. He picked me up on time and we headed to the flying field. And by flying field I mean the open field near my house. We quickly but carefully unloaded our planes from his car.

I noticed that my father in-law had done a great job of hot gluing his plane back together. It looked great! Everything was straight and clean. You could hardly tell that I had crashed it and broken the whole nose off. We were too anxious to get out and fly so I forgot to take any before photos.

After several unsuccessful attempts to launch his Wild Hawk himself (short runs into the ground, but no damage!) he asked me if I could try. The pressure was on to not crash and destroy his plane again!

I was in luck and his plane took to the air beautifully! The pressure was coming down. It took a bit but soon enough I had it trimmed out and flying around nicely. I handed the controls back and my father in-law flew the plane for a minute or so before getting into trouble and handing the controls back. I regained control and handed the transmitter back to him again. He was flying around nicely and then started to bring it down some. Before we knew it, his plane was headed to the ground without enough time to hand me the controls. I have to admit though, that I don't know if I would have taken the transmitter back this time so as to not be the one to crash it again.

Well, even from where we were, we could see parts fly when it his the ground. Ouch!

Here are the pics I did take of the results.

Father in-law headin out to the crash site.
He's there, look close.

The gear and most importantly, the coffee.
The plane without the damage is my plane.

Yeah, bad crash

Ewe, wing arch is separated too

The tape did not help much this time

Well, my father in-law has shown that he is really good at fixing planes so I'm sure that he will have this one flight ready soon enough.

I hate to say this but I flew my plane from ground take of to landing with no issues what so ever.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Motor Mods

2012-01-15T01:14:00.000-08:00

Hello all, I discovered that my new Wild Hawk motor is not performing as well as I expected. I wondered why and after some research I found that others who had made similar modifications also upped the prop size from the stock 5x5 to 6x4 to 6x5. So, that is my next update.

Ok, ok, I know that the Turnigy 2628/10 1400Kvm motor is a bit under speed for this modification, but for now, its what I've got.

Needs 2 or 3 more mm

Others were successfully using these props on their Wild Hawks so I did not think it would be a big deal and picked up a few of the size I mentioned above. I tried to install one of these 6" diameter props but, it hit the tail boom on my plane, so I needed an explanation of what I had done wrong and a solution.

After some correspondence with Fishbonez and NJSwede, they said it should have fit, but if it's only a few mm, I could just cut out the foam. So back to take a look at things.

After looking at my situation, I decided that I should be able to move the screw holes for my motor up enough to create the needed clearance. After unbolting the motor, this is the view I had showing the alignment marks I used to locate the original mounting holes.

New holes marked and drilled

Ready to mark the new holes

I added these lines to help layout the new holes directly above those that are already there. It looked like I should be able to safely move the holes straight up about 6mm. I marked them out and pilot drilled them with a 1/16" drill bit.

It fits!

Just enough clearance

Fitting on the motor shows that the clearance is just right. This is probably closer to the shaft location of the original motor than my original modified location. This would explain why this prop did not work before but does now.

Original motor location, face view

New location. You can see the old holes

I like this solution because it was a lot easier than another option I was considering (building a new firewall to add on on top of this one) and I did not have to remove any foam for clearance. Removing foam for clearance might have actually been the easiest solution, but I've had bad experiences with doing this before on another plane and so I really did not want to do this again.

Now I'm ready to test out those larger props and see if I get any more performance over the old 5x5 prop without burning up the motor or speed controller. I'll post again with the results.

UPDATE:

The 7" has much broader blades

I really like these APC electric props

I have since flown this configuration and found that this APC 6x5 prop, while much better than stock, was not performing as I had hoped. I have since taken a 7x5 and cut it down to 6" in diameter and carefully trimmed and re-balanced. As these APV props have a much broader blase mid section they grab much more air than others. Most other props have the same blade width for a series of props and the only thing that changes is the length.

I now have all the power that I need and am seeing the performance of this torqueie 1400KV outrunner. I have also tried this with an 8x4 and with similar results. See my Wild Hawk vs Wind post for how well this configuration did.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Making Points

2012-01-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been kind of pushing my father in-law to get an RC airplane, especially since he has expressed an interest. So he finally said he would get one but was unsure of what to get. I asked around in the groups that I associate with and the consensus was that a Wild Hawk would be the best beginner RC plane for him. I talked to him about planes and he was leaning toward getting something that was Cessna like. He was very close to getting an eFlight Apprentice, but being a beginner, I talked him into the Wild Hawk. Now the Apprentice is a nice plane and I really enjoyed flying the one I had to opportunity to fly, but, with the chance of breaking props and the motor every time it came down, he changed his mind. Off to Harbor Freight we went and bought him a Wild Hawk.

I had scheduled a flying day with my Dad (at that great park near his house) and a craft day for my wife and girls with my Mom. I told my father in-law that if he came, between my Dad and I, we could get his plane all setup and ready to fly in minutes. He charged the battery overnight and met us at my folks house with his Wild Hawk still in the box. He and my Dad browsed the farm while I setup the plane. I stuck all the parts together using the supplied tape (figured that would be good enough for now), hooked up the controls, cut out the foam so the battery could be moved forward, trimmed foam from around the linkage by the servos, added the minimum amount of strapping tape on the full length of the underside, installed the transmitter batteries, checked out the transmitter and receiver, and was ready to go.

We packed up all of our planes and off to the field we went, ready to fly. Well, we got there and found that the wind had come up and was gusty. We later found out that the gusts were 5 to 10mph! Since I had ailerons and more control, I took my Wild Hawk up and flew around a bit. It was not easy to control but not too bad. Next Dad took out his Wild Hawk #2 and was able to fly it around. My father in-law wanted to get his plane into the air but did not want to do the maiden flight himself, especially in this wind. So, he passed the controls off to me. I was a little cocky and didn't think much of it and confidently strode out into the field to launch his plane into the air. I figured that I would get it up into the air, gain some altitude, and trim it out. After it was trimmed and stable I would hand the controls back to him and wait for them to be handed back.

