[paulj]

Hi Gang,
Sorry it's taken so long but here is the video of
Darren's F15 Flight at Temora last weekend.
Must apologise for the video quality but I had a number of things
against me.
First off, new camera and not familiar with using it.
Second, no tripod which on high zoom is a must.(make note: take tripod next year).
Third, howling wind. When standing out in the centre of an airport you are
very exposed to the weather and boy was it windy and cold.
Anyway enough of the excuses, here is the first few minutes of the flight.
I gave up and decided to take photos instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQV2RJKjGks

BTW I have a bit more video of Temora but need to edit out all the rubbish and try
to give you an idea of what was on display. Hopefully by end of this weekend I'll have it posted

[smuzz]

Hi all - thought that a dedicated thread for maiden flights might be interesting, so here goes ...


Date: 12 Dec 10
Conditions: Strong westerly winds, good visibility, rough strip
Aircraft: Wattage PC-9 (955 mm wingspan, 715 mm length)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray

We collected a partly assembled kit via eBay. Nice little model - plastic fuselage, built-up wings. Not bad scale lines, but the fin is undersized for some reason. There are only two blemishes - the wings have the standard Wattage "starved horse" look (the leading half of the wing should have been sheeted) and there's no battery hatch which means removing the wings all the time. The kit was designed for some ancient "Cobalt" brushed motor, of which I know nothing - our sample didn't have a motor. In the end we installed a KD A22-20L (thank god for HK, http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...oduct=2106) with a left-over Parkzone ESC out of a Trojan. Tested out a small prop 8 x 6 on our Himark static thrust stand (a recent acquisition off eBay as well) and saw it pulling 700g at 17 Amps on a 3-cell 1300 mAh battery. Set the CoG about 20 mm forward of recommended. Good to go.
Had to start out with a hand-launch because of the state of the runway.
It was twitchy on the ailerons and was a handful in the high winds. It has plenty of power (could get away with much less) and was quite fast at two-thirds throttle. Landing was similar to the Seagull PC-9 - it has to be flown down to the ground.
The outcome was pretty satisfying - we're looking forward to toning the ailerons down a little and really opening up the throttle on a calm day.

[brotherblonde]

Excellent report, Steve.
I have a Durafly Spitfire, Like Simon's, and am yet to maiden her.
I will post on this thread when the time comes.

[dwils]

Andrew please have a talk to the other spitty owner as i flew its maiden and was a big handfull ask about the rates and remember it must be flown to the ground regards

[sglnichols]

My Spit still needs some minor repairs!Last time I flew her (my own maiden) she was pulling left lots, I didn't have time to correct her, panicked, and ended up putting her into the hedge behind where we fly. I should of headed the signs becuase there was big left tendancies on the ground when taxi-ing.Be prepared for a lean to the left even though all your controls are set to neutral. There is a fantastic, detailed thread here :-

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1167802&highlight=durafly+spitfire

I have 2 models to maiden, the HK Coota and Corsair! Hopefully on sat/sun! 2 young kids come before maidens I'm afraid!

Cheers,
Si

Andrew please have a talk to the other spitty owner as i flew its maiden and was a big handfull ask about the rates and remember it must be flown to the ground regards

[tc52]

Hi guys,
I visited your field last Saturday to try out my Venom Night Ranger heli, took a few tools with me (including spare blades). First couple of attempts told me something was wrong and only noticed on the third try that the tail rotor motor was moving around.
On a close examination with switches off, I discoverd the two anchor bolts weren't there, and may not have been when I bought it, so off home I went, found a couple of the tiniest bolts in existence and fitted them. All is nice and tight now.
I had tried fine tuning some of the controls at home, which might explain why the rail rotor wasnt too keen to turn.
Second attempt soon.
I wasn't completely disappointed with the day's visit as I met a few of your members (nice people)and checked out some of their (also very nice) models.

Cheers,
Peter.

