Episode 74: Preflight

Welcome to another episode of Schizo Podcast. I'm Steve, and here with me is Frank. Frank, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Oh, there you are. Okay. And Darren. How's it going, eh? All right, good. Nice and quick. Don't want to wait too long. I might think you're not there anymore. How can you tell we haven't done this in a few weeks? Well, I mean, you've got to give it up for Frank. He's doing it off his phone in a power outage currently in Florida.

So we can't accuse Frank of not being dedicated. Frank is very dedicated this week to go and come on the show for us. So we appreciate it, Frank. Yes. So let's make it quick. Yeah, let's make it quick because his battery might not last too long. Yeah, exactly. No, no, guys, don't worry about it. I'm at 69%. Like my WC number 69. Nice.

Awesome. All right. This is episode 74. Pre-flight. Pre-flight. Yeah. Special meaning behind it. Not many people. I don't know. I don't know the meaning behind it either. So you guys are going to have to explain this to me yet. So.

Yeah, let's get through everybody's updates and everything. Sure, we'll do that. Sounds good. Alright, so who wants to go first then? Well, I don't have much. I don't have much. I have been flying, been doing some tuning, just trying to go and, and just, you know, work on flying and tuning and flying and tuning and just have some fun. Doing the Javier.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Flying and tuning, flying and tuning. You can tune yourself into being a world champion. No, basically what I'm doing is maybe my first one or two flights of the day, I'll go and tune one helicopter. And then I'm just going to just go fly. And just, you know, spend the rest of the day just flying both helicopters. And I'm only doing one helicopter right now. I'm working on the logo.

Okay. Partially because of all the frustrations that I had earlier this year. Yeah. But you got it all worked out, right? So it's flying good now? Yeah, it's flying really good now. Flying really good. And I'm just sort of fiddling with it. I want to, you know, I... kind of touched on it last time, last episode, but I'm seriously thinking about maybe switching to, uh, buying a, an Evo and switching to V8. Um, at least on one helicopter. Yeah.

Problem is all my stuff is Neos, right? So I have to buy a Neos then. I'm in that same boat. Yep. Yeah. So I'm considering it. We'll see. I still haven't made up my mind because to be honest, as expensive as it's going to be. I am really, really seriously interested in the Trinity. I really am. Yeah. And given, you know, what Nick has said and with it and how easy he wants to try and make it set up and tune and fly, man, I really am tempted by it. I really am. So I don't know. We'll see.

At this point, I'm, you know, at this point, my helis are flying good too, right? So, but part of it for me with this too, it's not like a Javier thing for me. It was more, I do believe that as our flying improves. our tuning also needs to improve. And I honestly have not tuned my helicopters a whole lot in the last few years. I've been very close to.

stock tuning and just sort of left it and flow you know or flown with it you know just because i'm also a believer in you know fly what you got and just have fun with it even if it isn't the greatest And, you know, do the best you can with what you got kind of a thing, right? Yeah, make it work. Yeah. And so...

I figured, you know what, I need to go and work on my tuning and just try and do a little bit better. So I've only been working on just with the logo, you know, partly because I was having all those other issues previously, but. It's also, it's a helicopter I've had for several years. It's a helicopter I know very well. And so I figured I'm going to go and just play around with the tuning just on that helicopter. That's it. And it's not, you know, it's more for me to try and learn.

how you know how to get myself better at tuning not so much to try and you know get that helix connected as possible and all that kind of thing it's more just about me trying to learn to be a better at better at tuning my own helicopters really And yeah, so I'm just been experimenting and trying things and playing around with it and whatnot. And yeah, uh, it's been, that's about it. You know, I'm getting out almost every weekend, although.

I have been a little bit frustrated with a lot of my heli friends because most of them are all retired now and I'm not. And so they come out several times during the week and then they don't want to come out on the weekends, which is the only time that I can go. So I'm going by myself all the time, which does get a little bit, uh. boring after a while. That's for sure. It's nice to go out with your friends, right? So, but otherwise it's been good. And I don't know a quick.

Here's a question. Do you guys fly the weekend before fun fly? I do. I'll have to. Yeah. Yeah. I do too. So I actually, I'm getting prepared this coming. in well in four days three days is the western canada rc heli fun fly if there's ever any sort of Western Canadian fun fly to go to. This was probably the good one. It's in my hometown of Kamloops. In your hometown too, that's awesome. Yep, yep. And it's, this year is actually the 10th anniversary of the fun fly. Oh, very nice.

So they, yeah, so I am actually, this will probably be my only Canadian fun fly of the year, most likely. All of fun flies here in Western Canada, especially have died off. Nobody's doing them anymore. And not only that, from what I hear, fun fly tendons here in Canada is way down, way down by quite a bit for most fun. I mean, you guys just have some crazy laws about flying.

Yeah. Is that all done now or? No. Well, I mean, yes and no. I think Mac thinks it's all done, but nothing's improved. Everything's, you know, just as bad as it's always been. So garbage. Yeah. So I think that's a big reason why Funfly attendance is down. Yeah. I bet there'll be more Canadian folks at Urchin than that event. Unfortunately, I'll be devil's advocate and say that.

Um, yeah, so I'm going to the, that fun fly this weekend. And then I think it's in two weeks. It's like the week after Urcha is the Snohomish fun fly. So I'm hoping to go to that as well. And, no, three weeks. Two weeks. I don't remember. Would that be like around the same time as Helix? No. It's the weekend before Helix. Ah, okay.

Yeah, it's the weekend before Heli-X. That's kind of local for you too, right? Isn't it like an hour or so? Yeah, it's only about an hour away. But the border, right? You have to go through the border. Yeah, yeah. I haven't, from what I've been told actually, my...

My roommate who was on the show, Douglas, he's crossed the border a number of times this year. And he says right now with all the political stuff, he says, these have been the easiest border crossings he's ever done. So, which is kind of funny. So yeah, um, I'm probably going to be going down to Snohomish and doing that fun fly as well, most likely before our next recording. And, uh.

