Lake Havasu Cars Boats and Planes

CARS

One of the big car dealerships in Lake Havasu cleared its sales lot for a classic car and hot rod show and it was quite a show.





Here are two hot rods that we really liked. Both were very well crafted and the chops were subtle with a really good finish.

I loved Carol's reaction to this little additional feature on display.






However not all the cars were immaculate chassis up restorations. Some people just polished the old pickup, turned up and parked.




Others were a little more creative.








BOATS

Ok this one is a bit of a stretch but I liked it for the title. At first you will not see anything out of the order until I tell you that the model seaplane fly-in took place just to the right and the circuit and landing approach was directly over the passing boats, one of which was the local ferry.

PLANES


The local flying club, the Desert Hawks, put on this 3 day fly in every year. The weather was unkind for days 1 and 3 but day 2 was perfect. Lots of 1/4 scale Cubs and little electric foamie Northstars flying really well. I did not see the WW1 job fly but it looked very scale.

MY PLANES


Over the last 10 months I have been putting together a fast little home brew delta to handle the windier days. I had built something like this many years ago and although I did not have any plans or measurements I thought it looked about right although I was not sure about the CG and the size of the fin. The CG seemed to be a long way forward. I did a calculation which showed it to be about right.

After a final aileron and range check I fired up the ancient MDS 38 and tossed it into the air. I was pretty sure it would fly as the thrust to weight ratio was clearly better than one to one but boy was I surprised. I was instantly into a huge loop as I had dialed too much reflex into the ailerons. As it screamed of the top of the big vertical split S it accelerated to warp factor 13. It was a busy 30 seconds as I went for low rates and trimmed in some down. Even on low rates it was still twitchy but boy it is quick and tracks really well on low passes. I was glad I had painted the underside half black as I tried for some twinkle rolls on high rates. But all good things come to an end and as I pulled a tight turn it went into an inverted spin and I could not recover it. Shutting the engine down just before it hit I watched it hit the desert just off the runway. Not too much damage and I will soon have it back in the air with a bigger fin.















I got some nice flights in with the YAK after this but after 10 months of absolute engine reliability I have been having engine problems and it is it still deadsticking. RATS!











Many thanks to the Desert Hawks for letting me fly at their great site.