| Date | Plane | Flights (successful take offs) | 88 |
| 1/12/2002 | Elfi | 3 | First Electric flights. Questionable CG and elevator throws. Battery seems a bit too big, rubbing against the elevator control arm. Replaced reciever with Easy Sport reciever. But hey! It flew! 3 channel flying is a bit tricky, I was over the pits a bit more than I would've liked, but landed it 3 times very soft. Deep cycling the battery afterwards. |
| 1/6/2001 | Germlin | 3 | Went to the field to see Jim fly the Xwing, which didn't go well. Fun to watch, and lots of people at the field. Flew the gremlin 3 times, and the landings were all great. |
| 12/27/2001 | Gremlin | 1 | Lunch time flight to show my Dad the plane. He's flown them with a friend of his, but I don't think he's seen a gremlin. Very cold, and my fingers were hurting by the end of the one flight. Landing from the right (over the nasty trees) wasn't too bad. |
| 12/23/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | One nice flight, after which I went to help Mark V get his plane out of a tree. We failed. I started the gremlin up and was about to launch and Dave Beach asked if I wanted to fly combat. How could I refuse? I tied a streamer on and we went at it. No cuts, but I was much more relaxed flying combat... not worrying about the next move or whatever, just in the moment. No cuts this time, and Dave landed about 10 steps closer to the mark than I did. So he won. |
| 12/9/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | First snow of the year, on the same day as the egg drop contest. Showed up too late to drop an egg, but there were about 10 ppl at the field. Most had floats, some with skiis. My first taste of snow flying, and I have to say the Gremlin is great. The launch problems some people had don't bother the hand-launched Gremlin. And the landing couldn't be softer in a foot of snow! I came down kinda hard, and it just stopped gently and nosed into the snow. Jim took Chris up on the Gremlin with the buddy box, and he landed it SOFTLY, with a nice slide, which ended about 2 feet from the fence gate. |
| 12/8/2001 | Gremlin | 1 | Tapered the elevons, and it flies much better. No hint of flutter (although I still fear the power dive) This was a very quick flight, just enough to get it up in the air to test the tapering. |
| 12/7/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | Flying alone. Found 2 gliders on the field. Checked the controls, gassed up and launched. Plane went whacky, almost straight up, then behind be, then to the right, then diving towards the middle of the field, pulled up and it grazed the grass and finally gained some speed. Gained some altitude and brought it in for a landing. Trim was way off and it just felt WRONG. Upon landing (not a bad landing) I noticed one of the clips to the elevons was loose and just barely hanging on! I was lucky. Went to the shop, fixed the part and flew it later in the day. Flutter was a MAJOR problem. Almost piled it in on a low fast pass when the flutter got so bad the thing started going out of control. |
| 12/2/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | First time up in this plane in a few weeks. I think the elevator trim being way to UP caused me a very squirlly take off and I thought I was going to loose it a few times. Power seemed really low, and I just flew the pattern and did a few rolls before a very soft landing. |
| 12/2/2001 | Germlin | 1 | Uneventfull flight. Lots of people at the field. A younger kid had just busted his motor mount on his gremlin before my flight. I told him of my many engine mount breaks. |
| 12/1/2001 | Germlin | 2 | At my sister's baby shower, tied a baloon to a 30ft fishing line and entertained the crowd trying to pop it. I never even came close. First landing attempt was a nose into some soft dirt a little short of the lawn, 2nd landing was about 3 ft short of the lawn in the tall grass. My first flights at Mack Hill with no repair work needed! |
| 11/19/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | Looks like the winter will be full of mostly lunch time flights as the stupid sun can't be counted on anymore. The usual suspects at the field, and Duane once again said I had some flutter… this was after a very high speed power dive from which I almost ended with a "landing" in the trees. But I decided I'd land and check out the flutter I have yet to hear myself. Coming in for landing I went to pull the engine trim back and (discovered this 2 days later) pulled the elevator trim all the way down instead. This was less than a foot from the ground. Result was a nose dive at high speed which cleanly sheard the engine mount and put the engine down gently. The rest of the plane jumped about 30ft and then glided to a soft landing. (Remember, full down elevator trim) Repair took 10min and cost $0.00 (I had extra wood for engine mounts) |
| 11/13/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | Lunch time flights, Duane and Casey at the field. Duane heard "flutter" and let me know, so I landed (worst gremlin landing yet, only broke the prop after a BIG bounce!) and checked things out to find that one of the control horns was a little loose. Need to check EVERYTHING and probably get some locktite for this bird. The shaft/nut/spinner combination makes prop changing a BREEZE |
