WEEEEEEE! YEAH. UPDATE THAT CRASH CLOCK, BABY!

Decided that since the winds were damn near dead calm, I would take the two 500's and the Pulse XT60 out. This would be the maiden for the Pulse.

For 20 min I tried to start her. Decided to take a break. Dammit.

     

Flew two packs on the HK 500 FBL. MUCH FUN!

Took the cowl off the Pulse and inspected the engine quickly identifying the cause. Throttle linkage lost its nut. Loose fit it, and she started right up.  Packed her up. I'll run home, fix her, and come back out.

Flew two more packs on the HK500 FBL! MORE FUN!

Drove home to fix the Pulse. 30 min one way... Decided to replace the wire holder gadget, with one with a good screw end. Washer, nut snugged, then a dot of solder using a soldering heat gun so both pieces were hot. Cooled, added a touch of super thin CA.

Pre-Maiden walk-around. The power of this thing!

She Fly! This is a powerful, wicked fast, awesome flier! Stable, predictable, unlimited vertical. She was a touch nose heavy, but o/w trimmed out nicely. Put her through her paces with a couple of tanks. I love this plane. One thing I was worried about happened. The 15x6 prop barely clears the ground with the tail down, and is way close with it up in level flight. On one of my touch and goes the prop touched and snapped. 

I decided to fly the heli again and at the end of the pack, flying low, I dumb thumbed a rotor strike and that was the end of that. All that power and energy had to go somewhere.

On the way home I picked up another Xoar 15x6, and this APC 15x6. I think the APC may be more likely to survive light prop strikes and stall the engine instead of snapping. I also added 10 gms to the tail, on top the the boatload  already there.

Tomorrow looks like an even better day to fly! I can't wait! I think I will take the Spitfire to maiden as well.

This going to sit here for a while. Rebuilding and setting these up is laborious, so I will need to have everything else done. I still have the two 600's. I wasn't able to fly the HDX 500 because I forgot it takes 4S batteries, I only have one, and it was at home...

"Here, hold my beer..."

Got out this morning, after a late night working on the MXS-R, and the fields were empty of lacrosse players, the sky clear, the wind calm. Perfect!

Took the Pulse XT, the 1000mm Sbach and the F-86 Saber jet out. Flew the Pulse, always a great flyer, and as I was flying Jerry came out and introduced himself. He's an RC pilot, new to the hobby, so I took him up on a buddy box with the Pulse. He did an amazing job, and is completely hooked if he wasn't already. I suggested the Alpha Sport 450 as a great first plane (he tried starting with the Pulse, but being an engineer, he over engineered it :-), and I realized I have the extra new one and offered to sell it to him. It will be great to have another pilot out at Joppa Hill.

I took the Jet up. Or tried to. She has to be hand launched, always a moment of truth, and she went to ground. The wind was behind us, what there was, so she ended up in the dirt, where she FOD'd herself.

 

See that? No blades. They went shooting out the back...

I took the Sbach up, and she was twitchy, hated the grass, but she was settling in and becoming fun to fly. She needs a lot of power to keep flying. I brought her down and started to toss her around. I decided to do a low loop. You know that thought, where you say to yourself, "I really don't think she can do this, but WTF, let's see what happens?" The "Here, hold my beer..." moment. And then without thinking about it much you start the manuever and it ends a badly as you expected? Yeah, all too well. In talking to Jerry, I realized this, and that I really wasn't upset at all. TLDR: I tried a low level loop, she couldn't pull out, she dieded.

 

Oh well, parts for a new project!

It was nice to meet Jerry, and I look forward to flying with him again soon!

Oh, BTW, in our last of three buddy box flights my Master box started doing that disconnect-reconnect thing again. Recall I had sent the DX8 to Specktrum to see if it was my box, and it wasn't I changed the cable and the problem resolved. It's back...

 

Posted with Blogsy

What is it with me and landing gear?

BEAUTIFUL DAY today. Took the Sbach and the Pulse XT60 out this afternoon. The Pulse started, ran fine, flew well, but discovered a small problem. The Sbach started but wouldn't run right. I removed the cowl, tuned her and she ran fine, but lacked something. I was flying her with the 12x8x3 blade, and she didn't seem to like it. I put the 2 blade 13x8 back on, small tweaks to the needles and she found her somethin'-somethin'! She wants the two blade. Sweet.

After the third flight, the first with the two blade, she rolled out after a nice landing and her gear just came right off. Right. The. Frick. Off.

Reset the crash clock...

The fore and aft tabs on the hard plate, and glue on those two longitudinal stringers was it. Thin balsa held the tabs in front. This was just begging to fail.

I did manage to find a muffler extension length and position to keep most of the exhaust oil off the fuselage.