Yeah. And then actually that's going to be the start of a two week trip and I'm going to be driving, uh, all the way across Western Canada, all the way out to the province of Saskatchewan, but that'll be a non-heli trip. Unfortunately, it's going to be, uh. I'm having a reunion with a bunch of old friends that I haven't seen in about 20 years. And yeah, it should be a lot of fun. It should be a lot of fun. And we're going out to a cabin. Bring your little.

Probably could bring one of my small ones, and I have considered it. We'll see. I'm going to be bringing an awful lot of stuff already. But yeah, the Oxys would fit, like I have one, a case that I could fit everything into. So I have thought about it. I might do it yet. We'll see. We'll see. I haven't decided yet. 100%. So. Cool. And that's really a.

About it that I can think of, I really haven't done a whole lot. I mean, I've been flying, so it's not that I haven't done anything. It's just I haven't done anything really super exciting and anything else. I flew actually both Saturday and Sunday last week, which is highly unusual. Nice. How many fights did you get? What did I get? Only two on Sunday because Sunday.

Uh, we did a whole whack of maintenance at the field too, and did a bunch of grass cutting and all that stuff. Nice. But on Saturday, what did I get six flights in or something like that, which for me is pretty good.

So it actually did some, did some buddy boxing with a potential new pilot too. I have a T-Rex 550 that I bought specifically for buddy boxing people. And, uh, so I had a. new guy come out and gave him two flights on the t-rex 550 of his first ever flights and he did actually really really well he was probably one of the best first time pilots i've ever buddy boxed before so yeah

And yeah, that's about it for me anyways. Nice. Yeah. How about you, Steve? All right. Well, I haven't been up to that much, I guess. Just my usual flying every Sunday and trying to get as many flights in as possible. More recently, though, I did host a little... fly-in, I guess, at my club. It's like a single day event that I did this past, not this past Saturday, but Saturday before. Oh, cool.

Yeah, it was cool. We had about 20 semi-polots come out, a bunch of helicopter and airplane folks. It was hot. It was called the Mid-VA. summer heat wave and it really was it was it felt like it was like 120 degrees but um it was nice uh we got you know we had the club my club you know cooked lunch and uh yeah we did a bunch of flying

It did rain at, like, around, like, 7 o'clock, but, like, I don't know, most of the folks started heading out around that time anyway, so it wasn't too bad. But, yeah, it was fun. It was fun. I, you know, personally got... chance to do quite a bit of flights that day, even though it was hot. And I think because people were kind of like, it was hot and they didn't want to push it. Yeah, it kind of freed up the runway for me to have some fun too.

Cool. Yeah. Beyond that... So that event was for airplanes as well as helicopters? Yeah, it was just an open event for helis and airplanes. So we had a mixed crowd. There was some... Folks with some 30 percenters and some airplanes as well as me and a bunch of folks like Tanner and Victor came up from North Carolina, from RCHO up. Oh, cool. Just nice.

Yeah. Lamont came down. It was just, you know, it was a bunch of heli folks that we like normally fly around like John and Tony. So it was good. It worked out pretty well. Yeah, what else? Besides that, I've just been flying, you know, like I said, my weekends, trying to progress, trying to get better, you know, taking some videos when I can. Yeah, kind of getting ready for Urcha now.

I think that's going to be a bit of a topic today. But yeah. Cool. Get ready for that event. That should be good. How about you, Frank? What you got going on for yourself? Oh, so. Not really much fun the last two weeks. Just stupid amount of work. I've taken on a lot of stuff this year at work because I'm really working on that principal position. That partner position? What?

No partner yet. Yeah. I'm not, I don't have the, the buy-in to be partner yet, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I definitely want to make principle. And plus I got to be honest. I have a lot of people who make as much as I do that are much senior than me. And I'm really making a point this year to show them who daddy is in that office. Nice. So far, so far, I'm doing it. So far, I'm doing it. So that's just been what has been going on. You know, I've been.

Been thinking about building something new. I have a few kits here at the house. I don't know what to go first. I have to order some stuff that I'll probably get at Urcha. And it's the new three-blade. pad and tail oh yeah oh yeah and a few uh the new motor mount you know and that's just not a pitch on excel power everybody so i know i'm usually good about that but i want it

That I want to do. I want to build the three blade this year. Nice. I'm also trying to think if I should build the race, which is a 760. But who makes 750 blades anymore? There are not every season like regular. SAB makes 747s. Ooh, I might have to check that out. In a color, you know, like the different colors and stuff. I don't know if they have anything but orange right now, but they have it in orange at least.

I think I might have to check it out. That was my reason. Because the Rotor Techs, I think they're 760s, aren't they? Yeah, that should work, though. That would work. I've also thought about making the Ray a three-blade. That would be really cool. They didn't run like 715s. No, 770s or something. Oh my goodness, that would be huge. You should go a little bit smaller when you go 3-play. Like 720s would probably be cool.

You know, I usually run about 2,000. 2,000 is my consistent on all my 700s, right? I could probably run that at like 1,700. 2,000 sounds like screaming for me when I fly 2,000. I know it's not, but to me it feels like a screamer. What the hell has happened? Remember when we used to fly our competition? All head speed. All head speed.

If it was a hobby wing, you set that fucker like 95. Yeah, 90% at least. What hefty is it? I don't know. It's good enough. Is that right? I don't know. $2,300? Whatever. It sounded like it was going to blow up. It was humming all the time. I remember the ESC, we were like, oh, the ESC has a red. I was like, yeah, 10%. I'm like, but yeah, dude, so.

So I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about having another plane like a 92 inch or something and just doing it all electric on 12S. I don't know. I got some... Closet Planker, Tennessee. I still make a lot of fun of them. I'm building a Balsa kit right now. Wait, Steve, are you? Yeah. Like literally sticks. It's like an F-117. It looks like a stealth bomber. But it's all literally sticks. Wow. Yeah, it's stupid.

It's probably not going to fly. I like building, you know? So it's me gluing shit together. So, yeah. Build it and then sell it. I don't even think it's going to fly. I'm terrible at covering things, so it's going to look stupid. I'm like, what color covering do I have? Oh, yellow. Okay. Let's start.

