In this week's show we do our normal thing, and I find myself wondering why you folks even follow our nonsense. LoL Be sure to check out the link below for Darren's Lipo Bunker - it's probably the best solution for safe charging that I've seen to date!

Also, we have our favorite multi-rotor expert and supplier, Paul "Witespy" Baxter, come on and share some of the new stuff he's added to his website since we last spoke. If you're into the multi-rotor game, I'm sure you'll be interested in some of these new items! 

LINKS:

Servobender

FancyPicker's Blade 350QX3

RCX 3in1 Battery Meter/Balancer/Discharger

Mistletoe Drone

Chuck's Forza 450

LetsFlyRC (A site to keep your eye on!)

Speaker Upgrade For Taranis

Lipo Storage And Charge Bunker (Cool idea!)

E-Flite Carbon-Z Splendor

Enigma F5B For Sale!!

Daemon Relay (FPV With A Repeater!)

Daemon Relay Explained

ReadyToFlyQuads.com

WMParkFlyers

This Week's Slideshow

We thought about naming this 258th installment something like "Let's Hum Along With Laine", but decided that was just too long of a title. LoL In this show, we get to share some really interesting listener pictures (available at link below), a couple of interesting videos, and the fact that one of our favorite kit-makers is now selling a couple of our favorite kits! We also visit with our buddy, Mark Harrison from Eastbay-RC, for an interesting discussion relative to last week's OpenSource discussion, and then we get into some Taranis talk. Yep, we're still diggin' on this great radio!

Please don't forget about our Help A Vet program! In this episode we share a few things we are still looking for and would enjoy any help you maybe able to offer.

LINKS:

This Week's Pictures (Check out Hotcross' trailer and the WMPF Liberty Bipe!)

Slope-Flying A Heli??

Laine's Planes At RACores

Observations From Our Favorite Swede

EastBay-RC Blog (Great tips and info from Mark H.!)

Exercising The Sticks On A Taranis (Cool video!)

SlowBipe MiniBipe

 

With Spring fast approaching, and I know most of us are ready to be done with this Winter stuff, we discuss some things you might want to do to get your fleet ready for the upcoming flying season!

 

In this 247th episode, we also discuss the sad news that a couple of our favorite RC businesses have (or will be) closing up shop:

ReadyHeli, as we understand it, has ceased operations. However, it looks as though HeliDirect may be offering up some warranty service for some of the products that customers may have purchased from RH on a limited basis. Customers needing warranty service may want to get in touch with HeliDirect customer service to find out how they may be able to help.

Also, after 26 years in the business, it seems that Miniature Aircraft (a leader in the domestic RC helicopter industry) will cease operations on February 28th. This is particularly sad, as MA has been known industry wide for the fine products that they made right here in the good old U.S. of A. Check their website for details on where their existing stock will be going so you can stock up on parts for your favorite heli!

LINKS:

HeliDirect

Miniature Aircraft

Yusuf's Scratch-built Y6

FPV Camera Mount That Nav Printed

World's Smallest FPV Quad?

AP Quad Inspection Of Sinkhole

Doculam

MetroGTi's P-38 In Doculam

Gear Pro Camera (I'll be reviewing the 1080P model soon)

Our pet project this year, as it was last year, is the Wings For Wishes Montana IV event that benefits the Make A Wish foundation in Montana. This year will be the fourth annual event and if you cannot make it but still want to help them out, please consider making a donation to this great cause!

As most of you already know, we have been streaming TheCrashCast LIVE each week over the interwebs this year using the TalkShoe website. Unfortunately, this site has been the source of quite a few difficulties over the last year and we have been actively searching for another solution.

I am happy to annouce that we have found something that I feel will work nicely for us. The audio quality is very much improved, the chat interface is quite nice, and best of all, it includes a video feed capability! This means that, on occasion, I may be able to show some of the projects I'm working on during the shows to our live audience, as well as push up pictures for other cool stuff. This new site seems pretty robust, too. Last evening we fired it up in conjunction with Skype AND pushed a video feed at the same time. Several of our loyal listeners participated in chat and with me on the Skype call and everything went great!

I wanted to share this information with you guys early because you will need to sign up for a free account if you want to participate in the chat. Don't worry - it's quick and easy. :) Drop in and visit with us Wednesday evenings at 7pm CST!