I gave the controls full throttle and tossed his brand new unscratched plane into the air. It was flying level just fine. I gave a little up elevator and corrected for a gust with the rudder. The plane just went all over the place! Suddenly I was fighting to keep this plane in the air. About 100 yards out the plane took a final nose dive into the ground. Pieces flew. One of the longest walks ever over to the plane showed that after only 15 seconds of flight, the nose was broken clean off. No more flying for this plane today. Now the second longest walk back to show my father in-law the remains of this brand new plane. Ugh, I felt bad.

After getting back and checking things out, I found that I had reversed the elevator controls and had not paid enough attention to notice that it was going the wrong direction! So much for trusting my plan building skills.

Dad's back yard. Yes, that's a golf tee out there.

Well, how mad could my father in-law be? At least I'm not the son in-law that divorced on of his daughters, right?! No he was not that upset. We returned to my Dad's place and when the wind died down a little, we flew our planes right out of his back yard. My Dad got his Wild Hawk #2 up into the air and handed to controls to my father in-law and at least he was able to get the feel of things and fly it around a little (he did a really good job). Now, I would have let him fly mine, but with the ailerons it would have been too much different from flying his plane.

Dad flying his Wild Hawk in his back yard.

Dad flying my Wild Hawk with ailerons.

Now we're waiting for another good day when we have time to fly, and this time we'll make sure that his plane is really ready to fly.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Best Day of Flying Yet

2011-12-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

So I'm off on break the Friday before the new year and I scheduled a day of flying with my Dad. He has a flying buddy with access to a private field and was able to get some time on that Friday for us to fly out at the private field. This field has a dirt, but smoothed out, runway out in the middle of open farm land. My Dad brought out his Radian and his buddy took out his T28 for us to try out. I, of course, brought out my Wild Hawk.

I arrived about 11:00am and we were out at the field by about noon. John (Dad's buddy) sets up T28 around. Wow, that was a lot of fun! This plane is very responsive while still be easy to control. Now I do have to say that the transmitter (a really nice Spektrum 6 channel) was set for a slow rate. I flipped the switch to fast rate and about as quickly as I lost control of the plane, I switched the rate right back to slow! Way to responsive for my current skills.

This is where things started going south for my Dad. I handed the controls to my Dad so he could check it out, and pretty soon he was getting to far away. John advised that he should bring it back before it was too hard to control, and guess what. Well, he tried to get it back but lost orientation and handed the controls back to John. Too late! It dove into the ground and broke the wing off.

Dad then got out his Radian for a flight. A quick had launch out and the plane was not gaining altitude. About 50 yards out the right wing tipped up and caught the breeze and with the low altitude, cartwheeled the plane into the groung! Another broken plane!

Well, I got out the Wild Hawk and after two failed take off attempts, I hand launched it into the air. I had a great flight with my make shift cell phone video camera on board (unfortunately something went wrong with the camera and the video file was messed up, so no video this time). I landed it, took the camera off and hand launched it again. I trimmed it out again since the loss of the camera weight, and asked my Dad if he wanted to fly it. He said "no" as he did not want to chance wrecking another plane!

After this flight it was time to head home and get some lunch. After lunch we checked out a local city park that people were known to fly at. This turned out to be a great place to fly! It's this huge sunken area surrounded by 10ft berms with parking areas. We quickly headed home to get out planes.

We returned, me with my Wild Hawk and Dad with his Wild Hawk (Old Hickery) and his second plane (my brothers Wild Hawk that he procured). We parked right up to one side with the slight breeze coming in toward us. We had about 15ft of grass to the grassy berm. I took off and landed on the parking lot and Dad hand launched out off the berm. What a perfect place to fly! We flew and flew almost till dark! I burned off the 2200mah battery and started another. Dad did crash and damage my brothers plane (he flew it behind us and lost it in the sun!), but continued to fly with Old Hickory. We had soo much fun and had such a great time flying. I think I had easily, a solid 30 minutes of air time! We would just take the planes up and then cut the power and see how long we could glide around. We had a great time bringing them in for low passes and trying to land at our feet (I have to admit that Dad took the prize here). We are definitely coming back here again!

Sorry there are no pictures, the video didn't come out and I was so distracted by the great flying that I didn't take any pictures.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Flying With Landing Gear

2011-12-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

This was an experiment that I could hardly wait to perform and I finally got the chance. My oldest daughter is finally home from college for Christmas break so I recruited her to film while I flew. It was a beautiful clear day but the wind was starting to pick up. I was rushing to get things done so that I could get out before it got too windy. I know that I could have waited for the evening calm, but I did not want to risk that the wind would settle and that something else would not interrupt my day. So out we went and braved the elements anyway. When we first arrived it seemed that we would luck out with the wind lining up with the walk way. Well as usual the wind did not flay nice and it had fun crossing at an uncomfortable angle.

Not to be outdone, we flew anyway. The wind did not make things easy. After a few attempted take offs (see one of the last videos below) I finally made it into the air. It was much harder than I expected to taxi in a straight line. Especially with the wind buffeting the plane from the side, especially when it was just about to get off the ground.

Once in the air, it flew just fine. The the addition of the landing gear had no noticeable affect in the Wild Hawk's flight. As the wind was causing the plane to bounce around quite a bit, it might have been masking any affects of the landing gear, but I don't think so.

This first video shows the first successful take off. I thought sure that I was going to crash into the cable again, but I just pulled back on the stick and luckily had enough airspeed to take off successfully.

This second view shows the first successful landing. I came in dead stick because it was coming in fast enough and with power would have been too fast. I know too that this was because I was landing with the wind, but it worked out OK. I did think for a moment that I was going to land it on the walk way cable, but I made it to the pavement.

This video shows both the take off and landing from the airplanes point of view. If you would like to see what I did to get this footage see my other blog RD Flying Fun. I'll be updating it soon with how I modified a cell phone to take this footage.

Like the last time I flew, I had so much fun after the first flight that I just made sure all was still OK and then just took off again. This was a shorter flight as I didn't want to battle the wind for too long and it was too cold for my daughter and I to stay much longer.

My daughter filmed this flight as well. The first video is the entire flight from take off to landing since it was such a short flight. You can see that it took me quite a bit to get it under control, but I made it into the air.

