Concerning Hobbies
After framing the fuselage, the nose had to be tackled. This was the first time my skills got stretched to their limits and I had to rebuild repeatedly.
The main challenge was the quite accentuated curve that I expected the stringers to follow. I did manage to bend them accordingly on the fuselage’s halves while they were fixed to the construction board and the fixtures seemed to be stable. However, while trying to join the two halves I overtaxed the wood glue.
After a very, very long time, weather, opportunity and motivation converged into a picture.
After finishing the upper wing quite fast, I chose to continue with the fuselage. On the one hand, because I didn’t have enought material left to build the lower wing, but on the other hand, because I never had scratch-built a wooden fuselage before. Hence, this should become my next test of my endurance.
As I have already mentioned in my post on powering my porter loco with Li-Ion accus, I’d like to experiment with the DelTang system. There’s a lot of positive feedback from other model railroaders and all my requirements seem to be met – with further room for improvements.
Unfortunately, with the upcoming Brexit the demand for DelTang components has skyrocketed at the moment (meaining autumn 2019). I was lucky to get my hands on one Tx22 transmitter and two Rx65c receivers. It will suffice for the moment, but I will need further components, especially spares.
About half a year after I started flying with my EasyGlider the desire for another model aircraft grew stronger.
I soon realized that I’d have to build my own models rather than buy premade ones. Especially larger models would quickly overtax my financial abilities. However, scratch building can consume a lot of money, too. So I decided to test my will: Do I really want to build a model aircraft from scratch?
Thus an old cardboard filled with balsa wood was ravaged, following the old saying: it only costs time. Taking stock, I realized that the materials wouldn’t quite suffice to build a whole plane. However, it would suffice to put my endurance under proper scrutiny.
After I finished the powerpack the next opportunity was seized to perform an extensive test run.
First the pack was connected to the charger and fully charged. To be on the safe side I placed the accu pack in a fireproof bowl and thanks to the fine weather I could move the whole setup into the garden. In case that a cell had been damaged, it would have spared me the troubles of toxic fumes in my workshop.
All went well, so I could plug the powerpack into the existing R/C circuit. The results were stupefying: almost three hours of solid mileage with 40% capacity remaining. Now I’m convinced that I can get up to two hours of operations out of the powerpack without overtaxing it. Next step will be the assembly of the DelTang transmitter.
As I’ve already written in my post concerning the removal of my garden railway, I got hopelessly lost during the last years both from a financially and contentwise.
Today I’d like to explain to you the consequence I’ve drawn. In one word, it is:
It’s been more than one and a half years, since I last posted on the garden railway. In the meantime I decided to remove it. The reasons are simple: no time, no money, too many ambitions.
Garden railways are expensive on both accounts. Paul Race recently published a very good article on his wonderful website: Which Comes First, the Garden or the Train? One of his core arguments is:
Initially you should plan to spend over twice as much on track as you do on trains. And over twice as much on your garden and landscaping as you do on the trains and track put together.
I concur. Besides the financial aspect I didn’t (couldn’t?) take enough time to work on the railway. And so it came during spring that my wife mentioned the perpetual construction site, which really was no pretty sight to see.
One of the first lessons that each model aircraft flyer learns is that we’re dependent from the weather. Sunshine results in thermal lift or favorable wind conditions at cliffs.
Precipitation is so detrimental for most model aircraft, that it interrupts or downright cancels a flight day.
Particulary light-weight models are susceptible to wind. The lighter they are, the farther they are displaced above ground by the slightest breeze. In the very first flying lesson, we get taught: Take off and land against the wind. Tailwind and Crosswind are unfavorable or outright dangerous.
Crosswind makes the flight day more interesting because it poses an additional challenge to my flying skills. It also prevents boredom since each time it’s somewhat different. I’d like to sketch out how to discern crosswind and how to make use of it.
