The All New U-2 Spy Plane! Brought to you by Hobby People.

I know it looks like normal styrofoam here, but you’re going to be a bit farther away from it than this when it’s flying.  I really haven’t seen any other radio control U-2 scale models with much if any resemblance to the real airplane.  This one does the job admirably!

We had a chance to see Hobby People’s new Phase 3 U2 EDF spy plane fly at Prado Air Park this weekend during the Pomona Valley Model Airplane Club’s Toys for Tots Fun Fly. Tim Johnson give us a little interview on how the model flies and we were impressed at this model’s scale repesentation of a U2 spy plane.

Enjoy!

PlaneVideoArt Productions

This U-2 model comes in three versions.  You can get one for about $240 that’s pretty much ready to fly including the transmitter and charger.  If you’ve already got a 2.4 G Hz radio and a charger, you can save $40 with the i-bind version.  If you’d rather source your own radio equipment, batteries, and other equipment or you’d like a different paint scheme, you can also get this model as a kit which is bare white foam for $120.

Again I’m just joking about asking for even this for Christmas   I’ll be happy to have my brother in town and to have good friends and family.  But yes, the Roadrunner in me really would love to have one of these – especially if I could get it signed and donate it to the organization

Folks, I’ve been taking pictures and stuff, but I’ve also been both busy and tired so I hope you’ll excuse the slow pace of posting   I figure a few of you out there might just like this video.  These A-10 Warthogs are radio controlled scale models and while the guns don’t shoot, the engines are real, honest to goodness, no kidding jet engines

We’ve gotten past Wednesday, so click on the video, kick back, relax, and enjoy the show

I’ve searched around YouTube for some videos that might shed a bit of light on high power rocketry and what can happen when you go big in a hobby that combines huge vehicles that weigh hundreds of pounds with massive power and incredible speeds and dynamic forces 8)  Just remember – All the rockets you see flown were built in someone’s garage in their spare time   Sometimes the motors and propellant are homemade as well!

The Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA) is the largest group of rocketry enthusiasts in the United States.  This is the group that you join when you want to fly high power rockets – especially rockets with H motors or bigger.  Tripoli has rules that motor vendors follow as to who’s qualified to buy how big a motor and works to keep everyone as safe as possible.  The individual clubs arrange most of the launches and arrange for the necessary FAA waivers and coordination.  Every year, Tripoli has a launch that’s known as BALLS.  This launch is held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada because of the remoteness of the location.  You see, they call the launch BALLS for a reason.  If you have a huge rocket and you’ve got the BALLS to fly it, this is the event to do so.  Rockets at BALLS can fly higher than 100,000 feet and can reach speeds in excess of Mach 3   I met Wedge Oldham at a launch in California and my impression of him is that he’s the kind of guy you listen to about rocketry because he knows what he’s talking about

If you’ve ever seen your average A, B, or C motor in the hobby shop, you know what low power rocketry is like.  If you’ve never heard of these letter designations before, I’ll explain why the Q motor in the video above is so remarkable.  Every letter up in the alphabet is twice as powerful overall than the letter below it.  C motors have twice the power of B motors and so forth.  You can have a B motor that produces more thrust than a C motor, but it’s going to burn for a much shorter time than the C motor therefore producing less overall power.  Get the idea?  I don’t know how much instantaneous vs. overall power the Q motor above produced, but in general a Q motor is 65,536 times more powerful than the A motor you can buy at your local hobby shop

The motor above is an O motor which is freaking huge is also a hybrid motor.  Most motors you see in a hobby shop are solid fuel motors.  The smaller motors (A, B, C, D, and E) are usually powered by black powder.  When you get bigger than that, Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant (APCP) is the usual solid fuel.  It’s the same thing the space shuttle’s solid fuel boosters use and overall it’s a very safe material.  Until recently, the BATFE had classified it as a low explosive.  The TRA took the BATFE to court to have APCP removed from the explosives list and a judge agreed based on science.