| 11/10/2001 | Gremlin | 1 | Stopped a the field on the way to the store, and I just happened to have a gremlin in the car, so I took it up for a quick flight. This thing flies like it's on rails. |
| 11/9/2001 | Gremlin | 1 | Lunch time flgiht, just a quick jaunt to the field. |
| 11/3/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | A quick trim flight to make sure this bird still works, and then let Jim Burns take Chris Seiler up on the buddy box. A couple close calls, one BELOW the tree line! |
| 11/3/2001 | Gremlin | 2 | First gremlin flight, had Dave Beach trim it out for me. Flew great from the beginning. Controls were a little on the "low rate" side, so I added some throw. |
| 9/28/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Gremlin Combat at the field. Flew in open class compitiion. Won first round due to competitor engine out after about 2 min of very crazy fun flying.. Lost second round due to MY engine out! Combat is VERY FUN. Engine died for unkown reason, dead stick landing with zero damage though. Tried to use David's glow starter, and accidentally took my glow plug out and got it dirty. Owe David one glow plug. |
| 9/25/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Getting dark earlier and earlier. Duane crashed on a dead stick today. Totalled his stick. My two flights were fun, but a little windy. Got into a spin kinda low, and was very freaked out. Felt like I had no control for a few seconds, but it pulled out. Once again I was SURE I was going to crash, but didn't. |
| 9/17/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | One other person there when I arrived. We both took off at about the same time. My engine did a little hick-up about 7 min into my first flight so I landed, a very good landing. Next time up I was feeling much more confident… did a bunch of loops and rolls and low passes. Almost back to where I was before the last big crash. Last landing was almost perfect. |
| 9/16/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Tied a red white & blue streamer to my plane today. Opened the gate on a Sunday around 3pm, everyone was at the float fly this weekend. Bob Holiday was the only other flier at the field. A few people arrived who weren't singed off to solo yet, so they did taxi practice. I felt like a total dork when I left having to ask them to leave becuase I had to lock up the gate. My flights were great. First landing I put it down a little too soon, but the second landing was like grease... it felt so good to finally land a nice one. |
| 9/13/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | First flight since the terrorist attack. Very eerie not seeing any planes taking off or landing at MHT. Heard about another R/C pilot who wasn't allowed to fly at Plum Island airport. My flight was okay. I don't remember the landing being bad, but it wasn't a nice soft touch down like the next few... |
| 9/9/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | The Limbo competition was going on most of the morning, and when it (finally) ended I went up for one flight. A good lfight, but too much traffic (3 other planes) for my taste. First landing attempt was going too long without touching down so I went around. On the second pass I throttled back too much and the engine was stopped when I touched down, but it was a very soft, very slow landing. Mark Duckworth (?) measuerd the sound of my engine at 90db. It was the quitest one there (aside from his electirc I'm sure!) |
| 9/6/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Took the plane to Vermont and went flying in a field near my friend Chris's house. Let Chris take the controls on the second flight. He gave them back pretty quick. Take off was scary, big win gust, but got it to fly and brought it home in one piece. |
| 9/4/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | Got a late start and someone else was on channel 54 so I only had time for one flight before the darkness made it a bit tricky. Good flight, just did the pattern and a few rolls. Landing was hard, but nothing broken. Touched down going too fast, need to fly it as long as possible. |
| 9/1/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | First succsefull flight in over a month! First flight in Vermont as well. Nice field next to a warehouse, with a excellent asphalt runway. Lots of wind though, so each turn changed the trim. Landed in the tall grass because I didn't like the idea of cartwheeling on asphalt. |
| 8/28/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | Took off and it wouldn't climb for crap. Turned to downwind and it just wasn't flying right. Brought it in for an emergency landing and hit the nose pretty hard. Busted up the fuse anyway. Are we having fun yet? |
| 7/15/2001 | Easy Sport | 3 | Crashed pretty bad today. Was trying to do an inside loop to avoid hitting another plane and I wasn't high enough. Ended up inverted under the treeline. I might have come out had I maintained control input, but I got confused and tried to roll, and ended up hitting the trees. Lost both main wings and the fire wall seperated from the fuse, cracking the side pretty bad. There were 2 trainers at the field on my frequency, so there was a lot of waiting. |
