ALSO not able to sleep !!!!

Appreciate the note Eric!

I'm wanting to get my Kadet finished and flying, and give these two work-horse B.O.T.'s a little break, but keep hitting snags with my "Almost-Ready-to-Fly" model !!

Tried to make up some extensions for for it's aileron servos yesterday, and really made a righteous mess of them! Somedays, it's just better for a redneck to stay away from sharp or hot objects!!!

Retirement ain't bad so far, though I've still got a wary eye on this first bill-cycle, and will for a few months....

Great flight, Kim. I'm envious of your retirement status. Hope those evil bills stay under control. I guess sailplanes are a great thing for retirement, minimal fuel cost for maximum air time. Unfortunately, I live next to an airport, so sailplanes are out for me.

I didn't see a counterweight for the GoPro set up. How do you balance for it laterally?

The Unbalanced Mark

It's mostly blocked from view by the wing. but if you look closely, you can see the wad of Scotch Tape wrapped around the B.O.T.'s rear fuselage.  Under this mummy-like cocoon, there are two small zip lock bags containing lead bird shot.



The ballasting is done after EVERYTHING ELSE is double-checked...absent-minded/distracted accessorizing has taken out many a good aircraft...and it's SUPER easy to launch a sailplane with it's radio still turned off anyway!  

At this point, I'd really like to whip out an impressive formula, using moment arms, levers, weight, datums, balance envelopes, and all that good crap....but mostly, I just hoist the beast up on two finger-tips and stare at it to see if the Gods of Balance give their nod.  

The GoPro is a fairly small chunk of techno, but sticking WAY out in front on an arrow shaft gives it's weight some authority...which MUST be countered by some corresponding heavy metal out back.  So, on it's departure, the B.O.T. is packing some real weight on it's way out of the Skunk Works.  

You must ALSO consider the structural 'twistabilty" of the wing if you don't want some unwanted (and exciting) aileron effect!

You want dramatic angles...You gots to pay the price!

Kim.
The countryside's looking great.  I think the last B.O.T. video installment we had from you was the travelling engine flying over and landing in snow.  For this "Down Underite" the contrast is spectacular (me coming from a place that never sees snow).  You have white in winter, green in summer.  We have green in winter and brown (or black if we're really unlucky) in summer.
Your old Bs.O.T. do a great job.  Looks like you're taking a Texaco approach on your prop size.  What's your engine/tank & prop set-up in this video?  Looks like you get pretty good range.

(Shivering) Rod.

(p.s. Anything under 40°F around here is considered tooooo cold   ).

Thanks Rod!

Yeah, it's QUITE a contrast!  I DO love the summer, thought the oppressive humidity can draw a guy down some!  We had us a 'legitimate' winter this past year, with plenty enough ice and snow to sate my taste for it!

I usually heat up the shop, and get everything ready before stepping out the door and taking on the cold air, so it's a little easier for me than others.  While I do love summer more, I also like those cold evenings after a successful flying session, when everything is back in it's spot, and I get to settle at my computer and download any video's I might have taken.

The B.O.T.'s have really been good to me, especially the battered 2 meter Bird.  I spotted it in 1999 at a swap meet, leaning forlornly against the wall behind the tables.  It had a broken wing, which I patched up and I figure the thing may now have a hundred thousand miles on it by now.

The 3 Meter Bird of Time has an engine pod sized for Cox .15's and has had several versions of that engine bolted to it.  I run a Tornado 8-4 on them, and use a home-made film canister fuel tank strapped to the opposite side of the pylon. The ounce of fuel is usually more than enough to get the plane to thermal country, and I've got the tank set up so that I can pull a half loop, and hold it inverted to starve it for fuel and shut it down.

The lack of streamlining hasn't affected the sailplanes' thermaling ability...on my Sport Flying scale at least...and makes it easy to get everything cleaned up at the end of the day.





Stay warm in your winter time there !!!!

Did you get a new BOT? I thought the one you usually fly was black.

Hey Duke!

Yeah..it gets confusing...the red and black B.O.T. is my 2 Meter Swap Meet Special from 1999.  I've been challenged a couple times as to whether it should even be called a "Bird of Time", but it sorta LOOKS like one, so that's always been good enough for a ridge-runner like me.

It gets run pretty hard because of the lesser trouble in assembling the thing to fly...AND...I'm a little less likely to smack a wing hauling it around.  I can also tuck it into ball-fields and other close areas with less chance of causing trauma to it's frame.



In 2003 or so, I bought one of the 3 Meter ARF Bird of Time Sailplanes, and spent a lot of time boosting it up in the sky with various high starts, before building a power pod for .15 size Cox engines.  Ever since the engine pod was bolted it, the high-starts have been tucked away in their boxes!










Nothing to do with the Bird of Time...just found it while looking and posted it because I think it's cool !!!!