Monday Night: Today was sunny cool and breezy, yesterday was similar, the rest of the week it has been warm...

Tuesday we went to Alicante to get Daniel, Beccie was kept in hospital in Alicante overnight as her condition is serious......

Wednesday was my birthday and we went to Paco's for luch, but not before I had broken down in town on the scooter and required rescuing by Jim, later Beccie and Antony came here after hospital......

Thursday we did some shopping in the morning, it was a warm day and we reached 22C here.....

Friday we all went to Javea for the day, Chrissie and Beccie went to the salon for a complimentary makover prior to a photo shoot arranged by Antony's Mum for a Christmas Present....

Daniel and I went to Ondara to the mall for some more Christmas shopping (and a Big Mac) and I bought a nice jacket for the pictures. Antony proposed to Beccie on one knee in front of everyone and I am sure that will make a nice picture with the sun set sky......

On Saturday Daniel and I went to Benissa for some final presents and some more food,

Sunday, Christmas Day was a nice day, we went to Jim and Angela's house late morning with all the English from the village for a drink, which was nice..... Later Beccie and Antony arrived and we had presents then a late dinner....

Today we had a cold lunch, then in the afternoon I played around with the T Rex again to see if I could get it to fly this time....

SUCCESS !!! - I have just had my first flight in the plaza with the HK450 Pro Helicopter! After a month of mishaps and disasters, (4 gear boxes and a main drive failure) I have found out it was mostly to do with an incorrect gyro position and setup, now I have control I am really pleased at how well it flys and how really easy it is to fly compared to the simulator....

Monday Night: Today was clear and sunny, calm until mid day then breezy from the west. We went to town around 1pm to go to the post and do some Christmas shopping..... The part s to fix the T Rex and the Hughes had arrived, I fixed the T Rex first, it didn't take too long, but Iwill wait for a calm day for the test flight.....

Then I fixed the little Hughes 500 which had suffered an engine failure. I managed to fnd parts on the net at a reasonable price from the UK, less than a week and you got both motors for about £4, so I replaced them both and it's like brand new again.... I also took the oportunity to grease the miniature open bearings it uses, so it's a lot quieter too!

Seen flying here before. This is a very good place to start if you want to learn to fly RC helicopters.......

On Friday we saw the most amazing sunset ever....

On Saturday we spent some time with Beccie and Antony because Beccie isn't too good at the moment.....

Sunday, yesterday was cloudy and cold, we had an enormous wind overnight Saturday, very destructive again, lost both the gates, don't have to worry about the bonfire pile, it's gone, but no trees this time...pitty I wish next doors tree would fall over.... it's in the way!

Daniels due out Tuesday for a couple of weeks for Christmas......

Friday Evening: Thickening high cloud, breezy, cooler 15C. I went to town on the bike today to go and get the post, but there was nothing again.

Yesterday was sunny and calm 18C and we went to Beccies for lunch, then on to the Ondara shopping centre for Xmas shopping and a Big Mac...

Tuesday moring was clear calm and sunny 19C, I went to town to get the post and the little Solo Pro had turned up from NZ. I found that it had a bent tail shaft and thought the box looked a little "second hand" but when I tried to fly it the thing was uncontrolable, it kept flicking round and it nearly flew away before crashing on the lower terrace. I'll give it this, it's pretty strong as nothing broke that time, but then when I tried a simple hover, it suddenly dived tail first into the ground and stripped the nylon main drive gear.... It is so badly set up, not as they claim "fly out of the box" I also suspect it may have been a "return" and maybe someone fiddled with the settings to try to get it to fly and I have been fobbed off with it. There is no way the tail shaft can bend on it's own! So that was that, on to the net to order spare parts for this one.... with the thought to quickly "sell it on"

Wednesday Chrissie came to town too and we went to the supermarket, I went to the post and the spare parts for the T Rex tail had finally turned up.... I was sure I had ordered two of these as I thought I might need more and when I checked I had, except I had ordered another "one" as well at a later date and the "one" had arrived.... Typical!

