Jason's Site

Today was a very good day, though the weather was somewhat cold, it was probably the most fun I’ve had at the airfield in a while (probably since the summer vanished). First of all, the Road on the way was… well… Interesting…

getting up the slope wasn’t hard, we were in Chris’s 4×4, it didn’t even think about it… Then the airfield was somewhat snowy too, having got all my stuff out of the car, it was just a sea of white with some stuff in the middle…

Still, we got the BBQ running, and off for a flight, my first flight was OK, but my landing wasn’t. after getting one skid on the bit we had compacted, and the other skid on the bit we hadn’t, it decided to sink into the ground at an interesting angle. I didn’t take off from here…

My second to last flight of the day, was the first time I had flown with other aircraft in the air (I don’t yet have my A-Cert), The other helicopter was close at times, but he had to be, as this is why…

That’s right, the other helicopter was filming me hovering, despite hovering being frowned upon on the main strip, there was only us two flying, so that’s ok, and I wasn’t going to start throwing it around the air and expecting Scott to keep up with the camera (and I don’t have the confidence to, of course).

and my final flight of the day before my fingers fell off due to the cold, was short, mostly because I couldn’t quite see how much fuel I had left, I didn’t know how much battery I had left, and on top of all that, I was getting somewhat cold. However, it was also filmed (Thanks again Scott).

On the plus side, I was dressed for the weather, which is more than I could say about some people in this weather.

After that, I decided to pack up, but before I headed of, I did have to film Chris try and do some touch-and-go’s with his FunJet. of which, it didn’t quite end how he wish, but it did give us alot of enjoyment. Here’s the footage of thos, I hope it makes you laugh as much as it did us.

First, some successful touch & go’s;

(I know it says Part 3, but actually it was first)

Then, what happened next….

and the results of it…

It has to be said, I do enjoy weekends like this, I hope yours was just as entertaining.

So far, I have not crashed my Nitro Helicopter, The Nexus, due to anything I have done. Which is good. However, there has been problem after problem with it, I’ve had the switch malfunction for the radio electrics, I’ve had the tail rotor pitch rod snap, I’ve had the servo on my elevator malfunction, I’ve had an engine problem that resulted in getting through 4 glow plugs in 2 weeks, and today I had the data cable to my Pitch servo break in flight.

Fortunately, today’s incident I had done 2 figure 8’s, an I had just come in to a hover over the ‘heli-pad’ (this is a clear ‘H’ in all the snow that I had created with the shovel) I was about to land when the wire broke, and fortunately, because the servo still had power, it went into fail-safe (moves the servo into 0 position) and it thumped to the ground. I was only a foot off the ground at the time so no further damage was caused.

Here’s a picture of the broken wire

I guess it’s good that all the “crashes” have been due to faults, but it does take a kick out of your confidence when things like this happen. Still. It’s all fixed (replaced the servo) and ready to go again, but as there’s just over an hour of daylight remaining, I’ll just leave it until tomorrow. Hopefully these problems will become less and less, I’ve had some nice flights with this one recently, and hope I get many more in before it’s killed off.

I think it’s safe to say there has recently been a bit of weather, but why does the country grind to a halt! I spent 40 minutes this evening watching a neighbour trying to get his car out, I did not go and help, because I have no time for lack of common sense. You have a rear wheel drive BMW, you haven’t attempted to shovel any snow atall and it’s higher than the underside of your car, go figure. I spent 15 minutes shovelling the drive-way this morning, and about 3 seconds getting the car out. I still made it to work.

However, Thanks to all the people that took the advice to not venture out in the weather, you all left the roads clear for me. My shovel was used for my car once, and that was in the foot of snow at the office. other than that it was used for other people (they were all in the same carpark, and one of them was in a 4×4).

I also spent an hour this evening clearing part of the road, the part infront of my house. if everyone did this, the entire road would be clear very quickly, stop waiting for the council to clear it up, pick up a shovel and do something about it!

well, rant over. now, go enjoy the snow, and if you can’t get to the office – and do shovel snow and then feel the need to sit down, have a look here: http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/01/what-cant-get-to-office.html

Jason

Well, I just thought I’d wish anyone that reads this a happy new year. Another year is over, and we have only 2 years until the end of the world if you believe the media, so lets make the most of it, it’s time to let your hair down and do everything you promised yourself you would do last year.

2009 has definitely been a bumpy one with a falling out with a very good friend at the beginning of the year it really did get off to a bad start, we are  however talking again, this took alot of work, but I completely understand why we fell out (and it really was mostly my fault), now we are speaking again, I would do anything in the world to keep it up.

I hope you all fun and joys in the next year, you never know, maybe, just maybe, this will be the year for me to celebrate Christmas…. I do have most of the year to decide if I’m celebrating it, though. :-)

J