A Magnificent Day with My Flying Machines!

Heading out with my trustworthy aircraft with the intent to fly and not fiddle! And this plan survived the day, perfect flying and no damage at all!

The Twinstar with her new shoes. I am not so sure the small front gear will tolerate the clumpy grass...

She does look good though!

Yeah, it took a beating. I had to find the thinnest part of the grass to get her able to attain Vr, as otherwise she was just driving through cutting the grass; too tall and too clumpy. This is 3 mm rod without a spring. I don't think it is a good idea to keep this small gear on here. I would like a shock absorbing gear like the back two. Need to see what I have. The new Du-bro steerable front gear arrive, and its the thicker 5/16" wire, too big, but probably what this will need. Even with the original single coiled spring gear it wasn't sturdy enough and was constantly bent back and to the side. She does need the thicker wire. Set her aside for now. She is covered in thick grass spray.

Just like watching her spool down.

The Stik and her RCGF 10cc gas engine wanted to play the fool with initial idle issues, but a small tweak to richer was all it took. She is fast and flies so amazingly well. Despite that as the wind conditions changed a bit and the rollers at either end of the runway started to enter the approaches, it took some convincing to get her down. Love this plane!

Idling well, ran great! A bit noisy under stress in the air (4-cycles a bit), but powerful and dependable.

The Sukhoi with her RCGF 10cc. This is my best running 10cc, the others being the one on the Stik, also an RCGF, and the cantankerous Evolution 10 cc on the Sbach. This plane is a bit of a pig, nice but not great speed, and she can't vertical long at all. I wonder if I should just use that new 2 blade I got for the Sbach with its Evo? Hmmm... I think I will give that a try. This plane really needs a 15-20cc engine. That cowl just creates a lot of drag. The landing gear are a bit soft, even with perfect landings a slight bump in the grass causes a prop strike enough to stop the engine, and they bow a lot on landing. They are only 3.5 mm thick. I saw a nice more Sukhoi like rounded CF set on Amazon that will fit, and I may commit to using that.

Sweetness. 

Again, just because I love this idle!!!!  Right after a 20 min flight, with another 10-15 min in the tank!

MX-Bach Tune Up

The MX-Bach was acting the fool last time I took her out to the field. All of my planes lately have had issues with idles that need to run high, and she was no exception. I have decreased the amount of oil to a bit thinner than 1:40, which I hope will help, and make for a lot less oil thrown on the fuse and wings. 

I noticed on inspection that the muffler has come off the cylinder. The Pulse XT 40 did this as well, seriously affecting how it ran, and its issues resolved with fixing it.. I will need to make this a regular preflight check. I think it is likely one of the reasons I had idle issues. Before I start screwing around with the needles I will start her tomorrow and see if this solves the issues.

One screw holding it on, oil sprayed all over the place, took a bit to clean up, and I couldn't get all the oil stain off the muffler.

Made a new gasket, or I should say, made a gasket because there wasn't one. Liberal Locktite.

The silencer had fallen off on the bench at the field, fortunately not in flight as it would be history. Whew... It popped out of the silicone having lost the securing wire tie. I used two this time.

Last time I took the MX-Bach up she was having idle issues. I had to bring her in hot, and she was floaty, after several attempts I finally brought her in and a foot off the ground killed the ignition. The same hand is used for the kill switch that I have on the elevator, soooo... I accidentally gave a little up elevator, she lifted up and stalled, dropped, and broke off an end of the CF landing gear. Thank goodness I have an exact replacement brand new hanging around in my shop! Some minor internal damage, mostly just cracked spars, easily fixed.

Took no time to drill the new holes and install. New pair of pants!

Messy during Man Working Time!

I installed a new tail wheel bracket because the carbon fiber one was getting too soft and wobbly. I purchased one for 120-150cc sized aircraft because, I don't know why. I should have gone with the smaller one, but I think I went with this one because the hardpoint on the fuse is shorter. I could have just cut the other one. It really doesn't matter, this one works fine. I wanted a metal one that would hold the vertical axle firmly, and this does the job. Since it's off center from the hinge point I thought of and tried a couple of different connections for the turn coupler, and ended up just using the rod method. To keep the turns from being too acute I had to put the rod connector pretty far aft. It works fine.

You can see the hardpoint on the right just fits on the tail of the fuselage. The tail wheel is now much more secure and sturdy. 

This is the kit that arrived. I know what each piece is for, but I don't understand that the silver handle screwed into the blue aluminum piece is. I removed the handle and used the blue part as the rod connector to the tail, as can be seen in the photo above this one, on the left. I was able to put an M2 bolt through it into the wood, so that is what I used it for. If anyone has any idea what that this is really for I am curious. Of course there were no directions/instructions...

I am now cleaning up the prop's paint a bit, and will reattach it tomorrow after re-balancing it and then see what I need to do to get the idle set right.

