Kerry'd Away

How To Make Wing Bags

Posted on June 18, 2013 by civilwarrose5

This past April my very dear husband was pining after a 110″ SIG Rascal. He very badly wanted one so that he could make it into an electric plane that would blow the wheel pants off of our friend’s Rascal (which is gas).

These wings are huge. Obviously with a 110″ span they are going to be! The blue part of the wing is transparent covering so that you can see the inside of the wing. Well, when you transport this plane it’s inevitable that the wings are going to get banged around a bit. If that transparent covering were to get a hole in it then it would be quite the job to recover it. To protect the wings a bit you can purchase wing bags, but they aren’t cheap. So Jay asked if I would be able to make a set for the Rascal. I’d never made wing bags before, but it couldn’t be too hard… right?

I went to the local fabric store and found some fabric that was big enough plus it was on sale. Since these wings were so long I needed to use the fabric in the most efficient way. My wings were about 16″ wide, so when you double that and add a little bit extra for depth and the seam, I figured that I would need a piece of fabric that was at least 36″ wide. I knew that I wanted to quilt two fabrics together in order to give it a little more padding, so I had to find two different bolts that were wide enough. I found a nice fleece for the inside and a flannel for the outside. Remember that you want a lighter color on the outside so that it doesn’t absorb the heat and warp the wings. Because these pieces of fabric were so large I asked my mom to quilt them for me. She has a long-arm sewing machine and I figured that she could use this for practicing one of her patterns.

Once you have your material, lay it out with the wing laying on it. Having a furry supervisor is not necessary, but definitely helps. I didn’t have a pattern for this, so I was ‘winging’ it… hahahahaha….

You are going to essentially follow the shape of your wing, pinning as you go along. You want the wing bag to take the shape of the wing so that it doesn’t have a lot of room to shift around. My inside material was so dark that it was hard to show you what I was doing, but I did my best. You can somewhat see the curve of the wing on the right side of the fabric after I’ve pinned it and left about a 2″ space between the wing and my pins. I wanted to make sure that I had enough material because I was going to serge the edges and then sew the material together. You don’t want to make it too tight to the wing.

Once you have one cut out and the edges serged, use it for a pattern for the second wing. Why? Well, theoretically the wings should be the identical size and shape. Just keep in mind that the piece you’re using as your pattern is the size that you want it to be when you go to sew it together. You don’t want to cut the other piece right close to the edge otherwise it will be smaller. Give yourself about a 1/4″ padding all the way around. Serge the edges of the second wing bag.

Before sewing the wing bag together you’re going to want to sew on the Velcro. Cut the Velcro to a length that works for you. I decided that I would make mine the entire length of the opening so that there wasn’t any chance that anything could leave that bag. Also make sure to really sew down the ends of the Velcro so that it stays put when it’s opened over and over again.

Most wing bags have handles. It’s easiest to sew them in place when you sew the bag together. Keep in mind, though, that you want to place the handle in a spot that will make it easiest to carry it; too close to either end and the wing will automatically slip the opposite way when you pick it up. To find the best place for my handles I wrapped the wing up in my fabric taco and then picked it straight up (as if I was going to carry it off). By moving my hands I could find out where the weight gets distributed. Mark the spots for each end of the handle with pins. Set the wing aside (in a safe spot where the cats can’t practice their wing-walking) and use it to mark the spots for the handle on the second bag.

Pin your bag together all along the edges, making sure to match them evenly. Decide how long you want your handles, and then pin the ends of them in place. Make sure that they aren’t twisted and that the rest of the handle is out of the way of your sewing. You won’t be able to see the actual handle when you are sewing because it’s on the “inside” of the bag. You want it this way so that when you turn the bag right-side-out the handle will be on the outside of the bag. I used about a 1/2″ seam, with a small straight stitch. One note of caution… be sure that you have good thread when you’re sewing this together. Apparently the thread that I had was of inferior quality and it was breaking a LOT. Once I switched to a better thread everything went together so much better.

Wing Bag 9 Even though they are just wing bags, you will want to press the seam open. This helps to give you a crisper seam on the outside, and it should be common practice for you if you sew a lot. Remember to set your iron for the temperature of your most sensitive fabric.