| 7/11/2001 | Easy Sport | 3 | Late night at field. A little breeze. Flying with a zinger 11-5 prop. Take off roll very short, but hard to gain altitude afterwards. Very shakey around trees etc. Probably not helping that I was turning away from the wind after taking off. Did 3 flights and 3 landings. Couple bounces on 2 of the landings, but a NICE solid no bounce slow landing on the 2nd try. Very nice to pack the plane up knowing I don't HAVE TO REPAIR IT before the next flight. |
| 7/5/2001 | Easy Sport | 0 | Second joiner, the one that holds the wing on, was craked in the middle. Cut the top of it off and made a new one. Installed with much epoxy and gussetts. Servo screws almost all loose. Ripped servo tray out and installed plastic one that came with servos, very nice install. Re-installed Homer pilot and canopy. Still using rubber bands to hold canopy on, makes access to wing screws easier. |
| 7/4/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Back at Mack hill, many people in the crowd. Take off great. Lots of loops, kinda close to the trees once, but a great flight. Engine died on landing abort and put it down hard and broke the prop. Took off again a while later for another great flight and piled it in on landing. Trying to come in low and clipped the brush and nosed in. Front landing gear torn off, and other damage not noticed until next night. |
| 7/3/2001 | Easy Sport | 0 | Ripped fire wall out, made new one. Glued on with much epoxy. Better than before. The old one didn't break as much as the glue let go. |
| 7/2/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Flying at my sister's house on Mack Hill. Not much of a landing strip. First attempt at take off I clipped the brush at the end of the "runway" and spun in cracking the firewall. We used duct tape and wire to get it back together and got it up in the air for a good flight. Landingwas bad, becuase the nose wheel, being attached to the firewall, was loose. |
| 7/1/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | Sunday at the field. At least 15 other planes there. There was a compitition and since everyone else was doing it, I thought I'd give it a try. It was a baloon bust. A 8 ft PVC pipe with another 6 ft of balsa stick on top, with a baloon on top. Each contestant got 3 passes. The first guy popped the baloon on his second try. Next 3 missed. The wind was picking up so I said I'd go next. (That and each time the stick get's hit, it gets shorter) I missed on my first pass, and came in low on my second pass and hit the PVC pipe. It was enough to break the stick and I landed about 30ft from the touch down point. Jim burns broke the stick on his second pass and landed about 30 inches from the touch down point to steal 2nd place from me. |
| 6/29/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | First flight with new wheels and new prop. Take off roll dramatically reduced. Probably only 10 feet now (as opposed to 50 yards). Speed in the air reduced as expected. Climbing ability reduced as well. Will have to experiment with different props. Trimmed the southern bushes YET AGAIN on landing. They are nemesis bushes. |
| 6/26/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | Quick lunch time flight with colleague Matt C again. Up and practiced some landing approaches. Dave Beach was the only other person at the field. One great landing. |
| 6/25/2001 | Easy Sport | 3 | Waited alone at the field for a few min not wanting to fly alone, and as I started the engine another flyer arrived. So I wasn’t flying alone. Take off roll is VERY long on the Easy Sport. I dunno why. Did three flights, basically doing approaches and a couple of landings per flight. I played with the dual rates today, and like them a lot. I forgot to turn them OFF for the 3rd takeoff and ended up in the brush. All but one landing was very good and I was able to taxi back to the pit. The 2nd (of 6) was a bit too steep and I hit the prop stopping the engine. |
| 6/24/2001 | Easy Sport | 2 | First take off run to the south was aborted because it wouldn't lift. Came pretty close to nailing the fence. Second take off run was aborted before it start because the engine stalled at throttle-up. Checked the fuel tank and found the clunk jammed in the front. Fixed that, and got in the air for some VERY fun flying. Elevator trimming make the plane much more agile in the air. First landing was a bush whack as I came in to low/slow. No damage. Send take off was a long run, but got it up there. Played with the dual rate controls, and liked them VERY much. Was doing approaches and deadsticked high above the runway. Did a long right turn (almost over the pits) for a nose hard (but on the wheels) landing. Bent the front gear, but the fix was easy. |
