Another new challenge

My friend Wim has acquired a new interest, in radio-controlled models. As he’s a keen sailor as well as a pilot, it started with an RC sailing boat but then moved on to include RC aircraft. Wim is a great model maker and instead of starting with something, let’s just say, not too ambitious and then moving on to bigger and better things, he jumped right in at the deep end with a large multi-channel model with a wingspan of a metre or more.

It’s a beautiful thing made out of balsa wood and tissue finished with a superb paint job that’s very pleasing to the eye. But there’s just one small problem.

As a flyer of model aircraft way back in my youth, I soon found out that the little varmints are tricky to control and by the time you get to master the knack, you’ve pounded whatever model you’ve been learning on into the ground more times than you care to think about.

I used to fly control-line aircraft but from the number of videos you can find on Youtube of inexperienced pilots smashing their newly constructed RC models into a million pieces, I’m pretty sure that there are a few wrinkles to be learnt about RC flying too before you get to become a master of the miniature skies. So I thought that something had to be done to avoid Wim’s beautiful aircraft suffering such a fate.

The idea I had was to acquire one of those ‘training’ type models to give to him made out of expanded polystyrene (OK all you know-alls, toys if you really want to rub our noses in it) that can be dumped into long grass time after time and still come up smiling every time and a brief internet search soon revealed the one shown in the picture below that could be purchased for peanuts from China.

How they do it I just don’t know – just over 30€ including delivery to France. It has a 50 cm wingspan and comes complete with a little lithium battery, a charger and the multi-channel controller. Oh, and also a spare prop 🙂

OK, it’s not up to the kind of quality that serious hobbyists and Wim have, but it works, dammit! All you need to do is charge the lithium battery, insert six AA batteries into the controller and you’re good to go, ready to get out there and start performing graceful loops, rolls and aerobatics with your new model.

Or so we thought. The first time Wim and I tried it we could barely get it into the air let alone keep it there for any length of time and especially under even the semblance of anything that might be described as ‘controlled flight’.

Because it ‘knew’ that we were novices it had a mind of its own and was attracted to every tree in the huge open field behind my house where we were trying it out as if by magnetism. And I also succeeded in flying it into the one single, solitary power line that crosses the field too – you could never do it if you actually wanted to because your aim would have to be so exact!

Anyway, my original plan today was to mow the runway at Malbec but that soon went out of the window when I set foot on it again. Despite several days of warm sun and wind, overnight rains keep thwarting us and it was still wet and squelchy underfoot. So what better thing to do after a spot of shopping at Intermarché than to take the little RC aircraft over the field again for a bit more ‘flying’ practise.

And wowie!! What a surprise. This time as well as achieving a goodly number of high speed crashes into the long grass (which fortunately didn’t result in any damage), I actually managed to get several flights in lasting several minutes and had the little model wheeling around in first left hand and then right hand circles overhead.

My next-door neighbour and his wife must have wondered what was going on and came out to see, at one time applauding my efforts with shouts of ‘Bravo!’ Unfortunately such accolades were slightly premature as I then immediately crashed it as I tried to get it to turn to ‘land’ somewhere near me, sadly once again without success.

But I was as pleased as Punch with the success that I had achieved, with several flights lasting five minutes or more. OK, not much to crow about there, you might say, but before you turn your nose up at it, have a go first yourself.

It’s a lot harder than you think … I’d say that you need at least the skills of a geeky 10 year old kid with a good few hours of computer games under their belt to be successful straight off, and I hardly fall into that category.

I phoned Wim this evening to tell him about my flights, OK and to brag a little I guess. Now I really must hand the little aircraft over to him so he can get the ‘training’ in that he’ll need before flying his own lovely model. But hopefully before I do, there’ll be enough time tomorrow for me to get just a few more in if the weather’s as nice as it’s forecast to be. It’s just too much fun to miss 😉