Sleep deprivation... and the VBAR

On the weekends I usually go into hobby obsession mode doing maintenance and charging batteries for model helicopter flying sessions the next morning. This usually means 3 to 4 hours sleep. I'm usually out the door after 7am and go with no food or drink until I return in the early afternoon... sunburned, starved and dehydrated.

Lunch is a normal meal and I then go into hibernation for 2 hours to make up for the sleep lost the previous night.

My flight gear is low-end 'affordable' to me. Not fancy, stable with few options. The last 2 models I bought had a new control system with more sophistication in the way of offering the pilot features to change the way the model reacts in the amount of agility and reaction speed.

A docile model can now be user adjusted for high performance with control setting changes. The bad part is documentation for this is sketchy. The manufacturer has several YouTube videos in a series for setup. Other pilots have posted videos explaining some of the mystery... however, not enough detail is available to my satisfaction. For example, there are 2 parameters to control drift. One for front/back and one for left/right. The numbers can be in a range of -250 to +250. Great... except no one can tell me if negative numbers pulls it to the left or right. Seriously... 2 calls to tech support for clarification and the technician says he doesn't have time to 'walk me through' a setup and to follow the videos.

Currently, I'm the only one at the field flying that brand/model of control system so there is no local support. There are a few companies who make controllers and the majority of better pilots use one called VBAR. Naturally, it's advised if I want to up my skills, to get with the VBAR crowd as there are a handful of pilots who can offer direct help.

Friday a friend and I went to a hobby shop 40 miles away that specializes in selling the VBAR radio gear used to control model helicopters. Saturday, 2 of the club members did some surgery on one of my machines by removing the existing controller and installing a VBAR. The radio is fully controllable via a touch screen and within a few minutes they were able to download a few apps via Wi-Fi to further enhances it's capabilities.

One of the guys who set up the new system did some initial test flights while asking how I preferred the setup, handing it over a few times for me to try the different settings and telling which direction I liked best.
It was a busy day at the field with some 9 pilots waiting to fly so neither of use did more than a few test flights. On Sunday, I got in a few flights being very cautious as it's characteristics were very different from the previous controllers I had experience with.

I got the phone call lunch was waiting and I packed my things to head home. After eating, I got online to check mail and read some news stories. The one article that caught my attention was about sleep deprivation. We know it's been linked to hypertension, obesity and diabetes. Now it's believed to be connected to dementia.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear as I was fading and needed to power-nap.



Most of my Sunday is gone and I've got to finish some shop drawings for the kitchen I ordered last week. Hopefully, I'll get to bed before 2am as Mondays are always hectic and I need to be alert.