[smuzz]

Date: 2 Jan 11
Conditions: Very light westerly winds, perfect visibility
Aircraft: T-33 50mm EDF by Sky Angel (784 mm wingspan, 683 mm length, AUW 385 g)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray

We picked this up a couple of months ago from X-Flight (http://www.x-flight.com.hk/) for AUD $102 delivered. A complete PNP setup, it came with everything except receiver. I was a bit unsure about the stock 850 mAh 20C battery, but reports from RCGroups said it will fly on the stock setup so we gave it a burl. Assembly was nothing to speak of and we tested everything on the ground, the fan seemed to be well-balanced and the CoG was pretty much right on.
I made the first of two mistakes when I suggested not worrying at all about the aileron throws being 10mm when the assembly and operating manual suggested 5mm. A good hand-launch and it was off. Junior reported immediately that it was sensitive in roll, but he seemed to be handling it well. After a couple of high circuits to feel things out, I made my second mistake when I told him to go ahead with a high-speed low pass, before a circuit to land. This is where the aileron throws kicked in and he lost it into the long grass near the reeds on the western end of the strip. A break in the starboard wing was the result, but will be an easy repair for next weekend.

Lessons learned: I shouldn't have ignored the recommended throws - we did ignore them for the PC-9 and got away with it so I thought we'd be right again. These will be corrected before the next flight. We hadn't flown an EDF model before, so I was a bit wary of keeping the speed up in the turns, but Junior didn't think that it was a big transition, after the flight.

Update: 16 Jan 2011
Repaired the wing during the previous week and conditions were good for a re-test today. With the battery charged and the aileron travel adjust (end-point) reduced to 45% we launched again. It flew perfectly! Scale manoeuvres were easily completed and the plane flew well - landings needed to be carried out at speed, but a fast glide with a slight nose-down attitude kept it from going mushy and tip-stalling. The reports we'd read on RCGroups were right - the stock setup does cut the mustard. The only alteration I'm considering now is some 1000 mAh 30C batteries, the rest of the power-train can stay as it is for the time being. Really a great little plane and if I had some cash handy I'd get a different one from the same series ... perhaps the A4 Skyhawk.

[Drew]

Date: 1 Jan 2011
Conditions: Perfect, newly mown strip.
Aircraft: PC-9 profile Depron - scal except for wind chord (800 mm wingspan, about 700ish mm length)
Pilot: Drew.

As part of a whim for Australia Day, the PC9 has become the next project. In comparison to the Murray's craft, this is slightly shorter on weingspan and with a significantly smaller stabiliser.

The wing is a 7% KFM-2 50% top step.
Powered with a Turnigy 2204-19T, Rhino 360 2S battery and Myster 10A ESC.
AUW: Approx 120g.

On hand launch (no UC yet ), the plane wen immediately prop-up in a hover. Successive moving forward of the battery didn't solve this. It appears that the midget stabiliser is not having enough leveling effect.

Additionally, the 7% KFM-2 airfoil appears to be to big for the ailerons to have an effect - there was no roll control at all. The ailerons need to be at least doubled to even hit the airstream.

The last issue was a significant warpage of the fuse when applying rudder. Effectively this nullified the rudder control. Amazingly, there was a tiny amout of control possible which save totalling this depron creaton on first flight but it needs some serious mods before the next attempt!!!

[Drew]

When down at the field for a re-maiden, the enhanced stabiliser didn't seem to have much effect and the airlerons didn't have much opportunity to make an effect before the wind and other unbalance issues led to a destructive nose dive!

   

I think I'll loose the KFM step and reinforce with square tube for the rebuild.

[paulj]

You have me worried with your KFM findings as I
have used a KFm4 profile on my scratchbuilt edf bandit.
This will have both flaps and ailerons so I'm hoping that they will
be effective.
Guess I'll find out soon enough as she should be ready for her maiden
next weekend, although with Aust day practice etc it may have to be delayed.

[Drew]

Don't be too distressed Paul, the application wasn't particularly too scientific and I think the airframe had several other issues also. I'm thinking a significant rearward balance was also induced with the 6mm depron use for fuse bracing.

