2007 is over, and I have been flying my Raptor for about two and a half years.

	Year	Flights	Fuel	Crashes
	2005	81	6	1
	2006	109	7	4
	2007	34	2	2
	Total	224	15	7

New years eve flying. Since the last crash I've been a bit nervous and this continued with the first flight, after this I decided to go for it and had two better flights. I ended the last flight with a few stall turns and loops. When cleaning the heli at home I noticed the flybar connection to the head was very loose. I investigated and the thread had gone on one side, so it was only held in by one bolt.

Boxing day flying and I got three of my models up in the air :)

Two flights with the rebuilt Raptor, I was a bit nervous and it was getting dark. Stayed on to watch four other club members night flyin.

Raptor is now fixed.

First flight went well, then on my second I crashed. I was nose in hovering and trying to bring it lower and lower. I then put in the wrong input and it went in on the boom, doh!

Second trip to Thearne. I got back to trying some aerobatics again.

Flying again :) After being so busy for so long I finally got the Raptor flying again today after crashing it at the beginning of June. These were my first flights at my new club Thearne MAC. The flights were fairly short as it has been a while and I just did some hovering and lazy eights, I finished the last flight with some nose in hovering.

:( Three flights and my sixth crash, again my fault, the signs were there but I kept going. The afternoon started bad as I forgot my glow starter, I'd left it on charge at home. Towards the end of my first flight I thought, I'll do a pirouette now, and put in aileron instead of rudder! The on the third flight I was quite low and the heli was coming towards me and for some reason I panicked, and put aileron in again. I've not fully checked it over but damage so far is Boom, Main Blades, Flybar, and a Double Link.

:) After ages I finally got flying again. Still running in the engine so they were slow hovering. I thought I was going to be rubbish as I'd not flown for ages but the flights where good.

Only managed to get one flight before it started to rain.

A great days flying with six flights, but it did not end to well. After having a few flights I was nearly at the end of my Cool Heli Juice fuel so I decided to keep going and use it all up. On the last flight the fuel ran out before I expected. Thankfully it was not high at the time, as the auto was really bad, I gained height and zapped the head speed. It landed in soft mud with a bit of a bounce! When I got to the heli there was still 3/4 of the header tank full of fuel, something was wrong. I could not turn the engine over so I went home.
When I got home I removed the engine and opened it up. The Conrod had snapped, with the head locked in position and metal bits everywhere!

Finally my helis fixed and I'm back flying :-)
Flight 191 It's good to be back flying again. I added some S9252 servo's to cyclic and collective and I can really feel the difference.
Flight 192 When starting the engine I found that my glow plug had gone. Then during the flight I thought that it was not producing enough smoke so I landed it to check the temperature, which was ok but the engine stalled. I then burnt out the last glow plug I had with me trying to get it going again. After talking with Paul we think there is some dirt in the engine then needs to be cleaned out so I will have to take it apart before the next flight.