You know? Dude, almost exactly. I have yellow, black, and white. Yeah, I just have yellow. So I got to get black. I want to get white and red and just, you know, make it three color, like whatever. It'll be fun. I have a much bigger color selection than that, but I don't have enough for a single wing on any of my colors. Oh, no? No. Oh, so you just have like pieces for repairs. Yep. That's all I have. Yep, exactly. Oh, and I've actually never stick built. Go on. Go ahead, Frank. Yeah.

I attempted to stick build, and it's still on the table downstairs in my family room on a piece of drywall with pens and drying for the last four years. So eventually I'll get back. The sticks would be all moaty. Yeah. The one's all warpy inside. Yeah. But yeah, so that...

Those are kind of the things I've been looking at. I've been looking at getting into tall scale racing. Oh. You guys have probably seen him on my Facebook, my buddy Sammy, right? Yeah, Sammy. Sammy Gotts. Yeah, I call him Stu Gotts. Stu Gotts. He loves that, by the way. Nice. No, he laughed at it. He's the one who told me about it. So he's been doing 12-scale racing, and it's pretty intense, and I see the guys doing it, and it seems kind of fun. But I know how I am, and I'm going to go...

nerd out to the 10th power on this. So I'm really trying to hold off because I've been trying to think about doing other things outside of just helis and playing anything RC related like just actually getting something else. I was going to go check out a gun range. I've only shot two guns in my life and I'll tell you who they were. Next time you come to Virginia, I'll take you to the range. You can shoot all the guns that I have. I would love to do that.

I would love to do that. Dude, I am so down, dude. I got handguns. I got silencers. I got ARs and all that fun stuff. Oh, that's awesome, dude. So I've been thinking about that. I still love this hobby and I still love everything about it. I feel like all the time that I spend on it sometimes takes the fun away from me because I don't get excited about these things anymore because I already know what's going to happen.

I know that if I go out and fly and I'm probably going to get a good solid four to six flights and then I'm going to go have a beer or drink or go get some chicken wings like I do every every Sunday. So I'm like. So I'm like, I want to change the routine a bit, you know, and I'm thinking about it. And, you know, with Janet's going back to work on weekends, I only got Sunday to fly, right?

So I'm like, okay, well, maybe hit the road. Go up to Sebring and hang out with Kerpa and Serge. Those guys always make for a fun time. Or head over to Del Rey, hang out with John. Mike, you know, that always makes for a fun time or go up just like an hour, like not even an hour, 45 minutes north to Markham and hang out with some of those guys. So, but I like the guys that I fly with. So it's like, I just got to see, I got to experience the hobby differently.

So that's kind of what I'm working on. And that was kind of one of the things where I wanted to do that big 700. I was like, maybe I should do some F3C. I will literally be making fun of myself for the next year or so. But hey, it'll be something different. Maybe you can enjoy that. Plus, I want to beat Angel. Yeah. Well, if you can compete with Angel. If you could just like...

Just do any of that stuff. It'll make your flying much better too. Yeah. It'll help you with the orientation and all of that stuff. No, that's for sure. That is for sure. Yeah, that would help. And it's not like I'm... I just find it's not the end goal for me anymore. Having fun, hanging out with people, getting to test new things, that's been a lot of fun for me.

You know, now that I got the V8 and I got some Evos, I think my time with Rotor Flight might be coming to an end. Oh! Wait, you were messing with Rotor Flight? Dude, I've been flying it predominantly this year. Oh, yeah? I've probably only flown my Nimbus Nitro maybe three flights.

this year, and that's the only... No, that one and number 69 are the only ones that are on... No, I have a bunch of other ones, but those two are the ones that are predominantly fly that are on B-Control. Well, that's a good way for Nitro to be, only fly about three flights.

Dude, it's just been hot this year and I know that these things just wear out, right? Plus, you know, plus I just don't like to, I don't want to take apart the motor and repair and stuff like that. I need to get a really good deal on it. I'll see if he'll buy it from me. and blow it up. I got to catch it on fire or something. Steve really appreciates those. There you go. It needs a story. It needs a story. You know that motor's dead though, right? That motor died.

that's the one that broke the crank on it oh shit yeah I broke the crank yeah I mean I have the case the case is still good but yeah like I broke the crank and I never replaced it yet so yeah Right now it's dead. It's all good. So there's that. And I do attend a lot of events. So I've been enjoying it. Like this year I went to. Nice to hang out. I think.

How many do I got to do for Theta? What's the contract say? How many events do we have to do for Theta? I think it's three. Two to three would be nice. I have three. I think so far, it's not counting the event module for the rest of the year. I'm already at seven for the year. So Excel is covered. Maniacs is covered. Data is covered twice as much as yours.

doesn't put an amount of events, so you have to do a year. And Maniacs, yeah, they're about six, just like XL. So yeah, so I'm done for the year. But I did go to a lot of events, and I had a lot of fun. But it's also that weird time of the year between like during the summer in Florida, which there's not many events and Urcha. So it's just.

Uh-oh. I think we lost Frank. Did we lose you? No, he just muted himself or something. No, no, no. I'm sorry. I had the speaker go off. Ah. So, that being the case is... I, you know, I've just been through a lot of events here and I'm just, I'm going through that lull what happens right between like the last, right before summer event and then Urcha. So, hopefully in 10 days I'll be...

I'll be showing up to her chest like one in the morning Friday when I arrive. Cool. You're flying? Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I'm excited about that.

Do we want to talk about Urchin now or do you want to? Let's do it. Let's talk about Urchin now. Let's have that. So what's your plans? What's your plans, Frank? So first of all, Darren, you're not going to be making it this year, right? Unfortunately, no. just too expensive. I was actually just looking here. We were talking before the show was about to drive. It's according to Google maps, it's 35 straight hours.

of driving if I was to drive 40 hours that means you can do it in like 4 days yeah so to drive is just unreasonable and you know It cost me a lot of money to do that trip to Urcha. And so that's not something I'm going to be able to do all on a regular basis, which is too expensive. You same with Helix last year too. You know, Helix was a little bit cheaper because.

I got the RV on site, so it was definitely cheaper, but it still is, it's an expensive venture for me to go all the way out that far. I mean, yeah, you're talking about, you're spending like... five to seven grand on these trips, right? Like these bigger trips, you know, they're each other. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So, and, uh, so unfortunately I'm not going to go and I'm going to have to live vicariously through you guys.

