You certainly love your float planes, Doc! 
Can see why though⌠tons of fun. Iâd need a flotilla of tug boats to retrieve all the parts that flew off when I augered into the lake. 
Oh man I had to look didnât I. That Husky looks awesome and $340 delivered, must resist 
I think it was the red dirt in the picture that caught your eye more than the Plane itself, as it looks like home!
Still waiting on my other waterproof Receivers to arrive, so in the meantimeâŚ
stole a bit of my housemates Fish Tank Silastic! 
Was a bitch to get it all out and gonna be even more fun getting all the wiring back in.
Forgot to mention that I got bored last night and got out the Paintbrush and model paints to add some details to the windows, doors and fuselage panel lines/rivets to break up all that Baby Blue paintwork!
I found it to be a bit bland out of the box.
Nice day out, and the âwaterproofâ ESC worked a treat!
Fkn strut failed on the RANGER again, this time tearing the fuselage connection brackets.
The MAULE took a fair bit of configuring the TX/RX and having to reverse some channels along with remounting the Reflex V3 Gyro, as it was operating back to front!
I fly with the Gyro off anyway, but it was doing some weird shit with the wind stabilisers, so had to sort that out.
It flies like a School Bus, really nice, but can definitely feel that extra size for sure.
The old RANGER felt like a Ferrari when swapping between the two all day! 
Hey @Maiphut ⌠that funeral pyre might be happening sooner than expected!
Was an awesome âWintersâ day out today!
, but made the mistake of taking the RANGER out for âone last flightâ after the sun had gone down, and as the running joke goes, itâs. ALWAYS that âone last runâ when everything turns to Custard no matter if itâs an Airplane, Boat or Vehicle⌠something bad is bound to happen! 
Havenât had the time or money to get to the big smoke to buy additional rechargeable batteries for my remote controllers, and just running well used EVEREADY Black batteries in everything EXCEPT my Airplane Controllers, as itâs not so critical if surface vehicles lose signal.
But today was running my ONLY set of rechargeable batteries in both the RANGER and the MAULE all day, swapping out into each TX for every flight on them both.
At least the components that I have used with the PNP MAULE are aftermarket electronics that I purchased and set up the Aircraft with my own design, whereas the RANGER was an RTF setup using whatever was supplied to operate it with.
So yeah, dickhead move attempting that âone last flightâ on the single set of batteries that I had used all day on both Aircraft.
The MAULE RX/TX I fitted has plenty of safety features built in regarding Transmitter and Reciever low voltage/low signal warnings, but the RANGER does not. 
It went into a full Brown Out at full throttle in a nosedive at high speed into the water, and thereâs not a lot that survived the impact. 
Kayaked out to gather up the floating debris, but have lost the whole front float wire brackets from the floats AND the plastic mounting bracket from the fuselage, along with my pretty Red Flashing Navigation light from the Left Wing⌠which will have plenty of Trout/Redfin Perch attracted to it at the bottom of the Weir next to the float mounting hardware tonight!
Gonna take some Air Crash Investigation pics of the damage tomorrow, and take a few days to decide on the best course of action as to calculate whether to try and repair with aftermarket spare parts or if better off financially just to buy a whole new one when they come available on special again. 
At least it wasnât the MAULE, otherwise Iâd be REALLY pissed off at myself, but the old RANGER has been a glued together frail crash test dummy from day one and learned so much from it, hence why I would love to fix/replace it as a good basher plane, but like most aftermarket parts, once you start adding up all the bits to get it back together, its quite often more financially viable just to get a whole new one!
Still waiting on delivery of the 1100mm F4U CORSAIR at the end of this month and the 1800mm HUSKY in early September to keep me entertained until I make my mind up on the RANGER.
Unfortunately I canât fit Floats to the CORSAIR (or as my old man taught me âthereâs no such thing as Canâtâ, so might yet happen!) so will be boring days at the much more constricted local Cricket Oval instead of the beautiful Weir.
The HUSKY doesnât normally come with Floats or is marketed as a âwaterâ Aircraft, but Iâve already planned it that way and ordered all the parts to suit to convert it.
So yeah, blah blah blah, more adventures to come and no doubt plenty more drama when considering the complexity of RC Aircraft Model building and flying!
Just to add some more work, tore out one of the balance lead cables on one of the battery packs whilst running on 6S in the Speedboat.
More fiddly little work to repair.
And I might have accidentally shorted out a couple of cells using my pocket knife to cut open the pack⌠but only briefly let some sparks out!
So⌠hope you buckle yourself in for another Docs Mods rant on whatâs happening with the FMS RANGER.
I already promised to give updates on the Air Crash Investigation from yesterday, and am happy to say that I have come to the realisation that all is not as bad as it seems! 
