Yani-Can : The Ramblings of a Hobby-Holic

Makos RC Jet Club War Bird Show

2009-09-06T22:51:00.000-04:00

Today was the warbird show at Mako’s RC Jet Club and they had a nice turn out with a bunch of warbirds and jets. Marvin’s f16 is a definite show stopper with the over powered turbine and great scale details like the canopy that opens remotely. The hangar 9 propped f22 was being flown by a young kid, I didn’t catch his name but did he have some fingers on him. Doing high speed fly by’s on the deck like he’s been flying for 30 years. I wish I could've stayed longer, but I was on my bike and the rain was threatening.

Great Job on the show Marvin!

Flying at Tamiami Park

2009-09-06T21:16:00.002-04:00

Finally I decided to have a day for RC, its been a while. I made a trip out to Tamiami Park, the local rogue field to catch up with my old friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. I took out the Juka and to my complete surprise I still remembered how to fly and I still remember how to fly really well. I felt as good today as the last time I flew a few months back and apart from being scared of the 12 inch prop for the hover catch I had no problems. Like usual the coolest stuff at the field was the heli’s, all Aligns, 3 600’s, 1 700, and 3 250’s.

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www.YanielCantelar.com – Cycling
www.Yaniel.com - Everything

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Makos RC Jet Club Warbird Show

2009-09-06T15:36:00.001-04:00

Posted via web from Yaniel's Posterous

Panorama From The Tower At Shark Valley

2009-09-01T14:42:00.001-04:00

This is the from the tower at the mid way point of the 15 mile shark valley trail in Everglades National Park. Cool panoramic pic created with autostitch on the iPhone. Pretty amazing little app, well worth the low price, but too bad I always stick my finger in the way!

Posted via web from Wheel Sucking In Miami

Want to Give a Shout Out and Thanks to the Good Guys at Horizon Hobby

2009-08-24T22:31:00.003-04:00

   This happened a while back but I never got around to writing about it, and figure since this blog has been idle for a while I’ll talk about it now.
    Let me start off by explaining that I like the tinker, if I can modify something, you can be certain that I will.   And that’s character [flaw?] is what got me in this mess in the first place.
    I’ve been using a Spektrum DX7 almost since I started in this hobby and I’m on my second one now, the first one was left at a rogue field after packing up from an intense couple of hours of flying and spot landing my pulse 40 xt on a narrow one lane road with concrete shoulders on either side.   the road was closed off of course.   My second one is still with me, despite my trying to kill it. I like to fly, and when I fly, I fly A LOT. The stock nihm battery wasn’t enough, not even close so I upgraded that to a lipo. That held me over for a while but since I would fly a lot that soon wasn’t enough since I’d have to charge it every second or third day. Enter the Dimension Engineering Voltage Regulator mod. Yea I read all the warnings about it, but pfft... I thought I was a bad ass with a soldering iron and could tackle it for sure. I tear into the controller, get the stock regulator out, and I must say that sucker fought me the whole way out and get to work on soldering on the new regulator. Amazing myself, it went on smoothly, I powered up and everything worked. SUCCESS? Ehhhh
    Couple of weeks go by and happy as a pig in sh** with my super battery life, I could go a week without charging now, I’d see the voltage go up sometimes and I was telling everyone about how grea it was. Then my prized Juka went in, and went in hard, broke the nose off, broke 3 servo mounts, cracked the fuselage in about 5 places, and stripped two servos. I was devastated and was sure it was a lock out, but I hate to be the guy that always blames the equipment when he crashes so I was second guessing myself a lot. I’ll show that Juka who’s boss, I order a replacement fuselage and some gears from Mike @ www.dwfoamies.com , another of the great guys in this hobby. Parts arriving and I get it rebuilt, good as new. Get it painted up, set the CG again and added landing gear this time. Wait for a calm evening and head out to the park with my Juka again, man how I missed her. Power her up, Snapasorous the take off, climb and put it into a flat spin. Exit the flat spin into an elevator and life is great, the Juka is back. Next thing I know I have no control of the plane and it comes out of the elevator about 30-50 feet high and into a nose dive and I can’t do anything but watch. She’s dead again :(
    How weird, 2 lock outs, it must be the receiver. I start flying my other planes, which are luckily epp, and they’re all locking out too. I’m glad those epp yaks don’t break easily. I realize something must be wrong with the radio, and open her up and see the voltage regulator has a lose connection, One of the tabs actually came out of the PCB and was still attached to the regulator and making contact sporadically which is why it would work sometimes, but not always. I try to repair it as best I can, but realize its hopeless, my friend Herman also tried but there was no saving it.
    I admit defeat, and hand write a letter to Horizon Support explaining exactly what a moron I was, and how I modified there product and was fully prepared to pay for the replacement part which I was told would be $50-$100. I stick the dx7 in a box along with the letter and send it off to Champagne, IL and wait for a phone call. ! Week passes, tracking confirms they’ve received it but no call. 2 weeks, no call. 3 weeks, no call. Hmmm I’m debating on calling but decide to give them a 4th week. Before the end of the 3rd week UPS is honking outside which I found odd since I wasn’t expecting anything. What’s this?!? A package from Horizon? Oh my. I figure they must have charged my credit card since I’m sure its on file with them. I open the box, find my dx7 in the box and an invoice. The total on the invoice? $0.00... And a note from one of the Tech’s telling me not to do it again! I accepted my reprimand with a smile on my face and was glad to know there are still good companies out there that are willing to help a customer. That wasn’t the first positive customer service experience I had with Horizon, and it wasn’t the last. A class act all around. The product might cost more than hobbycity/king/eBay but the service can’t be beat. And that’s very important to me

