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G’day folks! Do you remember the fall of the Berlin Wall? I can’t say that I remember the exact date, but I clearly remember hearing the dramatic news on the radio. Years later my wife got to know a German who grew up on the Eastern side of the wall, in former DDR. Her strongest memories of the changes it [...]
Which of your rigs would you take on a ten or fifteen mile trail walk? Or, if you could bring any car, which one would it be then? For me, it comes down to four things to consider: funniness, capability, durability and ease of wrenching. First, it should be a fun ride. If it is to be driven for several hours, it [...]
I called it! Sort of. But I am surprised that Losi was the one to fill in the blank. Surprised, but not disappointed, seing how Doug seems to be absolutely in love with their LMT. There was an IFS-shaped hole in reality, now it is gone, and the RC fauna is better off for it. I haven’t had the time to [...]
G’day folks! No physics lesson today, but an update on my heavily upgraded SCX24. A wonderful little car it is, suitable for indoors, capable enough for outdoors, small enough to fit in a backpack with room to spare for coffee and biscuits. A lot of bang for the buck, and durable too – it hardly weighs anything, and it certainly [...]
Right now, a lot of us want a Traxxas Sledge, the latest and want to be greatest bash machine out there. I want one too, but due to a limited budget am sadly not likely toget one. Anyway, suppose I do buy one (birthday is coming up), would I want to hit it with a sledgehammer? Would you? For reference, [...]
G’day mates! Another week of losing grip is here, and my SCX24 has aged twenty years since last week. As you might remember, it was first repainted by Bob’s grandson Rob in a shark scheme commemorating the Curtis P40 Warhawk that Bob once flew. Initially lovingly taken care of, it was then forgotten and found recently, in a somewhat derelict [...]
No, I haven’t been outside painting. I’ve been painting on the outside. Of the body of my little SCX24. Last column I mentioned I had some trouble with paint peeling off with the masking tape, but no such trouble today. The idea behind the paint scheme is simple. This car belongs to Rob Smith, son of Junior Smith, son Bob Smith [...]
G’day folks! The post apocalyptic landscape of winter in southern Sweden is slowly giving way to something that might eventually turn into spring. Snowdrops have started to turn up in the garden, giving us all a little hope of better weather eventually. With better weather comes more RC. Driving when it’s freezing outside is fun, driving on ice is fun, [...]
Today I present the scariest featured picture ever, at least if you’re not really keen on maths and physics. But fear not, this column will be a light hearted read. The picture is taken from the dissertation and thesis Dynamic Understeer Control Using Active Rear Toe, by Mark Oliver Dixon Kaufman of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Daytona Beach, Florida. I read parts of it, [...]
Happy anniversary to Losing Grip! It’s not the column’s birthday, but this is the 100th column published. All together, they would amount to a novel by now. Editing them into an enjoyable novel would admittedly prove quite the challenge, but the word count sits just about right for a debut. As luck would have it, I even got a present for [...]
Any good project starts with a little bit of dreaming. That’s the easy part. After dreaming comes pondering, then calculating and compromising runs in parallell for a while, eventually reaching the decision point side by side and slightly irritated with each other. Both have to be involved, neither can win. Decision point is where it all turns around, but this time [...]
Need for speed? That’s what I wrote about a couple of weeks back, how the speed bug gets me when the sea turns to ice. How all that wide open space calls out for something fast. How “the ice just about always gets covered by a bit of snow, providing a bit of traction. Enough grip to gain plenty of [...]
Dear fellow RC nuts, dear reading audience, dear me, it is a pleasure to write yet another column for this giant of RC websites, for the biggest squid in the pond. All mainly for my amusement, but you are most welcome to read and reply anyway. No joke, no irony, mind you. It is a pleasure and a privilege to [...]
G’day folks! Last week I had a look at things we did not see in 2021, now it’s time to pay some attention to what we did see. No game changing releases, but upgrades to proven platforms. Yokomo released a new version of their YD2 chassis, the YD2-Z, claiming it to have undergone a major evolution and “to be the final [...]
For ten months of the year, I am perfectly content with cars doing less than fifteen miles an hour. Whether drifting, crawling or trailing, this is plenty. Both my 2.2″ rigs are capable of more, but I seldom use the very top end due to lack of space. Also, when I find the space, it usually results in a lot [...]
