Waiting for a Horizon Hobby order to arrive

Last week I put in a little stock order at Horizon Hobby.  I order a lot of stuff from them, and after many orders I have a real good idea of how long the shipping interval is from their California Warehouse, and also the Champaign IL location. 

For the last few years it’s been my experience that orders filled from the CA warehouse get to the Bay Area in 2-3 days, tops.  If you want something for the weekend, you order by Tuesday, and you should be set for Friday.  It is important to note that this is when you use the $4.99 shipping option.

Last week, I placed an order on 3/2.  I was really surprised when I did not receive the gear by Friday, and even more surprised when the stuff from IL showed up!

I tracked the package, and noticed that the tracking had been handed over to ‘Mail Innovations’, which is a UPS spin-off.  According to the tracking, the package has been sitting in Petaluma since 3/4.  It arrived in the North Bay 2 days after I ordered it, but’s it’s been sitting since.

I phoned Horizon customer service, and I was really surprised at what I was told, verbatim by the customer service rep:

- The tracking on Mail Innovations items is ‘goofy’, and is not really useful or accurate.  This is known and understood by Horizon.

- The rep recommended that if tracking is important to you, that you should use another method like UPS.

- These Mail Innovations packages can take up to three weeks to deliver.  I asked her to repeat this three times.
When I asked her what I should do if my order did not turn up, she said I should wait another week until Monday, 3/15.

None of this is very good for the Horizon Hobby customer in California.  

We used to be able to spend $5 on shipping and get a small order out to the Bay Area in 2-3 days.

Now, we are told we should wait 2-3 weeks for the same service, and if we don’t like that we should start spending more on shipping.

I’m sure there are extenuating circumstances that caused this, but I would expect some kind of warning from Horizon either as part of the order process, or a bulletin on their website. 

Put plainly, this change, and this poor performance is not what I would have expected from a company like Horizon, especially without notification.  And, when their customer service people tell me that the solution is just to start spending 40% more on shipping, I’m tempted to start shopping around.

- Eli

Image from Horizon Hobby

I bought the micro 4-site as soon as my LHS could get one in stock.  We were locked in the middle of a long rainy period with no end in sight, and I was really looking forward to something I could use in the conference room at the office.

The model comes with the handy reusable carrying case (box), 2 of the high cap batteries, and one of the 4-port Celectra micro chargers.  These chargers are very nice, and a boon if you have lots of micros.  That said, I got one with my MsR, and I wish I had been given the option to buy the 4-site for $130, less the charger. 

Like all of the micros, setup was as easy as charging the battery, binding it to my DX6i,and going flying.  I approximated the factory settings at 30% expo and did not bother with low rates.

Charged up, and fired up, I hauled the airplane to the office, and hung signs on the doors of the conference room that said “Important Meeting!”

ROG proved to burn up too much of the available space in the conference room, but hand launch was fine.  With the battery set exactly in the middle of the Velcro strip, it wants to roll over and hover with no problems.  However, my fingers were rusty on the sticks and I could not get it to slow down enough.  I gave up before one of my wall impacts did damage.

That night, I glued the speed brakes on, and the next day I hung the signs in the conference room again.  This was much better.  You can hold the airplane just above a walking pace, and it’s very predictable.  I was amazed at how stable it was, no real wing tipping, and very smooth. 

At this point I was starting to hit my own limits as a 3D pilot, and after 2 packs and some minor damage to the nose I was ready to quit.

I’ve owned the model for a few weeks now, and I must say that I am a lot more at home in a low-wind outdoor situation than the office. I’m still not good enough to keep it in that tight, and being able to punch skyward is still an important strategy for me when I get in trouble. 

I have some buyer’s remorse.  At $169, this airplane is not cheap, and I am starting to think that the regular 4-site might have been a better choice for me.  If I had access to a gymnasium, I would probably feel different.

The solution to this?  E-Flite needs to release a version with no fancy charger and a $125-130 price point.  Also, I think that an airframe only (no electronics) version should be offered, so that one could swap the electronics from their old, battered plane to a spanky new airplane without spending the bux for the PNP version.

We beat the Winter blues with this thing, now we just need a better value in order to keep recommending it.

Horizon’s website indicates shipping late this month, although we all know how that works. The official JR site has yet to be updated at this time.

A couple new features myself and many many others really wanted to see got incorporated as well:

A backlit LCD display 

The ability to trigger the timer with the throttle. No more forgetting to start the &$%@ flight timer!

Manufacturers Advertised Price for the radio & 9-channel R921 receiver w/no servos is $549, $80 less  than the previous MAP of the X9303. Considering the R921 is worth $169 alone, it’s a good bundle.

Then again, not everyone sells for MAP – “add to cart” and you’ll see what I mean. I would imagine this reputable vendor should have the X9503 radio priced similarly.

