Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500

Yesterday was a marginal day flying at BMF. Very windy, which limited our flying. I did take the Hobby King ASK2100 up. We know how she flew last time we tried that.

I flew her a couple of times... but she hated the winds. Her wings flexed  and bent in flight, her tail twisted, and she was a bucking bronco between being carried by gusts to following her own lead when her control surfaces twisted in flight. It wasn't any fun, and every flight ended in a tip stall. I gave the controls to Paul Minnick. Immediately after launching her she kited up and backwards, then flipped nose down as she shot over the pits. He cut power to avoid the pits, clearly having no control over her, and she simply drove herself into the ground. He felt awful, I felt it was inevitable. She was a terrible aircraft. So I removed the receiver and gave all her parts to Greg Reed, who loves a challenge.

I still love my Diamond 2500, but I am done with foamy gliders. I need a new glider, less than 2 meters, power, and not foam, for a low price. I like T-tails, but that means fiberglass (or heavy foam like the Diamond), but I also like V-tails. I found this Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500 at Tower Hobbies for a very reasonable price. I couldn't find any legitimate gripes about her. I watched several vids and liked the way she flies. I will build her stock but want to work on giving her separate aileron servos (don't know why they didn't do that) when I can figure out how to make the cuts in a new servo tray. She needs spoilerons or will be challenging to land at slow speeds. She should get here by the end of the month. Looking forward to her and learning how to program V-tails!

Waffly Warthog

Took the A-10 Warthog up yesterday. She really didn't have enough thrust to takeoff from grass without a good head wind. She rolled fine on her big wheels, but she just didn't have the thrust. I did manage to takeoff once into a gust, but otherwise I hand launched her.

The pic in the manual that sets the CG at 80mm from the tip of the pylon is incorrect, as one might imagine. I set it about a third back from the leading edge, which put it over the spar, and it was spot on. I had set my low rates for elevator at 50% with 25% expo. She porpoised a lot, so I ended up setting it at 35% and it settled down. Elevator authority is no problem! She is marginally powered with the two 64mm fans on a 3S. She has 40amp ESCs, so she could handle a 4S, but I would have to chisel EPO, and I don't know if the extra weight would bog her down more than the 4S would improve her power. She hand launched easily, but her size and power require she be launched by a flying buddy. Once she waffles up to speed and is truly airborne she flies fine. She is no speed demon, but she is quick. She trimmed out easy, and once I got her elevator expo set she flew quite stably. On landing with power off she loves to float, and her gentle stall behaviors let her come down nicely.

I did have problems with the retracts. They bind, and it took some surgeries on the case to resolve that. The cheap stock servos on the mains burned out, one yesterday, and another today. I replaced them with Tower Pro SG-90mgs. Yesterday's went in no problem, but today's was "reversed" so the left main was out of sync with the nose and right main. The servo was moving correctly, but the installation would not let me put it in "backwards" to get it in sync. I don't know why this servo was different than the stock one, but it is, even though its installed the same. I ended up getting a servo reverser, and its all set now. I didn't get to fly her today due to this retract issue...

Tomorrow I hope to take her out and see if I can takeoff from the ground. Hopefully the grass will be cut before then so I can get her rolling!

BlitzRCWorks A-10 Warthog

Its not like I needed a new plane, but I go this one during the Black Sunday Sale at Bananahobby for less than half the price, in fact, almost a third. Its the BlitzRCWorks A-10 Warthog. I had wanted the camo one, but it was NIS, so I got the Black Lightening one. She is very nice! In set up one of the landing gear retract servos burned out, but the rest of her is working just fine! I didn't blog the build, it was very simple: bolt on the wings, stab, etc. The multiple wires took a bit of time, but that was easy too. Some areas of paint came up with low tack tape so had to be repainted. I set her up with flaperons, and slowed the retracts down to 3 seconds.  Her wheels are large enough she should have no trouble with the grass runway at BMF! Looking forward to flying her soon!

Salvage...