THECRASHCAST LIVE

Mark your calendars, folks! Each and every week we record and stream the show LIVE over the interwebs using a service called "TalkShoe". After we get all the gang together, we try to start at, or shortly after, 7pm Central time. While the sound quality is not as good as the fully edited "podcast version" that gets posted here on Thursdays, you get to listen in as we make our mistakes and hear things that often DON'T make it into the final version.

Best of all, there is a LIVE chat where you can ask us questions and actively particpate in the episode. Oh, yes, we also do a POST SHOW that never gets recorded, and sometimes things get a little silly and often off-topic. LoL

Consider joining us sometime; we'd love to have you aboard!

TheCrashCast LIVE

.

Remember, you can stream our shows LIVE every Sunday night starting around 8pm CDST. Best of all, you can listen to our pre- and post-show discussion, as well as participate in the LIVE chats!

LIVE SHOW FEED

EDIT: WE HAVE CHANGED THE TIME AND DAY OF THE WEEK THAT WE ARE RECORDING OUR LIVE-STREAMED SHOWS!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE LINK STILL WORKS, BUT WE NOW RECORD ON WEDNESDAY EVENINGS AT 7PM CENTRAL!

I am sorry to report this, but show #196 didn't record. It was a great show. Some might even say EPIC! Unfortunately, we only were able to record HALF of the fool thing. The only folks that got to hear us were the ones that made it to the live stream that we did over at TalkShoe.

After much research, I have surmised that the update that Skype forced us into before we started our show caused some sort of issue with the recording software, in that the only voices recorded were MINE (no Tim, or Navion). I guess that's what you get into when Microsoft starts screwing with an already optimal program.

I have downloaded an earlier release of Skype (read PRE-Microsoft) so that I can be certain that the problem will not happen again. I may do a solo "recap" of what we talked about in the next day, or so, to get you guys up to speed.

You guys have asked for it, and now you've got it! You can now order your official "CrashCast" goodies, including the shirts like I wear. This supplier is not the cheapest, but I have been quite impressed with the quality of the items that I have received from them over the last four years.

Please note that I do not make any profit on these items and you get to buy them for the exact same cost as I have to pay.

OFFICIAL STORE FOR THECRASHCAST GOODIES

Isn't it funny how we start off by saying we really don't have much to go over for the week, but yet we still are about to occupy 90 minutes worth of your time? Well, that's the case with this 188th installment of our show, LoL Join us for some more all-over-the-board discussion (as seems to be our norm these days).

A special THANK YOU! goes out to our supportive listener base this week, as you guys have come to our aid with your donations by helping pay for our web fees for 2013!!

LINKS:

RACores (This week's "Spotlight Vendor")

Backyard Brains (Ok, this is cool, but kinda creepy)

Interesting Use For A Quad

Dynamic Heli Aerodynamics Explained

Heli-Max Blade Balancer

Human-powered Heli

Skookum SK-GPS Ready For Pre-Order

RESPECT Those Blades! (WARNING - NOT For The Squeamish!)

QuadShot (Mixing a Quad AND a fixed-wing)

EMC2 Keyboard Labels

CELL-RACR (This is a hoot! LoL)

Sega Rally

Don't forget to email us your "Dear Santa" letters so we can share them on an upcoming show!

Well, SEFF 2012 is now in the history books and a great time was had by all. As I write this, I am at the house of the famous lmopar69 and I will be departing on my trip home first thing in the morning. That should put me home some time late Monday night and I will be uploading a fresh show that we recorded while at the field Friday night. The show should go live no later than Tuesday morning, May 1st!

Yep, I finally got this year's project going. If you've been out of the loop, this year we are helping you build RadicalRC's Mini Intern kit. You can find the first three videos HERE!

Okay, so it's time again for me to pay the next year's web-hosting and podcast-hosting fees for TheCrashCast and AllThingsCrash. As most of you already know, ol' Crash has been paying for this stuff (about $400/year now) out of his own pocket since the beginning.

Many of you have asked how you can support your favorite podcast. I have been reluctant to hold raffles to support the show, or even sell advertising (other than the PhlatBoyZ who have such great products, I just HAVE to spread the word). Well, if you should feel so moved to throw a few dollars our way, now is your chance.

Here are MY rules for how this works:

1. You are certainly under no obligation to support us. Anything offered up will be greatly appreciated and will be put towards payments of annual costs ONLY. There is no "Beer Fund", "Airplane Fund", or even a "SEFF Fund" (though that last one should be considered LoL).

2. Should enough money be raised to completely cover the $400 that the show will cost me in 2012, I will immediately remove the DONATE button you see below and it will not be anywhere on either of my websites until my 2013 fees come due.

