The Man, Myth, Legend

On October 8th, after only seven flights, the Corsair has had a catastrophic flight control failure, which led to an unrecoverable crash. Although the airframe was severely damaged, the engine and radio are intact. The R/C NTSB are investigating. It was a sad day for me, and I thought that I would never be able to see this awesome warbird fly again since the manufacturer no longer produces this model. However, this past weekend my wife happened to locate another airframe while down in Los Angeles. Needless to say, the “Bruce Deuce” will hopefully take to the skies before the end of the year.

After six months, I finally took the Corsair up in the air, and boy what a wonderful flight. The take off was perfect, the control surfaces were nearly spot on, and she looks absolutely awesome in the sky. A picture is worth a thousand words, so heres a few because my fingers would get tired typing that much.

It’s been a busy month and I haven’t had as much time to devote to completing the Corsair as I had hoped, but progress has still been made….

The fuel tank is installed, the throttle servo and control rod are in place, the cowl is set.

I really only have a few tasks left: Set the center of Gravity, glue the canopy and belly pan in place, and break in the engine. Hopefully, it will be ready to fly by the middle of June, but realistically I’m looking at July.

And the Saga continues.

Since Frank doesn’t seem as interested in planes as I am, he passed on to me the kit plane given to him by one of the local club members. In addition, another club member donated a .60 size trainer to me that I’m hoping the wife might learn to fly with. But the biggest surprise came this weekend when my dad came up on Friday to spend Easter with us. He brought with him an F4U Corsair that our good friend, Bruce had given him to give to me. Needless to say, I was blown away. I remember years ago when I first showed interest in R/C planes that Bruce had built one, and he was happy to share his interest in the hobby with me. Now, he has given me an awesome surprise. One that I still am overwhelmed by. I can’t wait to build it and take to the skies with this vintage warbird. I’ll post on my building progress, as well as my flying abilities.
Bruce- Thank you.

We had a great weekend with my dad. He played poker with “the guys” on Friday night, and we shared a wonderful Easter Lunch/Dinner with the in-laws here in town. I’m always glad when he comes for a visit, if even only for a weekend.

Since I last posted, I have made multiple flights with my Mustang. I have tucked a full blown crash, and one “hard landing” under my belt as well. Additionally, I have added a camcorder into my cockpit for aerial video. The wife videotaped me last Saturday, and I edited the two onboard videos to come up with this:

R/C Flight at Satellite Lake

As you can see, I am really enjoying flying. One of the R/C club members has graciously given me a high-wing trainer to fly in addition to my P-51. I need to get an engine for it, but I should have that one in the air sometime this month. Stay tuned as our intrepid R/C pilot takes to the skies yet again this weekend!

Holy crap, I solo-ed my plane today twice! The weather was not condusive to flying yesterday, so I prepared myself for this morning instead. I got up early, and was out at the airfield at 7:30 am. I was the only one out there, so I unloaded the plane, filled her up, and planned on practicingf my taxing skills. Well, needless to say, after 4 or 5 runs, I made the mistake of giving it full throttle, and the next thing I knew, my baby was airborne (unintentionally)! With my heart pounding in my throat, I got it into straight and level flight at about 150-200 feet altitude. I made several approach attempts before bringing it back to earth in three large bounces. Once I got my heart rate somewhat back to normal, I refueled and took a break for breakfast. Five other model aviators showed up and congratulated me on my first successful solo flight. I relaxed a little longer while they each took their own planes up. About an hour later, I had summoned the courage to try another flight. Again, I took off with a little effor to keep it straight down the runway, but it really has a lot of left torque. In any event, I was airborne a second time and made a few more attempts at lining up for landing. I brought it back to earth with another 3 bounces, and decided to call it a day and not tempt fate again. I am so happy that today was successful. I hope to do some more simulator practice during the week so that I am prepared for next weekend. This is such a fun hobby. I only wish I hadn’t waited so long to realize my interest in it.

After a week full of practicing on the simulator, I took my R/C P-51 Mustang out for her maiden flight. I went out the the R/C airfield with Frank so he could document either my triumph, or tragedy. There were several people out flying today, and one of them was very helpful, and let me “buddy-box” on his trainer before taking mine into the air. After getting comfortable with the controls, and settings, I felt ready to do it for myself. Again, Joe and I linked radios and he got my baby in the air on the very first try. He said I did a good job trimming it for straight and level flight. He let me have control, and I flew in lazy left hand turns before trying right turns, and figure 8’s. I let Joe land, and he said it handled very well. After gassing back up, He let me taxi out and take off on my own. I had a slight issue because it wanted to veer left, but after fixing that, I was airborne on my own! I practiced lining up with the runway for approaches, and after a few passes, I even landed it! This was an exciting day that has bee 17 years in the making. I hope the wife doesn’t mind if I start spending Saturday mornings out at the airfield!

The Man (who finally fulfilled his dream of R/C flight)

17 years ago, I had a Cox EZ-Bee r/c plane. It’s fate was doomed after only a single flight. My interest in model aircraft has until now been limited to plastic scale models. Now, however, I can finally bring my dream of flying into reality with my purchase of a radio controlled P-51 mustang. I have yet to “take to the skies,” but have been spending as much time as possible training on the included flight simulator.