Training in the wind

Today was a half-day at work.  It's a rare occasion to quit working at noon, now-a-days, so when the chance to get in a mid-day training pass, I took it.  I was a little hesitant, and actually wasted probably an hour, wondering if I dared go out, as not only the trees outside the house were blowing, but so were the lamp posts.  My wife urged me to go out anyway, saying that I might as well learn to fly in the wind (gotta love her :)  )

Sooo, down to the workshop, grabbed Little Red (including four freshly charged batteries) and up to the field.  It didn't seem to be as windy up there, but it was definitely windy.  Not sure what the mph or m/s it was, but it was ... gusty.  Surprisingly, Little Red flew quite well into the wind.  I tried to keep him below five meters or so, but there were a few times he climbed right up there.  When he did, he started to get carried away by the wind, but I managed to bring him back to an overhead hover and coax him back down to the ground.  It took expert mode a couple of times, to get that extra umph.  And of course, once I was in expert mode, why go back?  I'm getting used to the extra zip.

Speaking of which, I got some nice speed passes back and forth across the field with wide, swooping banks.  I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable with my flying.  Though of course far from expert, or even adept.  I'm still at the novice stage, despite the occasional succeeded banking pass.  And my figure eights tend to look more like figure-bowling-pins as while I get a swooping right-hand bank to work, I swing around into the left-hand side and give it too much yaw and almost spin it on its axis.  But I'm getting there.

Had a couple of mechanical issues today.  The first was my own fault as I flew in too close to the wind-breaking bushes at the edge of the field, lost orientation and chewed up a prop and tossing another.  The one that tossed flew off like a maple-seed in two subsequent flights when I made a sudden turn, so the second time if flew off I didn't bother looking too hard for it again and just replaced it.

The other mechanical issue was with batteries.  My first battery lasted around six and a half minutes.  The second went dead after three and a half (on an upside down landing), the fourth died after a minute and a half (also forward tumble) and the fourth lasted over seven minutes.  I put the second one back in and got another three minutes or so and the third went back in and gave me another few minutes.  So I think the upside down landings shorted something out and gave me a low-battery indication (flashing and no throttle).  I'll have to look into that.

All in all, a good training.  And with a little luck, I may even get a second training pass in this evening.  We'll see!