Normally this would be fine, the rest should be here Monday, but I have been setting up the T Rex inside so as not to damage it again...... well that was the theory anyway!

I had worked out that the sudden tail flip that resulted in  the first lot of gears being striped was caused by the gyro being reversed, so I had got the direction of the servo right all along..... I sorted that out and found the tail was still wagging a lot when I powered up.... On reading about the solution it soon became clear that this particular gyro was very difficult to set up and did cause a lot of tail wagging..... The solution was to replace it with the new Turnigy one I had been waiting for (it was the one I originally intended for this model anyway) and that had turned up last week eventually

I put the model on a smooth floor, without the main blades so everything will just spin, then I powered up, the tail wasn't wagging, but then suddenly the tail flipped around so fast it hit my foot.... Bugger, there go another set of gears, this bloody gyro was in reverse and despite my best efforts to avaiod any contact, it still managed to touch my shoe and strip another gear box and it hasn't even left the groung yet! To be true I getting really pissed off with the continual delays, it seems I never have the right part when something goes wrong, and it seems something goes wrong all too often! God only nows what the damage will be when the thing does fly and crash!

Monday Night: Today was mostly sunny albeit a bit breezy until later... 16C

We went down to the outskirts of Calpe to buy a christmas tree, they had one left, but it was perfect. Then we went back inland to town to get the post... but still nothing from Hong Kong or NZ!

Later I had a fly with the Lady B....

Apart from the recievers, two servo's have turned up, but not the third, I have a gyro, but the ESC is still in HK, I have the little 160mah batteries, but the charging lead hasn't turned up yet..... There is no ryhme or reason for the order things turn up or not.....

The two servo's were ordered the same day as the third one, yet they have been here a week already, the motor I got for the little Hughes from the parts list at HK is the wrong part (it's the correct motor for the other heli though, so it's no real problem), but I did find the spares page at heliguy.com and they supply the main frame with BOTH motors installed for £4-60 something and the last time I bought spares from them it only took 5 days to arrive.

They have everything for the Hughes and the HK190 from bearings to flybars and blades to batteries and bodies When I spoke to them Friday they said they had good stocks of the parts and more were on the way. I have taken the Hughes model apart, it's relitivly easy to do and surpisingly easy to put it all together again, very well thought out. If these parts ever arrive I should have it flying again this week sometime, in the mean time I do have the second one of course, although I have had a break from the inside ones this week.....

I have been flying the little HK190 (the red one) outside, it can handle a little breeze (or should I say I can) what I like about outside is that when it's in the air, there isn't an awful lot that can go wrong, so the odd stick the wrong way doesn't send the helicopter hitting a wall, in fact it has improved my confidence so much I hardly ever make mistakes now and can do the nose in bit with ease.... Free flying the model is also fun, my god it can move! I have become really good at coming out of flight and back into the hover, I always could do that, but again I am better now, so when I do finally get one of the T Rex's into the air I think I at least have a chance!

The last week has been so calm I have been having 3 and 4 flights a day using the little red heli , the electric Tiger and Lady B. But I am seriously considering getting the HK SE5A, it's 1.1M wingspan, plug and fly and the reviews are all excellent. The theory for me is that the larger wheels will be much better suited to both taking off and more inportantly for landing here, it's a bigger model too. The wing loading will be nothing compared to my previous SE5 which I built years ago and I imagine this one will be a dream to fly.  I already have the 1800mah or 2200mah batteries requires, so there is nothing more to buy and it's not too bad a price considering what it is because it's everything included.... I wish! Maybe..... There's nothing else after this.....

Sunday Afternoon: 14C Dead calm and cloudy this morning, I had a fly with each model......

Happy 19th Birthday Jordan.

Wednesday Night: It rained again a lot last week, I did get the second helicopter built following the demise of the first.... This week has been much better weather...

The weekend and the beginning of last week were wet cold and windy, Iwent down and got a fire licence on Tuesday,  Chrissie went out with Beccie on the Wednesday and I made a more elegant top for the septic tank.......