Landing was another issue again. You can see that it came in on an angle and kind of "crabbed" in.

This video is the second flight from the planes perspective. You might have noticed by now that the perspective is different than from the ground video. What I did to get forward facing video had the affect of switching the video left for right. When the plane is going left in all of these videos from the plane, it's really going right!

OK, this is the, well, blooper video of my failed take offs from the ground our perspective and from the plane's perspective.

Yeah, I could have cut some time out of this video, but I thought it was interesting seeing all of this stuff from the planes point of view.

Ouch, that last one looked like it really hurt but actually nothing bad happened. I just checked it over and made sure the wing was still in firm (as firm as they can be with this much "experience") and checked the aileron servo connections.

If you liked this my latest blog post, please leave a comment and let me know. Even if you didn't like it, leave me a comment as to what you didn't like. Either way, be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Gearing Up for a Landing

2011-12-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve made a decision about my Wild Hawk. A decision that is the opposite of the one that I made when I first received the plane. A decision that goes against all the recommendations that I received when I first queried experienced Wild Hawk owners regarding the plane. So, just what is this decision that I made? I’m adding the landing gear back to my plane!

Why am I doing this? And, why did I remove them in the first place? Well, first why did I take them off and leave them off. I took them off for two reasons. The first reason is that having landing gear of such a light plane can cause landing problems for inexperienced fliers such as I was. The second reason was that all the areas that I expected to fly at had no landing strips. My Dad’s location is a rough plowed field, usually with tall weeds. My only other current location is a local park and preserve area. The preserve area does have a 10ft wide walk way that cuts through it, but it is lined on either side with 8 x 8 posts threaded with 1/2in cable. Not very inviting!

Now I’m adding my landing gear back because, I’ve now successfully landed on the walk way twice, and I have plans to join a local club that has a really nice runway. I figure this will also prepare me for bigger and better airplanes that will have landing gear. Besides they just snap in and out (see my pictures and videos below).

Wild Hawk landing gear

Cutting tape out of the gear mounting slot

Gear installed

Landing Gear in.

Landing gear out.

So what is adding the landing gear back onto the plane going to do to how it will fly? OK, I know that the landing gear is just wire with foam rubber wheels and they weigh next to nothing, and so the weight should not affect the plane very much and they are close enough to the CG that I don't expect them to affect the CG. But, the big thing in my mind is that they are not exactly aerodynamic. Again, they are not that big, but on such a light plane they could have a drag affect. This affect could be to make the nose drop as the pull would be on the bottom and to the rear using the CG as a fulcrum. Will this be enough to affect the flight and require trimming? Will I need to redistribute the weight? Will flying speed make a difference?

Since I do not have a wind tunnel, I'll have to rely on flying the Wild Hawk to see what will actually happen. Now I am waiting for a good day to fly. Once I have flown the plane (successfully or not) I will post an update on what affect this had, if any!

Ooops! Blooper!

F759M5X8N5NA

Fly Time With Video

2011-12-12T17:23:00.001-08:00

Wow! Sometimes I forget how much fun it is to fly my plane! I know it’s fun, but I forget how much fun. I’ve been waiting for almost two weeks now to fly and it’s been a tough wait. I have these plans to strap my cell phone to my Wild Hawk and video. I thought I was all set to fly and video my last timeout, but there were technical difficulties. The first thing to happen was that the cell phone I was going to use (because I’m too cheep to buy one of those mini video cameras) had issues with the touch screen working properly. After some searching with Google, I was able to partially resolve that issue and deal with the limitations. The second issue, well OK, the second and third issues were kinda simultaneous. On the first two flights with the cell phone camera videoing, I found out that I was only getting 43 seconds of video, and also the tape that holds the cell phone to the plane was causing damage to the trailing edge of the wing (because I was having issues with achieving a decent landing).

The 43 second video issue was resolved (with the help of my good old pall Google again) bu un-checking the messaging video setting on the cell phone. The setting that limits a video to the size that can be included in a text message (43 seconds for this phone). The trailing edge wing damage issue was resolved by adding support in the form of a tongue depressor.

This was all resolved within days of my last flight. But it would be much longer before I would have an opportunity to fly again.

To make things worse, my Dad sends me an email describing his latest outing and how much fun he had flying his Wild Hawk, his buddies T-28, and his Radian. Flights with three planes in one day. Torcher!

OK, I get to relate on thing about this that makes me feel a little better. My Dad was testing his Radian without the wing attached and accidentally bumped the throttle to full and had his plane launch across the garage! He was lucky though and only damaged the canopy (only about $5 to replace).

Ok, OK, my weekend is half over and I still have to install brakes on my Jeep. But, after that I’m free to fly! I rush through the job (I've done this enough times) and am done in just shy of an hour (no air tools!). I had already put my new LiPo pack and cell phone on their chargers to make sure they were topped off and ready to go. I grabbed my plane, my transmitter, the battery, and cell phone. Oops, almost forgot the tape to hold the cell phone on with! That would have been unfortunate. OK, got the tape too. Jump into the Jeep and head out to my local flying spot.

I can hardly contain myself as I park the Jeep and get out my plane and gear. I hurriedly walk across the park to the paved path through the wild life preserve next to the park. Half way down is where I like to fly from as this puts me closest to the middle of the area. I find my spot and fuddle through my mind all the steps that need completing. Connect aileron servos. Make sure wing is right. Connect the battery, wait, turn on the transmitter first! Whew, now connect the batter. Darn it, the beeps, forgot to put the throttle to full and then off to program the speed controller! Wow, got it just in time. OK, the cell phone is already on now start the video app. Almost forgot about the tape again. Hurriedly strip off a piece of tape. Darn it! Fishing in my pocket for my knife. Fumble with the knife and cut the tape. Stick the tape to the phone and strap it to the wing. One final test of the controls, and toss the video equipped Wild Hawk into the air. Wow this plane is so stable. What a joy to fly!

