Friday - Microsoft Flight Sim

Hello everyone, welcome to the last and final post...    of 2010. Today we are going to talk about something important to the aviation world, Simulators. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a great program for those who may be interested in aviation (as long as you have a joystick.) At the your local staples they may have a copy of Microsoft Flight Sim 2002 (FS 2002.) This is a great program considering how old it is and the price. You can fly at just about any airport in the world. One problem is the lack of airplane models, here I demonstrate how to add third party airplane models to your flight sim.

Wednesday - iPhone 4 FPV camera

  Hello and welcome to swashblade RC. I have some bad news today, due to severe wether conditions it was impossible to fly. It was really windy, there is a slight hop for snow tomorrow, which means snow flying!

  Well, today im going to talk about fpv systems, just about any small camera can be tapped to an RC car and be used as an FPV recording system. Here I used Duct tape to mount an iPhone on my Tamiya ta02. Whats great about the iPhone 4 being used as a FPV recording systems is it has both forward and backwards facing cameras.

  The setup is quite simple, just take off the body and mount the iPhone on the rear end hook, tape the bottom with double sided duct tape and run a piece from the part to another piece of the car.

   Observe the results:

Tuesday - Simulators

   Hello and welcome to the second day of the full week marathon! Yesterday I had a lot of fun launching rockets, that was actually my first rocket. Today was very rainy and windy so all my aircraft are grounded for now. When weather does not permit for flying a good way to keep your skills sharp are simulators.
 
  I have a few programs my self: Real Flight G2, Real Flight G5 Demo, Trainz 2004, Microsoft Flight Sim 2002, and Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3. For the best simulations I highly recommend you get the proper controller for that simulation. For a cheap flying sim pick up FS 2002 for only $10 at your local staples store. For a free RC simulator you can try out the Real Flight G5 Demo for free.
 
   Google Earth serves as a Flight Simulator as well,



   Well Tomorrow, who knows what to expect. If the weather cooperates maybe we will have some flight footage!

  -SwashBlade RC

Monday - Rockets

Welcome to the first day of the full week marathon. Today the weather was nice so we decided to launch some rockets. Wal-mart no longer sells rockets so we had to resurrect the old ones in the closet. They ran great, we started off with the mini engine powered skydart, but we could only find one engine. Second we launched the Estes Farside which was complete with broken fins and no parachute but flew fine. Just watch the launches for yourself.


Tomorrow we be another blog and video,

                                                      -SwashBlade RC

Week Marathon!

Hello and welcome to the last week of the 2010 year, I started this blog in November and there was a lack of posts in December. Well to make up for it, this week I am going to have a full week marathon of blog posts and videos. The Agenda includes plane reviews, computer programs, model rocketry, video games and RC plane builds. Enjoy the rest of 2010!

                               -Swashblade RC

                

Winter Break

            Finally the winter break is here, and since the weather will generally be rainy that means it's time to start building airplanes. I have a few on the assembly line right now, such as the FW-190 but others are scheduled for repair, such as the P-51D. It is quite possible that I will begin another balsa model, most likely a high wing bird dog.

            In other news I recently paid a visit to the Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, Florida. Surprisingly the famed Kermit Weeks demonstrated his P-51C Mustang, one of two left in a flyable condition. Enjoy the high speed fly by's Mr. Weeks performs,

               

            I recently bought Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, so I may post tutorials in the future.

                     -SwashBlade RC

The AR. Drone!

Today I was in Florida and walked into a Brookstone, they gave me a demonstration of the Parrot AR Drone. To me the AR Drone is AMAZING!!!! A four rotor helicopter controlled by an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad! And it all runs on wifi to about 150 feet. The range is okay but unlike most RC vehicles that don’t come from a hobby shop this AR. Drone is equipped with a real LiPo battery with a real amps rating. Replacement parts are also available from online or Brookstone unlike most helicopters sold in stores today.

For me I might get the drone and the apple iPad, I noticed that the camera did not have the best frame rate but the camera is obviously not for navigation purposes. The app store sells different games that you can play by yourself or with friends, such as AR. Drone pursuit which is essentially a dog fight.