Real Flight 8 and my DX7S

I don't know... I think I still prefer the ease of working with Phoenix RC Flight Sim, but I can't get it to work right on my new PC, so I am stuck with RF8. RF8 isn't bad, by any means, but I am confused by a few things. I liked the huge selection of phot airfields, the huge variation of aircraft including helis, I mean everything was there. I would expect RF8 to at least have all the Horizon Products, like Hangar 9, and why not encourage more helis. But most of all, I don't understand whynit doesn't just work or have really good instructions for working with Spektrum products.

My DX7S doesn't work perfectly with the Spektrum WS1000 dongle. I had to play around for days with switches as it doesn't see all 7 ch, and they aren't apparently mapped the same. Why RF8 and the dongle don't just recognize the DX7S like a receiver would, I don't know. I get there is some give and take with using one model (ACRO) to control both planks and helis. Some smart programmer should be able to figure that out.

Right now I figure out how to get Flight Modes (2 allowed on the DX7S), and the Hold switch done. I am still not quite sure how. I don't have flaps or gear on planks.

1. Start with the stock simple ACRO model in the Spektrum Tx, in this case the one I use on my sims is my old DX7S.
2. While pressing the ROLLER, turn on the transmitter, taking you to the SYSTEM SETUP and scrol down to SWITCH SELECT. Make it look like this:

F Mode: AUX1

Mix:Gear

This gave me Flight modes and Hold on helis, did nothing to planks.

3. Go back the the ACRO, change its name if you wish, turn off the TX, then bind it to the Dongle by holding the button on the WS1000 while installing in (Really? It's not easy if your dongle in going in the back of the computer, heck, its not easy no matter how you do it. May take a couple of tries to get the strobing orange light).

4. Turn on RF8 and voila.

I fly the Ultra Stick 30cc around with the flaps down... no way around that I can find. Maybe there is a keyboard setting. I'll get back to you on that. I tried setting different WING TYPE like flaps, flaperons... nada changed it. I tried variations as one is limited to in calibration in RF8, no effect.

You can see the flaps down half way here.

Sometimes the flaps move with the ailerons. I saw it do this when I had WING TYPE set to single aileron and single flap servo, but I changed it back to single aileron, the stock setting, and it's still doing it. 

New shoes for the Twinstar

The Twinstar has plain wire landing gear. Not much fun. I have toyed with the idea of putting oleos on her.

And so I did. I cut the gear struts down long enough to accept the oleo gears and leave a small space to allow them to flex a bit without striking the wing. Making them retracts isn't really reasonable as the wing isn't built for them, but who knows...

The nose gear I initially cut a straight rod for, but it came up a little short, and I didn't include the coiled spring. I regret that now, so I ordered another steerable DuBro wire gear set. I will trim it down but longer and include the spring. Right now the nose points a bit down and the props are only about 2 cm above the ground. It's been shipped and once I install it I'll update this post with new pics!

Beautiful day, same problems...

Such a beautiful day, and only 4 people out at the field all day!

The Twinstar flew marvelously with her new Master Airscrew 8x6x3 props. Her nose fear has always been wonky in the grass, and the beating made it come loose from its turn control arm, ending its flight day after two batteries. I have toyed with the idea of putting ole gear on her... Fund flights!

I didn't take any pics of the Sbach, but she made an appearance.  Despite running great here at the house, and when I started and ran her up, then flew her, she suddenly dead stocked again on approach. I got her down, and in an hour of trying could not get a nice clean reliable idle.i tried super lean, super rich an everything in between.

She threw a lot of oil a fresh gallon today I put 3.2oz in a gallon for a 40:1and she was still covered with a ton of oil, thickly. 

The MX-Bach did what the Sbach did. Despite running awesome at home, at the field she would idle for a minute or two then suddenly stop. No slowing  just suddenly stop.  Though she often did slow her RPms in two steps then stop. I had to set the end point for a rather fast idle. 

Even with a slower landing idle she was too fast, even with full flaps. I went to hit the kill a foot above the ground and when I did I accidentally pulled back on the elevator and she floated to there feet and stalled. Only damage was the gear snapped off just above the wheel.

I mentioned the fuel mix above at 40:1. I threw another 1/3 gallon of 93 octane in the can, and will see how a more dilute mix works out. There is something I am doing that is not letting these engines idle well. There is something I am doing wrong,

New Props for the Great Planes Twinstar

Planes always look better with multi blade props. There is also more thrust, with irrelevant loss of efficiency. Case in point. With twin 8x8 two blade APC props her static thrust was 2.6 lbs (3S). With twin Master Airscrew 8x6x3 three blade props she produced 3.6 lbs of static thrust. Already a speed demon she is going to rip the air! Hope to see tomorrow!

I should have gone flying...

That feeling when you napped instead of going flying on the one good weather day for several days before and after today like you had planned, and now you have to discharge all those batteries.