Winter in the North East has been pretty mild lately. I’m a bit disappointed of course. My poor snow BLOWER (thrower? pshht!) is not getting the attention or work it desires and is becoming flabby.  As I told my folks it’s bellowing out in the barn waiting to be unleashed and I might have to buy it some chains to keep it calm until something comes along.

Here’s my beloved snowblower on it’s actual birthday (year 0) doing a bit of work on the driveway.  It looks so happy. (Click to imbiggenate)

So I’m sitting here, listening to the poor beast wailing in it’s own beastly way in the barn (It’s probably a mental thing but I don’t think work insurance covers psychologists… at least I don’t hear psychologists in my mind!) The barn doors are taking a bit of a beating as it bucks against them. But no.. It’s November 23rd and can you believe it was almost 60 degrees today!?

Then I start getting a gmail photo flood from the family out in Washington.. “oooh look snow! check out all the snow! OMG it’s a lot of snow!”.  It’s about 6 inches, and if you’re from the west coast you’ll know that’s a LOT of snow for people without plows and who are prohibited to save human lives by using salt because they may hurt a bunch of nasty tasting fish(unless it’s wood smoked, then yum).  BUT.. I digress.  Check out the photos below and see what they’re torturing me with!

This is one of the photo’s my Mom sent me as the snow started coming down and covering the lawn.  Washington State does get snow but normally they don’t get a lot in the sea level areas. The last big storm I remember was maybe about a foot and it shut down traffic, closed the highway and people were parking on the side of the road as they ran out of gas. Crazy stuff!  What a mess, I imagine this was pretty bad as well!

This is another picture from my mom.  Don’t they know copper conducts cold!!!  I’d stay far away from that vehicle!

This is a picture of my sisters front yard after more of the snow fell. Yeah there’s the sun. Typical Washington State. Freezing blizzard of doom one moment and sunny the next, then hail, then rain which melts all the snow, floods out the farmers, then freezes then melts, then 90 degree temps before misting for 6 months.

Here’s another pic of the snow storm in Washington State. It’s all dark and dreary too, like snow weather is supposed to be!

Thanks for sharing the pics family, it’s good to see you get some of the winter cheer as well!

Related Posts

1. Surviving Winter ’08
2. We Finally Got Some Snow
3. Arizona State Uni and NASA LROC – Great Photos

We’ve gotten some of the Christmas lights up around here, I was a bit slow in initiating it and the holidays are sneaking up on us quickly.  These are the lights we’ve put up this year so far, all of the Christmas Lights installed this year were LED, they have a nice cold glow that goes well with the ice and snow.

It’s kind of weird around here, few of the immediate neighbors have put up lights. I’ve always been a big Christmas light fan.  They’re fairly easy to put up and take down and add a festive look to things.  Still to go are the 600 or so blue/white light string, plus the big RGB LED bulbs which color shift and do different things.  Those will go on a tree  in the left side yard this year.

LEDs are of course a wonderful option if you wish to be environmentally conscious with your holiday and Christmas lighting.  LEDs are much more energy efficient than a normal lamp light bulb.  Incandescent lamps provide a warmer glow, one of the reasons for this is that they use a small piece of tungsten wire for a filament.  As electricity runs through the filament it heats up to the point that it glows and puts off light, but in order to create that light they also create a lot of heat.  As much as 80% of their power consumption can be waste heat.  It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that we don’t need to be heating the great outdoors in the middle of the Winter.

It used to be that LED Christmas Lights were much more expensive than the standard glass bulb type, but over the last few years the prices have rapidly decreased and become much more competitive. While you may still pay a bit more for LED lights, you also get the benefits of long life, high brightness and reliability.  Most LEDs manufactured have a lifespan of 11 years, if they’re run at full brightness non-stop.  Assuming they do not get damaged in storage or while being put up, they should last a long.  Occasionally an LED lamp does fail before the 11 years, but replacements are usually included with the strings when you buy them. Just make sure to put them in a safe location should you need them later.

Related Posts

1. Surviving Winter ’08
2. My Lights Dim When the Toilet Flushes
3. Mini-Titan e325 Night Flying LED Setup Progress

I was sitting at my computer yesterday after Saturday’s snowfall, enjoying a nice day in the warm indoors when my buddy Ollie called to see if I wanted to go flying. I started off with ‘I’ve been flying every weekend and thought I might take one off since it’s so cold outside’.  The conversation ended with me saying ‘Okay, see you at the field in an hour’.

I’m glad I went, we got a couple of flights in each in about an hour and a half’s time.  The field was deserted as is to be expected in the cold weather. There are very few ‘hardcore’ all weather fliers out there.  In past years I’ve flown in the middle of snow-storms with my friends. We took turn shooting video of each other flying. Ollie took his Cypher 3D 450 sized helicopter and I took my GP Reactor Bipe EP and my Mini-Titan 450 sized helicopter.