And that’s it! You’ve just made a set of wing bags! I still have to hand sew the pockets on the inside for the wing spar and tube, but that won’t take me long.

All in total I probably have $50 worth of material and 5 hours of my time. I’m not sure how long it took my mom to quilt the fabric, but you don’t necessarily have to go down that path. There are many different ways that you could take to do these bags. All that matters at the end is if they do the job that they are supposed to do. Jay says that he loves them, and that’s all that matters to me.

Posted in RC Planes, Sewing | Tagged R/C, RC Planes, Sewing | 1 Comment

Bathroom Project Update 6-12-13

Posted on June 12, 2013 by civilwarrose5

Yes, it has been a while since I’ve updated my blog. I’ve started a new job and I’m not allowed a lot of internet access… even during my lunches. The only time that I have to do personal things online is at night, but now that nicer weather has arrived I spend a lot of time working on other projects. Including my bathroom. You see, I’m tired of having the contents of my linen closet taking up the middle of my living room. Luckily we are almost there! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you recall, this is what the bathroom looked like after the contractor finished. I literally cried. The drywall seams were horrible and I didn’t think that I would ever be able to cover them up.

There was so much that needed to be done that I didn’t know how we were going to fix it. I’ve helped my parents remodel houses, but I’d never done it myself and I really doubted my ability to be able to make it look good.

It was amazing how much better it looked after we finished the joint compounding and had a layer of primer on the walls.

I sent Jay to the floor store around the corner and told him to get some linoleum without a pattern. He came home with this vinyl, which was browner than I wanted but I knew that we could make it work.

The walls weren’t perfectly smooth, despite our best efforts, but we got tired of being covered in dust and decided that it would have to do. The white looked nice and clean, but it was too sterile and bright.

I had some paint left from my previous house and decided that I would use that for this project. My thought was that since our shower curtain has blue in it that this blue would work.

WOW.

You can’t really appreciate just how BLUE this color is in person. It looked like I had killed a bunch of Smurfs and smeared them across the walls.

My other worry involved the floor. How in the world was I going to make the brown of the floor work with the blue of the walls?

Due to the fact that the walls weren’t perfectly smooth I knew that I would have to use a painting technique to hide those flaws.

My original idea was to paint the lines on the wall that you get when light is reflected off of water’s surface. You know what I mean… like when you’re inside and the light hits a pool of water and you can see the water’s reflection moving on the wall.

This seemed like a really neat idea, but execution was going to be tricky because I am not artistic. At all. The other problem was the fact that it’s a small space and I didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the “reflection”.

I knew that I had to tone down the blue, and since the toilet, shower and sink are white I figured that was the obvious choice. I did a rag painting technique where you use a plastic bag instead of a rag. I had practiced on an extra piece of drywall before trying it on the wall. Then I had Jay tell me which one he liked best.

After I was done I was still worried that this would be too much. I wanted to tone down the blue, but I didn’t want to create another problem.

At this point we were still using the clear shower curtain because I didn’t want to hang the other one up until we were all done with all of the painting and trim work. This tension rod worked great because I could simply take it down when we were working on the room, and then it went back up when we needed to take a shower.

We discovered that even though we only lost an inch or so of shower space (due to the new fiberglass surround), with the curtain blowing in on us it really caused the shower to quickly shrink. I found a solution to that, however.

Here is our bathroom now… almost done! You can somewhat see the trim that we put up. Plus the regular shower curtain is hanging.

I have to admit that once most of the pieces were in place that it all came together a lot better than I expected.

It was Jay’s idea to use stained trim instead of painting it. At first I was skeptical, but then I recognized that it would help pull in the brown of the floor with the rest of the room. Jay did a great job of trimming around the bathtub surround so that you can’t tell that we really had to monkey with it to make it look right.

We couldn’t use the mirror that was hanging when we moved in because it was a medicine cabinet and the contractor hadn’t made a hole for it when he put up the new drywall. We really didn’t want to cut a hole in the drywall, either. Then I remembered that I had one of my grandma’s mirrors from my old house that I hadn’t known what to do with it. This mirror has a brown frame around it, so it works out perfectly.

The back of the door is still painted black, but Jay claims to have an idea for that. I also still need to paint the inside of the closet, too.

