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The Squamidian Report – Nov. 16 / 13
Issue #599
Including: The Ontarion Hi All, I guess it was true, we had part of our November in September because at least half of the days so far this month have been down right incredible. Forecasters keep forecasting cold and rain but when many of those days get here, they end up being warm and sunny. Warm of course is a relative term. 10 degrees in the shade for this time of year qualifies as warm. A thermometer catching the sunshine would be reading mid teens. I'm regretting having put the bike away for the winter. However, each wet day seems a bit wetter than the last and each cold day seems a bit colder so the bike can stay where it is till March. One thing I did do was bring the snow blower out from the back shed and around to the garage. Last year I procrastinated and ended up getting it out in an unexpected snow storm. A mid November snow storm at that. There is no sign of any snow at this elevation around here well into the future and having the blower in the garage and ready to go probably means there won't be any for quite a while. Its like if you want it to rain, you wash the car, if you don't want it to snow, you get the blower ready. I think there's a law of physics that cover those kinds of things. Anyway, the blower started on the second pull after sitting in the shed since last spring. All the forward and reverse gears work just like they should. Heck, the oil isn't even dirty, after a surprise early snow last fall, we had very little need to blow snow for the rest of the winter. There was some but it was mostly rain here, mostly snow further up. *
Hey, some of you may know how much fun I've been having
flying my little radio controlled helicopters around in the house.
Heck, my 'better' unit will even fly outside if the air is perfectly
calm. Unlike my unit that uses infra-red signals for control, like a TV
remote uses, the one that can fly outside uses true radio frequencies
and therefore has a range much further than I'd be comfortable with it
being. And that brings me to my RC airplanes. It has been bothering me
for 2 years now that I can not fly the RC airplane Ryan gave me. I
simply kept loosing control and crashing it before I could get the hang
of flying it. Very frustrating and heartbreaking. I hated seeing it
fall out of the air and splat into numerous pieces. Its body and wings
are styrofoam and can take a lot of abuse but nosing straight down from
20 ft or so tended to be rather destructive. I could never figure out
what I was doing wrong because it had to fly fairly fast due to being
fairly big and relatively heavy. I found a solution for learning to fly
these things. There's a hobby store in Burnaby that sells all sorts of
RC equipment including helicopters and planes. They carry a tiny little
yellow plane made by Hobbyzone called a 'Champ' that is made from
styrofoam, has a wingspan of 20 inches and weighs just 1.3 oz including
the LiPo battery. The tiny battery is the size of a quarter of a stick
of chewing gum and gives almost 12 minutes of flight time between
charges. Like my bigger plane, it is 3-channel, meaning engine control,
rudder and elevator. The dihedral angle built into the wings takes care
of roll. I've actually learned to fly it and at some point should be
able to transition up to the bigger, faster plane. The little yellow
'Champ' is designed for learning on, very rugged and easy to fly. Or at
least easy once you know how.The first time I tried flying the little yellow 'Champ' didn't go quite as planned. Even though it can be flown in a fairly confined area by a 'competent' pilot, I sort of ignored the first instruction in the manual that states: “Until you have learned to fly this plane, fly in a large, open field”. I figured, “how hard can it be?” and tried flying right out on the street in front of my house, with trees, cars, rock walls, light posts etc all around. It survived a couple of crashes and then hit a good, solid object that snapped the wing off. I glued the wing back together and decided to find that big open field. Well, I found the local ball park and its grass instead of concrete and rocks. This little plane can handle some pretty spectacular crashes into grass, being both tough and almost weightless. The first time on the ball field I did more crashing than flying until I finally figured out how much elevator to use when turning and how much throttle to use for level flight. If you give it too much elevator when hitting the rudder control, it climbs into a stall. If you don't give it enough, it flips into a dive, all part of learning to be smooth on the sticks. After that first session on the grass field, I progressed quickly. I very soon leaned to land the plane on the sand in-field, and to recover when it gets out of control during a tight turn or other maneuver. I've been flying it at about shoulder hight where I have to be very smooth when banking through a turn. If I loose it, I've only a few feet to recover and I'm getting that down pretty good now. Its easy to fly at 20 or 30 ft because you have lots of time to regain control when you screw up. I had crashed and smashed the 'big' plane so many times it was no longer repairable. There is a glue available for styrofoam where you mix the resin and hardener that works very well for putting styrofoam back together but after numerous repairs of both the wings and fuselage, the poor thing was too bent out of shape to retain any predictable flight characteristics. I replaced both, easy to do, just move all the internal electronics etc from the old body to the new one. Its now ready to fly again, just waiting for me to feel ready to try again. That shouldn't be too long now. And, I'm almost ready to try flying the little yellow Champ out in front of the house on the street again. Just need to tighten up my control a bit more yet. Cool. Want to see what these look like? Go to this link. http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/champ-rtf-HBZ4900 I know, big boys and their toys, but it keeps us young, and out of trouble. doug
**** **** THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the Vaudeville act being put on by the Mayor of Toronto! He’s quite a character and quite a sad example for the young people of Canada! I’m sure he’ll meet his Waterloo eventually but for now it looks like he’ll be staying in office at least until the next civic election in Canada’s largest city! All we can do is stay tuned and hope this doesn’t ruin the reputation of such a great city! *
Well, we’ve had a sprinkle or two of snow this past couple
of weeks but so far, the temps have managed to melt away what little
we’ve received! I’m sure we’ll make it to the end of November before we
get any significant amount of white stuff that will be heavy enough to
stay around for the rest of the winter. I hope it takes a while yet as
I still haven’t gotten my snow blower back from the dealer in Waterloo
that’s giving it a tune up and going over for me before winter hits!
It’s been over two weeks since I took it up to them so I should be
hearing from them soon, I hope! Friday was a nice day around here and I
started to dig out all of the Christmas decorations. I managed to get
the large wreath up above the garage doors as well as the flood light I
always have shining up between the twin trunks of our white birch tree
on the front lawn. I’m hoping for good weather tomorrow so I can finish
the outdoor decorating. If not, I’m sure we’ll have a few more nice
days over the next week that will allow me to finish the job. We’ve cut
back on the amount of decorations we use on both the outside and the
inside of the house for Christmas. I no longer climb onto the roof to
string lights along the eves troughs. It’s just too risky to climb up
there when it’s time to remove them! While working around the birch tree I noticed that we still have an infestation of “Stink Bugs” on the tree and surrounding garden. We’ve sprayed them other years and had some success by painting a band of insecticide around the trunks other years but such a solution is no longer allowed by law. I’ll have to find some other way of dealing with the little stinkers come spring. Carole read on line that spraying them with a water and dish soap solution will work but I’ll have to give that a try once we’re back in spring like weather. Guess I’ll just have to wait till April for that one! If any of you know of a better method of ridding our tree of these stinky little buggers, please feel free to e-mail me with your suggestion! I’d appreciate some help with this problem! Guess that’s about it for this week folks! Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report! Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About> Christmas is only 6 weeks away so you’d better get out there and get at that shopping! ****
Have a good one.. the doug http://www.thedougsite.net The Fine Print! The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such. |