I never fley it prior to the KFM2 "enhancement" other than a backyard glide test without the depron wing spar. It is hard to call with such random testing.

If you're not making it up on the flay as I did and working from a plan someone else has published, you're likely to have better luck.

[gbanger]

Took the mighty T Rex 600 Airwolf down to the field this afternoon for its maiden.
Had to move a lot of my electrionics forward during the build as I knew it would be tail heavy after preliminary C of G checks.
The landing gear servo I bought from HK is crap and burnt out during gear set up on the bench.
Stay away from Bluebird servos, it is supposed to be 7.5 Kg of torque but is certainly not up to running 3 retracts
I have ordered the top of the range 25Kg servo from Turnigy to replace it.
With retracts retracted I spun it up and it settled into a very neutral hover with only 2 clicks of right aileron.
No vibration at all and looks sweeeeeeeett in the air.
Very happy!

Gazz

   
   
   

[helijeli]

Nice looking Chopper Gary - look forward to seeing it down at the field.
*** Drew ***
No hurry to get it back but next time I see you I might get back the 1.3mAh Lipo I lent you. You might not even realize you still have it. It has "JJMay10" Dynoed on it. It's my last good one left for my Cessna Foamie - although I'm getting a few new ones from a recent Parts order which may be in. And the week off I have this week may not involve much flying going by the weather forcast.

[brotherblonde]

Congrats on the Airwolf Gaz. It looks impressive enough sitting on the table, I can only imagine how good it looks AND sounds in the air. Looking forward to seeing it.

[Drew]

the 1.3mAh Lipo I lent you.

It's all charged and in my battery box waiting for our next meet. I expect to be there on the 15th. Sorry to not have it for your week off. Even bigger bummer to have a wet week off .

[helijeli]

I know. My last week off last School Hols was also wet. Thanks for the reply - will probably see you next Saturday - hopefully with some good weather.

[kizza42]

Alex Mini:

After several false started with a faulty ESC & Dead stick landing then faulty motor and dead stick landing I decided to bite the bullet and put a decent motor into my hotliner that hasn't seen a real flight in the almost 12months since I got it.

I opted for a Neu 1509g 1.5D with a 6.7:1 Gearbox & Castle Creations 125amp ESC.

We spent last Sunday getting the sizeable motor installed into the airframe.

The plan was to test fly yesterday as I had to do church on Sunday, bad weather messed those plans up so eager to fly the plane I ran down to the field first chance I had on Sunday. I met everyone else walking out.

The first flight went well, I never went over half throttle and noted that the plane was a tad on the tail heavy side which meant it didn't retain energy at all, I got her all trimmed out and landed the thing at my feet (A far cry from the 50km final leg the ol' siren needed!)

I chucked in a fresh battery and gave her a toss, I thought this is it! Punched the throttle and sent the Alex skywards at an extreme rate, The performance was astounding, I was grinning ear to ear as I looped over the top and brought her down for a howling low pass. I only managed half a circuit before the energy washed off so I punched it again for a mach run down the field... Much faster than ol' Siren and the best part at the back of my mind was that according to the calculations, I was only barely pushing the motor. I'm running 13x8 for over 1400watts but the optimal setup is in the range of a 14x18!!!! Yes thats EIGHTEEN! (they don't make em that fat but you can get centerpieces to compensate)

Any how, I performed a few more boost/cruises then decided to set up for an approach. This is when disaster struck:

I was setting up as per usual over the far western end of the field and was getting a little low so I opened the throttle, to my surprise there was no response! I didn't panic initially as I'd had issues like this with hot setups before so I instinctively closed and reopened the throttle to try for a second & third kick, Getting quite low now I started having to pull back to keep the glider visible above the tree's, In a split second I thought this is it, she's going in. I lost sight for a micro second and then the motor kicked to life and she re-appeared for a moment! Unfortunatley at this stage I was in an advanced stall, she promptly dropped and wing and literally turned into a rifle a shot, accelerating rapidly in a horizontal flight path while rolling FAST, I couldn't catch it and killed the power and lost sight again...

