Indoor Flying Season

Monday, October 12th, 2009

During an evening of indoor flying in a large City of Sunnyvale gym, I hover my tiny E-Flite mCX helicopter at face level. Photo by Mike Bowns.

Helicopter Nose. Photo by Mike Bowns.


We kicked off the year’s indoor flying season Friday evening in a cavernous City of Sunnyvale gymnasium.

Don Cohn, administrator of the BayRC discussion forums, organized the event, which drew close to 20 flyers. Most popular plane: ParkZone Vapor. Most popular helicopter: E-Flite Blade mSR.

In this photo I’m flying an E-Flite Blade mCX helicopter, which is also quite the rage.

Each helicopter weighs about an ounce.

The mCX is remarkably stable, easy to fly even for a novice.

So my nose-high hover is hardly amazing.
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Soldering Tiny Wires

Friday, July 17th, 2009

A wide piece of masking tape holds the wires in place.

A wide piece of masking tape holds the wires in place.


In the course of adding a brushless tail motor to a little Walkera helicopter, I had to solder three very small pairs of wires together.

The first solder joint went OK, but as I started to work on the second pair of wires, the first joint came undone.

Then I realized two things:

  • That I should immediately reinforce solder joints with shrink tubing.
  • That I got lucky the first time.

Try as I might, I couldn’t calm my shaky hands sufficiently to solder another pair.
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Getting Warmer

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Mark hovers his helicopter just above the sand.

Mark hovers his helicopter just above the sand.


Mark Indiveri writes:

If you like the beach AND you like to fly helis, I highly recommend a combination of the two. This was a really great flying day, my best so far. Flyin’ ’er over the ocean is a total rush. Plenty of spectators. Some even got fly-overs (against AMA regs!). Watch out for loose dogs! Check out my nose-in hover (last pic).

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Tackling the Volcano

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Flanked by her team, Emily pilots the helicopter toward the volcano.

Flanked by her team, Emily pilots the helicopter toward the volcano.


Remember the team of young women who intended to learn to fly a radio-controlled helicopter in one month?

Saturday was their day of reckoning, when they had to guide a payload of six ping pong balls to a target inside a model volcano 20 feet away.

It was Tech Challenge 2009, sponsored by the Tech Museum.

More than 1,000 students in grades 5 through 12 competed, 250 teams from around the Bay Area and as far away as San Diego and even New York.
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Copter Crash Course

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Eileen adjusts the Honeybee, watched by Emily and Mary. Annie takes a picture.

Eileen adjusts the Honeybee, watched by Emily and Mary. Annie takes a picture.


Looking for help, Eileen showed up at Baylands late in the morning Thursday.

She had a helicopter, an Esky Honeybee, and she wanted to learn to fly it in one month. More precisely, she wanted her 16-year-old daughter, Emily, to learn to fly.

We helped her sort out her gear. She had two bad batteries, a flaky charger and a helicopter in need of tuning.

Danh Le checked out the helicopter, made adjustments and flew it. Mark Gitin loaned her a battery to enable the flight. Oscar Yatco, Rick Carmichael and David Galvin also helped her out.

She came back Friday and spent a bit of time hovering the helicoper close to the ground.

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