I'll try to take some videos and go live if I can. We'll pepper you some videos from that. Sounds good. Make sure you tag me too because I don't always see it otherwise. Okay. Wait, you don't follow? You don't have the notifications or whatever that stuff? Well, I don't even have Facebook Messenger on my phone and I don't even actually have used the Facebook app on my phone either. Oh, yeah.

Darren, you have so much discipline, my dude. I hate Facebook. I don't hate it as much as Javier does, but I do hate Facebook. The thing is, you know, I am willing to deal with it simply because it helps me to keep in touch with all you guys kind of thing. Right. And so that's why I'm willing to deal with it. But otherwise, yeah, I don't actually like it. Interesting.

I get more advertisements on my Facebook feed than I get anything from anybody. Dude, I've been digging a lot of that lately. You go blind through that. I mean, I go... What is it? I just unfollow a lot of things. Yeah. I've been unfollowing as much as I can too. So anyways, back to Urcha. So yeah, you guys are going to have to talk about how much fun you're going to have and make me jealous. Yeah, I can't wait.

So what's your plans, Frank? When are you going to get there? You're flying in, I'm guessing, right? Yeah, so I'm flying into Indianapolis around 11.15 or so between getting my bags, getting checked out. 11.15 what day? Thursday night Thursday okay so yeah it was one of the few flights that I could make it because I thought about leaving Wednesday but the flight that I wanted didn't go didn't have first class seats so I was like screw that right

And the price for the Thursday night flight looked like $300 cheaper than any other flight with first class fee. So I was like, okay, I'm taking that shot. Oh, nice. I can't. No, no, no. I'm sorry. i don't i don't drive a nice i don't have a super nice car and i barely ever wear my rolex so i'll splurge on flights i just can't i can't i'm too big dude i'm just yeah and when i was a really really big guy i did not

I couldn't do it at all. I just refused to. Yeah. So I know that feeling only too well. I mean, I'm similar. I'm probably, I think I'm same height as you pretty close and whatnot. And it was, yeah, it's fitting in a regular seat. Like it doesn't work yet. I had to go.

do like a first class or something like that too, just for the legroom. Yeah. And it's not even, cause I didn't never get, I never usually liked the airplane food or anything like that. I just like that. I get the bigger seat. I don't feel like I'm. I'm not touching the person next to me. Yeah. Which just feels weird to me sometimes. Yeah. Not so bad if it's your wife, but if it's a stranger.

Yeah, it's not bad for his family or friends, but if it's a stranger, you're like, eh. Yeah. And I thought about getting the tooth, because I've also gotten the side-by-side teeth. But I was just like, no, I'll just get this. I've been doing that for the last three or four years. So yeah, I get there, pick up a car.

By the time I get to Monty, I'll be like 1 in the morning. I'll get there just to see some lifeline. Oh, I'll be fine. I'll be around. I'll come get you, don't worry. Yeah, we'll meet up. Yeah, I'm staying with Ringo and...

and Weatherly. Okay. Nice. So, I'm looking forward to that, man. I'm looking forward to seeing Raw. Raw's going to be in at this year's event. Oh, nice. Yeah, Khan, Kenny, and MCK are all going to be there. MCK is going to be there. Oh, dude. Oh, man. I am looking forward to that virtue cup so badly. That's for class, right? Uh-huh. I am so...

Oh, so the guys that, what's the class before that? The master class? There's expert and then there's master class, right? So you're talking about those guys are master class, of course. Yeah, master class is going to be out of this world. Yeah, even expert is going to be fun.

Dude, so expert, you know, and I have a few of my guys on doing expert, right? And as a good team manager, I'm being very honest and blunt with them. So prepare them mentally. And I'm like, so these are the three guys you have to. significantly worry about. And I'm like, name them Dima, Kerry, and Patrick. And Patrick. If I had to put money on it, Patrick went the whole thing. I think Patrick, yeah.

Yeah, Patrick Winston. I don't know, Kerry Brooks is close, I think. Yes, Kerry Brooks is very close, right? And there's guys like Alex, Alex Dean. He can throw down. He has some stops him. You know, and one of the guys that was on the team, Jeremy Strickland, you remember him? Oh, yeah, yeah, Jeremy, yeah. Jeremy can throw down, dude. I had to sweet talk him to join the team, dude.

I put more time on him than I think I put on my wife when I was trying to... Trying to court your wife? That's funny. No, but he's awesome. And he just brought me another person that I'm really happy about. But he won't be there. But now I got the two guys in the West Coast, Aiden and Miles. Oh, Miles Matters. Yeah. And I am super stoked. Miles can fly, dude. Yeah, he can fly pretty good, yeah. Yeah, he was actually the first guy I was able...

Actually, Ethan. His name is Ethan, not Ethan. I keep thinking on another team. Ethan. Young kid, dude. Like 16 years old. When we first asked him to be on the team, oh man, he got the riot act. he kind of caught me on a bad day and I was like, and, but he answered all the questions correctly. He seemed excited. He sent me a bunch of videos and then he kind of chased me a little bit. So I was like, all right, you're in, you're in, you know, go home.

Him and Miles are on the West Coast. I think Miles is very competitive, and he can hang with those guys. But, dude, Patrick is just so goddamn good, dude. I've seen Patrick fly. for like the last six or seven years and i think he's so underrated just because he doesn't he's not like a social media or yeah or he doesn't really put it to adventure but neither is carrie but i've seen carrie fly so much i still think that he's

Every time he does a video, it's a really good flight. I know that he puts the effort in. I like him to do it. Dima's another one that just puts 100 flights at any event. I always see him at the... Flatline. Granted, I would like all of them to lose really badly and for my guys to win. Just saying. I'm very honest with them.

And then on the Excel side, I'd say, hey, guys, can we just go one through five? Just take the whole first five. I don't care who gets as long as one of you guys. You're talking about on the master class? On the master class, yeah. Because we help. Like I say, oh, I forgot Carl. Carl from Germany. So all together, we got five in the master's class. Yeah. I think the master's class stacked on the XL helicopter. Yeah, you're not kidding. For sure. But, you know.