I stood there dumbfounded. My new baby, my pride and joy gone after sooo much time & effort, not just mine but Darren's as well... I kicked the ground, HARD! Picked up my gear (Had walked in with my Heli as well as my tx case and started the walk of misery. It literally took me 20 minutes to get to the crash site as the ground was soo wet and It landed soo far away!
When I got there I found this:
   
That's a good 15-20cm of fuse submerged there! The motor, battery & esc were underwater. It was actually still on the air! I gave the elevator a wave as I walked up just to make sure it wasn't RX failure. As I got closer, the esc/motor were actualy beeping away! sounds quite weird underwater!

The wing was a few feet away, Unscathed:
   
It turns out the wing saddle bolts were only biting into hardwood and so the wing probably came off quite easy on impact.

There are no more photo's cos I was absolutely gutted at this point, although the fuse and wing were clearly intact/undamaged, the amount of mud/water that came out with the fuse when I extracted it was terrible.

It took me another 30 mins to juggle the muddy wreck, tx case & heli back to the car. Once there I went around to Darren's to perform the post mortem, as per usual he was more confident about fixing than me! We literally hosed the mud off and bathed everything in clean water before blowing it with the hair dryer. The motor looked fine at first but we had trouble getting it to turn smoothly so after tearing it down and rebuilding a few times we discovered some loose magnetic shards which could have contributed to the motor not starting. These shards were NOT from the motor itself, all the magnets were intact, they were possibly leftovers from when this motor was refurbished at Neu after Darren blew it up by feeding it 14v too many! Unfortunatley it seems the ESC has been damaged by the extended bath. The BEC still functions and it will spin the motor, we just can't get it to draw more than 30amps before it starts giving up. We're going to let it dry some more and try through the week but I will be probably looking at buying a replacement ESC (Painful, they ain't cheap!)

Maybe fourth time will be the charm for this bird!

[paulj]

Ohh bummer.............
Sounds like she was going so well too.

[smuzz]

Wow - sorry to hear about this Kizza, but it's a very interesting report if that's any consolation.

So, it wasn't a comms problem as you were able to control the approach after motor power deserted you? Loose FOD in the motor eh?... that's really annoying because you wouldn't expect it in a premium assembly like a Neu.

[gbanger]

Very sorry to see the beast out of action again mate.
My condolences on a less than happy end to what was supposed to be an adrenaline filled flight.

On another note... Talking about Sirens what price do you think I could have one landed through Tower Hobbies and is the aircraft worth the moola. Ive been thinking about getting a glider for a while and I believe you used to have one.
Interested in your thoughts.
Gazz

[~KevJ~]

ouch that sux mate, lucky it wasnt going any faster or u may never have seen it again.. ie underground..

[kizza42]

So, it wasn't a comms problem as you were able to control the approach after motor power deserted you? Loose FOD in the motor eh?... that's really annoying because you wouldn't expect it in a premium assembly like a Neu.

Once the motor kicked, it all happened too quick! It was literally like a rifle shot, barrel rolling like crazy, I couldn't react quick enough to fly out of it

We will be emailing a not happy jan to Neu Motors...

Sirens...

I loved my Siren dearly but it was a bitch to work on (All hotliners are I guess)
Its weakness is that its a 3 part balsa wing. With prices the way they are these days you can get a full one piece FG/Carbon glider for about the same price. That's the whole reason I went the Alex Mini over another Siren. That said, I CAN say for sure that you can get a cheap 35/48 outrunner into a Siren and it will perform!!!!
We got our gliders from here:
http://www.hyperionaustralia.com.au/?stg=1001
Also check out:
www.soaringusa.com & www.espritmodel.com

ouch that sux mate, lucky it wasnt going any faster or u may never have seen it again.. ie underground..

