19-05-2012, 05:18 PM
Date: 19 May 12
Conditions: Couldn't be better - no wind, very smooth strip
Aircraft: Dynam T-28 (1270 mm wingspan)
I once saw Dame Edna telling a woman in the audience that her dress looked "affordable" - this plane is much the same, the fit of the parts and the ludicrous pilots are a testament to that. Assembly was irritating - the carbon fibre rod in the wings was about 70mm too long (never seen that happen before and had me double-checking everything), the screws that hold the tailplane down were very difficult to fit and the ones for the main wing were worse. I looked at the cheap little motor with its spindly 3mm shaft and thought "you and I are not going to be friends, pal" so it went, along with the 30A ESC that it was attached to. In went a Turnigy 3542-1000 and a 40A ESC that will take 4S. Now this is really bizarre - the elevator and rudder servos were connected together with a "Y" lead!!! I decided to remove the elevator servo and relace it with a Turnigy 90S metal-geared analogue unit - a lesson I learned from seeing Gazz's first PC-9 auger the old cross-strip a couple of years ago. The retracts looked solid enough though. Didn't put all the stickers on because I might do a paint-job first.
I wanted to fly it on 4S but didn't pack the correct battery before heading to the field, so a 2200mAh 3S nanotech would have to do. A quick check of the CoG showed it to be about 12mm forward which I was happy to go with for a maiden. Took off and the retracts did their stuff but under full power it was pitching up a lot. I throttled back to about 60% and spent a lot of time hitting trims - rudder, aileron and elevator all got a good nudge. As soon as I powered up again it wanted to wander off course. It's roll rate was low, so I'll probably up the throws there but it looped from level flight easily. Brought it in for a landing and it was happy to glide in very nicely - much smoother than the Durafly T-28B and almost as good as the Parkzone.
I'm going to get some 4S batteries on charge tonight and experiment with a few props, might also look more closely at the thrust-line. It's not a bad plane in spite of it's super-cheap nature and I think with a bit of tweaking it might be good - but I'll be surprised if I ever get it to compete with the Parkzone one on level terms.
UPDATE: Back over to the field today to see how things would turn out with the 4S 2450mAh battery which I was originally planning to use. Noticeably better - the little extra weight didn't show up at all and at full bore it was scooting along quite nicely. I think I'll turn my attention to some adjustments to the thrust-line next because there are still some issues with it pitching up when under a lot of power. Thanks go to Kizza for noticing that there was a screw missing from the wing joiner - that would have made things interesting as I attempted to pull out of a power dive! The retracts are holding up well and appear to be quite solid.
Conditions: Couldn't be better - no wind, very smooth strip
Aircraft: Dynam T-28 (1270 mm wingspan)
I once saw Dame Edna telling a woman in the audience that her dress looked "affordable" - this plane is much the same, the fit of the parts and the ludicrous pilots are a testament to that. Assembly was irritating - the carbon fibre rod in the wings was about 70mm too long (never seen that happen before and had me double-checking everything), the screws that hold the tailplane down were very difficult to fit and the ones for the main wing were worse. I looked at the cheap little motor with its spindly 3mm shaft and thought "you and I are not going to be friends, pal" so it went, along with the 30A ESC that it was attached to. In went a Turnigy 3542-1000 and a 40A ESC that will take 4S. Now this is really bizarre - the elevator and rudder servos were connected together with a "Y" lead!!! I decided to remove the elevator servo and relace it with a Turnigy 90S metal-geared analogue unit - a lesson I learned from seeing Gazz's first PC-9 auger the old cross-strip a couple of years ago. The retracts looked solid enough though. Didn't put all the stickers on because I might do a paint-job first.
I wanted to fly it on 4S but didn't pack the correct battery before heading to the field, so a 2200mAh 3S nanotech would have to do. A quick check of the CoG showed it to be about 12mm forward which I was happy to go with for a maiden. Took off and the retracts did their stuff but under full power it was pitching up a lot. I throttled back to about 60% and spent a lot of time hitting trims - rudder, aileron and elevator all got a good nudge. As soon as I powered up again it wanted to wander off course. It's roll rate was low, so I'll probably up the throws there but it looped from level flight easily. Brought it in for a landing and it was happy to glide in very nicely - much smoother than the Durafly T-28B and almost as good as the Parkzone.
I'm going to get some 4S batteries on charge tonight and experiment with a few props, might also look more closely at the thrust-line. It's not a bad plane in spite of it's super-cheap nature and I think with a bit of tweaking it might be good - but I'll be surprised if I ever get it to compete with the Parkzone one on level terms.
UPDATE: Back over to the field today to see how things would turn out with the 4S 2450mAh battery which I was originally planning to use. Noticeably better - the little extra weight didn't show up at all and at full bore it was scooting along quite nicely. I think I'll turn my attention to some adjustments to the thrust-line next because there are still some issues with it pitching up when under a lot of power. Thanks go to Kizza for noticing that there was a screw missing from the wing joiner - that would have made things interesting as I attempted to pull out of a power dive! The retracts are holding up well and appear to be quite solid.
Steve Murray