Went through the remains of the Diamond 2500 Power Glider... the rest goes in the trash.

Silver on Red

Kenny Chandler suggested a silver prop spinner would look smokin' on the nose of my very red Cosmic Wind, so I ordered one from Maxx Products International (MPI).  What do you think?

Before: Red Spinner

After: Silver Spinner

Physics is consistent, I'll give it that...

Well, yesterday I flew the ASK 2100 power glider, and landed her with the spoilerons with good speed, and she landed sweet with remarkable sink. I am also aware that she will tip stall like crazy. And I know that if you want to tip stall more spectacularly use spoilerons at stall speed. So what did I think would happen if I made my approach at just above stall speed and tripped the spoilerons, especially after I saw her do it twice at altitude while slow flying today. She tip stalled and dropped like a rock right on her nose...

Despite a fairly high speed spinning crash she came away pretty well. The nose is cracked on both sides as can be seen here, with a little foam squish. The motor and motor mount are fine. The long canopy snapped on the foam part. Epoxied everything back together easily. Good as new!

I tried a carbon fiber spar in place of the aluminum spar, which of course had no dihedral. The aircraft flew much better for being lighter and didn't seem affected by the loss of the dihedral. But on flaring for a landing the spar snapped and she dropped to the ground in a semi controlled landing. I put the aluminum spar back on and curiously, she still flew well! Today she flew more stably than she did yesterday. Conditions were much, much calmer. Flew her several times and she was a pleasure! And then I tried to defy physics...

Tomorrow is supposed to be an even better day! I am nervous because I plan to maiden the Hangar 9 Sopwith!

Hobby King ASK 2100 Glider

Clearly its not my Art Tech Diamond 2500... I killed that, the first plane I have ever demolished. Today I maidened my Hobby King ASK 2100. Its smaller, 2M power glider. The power is adequate using a 25 amp ESC and a 3S 2200 battery. She arrived in an unmarked box from Hobby King's USA warehouse. Unboxing I found there are no instructions, and like everyone else's, the rudder was broken off the airframe. I used CA hinges with foam safe CA, no problem. Despite the lack of instructions she went together quite easily. I like the wing setup, very easy to install and easy to dismantle for portage. In flight I found the aft part canted out from the airframe. I used packing tape to keep it snug. There were two ginormous lead weights, not sure what they are for, but they weren't needed. She has an aluminum spar that is rather heavy. replacing it is a goal, but it has a dihedral that makes using CF tube difficult. The airframe is slightly torqued so that the vertical stabilizer is a smidge off to the left of center. The elevator piece installs snugly with one screw and two posts. The connection to the elevator control wire is very thin, and it is lead into the elevator control horn and stays quite secure.

The conditions were cold, gusty with light winds. She powered up and flew easily out of my hand stable into a brisk gust. She climbed easily. Her frame is not very strong so she twisted out of control from time to time. I can see her wings twist on the fuse as she spins into un-commanded turns in a good wind. the wing tips flex a lot, a problem because that's where the ailerons are. In glide she is heavy, despite good CG she needs to nose down or she stalls. She also tip stalls very suddenly and hard, and takes a lot of altitude to recover, as some others have reported. She doesn't like to fly slow and she won't stay up long. I think its all because she is too heavy, and that damn aluminum spar is a big part. I think too she needs more chord. Despite all of this she was a pleasure to fly, I just spent a lot more time climbing to altitude than I did with the 2500.

I set her up with spoilerons, instead of my usual flaperons. This was really a good technique. She made her approaches floating like most gilders, even with a brisk head wind. I pulled out the spoilerons and her descent rate increased in a sweet and controlled manner. She landed flawlessly. I did stall her a couple times at altitude, not enough to recover completely, so she landed hard. No damage, pretty tough plane.

The 2500 is a big, big plane, but the price came down to about $159 at Nitroplanes... I would recommend it over this plane. I kept wishing the ASK 2100 was my Art Tech 2500.