Yep it was a mixed blessing, had the ground been hard it would have been a write off for sure, the thing hauled ass!

[smuzz]

Date: 20 Feb 11
Conditions: Strong and gusty (even gutsy?) westerly winds, good visibility, OK strip
Aircraft: Blu-Baby (http://www.parramatta.rcflyingclub.com/m...hp?tid=262)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray

The Blu-Baby seemed to be ready for a test-flight - I was happy to delegate the honours to Junior who is a way better pilot than I'm likely to be. With a 9 x 6 propeller it looked to have an acceptable power-to-weight ratio (thanks fort the help JohnH) and so we decided it was ready to go. The wind was the only concern, it wasn't what most of us want when doing a maiden, but we were slow out of bed and late getting to the field, so it was our fault anyway, I guess.
Down on the cross-strip it wasn't really looking good - too many gusts were getting in under the starboard wing and turning the plane away and off the strip as it was commencing its run-up. We moved to the main strip and it was more of the same. One of several aborted take-offs saw my crappy wheel-retainers exposed as one went AWOL, leaving one wheel only. A hand-launch was still possible even if landing was going to be more difficult - no worries, he was flying it, not me With the others at the field (KevB, JohnH, Paul, Claudio, Gazz, Darren ...) smiling and enjoying the anticipation I threw the thing.
In the words of the pilot ... "as soon as Dad let go, I could feel it needed trimming. I did some small right aileron clicks on the climb out. I got three-mistakes height and went hands-off. Needed a little down elevator, and some left rudder trim. Hands-off again and it needed a little more aileron trim. After about two minutes it was all trimmed. Powered up, climbed and cut the throttle to test the stall - nosed over and behaved itself. Power levels were good, landing was tricky for the maiden as I noticed it didn't like low throttle. With a tad of throttle, it landed nicely on its wheel."

Darren suggested that it looked a little tail-heavy (just marginally) which is not bad news. Some more weight up front won't hurt wind penetration. I've yet to calculate the wing loading, but it's clearly very low just by inspection (I should calculate this, just for interest's sake). There are a few unanswered questions at this stage (why Junior found it unhappy with low throttle, for example) but I'm hoping to get to be a confident pilot on this plane and then try out a few other things as mods: Flaps (I'll retro-fit these later) and NACA leading edge cuffs/droops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_edge_cuff) and use the plane as a test-bed.

       

[Drew]

An almost-maiden - I chucked my PT20 back in the air after replacing the scorpion gear with a Turnigy Plush 60 and 3542C (1100kv).
At the "recommended" prop, an 11x5 on 3s, the plane struggles to get off the runway and needs just about all the distance to get up to speed (the longer grass may have been a factor). It has enough thrust to fly about and poddle thourgh the sky but nothing for quickly evading dangerous situations or pulling out of a dive to the weeds.
I pulled the 11x5.5 and swapped into a 9x6 on 4S. It jumps! The performance was radically different but there is a danger in that WOT is not 55-60A, well over the mototr's rating at 45A and pushing the packs and speedy. Careful feeding makes a nicely satisfying flight. I'll order some 8x to pull the amps down and try again.
Just for kicks, I tried a 11x7 on 3s with similar results to the 11x5.5.

I was hoping for more from this motor. I have the same in the decathlon but couldn't launch that bcs of a dicky left aileron servo .

---

[quote='yarrumevets' pid='4684' dateline='1298190512']
Date: 20 Feb 11
Conditions: Strong and gusty (even gutsy?) westerly winds, good visibility, OK strip
Aircraft: Blu-Baby (http://www.parramatta.rcflyingclub.com/m...hp?tid=262)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray

"Junior",
Nice to get it on the ground looking the same as when it went up!
What's your thought about this model being a good shape for my sons to learn on? Is it forgiving and auto-centering (or would more aggressive dihedral be required).


Steve,
Is the wing removable to allow different formats to be swapped in?
Are the internals arranged to allow for a mid/low wing version later?

