Thursday, July 23, 2009

Packing, packing....

All the models are cleaned up and polished and packed.

Sorting out which tools and spare pieces to take and pack.

The team has a lot of "stuff" to get there. Fortunately with the help of 3 pilots, 3 helpers and team manager.

Checked the seating and the flight is not really full. Now only if we can convince Delta that the US Team should sit in those empty business class seats......

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Practice complete

Finished another long day of F3b practice. I probably have in 500-600 launches the past few months getting ready for the WC. Must be ready now. This week will be getting everything packed and ready to go.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

More tweaking

I have more DS378's so I changed out the flap servos on the first Freestyler. Now both of them have DS378's in flaps, get plenty of travel, and have the horns all inside the servo covers. Spent some time measuring throws between the two models too and have them matched even better.

Tungsten ballast fits the joiners. Now I can put an extra 10 oz max ballast into the model. Some evening flying today. cross wind, just a few MPH so I could not really load up. Thursday afternoon will be another practice day. Distance and speed flying planned. Depends on the help.

Won't have to worry about the sun in the afternoon. Should be light east wind, 5-7MPH. Temps in the 70's. Not expecting any killer lift. Also makes it easier to unload at the field. Won't have to drag all the batteries as far.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Good week of practice

Monday June 29th, I got in 90 launches between the Freestyler and the Ceres Lift. Best run 14.28. July 3rd, another 90 launches. Finished up with a 14.26 and 14.14 on the last set of runs. Sunday was a visit to the Milling machine to make some Tungsten ballast pieces to use in place of the brass on the Freestyler joiner. Adds 10 oz to the ballast capacity. Helps guarantee no wind at WC.