And secretly, you know, he's a club mate of mine, and I've seen this kid grow up in front of me, Andre. Andre, yeah, Van. Yeah, Van Grieken. Yeah. Van Grieken, yes. Yeah, yeah. I've seen that kid grow up in front of me, dude. I've known him and his dad. He's good. He's a very aggressive flight. He's so meticulous, dude. He's fucking... The best way I can describe them, it's almost like a surgical sniper. That's the best way I can explain them. Just that direct, that consistent. If...

It's funny to see sometimes because he really like homes in into the problem and until he resolves it, that's all he thinks about. Yeah, it's crazy, but I can definitely give him credit on his progression and how well he's done. Is he competing? In the masterclass? Oh, he's in the masterclass. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And, you know, I probably shouldn't say this, but fuck it. He's borrowing my golf case right now because he's over at Nick's practicing. Nice. I can really respect him for that. You know, there's a certain level of dedication. that you're willing to plug to something to get that fun. You know? So, there goes that. So, other than that,

Just seeing the Heli family, man, that's the one thing. That's the one thing. Fetching up with everyone would be great. Yeah, yeah, that's going to be a big one, you know? And, you know, just... hanging out, man. I definitely need a fun flight trip. Yeah. You know, I missed last year, so it kind of sucked that I missed last year, so I'm very excited. I'm double stoked.

For sure, man. For sure. That's going to be awesome. And... I don't know. What else? What else? I might pick up some new goodies while I'm there, so... Who knows? Who knows? I'm going to get some goodies fixed. I'll go into that. Cool, man. Well, you guys are probably both going to be pretty busy at the monitoring the different booths as well, I would think, aren't you? Yeah.

Yeah. Most likely. I know I'll probably, so I guess, I guess I'll go into some of my stuff. So I'm going to actually be driving up to Rocha. and I'm going to be calling the camper with my kids, so that's going to be fun. Whole family's coming this year. Nice. Yeah. It's like a 10-hour drive, so I plan on basically being a 12-hour drive. So I'm going to actually try to split it up into two days just to make it easier so that way I can get there at a more reasonable time.

Originally, I was going to just do Wednesday. Like, you know, leave Wednesday morning and get there sometime at night. But I don't know. I'm off work at like whatever. Any time in the afternoon, basically. Probably around, I don't know, Tuesday, I could probably leave at 3 or 4 o'clock, log off of work. I'll probably just leave then, and then...

get majority of the drive or at least like six hours or seven hours into the drive and then camp out at a, you know, like a rest area or something. And then... finish the drive in the morning, which I should probably be able to get there by, you know, early afternoon kind of time, which would be awesome for, to be up there Wednesday early afternoon. So that way I can.

Kind of help out because traditionally, SAB would kind of co-sponsor with BK or BK would sponsor and then, you know, kind of bring the SAB USA type of. But this year, SMB is actually sponsoring the event. So we're going to have a little tent area. So I'm not sure who else from SMB's besides like the... U S pilots are coming, but I know Simone was coming from Germany. Um, and I think it's a couple of other folks, but yeah. And I think this is Simone's first, isn't it?

I believe so, yeah. Yeah, that should be pretty cool. Yeah. So I'm excited about that. We also have that... I guess, what is it called? The Heli Hanger? Yeah. It's like the, I don't know, it's like a couple of podcasts and a couple of, and Fly Right RC, basically. Did a little sponsor booth area, so I'll probably be there a little bit, too. I'm going to crash into that. I'm going to show up. Of course, of course. It would have been nice if we were more organized.

Yeah, yeah. I'll take the blame for that. Andy and Timo hit me up about it, and then I did message you guys about it, but I just got light. Life got busy, and I didn't notice you guys replied, saying that you would do it. And then when we agreed to do it, I went back to Andy and was like, oh, yeah, that shit went to print yesterday. So I was like, oh, I guess we can't get in on it. Oh, wow. It is what it is. Yeah. We'll try harder for next time. You know...

Well, we almost need to talk about this offline, but we almost need like a social media manager or something for our podcast. Yeah. Somebody who can do something like that and keep us organized better. We should have time to have you. No, he would do a terrible job at it. No. We need somebody who is willing to be on Facebook.

Yeah, you have to be on Facebook. That's kind of where things are right now. Yeah, exactly. For helicopters, anyways. But yeah, I'm excited about this year's RCA. I'm excited about the Urchica. I think that's going to be fun. I think it's going to be great to have my kids there this time. I'm bringing a camper. We have an RV spot. I'm not going to worry about AC or anything. I got a golf cart rental.

going you know i am still bringing my one wheel because i have a feeling my kids are going to steal the golf cart from me yeah yeah i think so so i'll probably be on the one wheel which is my personal golf cart you know the reason why i bought my one wheel is It was for that year that we knew that we were going to have golf carts. It actually worked out really well. I did have to charge a couple times a day because that's how much I rode it, which was pretty interesting. But yeah, I can't wait.

So hopefully get there Wednesday afternoon. And then Sunday, when I leave, I'm going to just drive straight back. So that's going to be a haul. That's going to suck. Yeah. It'll be like a 12, 13-hour day after a long, long... three, four days at IRCHA. But I'm excited. I'm excited to see everyone, you know, from Facebook, which is nice, right, to just see everyone that we normally talk to and chat with and shoot the shit with online.

A lot of those folks will be there. Meet in person. Hang out. Take a flight. Have a drink or something. Hang out. Awesome, Frank. You're going to be there. I'm sure you and I will both kind of be busy running around doing some team manager stuff, but I think also just busy enjoying the sights and the sounds. I just got to make sure I get everyone for... Maniacs and XL to take a photo and then cheer everybody on during the competition and not getting too much trouble. Yeah.

So are there going to be flight demos and stuff like that this year or not? I've seen some of it. I don't know what that's going to be. What's that going to be like? Excel's not doing it for some reason. I don't know what deals going on with that, but... I'll give the church board members some stuff. I'll bitch about them about it somehow. Well, find out why before you bitch about it, right?

There's a good reason that I don't know about it. That's the problem. I'm just messing with it. Oh yeah, of course. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Like I was saying, just seeing the fam. Seeing the fam. That's what I want to see. I wasn't there last year. I don't know how it was. Did they do a better job with the food and stuff? Because the previous year with the food was horrible.

