I don't know... I think I still prefer the ease of working with Phoenix RC Flight Sim, but I can't get it to work right on my new PC, so I am stuck with RF8. RF8 isn't bad, by any means, but I am confused by a few things. I liked the huge selection of phot airfields, the huge variation of aircraft including helis, I mean everything was there. I would expect RF8 to at least have all the Horizon Products, like Hangar 9, and why not encourage more helis. But most of all, I don't understand whynit doesn't just work or have really good instructions for working with Spektrum products.
My DX7S doesn't work perfectly with the Spektrum WS1000 dongle. I had to play around for days with switches as it doesn't see all 7 ch, and they aren't apparently mapped the same. Why RF8 and the dongle don't just recognize the DX7S like a receiver would, I don't know. I get there is some give and take with using one model (ACRO) to control both planks and helis. Some smart programmer should be able to figure that out.
Right now I figure out how to get Flight Modes (2 allowed on the DX7S), and the Hold switch done. I am still not quite sure how. I don't have flaps or gear on planks.
1. Start with the stock simple ACRO model in the Spektrum Tx, in this case the one I use on my sims is my old DX7S.
2. While pressing the ROLLER, turn on the transmitter, taking you to the SYSTEM SETUP and scrol down to SWITCH SELECT. Make it look like this:
F Mode: AUX1
Mix:Gear
This gave me Flight modes and Hold on helis, did nothing to planks.
3. Go back the the ACRO, change its name if you wish, turn off the TX, then bind it to the Dongle by holding the button on the WS1000 while installing in (Really? It's not easy if your dongle in going in the back of the computer, heck, its not easy no matter how you do it. May take a couple of tries to get the strobing orange light).
4. Turn on RF8 and voila.
I fly the Ultra Stick 30cc around with the flaps down... no way around that I can find. Maybe there is a keyboard setting. I'll get back to you on that. I tried setting different WING TYPE like flaps, flaperons... nada changed it. I tried variations as one is limited to in calibration in RF8, no effect.
You can see the flaps down half way here.
Sometimes the flaps move with the ailerons. I saw it do this when I had WING TYPE set to single aileron and single flap servo, but I changed it back to single aileron, the stock setting, and it's still doing it.
The Twinstar has plain wire landing gear. Not much fun. I have toyed with the idea of putting oleos on her.
And so I did. I cut the gear struts down long enough to accept the oleo gears and leave a small space to allow them to flex a bit without striking the wing. Making them retracts isn't really reasonable as the wing isn't built for them, but who knows...
The nose gear I initially cut a straight rod for, but it came up a little short, and I didn't include the coiled spring. I regret that now, so I ordered another steerable DuBro wire gear set. I will trim it down but longer and include the spring. Right now the nose points a bit down and the props are only about 2 cm above the ground. It's been shipped and onceI install it I'll update this post with new pics!
Such a beautiful day, and only 4 people out at the field all day!
The Twinstar flew marvelously with her new Master Airscrew 8x6x3 props. Her nose fear has always been wonky in the grass, and the beating made it come loose from its turn control arm, ending its flight day after two batteries. I have toyed with the idea of putting ole gear on her... Fund flights!
I didn't take any pics of the Sbach, but she made an appearance. Despite running great here at the house, and when I started and ran her up, then flew her, she suddenly dead stocked again on approach. I got her down, and in an hour of trying could not get a nice clean reliable idle.i tried super lean, super rich an everything in between.
She threw a lot of oil a fresh gallon today I put 3.2oz in a gallon for a 40:1and she was still covered with a ton of oil, thickly.
The MX-Bach did what the Sbach did. Despite running awesome at home, at the field she would idle for a minute or two then suddenly stop. No slowing just suddenly stop. Though she often did slow her RPms in two steps then stop. I had to set the end point for a rather fast idle.
Even with a slower landing idle she was too fast, even with full flaps. I went to hit the kill a foot above the ground and when I did I accidentally pulled back on the elevator and she floated to there feet and stalled. Only damage was the gear snapped off just above the wheel.