| 6/18/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | Thought this was a quick flight, but I ran out of fuel right after the downwind turn. Dave Beach was there, and heard me yell, "DeadStick!", and was at my side pretty quick. I brought it straight to the center of the field, did a couple steep banks a few feet off the ground, and had quite possibly my softest landing to date. The elevator trim was off, I had it trimmed full up and it still wanted to dive a bit. Brought it home, adjusted the elevator, and saw the fuel tank was empty. That's a good thing, because now I know *why* the engine quit mid-flight. |
| 6/16/2001 | Easy Sport | 1 | Finished construction and flew the plane today! It rolls like crazy, way too much airelon throw. Landing was too short and I ended up in the brush at the edge of the runway. There's a river going through those bushes, and I landed in some brush OVERHANGING the river. Very close to a wet plane. |
| 6/9/2001 | Easy Sport | 0 | Bought a Great Planes Easy Sport 40 ARF. I was considering a couple Tiger planes, but the price was higher than I wanted. Step 1 = Wing Joiner Assembly, can you say EPOXY? |
| . | Anna Banana | 1 | John and I were the only one's at the field. The first time I had to open the gate myself. Take off was picture perfect to the south. I got her up and did loops, stalls, immelmans, Cuban eights (none of them perfect, but very fun to do)... then John said, "Bring it straight at us..." something something. John was an air-force pilot, so I take his advice well. I got it coming straight at us. The plan was to pull up and turn pilot's-right. I pulled up and it happened. The right wing separated from the plane with a POP and began to spin away. The fuse and left wing continued pretty much towards us, but pitched up a bit. I was still trying to control the plane... with little to no effect on it's eventual path. The right wing landed in foot high soft grass. The plane, engine running at full throttle, hit a railroad track full speed. "Thwack" is exactly the sound it made. The Banana will not fly again. It was not pilot error, but bad modeling. The wing just split in half... I used CA+ on the spar, a |
| 6/7/2001 | Anna Banana | 1 | Lunch time: A colleague of mine wanted to know what I wanted to do for lunch, and I told him there was a Wendy's across the street from the R/C field. He said, "Kewl, let's go!" So we got the plane, headed to the field and took the plane up for one flight. The firewall damage from the previous day got much worse. The engine/mount/firewall was yawed about 10deg after a landing where the prop hit momentarily. That night I took engine and front gear off the plane and sanded the edges all down and did a REALLY good repair job on the firewall. It's VERY solid. |
| 6/6/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Suzy went for a walk while I took the plane down for a quick flight or 2. The wind was blowing from the south, so I had to land over trees on the right which is tricky. On my first landing attempt I bounced the nose HARD. Broke the prop and unset the firewall from the fuse. Not good. Did some epoxy work and went up again anyway. Had a great flight with a much better landing. |
| 6/5/2001 | Anna Banana | 1 | Went to my sister's house for my Bro-In-Law John's bday, and brought the plane. We decided we could take off and land on a specific section of his lawn. Pretty ambitious, but we did it. First 2 take-offs didn't get in the air, plowed into the knee-high brush at the edge of the lawn. Got the mower out and mowed a strip and got it in the air. Pretty scary take-off! Flew around great. Suzy/Mary/Anna/Dogs were on the upper porch with a great view. Landing: Came in as slow as I could and put it in the knee high grass about a foot from the lawn.. which on reflection was perfect! Plane was fine! |
| 6/4/2001 | Anna Banana | 1 | The wind was pretty gusty all day, but started to die down towards sunset. So as Suzy headed off to take a walk I headed to the field. Jim and family walked by our front yard as I left. So I was sure he wouldn't be there, which was scary. I got there and Dwayne was just putting his plane away. We chatted a bit, and I decided the winds were within my personal minimums and put the plane together. It started right away. It was a little tricky holding the radio and the plane at the same time and running it up, but I managed. Taxied out and took off into a lite gust. On climb out I was getting tossed around and was a little scared I had made a mistake, but after a little altitude I was fine. Did some patterns and then a nice looking Cuban eight. Did some low passes (very very kewl sounding!) and then did a stall on the downwind. It really hung on the prop a lot longer than I though it would. I was pretty far out as well, good thing my plane is so visible or I might've become disoriented. Brought it |
| 6/1/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Fixed the stab. Headed to the field with Anna, Mary and John. Burned a tank on the buddy box with Jim. Did a couple landings, last one I put the prop in the fence! Jim signed me off anyway and I soloed! It was a little windy, but not too bad. There were about 6 other members at the field, and they all dropped what they were doing to watch me solo. Made me pretty nervous. I took off, did the pattern a few times and then just had fun! Doing loops and trying to do cuban eights. Did some immelmans that came out not too too bad. Final landing went very well. Felt pretty good to be using my radio for the first time. |
