I have to say, my first few hours building the flatout foamie did not go so well a couple months ago, and I put it aside out of frustration. I must say however, after getting some little transfer pipets do apply the CA accelerator instead of the spray, things have turn out well on this project. I haven't been working on it for a few days since I needed to get cracking on the Grelmin, but I might work on it some today. I can probably do everything that doesn't involve electronics today if I feel like it. Will have to see how lazy I am.

Also thinking that I might do a Multiplex glider 'kit' for my first glider. It is foam, so will be easy to repair like the parkzone radian, but will at least get to do some building and hopefully learn a bit about glider setup before tackling a scratch built one. I am still on that steep part of the learning curve, where even fairly simple builds will teach me something new. So just need to build lots (hopefully start scratch building by the end of the year to save lots of cash) and fly a bunch more. .

Got a gremlin

Well, over the weekend was the three club flyin in Derry. Was a great event, got lots of stick time. I flew about 8 times, for between 9 and 11 minutes each flight, with some juice to spare. Was a very successful weekend, got some loops and stall turns in with the supercub. Thinking I should start keeping a flight journal though. Might be good to track what I am doing, and the such to see what I should improve on.

Also picked up a gremlin kit. Hopefully can get that built and learn to fly it before the contest in October. Goal 1: finish the even safely, Goal 2: finish the event with an aircraft....#2 is not always a given for a combat event. If I had time I would build a second one.....

Also got to see the mini gremlins in action.... I need some. They are tiny and freaking great. I love the mini aircraft. Actually, would be great for Friday lunchtime flying, especially if there is wind. My P51 does well in the wind, but the mini gremlin I think does better. It is a bit larger, more powerful, and also a gremlin....Can't wait to get my hands on one.

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2010/07/code-coverage-goal-80-and-no-less.html

Well, been a long time since I have posted anything. Started playing with the Arduino again. Messing around with my LED cube and figured out that the reason my interrupt wasn't working right was more hardware than software. I was trying to use the AREF pin for my +5V, but it appears that this does not work. I didn't check, but I suspect that AREF is actually 3.3v, making it useless for the input button for the interrupt.

Also been playing a lot more with Go. I am trying to do one Project Euler problem a week, even though they do not take terribly long. It is a matter of getting off my rear and actually doing the problem. I did the 1000! one last week. This week though I am working through the example code to make a web service with Go. But will get back to the math problems next week.

I am really getting into the whole micro r/c thing. I don't know why but I think it is even more interesting than the giant scale models. While the level of detail is amazing in many giant scale models, I just can't get over how wonderfully the micro aircraft fly and how much engineering goes into the components. I think the other part is that they are less restrictive in the flying site that they require. I don't have to make a huge event out of flying, i can just grab a few boxes of stuff, drive 5 minutes to an empty park and tool around for a bit. The other great thing is the indoor flying aspect during the colder months.

I picked up a parkzone micro p51 mustang the other day to add to my fleet. Very impressed with it. I flew yesterday in some fairly moderate wind. It was very difficult because of the wind, but I was amazed at how well such a small aircraft handled such heavy wind. I tried before that with my Stevens Aero lilsquirt which was downed immediately because of the wind. That craft was completely uncontrollable with the gusts of wind. However the p51 just cut right through and trucked on. I have a feeling that over the coming years I am going to have a whole fleet of these micro R/C craft. Already have a couple helicopters and a couple planes. The next step will be into building the kits and scratchbuilt models that are smaller than the lilsquirt.

Started working on a game in Java with Andrew. Changing some of the game loop code around to get a constant FPS, then have to change the objects around so that the x,y refers to the center and not the top left corner. That's going to be important since I'm writing the collision detection method. Hopefully I can figure that stuff out. Also need to do some school related stuff later. But think right now I am going to go do some r/c stuff. Seems like a nice day, so will probably drive the truck around a bit. Need to consider getting a bigger helicopter sometime this summer that I can fly outside.

Last weekend Andrew took some really good pictures of the mSR flying with his digital SLR camera. Really came out great. Need to drag him with me this summer to the flying field to get some even cooler pictures. Will be cool. Just can't wait to get some more flying in. Also picked up an ebook on the mSR. Redid my expo/dual rate settings based on that. Should actually be more effective, since I sort of want some lighter controls for laning and takeoff.

Also the little stevens aeromodel SQuirt came in. Got that glued up the other night. And just sanded the fuselage and put some clearcote on that. Not actually going to do a film coverning except for the wing panels. That is the recommended way to do things for this particular model to keep mass down. Kind of critical with those indoor models.

Hopefully this summer i can come up with some really cool stuff to build. So much fun.

Also, found a cool program called Flicnks. Basicly a text based browser to teach you speed reading, Quickly flips through the words on the page.