I mentioned the fuel mix above at 40:1. I threw another 1/3 gallon of 93 octane in the can, and will see how a more dilute mix works out. There is something I am doing that is not letting these engines idle well. There is something I am doing wrong,
Planes always look better with multi blade props. There is also more thrust, with irrelevant loss of efficiency. Case in point. With twin 8x8 two blade APC props her static thrust was 2.6 lbs (3S). With twin Master Airscrew 8x6x3 three blade props she produced 3.6 lbs of static thrust. Already a speed demon she is going to rip the air! Hope to see tomorrow!
That feeling when you napped instead of going flying on the one good weather day for several days before and after today like you had planned, and now you have to discharge all those batteries.
John Bieran took this great photo of our flying field, Wagner Field, on the top of what I call Mt. Hudson, the closed landfill, in Hudson, New Hampshire. Southern NH RC Club.
Brought the MX-Bach down from it's bat perch on the ceiling to inspect and set her up on the Spektrum iX12. This is one of my favorite planes. I really like the larger engines, they seem to run better and tolerate weather and pressure changes better, start 'em and fly 'em! I had the wings on when I set up and programmed her into the radio, but forgot to take a pic.
Well, the clunk has a woodie... I really like the clear tanks.
The Tygon tubing is hard as a rod. I have been replacing these with Viton tubing.
Much better! Viton tubing.
The tank reinstalled. I think you can see it in the video the foaming from engine vibrations. Very little of that passes to the engine. At the bottom of the pic you see a pair of wires running over the side bulkhead. That is the ignition light wire I seem to have passed incorrectly, I cut the wires, passed it under the bulkhead, and used those melting heat-shrink connectors to rewire it as I can't get the plain on the soldering bench. I love those things! Push the wires with a small exposed end, into the tubing, one on each end so they mesh in the middle, use a heat gun to heat shrink and melt the solder. Voila!
The engine in run up. If you listen carefully you will hear the changes from Flight Idle to Approach Idle, and Landing Idle. I do this to prevent the engine from stopping in idle in fight, but slowing the plane down nicely. I hit Approach on final to slow it and as I cross the threshold I move it to Landing Idle, the slowest idle with a pretty reliable RPM. No needle adjustments, just had to find the new throttle end points on the iX12.
I have been slowly working on getting my aircraft ready for the flying season, and programming them into the iX12 one by one. Taking care of any gripes, inspecting, and tuning things up a bit.
The Twinstar is up and ready to go. Painted the 8x8 prop tips because I could, but I bought a pair of 8 x6x3 blade props and a couple of spinners. The smallest cheap ones I could fine were DuBro 2". The current ones are 1.5", so not much difference. I think they will actually look better being more flush with the cowls.
This is such a sweet plane. A balanced and capable flyer, a delight to fly.
Took the Sukhoi SU-26 with its RCGF 10cc engine out and set it up on the iX12. The engine runs fine, but in setting the end points it wanted some tuning, which got weird. After going back to defaults and working my way up, the needles seem a bit rich turn wise, but are now working great. The engine won't run at the standard 1-1/2 L and 1-3/4 H, and are out about 3-4 turns... but she is giving me 7800 RPM with the 13x8x3 Master Airscrew, idling down without going low and coming back up (ie H too rich), and accelerating without hesitation. She is where she needs to be.
All cleaned up, programmed in, set up the Orange Stabilization, and cleaned up loose cote.
After I was all done I decided to put a DuBro muffler extension on her, hoping to keep oil off the plane, and that it doesn't change the exhaust compression too much.
I need a day off with good weather, too many planes to get up in the air.
I love the Eflite PT-19 Cornell. The Cox 0.49 control line version depicted here with the Eflite model, was one of my first airplanes as a kid.
Eflite PT-19 Cornell and the Coc 0.49 U-control version.
Here is my current PT-19 Cornell! It's a pretty model, but I find the plain wire landing gear a distraction. I have always wanted to do something about them. The real plane has a wrap around fairing. I decided today would be a good day to make some.
I planned two halve wrapped around the wire gear. I shaped themmsomthat the back was angle slightly.
I sanded them down to make them a bit aerodynamic. I wasn't looking for perfection.
I CA'd them to the wires. I left a little space between the top and the wing to allow for movement of the wire on rolling on grass. Sanded them a bit smoot and filled gaps with CA.
I wrapped them in cote.
Sweet!
Baby got a new pair of pants!
All I need to do now is bind her and program her into the iX12 and she's ready to fly again!
