Tuesday 5 January 2016

Splash Down!!

The blog has been very quiet lately because I haven't been flying and I had nothing to add! The weather for at least the last 5 weeks has been awful apart from the very occational day when it was flyable and I couldn't make it. Typical! We have had winter storm followed by winter storm cycling through constantly. Rubbish!!

28 Dec 2016

I had been getting more and more stir crazy over the Festive Break and when I spotted a good south east wind was blowing I took my Reaper foamie along to East Haven aka McTurbulator. 

Reaper ready for launch
It was blowing about 30mph straight onto the low slope but being a proper foamie racer it went much better than my lightweight Weasel Evo which I flew there last time. You do have to keep in the narrow lift band but the speed builds very nicely if an EM pattern is followed.

I amused a skeptical couple walking their dogs when I first tried to launch and flew the model straight into the ground several times before I twigged the elevator trim was reversed. Muppet!

I then discovered that flying wings won't fly when a servo fails. I didn’t know what was wrong at first and struggled to keep the model level but with only aileron and elevator on one wing the result is inevitable. I should have tried letting it hit the beach but instinct had me fighting it until it splashed down in the North Sea about 10 metres from the shore. However it bobbed back up and proved that foamies float quite nicely! By the time I clambered down to the beach the strong wind and waves had driven my poor Reaper onto the shore and it was fairly easily retrieved. Glad I had SealSkinz socks on thought! 

I glanced up at my dog walker audience but they were walking off and I'm sure I heard the sound of satisfied chortling!

Burnt-out circuit board and melted case. The gears in this servo were VERY stiff compared to the one in the other wing and I suspect this was the problem.


After a couple of days drying the model out the offending servo together with its matching pal in the other wing were replaced with a pair of HS85MGs. Ready to fly again if this weather ever improves.