When you get into high power rocketry, you’re not stuck with solid fuel rockets if you don’t want to be.  Hybrid motors are one of the most popular alternatives due to their safety and power.  The difference with a hybrid rocket motor is that instead of having the fuel and oxidizer already mixed as they are in solid propellants, they’re kept separate until ignition.  The fuel for a hybrid motor is usually some sort of plastic or rubber while the oxidizer is usually nitrous oxide that you can get at race car shops.  Neither the fuel nor the oxidizer is dangerous by itself.  When the motor is ignited, the nitrous oxide flows through a channel in the fuel and then the fuel can actually burn.

What goes up must come down – this includes any rocket ever launched by civilians and most launched by government agencies as well.  Amateur rockets usually fly straight up in the boost phase, eject a parachute, and come back down to earth slowly to fly another day.  At least, that’s the plan.  Sometimes it doesn’t all go according to plan…

Rockets are like anything else designed and built by humans – they can be flawed.  Sometimes the recovery charge doesn’t go off to deploy the recovery system.  Sometimes the recovery charge isn’t big enough.  Sometimes the motor fails during the boost phase.  If you’re in rocketry, sooner or later one or more of your rockets will crash.  Nobody was harmed in the videos above and I can’t remember the last time anyone was hurt in this hobby.  Still, if someone calls “HEADS UP!!!” make sure you look up, find the rocket, and get out of the way.  Or go hide under a car

If this looks like fun to you, go to the Tripoli Rocketry Association’s website – tripoli.org and find a club.  Someone there will be happy to help you

26 July 2010 - Hogjaw, Area 51, Road Runners Internationale, and former black projects

And then I remembered all the space I have on the walls of my cubicle at work   Yep, I’ve got just about all my patches up on the walls at work

Some of these patches are rather rare.  For example, you can only get one of those CIA patches from the CIA gift shop.  Thankfully, I’m an associate member of the Road Runners Internationale and the CIA is rather close to our group due to the history of the Road Runners’ projects like the U-2 and A-12.  The CIA is so kind as to bring their gift shop to our reunions which means I get to shop where very few can

The rest of the patches on this wall have something to do with the CIA, the Road Runners, or black projects in Nevada.  Take the 547th Intelligence Squadron patch – these are the men and women who exploit foreign technology that’s been “acquired” by various means.  The Road Runner feature prominently – check out their website for some really interesting Cold War secrets   And there’s a couple of special, very limited edition Area 51 patches as well

26 July 2010 - Jimmy Buffett, NASA, Cape Hatteras, and the USAF represented here

It’s not just Road Runners and CIA that I’ve got on display.  There’s plenty of NASA and USAF patches here, too.  I may have to pick up a few more when I get the chance to fill in the wall a bit more   Still, there’s the stickers Kath sent me along with a couple of Raptor patches & T-Bird patches which I think all works well together.

Let’s not forget that I’m still a Parrothead and you’re probably going to find some Jimmy Buffett items around

26 July 2010 - Thanks for the OBX stickers, Kath

Gotta love the bumper stickers   “The Weather is Here” is a favorite of many Buffett fans while I’d love to see someone in office who actually has a clue as well.  I don’t agree with Jimmy’s politics for the most part, but he seems to understand what the average Joe is going through – he’s been broke and sleeping on a friend’s couch with only a bicycle for transportation before.  And of course, you’ve gotta love the OBX sticker and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse postcard

26 July 2010 - Road Runners Internationale - In God We Trust - All Others We Monitor

Ah, the good ol’ Road Runners 8)  This is key tag is pretty appropriate when you consider that they were responsible for the U-2, A-12, SR-71, M-21, and D-21   If you don’t know what those were or are, just put ‘em into a Google search and you’ll find out

26 July 2010 - Who here can pick out the most black projects and symbols in this patch?

I paid quite a bit more for this patch than I normally would for most.  It’s a very limited edition and very cool – if you know your Groom Lake history   I’ll tell you that the bird down on the bottom is for the Road Runners and the silver plane at the top is for the U-2, but each of the symbols on the patch refers to a program or group that’s been declassified.  How many can you understand?  I’m only missing a couple

