Now that some of the snow from our recent storm has gone, I managed to get out today and burn through a few lipos... :) Been almost a week since I got flying, so I was starting to go through withdrawals...!
I'll have to talk to airfield maintenance though, not only did they not plow the runway, they let "Bigfoot" walk all over the place!
Today I surpassed 250 flights on this particular F18 V3. It has been through a lot, and although it is kind of the "ugly duckling" in my hangar, it still flies so awesome, I don't have the heart to "recycle" it.
I have learned a lot from this particular F18 V3. After months of building far too heavy with the mindset that would make my planes more durable, the 12 step program of "over builder's anonymous" finally kicked in and this was the first plane I decided to build light but strong, so away went too much glue, too much tape and too much carbon. It was a very enlightening experience for me as I discovered that by building light when I crashed or gonked the plane, the damage was far less severe and much easier to fix, so light but strong in the right places is definitely the way to go for me.
I also discovered by building light that I give myself far more options with respect to the light to medium weight power setups I can use in this plane. I tested 8 motors in total in this plane and learned a lot about motor and prop combos and which work best depending on what type of flying I want to do.
This plane really helped me learn, develop and maintain pretty decent high alpha flying skills, once I developed the basic touch, it was very easy to work on my skills as the plane did most of the work... :)
I learned that although light setups and light batteries are great for whipping around in calm winds, sometimes planes just need a little bit of weight and wing loading by using heavier (2200) batteries to give the correct wing loading for aerobatics or special flight envelopes like high alpha.
Like her aging pilot, she does need a little bit more attention after a hard workout as the foam and glue joints creak and groan a little more than they did 6 months ago, but a little dab of Foam Tac or hot glue now and then and she is raring to go again! Too bad it wasn't that easy for the pilot!
She has lots of character and her magic marker "paint job" is fading somewhat, but if I keep flying her with the respect she is due, I might just get another 250 flights out of her!
With the V4 planes on the horizon at RC Powers, the bar has been set very high by the F18 V3, so they will have their work cut out for them to make improvements, but I am sure they have something up their sleeves!
Cheers,
Scott
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