[smuzz]

Steve,
Is the wing removable to allow different formats to be swapped in?
Are the internals arranged to allow for a mid/low wing version later?

Drew - the wing is removable and interchangeable, the only constraints would be the chord at the wing root and the shape of the underside of the aerofoil to fit the saddle (but you could overcome the latter by having interchangeable wings all incorporating a standard flat section just at the root to fit the saddle).

Your second question is interesting. It would be a bit more difficult to manage - I'd say no, given the standard monobloc design. However you could redesign the profile of the monobloc to suit a mid-wing or low-wing design for separate aircraft I guess. Have a look at the first photograph of the build log - it shows the standard monobloc. You could alter that to suit mid/low-wing designs if you wanted to. The rest of the geometry, design and build process could remain pretty-much unchanged.

I'll get Junior to answer you other questions when he gets off his PS3

[omuzz95]

Haha thanks for adding that in Dad!

Drew, I believe that a Blu-Baby would be a good choice for your son's to learn on. Probably not as big as the one Dad made, but definitely a good trainer. To answer your other question, I reckon that maybe a bit more dihedral would be better, looking from a stability side of things. Dad's doesn't have much (if any) dihedral and it flies well, and dihedral can only help.

[smuzz]

... yeh, to add a little to Owen's comments - there are two different dihedral templates for the plywood braces on the plan, as you'd expect. One is for a design with ailerons (not much dihedral, I was too lazy to measure the angle precisely) and another without ailerons and with correspondingly more dihedral. The undercambered wing with no aileron would be the easiest to fly in calm conditions in the opinion of humble self. There are lots of plans and variations though - the 33" wingspan version uses less materials and would probably be quicker to assemble than the larger one.

Having blown a lot of hot air though (and I've still not flown the thing myself), I would suggest that John Pelicano might have some more useful input too. He was the first person in the club to build one and he did opt for the rolled, undercambered wing section with no ailerons. He's logged more flying time, so it would be good to see what he thinks.

[popeyepete]

Date: 19 Feb 11
Conditions: Gusty westerly winds, good visibility, OK strip
Aircraft:Extra 330 (Dynam Copy)
Battery: Turnigy 3s 1300mah
Pilot: Me

   

With Samste coaching me, i took the Extra330 for its maiden, with its flimsy landing gear the first flight had to be a hand-launch. Not a great start as it went straight for the ground, didn't respond much with any of my inputs. Found that the travel on the ailerons was to little and adjusted the end points to 125% to get more throw. Back to the strip again and found a short patch of grass to take off from. This time all went well with the plane responding much better. After trimming her out, i found that it had the tendancy to roll to the right when throttle input was increased. Plane was very light in the wind and was moving about alot, a real handful to fly. After a couple of circuits i took her down and at touch-down the landing gear pulled from the fuse..

Next flight i used a 2200mah battery to give it more weight, this time the hand launch was successful but still found it to be a handful to fly. Also noticed that the tail was dragging and requires more weight to the front. At the approach for landing it got caught by a gust and i flew it straight into the reeds, luckily no damage.

Back in the hanger i noticed that the motor is way off centre and may be the cause of the tourque roll.
Also going to adjust the control rods to different positions to get the correct throw without having to adjust end points to 125%.

Overall not a bad plane, just needs a bit of fiddling with to get it flying right. As it's only my second plane can't really rate it more than that.

Thanks to the guys on the field that day for the help and advice.

[Servo]

Congratulations to the Engineer and Pilot on a great maiden and I have the photos to prove. (I rather liked the one of the plane in the air - minus one wheel). The other great photo is after the flight, the Engineer and Pilot standing next to the plane, everyone with big grins on there faces.

Too many photos to email Steve so will put them onto a stick.

KevB

[smuzz]

Cheers Kev - thanks for that. Yeh, the dicky-looking single wheel hanging there was a distraction to us both while it was in flight too My lightweight retainers weren't up to it, so resorting to some standard ones for next weekend.
Catch up with you soon,
Steve