Siloam Springs RC Modelers

The weathermen are really starting to get my goat. 55 and sunny with 5-10mph winds from the WNW; that was the prediction. Reality was overcast, 45 degrees, and west winds at 5-10. Yes, they got the wind right, so I shouldn’t be too unhappy
I got to the field about noon with one of my Focus Sports and my Abbra. I’d been working with the manufacturer on the dual regulator setup I have in my planes, and he’s sent me a new one to try for this Focus Sport. The regulators let me run a pair of 2-cell Lipos: they regulate the voltage down to 6.2v, and they pull from both packs individually but equally. That part about pulling equally is where I was having problems, and why I was working with the manufacturer. Each of my regulator sets behaved differently, but they all pulled much different amounts from each pack. On some it was so bad, that 500ma would be pulled from one pack and 100ma from the other. Since I’m only running 730mah packs, that’s not good. Anyway… I got to the field early to test out the new regulator. I got in 4 flights on the Focus Sport and none on the Abbra. The new regulator in the Focus Sport did very well. Yay!
Tony Fox came out about 1pm with his Saito 100-powered Hangar 9 P-51. On his first flight, the engine just did not want to run right. Tony had it tuned nicely, took off and flew a few circuits, and had to come back in, because it just wasn’t running all the way up. He tweaked it a bit more and went back up, and it did the same thing. Hmmm… Tony had an idea what the problem might be: the 15% fuel he was using had some castor in it. Before his next flight, he filled up with some 15% that was all synthetic, and the engine ran great! It was amazing how much of a difference that made. I commented to Bill Bergen that Tony’s Saito sounded exactly like Bill’s Saito 72 does. Bill said he’d try the synthetic 15% next time.
Mark Labadie, Bill Whitaker, Max Freeman, Dave Husher, and Kevin Sisco all came out about 1:30. Mark had his 60-sized Tiger, and he got in most of one flight. Unfortunately, he ran into some problems and crashed north of the field. He and Dave Husher drove out of the field and up that access road north of the field. That road must have been pretty soft, because he had to have help getting unstuck. Luckily Max and Tony walked down there and were able to help. Ugh… His plane wasn’t terrible damaged, though: the fuselage was cracked at the front of the wing saddle, and the left leading edge of the wing had quite a bit of damage. It seemed easily repairable, though.
Whitaker had his electric Spitfire, and he charged it up with Tony’s charger while Tony was off helping Mark Bill flew once, and had a good flight.
Max may or may not have had a plane. I didn’t ever see one
Dave did not have a plane, as he had some problems with his electric Edge on Saturday.
Kevin had his 50-sized Raptor helicopter, and he flew once. Kevin flies that ‘copter very well. I’m glad he’s been able to come out and fly with us more often.
Bill Bergen came out about 2:30. He didn’t bring anything. Bill was helping the grandson of some people from church with a small electric plane at the high school practice field. He seemed pretty worn out from the experience Flying those can be a struggle.
Roger Youmans was out about 3pm with a couple of his kids. They had what looked like a brand new Park Zone Cub, and it flew very well. The young man took off and flew the plane very nicely.
The sun finally came out about 3:30, and the clouds broke up and mostly went away. It was too late for all that sunshine to affect the temperatures much, unfortunately. Oh, well.
Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and they’re predicting 62 and sunny for Monday, but the winds are going to be from the south at 10-20. I’ll be out with John to do some more testing on that regulator, so I’m hopeful the weathermen are right.