The plane has a natural trim up and in a left hand circle to I just lit it climb. It’s over cast and I really wanted to get up into the clouds, but they proved to be too high today. I flew up as high as I dared (can’t see it, can’t fly it) and cut the motor. I was having a blast cruising this plane around and wondering what the video would show. Knowing that the cell phone camera was just pining down, I made a few high banked turns to try to get the horizon and sunset into the picture.
After a little while I decided to bring it in for a landing. Now I have been trying to land on the paved walk way for some time, but it’s really tricky as it is only about 10 feet wide and lined with 8x8 posts about 3 feet high and with cables strung along them. So, any mistake on landing can be a bad one! First pass I aborted and hit the throttle to gain altitude. Turned around and came in again. This time I used the right mount of rudder and elevator and made a nice touchdown. The plane slid right up to my feet! OK, I did jump back a little as I did not want it to run into me and cause me to do something stupid like, step on it!

I was so excited that I just picked it up and tossed it into the air again. I did pretty much the same thing and took it up high. Then I shut down the motor and just let it glide around. There was a group of kids that noticed the plane and were all excited. I could hear them from across the field as they were pointing it out to each other and trying to find it in the sky. I flew over them hoping to catch them on film (digital film) and maybe give them a thrill of the plane flying over head. I did a few maneuvers again to catch the scenery and this time I did a loop. Just a mild and lazy one, kinda ended up on it’s side at the top. I didn’t want to pull to hard on this one with the added weight of the cell phone and the possible frailness of the winds. I’d hate to have my first flight video be of one of the wings buckling and then a nauseating rush of the scenery as it spiralled into the ground. So, I didn't push it.
This time I brought the Wild Hawk in from the opposite direction. And, again, I aborted the first pass. But I did it again! With the judicious use of the rudder and elevator, I coaxed my plane in for another spectacular landing. OK, at my level of experience any landing that does not cause damage is spectacular!

What a rush! I had the best time! I wanted to fly some more but the sun was setting and it was getting cold again. Plus I had diner to make. My wife was braving the Christmas season shopping with my middle daughter so the least I could to was to have dinner ready when they got home.

Included is the video I took. The unedited version is just over 17 minutes. I’ll try to edit it down into smaller segments to make it more manageable and also get it into a better format (mpg maybe instead of 3gp)

Well I actually figured out how to use Youtube tools to edit my video and was able to cut it up and embed them into the text of this blog.

I added this video just to provide a view of where I fly.

I hope everyone enjoys this and please comment.

I thought I would update this post add a little video that shows the status of my battery after this outing. It till looks pretty good! Other that saying that the battery was fully charged right before I went out (12.?v), I can't say exactly what the charge was. But, with the info from this video, and knowing how long I flew, I think I could have flown a lot longer. Generally LiPo batteries have max battery voltage of 4.2 and minimum voltage of 2.8 and nominal voltage of 3.7. Ok, I know you would not want to run your individual batteries down to 2.8v, but even if they only went down to 3.0v, they are still only 1/3 their way down. So, a lot more flying could have been had.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Last Mod and New Mod

2011-11-30T18:35:00.001-08:00

The 3 blade prop was just for testing

So, as promised, I have pictures and updates on my last power train modification/update. As I mentioned in my last post, I tried to match the motor selected for someone else's motor mod and they used a "V3" brushless outrunner. What I came up with (that was also available at the time) was the Turnigy D2826/10 1400KV brushless outrunner. I am not sure what the 2826 represents but I believe that the /10 refers to either the number of poles or magnets. The 1400KV definitely revers to the number of no load RPM per volt applied. This helps you figure out what kind of RPMs you can expect with a given battery pack. Since the Wild Hawk runs a relatively small diameter propeller, I wanted more RPMs. I would have preferred something in the 1800KV range, but this is what was available with the other physical features I wanted. As I said, I selected it not only because of the electrical characteristics, but also because of the output shaft and prop shaft adapter and the bracket and mounting method. I really like the self centering prop shaft adapter and how it attaches securely (like a drill chuck) but also would allow for slippage if the propeller were to impact the ground or some other object. I also like the motor mount and bracket because it is very easy to work with. I did make sure that I used Locktite to secure the screws that hold the aluminum bracket to the motor since it would not be easily accessible.

Now on to the speed controller. I was looking for a controller that would handle 15 to 18Amps, but again, the one I really wanted was not available (back ordered), so I found this one for more money, but from the description and people's reports this one can easily handle long bursts to 40Amps. It is programmable with an inexpensive programming card but can also have basic programming done with your transmitter throttle settings. It is a little bigger than I expected, but oh well, I have it and it works very well and I don't think I will have to worry overloading it.

Finally the battery. I was going to just use the batteries that I made from laptop batteries, but decided that they were just too inexpensive to pass up. I found this (again) Turnigy 2200mah 3C 11.1V pack. It was listed with a discharge range (20 to 30C), which seems a little unusual, but it was easily above what I expected I would use. 20C times 2200mah means that it could supply at least a maximum discharge rate of 44 amps. See, plenty of performance for this setup.

The nice thing about having everything Turnigy is that all the connectors fit without any trouble or issue.

Now the new mod is a mod to keep my "high tech" camera mount from damaging the wing again.

In these two pictures you can see the damage that occurred to the trailing edge and how the tape cut into the wing under the force of the weight of the cell phone. Of course, this would not have happened had I been able to learn how to land properly. But, I have not, and I'm not sure when I will.

OK, before I get to much further into this, I guess I should tell you about some background on my method of this repair/mod. So, some months ago, when I first got going into repairing my Wild Hawk and using tooth picks, foam chunks, and hot glue, I introduced my Dad to this. He started to kind of take off with the idea of using cheep and free items to use for repairs. My Dad told me about how he was collecting free coffee stir sticks to add to his supplies. Now, I'm from a 100% Dutch family and predominately Dutch community and I am no stranger to the tendencies of the Dutch to be, shall we say, penny pinchers. But my Dad collecting wooden coffee stir sticks struck even me as going a bit far and was something that I was not going to do, especially since I could get all I wanted from my work for free. Well, now I'm looking at the issues with my wing repair and reinforcement and what comes to my mind as being the perfect item to assist with my repair? You guessed it, a wooden coffee stir stick! Did I have any in my supplies to assist with this repair? No, of course not! I'm sure my Dad had many available and could have fixed this issue on many wings, but not me. I was not ~~cheep~~ forward looking enough to have stocked up an effective supply.

