by Greg Carter | Mar 8, 2019 | Reviews, UAV
Most of us in the hobby are looking for a drone that is large enough to support a decently long flight time, hold a camera or other data capture device, and be able to control some (or all) of its flight autonomously using pre-programmed coordinates or real-time data. We want to race around or solo the skies and there are a few things to consider before making your purchase. Because of concerns for possible bodily injury and property damage, anyone who operates a drone needs insurance coverage. However, most commercial and personal insurance carriers exclude drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) from their policies, making coverage hard to find. Most standard homeowners insurance policies exclude liability coverage for aircraft, but will include coverage for “model or hobby aircraft,” like your personal drone. Commercial or business use of your drone is not normally covered under a homeowners policy. Most insurance company policy wordings would cover a drone in the same way that they would cover your personal property or contents. Depending on your specific insurer, you may not have to pay any additional amount to make sure your drone is covered! See “What You Need to Know About Drones and Your Insurance“, by MILA ARAUJO for a very good article on the subject. The following drones are very good picks to select from this year to get a solid model that’s stable in flight with an excellent integrated camera. These drones are focused on aircraft intended for aerial imaging and videography. DJI Mavic 2 Pro DJI Inspire 2 DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2 Autel Robotics EVO Parrot Anafi DJI Mavic Air DJI Spark Yuneec...
by Greg Carter | Jul 24, 2018 | Aerobatics, Did You Know . . ., Hints and Kinks, Model Building, Reviews, Scale, UAV
The Pitts S-2B from Kingcraft is an ARF model airframe in an all wood construction using balsa and plywood. It comes with a painted lightweight fiberglass cowling. If you come from a builder background, you will appreciate the design details and the ultra scale dual cockpit with instrument panels which resemble that of the full-scale Pitts S-2B. The manufacturing level and quality of this Pitts ARF is impressive, most of the woodwork is done by hand and not by machine. When I received my kit from HobbyKing, it came in a designer box with all parts well packaged. You should not judge the content by its cover, but it looked good to me and I was ready to get started when I saw the box and content. Each part was packaged very well and no part was found to be damaged. Even the box it came in was structurally strong. The Instruction Manual is well thought out and can help you put the plane together in a few evenings. There were a few things I chose to do a little different and I am sharing with you as follows. I started the build with the wings. I was able to find the placement of the fiberglass horns and inter-plane struts by looking at their placement in the pictures and rubbing my finger over the area until finding the slots. I then took a knife an uncovered the slots. The servos were installed and wings were assembled. I proceeded to work on the fuselage and where the wings will attach. They supplied wood cross struts, however, I chose to use for...
by Dick Pettit | Jul 28, 2016 | Hints and Kinks, Model Building, Reviews
There’s a product that I have been using to shine all sorts of metal products around the workshop and the household too. It’s called Simichrome and it will make just about any metal shine like a star. I found out about it from a friend that has been using it on his metal parts on his motorcycles for many years and once I bought a tube of it, I was hooked. These days, it is available from Amazon.com and a tube of it costs about $10.00, and it will last a long time. I have used it many times on aluminum spinners and mufflers, and if you follow the simple instructions, your spinners and mufflers will look as if was chrome plated. However, that’s not what I came to talk to you about today. I came here to talk about another use for Simichrome that just about all of you could have used over the years. I recently had to remove a few scuffs and scratches and CA fingerprints from a clear plastic side window on one of my planes. Rather than remove it, cut a new one and run the risk of getting more CA fingerprints on the new one, I tried to remove these nasty marks with just about every product I had available. I first thought of using CA remover, which would certainly take off the CA prints, but would probably melt the plastic. I tried WD-40, alcohol, paint thinner and even very fine emery paper, none of which worked at all. Then I spotted that tube of Simichrome sitting on the shelf and decided to...