Yeah, itâs fkd as a Float Plane, but had the epiphany that it was designed as a land based Aircraft to begin with!
So despite losing the forward float fuselage panel, I went back to finding the original factory supplied box to get hold of the original land based landing gear.
I may have lost the whole front fuselage bracket for the Floats, but thatâs irrelevant to being able to refit the original land based front Tricycle Wheel steering gear and being able to attach the main landing gear to the one fuselage bracket that I have left!
Itâs really funny that all of these Aircraft that I have are land based Aircraft out of the box, but my own personal use is to make them perform as Waterborne Aircraft off of Floats and NEVER flew them off the ground on their original landing gear from day one!
Am going to actually attach the ground 
gear to the destroyed FMâS RANGER simply to be able to keep flying it regardless of the place that Iâm flying.
Truth is that crashing ground Aircraft into the water is no different to noseplanting them into the ground.
Love my Floatplanes and have no issues having to find a suitable runway to fly them over the 
anyrate. 
Damage report:
Both floats US, but were already glued together and fixed 3 times prior to this incident, hence why I LOVE EPP Foam over Balsa Wood any day of the week!
The already damaged and reglued stainless front float frame mounts are at the bottom of the Weir.
My modification of adding locking screws in from of the wing struts worked a treat, and am an idiot from NOT taking the advice from the people reviewing this Airplane and pointing out the need to lock in the wing struts to avoid the many crashes that I experienced from day one from the wing struts dislodging and causing major accidents.
The motor/nosecone/propeller got hammered, but already have parts to overcome this pretty irrelevant issue.
Iâm getting all confused here, but only trying to show that the original main landing gear set and steerable tricycle front wheel mechanism is easily able to be reinstalled.
My apologies, Iâm cooked right now and hope to post more coherent content once I can actually return to somewhere near ânormalâ human thought patterns.
Doc, gotta say⌠youâre putting almost as much effort into your RC models as we used to put into the Boeing 757s and 777s. 
Fortunately for those of us that fly commercial airlines regularly, that is a tongue in cheek overstatement.
Itâs lucky you donât work for Boeing⌠all the 767s would be fitted with 30 metre floats. Hey, probably cheaper than building new runways.
I just prey that Boeing has beefier wing Spars and more reliable Electronics! 
So just another day glueing shit back together in preparation for moving onto the next stage of flights.
These bits will allow me to attach the original landing gear for ground takeoffs and landings âŚ
Still need to disassemble the motor cowling and straighten it outâŚ
But again, how easy are these EPP Foam planes to repair compared with the old Wooden Airplanes!
So have done the maths to purchase a replacement fuselage and full float set quickly adding up to nearly $200 in parts to repair an airplane that was purchased as a complete RTF Airplane with EVERYTHING included for $270 brand new!
I donât need a whole new Airplane complete with all the RX/TX/Electronics/V3 Stabiliser Gyro, Float Set, LiPo Battery, Chargers and everything else that this was supplied with as an RTF out of the box⌠but adding up the individual parts required to get this thing half straight again will cost more than buying a complete new RTF Model, even though I I donât even need 90% of the parts that they are supplied with.
But economies of scale leaves me safe in the knowledge that all of those âuselessâ parts will go into the junk pile and no doubt become precious resources when needed in the future!
Just gotta be patient putting some pennies aside out of my pension and wait for them to come on SALE again. 
Ah so it was you left a 12" shifter in the fkn wing Where the fuck did that go, I dunno 
I got the front end loader on to that fucker. Only another frost ice ice baby but I can see the smoke on the horizon. Set meself on fire, hang on I smell mohican burning, me last mohican,⌠must be me melted my fuckn boot torched my fucking work pants. Ah good job well done dickhead
Definately no flying today, still in the box. Iâll get there one day in 2025 would be fkn handy. Wind was too high anyway and I didnât have the anti ice thing didnât work. Would of been tragic if I tried, wheels up, ah no wheels down too splat
Too busy rolling coal at least that worked the old girl. Fk your sticks definately do my back in trying to pick that, nekkminit thatâs how itâs done son, no twigs sticks and shit, should go for about 3 days haha. Oh hang on Greta is ringing me, Iâll take her on a date, how dare you, I steal her generation, like the dentist said, yep thatâs a gonner haha itâs been a funny weekend, figured out what day it was, fkn Monday No rest for the wicked.
Been pretty quiet on this thread lately, so just a quick update as to whatâs happening.
Yesterday was a bad day, not getting back to town until late afternoon and in a rush to get to the Weir for some chill time with the Toys.
Thereâs plenty of crap floating in the water at the moment from all the heavy rains and rising water levels, which has made things a bit more dangerous. 
