Low flying aircraft over 4th celebration

Last night I was preflighting the Skyray for today's cookout/funfly with my RC club at Fort Jackson. I was not really looking forward to being the only control liner out there. For one thing, I'm more that a month out of practice, my last flight being June 1st. Plus when I fly, the RC guys all land to clear the runway, so all eyes would be on me. But as I tinkered and tuned, the spirit began to return and eventually I had a full fledged case of the flying jones. Not only that, but this was to be a FUN fly, so by god I was going to have fun and that meant taking more than one ugly old stunt trainer. So I'm looking at my fleet. My beloved Shoestring. My big ol' Magnum. My red and white Russian warbird... Ding! The Yak. But I gave my fuel tank to Matt for his Ringmaster. Hell it didn't hold enough fuel anyway. I had the old 4oz uniflow wedge tank I cannibalized off the Clownlikething. I washed the green out of it with some alcohol and mounted it up, and it fit like it was made for the job, much tighter and less prone to shifting around. Feed tube on the bottom too with a short run to the engine. This is looking good.

So this morning Holley and I loaded the planes, coolers and gear in the car and headed out. Got to the field early and the American flag and windsock were sticking straight out in a mean wind blowing through the trees and straight across the runway. The forecast was for declining wind as the day got later, so I ran my lines out and waited. None of the RC guys would try, but I was determined to fly. I decided to just take 10/22 fuel and try that in the Fox on the Yak, so I gave the engine a run to get the needle set. That proved to be harder than it sounds, but I finally got it breaking pretty well and parked it until the wind hopefully slacked up. But I'll fly the Ray in a gale with no worries. I recruited a helper and put it up for a flight. It fluttered like a bird on the upwind side, but the wind was steady, not changing directions, so it was easy to pick the right spots and I managed to knock out a full pattern. I had to try twice to get the cloverleaf but not bad for a first flight. After a break I did one more before we cooked lunch on the grill. It was a BYOM, so we had everything from brats and dogs to chicken and steak all cooking at once.

The wind was a little better after lunch so I rigged up the Yak and took to the field. I had it set standard vented so it started a tad too rich barely breaking 2 in the wingover, but just good enough to do it. I wasn't wild enough to try a lot of stunts at first, but as I flew there was none of the coughing out I had experienced with the other tank and it would do 3 insides and 3 outsides slick as owlshit. About 6 laps inverted and a single figure 8, some more loops and wingovers later and it was cruising lean and hauling ass around the circle. By far the longest flight I've done with this plane. It ain't much for pretty round loops and stuff but it will turn on a dime and go wherever I point it. I can see why it's used so much for slow combat. It actually reminded me of a Flite Streak the way it'll turn a stupid sharp corner. Still wary of the wind, but this was the first time I've really had a chance to just have fun flying the Yak. Pretty cool. When it finally ran out of gas I did what I'm pretty sure is the ugliest landing ever, but when it stopped, it was still wheels down, so we'll call that a good one.

And later we got to see some good heli action, a 1/4 scale Extra, assorted warbirds and fan jets, did a couple more Skyray flights, another Yak flight and called it a great day.
Happy 4th everybody.
Rusty





My new tank. Works marvelously!