----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay Hunter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1. To the competitive pilots, how often do you practice a week?
I very rarely practice except in spring before the contest season starts or
unless I have a new model to test and trim. But then, I'm not a beginner who
is trying to learn basic skills so my habits should not be the same as
yours.
2. How often does the wind change during a flying session? It seems the
wind
changes by 45 degrees every 10-15 minutes. Most of my flying sites are
surrounded by trees.
Wind and other weaqther patterns change all the time. The important thing is
to notice the prevailing wind direction at the time and place that you are
flying. That way you can know when the wind direction has changed due to a
nearby thermal.
3. In a 2 servo plane how low do you allow the voltage go in a 4 cell
pack?
I will sometimes check battery voltage before I fly just to be sure that the
pack I picked up is really the one that is already charged. I never build my
batteries into the plane as so many others do. I can easily take the battery
pack out and replace it with another. So I have at least four identical
packs. I always fast charge them with a Sirius charger. Between rounds at a
contest, my plane is always on the cgarger and a spare pack is on a second
Sirius charger. If I do a lot of test flying before a contest then I'll
switch battery packs before the contest starts. During the contest, the
Sirius charger generally keeps up with my flying and the pack is peak
charged before each round.
If I do get into a long bit of practice flying such as saturday fun flying
after a big contest, then I judge battery life by time. I use my transmitter
timer for this. I always zero the timer when I start flying a freshly
charged pack so the timer tells me how much flying time is on the pack.
Since I rarely look at voltage as an indicator of pack life, I don't have
much of an idea how low the packs can go. So when I get in a situation where
I want or need to fly and I don't know the chage state of the packs, then I
am forced to make a judgement based on voltage. In that case I get worried
when the pack voltage is below 5.0 volts. That's real conservative because
I've never tested the limits of pack life based on voltage so I need to be
conservative. I can afford to be conservative though since my packs aren't
built into the plane. I can fly briefly on one pack while another pack is on
the Sirius charger. I then switch packs. Pretty soon the charger has caught
up to my battery usage and I'm OK after that.
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