Thursday was cloudy and I made the helicopter and took it outside to test it....
It took me hours to work out how to make the servo's go and do what they were supposed to do, the swash plate is controlled by three servos that work together in a mix, trouble is that if you reverse a servo, it completely alters the function of all three, ie: reverse aileron, you get an elevator that works from left to right, change the sevo's around, it makes the pitch the elevator or the ailerons the elevator or the pitch the ailerons, the only configuration I could get even close to correct was the one with the aileron stick in reverse....

After a couple of hours of trying every single combination, I referred to the manual and in there I found there was a swashplate mix funtion. In the transmitter menu it seemed to be in German or something so although I had seen this, I didn't know what it was for. The set up in there was pitch +40, aileron +60, and elevator +60, so I made the aileron -60 and bobs your uncle.. it worked. I had previously worked out the rudder direction, so the next day I  finished putting it all together. The Turnigy gyro hasn't yet arrived so I did the "fix" on the HK401 gyro, which involved taking out the main board, which is a mother board and two smaller boards, apparently the problem with the gyro is that these can come un-soldered in flight, so what you do is epoxy them in and then add foam tape as well to the corners to prevent vibration, it took about ten minutes to fix it....

So with that done I decided to do the first full "throttle up", I wasn't intending to do anymore than rev it up and apply some pitch, and make it "light" to check the direction of the servos and then maybe even hover a few inches up.... I took it out onto the soft ground out the back, reved it up to mid throttle, but as soon as I began to pull in the pitch the model suddenly span very fast to the right and there was a horrible gruanch...... The tail servo direction must have been wrong, so when the torque started the gyro counteracted it, but because ithe tail was reversed I guess this was a recipie for disaster. The model didn't leave the ground, but as it span round the tail blades just touched a small clod of wet earth and both ends of the tail drive gears were stripped in an instant.... They are tiny little nylon gears, I guessed they may break at some point and had spares for the tail end, but it broke both ends..... You could hardly see the dirt on the ends of the tail blades, but they must have momentarily been stopped...... It is easy to take the tail off at least.

On examination I found that the Turnigy hadn't saved the tail servo reverse setting I had made the night before, you have to push enter twice apparently, I did come across this later with the swash plate, but thought the tail was correct. Now I realise I should have run it all up without the blades to check the tail, but I didn't expect it to react so violently as it did..... So I am back to square one waiting on parts from HK...... I have ordered three of each of these tail gear boxes, which are less than $3US as well as tail belts for the second model which is belt driven.

I could build the second model now and swap the gear over, but I spent so long setting up the head and travels on the TRex, at this stage I have decided to wait..... The two helicopters are only "similar" but all of the parts between them are different and so are the servo mountings, completely different. I have already begun to build the second helicopter and I should be able to make it in a shorter time, but I still don't have it's other two cyclic servo's and one servo of the original 4 I bought was no good. The other two servos for I bought for this are still trapped with the Huges body and the second gyro in the order which is taking forever to get to HK's warehouse.....
So now I have had to order 3 more servos too, I am hoping at least the gyro and second tail servo will be here this week so I can at least get that set up and ready......

Friday we went shopping and when we got back here the rain had already started....

Saturday was really wet, we helped Beccie and Antony move to their new appartment between Javea and Denia, much nearer for their work...

Sunday was clear calm and sunny, it was the Christmas gathering and service in the plaza in the morning, then in the afternoon we went to the Denia Marriott to a Christmas fair, mostly Britts, 100+ stalls and 2000+ people. The hotel is however in the country on a golf course which resembles England with pine trees and green grass....

Monday was clear and calm, I went to town to see if there was any post and visited the Mercadona, the gyro finally arrived, but it's no use at the moment with the servo's still en route..... In the afternoon I began a new project, so it was woodwork in the sunshine.......

Tuesday was clear and calm, 20C, 22C in the Naya. Today was a public holiday in Spain, Beccie and Antony came over for dinner and to get Willa Beccie's cat......

