The more RC's you get the long it seems these RC days out get. Today's RC'ing lasted over 1 hour! I had a chance to run everything in my fleet once. This includes both helicopters (Blade CP, and Blade 400) and the RC car (Tamiya TL01 using aircraft lipo for insane power).
I finally learned nose-in hover today. The funny part was I've been able to nose in hover for over 1 year now in the simulator. But whenever I took it out into the real world I always felt like I didn't learn anything and chickened out. Today I took the "learn or bust" strategy with the Blade CP. Basically I was going to force myself to learn it or allow the Blade CP to be destroyed in the process. After a slight initial adjustment period of about 1 minute it turns out I could hover nose in semi-accurately for as long as I want without returning to a more comfortable orientation. I was very startled by how long I avoided doing it but at the same time not too surprised as I know I could perform the same skill for very long periods in the sim. After confirming my skills on the Blade CP with the training gear I decided to give it a go on the Blade 400 a much more scarier bird. The results were even more impressive since the Blade 400 is more stable to begin with I hovered nose-in for the entire pack with only slight periods of drift and correction.
I think the lesson is if you have been able to perform the same skill in the sim but always felt uncomfortable with it in real life and have been stuck. Sometimes just forcing yourself to do it and accepting that your heli might be sacrificed has surprisingly positive results. When your brain realizes it can't just retreat it steps up to the plate and performs amazingly.
I also had a chance to try out my RC car with a very modified power plant. It's a standard RC car but it runs a 200A aircraft lipo compatible speed controller. The speeds were spectacular off the helicopter power packs which have much higher discharge rates than the car motor normally runs off of. Today's test was several runs that would stress the speed controller and motor to find out if any of the components would burn up after prolonged use. Although the motor did go above 125 degC and the speed controller equally toasty at 80 DegC none of the components started smoking or failing so I'm going to cautiously give this configuration a pass for race use. The car can now reach speeds beyond 70Km/h and you will quickly run out of space in even football field sized parking lots at top speed. I've noticed with this incredible amount of power the 23T pinion is starting to show signs of wear, I assume that I will have to change the pinion out periodically if I still choose to run the car in "insane" speed freak mode.
I thought about selling the Blade CP before I'm glad I didn't I would never dare force myself to train with the Blade 400 under do or die conditions the Blade 400 is far to dangerous to allow a crash on purpose with it. The Blade CP is still an awesome trainer regardless of what everyone says.