| 5/29/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Got to the field at Jim and Dave were there (both instructors!): It was kinda gusty. Jim asked, "Is this the day?" and I said I hoped it was. I took off, on the buddy box, did some pattern work. The mosquitoes at the field were FIERCE. I could barely keep my hands on the controls as opposed to swatting the bugs. I brought it in mainly so I could spray some bug juice on myself, bounced once on landing, not too bad. Fueled, Took off again, after giving Jim the check list for the pilot proficiency program. He had me do some figure eights first, slow flight, then a right turn pattern, then a left turn pattern and some approaches from the right. Did a couple more approaches and then it went dead stick on the last approach. After Jim landing he noticed the vertical stab was pretty loose and no-one had any glue so I called it a day. Jim signed me off on everything but the landings, because I only did 2 and the form calls for 3! DOH! David Beach was there and had a streamer trailing from his plane. |
| 5/26/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Headed down to the field around 11:00, to find Jim, Dave and some other pilots flying already. Asked Jim if he'd mind doing some more instruction and as always he said he'd love to. Did the take off myself, flew around the pattern a while, some loops, some immelman practice. Tried to to some figure eights but ended up climbing too much. Jim asked if I'd like to do some landing approaches, and asked if I knew what a flare was. I said I did. Brought it in, and landed it myself for the first time! Fueled it up, and back up in the air. Did a couple landings, and takeoff's myself and remembered to start the timer this time. After 12min it ran out of fuel on a good landing approach and Jim brought it in dead stick. Jim asked if I had the pilot proficiency sheet, because he said I was ready to be signed off for Solo! I guess the simulator helped a little at least. |
| 5/24/2001 | Anna Banana | FINALLY for Real Flight up and running (bought it 5/1/2001), and am trying to learn all the maneuvers in the pilot proficiency list. Not too easy, but the crashes are painless! Did my planes colour scheme up so it's a bit more realistic. | |
| 5/21/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Headed to the field with my brother-in-law John. Dorian was there and said he'd take me up. Did some taxiing, and Dorian took off for me. I flew around for a while, doing the pattern, and some loops. Dorian brought it down and we refueled and took off again (fastest "Pit Time" I've had), and let John take the controls. He pointed it towards the ground and Dorian took over. John flew around the pattern a bit after that. I took over again and really started to have fun, doing loops, climbing till almost stalled, coming down in a spiral. Much more than just the pattern stuff. It was pretty windy so I didn't do too many low approaches to land. |
| 5/20/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Went to field early, got in a bunch of flights. Feeling much more in control. Jim only had to take over when the engine died and on final to land it. Lots of people at the field. Took some pictures. |
| 5/19/2001 | Anna Banana | 3 | Replaced missing collar (escaped from R/C Buyers for under $100!), and checked tightness of several bolts... and ended up shearing an engine bolt. Doh. Still flight worthy, but needs to be replaced. Saw Jim drive by, so I headed down to the field for 3 tanks (3 flights). The fuel pump had some issues, which we think lowering the pump will fix. Tested it later and it seems to work much better. |
| 5/18/2001 | Anna Banana | Went to fly, no instructor. Taxied around field until nose wheel collar fell off, causing wheel to fall off, causing plane to stop abruptly. Murphy was a pilot. | |
| 5/12/2001 | Anna Banana | Fix front wheel and apply a couple patches to tears in covering. Practice taxiing in front yard and street. | |
| 5/10/2001 | Anna Banana | Practice Taxiing with Dave and after brief test flight discover that the front wheel is loose. Upon tightening the bolt is stripped. | |
| 5/9/2001 | Anna Banana | Augment main wing cradle. Trim the elevator down. | |
| 5/8/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Second Flight: Upon startup, notice the muffler isn't bolted on very tight. Use a full tank of gas doing pattern work. Trying to bring it in for a landing approach is much harder than I though. Each turn changes the wind and I'm either diving or climbing. Elevator probably needs trimmed down. Burn 2 tanks of gas. On the 2nd run, it goes dead-stick midfield at about 40ft. Not great. Jim brings it in for a very nice landing. Zero damage. Notice the main wing is off the "cradle", and Jim suggests augmenting with a block of wood. |
| 5/1/2001 | Anna Banana | 2 | Jim (Instructor) does take off and landing, a few adjustments, take off again and M@ is given control for some turns and a bunch of loops. |
| 4/27/2001 | Anna Banana | Plane building is complete | |
| 4/8/2001 | Anna Banana | Suzy gives M@ plane kit |