Well, after scowering my wife's endless craft supplies I had to settle for a tongue depressor. If I couldn't find a wooden coffee stir stick, a wooden Popsicle stick would have been a good second choice. Well, we did not have any of those either. So, a wooden tongue depressor was what I was going to have to work with.

OK, on with the repair. I molded the foam back into place and started looking at how the wooden tongue depressor would be used to re-enforce the location. I used my Exacto saw and started cutting the depressor down to size.

Soon I had a piece that I was happy enough with and was ready to hot glue it into place.

Now I strapped the phone into place to check things out. You can see how the phone looks on the bottom side of the wing with the strapping tape holding it in place. The photo to the right and below shows the top side of the wing with the trailing edge re-enforcement and how the strapping tape wraps around and is prevented from doing more damage.

Now I'm waiting for my free time to align with good weather to try this out and see if it really works as expected.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Power Play and Photo Phun

2011-11-30T14:22:00.001-08:00

If you saw my last post you know that I completely revamped the Wild Hawk's power system; new motor, new speed controller, and new LiPO battery. It was hard waiting and I finally had a chance to get out and fly it. I have to mention here that I also had a plan to take video from the plane using an old cell phone (still waiting for the shipment of the cheap mini DVRs to come in at Hobby King). So, I went out to kill two birds with one stone.

The first item on my list was to just fly the plane and make sure all was well and to see what the performance was. After making sure the speed controller emitted the appropriate beeps, I was set to go. I powered up to full throttle and hand launched the plane into the air. It flew very nice, but was not the rocket that I expected. I had seen others mod their planes similarly and they seemed to go vertical until out of site. Although I could tell I had more power, it would not "go vertical." At first I was a little disappointed as i had done a lot of motor research to match a similar motor as, the Dutchman that I am, I was not going to pay the $40 for the motor recommended (I got mine for less than $20).

Any way, the newly powered Wild Hawk flew very nice. I did notice that I could throttle way back and still not loose altitude.

So, that done, it was time to strap on the camera (and I do mean strap on). I pulled out the cell phone camera and got it ready. This was actually quite the ordeal as the phone is an early touch screen model LG and the touch part has been failing. I found out from Google searching my issue that if I pealed off the top clear layer of the screen I could regain some of the functionality. I did find out through trial and error that I also had to hold down the, now visible, connector area to regain functionality of the whole screen. Also, going back a bit further in this part of the story, since this phone is no longer used and I do not have a valid SIM card for it, I had to set it up in, fittingly enough, "airplane mode". This disabled the cell portion of the phone while still allowing for use of the rest of the phones functions. I was not able to accomplish this until I resolved the touch screen issue. OK, the last thing I did was to make sure that the phones video camera feature recorded to the internal micro SD card. This last item would make it much easier to access the videos taken (I never had the special USB cord for the phone and I didn't want to deal with Bluetooth).

OK, now I was ready to strap on the cell phone camera and take some video. The plane was still on from the last flight and ready to go. I took out the roll of strapping tape (see, I really mean "strapped on") and cut off a long strip, about a foot. I carefully placed this across the camera side of the phone leaving the rest evenly hung over either end. Then I started the video camera and placed the phone on the underside of the wing and pulled the tape around the front and tail of the wing. I made a last minute check of the controls, hit the throttle and launched it into the air.

It flew great! The added weight of the phone (not insignificant) made not difference other than a slight trim of the ailerons. I let it fly in circles slowly gaining altitude. The day was a bit cloudy and pretty soon the Wild Hawk was fading in and out as it passed through some of them. "Awsome" was my thought as I thought of what video I might be getting. I continued to fly around and took the plane over some nearby homes and then back again. As far as the power goes, I was able to cut back to 1/4 - 1/3 throttle and maintain altitude with ease. This is certainly an improvement over the old power train especially with the added payload. I flew for at least 5 minutes and struggled to bring it down to make a few practice landing passes. This plane really wanted to stay up in the air.

A few seconds of air time video!

A bit of a rough landing and the plane was back on the ground without any real damage. I did notice that the trailing edge of the wing with the tape had torn the edge a little, but not enough to worry about. I was too eager to view the video to think too much about it anyway. I unstrapped the cell phone and pushed the side button to reactivate the screen. It was not still taking video! I opened the list of videos and found the one it had taken. For some reason it was only 43 seconds long! Barely enough time to get the plane into the air let alone into the clouds. Now I bummed. I thought maybe I had made some sort of mistake in setting things up so I decided to try taking a sample video. Sure enough, it stopped at 43 seconds again! What's up with that? I know that early cell cameras could only take short duration videos and thought this one might have a similar limitation based on resolution, memory, etc.

Well, I thought I would try one more time and see what I could get in 43 seconds. I cut another piece of tape and got the phone ready to go, started the video recorder and strapped it on. A quick check of the controls and tossed it into the air! It flew great and for another 5 minutes or so. No sense in cutting the flight short just to check the video and so I went back up into the clouds and enjoyed the flying.

I thought I would be able to make a better landing, especially since I had made two great practice passes. This would not be the case as I made a typical knee jerk response a foot off of the ground and cart wheeled the plane. There was no real damage to the plane as it was going slow and was so close to the ground, but the force did pull the strapping tape further into the trailing edge of the wing. So, no more flying today.

I pulled of the cell phone and checked the video. I knew that I was only going to get 43 seconds, but I had hoped to get more air time. Well, even though I thought I had rushed and gotten into the air faster than the first time, I had actually done worse and did not get any air time at all. So much for my first time out trying to get video.

The good news is that I really liked how the plane flew with the new power train. Even though I can't go vertical, I still like the gain in power and I got significant flying time off of the new LiPO pack. I do have a three blade prop that I might check the next time out. We'll see if that makes any difference.

I guess next time along with the fixes needed from this time, I'll include some actual details on the motor, speed controller, and LiPO pack I added.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Even More Power!