I wish that you could see it in person because I’m really excited about how it is turning out. We still have to fix the window sill, but that will get done. We need a few more fixtures, too (towel racks, toilet paper holder, etc).

Jay even had to customize a wall switch plate mount. Due to the old plaster being much thicker this box stuck out of the wall further. We couldn’t put a face plate on it because it would have REALLY stuck out. So Jay used some of the trim that was stained and made this mounting piece. It looks really great!

One of my favorite features, though, is our new shower curtain rod. I love those rounded ‘hotel’ rods and had one at my last house. My fear with this bathroom, though, was that while you were using the toilet you would have to push the shower curtain off of your knees. My bathroom really isn’t very big and I didn’t want the curtain causing it to feel even smaller.

That’s when I went on Amazon and found a shower rod that rotates! When you’re not using the shower the rod can be flipped in so that it hangs over the tub. This makes it nice if you have something drip-drying on the rod because then it’s dripping into the tub.

Then when you want to take a shower you just flip it out and wa-laa! Can you see how much room the curtain takes up? Maybe it doesn’t look like a whole lot in these pictures, but when you’re standing there it sure does. Plus the shower rod comes with a plastic wand that you hang from the rod so that short people can flip it. Since I’m so tall I don’t have to use it. 😉

So that’s our bathroom remodel, for the most part. I just wanted to show you some before and after pictures…

Before… what it looked like when we moved in.

After… with a little more work to be done.

Before… with that horrible gray “tile” paneling, the black trim, and the sunken toilet paper holder and medicine cabinet.

After… a little bit lighter and simpler. It might not look as elegant as it used to, but that’s okay with me. I’m not one who likes to decorate a bathroom with a lot of extra stuff.

I hope you enjoyed seeing pictures of this project!

Posted in My House, Remodeling | Tagged My House, Remodeling | 1 Comment

Joy Tree Book Cover

Posted on May 28, 2013 by civilwarrose5

A few years ago I had stitched this Joy Tree. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I’ve had it on my refrigerator. After all, I figure if you typically display your children’s works of art on the fridge then why can’t I display mine? So I did.

Well, my mother-in-law fell in love with this piece. I wanted to give it to her, but I wanted to make it into something other than a wall hanging. There are only so many things that you can hang on the wall and I didn’ want to make Karen have to do that. It was about the right size, though, to cover the weekday Missal that she uses when she goes to daily mass. She has a cover for her Sunday Missal, but not the week day.

I had to figure out what I was doing before I actually did anything with the stitched piece. The only scrap fabric that I had on hand, however, was this skull and cross bones pattern. Jay laughed when he saw that I had my Sunday Missal covered with the skulls and crossbones. He can be a bit irreverant. lol

Once I made sure that it would fit my missal then I was able to copy the pattern to the Joy Tree piece. I didn’t follow any particular pattern, I just went with what I thought would work. Luckily it did. lol. Unfortunately I can’t give you step-by-step instructions. It seemed pretty straight forward with very simple mechanics. Karen loved it, so I guess that’s all that matters.

I had help when measuring and cutting the fabric. Chester is so helpful, isn’t she? I had to move her foot out of the way so that I didn’t cut it off, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. Silly cat!

Posted in cross stitch, Sewing | Tagged cross stitch, Sewing | 1 Comment

Timber!!

Posted on May 26, 2013 by civilwarrose5

Bob feels that I need to start out this post with a disclaimer…

We LOVE nature. We love wide open spaces. We love watching the birds at the feeder and feeling the breeze on our faces. We enjoy growing things in the garden and being outdoors.

However, nature HATES me. *sigh* A few years ago I went for allergy testing. They did the scratch test on my back and then allowed me to sit there for 10 minutes while they waited to see what the reactions looked like. Now mind you, I couldn’t see what was happening on my back. Instead I was sitting there, hands clenched, trying to get my mind off of the intense itching that was driving me crazy! This was about 30 seconds after they finished applying the serums and had left the room. Around the five minute mark the allergist returned to see how I was progressing and all I heard was the door quickly shutting again as he said, “Hey <insert the other doctor’s name> you have to come see this!” Let me tell you, that is NOT what you want to hear when you’re trying to keep your hands in front of you so that you don’t rip the skin off of your back. Apparently I was having quite the reaction! When the 10 minutes were up they came back and did a lot of writing. A LOT of writing. They didn’t wash my back off or even give me an antihistimine. Instead the allergist went right into the spiel about what course of treatment he felt we should take. I had to stop him because I wanted to know what I was allergic to, after all they had tested me for weeds, grasses, trees, and other environmental factors. He basically told me that I had reacted to everything except dogs and dust mites so he wasn’t going to list out everything. Even when I was getting the allergy shots (which didn’t really work for me) I was still having to take oral allergy medicine every day. Thus, mother nature is constantly trying to kill me.

