More Indoor Flying
Decked out in winter finery, Don Cohn maneuvers in tight.
Fourteen flyers showed up for the second session of this winter’s indoor flying at MVP.
As at last month’s event, the day was dominated by Blade mCX helicopters and tiny Vapor planes.
I brought a couple of new things to fly: a Mini IFO and a Micro R/C 4-Channel Flying Saucer from ThinkGeek.
Neither one worked as well as I had hoped. The Mini IFO was too fast for the room and I had to wrench it through turns to keep it within the space. I actually did pretty well with it, thanks to all my Wild Wing combat experience, but my friend Don Cohn joked that he was going to stand outdoors in the parking lot if I kept flying it indoors.
Like a Rock. The Flying Saucer is way cute, with four independent tiny motors managed by a computer rigged to an accelerometer. According to ThinkGeek, “the accelerometer senses tilt on two axes and adjusts the power of each propeller to keep the Flying Saucer rock solid in the sky.”
Rocket Rob holds his 4 gram Plantraco Butterfly, tiniest plane of the day.
Could Not Bind. I also had a Blade mCX, which I was too nervous to fly last month. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to bind with my transmitter, perhaps because there were so many Blade mCXs flying nearby.
An hour later, Perry Lee at AeroMicro was able to bind the little helicopter to my transmitter in just a minute or two.
Fearful Dog. I’ll spend some time with it during the next month. Sadie, our wonderful great dane, hates the noises made by small motors, servos and even the beeps of transmitters — they send her scuttling under the dining room table in fear. So I have to wait for a perfectly calm day when I can walk to a nearby parking lot to practice with indoor aircraft.
Ed Woolever removed the stock paint and used tape to make his E-Flite Vapor stand out.
This was another great event, thanks to Pete Lane’s unrelenting cheerful energy. Pete collects $$$, negotiates with the MVP people and flies enthusiastically.
Big Questions. Afterwards, Pete held a pilot’s meeting to discuss whether we should organize into a club, what we should call ourselves, how big a commitment everyone was willing to make and other imponderables. While we were thinking about all this, Don Cohn put things in perspective with a short question: What are we trying to fix?
Nothing to fix here, folks.
I snapped a few pictures, but today I spent more time flying than playing photographer.
Thanks for capturing the event in text and photos Pete. I had fun flying my Vapor and Blade mCX. Those little guys sure are sensitive to the slightest of breezes. Even indoors, the bigger planes and heli’s can leave the air very turbulent. I also noticed that the Vapor’s pitch sensitivity really varies quite a bit with the speed at which it is flying. I still haven’t found the CG sweet spot or the best throttle setting. I wished I had spent more time getting it dialed in. Instead I mostly tried to not get hit.
I am looking forward to the next indoor event.
When I tell people that I fly radio controlled airplanes they ask me if I’m in my “second childhood”. I tell them “NO”, this is still my first. “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid!”
Mike
Looks like a lot of fun. Looks like it was cold, too…
It was fun while it lasted … Maybe next month I can actually make it on time.