Flight of the Sbach: HOLD ON!

I have detailed my ongoing Sbach adventures and the build of my second one. Yesterday I got to take her up on her maiden flight. Conditions were very good. There were cross winds of 5 mph or so, clear skies, no turbulence.

I am flying her quite heavy. Her all up weight is 2.75 lbs, 1250gms. She is a 450 class airplane that is designed for up to a 480 motor, and her designed AUW is less than 2 lbs, around 900 gms. My first one had that motor and flew well (she died when for some reason she could not pull out of a dive. I think the 9gm servos could not pull her out of the dive as I was flying her with a 480 motor but this large 4S battery, so I am going with mini servos on the rudder and elevator with more than double the torque). I have her equipped with a HeadsUpRC Power 15 Sport motor behind a Xoar 10x5 electric wood prop from Graves RC. I power her with a 4S 3300mAh 30C battery, and a 40A ESC/L-BEC. She has two Fusonic mg-d-9g aileron servos from wowhobbies and JR MN-48 mini servos from Horizon Hobby (I prefer faster Hitec HS-82mg servos, but I have two of these MNs so used them. They are fine, just a bit slower and with nylon gears). I found a way described in my build post to get the wheel pants to work, and they performed flawlessly. They look very good! Check out the build post in the link above. My DX8 is programmed with flaperons, 30% expo, and rate sets of 30, 50 and 100%. I found she flew quite well on the mid rates. I usually fly 25% expo and may dial her down, but she seems pretty happy as I have her set up.

She takes a little more runway on takeoff, and sinks fast, but she is incredibly agile and fast! She had no problem with the cross wind. In the vids I am flying some serious aerobatics and she handles it all on 50% rates! The frame shows no stress issues. On full rates she rips the sky apart! She is stable, stops moves on a dime, but is so quick to respond that a moments inattention will end in disaster. In the vid there is one moment where I have to duck down under Vinsen's Revolver, and come withn a foot of the ground. Big time pucker factor, but she pulled it off.

I didn't film the first flight as my camera fell off my noggin. I didn't bother with it on the next two flights either. The video here is of the fourth flight, I think. I had evaluated her in takeoff, fast, slow manuevers, and light aerobatics, stall, approach and landing. In this flight I took her through rigorous high and low speed aerobatics. She is on rails and required almost no trimming. I planned the last flight to be an evaluation of the flaperons, but, well, the ESC failed and I had to deal with an inflight emergency where she glided marginally downwind with one heckuva sink rate.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Antonio and Steve's Great Parachute Adventure

Antonio Vilchez and Steve Burton rigged Antoni's parachute to Steve's Radian Power glider with a command drop mechanism (an ingenious servo and rubber band system on the gear channel). It was simple and worked flawlessly. They leased the parachute man from a couple hundred feet up! how to turn grown men into little boys; we were all chasing after it!

 

 

Kenny mourns his Ugly Stick

My friend Kenny Chandler's Ugly Stick suffered a full lost bind at Pine Belt RC on Saturday and literally fell from the sky... He was flying a Spektrum DX600 on a Dx6i. So sorry, Kenny!

But, I still have you two for one on these lost comms crashes...

 

 

Antonio Rocks the 450!

Today I asked Antonio Vilchez (George's son) to take up my Eflite Alpha Sport 450, solo. Of course he did an awesome job! This is the unedited video! Enjoy, Antonio!

Sbach 342 v2 Number 2 Debute!

She's got her wood prop, so she's all done (see her build here)! Introducing my Hobby King 1000mm Sbach 342 v2, number two!

 

 

Everybody came home!

It was a beautiful day to fly at Bob Miller Field in Gulfport, MS. Occasional winds were variable, but consistent, if that makes any sense. It was a fun day! Big crowd, wide range of planes. Took Antonio up on my PulseXT with the buddy box. He flew awesome and really enjoyed himself! Later he took his Cessna up in a very good wind. Well done!

Dick and Arnie worked on Dick's Decathalon, which eventually threw itself into the ground in an uncommanded left turn. They were getting pretty close to getting her sorted out, and she needed some sorting out. Sorry for your loss, Dick...

I flew the trio, all behaved nicely! I still have to work ar relaxing when flying the Cosmic Wind. Darn thing is fast, fast, fast, and agile as a cat. Constant attention is required. I realized I have a nitro prop on her, and have ordered some lighter APC eprops, which I suspect will give me a lot more rpm, and even more speed! The Ulitmate is just one fantastic plane. Fun to fly, stable, reactive, quick! And the PulseXT is easily my favorite plane. Need to figure out why one flaperon drops differently than the other; causes the right wing to dip when the flaps are deployed. She definitley is easier to land with 45 degrees. With full flaps, she wobbles a bit. I suspect I just need a little more power, but then, what's the point of the flaps? I usually land with 45.

Waiting for the props for the Sbach. Cannot wait!

HDX 500se Gremlins

I have been chasing one gremlin after another on the HDX 500se heli. Grinding main gear teeth, unexplained brown outs, frying servos, a dead BEC, a failed gyro (the Algin GP750 gyro wires wore out... and I had to replace it with the Align GP790). Its original equipment is aging. Other than the gyro, Occam's razor has an answer.

The issue has been brown outs. In flight these were a nightmare as the heli would change to default pitch. I could not figure out what was wrong. I suspected the BEC... I think the BEC was actually fine, though I fried a bad replacement, and now have a new 5A BEC on it that works fine. Today, having installed the new BEC, the brown out issue continued. I decided the only thing I haven't looked at was the reciever and its satellite. I changed out the reciever and the problem resolved. I reinstalled the original reciever, without the satellite, and it was fine. I installed the satellite and it browned out. I installed another satellite and cable and it browned out. Ah, ha! The old AR6200 works fine, but its satellite port shorts out. I powered up with a fresh battery and she remained bound for 10 minutes. The brown outs were probably causing surges as this process burnt out two servos. It doesn't take much to fry these Hitec HS 81mg servos, which is probably why they were discontinued, so I am replacing them with the improved 82mgs.

This took longer than it should have and I went through more parts than I should have. Here's hoping I have killed all the gremlins.