The radio retains %100 of the legendary 9303 programming, which was introduced with the 72Mhz S/PCM XP9303. Naturally it is compatible with all Spektrum aircraft receivers.

Add. model memory, more features (and useful ones at that) @ a lower price.

Although I won’t be in a hurry to replace my X9303 with this upgraded model it will be quite tempting!

-Zeke

This is one of those iconic airplanes that everybody should have in their collection of Sport aircraft.  I bought mine from Porkeez here in Sonoma County, and instead of using all of the recommended Eflite parts I switched it up a bit. 

I used a Scorpion SII-3014, 1040kv motor instead of the recommended Power 10.  Scorpion motors have a very high quality look and feel to them, and they tend to be slightly higher performance, and less expensive than E-Flite motors in many cases.   In addition, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the NA distributor, Innov8tive Designs.  They publish a handy Motor comparison chart that makes it easy to match up their motor with another recommendation.  In addition, they publish extensive propeller data charts that are very helpful.

I coupled the Scorpion motor with a Castle Thunderbird 54, Hitec HS-65HB servos, and a JR R790 receiver.

The build was a very routine E-Flite ARF experience.  I give it high marks for fit and finish, and a few negative ones in that the hardware looks a little cheap.  Be very careful with the wing fillet.  It’s plastic that has been painted on the backside, and before the bottom wing is installed, it is prone to damage.

I used the E-flite recommended throws, which are about maximum on high rates and very close to that on low rates.  I found the thing a little twitchy on low rates with the recommended 25% expo, so I bumped the aileron travel down a few millimeters, and set the expo to 30%.  It feels better to me, set up that way.

The model rolls out fast and takes off immediately- This took me by surprise a bit on the first flight.  The light wing loading is immediately apparent, and you will see in the maiden video that I needed to use more right rudder on takeoff. 

Once up, it tracks clean and fast.  Turns look coordinated even when you do not use the rudder, and it rolls in and out of 3D with a grace that I have not experienced thus far.  Aileron rolls are fast, crisp, and clean.  The model flies as well inverted as it does right side up, almost hands off. 

Landing was pretty easy, as well.  It slows down nicely, and while it’s going to take a little practice to stop wagging the wings, it’s not a hard airplane to set down accurately. I used 1500mah out of a Turnigy 2200 in 5:30 of flight, mostly WOT. Peak draw was 46 amps on takeoff, and for most of the flight I was drawing 20-30A. The motor was cool to the touch after 5:30 of spirited flight.

In short, apply any superlative, positive term you can think of regarding the flight characteristics – I have yet to find something I don’t like about this airplane. 

BTW the snap roll feature is BRUTAL at 100% throws.  On my second flight, I hit the snap roll, and it dislodged Zeke’s Eagletree logger and smacked it against the leading edge so hard it bent the pins. (!)

Get yourself an Ultimate Biplane.  I don;t know if the E-flite/Scorpion/Hitec cocktail I brewed up is the best combination, but it sure seems to work well.

Getting to Maiden it on Christmas Day with a good friend was just the icing on the cake.

Happy Holidays,

- Eli

 I hate sending radios in for service.   I say that, even though I’m told that Horizon will do all sorts of wonderful things to your radio while it’s in their care.

So, when my DX6i turned up with a broken rudder trim tab switch, I started using sub trim instead of sending it in.  I have other radios, but that is my only DSM radio.

Last week, I tripped on East R/C.  They are out of Florida, they sell on Ebay and direct, and they have a few special parts, such as the machined aluminum trim tabs I bought from them last week.  Apparently the little plastic levers themselves are typically the part that fails, so this is a functional and cosmentic upgrade.

Actually opening up your radio is not for everybody, especially if your radio is still under warranty.  The instructions that they wrote are well illustrated/easy to follow – check it out.

Broken trim tab

I am very pleased with the result.  It gives the poor old DX6i a little bit of a nicer feel, and I plan to check out their aluminum ERC roller button upgrade!

The finished product

Here’s hoping that everybody gets something they enjoy this week.  Cheers!

- Eli

Gift from Horizon Hobby

I think I must have spent too much this year, because the mailman brought me a little Xmas gift from Horizon today. 

 It’s a nice little aluminum water bottle, came with a card and a discount code good for 20% off a single order.   Thanks Horizon! 

I contrast that to my other experiences – I’ve been trying to get a return call from somebody (anybody?) over at Hobby-Lobby for over a week now.     Their customer service has really gone to hell in the last few years, and I think I may have placed my last order with those guys.

I think it’s interesting that the hobby industry has not been hit as hard as other ‘non essential’ industries, and it’s encouraging to see companies like Horizon succeed.   I can only hope that the recession causes other, less responsive firms to either tighten up the ship or get into a different business.

