Fresh Wings for Sale
Mike Bowns waits for customers.
Mike Bowns has entered mass production with his Wild WIng replacement, the Battle Wing.
The other day I asked him how many Battle Wings he was working on.
“Forty eight,” he said, deadpan, and I believed him.
He shows up at Baylands two or three times during the week, often with a small stack of his basic wing kits. I think he sells them on weekends, too.
His hard work is keeping the combat tradition alive, a much-needed development since Wild Wings disappeared from the market.
Mike is storing his inventory in this ceiling rack to make room on the floor.
He has so many in the works that he built a ceiling rack to get them off the floor and off his workbench.
For the moment, combat sessions have dwindled. I’m part of the problem: I’m a bit burned out on fighting, my wings are pretty crumpled and I’ve been enjoying my IFO too much.
But soon the weather will warm up, the winds will diminish and I’ll be back in the mood.
Then I’ll need at least three — no, make that four — new wing kits from Mike to keep me in the air during this combat season.
Tags: Baylands, Combat, Flying, People, Wings.
It’s going to be an entirely new game when more of these get into the air. The wild wings were good, but these are better — and they’re not constrained by the pre-set pockets of the WW, which weren’t ideal for experimentation.
They’re already better fliers, and in the end they’ll leave the WWs in the dust.
But I know all about excuses. I have two cores to build up and haven’t done a thing. In my case, a new computer to migrate is a massive undertaking after seven years with the same physical setup.
Dave
Nice story….Pete.
Since retiring BBOB, I am exploring new ideas. One idea, is to use the inertia, of the wing craze, and do somthing with it. While another, is to exploit the new full house Russian plane coming to market by the end of April, for an indoor event, at the MVP center.
I have one reserved at Aeromicro.
I hope that Mike reads this article, and conciders, building some plug and play units, as I would gladly buy two, one for battle, and one as a back up. I think this would get alot more folks in the air, faster…easier…..etc. he could use Daves motors…cheapy servos and sellem like hotcakes for 99 bucks. So Mike, please concider this idea, as the ships could follow the IROC principal, and be all the same …exept for the paint..and numbers.
Pete out
Mike’s already building PnP models, but for more than $99 I think. Takes some doing to get one of these finished completely. However, the middle model (byo electronics) is very easy to set up and flies like a dream. Can’t remember what he charges for those, but they’re worth it. I built one and it took almost zero time.
Dave
Hey thanks for the great comments guys! I’ll look into a $99 version for the masses. I’ll start with the advanced build ($60) and add more items to it until I reach a $99 mark (at least what I think is worth $99). The ARF builds just takes a lot of time and effort to build which is why the price is up there ($180). I’ll let you know what I come up with and post it on my web site.
http://www.battlewing.net
One fundamental change I’m considering is changing the battery from a 610mah to 800mah. I just need a little more power especially when trying to knock Kasra out of the sky.
I also have a new flying event going on with my banners flags as pylons. I’ll let Kasra tell you guys about since he’s so hyped about it.
Oh ya, racing Kasra around the pylons at full speed is one of main reason why I might be upgrading the batteries, I need to keep up with him and make him stop bragging about lapping me so many times.
thanks again!
Mike B
Battery schmattery. Kasra flies with good motors
Yep, I was lapping Karl today with both of us using the same battery pack. I think Karl was going to check with Dave. I also maidened my advance build BW today. It took me probably one hour to put all the electronics in and it flew with no trim changes. The airfoil seems much better than the WW as there are no pitch changes in different speeds and inverted takes less effort. I like it.