Bent a new prop after striking something in the water the other dayâŚ
Then the floats on the brand new MAULE have been taking a beating with floating debris/sticks and honky nuts, so added some NITTO Tape to try help protect them,
Unfortunately yesterday, after fitting a new Prop, I sunk the Speedboat after hitting something at high speed and lost the water sealing Hull Hatch completely flooding the Hull and sinking it, but it has foam flotation in the Bow and was able to paddle out to recover it.
Everything is still good, being all waterproof electronics, I was able to capsize all the water out and everything else is still functioning and undamaged, but now needing to purchase a new Hatch and going to have to add Flotation foam to the inside of that once it arrives too!
The MAULE flipped over onto its nose after collecting a stick on landing, and looking like itâs fried my âFishtank Silicone Waterproofedâ ESC.
Doesnât matter, as my aftermarket waterproof Speedboat ESCâs arrived the other week for me to replace it with.
These will also being fitted to my 3 other Airplaneâs Iâm still waiting for delivery, that I will be converting to Floatplanes as well.
(Iâm sticking with these High Wing Aircraft purely for Floatplane purposes, whereas my other 3 are Low Wing Warbird land Aircraft.)
I already have the RED 1220mm FMS RANGER that I converted to Floats and has been hammered into oblivion that I was looking to repair, but was going to cost more money to replace the damaged Floats/Parts than it was to simply order a brand new one in YELLOW and keep the old beaten up/glued together RED one as purely a land operated Aircraft on the original landing gear that Iâve currently refitted to it.
(Pic prior to fully installing the nose wheel)
So yeah, just waiting for the packages to eventually getting here, as long shipping times were the trade off for the rediculousy cheap prices that I paid for these more expensive models, but Iâm in no rush and have already been waiting a couple of months since purchasing ⌠so just makes it even more exciting for when they do eventually arrive! 
In the meantime have brought the MAULE inside in front of the heater and 
it upside down with all the Hatches open to try and dry everything out.
So⌠being a bit "creativeâ with the electronics I currently have available to get the MAULE back into the air.
Yes, I do have my 60A ZTW ESCâs on hand, but would require a LOT of modifications to be able to install them because of their much larger size.
So have decided to to install a backyard âwaterproofedâ upgraded FMS 50A ESC in place of the 40A factory unit that failed through water egress.
Actually âSealedâ with fresh Roof and Gutter Silicone rather than the old crumbling âFish Tankâ Silicone that I applied to the 40A ESC that failed from the outset.
It might not look much , but thereâs very little room to modify these Aircraft beyond their original designs.
Itâs pretty obvious in these pics that the higher Amperage ESCâs take up a lot more space than the OOTB units, so have taken the easy path fitting the FMS 3-6S 50A ESC as a direct replacement for the original 2-4S 40A ESC.
The added bonus is that the BEC outputs 8A at 5-6V which is insane power, compared to the original 40A ESC providing 4A at 5V.
Iâm NOT giving up on a way to be able to install these fully waterproof Speedboat ZTW SHARK ESCâs, because they are absolutely mind-blowing in their performance, but thereâs simply zero room to be able to fit them through the normal ESC mouldings within the Fuselage when compared to the original 40A ESC pictured above.
And itâs not just cutting out space in the Nosecone, thereâs a secondary bulkhead to be navigated below the battery tray in the fuselage to locate the larger ESC as well.
Have the plan in place to feed the ESC through the bottom Hatch in the rear of the fuselage, but it will be almost impossible to attach the motor wires due to the restrictions of the inner bulkhead allowing access to the plugs. Will still give it a good hard go despite the facts that Iâve already calculated, just to prove that nothing is impossible with the right mindset and patience.
Thatâs the way, Doc.
Never say die!
I never give up. I wouldnât be where I am if I did. Yep dumb as dog shit, but I git er done
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That is the way @Maiphut !!!
People often ask me how I got all my blaster knowledgeâŚ
Tenacity!
I just failed until I figured it out!
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Whatâs the olâ saying?
Man whoâs never made a mistakeâs never made anything
True words.
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Damn you guys know whatâs up when you do a few rounds like I have. Build it, break it, build it better Who needs a fkn engineer
I dragged a few engineers by their collar out of the drawing office, here put MK1 eyeball on that shit you drew up on a fkn computer, now tell me how the fk is that supposed to go together.
Oh and you get theâŚback to the drawing board. Yea ya think.
At my current job I have wasted three afternoons with engineers climbing around tanks, pipework, pumps, and valves proving that just because you stuck a second pump in doesnât make it twice as fast! Pipes still have the same cross section, and valves have a smaller cross section, and neither of those were made larger to accommodate the flow!
But the engineers say it works on paper! LOL. Smart guys, thick as pig shit though!