Happy Holidays,

- Eli

Firstoff, Gopro:  We really need the proposed upcoming firmware patch that will flip the video right side up in the camera without needing to use editing software.  I end up flipping it in Premiere Elements, which is time consuming.

The non-waterproof door is ideal for RC use.  You can hear plenty of detail when the motor is not running, and also wonderful wind and servo noises if that’s the kind of thing you like.  Everybody I talk to says they prefer music, but I can see some utility for having accurate sound reproduction, especially from a glider.

Here is my latest attempt at a short (~7 minute) film.  I took it from the same brushless Aspire as I did the last video, and I really tried to use only the sections of footage that I thought were interesting.  There are plenty of air/air shots of the other planes at the field, and what I think is some of the best bits from ~25 minutes of footage.

We also had a chance to play with the still camera mode, and this turned out very nice.  I will comment that it looks a little grainy under certain circumstances, but I also didn’t take any pains to adjust the camera for the ambient settings.  First time.

5MP still image from Gopro HD Hero

 The wide angle is extreme, and it does look cool for a lot of stuff.  At this price point, I’d love to see a camera of this quality that had interchangeable lenses. 

It handles difficult conditions well – the sun is a nightmare in this shot:

5MP still image from Gopro HD Hero

Next I’ll try some more exotic locations.

I’ll continue to experiment as my time and hardware permits. 

Also worth checking out – a gent named Mario Schimanko wrote me last week, he’s got a Hero and has been doing some FABULOUS work on Vimeo.  Check it out!

- Eli

I pre-ordered my Gopro HD Helmet Hero the first week of October, after yet another day of disappointment at the field with my Flycamone2. 

Well, my unit turned up today on Fedex, and I regret that I pretty much trashed the box taking it apart.  It’s got cool-looking packaging. 
*More on the packaging later!

I’d been looking forward to this day for some time.  Last week, I was in contact with the Support group at Gopro, and they are effective and nice.  The company is located in Half Moon Bay, very close to where I live.

The instructions consist of a non-assuming large folded sheet of glossy paper.  There is a surprising amount of information on this large form, and you can fold it up & fit it in your pocket without trashing it. 
The instructions state that the battery comes with a storage charge of 50%, and that you can just go out and play if you like without hurting the battery,  I like the fact that they thought of this.  I was a good boy and charged the battery anyway.

I had a litle bit of a dilemma deciding where to mount the camera on my Aspire.  The package came with a pair of nice sticky mounts for the camera, but I was nervous about just sticking this to the monokote.  With the sun settling in the winter afternoon sky, I had an idea – use the ’shoe’ for the camera that came with the packaging as a mount! 
I quickly knocked the sides off with a hacksaw, drilled a couple of holes, backed the bolts up with some plywood to reinforce the weak balsa floor and called it good:

Now, in retrospect I realize that this mount could use some improvement.  First of all, I need better foam dampening between the mount and the body of the airplane.  Also, I think the packaging ’shoe’ fits more loosely than the real thing, so this mount is definitely a 1.0 revision.  In the video I hear something rattling, and I think it’s some combination of these problems causing the noise.

The camera has a number of modes, the nuances of which are discussed in the instructions.  I wanted the glories of full-blown 1080p, though I ended up scaling that back down to 720p in Premiere later to reduce the size of the file I’d be uploading to Vimeo.  When I got home and read  the docs again I realized that I made an error – the camera has a nifty feature that allows you to tell it that it is inverted. 
That way, it records the video on the SD in the correct orientation! 

A note on noise:  When inside the housing, this camera lives up to it’s claim of fending off wind noise.  It has an amusing legend on the back of the unit, that advises the use of the waterproof case door if the wind encountered is expected to be faster than 100mph

I decided to buy Adobe Premiere Elements as an editing tool – I’ve been using good old Windows Movie Maker for a long time.  Most of my evening was spent purchasing, downloading, and getting to know the product.  Overall, I’d rate the Adobe online fulfillment experience as ‘deeply annoying’, but we got the job done.

I need to experiment with some mount options to see what I can do about the noise of the motor resonating through the airplane, and I am planning to be very careful about where I fly until I get a larger glider.   In it’s protective housing this camera weighs darn near 6.5oz, and the case is a blessing.  It adds an ounce and a bit more to the overall weight, but it’s one tough cookie and you would be insane to use this camera for RC stuff without it.

The camera was easy to use, and I’m very happy with the results.   Considering that I was flying in the poor light of a Winter sunset, had a quickly rigged mount plus lousy Premiere editing skills, this product is a miracle.

Update 11/19/2009 – I put the camera on my Ultra 25 in better light, better mount, and with the sub-100mph door.  The results are much bettter. 

.. Now it’s time to improve my skills at video editing, for a start!