This is my back deck. You can see in the corner of the yard there is a LARGE maple tree. Have you ever been around a maple tree? They are dirty, nasty, and also try to kill me. They covered our cars with pollen and tree gunk, plus they enjoyed throwing their tree mess all over my back deck.

It’s partner in filthy crime resided on the other side of our driveway. Again, I love nature. But these trees had to go. They were so CLOSE to the house that I worried whenever a strong wind came through, not to mention the fact that they were filthy. Between them and the birds that sat in the branches above my car… my car was a mess. I was NOT happy.

Now, THIS made me happy. 🙂

Do I feel bad that a beautiful tree is now gone? Yes, but don’t feel bad… it is currently being put to good use. We gave it to somebody who uses it to heat their house so it didn’t go to waste. Both of the trees came down that day.

The guys who took them down were very good and very safe. They used ropes and were mindful of where they were dropping the branches. They did a very good job of cleaning everything up.

Once they were done we had a friend with a stump grinder come over and take care of the remaining parts of the trees. He even put Jay to work!

With the trees down we moved the fence so that we can now park both cars in the driveway. Look at how happy my car looks knowing that it won’t get that nasty pollen or tree filth dropped all over it!

Taking those trees down really opened up the yard and even allowed more light into our neighbor’s front room. They were happy about that! I love the fact that I no longer have to worry about trees coming down on the house or having to clean up pollen before I can comfortably sit on my deck. Doesn’t it look nice?

Posted in My House | Tagged My House | Leave a comment

Panther F9F

Posted on May 24, 2013 by civilwarrose5

Jay recently had a birthday, and because he’s so very loved and spoiled, he was surprised with a gift. He thought that the Rascal was his birthday gift, but I had already purchased a kit that he was drooling over.

This is the kit that he had been drooling over. This was purchased from Fan Jets USA, who I would definitely buy from again because the service was excellent. I ordered it on a Monday and I think that it was delivered on either Wednesday or Thursday. It was packaged so that the breakable stuff on the inside didn’t get damaged in shipping… even when I accidently bumped it into the other box in the back of my car.

Jay was VERY happy. Most jets arrive as ARF’s (Almost Ready to Fly) so that all you have to do is glue together a few parts, toss your power system in it, a receiver, and a few servos before you take it out flying. This is an actual kit where he will have to build the airframe out of balsa, sheet it and fiberglass it. He really enjoys having these kits to build over the winter when he can’t be out flying.

There won’t be many updates on this jet until next winter, but I had to post this so that you could share his joy. I really like surprising him like that, but it gets harder and harder! Stay tuned for progress pics…

Posted in EDF, Jets, RC Planes | Tagged EDF, Jets, R/C, RC Planes | Leave a comment

Bathroom Project Update 5-18-13

Posted on May 20, 2013 by civilwarrose5

This was what the bathroom looked like the last time that I showed you pictures. I had attempted to scrape the liquid nails off of the wall (after tearing down all of that horrid paneling), but as we worked in there we realized that to do it correctly we really needed to completely tear out all of the old stuff and put new stuff in there. *sigh*

We called up somebody who was recommended to us and he gave us a really reasonable quote for doing the demolition and installing the new stuff. We would do the mudding and everything else, we just wanted somebody who knew what they were doing to rip out and reinstall. He came yesterday to do this.

This is how it looks now. I was hoping to get in there last night to put the first layer of mud on the wall, but like with all projects there were enough surprises that the poor guy didn’t get done until almost 11:00 pm! He had originally expected to be done no later than 6 pm because it’s not a very big bathroom.