The apple store was right across the street from Brookstone (the store that sells the tx.) I went over there and I thought the iPad is the perfect tx module for this quadrucopter. I decided that the iPad has better response than the iPod touch and a bigger screen for viewing the fpv (First Person View) camera.

Hopefully the AR. Drone is something that I will get in a couple months, weather I get during or after the indoor flying season I will make an awesome review that features both flying conditions. Just watch this video from Parrot Co.

For those who haven’t read my blog in the past, welcome. Feel free to check out my about page and click the subscribe button on the side. Also have fun answering the polls located on the side bar. Each poll will be open for answers for five days and the results will be displayed for two.

Later this week I have planned a trip to the Fantasy of Flight Museum. I will post plenty of pictures and most likely a youtube video.

                                                                            -SwashBladeRC

           

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     Youtube videos are still under way, right now I am in the process of getting a new camera. The camera I have been looking into is the Kodak zi8, the Flip Mino's rival. The Kodak zi8 shoots in 1080p with 30 fps (frames per second) and 720p at 60 fps for fast moving objects such as fast flying airplanes.

    In other news the American version of Top Gear came out a few weeks back. The show looks decent despite the lack of British accents. Looks as if a lot of their show will have to do with aviation. The first episode featured a Cobra Assault helicopter versus a Dodge Viper.

    I may not post any updates for about a week, or maybe I will.

                                                                                                   -swashbladerc

Flite Test

For anyone who doesn't know about flite test it is a new youtube show that is done very professionally. Here is on of their review's of a Hobby King Blue Angles jet. Visit their website at http://www.flitetest.com/.

Forza Motorsports 3

Recently I rented Forza Motorsports 3 from my local video store and it is the best driving game I have ever played. Forza 3 is packed with so many features that it takes two disks to play it. Along with realistic driving Forza allows for plenty of car customization including upgrades, paint and vinyl stickers.

     Forza 3 has a wide variety of cars from around the world and features my favorite car the Audi R8. Forza 3 even features common low performance cars such as the ford focus or Toyota Yaris. There are less tracks than cars but features two exceptional tracks, both the Nordschleife and mountain roads in Japan.

   One aspect of the game that could use some work is the rewind feature. The rewind feature doen’t allow for exact starting moments. So stay tuned on my youtube channel for videos of Forza 3.

T-28 and Rain

  Recently I've been working hard to prepare my t-28 Trojan for flight, and rain is in the forecast for this weekend! Hopefully it will not rain the next weekend but I hope I at least get some sort of flight time during this holiday week. I think I will pull my p-51 back off the shelf and fly it on a nice day at the flying field.

  In other news Youtube videos are definitely on their way. I will most likely get my own camcorder next week. I will be using a Mac to edit videos as well, so I hope I can make professional looking videos. Please feel free to click the subscribe button to the right if you would like to be notified of new articles immediately. Also feel free to tell your friends about my youtube videos and website.

                                                                                             -SwashbladeRC    

I took some new pictures, I found Photoshop for the iPhone. The iPhone's videos and pictures are amazing for a small Phone.

This is my t-28 trojan, if the weather alows i will fly it next week. My camera doesn't look like this when you take pictures I was experimenting in iPhone Photoshop.

 

This is a picture of my p-40 wawrhawk plastic model. So far my best plastic model. I made the picture black in white to give the impression that this picture was taken in WWII. The actual color of this model is a flat olive green. It has golden machine guns, engine and retract housing.

Here is the golden Retract housing, this was free hand brush painting. The rest of the model was painted using an airbrush.

Thanks for reading my blog, to visit my youtube page click here. Make sure to visit both my youtube page and my blog often, I update them regularly.

-SwashbladeRC

New Logo

Youtube videos are underway, I created the logo and video intro for swashbladeRC. I used powerpoint to make my intro logo. Anyway, here is my logo that I created in Microsoft Paint.