Lid popped

After enjoying the E-Flite RV-9, I decided to get something similar yet larger. I just picked up the Hangar 9 RV-8 46. It’s a clean looking rendition of the Vans Aircraft RV-8. This is my first ARF from Hangar 9 and with a wingspan of 5ft. and a length of over 4ft. it will be the largest in my fleet at this time. It’s designed for 2 or 4 stroke slimers or a Power 46 / equivelant EP motor. After unpacking it and checking the contents I was quite happy as everything is mint. All the fragiles are individually wrapped and secured. The covering is excellent, better than I have ever seen from E-Flite out of the box. No warps, wrinkles, bubbles, or tears. The manual is well-written and logical. Hangar 9 got it right on this aspect.

I will be using mostly the recommended gear, though I’m not a fan of E-Flite ESC’s. Here is my config:

E-Flite Power 46
Castle Phoenix 60 ESC and CC-BEC
6x JR DS821 high-torque digital sport servos driven @ 6V, 2x for Flaps
JR R921 RX with 4th. receiver
4s lipo – likely 2x 2500 mAh 30C’s in parallel
I’ll start with an APC 13 x 8 prop

Will be flown with JR X9303 so should have 2048 resolution w/the R921. Also ServoSync. I bench tested everything and was surprised at how smooth and accurate the servos are as well as the torque and holding strength. They are standard size, yet light. I will be using 7 channels on the RX as I prefer a channel per aileron and flap – no “Y” harness. This gets you subtrim and the ability to configure differential. For this setup you will need 2x 6″ extensions for the ailerons.

The Du-Bro 2.75″ white spinner is recommended. You will want this, catalog # 290.

The hardware kit is complete and includes proper components. This was meant to be either a slimer or an EP so the hardware is sturdy. Some may prefer to swap out the nylon clevis(s) with metal hardware.

All control surfaces are pre-hinged with control horns attached. The rudder employs a pull-pull linkage via cable. The elevator is dual halves and the horizontal stab halves mate together with the fuse via 2 joiner tubes.

There is a ton of room inside the hatch, making easy work of servo, linkage, and radio / lipo installation. Eases cable tidy-up as well.

The hatch has magnets holding it in place and you can also bolt it in from both sides.

Electronics

Bits

Fuse / Hatch

The tail halves

The 2-piece landing gear. Boo!

Radio gear pre tidy-up

Elev. and Rudd. servos installed

The rudder and elevator servo installation is easy, place the servo in the tray, mark inside the grommets with a pen, then use a pin drill to make pilot holes. Wick thin CA over the surrounding wood and when it cures bolt your servos in. The JR DS821 servos fit perfectly in the servo tray.

Careful when cutting out the exit!

Horizontal stab prior to joining to fuse

Tail mated to fuse

You will want to use low-tack tape to hold it in place while you gently apply pressure or lightly clamp until the epoxy sets.

Canopy installed & curing

The canopy is another task which requires patience & skill. You have to cut it out of a giant mold without damaging it. Canopy scissors would be the clear choice however I don’t own a pair so I used Fiskars. Cut all the way around within .5″ of the mold lines. Then trimmed up with a razor knife and hand sanded. Ya! Use canopy glue to secure it to the hatch and keep an eye out to wipe up any drips.

The instructions for the cowl are complete shennanigans. They say to use a hobby knife to cut out the air inlets. Good luck. You will need a rotary tool with a drill bit to get going then an attachment to route it out. I finished it up with a sanding drum on the rotary tool.

Finished cowl

Motor mount template

The included motor mount template makes it easy. Tape it up, mark the holes, pin drill them out then BAM. Enlarge the holes to about 4.5mm to allow for the mounting bolts. Das Schroeder!

The Power 46 X-mount included also needs to have the outer mounting holes drilled out to about 4.5mm and the bolts and included spacers keep it all together.

Power 46 mounted

The cooling vents need to be cut out from the firewall – this is a pain because the firewall is coated in adhesive to prevent fuel damage. I used a rotary tool to punch through and route out the cooling vents.

Once that is complete,  it’s a simple matter of connecting the motor to the ESC, and mounting the ESC with the leads out of the way.

The cowl bolts right up easily. The prop adapter & spinner backplate is installed along with a prop, then the spinner hub is attached.

Left-side

Right hand side

I used wire keeps and double-sided foam tape to tidy up the electronics as best as possible. This setup has 11 leads coming off the RX due to the satellite receivers and FlightLog interface!

All in all, I think Hangar 9 did a fine job with this ARF. They included silly foam wheels, which is crap for something this size. A few dollars to replace with something nice though. The motor mount template is brilliant, saving wasted and potentially inaccurate work.  The finish is high-quality and clean, very true to the full-size RV-8. I did not find any potential gotchas with the manual, it is well-written.

Overall, I’d have to rate this ARF high up on the scale. I look forward to building more Hangar 9 ARF’s in the future.

-Zeke