2011-11-27T20:01:00.001-08:00

OK, I decided that I need more power. I went online to my favorite hobby store site and purchased a new battery (2200mah, 3C), brush-less outrunner motor, and speed controller. They actually came in some time ago but I just got around to installing and setting everything up. A few things I had to take care of first like charging the battery and figuring out how to setup the speed controller. I connected the battery to my charger and topped it off. Then I checked the battery with my voltage checker and each cell read out very close, just the way I like to see it. Now I needed to check out the speed controller as it usually requires a programmer to set it up. I found out the speed controller could also be programmed to the default setting (which happen to be what I want) by using the transmitter. This is done by powering up with the throttle in the full position and waiting for a certain number of beeps, returning the throttle to the off position and waiting for the required beeps, and then putting the throttle back to full and waiting for beeps again and then put the throttle back to the off position. After all of this, it works just fine. So, I setup the receiver, speed controller, battery, and motor and checked everything out with the transmitter. All worked as expected.

Now it was time to figure out how I was going to mount everything on the plane. I started by removing the old motor and speed controller. This required loosening the hot glue I had added to the motor, cutting the wires, and pulling on it until it came out. Then I pulled out the wires from the speed controller, removed the power switch, disconnected from the receiver, and then completely removed it. Now everything is out of the way and I can see how it will all fit.

I had already held the motor up in position next to the original and marked the nacelle. I mounted a three blade prop that I had on hand just for reference. So now was the time to start cutting.

I cut out a big chunk of the nacelle and made sure the surface was level. I cut out a piece of hardwood to use for a firewall.
I marked the piece to find the center for mounting the motor.

Next I tried the fit and found I needed a notch for the firewall to fit better. I also figured it would give more stability since so much foam was cut out.

Now it was time to dry fit all the motor pieces before permanently installing anything. Everything was laid out to make sure I have everything I needed. Since the screws to attach the motor to the aluminum mount would be hidden and not easily accessible, I made sure they were locktited in (reddish purple tube). I decided to use wood screws with lock washers on the firewall since I would not be able to get to the back side if I used bolts with nuts once all was glued in place.

Here is the aluminum mount with the locktited screws, and to the right, mounted to the firewall with wood screws and lock washers.

Now that I was happy with everything, I decided to trim the wood down for a more aerodynamic profile. I did this by holding the firewall in place and then tracing the nacelle outline on the back side. Then I used a belt sander to trim it down to the profile I marked out. Next I glued it in place with hot glue. I made sure that the perimeter and slot were glued well. I also added a vertical line to use to align the firewall with the seams in the foam (this helped a lot for centering).

I noticed that there was still a little flex in the new nacelle and so used some tooth picks to stiffen things up. I ran two strait down on either side of the seam and then two more at an angle from just behind the wood to the front of the nacelle.

Now I screwed the motor back on being careful to make sure the wood screws went right back into the threads they cut during the dry fitting. This I know will ensure the best performance and least chance of failure. I also made sure that the screws were torqued down just enough to collapse the lock washers.

Now I need to get the battery in place. I noticed that it was not going to fit at all unless I started cutting things up. I really wanted it to be as far forward as reasonable to maintain the C. G. I bit the bullet and opted for major surgery and sliced off the top of the nose. This allowed for full access to the battery compartment. I laid the battery where I wanted it and marked what needed to be cleared away. I then used my soldering iron with a nail in place of the soldering tip and melted the foam until there was enough room. I like to melt the foam instead of cutting it out as I feel that it helps to retain structural integrity. Any way, once I was happy with the space, I hot glued the top back on. I did not use any tooth picks for support as this section will be well taped with strapping tape.

Finally I'm getting to the speed controller. It seemed to fit well just laying it out from the motor to the cockpit opening. The two power wires were just far enough apart (being on either side of the controller circuit board) that the cover tab fits right in between them. Instead of gluing it down, I opted for just taping it in place with strapping tape. There were two reasons for mounting it the way I did. One is that this was way easier than threading the wires through the foam, and two, it would provide for better cooling if needed. So this configuration worked great other than the power connectors having to make an awkward loop to connect. A little tucking of wires and rubber bands to hold down the canopy and no one is the wiser.

I powered up my radio then plugged the battery in (I no longer have an on/off switch) and everything worked as expected. I am very happy with this and cannot wait to get out and fly this thing.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Almost Lost

2011-11-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

Well, this with this post I started with a new transmitter. I needed something with more controls than the 3 channels that came with the Wild Hawk. Especially since I added ailerons. I was not satisfied with losing my rudder, as I found that I really needed it for making landings with cross winds like I seem to always have.

What did I do? I headed off to my favorite hobby shop, Hobby King. I looked through their transmitter options and realized that I did not want to spend a whole lot of money on a name brand system especially as I am still new to this hobby. So I looked at their shop brand selection. I found they had several transmitters ranging from sub $30 4 channel to just over $50 6 channel and all using 2.4GHz spread spectrum technology. Interestingly enough there was only a few dollars difference between the 4 channel and 6 channel low end systems and I opted for the extra channels.

I received my 6 channel transmitter along with the USB cable to program it. I love this transmitter and was looking forward to installing it and trying it out.

It took a little work to get the old receiver out and keep all of the connections strait but I did it and got the new and smaller receiver in.

It took a while but I finally made it to my Dad's place for some flying. My first flight was in his back yard which is about 50 feet by 150 feet surrounded by fence but with orchards and clear views all around. So after a few falls starts, I made it up into the air and really had fun flying around and getting used to the new radio. I made one test pass and made good use of the rudder in lining up a test landing pass. On my landing pass I did not account for the thermal conditions. You see, my Dad's back yard is half grass and half pea gravel. I started my pass coming in over the grass toward myself standing at the far end of the gravel. Everything was fine until I crossed over onto the gravel and his the updraft. This pitched the plane over and into some equipment off to the side as I lost control.

It took a bit of work but I got the plane fixed up again and ready for another flight. By now the wind was picking up and I new I would have to the open field next door. Out we go. I get launched and am flying fine but I realize I am starting to fight the wind. While I'm playing with the new radio and extra channels, I stray too close to Dad's orchard just behind me. With my battery a bit low and the wind, I find that I can't bring it back and lose the plane behind me. I just let the controls go neutral and shut off the power.

