Sturdy Undies

The main landing gear on the Eflite Alpha Sport 450 are pretty sturdy, but the nose gear was prone to flexing. I finally snapped it last week. I ordered a Sullivan Knuckle Nose Gear from Tower Hobbies to replace it. This makes for a pretty sturdy pair of undies! Flew her today and this gear kept her straight and true on the ground, and she turned with authority during taxiing. In the install I had to replace the gear attachment with the Sullivan one, which was a bit large. I cut an inch off the top of the gear wire, and she fits perfectly.

Kibbles and bits

The UPS man cameth, and he leaveth stuff!

The LiPo battery for my Spektrum DX8 arrived, fully charged! Its already in my transmitter. The NiCd was worn out. I think it got short charge memory, and something else was wrong with it (it was always warm). I have little doubt it caused the crash of my PulseXT.

Got tired of hand bending poor z-bends, so bought a Hobbico z-bend plier. Not sure how to use it, but I think I can figure it out.

Why's this upside down???? I flipped it, but there it is... The replacement nose gear for my Alpha 450 Sport Trainer. Its pretty big... but will solve some problems getting through the grass.

AND MY NEW REPLACEMENT PULSEXT 25e ARRIVED! I am not going to enjoy rebuilding it and the stress of the maiden, but she is one of the finest airplanes I own and I can't wait to be flying her again!

HDX 500se and Erazor 450 Ready!

Busy day today! Finished work on the Hanger 9 Sopwith, the Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500, and now announcing I've finally gotten my HDX 500se flight ready! I replaced a bad servo, chekced the Align GP750 gyro setup, checked blade balance, replaced the tail blade with 500 size ones, programmed my Dx8 and set up the CCPM. When I get my new radio battery I hope to maiden her! Both the Erazor 450 and the HDX 500se are ready now.

Canopy off, HDX 500se

Erazor 450 in the foreground, HDX500 in the back.

Thunder Tiger Hawk Completed

My T-pro MG90 servos arrived yesterday, and today I finished building the Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500. Building this thing was a pain in the ass. For such a simple airplane, it was a classic case of "its always something". I have never been a fan of single servo ailerons, though they are working pretty well on my Electrifly Cosmic Wind. On this plane the aileron connecting rod that runs from the control rods to the ailerons has a lot of flexibility in torque, and getting the control rods to connect to the aileron connectors was no fun at all. Some builders put individual aileron servos in the wings, something I may consider. Previous to this step was the attachment of the wing to the pod body (fuse). Builders have had problems with the blind nuts, especially the rearmost ones. I was no exception. I could not get the screws and nuts to join. I ended up using short wood screws. In the end, the surfaces move pretty much to their required limits, the CG is on, and she is beautiful!

Installing the ailerons was standard, CA hinges. The wimpy control rod is seen to the right. I think it would have been better for it to have gone to the middle of the aileron.

Small brass grommets protect the wood of the  wing at the four attachment points of the main wing to the pod. The back two had to come out as part of the bolt-nut fiasco.

The aileron control rod connectors. Not much range of motion, even screwed in a bit.

TheV-tail assembly was very easy and straight forward. Programming it in my Dx8 was easy: normal wing type, V-tail selected and that was it!

VERY tight space and tolerances for the control horns. The  upper one that runs horizontally is the aileron servo, and sits about 1-2 mm over the two elevator/rudder servos on a platform. The yellow tape on the back of the pod covers and levels out the epoxy I had to use to rebuild the back wing attachment. It still didn't work properly. I put tape on the front attachment base so that everything remained level.  I ended up putting a small s-curve in the aileron control rods to attach them to the ailerons without binding. This is wire I  made control rods from as the stock ones were too short. I think that the servo tray needed to be aft by another 3-4 mm (see black mark, should align with the top of the servo tray above the rudder servo), but it cramped up the elevator/rudder servos, which already were tight. In the process of creating the epoxy repair of the aft attachment base, epoxy ran down into the tail cone and bound up one of the elevator servos, which burned out before I figured out what happened. That's the servo I had to wait for...

You can see the s-curve I put in the aileron control rod. Using the stock standard clevis arrangement wasn't going to work unless I got them set perfectly and CA'd them to the control rods (they are not threaded), I had used Great Planes control rod quick connectors. This arrangement worked out pretty well.  I put white cote along the fuse to increase underside discrimination in flight. I also put some on the underside wing tips.

And so she is done! Motor spins, wings stays attached firmly, control surfaces move appropriately, and she really looks beautiful! I hope she flies without any squirrely behaviors!

All 6's and 7's!

With the placing of the prop and nut, the CG is on the designated mark (damn this thing is heavy...), she is ready to fly!

The Right Stuff

My Hobbypartz Adventure has, more or less, finished, and finished satisfactorily. The right part is now in the right place for my Hangar 9 Sopwith. Its adventures continue!  I installed the motor last week, and today the Hobbywing Platinum 100A ESC arrived, and I installed it after soldering the connectors, and bench ran it with the prop using two 3S 3300 batteries in series (6S). She ran smoothly and with power. Here's a pic of the installation.  You can see the ESC to the left (a/c right).

I installed the cowl (no rubbing from the motor), and later painted the prop washer and nut with Rustoleum Hammered Copper paint, which I will let dry overnight. I will install that tomorrow. I will check the CG with the 6S setup, hoping to be a bit nose heavy. And with that, she will be flight ready again! I also spent the morning rebuilding and resetting up the CPM on my Erazor 450, and have started on my HDX 500 rebuild (it had issues when I bought it months ago, and I have never gotten around to setting them to rights).

There should be tears...

Short and simple: I lost my incredible Eflite Pulse XT this afternoon. I think my DX8 burped... my new DX8.

I had noticed over these past several weeks that I wasn't getting a full charge indication on my DX8 with its stock NiCd (4.8V) batteries. Today it alarmed low voltage when it still had 4.8V (it will charge to 5.2V) and turned off. Before this flight I had charged it for almost 45 min and it read 5.1V. It binded to the PulseXT fine, I completed my pre-takeoff checks, and launched. She turned and I climbed to about 200ft, and started a vertical snap roll. It started but then seemed to mush and she tipped nose down and started a roll spin. I realized I had no control, and called out as she spun slowly, straight down to the ground despite my letting go and then trying to ease back on the elevator. She corkscrewed all the way down. The nose and forward fuse were shattered. The wing cracked but did not break all the way through (not pictured). The receiver showed a single blink... lost bind. In the field's Bermuda Quadrant where this sort of radio loss has occurred.

I got home planning to buy a new fuse and cowl, but the fuse was $111, and the cowl $16, or $137. A new plane cost $190, so I saw no point in just getting the fuse... I opted to buy a new replacement kit. I have all the electronics from the original (will ne
ed to replace the gears in the rudder MN48 servo, but I have them), so that will be it. I also need to update the DX8 software... good time to do so.

So I am bummed... but I am lucky enough to be able to get another.

PS: I forgot to mention that the other reason I suspect the battery is that later, still having to keep plugging it in, I flew my heli. Near the end of a long hover the heli suddenly came straight down from 10 feet, fast. No damage. No release of bind, curiously. I checked out the heli, it was fine. Took it up again, and within a few seconds it did it again, unfortunately I could not keep it from tipping on the ground and had a boom strike. No release of bind either. This is when Steve wondered if the radio itself was the problem. Being that I was having battery problems, I wonder if the voltage spiked down enough to decrease the power output allowing for a we signal. With the Pulse which was far away, it resulted in a loss of bind, but with the closer heli, just a brown out?