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.

KBRL Finals at HobbyTown USA/SRS

Saturday January 5th, 2013

On January 5th, the KBRL Finals were held at Scottsdale RC Raceway.  Although the weather was a little bit cold, I think it was a great night of fun racing.

After missing round 6 in Tucson, I dropped a little in the points race.  For the 17.5 2WD Sportsman Buggy Class I was sitting 9th in the points at the beginning of the day, and for the 13.5 Pro-Lite Class I was sitting in 26th in the points.  After getting all setup in the pits, I was really looking forward to the racing.

Sitting in the pit, ready to race with the TLR 22 SCT and TLR 22 Buggy

On to the racing:

Round 1

13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox    9   5:36.951   35.607
Dean Vuckovich    8   5:02.931   36.135
Frank Lilly       8   5:37.313   38.538

17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:29.836   34.953
Ryan Hackl        8   5:14.446   38.143
Frank Lilly       8   5:22.592   37.448


Round 2


13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox    8   5:01.476   35.792
Dean Vuckovich    8   5:00.276   36.424
Frank Lilly       8   5:35.737   37.975



17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:22.657   34.506
Ryan Hackl        8   5:09.914   37.374
Frank Lilly       8   5:18.608   37.772



Mains

13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

For the Pro-Lite class I qualified in the D-Main, and would be starting in 2nd place.

For a D-Main race, this had to be the funnest round I have had in the series so far.  The truck felt amazing, I made some further cutouts in the body, and added some more weight to the front  and the kiting was gone. I started the race in 2nd place, after the first lap I was in 1st place and feeling good, I small wreck, and on lap two I crossed the line in 2nd place, back to where I started.  In lap 3, I had a brain fart, and wrecked off the triple and then again off twice more in the same lap, knocking down to last place.  But this is where is got fun, the truck just took off, and the I was doing some of the best driving I have done all year, within 3 more laps I was back into first place, another slight tumble on the last lap and I finished the race in 2nd place, and earning a bump into the C-Main.

For the C-Main I did not do as good I wanted, and was not sure what happened, I started in 10th and finished in 10th, and I swear I wrecked on every jump and probably hit everyone at least once in the race.  Below are the rest of the Pro-Lite Mains.

For the Pro-Lite class, I ended up finishing in 22nd overall, which was an improvement for me, I finished in 28th place overall last year in the KBRL for Pro-Lite.  Next year I hope to be in the teens or even to top 10.

17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

For the buggy, I qualified for the B-Main, and would be starting in 5th place.  The race started out okay, but after the 1st lap, the car just would not turn to the right very well, and on the 4th lap after coming off the table top before the front straight-away something happened to the steering, when I cam flying down the front straight, and came across the start finish line, the buggy would not turn at all, and I almost went straight into the wall.  I pulled the buggy from the track, and the steering was locked and would not move.  There was a rock jammed up inside, and after removing the rock I was able to rejoin the race.  Unfortunately, at this time I was already 2 laps down.  I was able to finish the race, and ended up pulling 7 laps.

Below are the Mains for the Buggy class.

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For the buggy, this was the first year that I raced it.  I ended up finishing in 8th place overall, and it was great to finish in the top 10.  Next year I want to shoot for top 5 or even top 3.

Below are some of the pictures I took during the day.

Ernest on the left and Dean on the right

Me ready for some racing

Dean showing off his Kyosho colors

Dean's black stadium truck

Ryan on the left and Tom on the right working hard in the pits

Practice for KRBL finals at SRS - HobbyTown

Saturday, December 29th, 2012

I missed round 6 of the KBRL which was held at HobbyTown in Tucson, which I am very bummed about.  That would have been a huge points day for me, but unfortunately, it couldn't be helped.  I dropped two spots in the points from 7th place down to 9th place in the 17.5 Buggy class.  So this Saturday, I decided to get in some extra practice for the finals, which will be held at SRS - HobbyTown in Scottsdale, Az.  I still may be able to break into the top 5 if I can do well at the finals.

On to the racing:

17.5 Buggy - Round 1

17.5 Buggy - Round 2

17.5 Buggy - A-Main

Weather playing havoc again with KBRL, round 6 rescheduled

Friday December 14th, 2012

Looks like the weather once again is playing havoc with another round of racing in the KBRL series.  Because of the amount of rain that was received in the Tuscon area Thursday and Friday, HobbyTown Tuscon decided that their track would not be ready for racing on Saturday.

So Kenny (KBRL) has rescheduled with HobbyTown to hold the race next Saturday, December 22nd.  There has been a few grumbling on the forums (RCTech.net) about this decision, but I fully support it.  I feel it would better to have the race in good weather, and I feel it will be more fun for everyone involved.  Just my 2 cents.