UPDATE: I put a new Spektrum AR620 in, replacing an old AR6100, and bound her to the iX12, programmed her in, set up her Orange Stabilization, and she is ready to go!
Stormy winds out there, no fly day, but I did finish tuning the RCGF 26cc. So much easier now that whatever its problem was is solved! Since it's slow, painted the prop tips.
I also checked the EVO 10cc on the Sbach and she runs fine. She has a 13x8x3 blade prop. It performs well but seems a little under powered. I picked up an 11x8x3, and a 12x2 scimitar to see if less props would lead to faster RPMs, more thrust. The 11x8x3 looks really small. I may try them, but think I will stay with the 13x8x3 for now.
There's this thing where one thing leads to another. Today was a day where one thing lead to another. It actually started last night, up until 1 am (did not know) working a problem. I barely remember how this evolved.
I finished up the Sbach.
Added a x-cross truss to absorb any torsion and fore-aft stress. This hardpoint is going to be the only thing left in a crash.
I have the engine tuned pretty well now, good idle. I am tired of not having the cowl on, and since she is touchy and needs her low needle adjusted frequently, I put a small hole in the cowl to access the low needle without thpaking the cowl off. This is a beautiful plane. I hope she settles down and let's me just fly. Never buying another Evolution Nitro Conversion.
I have mentioned this new tail wheel, but I like it so much I want to mention it again! It was one of the repairs this run.
Next I took on the gravelly RCGF 26cc that had been running fine but over the past 2 weeks has been changing and running horribly sounding. It was time to take the engine apart, to take the carb apart, and clean everything.
In breaking it down I found that the two front cylinder screws were tight, but when I replaced them they were actually stripped on the engine side. These are M4 10mm so I replaced them with 14mm M4s, to see it they would bite deeper down in the screw path, and between that and fresh threads, it worked perfectly; they felt tight going in and snuggled down nicely. While cleaning the carb, cleaning the spark of carbon (it has been running rich), I think the cylinder not being tight may have been an issue. There is some oil around the cylinder-motor box aft joint, so maybe. Either way, I ran it today and it rocks sweet now. I solved the problem, whatever it was.
In an aside, the spark is an M4F. I have no idea what that is, and wonder why it's not a CM6 like the 30cc?
All put back together.
And then this happened. The attachment to the throttle has always been an issue waiting to pop up. It snapped off. I don't like the geometry it gave, and the throttle control horn sweeps up at either end, dipping in the middle. I think it did that so that when closed it avoided the screw inn the base you see on the right. But it created a dynamic that makes the linkage challenging. I wanted to put a ball clevis on it, but they don't go on wires The standard metal ones I have are a bit long, and I have never soldered a rod or wire to a metal clevis. I had no idea if it was possible. Add to that the wire was starting to unravel handling it. It needs the wire as there is as noted so much movement at this end but for some reason really has a lot of movement at the servo. You can see in the photo I figured it out.
I found this on You Tube, and it showed you can, so I did!
So now this end of the engine is fine! I just set the needles to stock and will need to tune them.
The servo end had its problems. The servo arm could be longer. It rotates a lot on both ends. This required me to free up the tube in the anterior wall on the right there, so it can sweep back and forth. I then had problems with the set screw on the control horn not releasing, and had to pull everything, and yank it off. Now I needed another one of those wire linkages for the control horn. I found one that works. I have to use this and I don't have a longer control horn that fits the servo and the control horn linkage. I had to figure this out. In the end it works well. But in rotation at the high throttle end it pulled the servo forward and bent the deck. I had to put a cross piece to strengthen the floor, and in the end was able to set the endpoints to not require so much rotation. I also had to shave the motor mount next to the clevis as the wire aft end of the clevis would catch on it and click over it. Shaving it off with the Dremel solved that. I finally took her outside and ran her up. Tough getting her to start, but she did and runs wonderfully. I was setting the endpoints and tuning the low end for idle, and the battery died. Swapped it out. A few runs later the power switch failed on, the electrical ignition cut out would not stop the ignition, and she wasn't responding to the throttle running WOT! I pulled the battery connection and stopped it. Testing showed the switch failed on. What I don't understand is why the electronic ignition kill didn't work and why she stopped responding to the throttle.