We finally found the plane lodged in the upper branches of a tree on the far side of the orchard. It took my daughter climbing the tree and using a pruning pole to shake it loose. Up in the tree the plane didn't look to bad. Once down, wow, it was really messed up. Both wing leading edges were gouged, the nose was gouged, one wing was bent up and the bamboo spar broken. Lot's of work is going to be needed to fix it this time.

Next update hopefully all will have been repaired.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Weighted Question

2011-09-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Balancing on my CG stand

OK, the wings are fixed and ready for flight testing. As I prep all my stuff for the next available flight time, I see that there is another issue that should be resolved and cleaned up. Until now, I've been using a stack of washers as a nose weight to balance the CG (Center of Gravity or balance point) of this plane. The Wild Hawk is notoriously tail heavy and needs much attention to get the CG much forward of the center of the wing. After much research I have come to the conclusion that the CG point should be between 2 to 2.5 inches from the leading edge of the wing. After moving my battery as far forward as I can without cutting more than the battery retaining foam, I still needed the weight of three 1/2" washers to balance out at about 2.25 inches. This was OK, but they were just stuffed into the compartment with the battery and could come out in a crash. Also, if I used a different battery (LiPO) they did not fit in as snug and were usually not enough weight.

Just about 2.25 inches

New position for the battery to improve CG.
(This is an old photo)

So I decided to take the opportunity to make a change. I had seen someone on the Internet use a fishing "egg" sinker to balance their Wild Hawk, and out to the garage I went to find my tackle box. I came back in with a few old drop style sinkers that my late Grandfather had made way back in the day, and some newer smaller pinch style shot weights. The drop style I estimated at being 1/2 and 1/4 ounce while the shot were probably about 1/8 ounce each. Now the Wild Hawk that I had seen with the egg style sinker just had a hole drilled into it and the sinker hot glued in. I did not want to do this and I also wanted to be able to change the amount of weight installed so I could add more when using a lighter battery. I accomplished this by slicing a wedge of foam out of the top of the nose and then boring some holes down into the foam to make room for the sinkers. I used my modified soldering iron to create the holes with the idea that the melted foam would actually provide for some stability in the nose and hold the weights better.

Holes bored in with solder iron

With the NiMH weights

After some experimenting I was able to balance my Wild Hawk at the point I wanted, 2.25 inched from the leading edge. This was with the original NiMH battery and the two drop sinkers and four shot weights. I made the holes for the shot weights deep enough so that I could add more later. I found the "more" amount to be 5 of the shot weights to give me the same CG balance point. I hot glued in the first set of weights and made sure there was room for the "more" weights. To hold everything in I just used some fiber strapping tape and taped from the nose over the top of the piece that I cut out. This worked out just fine in practice.

With the "more" weights

Now for the test. I finally got some flight time and the plane flew great with the original NiMH battery and I had no issues! The wings held up great too and showed no signs of bowing even pulling through a loop! After flying until the NiMH battery was dead, I switched to my LiPO battery. I opened the front hatch by pulling back the strapping tape and dropping in the extra shot weights. Then I closed the hatch by sticking the tape down again. I flew this one till dead also. Even with a few crashes I had no issues with the nose weights! I am very pleased with these two new mods!

For some added fun, here are two vids of my Dad flying. First he's flying my brothers Wild Hawk and then his own Wild Hawk (O'l Hickory).

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Wing repair

2011-09-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so in my last post, I had issues with my wings starting to buckle at the end of the wing spar and where I cut out for the aileron servos. I finally decided to repair this by cutting a slot in the wing and inserting a support in the form of a bamboo rod. Not something really special, just a couple of bamboo cooking skewers!

I really had some issues with how I would cut a groove for these bamboo rods. My original thought was to use my razor knife and cut a track of foam out of the wing. Although this might have been the easiest way to accomplish this, I did not want to remove foam from any part of the plane anymore. My thoughts are that the removal of foam will lend to the weakening of what ever part it is removed from. So my ultimate decision was to modify my soldering iron and to use it to melt the foam out of my way. My theory is that the melted foam will maintain the strength of the part but allow for the modification. So I removed the original tip from my soldering iron and created a new one from a nail and inserted it and set the tightening screw.

After I came up with my final location for the re-enforcement rods, and laid out some markings, and removed the support tape covering this area of the wings, I was finally ready. I got out a metal straight edge (the back of a steel saw blade). Lined it up with my markings and began to cut/melt the foam and open the slot for the bamboo rods.

I performed this task on both wings and was pleased with the results. Now it was time to affix the rods. I simply used my hot glue gun to lay a bead of glue in the slot and quickly inserted the rods. Then I laid in some more glue on the top side to ensure the bond and to fill in any gaps.

Now that this was all done, I re-taped the wings with fiber strapping tape from root to tip. Re-installed the aileron servos and taped down the servo wires. All ready for a test flight!

UPDATE:
Testing went very well and I am happy with the results! I have been able to fly in heavy wind and do stunts pulling heavy G's without any wing issues. I feel that melting the foam had added extra support to what the bamboo rod adds and makes for a better repair.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Flying in the wind

2011-08-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

After complaining about too much wind and not being able to fly, I was now waiting for a chance to fly with wind. Yeah, I wanted to test if it would make much of a difference flying in the wind with ailerons. So, finally a chance to fly and a day with wind. About 8 to 10 mph.

I started with a full charge on the stock NiMH battery and tossed the aileron equipped Wild Hawk into the wind. Wow, it flew great! The ailerons really made a difference if keeping the plane in the air. I continued to fly and enjoy playing in the wind. I did notice that one drawback to flying in the wind is that you can only fly into the wind if you have the battery to do it. I had to bring the plane in long before I normally would have while I still had enough power to bring it in.

So my flying in the wind was a success and I had a great time. I was so eager to fly again that I went our as soon as I could. I was having a great time and even decided to try a few loops. Good thing I only tried one though because as soon as it pulled full Gs, I noticed that the wings had an odd angle to them. I put the plane through a few more maneuvers and noticed the same odd wing angle. Oops, time to bring it in!

Servo label nicely glued into the cutout!

