RC Racing at Warehouse 3

Saturday, April 27th, 2013

It been awhile since I dusted off the RC's and got some racing in, so since everyone else was off doing different things this weekend, I decide what the hell, time to break out on my own.  Since I haven't had a chance to visit Warehouse 3 since they moved to their new location, I took this as the perfect opportunity to go and see the new facility.  I got there about an hour after they opened because I wanted to get in some practice time before racing started.  I have to say, this is a very nice facility, although I wish is was closer to the central part of the valley since I live on the east side in Mesa.

After practicing for a few hours I was ready for racing.  Although I originally wanted to race my TLR 22 SCT in Pro-Lite, they did not have enough to create a class, so my only option was racing with the Pro 2 guys.    For my TLR 22 Buggy, I entered into the 17.5 Buggy class.  There ended up being 2 heats of Pro2 and 2 heats of 17.5 Buggy.

The pit spots were well laid out, plenty of room and power.

Round 1:

     Pro-2
        - Did alright for round 1, finished in 4th and was sitting 7th overall.

     17.5 Buggy
        - Buggy was a little loose for round one finished 6th, and was sitting 10th overall.

Round 2:

     Pro-2
        - Made a tire change,hurt the handling, finish 5th in this heat, dropped to 8th overall.

     17.5 Buggy
        - Tire change for the buggy, much better, finished 5th, still 10th overall.

Mains:

17.5 Buggy:

• The top 7 would start in the A-Main, and since I was in 10th overall, I would be started 3rd in the B-Main.
• B-Main:
• Started in 3rd, and ended up finishing 2nd and on my way to the A-Main.
• A-Main:
• Did not do as well as I wanted, had a few crashes, but still had a blast.

Pro2

• Since I was sitting is 8th overall, the top 7 started the A-Main, so that put my starting 1st in the B-Main.
• B-Main
• I started out pretty good, I was able to hold on to 2nd and then 3rd for almost 1/2 the race, but only being a 17.5, I eventually fell out of the bump spots and was not able to make it into the A-Main.  But it was a blast to race this truck on that track, my truck absolutely loved that layout, I just wish I could have been a little faster.
• I see a 10.5 or an 8.5 in the near future for my 22 SCT.

Upgrades to the new Super Cub plane

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

I was thinking today about my first flight with the plane, it seems that against the white clouds, it becomes somewhat hard to see the plane sometimes in the air.  So after a trip to Michaels, I purchased some foam safe spray paint, and decided to give the plane a new look.  Since I had to do some minor repairs from my first flight anyway, I decide this would be a perfect time to give the plane a new paint job.

Below are some pictures I took after painting everything up, and doing a test fit.  I had to replace the front cowl, the prop shaft, and I went ahead and replaced the motor since one of the wires on the original motor was broken.  I will try to solder on new wires to the old motor and use it as a back up.  Back to the paint job, I wanted the colors to be something that will be very noticeable while the plane is in the air, so I decided to go with yellow and black.  I still need to get a new sticker set for this one, but being this is my first plane I am learning on, I'm not going to worry about making it too fancy.  Going to be taking it out tomorrow morning for another outing with the wife.  Maybe I can get her to try to take it up for the first time tomorrow.

I wish the yellow was a little darker,
but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I think this will be very easy to spot in the sky now.

I will try to post a video of tomorrows outing, as I want to try to start videoing every outing from now on.  Eventually I would like to get a camera to have on the plane while flying.



Getting in some flying time with my Super Cub DSM RC Plane

Saturday April 6th, 2013

My brother has some planes, and I was always curious to see what it would be like to fly one.  So my curiosity finally won over, and I purchased my first RC plane.  I wanted to get something that would be easy to learn to fly with and after spending a lot of time on the forums, I decide to buy a Super Cub.   This is a great starter plane for anyone getting into the RC Plane hobby.


After checking out where you can fly in the city of Mesa, which after some research is limited, unless you are a member of one of the local clubs.  Unless I am wrong, there is only one location in the City of Mesa that is legal to fly RC Planes or Helicopters, and that is Basin 114 and 116 in far East Mesa.  Basin 116 is for Airplanes and Basin 114 is for Helicopters.  I will be doing more research here in the near future to see where else I can go to fly in the Valley of the Sun.

Below is a small video of my first outing, I was only out for about an hour because the wind was blowing more then I felt comfortable with, and was really hard to control the plane in the wind.  I think my next outing will be earlier in the morning, and hopefully on a calmer day for the wind.