I have a computerized switch I replaced the simple slide switch out. That sunnovabitch didn't want to come out. That took an hour. I created a hard plate of plywood to put the push run-off switch to storage the force of turning it on and off. All fixed. The interesting thing is I was looking for fail-on switch, and they are hard to find, and not cheap. Harder still was finding a magnetic one. I have a couple of these computerized switches on planes and they are great, but bulky and require a firm surface. That took an hour.
During fueling I saw gas spraying out of the unused hole (it has a two pipe system, vent and combo fill-engine line) on the tank stopper... I made a piece of pipe filled with solder and pulled the tank, shoved that in there. Problem solved, but that took an hour.
Finally all done. It was past 7 pm, a little late to be running the engine, so fine tuning the low end will have to wait.
Whew. And to think the wx was so nice I could have been flying. When I have a plane with a problem though, I have to focus on that, so that's what I did, and why last night I suddenly realized how late it was.
I am sitting here in the Urgent Care clinic in which I work, but it has been dead slow as people wisely are staying home unless something is really going on with them, so I am at work, but not working much. Goes to show that most really don't need to be seen on regular days, let alone during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means I have too much time on my hands to think about RC and projects, and buying RC stuff online.
The other day I stalled the Sbach a foot off the ground and tore off the landing gear. This was after hours of trying to get the lousy Evolution 10cc gasser to idle at all, let alone well. She has, I believe, a 13x8x3 blade Master Airscrew on her. She doesn't have a lot of power, I think due to low compression on the Evo engine (it is the loosest engine), but that is a big prop for it, rated max 13 x 8 dual blade. So today I bought an 11 x 8 x3 and a 12x8 Scimitar from my favorite prop maker, Master Airscrew. I have played with using a 2 blad prop before and think she likes it better. The idle was finally working, and she flew fine, I just underestimated the crosswind-headwind and she suddenly stopped flying. At any rate, I am hoping to be able to put a smaller prop on, see how she runs, and if all goes well, fly her and put her cowl on. The vortex generators worked: she didn't tip stall which would have made a mess, instead just tipped over on her nose and snapped off the gear. Sweet.
I have to get my other big gassers up and running: they run perfectly, and I live for the day I can go to the field, fire up a plane and just fly... not spend time tuning the damn thing. It's these little 10cc engines that are such a PITA, though I don't have these problems often with the RCGF ones. I am sticking to RCGF-USA engines from now on.
There wasn't much damage. The hardpoint ripped out, broke the cote and one stringer, took less than an hour to fix. I REALLY strengthened it this time, so if it comes off the entire front of the plane is coming off. I added some plywood stringers in the hardpoint attachement area, epoxied the shit out of it (I am afraid to turn it over and see where the run-off went), and put several heavy duty screws into the wood. I am also going to put a cross truss in that space behind the hardplate to reduce any fuselage compression and torsion behind the hardpoint. This is one stiff landing gear now.
On inspecting the Sbach I noted that the small hole that the original tail gear goes through the carbon fiber hard point was open a bit in the back and the tail gear "axle" was tilting back. It needed to be replaced. It was a standard tail wheel with a metal rod attached to the rudder to turn it. I had this nylon one in hand, and it actually seems a better fit. Found a couple of appropriately stiff springs and McGyvered this. Works well!
The RCGF 26cc ran like crap. Last time I flew her, a week ago, she ran great, some 4 cycling in the mid-range, but it was mild, idled wonderfully, great smooth WOT. This time she ran fine, but 4 cycled constantly, jerking and popping like a hip-hopper. I pulled the silencers, and that didn't change it, so I put them back on (they really make a difference). I had found that the muffler had come un-attached, and had fixed that, but that was before this problem. I plan to take the engine off, clean the carb, the spark (maybe replace it) and retune it. If that doesn't work I do have another 30cc sized CDI that I can replace it with (don't know why I have it, I assume it's fine). This engine was running fine. I suspect an air leak somewhere or a dirty carb/spark.
I got Joe Nelson of RCGF-USA to send me some more RCGF Stickers when I ordered my replacement 10cc ignition. I LOVE this design, and can't get enough of these!
I am off tonight and plan to get the work done on the Sbach, but the new props won't be in for a few days (maybe I have one in stock). I want to start taking the 26cc apart too. And I guess I have to spend some time with the wife... :-) I am off tomorrow and plan to fly something.