Thank You Horizon!

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www.YanielCantelar.com – Cycling
www.Yaniel.com - Everything

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I've moved all the cycling and tech posts

2009-08-22T12:26:00.002-04:00

all the cycling posts are now on http://www.YanielCantelar.com
a collection of every post is now on http://www.Yaniel.com

I figured it would be better to have dedicated blogs for specific topics instead of a big mess of everything.

CYE Next-D Rave

2009-02-08T12:43:00.000-05:00

There's a new beast on the 450 block... if you can even consider this a 450. With the ability to swing 350mm blades right out of the box, pull off real auto's, a tube driven tail and a head just designing to go flybarless. The Rave presents a lot bigger than a typical 450 but not quite as large as a 500, the craziest piro rate I've ever seen and a beautiful canopy design this is on my MUST HAVE list. The irony being i sold my beloved Trex 450 SE V2 a few months back and swore I wouldn't buy another 450... damn you Curtis! Make sure to scroll down to check out the video of it knocking out some spectacular 3d courtesy rcheliresource.com!

www.curtisyoungblood.com
www.rcheliresource.com

Epp 30" Yak 55

2009-02-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

EPP... seriously.. how did anyone ever learn 3d without this wonderful material? From living room hovering, to crashing into any stationary object, including but not limited to terra firma and nothing ever breaks except for a few props (if only someone would design some EPP props hmm)!
Designed by one of the rcgroup scratchbuild foamie forum rising stars, this plane is the one if you want to learn 3d from an easy to fly, extremely forgiving, and best of all - bounce-able plane. With a little scratch building experience you can have one of these up in less than a day and it flies great with cheap hobbycity gear.
This is the one I use for front yard flying and just to try something I wouldn’t even consider without EPP... rolling loop, I had no idea how to do it, but after 3 rolling figure 9’s that last one worked and the plane didn’t even flinch.

DW Foamies BAF juka 48"

2009-02-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

This has to be hands down the best flying foamie on the market... if you feel differently feel free to leave comments but you wont change my mind... ok maybe you can but you’ll have to try REALLY hard. come on... 30 oz , 645 sq in, and 500+ watts, how cant you love it?!? This thing took me from being a good “sport pilot” in real life with not much real life 3d practice, to doing rolling harrier circles at about 6 feet of the deck in less than a week and a half... yes its that good! Mike, need any sponsored pilots in the south east?? ;-)

I actually recently lost it to a radio lock out but within a day I had ordered a replacement, I’ve never bought a 2nd of any plane in the hangar. To be honest I haven’t flown it yet because I’m scared of another lock out.

Available from: www.dwfoamies.com