Paul De Tourtoulon Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Beware of battery's !, I got one of my Spitfires out after probably 9 months ( battery disconnected from the switch) gave it a charge, down to the field, open up the retracts, filled the tank and flooded my good old Enya 120 4c, checked the command throws which seemed a bit slow, so I checked them for a couple more minutes and every servo just stopped moving the battery was completely dead, a lucky escape. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jenkins Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 What type of battery? 2 hours ago, Paul De Tourtoulon said: Beware of battery's !, I got one of my Spitfires out after probably 9 months ( battery disconnected from the switch) gave it a charge, down to the field, open up the retracts, filled the tank and flooded my good old Enya 120 4c, checked the command throws which seemed a bit slow, so I checked them for a couple more minutes and every servo just stopped moving the battery was completely dead, a lucky escape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 1600 mah Nihm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jenkins Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Did you check how much charge went into it? If that was what you expected that is a bit worrying. I've ddcided to use Eneloops for NiMHs but I also use 2 cell LiFes and LiPos. So far, touch woid, not suffered your problem. I didn't like yo use NiMHs that had not been used for a year or else do a cycle to check capacity. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Futura57 Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 (edited) I fell foul of this once with my son's IC car. I always run a minimum of 3 discharge/charge cycles on NiMh flight packs I haven't used for a couple of months or more. Typically 0.5A, even Eneloops. If I've flown a pack in the last couple of weeks I get by with an overnight trickle charge. If it's been just a month or so then I like to do one cycle at least. Then I give the sticks a good waggle for a minute or two to see how the battery monitor lights behave, especially with digital servos. This is a habit I got into many moons ago when I was regularly flying 90 size helis. Edited February 25 by Futura57 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tosh McCaber Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 15 hours ago, leccyflyer said: Perfect day today, sunny, warm, <2mph wind, really good turnout of members and lots of different models on show. Had a bot of a Spitfire day myself and flew six different Spitfires = though my Seafire broke the only prop I had for it on the take off run, so didn't actually make it into the air. Really pleased with the maiden and subsequent flights of my winter fix up Balsacraft Spitfire PRXIX, which was every bit as nice to fly as expected. Clubmate Jim flew his gorgeous Veron Hawker Tomtit and Rainer got a few flights in with his Bugatti Racer - lots of other highlights and the best flying day so far this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tosh McCaber Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Sorry I missed the fun Leccy- hope to be out and about again in a couple of weeks time! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 I give my planes a charge in my car at around 11.30am, as that is when I have decided what to fly, I use Robbe infinity 2 on 'automatic', and have done probably for over 20 years since this charger came out, I now have 3 of them. I unplug my batteries when I have finished flying, this one showed that it was fully charged and took about 200mah of charge, and this battery wasn't all that old, probably less than 5 years, I do have some that are more than 10 years old without any problem. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Was out yesterday with the Piper Cherokee as the weather was more than good for this time of year. Had two decent flights and Mathew filmed them both. A good turnout of club members also and everyone enjoyed the day. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stu knowles Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 20 hours ago, Nick Cripps said: I didn't think the rain in the last few days was enough to cause further flooding but the ground here in the Trent Valley has been saturated so much during these winter months that our flying field was again under several inches of water. Our starting benches floated off to one edge of the field a few weeks ago and are now inaccessible without a boat(!), and the storms a couple of weeks ago ripped the covering off the work benches. Despite all that, I again took advantage of the good weather today to get the waterplanes out for a great day's flying. Our field is wet Nick but you win hands down with that one. Perfect for Waterplaning though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyGnome Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Popped out for a few hours this afternoon - all alone at the field. I know some people don't like to fly in winter, but it was calm, warm, and sunny. On the positive side, I got a good number of flights in on my Wotty. On the downside, no chatting over coffee. No pics 'cos unless you've been asleep for 30 years, you know what an ARTF Wot4 looks like 🙂 Now I trust the engine, I've fallen in love with it all over again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Chaddock Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Truly calm this morning so I took the opportunity to maiden the much rebuilt Depron EDF Douglas Skyray. 36" span but with loads of wing area coupled with a meagre 20 oz (554g) all up giving it a glider type wing loading Slow and docile but quite an eventful flight nevertheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNv_YloJanY&t=16s It does not use a commercial EDF but a Emax 2205 drone motor driving a 3x4.5 3 blade prop within a 3d printed mounting.. The Skyray uses a 1300mAh 4s LiPo. Another to add to my collection of "silly" planes 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Futura57 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 A lovely little model but surprisingly pedestrian Simon. Surely it deserves a better commercial EDF unit with some more get up and go. Being 4S on such a light model, it would be transformative. Or is the airframe not stressed to handle more than 1G 🤣 Just a thought, since Mach numbers aren't meaningful for our models how about Bark numbers, for multiples of how fast it can outrun a dog. 🐕 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon H Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 I flew on Saturday for the first time since September. The field was like a marsh, but my nieuport 17 was able to handle it. Its very grubby now, but did look great against the angry sky. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Robson Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Flying the Corsair and FW190 Saturday and Sunday, great flying days for the time of year 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leccyflyer Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Another belting morning yesterday. Really light winds and lots of great flying. Managed a re-maiden with my Durafly Spitfire 24 to Seafite XVII repaint which flew beautifully, plus another flight with the Balsacraft Spitfire PRXIX. My Volantex Bf109 Weiss 14 has been one victory short of Ace status for a while, but I cant in all conscience claim one for the midair which saw a chunk taken out of the rudder by Mike's Spitfire, even though both models were downed. Great fun. Here's a couple of snaps of the flying. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Chaddock Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 (edited) Futura57 My Skyray is not trying for speed but for the more difficult target of the "appearance" of a scale speed. For a human on the ground it is the perceived angular change for a plane to travel is length. The further away and smaller it is the slower it appears. Our models are small to start with so they have to fly slowly even when they are close by! For a given airframe its flying speed is directly proportional to its weight. Slower means lighter. However the wind is not scale so it does make such planes "calm weather only" flyers. Edited February 26 by Simon Chaddock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyGnome Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 (edited) A few piccies from Saturday.. not overly ecciting but it proves I didn't make it up 🙂 Includes the Wotty ARTF for any Rip Van Winkles...! Edited February 26 by GrumpyGnome 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 2 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said: A few piccies from Saturday.. not overly ecciting but it proves I didn't make it up 🙂 Includes the Wotty ARTF for any Rip Van Winkles...! A lot of very beautiful planes there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 5 hours ago, leccyflyer said: Another belting morning yesterday. Really light winds and lots of great flying. Managed a re-maiden with my Durafly Spitfire 24 to Seafite XVII repaint which flew beautifully, plus another flight with the Balsacraft Spitfire PRXIX. My Volantex Bf109 Weiss 14 has been one victory short of Ace status for a while, but I cant in all conscience claim one for the midair which saw a chunk taken out of the rudder by Mike's Spitfire, even though both models were downed. Great fun. Here's a couple of snaps of the flying. Great looking planes that add a real splash of colour to the sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 This from last weekend, having a blast with the Hellcat 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 15 minutes ago, Ron Gray said: This from last weekend, having a blast with the Hellcat Great photo Ron 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ashby - Moderator Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 Rain over the weekend and Monday fed the river at the bottom of our field, so my floats came out again earlier this week 🙂. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Harris - Moderator Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 While wind and fog can be a disadvantage, there are some compensations in having our field at the top of a chalk hill! Soggy today but actually very nice flying conditions after the rain stopped! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I love float flying. Great photos David. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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