DCM Fly-In Videos!

Hey Everyone!

A post or two back here on Tom's 3D Huckfest I wrote a bit about the 22nd Annual Dick Coles Memorial Big Bird IMAA Fly-In held at my home field of Manatee County Radio Controllers. I mentioned how I was to look at the videos soon and get them uploaded. Unfortunately, I've been quite busy with school and other things, but my dad was kind enough to take a look at them and chop up the flights into a few videos. There is no music in them, so whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for you, I'll let you be the judge of that. I know a lot of people like to hear the engine, and many people zone out after a bit if there's no tunes. Regardless, all three days I flew at the event donning my Savox T-Shirts and Polos, and my good friend Frank was kind enough to let me fly his 91" Extreme Flight Extra 300 EXP and his 104" Aeroworks Yak-54. Both of these planes fly incredibly, and as you can see, the Yak really likes to do big sky maneuvers and IMAC style flights, while the Extreme Flight is catered more towards Extreme Aerobatics. But that's enough rambling, here are the videos!



--Tom K.

Savox Heli Motor!

Hey Everyone! I'm out at the field posting from my phone. A friend of mine is flying one of the new Savox motors! Check it out!

Dick Coles Memorial IMAA Fly In

Hey Everyone!

This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (March 8th, 9th, and 10th) was the 22nd Annual Dick Coles Memorial Big Bird Fly In at the Manatee County Radio Controllers field. This is my home field, and my spring break landed right on that week so I was able to attend all three days. This is an IMAA event, so only quarter scale and up, or the standard 80" monoplane/60" biplane minimum rule was the standard for the event. This year was the first year I actually had an airworthy plane of that size, and therefore was able to actually fly my own airplane equipped with Savox High Torque Digital Servos in the event.

My plane was the 78" Extreme Flight Extra 300. Even though this is not a member of the EXP line of Extreme Flight planes, it is still an AWESOME flying airplane and, in my opinion, doesn't need any changes. As for this plane, like all my planes at the moment, the power system is electric. I run a Hacker A60-16M with a Castle ICE2 HV 120A ESC on 10S 5000mAh 40C Sky LiPo battery packs, and together they work to swing a Mejzlik 22x10TH Carbon Fiber prop. The servos I use, as always, are Savox digital servos. The ones I'm currently running are the SC-1267SG servos. These provide 277oz/in of torque at a stunningly quick 0.09 seconds. They also feature an aluminum midriff case for efficient cooling, and they work pretty dang well on this plane.

Also at this event, my friend Frank was very generous and let me get many flights on his big aircraft: a 91" Extreme Flight Extra 300 EXP with a DA-60 and an Aeroworks 104" Yak 54 with a BME-116. I want to thank Frank a lot for letting my fly his planes this weekend. I know I got over 10 flights on his aircraft. Also, I had a brain fart and left my batteries for my planes at the house Saturday so they didn't get any airtime that day, so Frank's generosity helped keep me in the air all weekend. Hopefully soon I'll find the time to go and chop up the footage we got this weekend.

As for the event, we had over 40 pilots, the field was packed with spectators on all three days of the event, the parking lot was a madhouse, and the concession stand sold out of food at least twice. Troy Hawthorne with his beautiful 110" B-17 with custom bomb-bay doors and moving and sound producing machine guns provided the candy drop for the youth in the crowd.  We had pilots all the way from Illinois come down for this event to escape the snowy weather they received on the days preceding the event, and we also had many club members enter the event to show off their big airplanes and strut their stuff in front of a large crowd.

The weather was perfect Friday and Saturday, however Sunday kept many pilots grounded due to high winds. But there was never a dull moment at this year's event, and I'd call it a huge success.

Soon I hope to edit together some videos from this event, and I'll post them here on my blog as well as on my youtube channel, so keep checking back.

--Tom K.