Archive for October, 2007

Killer Yuke: A Halloween Story

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Skull on Killer Yuke

We’d stayed late at the park, and the sun was going down. I started packing up my gear.

Suddenly I noticed a very old man sitting at one of the picnic tables.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

“Aye, ye scurvy dog!” he replied, loudly thumping his left fist on the table. “How many leagues to th’ Rusty Gudgeon?”

I know that Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sep. 19, so he wouldn’t be one of those pirate wannabes.

Maybe he was the real thing.

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Hooligans!

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Wanted Poster

The phone rings. It’s Mike. “The police are looking for Doug,” he says. “He’s a wanted man.”

I’d left Baylands Park early to have lunch with an old friend, so I’m hearing the punch line to a story I don’t know.

As I peel the story out of Mike, I learn that Doug and Dave were flying their planes when a woman walked up to watch. Her four-year-old son was fascinated by the airplanes.

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I Hate Slow Sticks

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Dead Slow Stick

The other day, Al Alongi asks me to help him with his Slow Stick. We check and adjust the control surfaces. The right aileron is sloppy—it settles on a slightly different center point after each deflection.

That doesn’t seem like a big problem, since the error is small. We can adjust with a slight twitch of the transmitter stick.

Al is an old-time flyer just getting back into the air. He’s a little rusty and he’s looking for the perfect starter plane.

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Fetchomatic 3000

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

Fetchomatic 3000

Inspired by Danh Le’s slingshot-spinning reel hybrid, I searched and found a commercial unit on the web for $89.95 here.

But that seemd unreasonably pricey, so I went shopping.

A trip to Sports Authority yielded the following:

  • 1 Daisy P51 Adjustable Slingshot with Wrist Brace: $9.99
  • 1 Zebco 33 Reel filled with 10-lb. test line: $13.49
  • Several six-packs of 1-ounce sinkers @ $3.79 apiece

At home I found a 7-inch-long scrap of black acrylic. I drilled six holes, used two pop rivets and two black cable ties and, 30 minutes later, produced the Fetchomatic 3000.

The sky is filling with clouds and we expect rain tonight and tomorrow, so no field trials for at least a day or two.

I look forward to nicer weather and trees filled with planes. :-)

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The Giant Tree Rescue

Sunday, October 7th, 2007
Spaghetti Up a Tree
See more pictures here.

The wind rose on Thursday, from calm at 8 a.m. to 20 m.p.h. at noon, with gusts to 25 m.p.h. At around 10 a.m., Bic Tran is flying his two-day-old Mini Mag around the Great Meadow.

The wind has crept up to about 12 m.p.h., not quite hissing through the trees, but quietly shushing out of the north northwest.

Bic’s first plane was a Slow Stick. He built it carefully and learned to fly it well over the course of three months.

But he was bored with it. He sought more of a challenge. He wanted ailerons.

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