Ollie had these blue rubber gloves that he said helped keep your hands a bit warmer, while still allowing you to fly.  It was around 28F out, so I decided to give them a try.  They do work somewhat better than bare skin, so if you see ‘smurf hands’ in the videos, that’s the deal there.

The Mini-Titan needs some more work, so I just packed it up rather than risking fate, but flew the GP Reactor Bipe a couple of times.

For people who can’t use the built in player you can see the videos of me Here and Ollie Here and for the rest you can view the videos below.

Then we froze and went home, the end!

Related Posts

1. Another Lazy Sunday
2. Some Labor Day RC Flying
3. My First FPV Flights!

I woke up this morning planning to get some flying in.  Got out of bed, peered out the window and nothing.  So I went to grab a shower, and was saying to myself moments before looking out the hallway window ‘It’s quite unlikely it’ll snow today’ (yes I talk to myself like that in my head).  Right then I looked out the window and sure enough, white stuff landing on the roof of the house.

I took a video a short while later, which you can see here via the link, or with the embeded player.

Snow!

It’s also quite unlikely that this will keep me from getting at least a few flights in on some kind of airplane, I’ll probably go out with the reactor biplane since it’s easy to setup and put away.

Related Posts

1. We Finally Got Some Snow
2. Surviving Winter ’08
3. Winter Is Passing Me By to Visit Washington State! Noooooo!

My friend Bryn and I went out flying on Saturday and had a lot of fun. My local flying field was closed for hunting so we went down to my old field which is about an hour away.  We took a few planes with us.  The Great Planes Reactor Biplane, the hangar 9 Twist 60 and Bryn’s Sky Fly 2 he is using to learn to fly R/C.  We met up with a couple of old flying buddies of mine and spent a few hours in the sun.  It was a gorgeous day and having good people around to share it with was great too.

The flights on the GP Reactor Biplane were excellent, it has always flown really well since we built it (Bryn helped put it together) and aside from one minor mistake of mine on the first flight it’s been pretty reliable. I will note that grass is a bit tough on the landing gear and it’s possible you will rip the wheels off if the grass isn’t short, etc.  Below is a video of the Reactor. This flight was pretty boring overall, I did explore a bit more into low speed low altitude flight and other things later in the day and may add some more video of that.

We also took Bryn’s Sky Fly 2 up a couple of times, the stock charger was junk and hadn’t actually charged the batteries one bit. I charged them up on my Triton 2 and they worked alright, they may just need a little conditioning before they charge right on the included charger.  On the first flight we attached a tiny camera to the leading edge of the wing and recorder the flight, and Bryn recorded part of the flight from the ground, so there’s a nice Picture in Picture effect.  The elevator and rudder controls on the Sky Fly 2 are a bit weak by default because they are tuned down for beginners, but once it’s in the air it flies alright.   Here’s the video from the micro-cam and the HD camcorder on the ground. Check it out! That’s one of my flying buddies throwing the plane.

We also had a visit from a possibly ill groundhog.  Probably rabies or distemper or something. It just ran in circles continuously and was not afraid for it’s life from humans, etc.  So here’s the video of that.   Fortunately it did not seem like it wanted to eat my planes, so that was good.

The Twist 60 was misbehaving, with this design the tail feathers are just bolted onto the tail of the airplane, sort of like they do it with the large scale aircraft.  After a couple flights of porpoising it started to get pretty annoying but I thought maybe it was just controls or the center of gravity (CG) set improperly. On the third flight the plane stuffed into the tall unmowed grass twice before it even got off the ground, and then the engine wouldn’t start. I decided to call it quits for that plane for the day as a ‘sign’.  Which is good.  As I was disassembling the Twist 60 I discovered that the horizontal stabilizer was actually loose in it’s saddle which was causing the elevator to move up and down as it shifted.  If I had flown it again it’s quite possible the horizontal stabilizer would have flown off of the plane, or at least cause a major control problem leading to a crash.  I have since epoxied the tail feathers onto the plane as I don’t need to remove them anytime in the forseable future.  Hopefully this next weekend will be good so I can try this routine again.

Related Posts

1. I wrecked the Reactor Bipe, Time For a New (used) FPV Plane
2. Reactor Biplane with FPV Hardware Flys
3. Radio Control Hangar 9 Twist 60 and Work on the Front Sidewalk

Winter 2008 was actually pretty decent in the new house, shoveling was a nightmare so we bought an Ariens snowblower / snowthrower (I’m not sure when everyone switched to saying ‘snowthrower’…) The exact model I picked up is the Ariens 924 DLE, it has a 9HP Tecumseh snow king engine in it and cuts a 24″ path.   It worked great.  Here are some winter photo’s for your enjoyment.

Ariens 924 DLE in use in little to moderate snow buildup

Christmas Lights 2008

Our christmas tree is outside and decorated with blue and white light strings. It looked more majestic before the snow weighed the branches down.

Related Posts

1. The LED Christmas Lights Have Been Put Up
2. Winter Is Passing Me By to Visit Washington State! Noooooo!
3. New Lawn by Barn Progress Report