I’ll admit that there’s more finishing work than I realized there would be, and I now have to wash down and dust the entire downstairs because of the dust created with the demolition. Let’s just say that I was feeling a little overwhelmed after they left and I might have shed a few tears. It’s a good thing that I have a wonderful husband who did his best to comfort me.

I have to admit that Jay is right, instead of having this as our starting point…

… we have this as our blank canvas. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it will be fine. It’s just that we have so much going on that it’s going to take longer than I would like to finally get it all put back together. I’ve already lived for a month with my linen closet sitting in boxes in the living room, so I guess that I can go for a little while longer.

It reall makes me admire my parents even more, though. When I was growing up it seemed like we always had a remodeling project going on, and my parents couldn’t afford to hire anybody to do it for them so they did it themselves. My mom lived with her living room being completely torn down to the studs (removing the old horse hair plaster and lath) and ceiling torn down, then drywall going up and all of the finishing required with that… all of that while both of my parents worked full time, my dad farmed when he wasn’t working or remodeling the house, and she had three little girls to take care of, too. Talk about being overwhelmed! Next time I see her I have to give her an extra hug for getting through all of that and managing to stay as sane as she did. No wonder she went gray so early!

One of the reasons why it took the contractor so long to do our bathroom is the fact that there were 7 LAYERS on the floor! Yes, that’s right… 7 LAYERS!!! I knew that there were quite a few because the bathroom floor sat about an inch higher than the hallway floor. What happened is that instead of ripping out the old floor when it was bad they just kept adding to it. When I looked down into the back of the truck where the old floor had been thrown I could see at least four different linoleum patterns, and none of those were the ones that had been on the very top that we knew about!

The contractor couldn’t reinstall our toilet last night before leaving because he needed a new wax ring and bolts (the other ones had broken off). Well, there’s one more issue that we have to worry about… because the floor now only has a layer of plywood the bathroom floor is 3/4″ – 1″ lower than it was before. What’s the issue with that? The fact that the pipe for the toilet is now too high for the toilet to properly sit on the floor. *sigh* Jay has a plan for building a platform for the toilet to sit on at the correct height. This wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t for the fact that this is our ONLY bathroom. We need that toilet functioning! The plan today is for Jay to work on that first thing this morning. Hopefully it goes smoothly!

Posted in My House, Remodeling | Tagged My House, Remodeling | Leave a comment

Church Square Cross Stitch

Posted on May 18, 2013 by civilwarrose5

Our church has done something unique to show that we are a community and a family. On one wall of the sanctuary there is a “quilt” that they have assembled where each square represents a family in the parish. It’s more of a wall hanging, but they refer to it as a quilt because they sew all of the squares together to give it that quilt look. When a new family (such as me and Jay) join you are given a square piece of felt and asked to personalize it so that they can add it to the quilt. I have to admit that I’ve had our square since January or February, but I just haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on it.

I knew that I wanted to cross stitch on it, but I had to find a pattern that would fit within the confines of the square and leave enough of a selvage for them to attach it to the existing quilt. Not only that, but I really wanted something that would represent Jay and me. That was harder than you would think. I didn’t want anything cutesy or generic. When you look at it I wanted you to instantly think of us. Luckily, I found a pattern that worked.

This isn’t a good picture, but it was the best that I could get. It’s in one of my old issues of Stoney Creek magazine. I believe that it was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s last flight (I don’t have the magazine sitting here beside me to tell you for sure, and I can almost guess that it doesn’t matter a whole lot to you). You can kind of see her blurry name in the middle bottom of the picture with the dates of her birth and disappearance (I think) on either side. I plan on putting our last name where Amelia’s name currently resides, and then Jay and Kerry on either side of it instead of the dates.

The important thing for me regarding this picture is the fact that it has a somewhat realistic-looking airplane. After all, how could I better represent my dearest husband? Somebody asked me, “But that doesn’t represent you, it just represents Jay.” Not true. It’s done in cross stitch with my own editing done to the pattern. It’s the best way to represent me. Plus, my name will be on it. lol

As you can see, I haven’t managed to get a lot accomplished on this. With all of the other projects and stuff that we have going on it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for stitching. Not only that, but I haven’t really found a good place for me to sit and stitch. I might ask for a specific kind of floor lamp to put at the end of the couch just for this purpose. We’ll have to see. Oh, and if you don’t know much about cross stitch you might be concerned about the blue horizontal lines. Because the square was felt and I am doing a counted cross stitched pattern I had to baste a piece of waste canvas onto the felt so that I can stitch my pattern. Once I am all done I will have to do some tedious work to remove the waste canvas, but I’m hoping that the final look will be well worth it.