3. There is no fixed value for what you may donate. You can give as little or as much as you desire. Rest assured that no matter what you should give, if you feel so moved, it will be greatly appreciated.

4. Unless you specify otherwise, I WILL give my personal THANKS to you on the upcoming podcasts by using the first name and last initial tied to your PayPal account. Last names are only read with the expressed written consent of the person responsible for the donation.

Thanks in advance, and we look forward to entertaining and informing all of you in the coming year.

Happy Building And Flying!!

AS OF 11:35PM, NOVEMBER 27th, WE HAVE MET OUR GOAL!! THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT CONTRIBUTED!!

We are taking this week off with the show. Ron is traveling on business, Tim is answering a Fire Alarm for work, and I am at home enjoying my family. :) No worries, though. We'll be back next week preaching the gospel that is RC!

Have a great week!

We covered quite a bit of ground again in this 118th installment, but perhaps the biggest news is the release of the files for the new QSC QuadCopter, so if you've been holding off on starting your own multi-rotor project because you wanted an inexpensive Quad instead of the TriCopter we did, now is the time to get started!

The other big news item we deliver this week is that you can now order your bare, v2.1 QSC Interconnect Board so that you can build your own FSS. So many of you have been asking for this (since the minimum board order through ExpressPCB is 3 boards), and now we are ready to take care of you. This is how it works: PayPal the money to me ($35/board USD) using the email address I provide in this show and tell me which bare board that you want (Arduino Pro Mini-based or ATmega 328-based). I will place the group order on Monday, May 23rd, 2011. As soon as I receive the boards here (7-10 working days from date of order), I will put them in a padded envelope and send them out to you within two days via regular post. Remember, the ATmega 328 board will require you to flash the chip, but if you don't have that ability, we can do it for you (just email me and we'll work it out). Also, we hope to publish the build instructions for the ATmega 328 board, along with the shopping list, very soon. Everything you need to know about the Pro Mini-based board is already on my site. Please remember, these are bare boards only. You have to buy all of the goodies for them and populate them yourself.

Also, the RCadvisor is back again this week with further discussion on thrust angles with this week's discussion concerning downthrust.

LINKS:

WeatherUnderground

An ESV that should be a staple in your flightbox if you use NiCd or NiMh flightpacks

Tim's Nall Pics

New Futaba 6 Channel Radio

OS Electric Motors

QSC QuadCopter Info

Hooked On RC Planes Site

Precision Routers (A new CNC machine on the market)

DevFus (Interesting new CNC software)

I am certain that many of you have been wondering about my friend and co-host of two years. I shared on the show that Dennis had been having some medical issues and had to step away from the microphone, but the truth is, he has been sparring with cancer for the last three months. Unfortunately, Dennis lost that battle and succumbed to the disease yesterday.

Anne, his loving wife, phoned me today to share the news and she advised that he went peacefully, which is all that each of us can hope for when our numbers are up.

If you would like to send a card, or letter, or whatever expressing your kind thoughts to Anne and the rest of the family, please email me and I'll give you the mailing address.

 

Dennis, I know you've gone on to a better flying site, my friend. You will be missed, but never forgotten!

 

Dennis "Dorsal" Fishback

Noevember 27, 1952 - March 21, 2011

Sorry, gang, but something suddenly came up. LOL

I hope to be back next week!

Due to plans with family and friends this weekend, I've decided to cancel this week's show. No worries, though - we'll be back next week with our normal RC chatter.

 

ALL countries have a "Fourth of July". I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Independence Day!

Happy 234th, America! You don't look a day over 200.

Hey gang! This is just a quick note to let you know that I will be taking a 1 week break from the Scratch-Build of the e-QSC. The reason? I am heading out of town enroute to Slater, MO for SPADFest 2010!

Before I leave, however, I am planning on starting an official Build Log over at RCG to cover this project. I have been working diligently to build a second plane so I can shoot all the necessary photos for the RCG thread, and I have just about finished the wing portion of the build so that the thread will be caught up to the videos. Whew! This is a LOT of work! LOL

The next podcast, if all goes as planned, will be detailed coverage of SPADFest. I'm probably not going to have enough time to get some "plastic" ready to fly, but will have cameras and notebook in hand to give this cool event the coverage it so deserves. Remember, it was the SPADders that actually first taught us that materials other than balsa could be used to contruct our planes!

So, get those e-QSC wings built, but try to refrain from starting your fuselage just yet, since I have some neat things to show you on this - you won't be building over the plans for this part!

