I just measured the static thrust of the Zagi by balancing it on my postal scale, nose down and cranking it up. It’s unbelievable. My skills have improved wildly in the last couple months, I’m able to control the plane much better than I could when I first set it up and the amount of thrust has…. get this…. decreased! I honestly, honestly thought that the motor had broken in and I was getting more thrust, aiding me in my quest for domination of the skies. But nope! A month or so ago, I was getting 12 oz. of thrust out of the motor. The Zagi website makes mention of getting 16 oz. of thrust… I’m getting only 9.5 oz of thrust. And I couldn’t be happier. That’s so strange!
“You got mud on your face you big disgrace
Somebody better put you back into your place”
I went to Great Meadows and was quite surprised to find the parking lot almost full! Thursday is a big night at Great Meadows! I was planning on staying just a little while but ended up staying from 6 to 9pm! I met a nice father & son…… I’m so bad with names… Alex and ??? I think, from Long Valley.
As night twilight was approaching, I flew the Zagi dramatically into the sunset… and lost track of it’s silhouette. She took a good dive into the dirt on the far side of the canal. Shift forward 30 minutes, when we’re all packing up. I went over to the father & son and gloated about how they were cleaning oil and gas off their planes while I didn’t have to. Yea, I just had to clean the mud off it. At that moment, I felt like a rough-and-tumble scallywag.
I bought a computer fan at Staples to cool off my batteries. I also got a 3″ PVC pipe to set the battery in while cooling but… jeez the 8″ piece of pipe is the heaviest object in my case. I’ll go look for a smaller, thinner walled pipe. I suppose I shouldn’t have gotten a pipe rated for 270 psi, eh? But that’s all they had in 3″ pipe… Eh. I’ll figure out something.
Oh and the fan has cool purple LEDs on it. When my dad came home from dinner and saw the contraption charging in the garage, he called me Doctor Frankenstein. hehe.
Yesterday I went out with Doyle and Julia to the little Allamuchy baseball field. I got to see Zagi Flap for the first time. It freaked me out! I got it up to about 250 feet and dove at about 80 degrees at full throttle. Only 1/2 way down it started flapping like a crazed swallow, like 5 times per second! I thought the battery pack was going to pop right out in mid-air! Well, it didn’t but I was so freaked that when I brought it in for a landing to see if it was ok, I scraped it against a fence, tearing the starboard elevon off for the third time. I gotta get coroplast elevons.
Soaring with Eagles
Yesterday morning after class I was flying at WCCC. I saw some eagles (hawks?) catching a thermal at 300 feet so I went up to meet them :-) I found their thermal at 200 and rode it to about 350 with them. Very cool! I got pretty close to them… riding the thermal maybe 50 feet vertical below them. I thought they’d be completely freaked out by the plane but they didn’t give up their thermal for at least a minute. I’d like to think they were done with the thermal but yea, I probably scared them off.
Dynamic Soaring
Today I went out to the Allamuchy field… it was a really windy day. Though the field is small and flat (it’s just 3 little league baseball fields) I tried dynamic soaring. What a hoot! All I had to do was loop carefully and I’d get some speed fer free!
I’d come in 3′ off the ground, shoot up 20′, fly inverted for 40′ and come back down near the ground. Since the wind is moving faster at altitude, I come out of the maneuver faster than when I go in! I’ve still got to work a lot at my vertical turns. This time around, I could rarely do more than one loop before pulling out of it to stabilize myself. And I was using a lot of throttle to keep me going. If I was -really- good, I’d be able to do this with no throttle at all!
Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?
Link is to a short (.9 meg) QuickTime movie of Julia.
I had a GREAT time watching combat in the Poconos on Sunday. And then Julian introduced me to family. They gave us dinner, we played MS Flight Simulator, talked about much, and had a great all-around time! To borrow a phase, Woot!
Julian and I went to Stick 40 Combat in the Poconos. A very nice day! I flew in front of a large audience for the first time. I got over my nerves quick enough… but then I had time for 5 or 6 flights. Near the end, I crashed kinda hard in the corn field. I went out, brushed it off and gave it a toss. I heard an astonished comment behind me and smiled.On Sunday, I had crashed pulling out of my first good inverted flight.. Yesterday I was able to do some inverted flight without a dramatic ending. Here, let me get more technical about my recent improvements:
- The Sullivan Gold-n-Cable #507 .032″ cable that I used for the cable system is a little too thin. I finally got it to work well, but it was a pain. The look is nice but… eh.
- My purpose for the cables was to improve handling by moving the control horn to the middle of the elevon. Unhappily, the plane does NOT fly any better with cables. It’s still flittery in high wind and smooth in low/no wind.
- The smoother covering job helps a little with speed… just a little. Or maybe that’s me thinking that a pretty plane flies faster.
- The balsa elevons have broken 4 times in 3 places. I’ve repaired them with CA but I’d like to get 2mm coroplast.
- I think the motor has a little more thrust now… it’s broken in. I had previously measured a static thrust of 12 oz. I’ll try that test again soon.
- My batteries are breaking in well. Today I did C/5 charges after draining them and put 1800 mah into the 1700 mah battery and 1300 mah into the 1100 mah battery. However, the 1100 mah battery was very warm when it peaked… there might be a growing cell instability issue there. I’ll keep an eye on it.
- My piloting skills are improving dramatically! I don’t -feel- any different but somehow I can now easily do 2 or 3 rolls at a time when just a few months ago I could barely do 1 roll. I can do multiple inside loops with ease, zoop all around comfortably, and am confident with many low altitude maneuvers. Just ask Julian about that last one. I buzzed him when he was trying to take a photo. I came so close that he dropped to the ground! Hehe! Not to worry… I pulled out in time, and a collision with a foam wing is pretty benign. (as long as it’s not the space shuttle you’re hitting :-( )
Photos from last weekend:
Julian and his plane are to the right. Notice the tractor in the background. Which do you think would win in a collision, the plane or tractor? Julian and I know! (he hit the tractor’s wheel with his wing on an approach to a dirt landing strip. The plane sustained relatively minor damage. If the plane had been 2 feet to the right, it would have been scrap)
I don’t remember if I’ve said this in the journal but Julian is a terrific pilot!
Sorry I don’t have any good action shots of either plane. It’s hard taking shots of a little plane zipping around, especially when my camera doesn’t actually take the picture for 1/2 a second after you push the button!
About his clothing designs, Ralph Lauren said in a radio interview, “People want to experience a sense of history and connectedness to their roots.” Of course, Ralph was born ‘Ralph Lifshitz’. This idea relates to what’s behind the J. Peterman catalog. They manufacture obviously imaginary history while Ralph Lauren’s worn polos and broken-in jeans make a more real connection to… an imaginary history. And people eat it up!
Went flying with Julian again. It turns out that I had not accomplished the impossible :-(. Julian pointed out that channel 2 was backwards. With the flip of a switch, the impossible was possible again. :-) )-:Zagi is in the air again! More updates and pictures soon.
My niece being eaten by a cat. Isn’t it precious?! (click to enlarge) Thanks to Melis for the photo.
