Ugly day

It was a gorgeous, beautiful, "Ugly" day!

We had a very nice crowd at BMF today. A gorgeous day, light winds. Something was in the air the entire afternoon, from foamies, to giant scale to helis of all sorts. Dickie Ober even broke out his AR Drone. We had a couple of new people, and some past members showed up (Hi, Sam!) who haven't flown here for a couple of years.

I flew my Eflite Ultimate 20-300, one of my favorite all time fliers. Have to put some tail weight in and bring the CG aft if I want any 3D out of her. She flew awesome and was a lot of fun!

I also brought out my Hangar 9 Sopwith to try again. I noticed as she waited that her lower left wing had a curve in it. I could see too much of the underside of the wing, and it clearly was twisted, the leading edge lifting up. I don't think the repair I did to the leading edge could have caused this much twist, but I will need to break down the wing end and see if I can straighten it out. I REALLY wanted to fly her, but everyone said it would be suicide. Bill Page took me over when I was whining, and we looked her over. He talked sense into me, and I grounded her... very disappointed. Fixing this wing will be difficult. This photo doesn't show the degree of twist well, but its quite visible. I may be able to get a little push down from the strut, but I have no doubt I will need to refabricate the wind spars and leading edge... I have the PulseXT and the Sbach to build, so once again, the Camel is on the wall for the time being.

Flew my Erazor to much delight today! Flew several packs, then decided to try a side on hover, and did pretty well, both ways. Unfortunately she got away from me and I lost control of her, down she went. As hard as she went down I thought for sure I totaled her, but all that happened was damage to the main gear and the entire CCPM mechanism. Easily fixed. Should have her up after about 2 hours of work (repair, resetting the CCPM). I plan to get that servo wire fixed on my HDX500se, so I can start flying her soon. Probably get to that before repairing the Erazor.

Kenny Chandler brought out a new plane today! He got a great deal from Tower Hobbies on a 40 size Ugly Stick with an OS 0.46 AX motor. In addition to the combo price, he saved more with a coupon and his TH membership. We captured the entire maiden on video!

Flight of the Helis

Very windy day at BMF today, a lot of people there, not too many flying. I flew the Alpha Sport with her new nose gear today, practicing some wicked crosswind takeoffs and landings, putting some pretty stern stress on that new nose gear. She flew awesome! At the end of my day I flew the Cosmic Wind, and she handled the wind pretty well!

I also brought the helis out to fly. I had a binding issue with the HDX500se, easily solved, but in doing so discovered a badly frayed pitch servo wire. I grounded her...  I was pretty excited to take her up as I had flown the Erazor 450 several times already (helis are great in the wind) and was ready to maiden my HDX 500.

Flying the Erazor 450 today after she fell out of the sky with her radio loss last time. No issues there today! On one of the flights did a brief hover to capture it on video!

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!