...scenic flight and more A trip to the country was an opportunity to take the Floater Jet to see whether there might be an opportunity for lift off the adjoining hillside. Also, an opportunity for a gentle scenic flight the next day, with a tranquil morning and the lake mirror-calm.
Not that it was an uneventful flight, with a flock of corellas passing through and a very close call with a radio tower. And to end it, probably the worst judged approach I've made in a long time, with the docile Floater Jet over-flying and floating straight into the garage door...
..chilled-out cruising The journey into the hills to slope soar the Floater Jet on the strong westerly wind had turned out disappointing; the slope-facing breeze sliding away to the north with the Floater Jet barely for a few minutes.
Soaring out of the question, I lay on the hilltop watching the clouds changing until the breeze had abated. With the sky clearing as well, I loaded a fresh battery into the Floater for a pleasant cruise around the slopes. The sky cleared as I flew, with the sun coming through increasingly to bathe the ridge in golden rays and give some warm texture to the clouds. No lift of course, but nevertheless a leisurely twenty minutes flying, turning in to the ridge-top only when the battery was depleted…
This beautiful sunset on a still evening had me heading off to the field in a hurry with the trusty Floater Jet and mobius camera to try and capture some of it. It’s always compelling to try and do this to make the most of what is otherwise obscured and diminished by the lack of a clear view.
From a vantage of a couple of hundred feet up, however, this is not an issue although there are others; the Floater is not the easiest thing to fly smoothly and steadily, especially when you’re trying to climb. Also, judging orientation from the ground is a bit hit and miss, compelling arguments for getting a drone with FPV capability.
The video from the flight was understandably then a little scrambled, with lovely glimpses here and there of the sun gradually sinking beyond the horizon. However, gradually sifting through the footage and stringing clips together I think I’ve managed to compile something that’s tranquil and a little bit special, in conjunction with a lovely acoustic guitar soundtrack.
Of course it’s nowhere as smooth or professional looking as something off a drone, but still not bad from a Floater Jet...
...sometimes underestimated Today was grey and cold with the odd shower, a fairly miserable day hinting at the approaching winter. However, towards late afternoon, the grey sky began fragmenting into picturesque patches of cloud and the sun began to filter through from the clean blueness beyond. A few hours later, a gorgeous evening had developed with the sun sinking towards the horizon warmly illuminating patches of clouds hovering tranquilly in the motionless air. On evenings like these the best thing to do is take a glider and pop down to the field; having a plane leisurely savouring the moment takes you from being a spectator to being part of nature's spectacle. Unfortunately two of my gliders are out of action, the Fox having crashed from a spin, and the Raptor lacking a motor due to an unfortunate failure of the unit I'd installed. I have, on several occasions taken the Floater, however it just doesn't have the grace and beauty that make flying the other gliders on these majestic occasions so special. So I had to enjoy the sunset while earthbound, leading me to ponder on the value of well established planes, the ones you fly dozens of times without issue and don't really appreciate the value they are providing...
...not the right sort of plane I recently took the Floater Jet to the local field to try it out at thermalling, it being a lovely clear day with things warming up. There was certainly lift around, with the Floater staying up several minutes at a go. However I can't say the experience was sublime; the Floater is a little small for good visuals as it get higher and, an indication that it wasn't meant for this sort of thing, it has no under-wing markings whatsoever.
Additionally, when gliding, it doesn't have very good penetration either, mainly as it's designed as a benign flyer rather than a sleek performance soarer. This attempt also highlighted, again, how good it would be to have a vario setup. Unfortunately. as far as I am aware, this means having a telemetry-capable radio for which a variometer accessory is available. Unfortunately this seems only to be the case for the FrSky unit, requiring a couple hundred dollar investment. Perhaps it might appear in my chrissy stocking...
...going to the birds About halfway through a lovely evening flight, a massive flock of Corellas took to the sky, deciding to change roosting places en mass. I turned the Floater Jet to follow them, with the Mobius camera mounted on board. Despite the difficulty of flying chase in a Floater Jet, its high-mounted prop meaning it's always changing orientation with throttle adjustments, I managed to get close to them a few times.
By a stroke of luck, with the flock swiftly changing direction, the Floater Jet was suddenly in the midst of dozens of Corellas on the wing, their brilliant white plumage reflecting the golden sunset against a beautiful backdrop of distant clouds...
...a gorgeous spectacle
Today was grey almost from start to finish, overcast with scattered showers. However, late in the day, the wind shifted to a warm northerly, clearing the west and developing the western clouds into a lovely assortment of types and altitudes.
The field was mostly empty so I quickly had the Floater Jet packaged with a camera and launched into the lovely afternoon sky to get some video of the sky show.
I'm a fan of mist and clouds; as regards the latter, particularly those interesting collections you get in the early morning or late evening, when shapes have developed in relative stillness. This evening was a charmer, a clear west showing the gradually sinking sun and a collection of clouds on the opposite horizon, an aerial canvas for the low angle of the sun to render in beautiful shades...
...unlikely but groovy Some while ago, while trying the throttle with the Floater Jet on the ground, it occurred to me that, since the Floater has a high-mounted prop, it would be feasible to take it off from the ground. Theoretically anyway.