Well, I brought the plane in a little too aggressive in an attempt to keep the wings in one piece and lost an aileron servo. No big deal, and it will teach me not to hot glue servos in on the side with a sticker. The bond is only as good as the sticker glue!

Wing crease right about where the window divider in the back groung meets the wing

Ok, so upon inspection, I found that the wings were both starting to kink and flex right at the line where the wing spar ends and the aileron servo cutout and aileron cutout weakened the wing. Another learning experience, watch out where you make alterations and where the stress points are!

Now I need to figure out how I'm going to strengthen my wings so they don't crack and give out during a flight. That will be my next blog.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Aileron time

2011-07-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I flew someone else's plane using only elevator and ailerons, with both on the same stick and loved it. I decided that since this is the normal configuration for transmitters, I should use that configuration now and not incur a learning curve later.

Now I have ailerons to install.

I started by ordering two servos (9 gram), Y cable, and extension cables from HobbyPartz.com. When they arrived and I opened the package, I was a little concerned with these servos. OK, I know I bought the cheapest ones they had, but still I thought I may have made a mistake. But now after installing them and testing them out, I love them! They are great little servos and faster than the stock ones installed.

The start of measuring the ailerons. This was a bit tricky as I had no plans and only suggestions from the Internet as to how far to start them from the root of the wing. Some people said 5" and others said 2". I decided on about 3.5" and then took them out to just before the wing tip bends up. This will still give me a full aileron if I decide to cut the wing tips off.

The first cut. Very nerve racking. I also decided to make them 2" deep. I had seen others make them only about 1", and then go on to later add extensions. I would rather have to tune them back on the linkage side then add to them latter with extra foam or balsa.

First aileron all cut out. Now to make a duplicate on the other side.

Start of installing the hinges. I had originally cut everything square with the intention of doing a hinge like I did for the tail. Boy was that a failure. I found out that that type of hinge works best on thin edges only and on the thick cross section I was now working with, they had way too much play. So I changed gears and went to the bevel cut and top side tape hinge. A much better plan.

Hinges installed. Just used strapping tape. I had fully intended to use a single strip of clear packing tape, or at least to cut even sized pieces and to a neater job, but I got impatient and just used them like they are.

I needed some control horns and did not want to go out and buy some. I was also too impatient to wait for an order to arrive. So, I did some research on how to make my own, and this is what I settled on.

I made my own control horns from an old AT&T SIM card (see it in the picture?). These were just pushed into slots cut with a razor knife and then glued with a bead of hot glue. To make the slot I just lined them up with the servo arm, tilted them over, and cut down the edge with my hobby knife (the one in the picture).

Both servos installed. I hot glued the Y cable connectors into openings cut just below and behind the leading edge of the wing (~~sorry, no pictures of this. Maybe later~~ See update below). These were not as easy as I had thought they would be. When I started planning them, I realized that there was not a lot of room as the power switch and the air scoop I installed were right where I wanted them to be. Well, I found room.

UPDATE - here are photos of the Y cable with the socket ends secured in the sides of the fuselage.

Detail shots of the servos and the control horns installed. You can just see the hot glue beads on either side of the horns. I made cut-outs in the wings for the servos by setting them in place and cutting around them with a hobby knife. I then cut out the foam as best as I could and used a hot nail head (held with pliers) to smooth out the bottom of the cut-out. The servos only sit in about half of their thickness. I figured that would be good enough. They were then just hot glued in.

Check out the snazzy push rods. They were made from one large paper clip! From this photo you can just make out that the servo is at the end of, and just to one side of the wing spar.

Aileron test before flying. Not the best video as I was doing the camera and controls (who needs a tripod!).

First flight. Actually 3 flights! And yeah, I flew it with masking tape holding the servo leads down.

I really like how the plane flies now and am waiting for my first chance to find out how well it performs in a wind.

UPDATE:

See my other blog post rcflyingfun flapperons to see how I upgraded this to flapperons with a new 6 channel radio and mixing.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Power play

2011-07-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

We are now having some good flying weather so I went flying again. Now I had some issues with the throttle. I started experiencing the typically reported Wild Hawk speed controller issues with the power cutting out and coming back on.

In reviewing all the reported issues I could find on the Internet, I could not find solutions that did not include replacing the speed controller and motor.

Well I started reviewing all the facts. The speed controller is set to shutdown the motor when the battery voltage drops below a certain level. I'm using home made 3 cell series li-ion battery pack. I found that the batteries I am using (18650 series) have a max discharge rate of about 4 amps (~2C). One of the cells in the pack shows a slightly lower voltage than the others.

with this info, I think I can say that what is going on is that with this battery the motor is pulling more than it can supply so the battery is compensating by lowering it voltage. This voltage drop tells the speed controller to shut down the motor and only supply the servos.

I tested this by hooking up a battery monitor to the charge connector and then ran the motor through various speeds. Sure enough, after a bit, especially at high speed, the battery voltage dropped and the motor started stuttering and finally shut down. Interesting enough, I noticed that the speed controller got really hot.

Any way, the next time out I used the NiMH battery and flew for a long time and had no issues. Problem solved? Now I'm looking for a real LiPo pack for the more power and run time I was looking for.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Flying again

2011-07-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got a chance to fly again. It was still a little windy but I wanted to fly anyway.

The new hinges on the tail worked great! I love these new hinges!

OK, that might all be fine, but the wind took control on a low turn and I hit full power nose down into the ground. Broke the nose off of the plane, again.

Can't really see the full extent of the damage but you can see it's seriously tweaked. This is also after I spent a good half hour taking all of the tape off. You have to tape these really good, especially while learning.

Now you can see some of the damage.

I had to completely disconnect the nose to realy fix it right, so I did.

All nicely glued back together!

Well, I took the opportunity to do some updates while I was at it. I decided to do some spoon scoops to try to improve cooling.

This is the nose hole I started with. This is up front by the battery.

The spoon cut real easy with an Exacto saw blade.

I marked the location with a pen so I would know where to place a bead of hot glue

This seemed like the best place for the exhaust port.

You can see them both installed in this view. Not real easy to see, but they are there.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad. Be sure to come back and check for future posts.