If you’ve followed my blog you might be wondering about the last piece of cross stitch that I was working on, my A-10 Warthog. Well, that one has been set aside until the square is done. I need to get this back to the church so it has priority. Don’t worry. I fully intend on finishing the Warthog! I will frame it and place it in Jay’s workshop. And I’ve figured out a way to make people laugh when they see that it looks like a blurry jet… I’m going to say that it’s my view without my glasses! 🙂

Posted in cross stitch, History | Tagged cross stitch, History | Leave a comment

Jay’s R/C Basement

Posted on May 12, 2013 by civilwarrose5

The weather is finally warming up and we are starting up a few house projects that we’ve been wanting to do since we turned the key in December. I will write a couple more posts about various things we’ve done inside and outside, but I wanted to start with the basement.

Now, we haven’t done a whole lot to it since we moved in, but Jay has managed to add a few more things so I thought I would show them off.

This is the hangar. He put his PVC pipe jet holder in the very corner, hung some more PVC on the floor joists to hold more jets, and found places along the wall for some of the other planes. He also has a work table set up on the rug where he can spray paint or spread out a large project for more room. It also enables him to have yet one more project in limbo without taking up space in his actual workshop.

This is to show you how he hangs his planes from the floor joists. He also sets up PVC brackets like this for the large one-piece wings, like what goes on the LT-25 and my Miavalier (the Miami Dolphins Kavalier).

There are a couple of his birds that reside on the floor, such as the A-10 and his gas-powered helicopters. Oh, and the watermelon combat foamie! You can see the one-piece wings hanging from the floor joists in this picture, too.

Despite his ability to hang planes, there is still a little bit of spillover. I have no idea where these ones will end up, but I’m sure that there’s a plan for them.

If you are wondering, I believe that everything in the last couple of pictures is ready to fly. All you should have to do is toss a battery in them and that’s it. Jay doesn’t like to be bored so he likes to keep different ones on hand depending on what he’s in the mood to fly.

Here is the new battery charging station that he wired up. There’s a switch attached to the outlets so if something should get overheated or start on fire, you flip the switch and all power is shut off. This way you don’t have to worry about trying to pull batteries off of the charging boards. It’s quite a good idea.

Then, of course, you have the battery storage area. No, those aren’t all of the batteries he owns. In fact, I don’t see any of his Glacier batteries on there. Those are his new favorite brand of battery and the guy from whom he buys them has EXCELLENT customer service. If you’re in the market for batteries or a new charger you must check out EPBuddy.

Jay’s workshop hasn’t changed much. The only thing that usually changes is the particular model that he is working on. He has to do some touch-ups on the MiG because something happened with the nose gear. He told me what it was, but I’ve already forgotten. All that I know is he will have it fixed shortly. This is one of his favorite jets so I know that it won’t be up on blocks for long!

I hope that you enjoyed a look at Jay’s Hangar. Coming soon will be pictures of our outdoor changes and an update on our bathroom. Yeah!

Posted in A-10 Warthog, EDF, Jets, My House, RC Planes | Tagged EPBuddy, Jets, My House, R/C, RC Planes | 1 Comment

HET Sniper XL

Posted on May 11, 2013 by civilwarrose5

Don’t tell anybody, but my sweetie is a bit spoiled. Just a tad.

This was his Valentine’s Day gift. Yep. A giant plane.

He already had one Sniper, but that one must have been a Medium and he decided that it wasn’t quite big enough. Thus, he needed the XL.

If this was what he wanted then it was fine with me. It required no guessing on my part and he happily ordered it.

When it arrived and I was looking at it, it reminded me of something. A hornet? Nope. There was something about the pointy nose and the black canopy that harkened back to my childhood…

Yep… Spy vs Spy. If you’ve ever cracked open a Mad Magazine then you know exactly what I’m talking about. In my head I refer to this jet as the Spy Jet. lol

According to Jay, “Friends don’t let friends buy HET.” My guess is because you have to do a lot of work to this ARF in order to get it ready to fly. It’s not just a simple matter of putting it together and voila!