Anywho, that’s about it for now.  Have a great day

15 May 2010 - Lunch time at the Nevada Shooters shoot and clean-up

15 May 2010 - It's not all snakes and scorpions and machine guns in the desert

15 May 2010 - We shoot Nazi zombies

15 May 2010 - The old highway AKA Las Vegas Blvd. South heading north into town

About yesterday – it was a truly great time 8)  Once again Infinite Arms brought an awesome selection of machine guns, short barreled shotguns, short barreled rifles, suppressors, exploding targets, and a few other things California would likely frown upon   What’s kind of funny is that the rest of the people out there had a collection that consisted of many of those same things   I brought the PSL, Maverick 88 shotgun, Ruger 10/22, Marlin Model 60, CZ 50, Heritage Rough Rider, and PF-9.  I just didn’t want to bring everything   Quite a few of the others out there took me up on the offer to shoot my guns and reciprocated with offers to shoot theirs.  Life was GOOD

I’d be remiss if I forgot about Mark and James showing up   They’re a couple of co-workers who also happen to have been bitten by the gun bug lately.  James just got a Savage .22 bolt action rifle and Mark got a similar gun made by CZ that’s a beautiful example of engineering and craftsmanship 8)  Both of ‘em tried out most of the guns I brought and had a good time, but Mark was the one who really surprised me.  First off, Mark isn’t the tallest person around, nor is he heavy or very heavily built which is part of the reason I was so surprised when he said that it wasn’t all that bad when he touched off a 3″ magnum 00 buckshot round from my 12 gauge.  The other thing that surprised me a bit is that he absolutely couldn’t get enough of my little Heritage Rough Rider .22 single action revolver.  I’m glad they made it out and look forward to going shooting with them again in the near future

Aside from all that fun, we also had one helluva pot luck barbecue   A couple of people brought grills, Adam and a couple other members cooked the burgers, hot dogs, and sausages, and we all chipped in with other things like water, sodas, chips, plates, and plastic utensils.  I’d call it a great success

We didn’t just shoot off our guns, make lots of noise, and eat good food this trip.  We also hauled away a considerable amount of trash as well   One of the things we like to do whenever possible is to leave the place cleaner than we found it.  Hey, we live here and we don’t like trashy desert

15 May 2010 - Dinner at Mr. Lucky's

15 May 2010 - Santana memorabilia at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas

15 May 2010 - Santana memorabilia at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas

After shooting I went home, got out of my smelly and dirty clothes, took a shower, and headed down to the Hard Rock and Mr. Lucky’s 24/7 once I was feeling somewhat civilized again.  Korey wasn’t there, but dinner’s always good at Mr. Lucky’s and it’s fun to look at all the memorabilia

15 May 2010 - Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand, and New York, New York

One of the things I keep thinking about when I’m in a place like the Hard Rock or when I’m out shooting in the desert is just how many people pay thousands of dollars for the chance to do what I do and see what I see on any given evening or weekend.  So many of the locals avoid the Strip because it’s crowded and a hassle to get around.  They don’t go out in the desert much because it gets windy or it gets hot.  I’m sorry, but I don’t see things that way.  Carpe Diem and Carpe Noctem while you’re at it is what I say

15 May 2010 - Panorama - Our shooting spot seen from a short distance away

15 May 2010 - Panorama - The fabulous Las Vegas Strip at night as seen from the Hard Rock Hotel

I also thought y’all might like a couple of panoramas while I was at it   Make sure to click ‘em for full size – they’re both pretty darn big

Finally, as I’ve promised I have some video   Yep, that’s yours truly and a couple of friends with some full auto awesomeness out in the Nevada desert   Big thanks go out to Infinite Arms for bringing out most of those goodies (especially the Uzi as I’d always wanted to shoot one of those) as well as the very generous member of Nevada Shooters who let me fire his Browning 1919A4 8)  Of course, we can’t leave out all the rest of the people who brought and cooked the food, helped clean up, and hung out making the day one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a very long time

That’s it for this post – y’all have a good night and I’ll catch ya a bit later