The Pulse flew well. Her engine still sputters in the mid ranges, sweet at WOT. But her elevator servo will twitch once or twice up when the vibrations hit on WOT. I saw this is I gunned it, both in flight and on takeoff. It does it once, pitching the nose up then goes back, aa quick up flick. I bet this is what happened  when she flipped over her wing and threw the fuse cover. Need to replace that servo I guess.

So, the gang is all here. The Sbach is already fixed, strengthened the attachments. Still looking for a used 30cc gas engine for the MX-Bach. Here's hoping the Sbach and the Pulse become dependable.

Eflite Pulse XT Build Part 1

My Eflite Pulse XT arrived yesterday from Horizon Hobby. Today was a busy build day, and per usual, its always something. A couple of minor techincal glitches, overcome by some MacGyvering, and all's done but the most critical part, the wing.

Das box!

Das parts!

The first step was cutting off the extra 1/4" of axle, to allow the wheel pants to fit. The axle comes long so that the float modification can be attached, but if one uses the wheel pants instead of the floats it needs to be shortened. Easy peasy. This was a lot more sparkly than the photo lets on! (I like sparkly...).

Posts on the Pulse XT 25e discuss the weakness of the landing gear box, between my fingers. This one is rather built up, so I wonder it Eflite already addressed this problem? I had planned to glass this, but I can't see how I would or how it would add strength... 

But I did epoxy all the joints in the area, here the underside (also did the top, into the battery box as well). I think this will be helpful.

Landing gear and tail assembly comptleted!

To help support the model during the build I cut one of the boxes from the packing with the cutout seen here.

Into which the fuse fit nicely! This proved quite useful! I am so clever...

Elevator and rudder servos installed. JR MN48's. I wish now I had mounted them towards the center, rather than to the outside of the cut out. The geometry of the control rods would be a little betteras they come into the compartment a bit more along the midline. I may redo this, but it is really minor and moving them will just weaken the tray.

Control rods completed, servo's centered and servo arms trimmed. The Spektrum AR600 DSMX reciever can be seen here.

I had to re-engineer the motor mount. In this pic you can see that the HURC Power Up 32 motor's mount holes don't line up with the Eflite Power 32 mounting holes pre-set in the firewall. I gave this a lot of thought, and rather than build a new firewall, I opted to grind and drill the X mount to accommodate the original mount holes. I am not sure if it will vibrate out of center... but it seems secure and come out properly positioned and centered on the cowl. You can see that it is mounted slightly to the aircraft's left. It is also angled slightly right. 

The re-engineered X mount.

She went together pretty well! The ESC is ginormous (Emax 70A) and the 4S battery fills the battery compartment. Its a snug fit. I'll post a pic tomorrow. I also got the aluminum spinner and it looks sweet! That's a 13 x 6.5 APC eprop on there. Tomorrow the wings and canopy and she's all done! With the Power 25 setup she is wicked fast. With this Power 32, she should be a rocket!  

The Hangar 9 Sopwith and the Dynam C-47 Transporter arrived this afternoon. I think after I complete the Pulse I'll start work on the C-47. Its huge... 

Not sure what the status of BMF is. I wonder it they've completed the work. I need to fly something!

Sbach 60" versus Pulse 25XTe 52"

For comparison. The Sbach 60" wingspan next to the Pulse 25XT 52" wingspan. The Sbach flies 6S to 8S and the Pulse flies 4S. The Pulse is my best flying aircraft to date. Can't wait for the spinner to arrive so I can set the CG and call the Sbach build done.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Completing the Pulse XT

Pulse XT build Part 1 and Part 2 outlined the first couple of days of the build of my Eflite Pulse XT 25e. Today I installed the aileron servos and their control rods, installed the wing and set up the flaperons. Ran her up and holy guacamole, has it got some scary power!

Aileron servo and the under-surface of the wing.

Balance is just at the forward CG line.

Underside.

Underside of the attached wing.

The ESC is on the right, the battery on the left. Tight fit. The red velcro is to allow me ot pull the battery out.

The name plate on the side of the cockpit.

She is all set for her maiden flight! 

Some screws for the 25 motor mount (I used longer screws for the 32 motor mount), There are 4 1" square pieces of hardwood, with holes in each corner. They don't show up in the instructions, and I have no idea what they are for...

Kenny Chandler and I set up shop at the KAMS field in Ocean Springs today. Way too windy... Flew the Alpha Sport, and the newly reconstructed Trojan T-28. It was challenging, but fun to finally get to fly after almost 2 weeks. Tomorrow I an thinking about heading out to BMF to see if I can fly off the runway or not. As soon as I know the field is open for sure, I'll take the Pulse out to BMF for her maiden. Tonight I will start work on the Nitroplanes C-47 Transporter.