The Haikus are good, but fly I must

The previous barrage of haiku's make me want to keep the silence, for they are very entertaining. But alas, I must move forward with the voyage. The heli was not built to be a dust collector, and it saddens me to see it hanging unused on the wall. So move forward I shall. As of now it has not flown for many months due to many reasons, but first and foremost it has not flown due to laziness and slightly because of a broken part that can not be fixed with toothpicks and glue. So be it, I shall drill it and get some long screws and back in the air it will be.

So I pulled it off the wall and blew off the dust. I plan on having it operational in the next day or two. First I must purchase a bit small enough to drill out the front mounting holes for the landing gear. After that I will have to locate all of the parts required to reassemble it. That may prove to be a bit more challenging, but not a show stopper.

Fear not faithfull readers, this bird will fly again.

-JbJ

The Camera Phone - What a Buffoon

So I am really disappointed in my phones camera quality. I mean, it is a camera phone so I wasn't expecting much, but geez, these images look like total crap. The color is really dull. I swore when I first got it the pictures were a lot better, but thought that maybe I just imagined that. I have messed with the white balance, and the picture quality settings, but nothing. Oh well, it is just a camera phone after all, and as I said earlier, I did not expect much from it. Well, last week I was out of town and wanted to take a picture of something and did not have a regular camera, all I had was my crummy camera phone. I took it out and snapped a couple of pictures, only to be disappointed as expected and immediately put it back in to its holster, not to touch it again for a while. Then I got to thinking, what if, NO, why didn't I think of this earlier. What if the lens is actually dirty? Yeah, you were all probably thinking of this already, "check the lens, check the lens". I can hear you all chirping already. Well, there it is, the lens is filled with lint and garbage. By design the lens is recessed a couple of millimeters, making for a perfect lint trap. So I cleaned it out and what do you know, this thing takes decent pictures. Yeah, it is only 2 mega pickels, but what the hell, when you have nothing else it is not to bad. I can't believe I didn't think of that damn lens right away. Oh well, where is that box it came in?

For your reference, here are two different pictures that were taken with in a few minutes from each other. You will notice one is dull and dreary, where the other one is crisp and clear.














I am such a dummy :(

Oh well, until my next woops,

-JbJ

Flight Chronicles - Dissappointment

Wow, it has been a while since I have taken the heli out. I sure hope I remember how the controls work when I finally do. Hopefully it will be just like flying a bike.

I stopped by the hobby store a few days ago to get the spare parts for my heli, hoping to get it out soon. I really needed new landing gear so I grabbed them. I figured it would be nice to have a new battery hanger as well, half of mine is missing. I figure it is out in the yard somewhere. Unfortunately the hobby shop did not have a battery hanger. I figured I would get along with out it. I got home with my shiny new landing gear, stripped the heli down and started the repair. Turns out, there is a small hub on each side of the main chassis that the front section that the landing gear mounts to. It was broken off on both sides, so unfortunately, it is still grounded. I have most of the parts, and I will get the rest shortly, so in the mean time I will half to pass the time playing catch with the dog.

Until the parts arrive,

-JbJ

Travel Fun - Lake of the Woods

It is Sunday night, and we arrived here at Sportman's Lodge a few hours ago. Tom, my father in-law, has brought me up for a few days to do a little fishing.

Tomorrow we head out to fish. The launch leaves at 8:00 a.m. Followed by a shore lunch, cooked up of every thing we catch in the morning, and then a few more hours of fishing. I hope we do not go hungry. Oh hell, with our with out fish, I am fishing and not working. That is not a bad thing.

Any how, I have left a pic of the bay where we are staying. It is at the south end of Lake of the Woods. Across the way is Canadian soil. If we catch a big string of Walleye I will post that later. If not I will be scouring the web for pictures of impressive walleye and super imposing them in to pictures that make it look like I have caught them. I will leave it up to you to figure out which .

Catch you all later, I hope I do not fall over board.

Later,

-JbJ

Flight Chronicles - Forward Flight (Part Deux)

O.K. Forget that last forward flight post. I fixed 'er up and took 'er out tonight for a little fly time. Yeah, I know I said I was going to work towards nose in hover, but I really could not resist a little try. I did a little forward flight, left to right and right to left. Man it was cool. I hit the shepherds hook, the stairs, the tree, the swing, and the steps. None of them were small collisions at all, but damn it was cool. I definitely need a new set of landing gear now. I might as well pick up a main gear too. I have a few sections where the teeth are not going to last much longer. I think it may be time to graduate to a little bigger field. One with less obstacles. Even though it is a chopper, it would be nice to have some recover room. Although the shepherds hook was more of a depth perception issue than anything.

Any night that renders the chopper unusable with out substantial repair is a good night.

Until the next crash,

-JbJ

Internet - AAAaaaahHHHHHH

My internet is sooooooo sloooooooow right now. AAAaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh. I think Spectre's is faster at the moment.


-JbJ

Flight Chronicles - Forward Flight

So I am getting this side in thing down. Cool! I figured I would give it a quick go with some forward flight. I would hover over to my right, say 15' or so, rotate to left side in and do a fly by in front of me. Well, not so fast. As you get further away to the right at left at side in, it turns out to be more like nose in. Woops!. So I have decided to rethink my short term game plan. I wanted to start zipping around left to right, and right to left. That is once I get right side in down. But this new discovery may have changed my thoughts a bit. When flying around, it is easy to get in to a an orientation you are not used too, so I think I may start working nose in hover before I start to fly around. That way I have all my hover orientations covered, so hopefully less situations will suprise me when I start to get in to forward flight.

Until the next calm day,

-JbJ