Stinger 64 EDF. Repair Flight.

...back in the air!

It was months ago when, having too much fun with the Stinger, I inadvertently sent it speeding into the swampy paddock grass, where it half its nose and my near-new nanotech battery disappeared into the mud.

Since then I have agonised over how I was to replicate the tapering form of the nose, which also accommodates the canopy magnet and terminates into the join with the nosecone.

Eventually I used rear sections of the original fuselage (funny how you never crash backwards), although this wasn't quite right and had to be cut, and then added onto, and then filled, and sanded, and painted.

However, after this unnecessarily protracted affair, the Stinger was again airworthy and looking pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding if in how well it flies.

Fortunately, in this case, it flew as well as ever, and I was gifted with a good launch as well. So back to enjoying a few run-filled, adrenalin rushing minutes screeching the Stinger around the paddocks...

Stinger 64 EDF. High Speed Crash.

...best of times, worst of times

 A beautiful sunny afternoon with a gentle southerly blowing set the scene for some great flying with the Stinger.

Now, with its third iteration of decals, it sported much improved visibility which boosted confidence in flying at speed. Picking its orientation, primarily roll, had always been a bugbear with me, but now I was able to fly it with much greater authority.

For once the launch was good and the Stinger was soon howling round the paddocks, executing thrilling low passes and high turns.

This was the best I'd ever flown it, by a long way, and the enjoyment of flying the speedy little jet and the beautiful setting was quite intoxicating.

Unfortunately this wasn't to last, with one low pass having me turn into the sun where, like previously, I mistook the orientation and the Stinger skewed into the marshy grass at speed.

Worse still, half of the nose had been blasted into the mud by the battery, with both embedded to the degree that they were lost despite my best efforts to find them...

Stinger Inverted Crash

...and clouds

Of the times I've flown the Stinger I've had a number of bad launches, primarily due to it rolling, and several times where it's ended up inverted half a second after launch. Every time I have managed to successfully extricate it from such precarious positions and gone onto enjoy the flight.

This time, unfortunately, was different. With the Stinger inverted I panicked and killed the power, so that it nosed towards the turn in an inverted swan dive.

Fortunately the damage was very minor to the degree that I was able to straighten the nose sufficiently to give it another go. The second launch was perfect with a lovely flight to follow, against a backdrop of fresh clouds and beautiful blue sky...

Hobbyking Stinger 64 Mk2. 2200 Nano First Flight

...the big day!

Since the ultimate smash I'd reconstructed the Stinger with a new fuselage and new larger and higher-spec powerpack, all of which I was eager to try out so, with a break in the rather poor run of weather, I headed to the field.

As ever, not having flown the Stinger for a while made me nervous. Additionally, I wasn't sure what the effect would be of the substantially-larger 2200 battery compared to the 1800 I'd previously flown with.

Eager to get the Stinger into the air before the sun disappeared behind clouds, I gave it a quick check before getting it ready to launch. Running the motor up for launch, the reaction felt a little odd. Blipping the throttle again revealed the reason - it was blowing air out of the intakes. I'd wired the motor in reverse.

Dashing back to the car for my toolkit, quite a way as I was flying in the paddocks, I headed back to the plane to remove wings and swap the plugs. Eventually the Stinger was back together, now developing positive thrust, but the sun had unfortunately taken a break behind a small patch of clouds.

Despite the disappointment of losing the beautiful afternoon glow, I hot full throttle and threw the Stinger up. Despite high expectations, this continued the run of miserable launches I've had, the Stinger knife-edging a few metres up. Correcting this and easing off the elevator revealed the next crisis; I hadn't done a good check on the trims and the Stinger was nosediving alarmingly.

Bringing it round I heaved on the elevator; going vertically fifty metres up is a nice safe place to make control adjustments.

After that things got a lot better; the augmented stripes made visibility so much better I was immediately more confident, and soon I had the Stinger making nicely-controlled low passes at speed, howling past at full throttle...

Sport Cameras

...looking good in HD

I chanced today to look over some of the very first videos I ever uploaded and was rather appalled at the quality. The camera in question was a 720p RD32 Wing Camera, although I think the abject quality also had something to do with how they were processed.

The mornings are also a challenging time for mini cameras, with the relatively low light and sharp contrasts proving a daunting challenge for the mini processors and small lenses. My new camera, a 1080p Mobius Action Camera, delivers very good quality footage, although it hasn't been brilliant in low light conditions. 

However I've lately given it a software update (imagine saying that twenty years ago) which seems to have improved it considerably, with the "large range" setting allowing it to cope with varied light conditions, like the morning flights, much better.

The clarity of the Mobius footage really is excellent, even more so given its tiny size; it literally embarrasses my earliest efforts.

So, here's to mini HD cameras and clever software...