It was just Papa John's, in my opinion. They always do some kind of Mexican stuff, but I always prefer to go out to dinner. I always rather just... Actually, you know what they did this year? Not directly for us, but you know, there's the control line guys were having their rolls. So we went over to that side and they had a bomb ass taco truck. And yeah, really good food there.

Nice. You had to drive a little bit, but it was within the complex. But yeah, so I hope that will definitely do it. Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited. So yeah, come out if anyone wants to meet, you know, me or Frank. Want to go hang out or shoot the shit. Or give us some shit for doing a shitty podcast or something. I want to meet you guys. I want to meet you guys. Or want to meet up with us and give us shit that Darren's not there or Javier.

Javier especially, who's like two hour and five from... He's not there. It's his anniversary, right? Or something? Well, today is his anniversary. I don't want to go to urge adversity. It's the find every excuse possible. He's going to be too busy tuning his helicopter.

you know, getting that three to fly perfectly again. Oh, we are hard on them. I have to give them shit. I have to give them shit. You know, it's just my nature. I'm going to get them. If I didn't like them, I wouldn't give them shit. Yeah, exactly. We miss you, Javier. Don't go that far now. Come on. We've had such a good, easy show, you know.

Oh, yeah. But... I do need to find a way to get back there again one of these years soon. So, did you fly directly into Indianapolis? No. no when i flew there there was no direct flights from out here out to indianapolis so i had to go oh man what was it way there i think i went to I don't even remember. Coming back, I went through to Colorado and then to Vancouver. The way there, I think I flew to Houston and then over to Indiana.

I wonder if there's any major airport in the U.S. that you can drive to, like Seattle or something. I did check it's from Seattle. It's about a three-hour drive for me, and I don't remember. I think Seattle was having similar flights.

I don't think there was a direct flight from Seattle either. It's only worth driving several hours to an airport if you can get on a direct flight. And that's where the trip to Heli-X was nice, right? Because with Heli-X, I was able to fly directly to... to charlotte yeah yeah no that's perfect and that were that were and the time the time of day and all that stuff worked out perfectly for everything so yeah that that flight was

So you flew into Charlotte and then drove from Charlotte to South Carolina? Yes. Oh. So, which I think was like two hours or something like that. Yeah, it's that far. So it wasn't that bad. No. So. It was really not bad at all. So yeah, Heliacs is a far easier one for me to get to. What's the closest city to Indianapolis in Canada that you can fly to and then drive to Indianapolis? What would that be like for you? Ooh, that I don't know.

Right, the other way. That I don't know. Because Indianapolis is quite a way south, though, too, right? And you've got the Great Lakes on the way. Yeah, it's like far from Chicago, I think. I mean, like, what's it, Cleveland? Is Cleveland not too far? I don't know. I feel like somewhere in Ohio, maybe. No, no, no. The other way. I'm talking about flying. Yeah, flying to a Canadian site. See, probably the easiest would probably be to fly to Toronto and then drive from Toronto to India.

That's still a fire drive. It still is several hours. Yeah, I'm just looking at it on the map, so we're probably talking... Well, let me just do a quick... It's probably 10 hours. Yeah, probably very easily, yeah. Makes for a great podcast here. Yeah, we're talking, oh, we're talking about eight hours. Eight hour drive from Toronto to Muncie. I've driven that in one day, just going to Orlando, flying, and then coming back and driving home in one day. That's easy.

Eight hours is... It does mean going through Detroit. Which I don't know what that's like to go through. Like driving-wise? Yeah, I'd have to drive. I'd have to cross the border at Detroit from the looks of things. It probably wouldn't be that bad. Yeah, just drive right through it, dude. Don't stop anywhere. Just keep going. Yeah. And then drive sort of southwest from Detroit kind of a thing. So, but...

Yeah, I think Detroit, I think my Michigan folks, friends, they're not, I think they're only like five hours away from Urcha. Yeah. Well, yeah, it looks like Toronto to Detroit is probably about, you know, about. three or four hours, something like that. And then, uh, you know, and then the other half from Detroit, that's going to Muncie, not to Indiana, Indianapolis. So we're, you know, yeah. So, so would you, would you like, what would.

Are there direct flights to Toronto from your airport? Yes, there are direct flights to there. I never thought about that at the time. Yeah, that is a good call. I mean, you might have to spend more on the car rental, right? Because you're putting miles on it. And I don't know, okay, crossing a border with a rental car, I have never done that, so I don't know what that's like either. It might be easy. It might not be. I really don't know.

I know, I'm pretty sure it has been done. So I don't know. I just don't know what it's like. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, there's got to be people that visit, like people that live in Toronto. They're like, I want to go to the States.

rent a car because they live in a city or something and don't have a car. Yeah. So I'm sure it's been done. Yeah. A hundred percent. I might have to get some extra insurance or something like that, but that's fine about it. You're old enough. It doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly. Are you saying I'm old? You got like, you probably have the best insurance out of all of us. Yeah. Well, maybe, I don't know. Yeah.

I had a fender bender two weeks ago at work. No way. No way. Was it your call? Unfortunately. Holy shit. Take that back. Yeah, take that back then. I was making a right-hand turn onto a major road, and the guy in front of me stopped. I was trying to pay attention to the traffic coming.

you know, coming from my left because I was making a right-hand turn onto a very busy road. And I didn't notice that the guy in front of me stopped because a bicycle had jumped in front of him. And I just barely rubbed up the back of his bumper. Just barely touched it. Just enough for him to notice, for him to feel. I didn't feel it, but he did. I'm like, ah, I'm in a company vehicle yet too. But anyways, anyways.

Yeah, that's actually, I'm going to have to look into that. I have not seen whether that would actually be any cheaper or anything like that. It would probably still make for a long day. $7,000 urgent trip is like $3,000. Well, you know, we were talking rental cars. Like for me to get a rental car isn't seriously bad either because my company that I work for actually gets a really good deal for rental cars.

Nice. So I can actually get a rental car for a pretty reasonable price. So, um, and then if I could do like what, uh, I did at Heli X with Jimmy Tate. and go and, you know, rent an RV together with somebody and, and, and whatnot, then that would be, that would definitely save me money. I mean, that's, that was the big thing that saved me money at Heli X was, uh, being able to go and do that with Jimmy. Yeah.

