Contest bound.

I've been testing my planes to see which ones to fly at the local contest this weekend. I stripped and repainted all of the old ones over the summer. I had flown the Hound Dog a few weeks ago and it went well. i flew it again two days ago and it was a mess. Somehow I had swapped  the lines around. I got that fixed and flew it again today. It flew well and is the plane for Sunday. The Chipmunk is getting better and I had some good flights on it today and I'll fly that on Saturday. The electric powered Shark is my choice for the second event on Saturday as well. I'm going to the site in the morning with the big Shark 665 and the Mo'Best. Others should be there setting up and other competitors will be arriving later in the day to get a feel for the new location. I'm bringing the Gezer to put in the raffle along with a Fazer kit and two smaller items. The Gezer flys pretty good and would make a good beginner plane or a sport plane.

Another new plane.

The DeHavilland Chipmunk. I scratch built it from plans during and after the flood of the ages here. It's in the flight trimming stages now. It's getting heavy as it's hard to balance properly.

Things are drying up.

Two weeks ago the floods messed things up here in the Baton Rouge area. The park was under 5 feet of water and closed for two more weeks. I found it open and usable yesterday. I'm all  loaded up and ready to go flying.
 I had ordered plans for a new plane three weeks ago and had them printed out at the local Office Depot when the rains came. I rummaged through my balsa stash and started to build it. I almost got the wing done, the fuselage is ready for assembly and the tail pieces are waiting for hinges. I've been taking my time as other needed parts had to be ordered. Everything is here and ready for the final push.

Early morning rain, almost.

We generally get sunset skies here but this morning I took some pictures of the cloud covered sunrise.
The temp. was in the low 80's at 0700 so we went to the park for some flying. The cloud cover stayed and we went back in the early afternoon for more flying. Then the sun came out.

Time marches on.

We spent the last week of July in Waterford, Ct. We revisited some friends and places. I had our grandson take a few pictures of the old mill that is being torn down. I was taking pictures of the progress before we left town last December.It's always sad to watch something destroyed that has been around for so long even if it's in the way.

The building season, southern style.

I finally got the courage to attack the Hound Dog. I sanded most of the paint off and dissolved the paint off the wings. More sanding and filling and sanding and it was ready for paint. White with orange and black trim this time. I waited 4 or 5 days before spraying the clear this time and it went well. What helped me wait is I stripped and repainted the Shark 560. Getting the monokote trim off the wings was really hard. The glue didn't act like it used to and took a lot of rubbing to come clean. Acetone used to melt it off quickly but not now. That one is waiting for clear in a few more days. So far I've stripped and re painted all the older models.

It is summer.

I get to the park before 8am. The temp is not bad but after an hour I'm ready to go home.
I removed the Evo .60 from the 665 and put an OS .46LA on and that cured the problems. The plane is flying very well with that combination. I put the Evo back into Tom Dixon's Thunderbird. I had to put some thread locker on the motor mounting bolts on the electric motor in the 610. The bolts were working loose after a few flights but now they stay put.
After the Banshee paint job I grabbed the Polynesian and sanded the color paint off and stripped the yellow covering from the wing and stab. I covered those areas with blue monokote. After wet sanding the fuselage and filling dents I sprayed blue on the fuselage and half of the blue covering. I just finished spraying the clear and it's hanging up drying. I need to get some 2 inch wheels for it.