it’s definitely not very clean and i was pretty nervous, but yeh, my first side roll. i had tried this same maneuver a couple of weeks ago and it ended pretty badly, pretty much just tilting over and hitting the ground on the side and exploding. i bought better servos (hs-65mg), took off the flybar weights (stupid that i didn’t do this the first time), and made adjustments to the collective. yee-haw!

for christmas, taka bought me a radio control helicopter that i had been eying at the hobbyshop. i bought an rc helicopter a couple of years ago with mike (the fixed pitch century hummingbird) with poor results. for the life of me i couldn’t get the bird to hover, and forward flight was out of the question. i’m not sure if my success with this new helicopter (the axe cpv3) is a result of it being a better heli, it having collective pitch, or just me having more time and patience to learn to fly it. in either case i’m really enjoying it. i’m contemplating starting a blog dedicated to it, but i thought i’d post a comprehensive, keyword-heavy article here first and see what type of traffic it brings… god knows i have enough blogs.

the axe cpv3 is ready to fly out of the box, and through the end of the year it’s only $159 at hobby people (a store i loathe), normally $199. i think it’s still categorized as a “micro” heli, but in my opinion its closer to a “mini” size. for those not into rc helicopters, this heli isn’t like the air hogs or other rc helicopters that you can buy at a toy store and start flying right away. it takes constant input for the most basic hover, and forward flight takes lots of concentration and practice. it took me about 20 “flights” to get the basic hover down, and i can now keep it within a 2′ diameter circle pretty consistently.

in the very short time i’ve owned it, i’ve already put about as much if not more into upgrades and repairs than the damn thing originally cost, but i have it trimmed out and flying very nicely now. right after i got it, the lipo battery charger conked out and while hobbico is sending me a replacement, i didn’t feel like waiting so i bought a new charger and an extra battery. the other defect i experienced was after about 15 flights or so, the main 3-1 board and one of the servos died. while i sent these parts back to hobbico to hopefully be replaced under warranty, i couldn’t wait, so i upgraded the main esc to the electrifly c-25, and the tail motor with the c-12 coupled with the futaba gy240 heading hold gyro that makes it much easier to fly.

The electrifly c-25 and c-12 speed controllers. You can also see the venting on the heat sink:

Ping pong ball landing gear. You can also see the GY240 gyro in the back:

Hitec HS-55 servo

other small modifications include replacing the servos (after the one died, i figured i might as well upgrade the other two too) with hitec hs-55 servos that are a direct fit for the old ones and have a higher torque rating. these servos are also less noisy than the stock ones. I replaced the foam training gear with ping pong balls after they started to wear, and i dremeled out the cooling holes on the heat sink to line up with the motor (talk about bad design).

now that its setup the way i like it, there’s nothing to do but practice. i can hover tail-in pretty well, but my orientation gets kinda messed up when i hover side in and hovering nose in is completely confusing since the controls become completely reversed at that point. good thing i don’t have to go back to work until January 5th!

i’ve got a lot of different hobbies and as long as there’s been internet forums dedicated to these hobbies, there’s been an outcry on them to support your local bike shop/hobby shop/electronic store/etc.

local hobby shops like hobby shack (now hobby people) used to be a place i could go and get answers to my questions. there were nice old guys in there that were happy to help and had a wealth of information and this type of service used to keep me from saving a few bucks online. but the guys that work there now (at least at the hawthorne store), are fucking idiots and they’re rude too. i had a question about a new type of battery and this fat, balding guy named aaron j. started spewing all kinds of nonsense that didn’t make any sense but he just assumed i knew nothing about the subject. after 5 minutes of going around confusing himself he was like “well i don’t have 2 hours to educate you on electronic science to completely explain it. you should read about it online.” well, i already had read all about lipo battery packs online and was hoping he could answer a few very specific questions, but he didn’t even have a general grasp on the subject — and he was giving me false information to boot! he wouldn’t really stop talking so i just started walking away and his parting words were “read the manual,” great. other than emergency purchases i’m going to stay away from hobby people, and be forewarned about false advice from aaron j.

and don’t get me started on radio shack! a place i used to be able to go and get answers to real electronics questions is now a place where i don’t dare talk to any of the ghetto kids that work there that only want to get me to sign up for a cell phone or a radio shack line of credit. i really don’t see how that place is still in businesses actually.

on the other hand, bike shops aren’t nearly as bad, as most of the people that work there are usually riders themselves and can answer my technical questions. i do my best to patronize them as often as possible, although it seems that high-dollar items are often much less expensive online and sometimes i find it hard to resist.

it took about 5 hours to put together, and i found every peice except for the damn captain’s steering wheel which i ordered for a reasonable $0.30. i also have to iron the main sails. the nostalgia was so fun that i might have to buy that ferrari that dino posted on his site next.

when i was a kid, my mom bought me this lego pirate ship and i remember having it displayed in my room for a few years. it was released in 1989, and then again as a special release in 2002. yesterday when i was looking through the garage, i found a box with legos in it, and pieces of the ship. i imagine that all of the pieces are in there, and lego.com allows you to order individual pieces that i might’ve lost. they also had the build instructions for the ship, a 35 page pdf file. so maybe this weekend if i get around to it, i’ll dust off the legos and try to put this puppy back together. i love the nostalgia all of these old toys bring.

damn, i really want a new car, specifically a spiffy new truck. i feel like marty mcfly when he sees that black toyota pickup truck and starts talking to jennifer about taking it up to the lake every time i see one. i went to a couple of dealerships over the weekend, and it just reminded me how much i hate car salesmen. i have a cousin who’s a car salesman, so i shouldn’t say outright that they’re all bad, but with the exception of him, they all are. none of them had the specific truck i wanted, but all tried to sell me something else, usually more expensive and would point out that it’s only $xx/month. anyway, i’ll keep looking. super fucked up gas prices are also keeping me from pulling the trigger though. my integra gets 350+mi/12gallon tank = ~30mpg. the trucks i’m looking at are all like 20/16, which means 15 :|

the weekend was pretty laid back, car shopping and fishing on the boat all day saturday, then breakfast wit the homies, mission impossible 3, tamiya racing, and then gym for a lazy sunday.