I'm his roommate this year. Are you? Yeah. Doing him with Jimmy, are you? Yes, sir. I haven't chatted with him in a while. Gotta say hi to him one of these days. Anyways, Jimmy Tate. Oh, yeah. Is he making Terecha? No, he's going at Heli-X. Oh, you're saying with him at Heli-X. Oh, okay. Yeah. Nice. Oh, yeah. It's going to be good. We're going to have a good time. Nice.

I'm hoping to make Helix. We'll see. He was bugging me to go to Helix this year too, but unfortunately that's the, the Helix, that's the weekend I'm going to be with my old buddies that I haven't seen in 20 years. And I had to. I think this year that's got to be a priority. When you haven't seen some good friends for 20 years, it'll be really good. Don't worry, dude. We've seen more of you in the last two years than we've seen in Javier.

I mean, you know, I was looking at it. I've been part of the podcast now since I think it was 2019. And I still have yet to meet Javier in person. I've met you guys in person, but I have yet to meet Javier yet. It's not like you haven't gone to events that are close to him or in his area. Exactly. Oh, man. So what? This will be my fifth Urcha, and I've only seen Javier in one of them. I only saw him once, too, yeah.

I've gone to four. This would be my fourth one, I think. I do think you guys need to come out to one out northwest sometime. Yeah, I want to. Snohoma should be a good one. It's just hard to... I can't deal with a six-hour flight. I can't deal with a six-hour flight and no direct flights. So no matter what, I'm connecting somewhere. To what? To Seattle?

yeah with helicopters with helicopters it's take bringing on a heli case always scares the bitches out of me like if it's not a direct flight i won't take it Hey, that's why I sent, when I went to Urcha, that's one of the reasons why I sent my stuff to Andy. Yeah, I want to send mine to someone if I do that. Yeah. It's easier to chip a helicopter in a box and...

Well, I'll just ship the whole golf case. Yeah, that's what it is. You know, so here's the, if you really want to be travel light with a helicopter. The trick is, and I've done this before, is you ship a boom and a control rod. I'll have Scott send one to somebody, and they just have to show up there and put that together and send it. And I just take all the blades.

I forgot blades. So all the long stuff, you can actually put it away in your backpack or something. Hmm. And then you ship the rest of it. No, you don't even ship it. delivered. I'll buy it from Scott and Scott will send it to the West Coast. Oh, okay. But then, you know, you're nitpicky about things, so...

You know, I always cut down my tail control rod a little bit to get it to just be 90 and 90, you know. So, yeah. There's a thing. There's a thing. What? Is it cut your tail control rod for it to be 90-90? Yeah, so where the bell crank is at 90 and the servo is at 90? It doesn't come from the factory at a perfect length? So... With a little bit of adjustment you can use with the ball link itself? So there's yes and no. I don't tighten my belt hard enough. So my tail control rod is a little bit...

It's too long. Okay. I always got to trim off like three or four millimeters off to get it at the right... almost like a millimeter to millimeters of thread. So it's nice and solid. With the XLs, you have the non-glue tailwind too, right? Yeah.

So, so what I do is, and I, and I know I'm going to get in trouble for this one, but I got to tell people what I always do. I always glue them on. If I would still glue them. Yeah. Like it's, it's a great option. And you know, well that thing vibrating, you know, those. nothing can come loose dude i really can't and you know it's constantly moving and super fast jerking and stuff like that and it vibrates you know that's just gonna come loose eventually so i've been i i had one come loose on me

And I think it was because I didn't tighten it down enough. Sure. You have to really sit it down or like break the carbon almost, right? No, no. So what I do is I sand. When I was doing there, I was sanding a bit.

And I was tapping the piece, and so it was really mounted, right? And then I was screwing it down, but I think one time I didn't screw it down enough. So it kind of bit me in the butt. And it was funny, because the last, like... three or four months, but it's still, uh, so now what I do is I get this, it's super, it's really expensive, um, two-part epoxy.

that you use your... You have to use a gun to squeeze it on there, right? Damn. It's like the high-sol shit. The high-sol, yes. That's what it's called, the high-sol. And I got that from when I was building my 30%. My 40%. So to get really nice for the horns on the surfaces. So I've been using that, and that's been costing. No issues ever there whatsoever. That thing will never come apart. Everything will break around it. The carbon would disintegrate before that connection comes loose. Awesome.

Cool. So let's talk about something that's not so happy or so joyful and quite sad, actually. We lost one of our own. Yeah. This one's hard for me because he was local enough to me. And ever since I met that guy, I just loved him to do it. Funny enough, what I was saying earlier, that I've only shot two guns in my life. One of them were Gators.

And the other one was Bert's. So those were only two guns I ever shot, and they were back at Bert's house on a very dark night after one of the winter events. Right after COVID. Right after COVID. So, yeah, Gator has been, there hasn't been a month that I haven't spoken to Gator since I met him. They've either bullshit about helis, stupid people making stupid posts.

shit that we want to buy. You know, there's always been something, you know, I, I, um, he's, he, for, for a time there, for a period of time of about a year, year and a half, he worked for a lot of that. Right. And he's like, Hey, Frank,

give me some of the good spots to go get food. I was like, dude, well, you got to go to Flanagan's. And so every time, and then he went back, he moved back, and everything all continued. So every time I would go to Flanagan's, which I go all the time, I would take a picture of it and send it to him, say, dude, I'm here. I hope all is going well, you know? So, yeah. This is why the episode is called Pre-Flight. Because he would always have a cold beverage.

usually for a while there was peach crown and then he was having some acid problems after he recovered from cancer the first time so he couldn't drink the peach crown so he was just drinking straight up crown so he used to say hey before we go fly let's have something show the nerves up i'm like yeah all right hey all right gator and it just became tradition um so i don't condone drinking and flying but uh that wasn't so um

Yeah, man. I found out that he passed away last Friday. He's definitely a figure in the community that will not soon be forgotten. Very lovable man. Life of the party. He was definitely a life of the party. No one could say anything bad about him. He was just so good and to the heart. and honest and just fair individual you know he called me out on my shit a few times and I deserve it you know and I deserved it and I took it like a man and then he gave me a hug and I said hey

people have done worse. Definitely a person I'm going to miss a lot. A true friend. One guy that you can count on anytime you need him. Best of the best. Yeah, man. Yeah. So I never had the opportunity to meet him, heard lots of stuff about him, but give me. Give us one of your, some of your favorite Heli memories with them, like any sort of specific event. Oh my God. So I won't say Heli, uh, memory. I will start with something, but it's not it.

directly on flying, but it's something that I bought, right? He's like, for some reason, I bought a YS motor one time and I posted it on Facebook and gave it a call to be like, why the hell did you buy that piece of shit? He's like, well, I've been flying the West for a long time. I was like, okay, so now you got to know what a shit is. Good luck. He just started laughing at me. So just gator at his finest.