Without undercarriage, however, and just a smooth-bottomed fuselage, control on the ground wouldn't be very good. Also, as my first attempts showed, the Floater can tend to skid around, especially if the controls aren't all centred, as I sometime have them in order to keep it trimmed straight for power flight. Nevertheless, as you can see from the Floater's take-off run, ground launch is possible and a novel change to the usual hand-launch. And its pretty cool as well...
...for a bird's eye view The search and rescue mission for the flown by the Phoenix to try and locate theStinger EDFunfortunately drew a blank; a few maybe's but nothing definitive, with a subsequent foray through the paddocks on foot found nothing either. Therefore a second reconnaissance mission was required, this time using the Floater Jet with the Mobius mounted on its nose. The sloping mounting provided look-down capability, something missing from the Phoenix's wing-top placement, and additionally provided an obscured field of view.
The weather was, unfortunately, not conducive to the structured coverage of the field I had hoped for, with the warm and gusty weather making flying the Floater hazardous and doing low passes even more so. As a result the flying was haphazard, battling to keep the Floater flying level while maintaining an even altitude, although desirable, was out of the question. In fact, from the video, it's clearly apparent that the Floater was skimming over fences and brushing the grass tops at stages. About halfway through it's search, a pale speck showed on the extreme edge of the the video image. Having checked numerous specks already without success I was doubtful this would amount to anything, particularly being out of the search zone. Zooming in on the speck it took some form and appeared to have a vertical black stripe. Looking closer it also seemed to have faint hints of something horizontal on either side.
Zooming again the appearance of a circle in between seemed to cement the realisation that I'd actually managed to locate the Stinger. The next day, after twenty minutes of wandering around the paddock trying to match the video clip orientation, I finally found it...
...camera at the ready Having packed the Floater Jet it seemed opportune to load it up with the camera and give it a fly for a scenic tour around the lake.
The brisk northerly, however, made this anything but a simple exercise, having to launch the Floaterover the lake without having it ending up, well, floating in the lake. Fortunately the Floater launched OK and soon powered over the lake against the gusty breeze.
I'm always fascinated at the different perspective provided by the aerial camera, obviously the same reason that people want to fly FPV, and the view of the lake and trees spreading out below the Floater as it climbed in the sunny blue skies was both intriguing and lovely. The approach to landing seemed impossibly high however, as is clear and evidence of the headwind the Floater was experiencing, it worked out ok although it did end up a little close to the rubbish bin...
...a real pusher prop The Floater Jet has been out of action for a long time due to minor wing damage, elevator pushrods needing replacement, motor removed and being short of prop adapter.
Finally, all the pieces were in place, literally, with the last piece of the jigsaw, a three-bladed pusher prop. What's special about this prop is that it's actually designed for pushers; if you've ever had one you'll know they're very noisy using standard propellors. I'm not sure why, but I can tell you that's the case.
The pusher prop is a 6x4 which fits the Floater well, and being a three-blade looks pretty cool as well. The one catch is it's spins anti-clockwise, i.e. in the opposite direction to most propellors. However this is easy enough to fix, as you just need to swap two connectors on your ESC.
So this afternoon, as soon as I'd finished refurbishing the Floater, I headed out to the field to give it a test flight. Having been a while since I'd flown it, and with it having the different-style propellor, I was a little nervous. However, my concerns soon vanished as the Floater climbed into the sky.
The prop is quiet, in fact remarkably so, spinning with just a bit of a whine, and certainly nothing like the droning buzz it makes with the regular prop. It's even pretty quiet on full throttle and producing plenty of thrust as evidenced by the rate at which the Floater climbed.
The flight was actually most enjoyable with the quiet performance, improved elevator response and gorgeous backdrop of dramatically illuminated evening clouds.
...which ends well, but in the paddock This morning was lovely, calm and cool, with the sun just rising as I unpacked the planes. I took the Floater and the Radjet, with the former being backup as the latter can sometimes be a little unpredictable. As it turned out the little jet launched smoothly and flew beautifully, now nicely balanced and flying straight despite it's torrid history of traumatic crashes and endless repairs. It's more predictable behaviour also makes landing easier, bringing it in on a nice long gliding approach and dropping it gently onto the dewy grass.
Having the Floater I decided to throw that up as well for a more relaxing finish to the morning's flying. Well, it ended up as more of a walk as, with the Floater turning back from the paddock, it began to fly lower and lower. Adding more power to counteract what is often an area with sink, the Floater seemed to make no response and eventually glided down for an auto landing. Reaching it eventually, after a walk across the field and a hop over the fence, the cause was apparent - flipping the power on, the prop spun up momentarily before lazily winding down. I'd forgotten to charge the batteries...
...all lit up and ready to go I finally received the extra set of LED strip lights for the underside of my Floater Jet after what seemed like a minor eternity. I needed these for the underside of the wings as, while the LED's on the wings and along the sides of the fuselage looked really impressive in the study, it soon became apparent when I'd got the Lightship Mk1 into the air that under-wing illumination was an absolute necessity. This is especially so as at the local field, being bordered by trees, flights are generally above treetop level to avoid awkward situations.
Anyway, the Floater Jet is decked out and ready to go, along with its new 6x5 prop. The latter works well, making it easier to launch, I think due to the larger prop-wash area of the wing, and also make cruising quieter as it develops quite a bit more thrust (about 20% more at low throttle and 40% more at full throttle)....