Looking forward to next Saturday, hope everyone can make it!!!!!!!

KBRL round 5 at Paddocks Short Course, Goodyear, AZ

December 1st, 2012

Round 5 of the KBRL series was held a Paddocks Short Course, in Goodyear, AZ.  For this round I was joined by Dean from Wolfpak Racing, and our friend Ernest.  Besides the practice round me and Dean got in, this would the first time I would be racing at this track.  Coming into this round of racing, I was ranked in 9th place overall for the 17.5 Sportsman Buggy class, and for Pro-Lite I was sitting in 25th place out of 55 drivers for this class.  We arrived early, getting there around 7:30 when they opened the gates, and were able to grab a nice pit space.

After arriving early, we were able to get all setup in the pits.

Qualifying - Round 1

Pro Lite - Round# 1

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox   10   5:15.162   28.532
Dean Vuckovich   10   5:32.792   30.223
Frank Lilly       9   5:04.137   29.911

For round 1 of Pro-Lite, I was not that happy with my performance.  I am still having trouble keeping the nose of TLR 22 SCT down, as on almost every jump it wants to parachute and point up.  I am going to try ordering some of the aluminum parts for the front, and I have almost all the cutout on the body removed.  Dean and Ernest was able to pull 10 laps each, but at the end of round 1, none of us were in the top 10.

17.5 Sportsman Buggy - Round# 1

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Kartman          10   5:14.696   28.716
Frank Lilly      10   5:26.783   29.667
Parker Ayers     10   5:29.299   29.739
Kevin Kilday      9   5:02.238   31.250
JR Rymond         9   5:04.263   31.205
Mike Burdeshaw    9   5:13.145   31.738
Robert Kakela     9   5:16.588   33.177
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:22.616   31.080
David Kellogg     0      0.000    0.000

This round was one of the strangest, after a restart, and a confusing restart at that, it showed me finishing in second place with 10 laps, and Dean finishing in last with only 9 laps.  After looking over the lap times, it cam to our attention that I was counted for an extra lap manually by the race director, and that one of Dean's laps did not count.  So after bringing this to the attention of the race director Kenny, I actually finished with 9 laps, and Dean had 10.

Me in the pits during round 1.

Qualifying - Round 2

Pro Lite - Round# 2

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox   10   5:03.879   28.718
Dean Vuckovich   10   5:22.896   30.240
Frank Lilly       9   5:05.628   30.878

Things didn't change much between round 1 and round 2, all three of us ended up about the same.  I ended up qualifying 27th overall and starting 3rd on in the D-Main.  Dean qualified 23rd overall and would start 7th in the C-Main.  Ernest did the best out of the three of us, he qualified 15th overall and would start 7th in the B-Main.

17.5 Sportsman Buggy - Round# 2

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Kartman          10   5:33.339   29.470
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:05.534   30.264
Robert Kakela     9   5:09.823   31.389
Frank Lilly       9   5:10.221   31.620
Parker Ayers      9   5:13.699   32.115
JR Rymond         9   5:15.299   30.497
Kevin Kilday      9   5:15.651   32.777
Mike Burdeshaw    7   4:06.315   29.673
David Kellogg     0      0.000    0.000

This was a very good round, and my buggy felt great.  A couple of inopportune crashes close to the end of the race caused me some time, I felt I could have finished in 3rd or even second. 

The Mains

17.5 Sportsman Buggy Mains:

For the Buggy A-Main, I was starting in 6th place.  Although the buggy felt good, I feel I was pushing it too much and crashed a lot.  I ended up finishing in 7th place, a little disappointing, as I felt I could have driven a much better race, especially how well I did in round two of qualifying.

Pro-Lite Mains:

For the D-Main I was having a fantastic race until the last two laps, I made some slight changes to the truck and it was handling great.  It was a scary first lap, with the first place car clocking out and never looking back, it was a different story from 2nd place on back.  When we started we were all lined up on the middle straight, with the first turn being a large high-banked 90 degree turn.  We started okay, but the 4th or 5th place car must have had nitro because on of the two came flying into the corner  and took out the entire front of the field except the first place truck.  By the end of the untangling, I was able to race back into second place, and was able to hold that place up to about less the a minute left in the race.  I got hung up on a pipe (totally my fault), and by the time I got marshaled, and back on the track I was down to third place.  I only blame myself for what happened next, as I got over aggressive trying to catch back up to second place and once again hung myself up on a pipe and then dropped to fourth, were I ended up finishing the race.