Dude, all the events that we've attended. All the winter bashes. All the OHDs. The guy was... It's just... How exciting he would get over new stuff, man. And, dude, I think we went on for like a month and a half talking about this ratcheting screwdriver from Snap-on. Oh, I remember you guys talking about that. Yeah. And I got one. And I'm like, look, dude, you got to get this.

And, dude, I sent him the link. He was like, which one do I get? Because there were a bunch of them. They were similar, but I think two of them were knockoffs. He was like, no, dude, do you want to try to get this brand or the Snap-on brand, right? and he got it, and he was so happy with it. He was just so ecstatic. You guys were doing that on The Hangout, too, weren't you? Oh, yeah. We talk about shit like that all the time.

That was a lot of fun. And then obsessing over like, you know, he would, me and him would always have this debate about, I like using magnets on my nitros while he likes using the backplate sensor, right? He's like, yeah, you're wasting your time with that. They're going to fly off. You're going to lose them. You're going to sound like shit. You're going to blow up your engine. But always just made me laugh. Good dude. The funniest moments were him and Bert, and Bert would get going.

and Burt would get him going. In a camper, just a couple drinks. Oh, my goodness. Those are the memories I remember. I swear to God, his blood pressure went from like 50, 60 at a resting base. to like full on 250 pegged out redlining. He would just get so excited, dude. Oh my God, dude. The last, not this year's event, but last year's event. It was the last one at my event. He was there. Hey.

Burt would get him going and he would just get so excited. You could see steam coming off his head, dude. Such a good time, man. God, I'm going to miss that guy. Yeah, man. Yeah.

Rest in peace, Kater. Yeah. Fly high, my friend. Yeah, boy. All right. So, I guess it's time to end the show. Kind of sucks to end it on that note, but... He was a great man and mad respect for him. In a short episode, I think it's too bad of an idea. Especially trying to get this out hopefully before Urcha.

Yes. I think it should be possible. Make it happen, dude. I know you're capable. I think it should be possible. Especially if we keep it nice short. For those people who are used to our marathons. I think we need to take a break from those marathon episodes. For sure. You see what happens when Javier's not on here? Is that right? Yeah, really. Damn. That was harsh too. I know. He can't defend himself, so he can't go all out, I guess. Yeah. All right. So I guess contact info, I guess. Yeah. Sure.

Sure. RC heli, Darren at gmail.com here. Yeah. The only one that still does email. Yeah, exactly. I'm old. Yeah. I'm old, too. I use Facebook. We've already established that. Hit me up on Facebook. Steve Yun, Y-U-N on Facebook. How about you, Frank? Just to hang out. Frank Mario. You can most likely, if I'm not friends with you, just catch me on the Hangout and then send me a friend request because I probably won't answer right away.

Oh, he was about to say, cash me outside. I was like, damn. No, man. Meet me out back by the slides. Meet me center stage at Urcha 2025. I only do that.

that's the goose guy guys and yeah uh yeah man so quick quick off the topic not to say goodbye uh-huh facebook has messaged their algorithm for some reason they're uh trying to figure out who's spamming so there was like one day there was like 10 supposedly spam folder spam posts on the hangout people are like why isn't my shit showing up i was like oh i don't know we don't i'm checking the guys like

There's nothing there that he's done anything bad. He's like, dude, we have no idea. Did you post it to the right hangout? And, you know, and then I see the little thing over the group icon. Yeah, that is a notification. And there were a bunch of missing. So I'm like saying they're good to publish, good to publish, good to publish. And then going on a short post, I'm sorry, this is caught on Facebook. I even did a video on it because I was worried that people were going to.

You know, I've seen the wrath of the Hangout. I've felt the wrath of the Hangout by their members before. So I make sure. You want to go change the name again? No, never do that again. I dare you. I double dog dare you. Oh, that was awesome. No, no, no. Maybe for the 10 year anniversary. There we go. The 10-year anniversary of when you changed the name. No, that would be... I still have three more years to that, dude. I still have three more years to that. That happened in 2019.

i'll never forget that was the stupidest thing i've ever did in my life god damn it well if i remember correctly you were in the hospital at the time too right and had already had a few uh drugs in you i was feeling quite good you're feeling very good yeah Yeah. Or maybe update the banner to something, you know. I don't know. we'll have to change it to now to the uh the rotor flight and radio master hangout or something oh my god can you imagine that shit sir oh my god oh you know i'm like

Between that and being on so many teams, I always try to hold back my comments on Facebook. I'm like, oh, come on, Frank. You can really troll this guy. I'm thinking of shit to say. And I'm getting worked up. I'm like, all right, but then you have to explain it to somebody and they're going to ask you questions about it and it's not going to come off good. So let me save myself the lecture. Yep.

And I really think I did something bad. I literally screenshot it and sent it to the guys that might give me shit. I was like, dude, I couldn't hold myself. And I shared it. I'm asking for a lecture. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Cool. All right. Thanks to our listeners. Thanks, everyone. Yep. All right. We'll see you, everyone. Bye. Bloopers and outtakes, bloopers and outtakes. And there was much rejoicing. And next week I'm on vacation, so...

Not impossible, but tough for me to record next week. It's all right, bud. You work hard now. I am actually going to a fun fly. Oh, you're not going to go? do some weird Canadian shit, like go hunt for elk or trout fishing or some shit like that? Well, um, how am I supposed to answer that?