It required some work when installing the fan.

And I believe that there was some work required on the tail. I think. I know that there was a LOT of work required on the tail with his Sniper Medium.

Here’s a look up the back of the intake pipe. I enjoy these interesting shots because you don’t see them very often. I believe that this is when Jay was installing the servos for the rear control surfaces. I can’t recall what they are called in this jet. Elevons? Rudderators? Elevadders?

After adding the landing gear, the nose gear, and gear doors it was time for the Sniper XL to go down for a nap. Shhh! If you look close you might be able to see the ailerons twitching… it must be dreaming of future flights! Awww…. how cute!

It has had its maiden flight as of today, but I don’t have pictures of it in flight. Instead I will leave you with a picture of it before its maiden flight. Please ignore the woman who felt the need to be in the picture with Jay, the Sniper XL and the Huey.

Posted in EDF, Jets, RC Planes | Tagged EDF, HET Sniper, Jets, R/C, RC Planes | Leave a comment

My R/C Engineer

Posted on April 29, 2013 by civilwarrose5

My beloved husband is very talented. He doesn’t feel that he is because he doesn’t feel that his talent is very useful in regular life. Yes, he can do some pretty neat tricks with his airplanes and he knows how to power them up to get the best performance out of them, but to him these aren’t useful skills.

I am going to set out to prove him wrong. Please allow me this post to brag on him.

Most R/C airplanes come as ARF’s. ARF stands for Almost Ready to Fly. The company does the building and covering, leaving it up to you to assemble the parts, add the electronics and power system, and then fly it. Depending on what plane/jet you are building it could either come almost fully assembled with just the power system needed, or you get them in a box like this HET Sniper XL.

Now, if you can find an actual kit it means that you get the plans, the pieces of wood (most of them) and then it’s up to you to completely build the aircraft and cover it. Back when Jay started to fly RC planes in the 80’s this was the only way that you could get a plane. You had to not only know how to build it, but know how to put it back together when it crashed and broke apart. Most of the guys just getting into the world of RC would run quickly the other way if you tossed a kit at them. Heck, even if you need to do some work on an ARF to make sure that it’s going to fly correctly, they will stay away from that model.

Not my Sweetie. He knows what he wants to fly, he reads the various threads about the models on the most popular RC message board on the internet, and for the most part he knows what he’s getting into when he purchases a kit or ARF. This is the inside of the HET Sniper XL that he received for Valentine’s Day. This jet took him a bit of time to get ready for assembly. He had to add extra stuff to make sure that the structure was stiff enough to take the beating of a flight. He had to modify the tail a bit, and then he had to do some extra work for the retracts.

It’s not as intensive as building from scratch, but it still takes a fair amount of knowledge to know how things are supposed to fit together and how they are supposed to function. If Jay didn’t know how the intake of an EDF jet works, then how is he going to know how to reinforce it so that it won’t collapse during flight?

So, maybe I haven’t done much to convince you about how talented he really is when it comes to other things. Jay’s mind works creatively and he knows how things should go together. My proof?

Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous? Many people would be intimidated to take on a project like this for their wife. These shelves were his own design (with a little inspiration from another shelf that I own), and he built them all by himself. Maybe they aren’t airplanes, but he used the same talent for putting wings together as he did to assmble these. Does that not impress you? No? Hmm…

Okay, now most women probably wouldn’t brag about this, but I’m not a typical woman. Jay bought me this island for Valentine’s Day, and yes it came in a box so that he just had to assemble it. However, he assembled it without once looking at the directions. His brain just knows the basics and how things should fit and function. Not everybody has this kind of common sense.

So, even though building R/C planes may not be looked upon as a huge talent to boast about, I’m going to do it anyway. Why? Because I benefit all of the time from his beautiful brain. My bookshelves, my kitchen island, and other little things that he does for me. He has more talent than most people and I wish that he would recognize this. Of course, I am biased.

Posted in A-10 Warthog, EDF, Jets, RC Planes | Tagged A-10 Warthog, Jets, R/C, RC Planes | Leave a comment