Fixing a Broken Rate Switch

   Today I did something amazing, I avoided paying about forty dollars by fixing my Dx5e myself. What happened was I dropped my transmitter, my neck strap came undone and I caught it but hit something and broke off the rates switch. I called Horizon Hobby and I spent forever on hold, I found out that just to ship my radio cost about $7.99 plus you need a box, bubble wrap, and insurance. Then they charge $30 an hour with a minimum payment of half hour, $15.

   In the past I invested in a soldering iron, solder and helping hands in hopes to build a robot. I still don't have the best solution for a robot but I really like RC and I am learning a lot from it. I opened up the transmitter, clipped out the broken switch (take out the switch with pliers) and went to Radio shack and bought a new one. Solder it in and you're done!

   I would like to thank Dave Herbert the Night Flyyer for showing how to do this. For those who don't know how to solder keep an eye on my youtube channel. Have fun flying!

                                                                                       -SwashbladeRC

T-28 and P-51

I haven't posted any articles for a couple days but that doesn't mean I wasn't working on RC or aviation. Recently I've been working on restoring both my Ultra Micro P-51D Mustang and my big T-28 Trojan from Parkzone. I tried to talk to Horizon Hobby to ask them to fix my transmitter. My transmitter is just a Dx5e and only has a broken rates switch. After staying on hold for 20 minutes I hung up and opened the transmitter. I found that you can buy a switch at radio shack and solder in a new one, simple. I will keep you posted on how my T-28 and P-51 are going. Hopefully I will be able to post a review on them both soon.

                                                                                                            -SwashbladeRC

Night Vapor Review

   Recently the air has been dead still all day. I got the courage to break out my Parkzone Night Vapor  and took it for a spin. The Night Vapor is a fun and relaxing airplane, it easily cruises at slow speeds but can still speed up quite a bit. The Vapor also has built in lights which allow for flying in complete darkness.  The Night Vapor is great for just getting used to controls and fixes can be easily made.

    The night vapor is almost all carbon rod and P.E.T. plastic and hardly anything else. Figuring out just where to pick the thing up from can be a mild challenge. One thing I found about the Night Vapor is never slide the battery all the way back, you might end up with a faulty battery connection. Parkzone said that the Vapor is perfect for flying in a small living room, I found this is not the case. Flying in spaces as small as a living room is not fun at all as your only  flight path is a tight circle and there are many hazardous obstacles.      

  The Night Vapor may be a great slow flying airplane but I much rather fly in a larger venue, somewhere that allows for more aerobatic maneuvers.  Somewhere such as a gym or even a class room is the perfect size. Overall this is a fun flying airplane and I would rate it at four stars.

Google Sketch-up 8

  Google just recently released a new version of Google Sketch-Up. With quiet a few new fetures Google Sketch-Up 8 is fun and useful. I would like to announce that every week I will make a new Google Sketch-Up tutorial on youtube. Hopefully people will find this useful, if you have a question or a tutorial request just tell me in the comments below. Don't forget to visit my website at http://www.swashbladerc.webs.com/.

                                                                                           -SwashbladeRC

Snoopy Flying Ace

  I don't know how many people have an xbox with live but if you do Snoopy Flying Ace is a fun game to consider. This game features several different WWI planes ranging from monoplanes to triplanes. I recently started my own clan on the xbox live forums with my self (imochas), zinomachine and verticle runner. Check back for more details and visit the snoopy flying ace forums if you're interested in joining.

                                                                                                  -swashbladerc
                                        

                                 Snoopy Flying Ace Comercial

Review of Past Blogs

  For those who haven't seen my previous blog on www.swashbladerc.webs.com  here is a quick review. In the past couple of months the fall / winter flying seasons started and I started build my fleet for next years spring flying season. I also started build a Focke Wulf fw-190 from a $10 dollar blasa kit and I joined the local flying field. Don't forget that I post daily so come back often. Feel free to subscribe and see my website.

                                                                                                                   -swashbladeRC

Welcome to the New Blog

   Hello and welcome to the new and improved blog site. For those of you who have read and seen the blogs on http://www.swashbladerc.webs.com/ this blog page will be bigger and better than that. We will be posting daily so visit often. It doesn't hurt to subscribe, tell your friends and vist us on facebook.

                                                                                  
                                                                                                      -swashbladeRC