Thanks for your understanding...

As discussed in show #68... :)

Boy, have we been BUSY!! As of right now, there is no MP3 available for this week's 64th installment that was recorded LIVE from the Park Inn (near the SeaGate Center) where the Toledo show is held annually. I did, however, remember this year to press the RECORD button for the video stream, so if click the following link you will be taken to my UStream page where you can see the show. I am hoping that when I get home I'll be able to extract the audio from this video and edit it in to a podcast episode "properly" so that you can still snag it in iTunes.

Please excuse my goofiness, and no, no alcohol was involved in the making of this show (though it would have probably been better to lead you to believe there was! LOL).

 

Toledo Show 2010 Webcast

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to bring you more detailed info from the show next week after significant sleep has been had and notes reviewed. :)

 

 

I finally took the necessary time to publish my build review for the new XtremeFoamies Sentinel F3B/3D plane! If you're interested in this great little plane, click on the link below to read all about it on my support site!

Sentinel Review

 

 

 

I am so sorry, folks, but yours truly here is still down with this terrible upper respiratory infection which renders me somewhat unable to put out this week's installment of TheCrashCast. The good news is that I'm starting to get my voice back. The bad news is that I can't talk for 30 seconds without breaking out into an awful coughing fit. Thanks for your understanding!

We'll be back next week with this year's first installment. You'll want to tune in because we're slated to have the PhlatBoyZ back on to talk about their 2010 goals and I'm certain we'll hear all about that new commercial CNC machine they've just installed at PhlatBoyZ HQ!

For you folks that have heard me talk about the Utah Valley Aeromodelers and their great site that has all of the rules for their Pylon Racing, you can now see their site 'cause it's back up!

UVA Site

If you wanna find the rules for their 1/2A Pylon Racing, click on "Articles", then "1/2A Pylon Racing", then "Electric Rules". The page will show an Internal Error, but it should also give an option to download a PDF containing the rules...

I just found out that the event information that I announced in the last CrashCast installment has changed. The gathering will still be on Saturday, October 3rd, but the locale has changed.

For those of you that are planning to attend this cool event, please check out the following links that give directions to the North Texas Aeromodelers flying site (new event site) which is in Denton, TX, NOT Decatur, as previously mentioned.

SpadWorld.net SOTex 2009 Thread (see the updated first post)
Google Map to the Event Site
Google Map Close-up of Event Site

I hope to see you there!

While surfing this evening I happened upon a very cool site - DLPlanes.com. I haven't figured it all out yet, but it appears that two young gents (from the UK, perhaps?) have started their own site to show folks "how it's done" in the RC world.

After cruising around their site for a bit, I discovered a link to their YouTube Channel and I must say that I'm quite impressed! These kiddoes really seem to know what they're doing!! Look out, Dave Powers! Daniel and Luis are coming for ya!!

Be sure you subscribe to these guys' videos. I have a feeling we're gonna see some very cool stuff from them!

DLPlanes YouTube Channel

I posted a couple of videos over at AllThingsCrash from my vacation. The first video is my screwing around with the PBF that I took to fly. The second video is of the deer that came up to the house every evening.

Here are some videos shot by Trish Carew while we were playing at the Open Flying site in Toledo. We had lots of fun! Of course, you can see the videos with better quality if you click on them and watch them in High Quality at YouTube.

I had planned to take tons of pics at this show, but I got so overwhelmed that I didn't get near as many as I would have liked. You can get the link to my gallery at www.AllThingsCrash.com .

I wanted to share a quick little video I shot this morning with you guys on the subject of Z Bends for your control surface linkages. I won't use Z Bend pliers, as the ones I tried years ago yield a very narrow area for your servo or control horn and they do not give you true 90 degree bends like you need for bind-free movement of the surface. I learned this technique from an old modeling friend and have found it to be priceless! Look for more vids down the line covering how I make pushrod assemblies, including a total Carbon Fiber Pushrod assembly...

In order to promote my little show when I'm out and about, I decided to get some T-Shirts printed up.

Rather than doing the conventional silkscreen thing, I figured I would try out the inkjet process that Printfection offers. I received two shirts in today and I must say, I am quite pleased with the quality that they offer - so pleased, in fact, that I decided to open up a little store so that any of you listeners out there can order them and sport them at YOUR favorite RC events!

If you're interested, click on the link below and check them out. I'll be wearing the White and Sport Gray versions of these shirts in Toledo...

Official CrashCast Apparel