Summer has finally made it to Germany...

This is Victors little Tower Hobbies Uproar. Its his latest plane since selling his Trainer to Chief Master Sargeant Gary Coleman. Now Victor can safely say he no longer flys a trainer aircraft and is free (atleast for now) from the ridicule brought forth by his long lost brother Jeff Sweetenburg. Ok so they arent really brothers, but you wouldnt know it because they bitch and talk crap to each other like siblings.




This is the coolest R/C thing i've seen in a while... Its a Huge Turbine powered R/C jet. This thing is sick. The pictures dont show how big it actually is, but I would guess it had atleast a 6 or 7 foot wingspan, For my non R/C friends, it is powered by a real working turbine model engine, just like the full size version. It sounds just like the full size version. It flys just like the full size version. It was an awesome display of fine crafstmanship. It was owned by a German gentleman so I didnt get all of the details but, I understood this to be its first flight, and it cost around 8000 Euro (about $10,000 dollars!!) to build. The kit it self cost 2000 euro, the motor around 3000 euro, and the electronics, retractable landing gear, braking system and other goodies add up to the difference. I only saw it fly a short time, but it was impressive none the least.



This in the inside of the monster turbine powered Jet. Lots of cool electronic gismos in this thing, most of which I have no idea as to what they are... Very nice clean install, It had dual tanks on each side of the fuse behind the intake tracts. They must have been huge becasue it took for ever to fuel it up with kerosene. Very cool...

My Porsche 944, fine German engineering? or Porsche's red headed step-child

Well, here are some official photos of my little red Porsche. I just got finished cutting the grass in the back yard and thought it would be a good area for a photo shoot of the Porsche since the view is so nice. If you know anything about the 944 series of porches, the title makes perfect sense, if you dont.... You will have to do a little internet reading. While not exactly a 911 turbo, it still is a wonderfully fun car to drive. It handles the curvy German roads with ease, as thats what it was designed to do. Literally. Its got a front mounted, water cooled, inline, upright four cylinder 2.5 liter engine. From the factory, the cars are rated at 148 HP. This particular car has been dyno'd at 186, due to aftermarket, exhaust, header, and intake parts. Its not a Rocket-ship by any means, but it AINT slow either. It was without a doubt built with Autobahn travel in mind, 5th gear is fairly tall, and I have travelled in excess of 140 mph with relative ease. Even better, if you get this car in the tight twisties (which is VERY frequent in Germany) there are few cars that can hang with the true 50/50 weight distribution "glued to the road", "like its on rails" and any other cliche' you can think of handling characteristics of the 944. This happens to be a U.S. spec model, and may end up coming back to the U.S. with us when we leave Germany. Enjoy~

Nice passenger side picture, the awesome view is actually from our backyard. (you have to be here to get the full effect, thats a hint for any of my friends who may want to vacation in Germany, FREE ROOM AND BOARD!)
Cool picture with the camera on the ground.... im slowly figuring this whole photography thing out.
picture of the interior from the open sunroof, note the new MOMO steering wheel and P-Tech steering wheel quick release. :) It has a Kenwood head and Kenwood 12 disc changer
The little engine that could.... I have a strut brace coming from my father that should be here any day, I will post a picture of it once I get it on the car. Thanks DAD!!
Last picture from the drivers side, the sunlight was kinda bad at this time of day, but its the best I could do.

Tower Hobbies Fun 51 Profile Fun Flyer

This my one and only (at this point) kit build of an airplane. It took a few days worth of work to get it framed up, anther couple to get it rigged out, and yet a few more days worth of covering (my first experience with covering) to get it finished. Of course, this all happened over the span of a month or so, working on it as often as I could. I can honestly say, I am very pleased with the outcome. I've put about 20 flights on it so far, but today, with no wind to speak of, was the first time I could have a little fun with it, after all it IS a "Fun Flyer". It handles pretty well in my non-experienced opinion. I honestly wouldn't know if it didn't, but other guys that have flown it, say so. ;) Even though I've only been flying for a few months, I've been able to do a few basic maneuvers with ease, rolls, loops, some inverted flight and a few lazy snaps can be done fairly well. Ok, so they are not perfect and uniform, but it still looks cool to me, and you only get better with practice right? I've worked out a few issues with the not-so-forgiving landing gear, and got it trimmed to my liking. Got the Dual Rates set up, and also programmed a few snap-roll options on my radio. I am going to start playing with different props in the future, the plane tends to fly to fast right now and its pretty obvious in the air that it wasn't designed to do that. Overall, an easy build, easy set-up, and VERY fun plane to fly. I am currently using a little O.S. FX .40 on it, it seems to provide plenty of power and is getting better after every flight as the engine gets a little looser.

A bad day at the flying field is better than a good day at work...

Well, I cant really say that I had a bad day at the flying field today, but Breck did. Breck has been flying a V-Mar Big Stick for the past few months that i've known him, its one of those planes that is certainly not perfect in construction, not perfect in owner influenced rigging, and not perfect in looks. But the bottom line is: it flew pretty damn well. With Breck manning the sticks on the radio, and being a typical grossly overpowered Breck aircraft, he regularly did every maneuver known to man to try and rip the wing off it, but it always came back for more. When the rudder wasn't falling off, the elevator wasn't fluttering, and the monokote wasn't flapping in the wind, it was a respectably nimble little plane.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And end it did. After talking himself out of going home to ride his mountain bike, and staying with the rest of us to fly, the very next flight went to hell in a hand basket all to quickly. The little "Big Stick" that could, met its match with a very large German grown hardwood tree after the Elevator servo decided to quit working. A quick trek in the retrieval truck through the woods revealed the expected. The damage, in my opinion, wasn't as bad as the sound it made when it went in, I was sure there would be a nice pile of toothpicks left. Unfortunately the stick was forced into retirement, permanently.

The good thing from all of this is now Breck has a very nice O.S. .91 FX engine and all of the radio equipment to build a new plane....hmmm.... decisions, decisions