Today was clear and sunny and yesterday and the day before we reached 22C in the Naya. I have been working up there in the sunshine, which I need to see the details.... I have also been doing flying on most suitable days, mostly with Lady B. I have also been flying the little red fixed pitch helicopter a lot outside as it is really suited to larger spaces.

Wednesday Evening: Today was cold, wet and windy, it has been raining pretty much non stop for the last 72 hours, so everything is gross and soggy, the garage is flooded and the ground is too wet to walk on....

I went to town yesterday to see if there was any more post, my ball pliers had arrived and I managed to get the hex drive I needed to make a proper start on the helicopter, I had assembled it to make sure it was all there and I knew where it all went, but then you have to strip it all apart and rebuild it with loctite.

I have been doing the loctiting on the HK450 Pro today, as it turns out much of it has already been done, the only the bits you really need to undo were the only bits not locked, now it's done I feel better about progressing....

The next mission is to install all the sevo's. Here we come unstuck again though, because the tail servo and gyro are still in the post.... I can put the other three in though, then at least I can assemble the gears/motor and head and probably set up the pitch and stuff, then I have to solder all the plugs on, but when the tail servo and the gyro arrive I hope to be ready to complete it....

It's nice not rushing it though, just taking it really easy, step by step, watching the tutorials on you tube, slowly I'm getting an understanding of it. I saw one today about how to put the pro frame into the Hughes body that I ordered, wow I didn't realise how big that is, it does look very nice though and it looked really good flying in the video .

It is very simple to convert, so if it ever does leave HK I think I will use the Pro in the Hughes body and fly the less technical 450 V2 (which having seen the video would be much harder to assemble into this body) and use that for the general flying...

The "avionics" set up will be very similar.... I found my old Pheonix 45 speed controller inside an uncompleted model hanging up in the other garrage too, I was wondering where that had got to! They still cost an arm and a leg and have a great reputaion, so I hope this one will be well up for the job!

Sunday Night: Today started out sunny, clouded over, then became sunny again but now it's rainaing and the weather continues to be unsettled...

I have been flying some of the model helicoptes, mostly inside, but yesterday in the late afternoon the wind dropped compltetly and I took the little fixed pitch heli and flew it from the bancale. What a difference it made being in clean air and not in a room full of it's own "wash". I was very pleased with my self too because I was competantly executing manouvers I have stuggled with previously, like nose in hovering and manouvering. I also let if fly free and boy can it move! I feel much better abaout the T Rex now....

Today I flew the Lady B aeroplane model a couple of times in between the wind and rain, apparently they can see me flying from the restaurant and when I do they all watch.....

Thursday Afternoon: Today has been cool and cloudy, it was cloudy here Wednesday and Tuesday was sunny as was Monday. We had dolls house club Monday, but there were not many there, I only had one person for my project which was to make the artists pallet, paint tubes and brushes.

Today I wanted to make a start on the T Rex 450 electric helicopter, I am still waiting for parts that haven't even left Hong Kong yet, so there is no great rush to finish it, but I wanted to start it at least and when I opened the packets with the parts in it was all pretty obvious how it went togther.

Here is the T Rex assembled next to the micro fixed pitch which is just 20cm long.

The model now has to have all of it's assembly's stripped and thread locked to prevent the screws falling out from any vibration. So far I haven't found any screws that were already tight without the thread lock already, so I guess it'll be a case of if it comes undone it needs it and if it doesn't it doesn't...

The helicopter looks so complex, but in reality is a series of sub assembly's, so if I take each assembly one at a time, it won't seem so daunting.....

In the mean time I have found a T rex for the FMS flight sim and I realise that if it is anything like this I need a lot more time on the sim before I attempt to fly the model. I am sure I will be able to hover it already, but I want to fly it properly and when things get hairy I can still make a mistake... So off to practice whilst I wait for the post.

Tuesday Night: Today was clear and sunny, it was around 21C most of the day.... I went to town early in the afternoon to see if there was any post, then I wen to Iceland and Lidl.....

My Micro Helicopter Squadron has grown, but these are 3 very differernt machines and toys they are not!