Fly RC

November 30, 2014March 13, 2015

First flight on a Parkzone UMX B-17G

Saturday night at our local indoor fly I had the opportunity to fly the new Parkzone UMX B-17G. Here are the specs from the Horizon website:

Wingspan: 26.0 in (660mm)
Overall Length: 18.3 in (465mm)
Wing Area: 87.5 sq in (5.65 sq dm)
Flying Weight: 2.75 oz (78 g)
Motor Size: 6mm in runner (Left and RIght Rotation)
Radio: 4+ channel DSM2/DSMX transmitter required
CG (center of gravity): 38mm back from leading edge at wing root
Prop Size: 72×65 3 Blade
Speed Control : Brushed ESC (included)
Recommended Battery: 3.7V 1S 250mAh 20C LiPo Battery
Scale: 1/48th Scale
Experience Level: Intermediate
Is Assembly Required: No

e-flite U5380 Umx B-17g Flying FoRTRess

Parkzone UMX B-17 <– Click here to view purchasing options on Amazon

The first thing you need to be aware of is that there is no steering on the tail-wheel so you need to get some forward speed quickly so that the rudder becomes effective and you can turn! Not a big issue as doing a ROG takeoff was accomplished fairly rapidly and without any real need for rudder input. The counter-rotating motors and three blade props seem to provide good power without causing any yaw that I noticed. I was flying in a gym that consists of 3 side by side basketball courts and was off the ground in about 10 feet. The B17 flies fairly slowly though I would rate it moderately fast for an indoor venue of this size. I had to apply a fair amount of down trim to keep it from nosing up but I suspect the battery could be moved a bit more forward to offset some of that. Probably 15 clicks of trim before I got level but this was not my radio so I don’t really know what the trim steps were set for (it was a DX9 I believe).

I’m fairly sure no expo or rates had been set, just a very vanilla setup. In spite of this the B-17 flew smoothly with a fairly wide speed envelope. Roll and Yaw seemed to be adequate though I did not try to do a full aileron roll, stall turns or any thing of the sort considering it was not my airplane nor did I have much room to work with. All I can really say is that it flew smoothly and turns were easily accomplished though a bit of rudder coordination seemed to make for much better turns. In a gymnasium you quickly learn to turn while maintaining altitude or you will be bouncing off the floor or dodging rafters on a frequent basis. With the help of the AS3X system, this was not very difficult. The only concern is on landing as the B-17 does what all my AS3X ships do… it wants to keep level and will attempt to do so by applying more and more elevator as you back off on throttle until the plane stalls abruptly!! This can be a bit disconcerting the first time you experience it so my advice is bring the B-17 in a bit hot to stop this from happening until you learn the stall speed of the plane at altitude. A few clicks of throttle will keep this at bay until you learn the characteristics of the plane. This seems to be an AS3X thing, not exclusive to the B-17.

All in all, the plane flies much better than such a small multi-engine like this really should! And it is really impressive how much scale detail they pack into such a small package. Flying it isn’t difficult, the intermediate rating they apply seems appropriate. I’d love to fly one outdoors to see what it can really do… I’m going to guess that basic aerobatics (more than a B-17 should be doing) are within its grasp and flying smooth and looking impressive it can certainly pull off. Wind handling will be interesting but based on other AS3X craft I’ve tried I expect a 5-10 at most would be within reason with a little practice.

It’s hard to believe that all 4 engines running at around half throttle didn’t kill the battery after 8 minutes of flight. I thought I could detect it slowing a bit at that point but it was still flying when I landed it with only a minor bump into the wall as the roll out lasted a bit longer than expected! No damage, so NO, I don’t own one yet! I do encourage you to get one though… and then let me know when you’d like me to come over and fly it for you a bit!

November 20, 2014

Blade Nano QX – Radio configuration

I’ve had the Nano for a few days now… maybe a dozen flights and I’m enjoying it very much. Straight out of the box and with the radio configured per the instructions (Using my DX18) it is a nice flying aircraft. However… there’s always room for improvement, right?

So here is what I’ve done to program my DX18 to help the little quad fly even better. Here’s my list of “wants” that I came up with:

First of all, I wanted a throttle cut. I consider throttle cut to be a necessary safety feature on any aircraft and on electrics especially.
Obviously I need a timer. The flashing light on the Nano that signals a low battery has so far been unnoticeable for me.
Finally, I wanted to institute Expo and End Point adjustments in concert with the change from Stability mode and Agility mode.

With that in mind I started to do some programming on my DX18. As I thought about what I needed, it hit me that what I really wanted was to use “flight modes”. With the FM feature, a single switch or combination of switches can change multiple settings including end points, dual rates, expo settings and more. I have never had a real need for FM, though in some cases it might be equivalent to or better than what I do now, but this seemed the perfect fit. I wouldn’t want to enter the agility mode without also dropping my rates down and adding some expo and doing that all on one switch seemed ideal. I knew there was some reason I bought this expensive radio!

The throttle cut function was easily added as was a timer… very standard and easy to do stuff. But the next part got a bit more difficult. The mode change (Stability or Agility) on the Nano is set to operate off of a temporary switch… in this case button “I” which is often used as the trainer switch on most radios. I now wanted this to move to one of the 3 position toggles so that it would happen in concert with my flight mode changes. It isn’t difficult to reassign this function (in this cast AUX1/channel 6) but when I did that I quickly realized that this was not going to work as intended. I had thought I would have 3 flight modes. FM1 would be stability mode with full throws and a little Expo (maybe 30%) thrown in to help me be smoother on the controls. FM2 would be agile mode with moderate throws and a similar amount of Expo with FM3 being “crazy 3D guy” mode with full tilt throws and a much greater expo setting (maybe 70%) in order to keep things from being to touchy. Not sure I’ll ever need that mode and maybe I’ll switch this around later to 2 Stability modes and only 1 Agile mode option but this is my desired starting point. After adding in the “Quad” graphic the main screen shows the modes as seen here.

Here’s FM1 – Named Stability Mode

And FM2 – Agility Mode I

And finally FM3 – Agility Mode 2

That all looks good but after moving the AUX1 channel to a three way toggle, a quick on-bench test immediately brought a problem to light. The Nano wants to see a temporary Off-On-Off type of signal to change from Stability to Agile and vice versa. Just going Off-On didn’t do anything until you came back to Off. Imagine toggling the switch from 0 to 1 (no change in Stability mode but more throws) or moving on to 2 with lots of throw and expo but still in Stability mode… no big issue yet. But, then going back to 0 and suddenly you’re in Agility mode but with full throws and low Expo… yikes! For a bit I thought I was stuck… but then the DX18 came to the rescue.

The DX18 has something called a sequencer. With the flip of single switch you can have a series of events occur. In this case I setup the sequencer so that going from 0 to 1 (or 1 to 0) caused the Aux1 channel to move to full (step 1) and then back to start (step 2) with a delay of about a half second in each direction. This sent the correct sequence of events just like hitting a temporary switch. Moving from position 1 to 2 does not have an associated sequence as I’m already in Agile mode after I move from 0 to 1. Nifty! The only catch here is that you have to start with the switch in the correct position. That’s not a big problem as I have a habit of having all switches pushed away from me when I power up my radio. I found a way to help with that issue as well though. More on that a bit later.

With that solved (it’s easy to test for this on the bench as the Nano changes its LED from blue to red when you enter Agility mode) I moved on to setting up my throws (End Points and Dual Rates) as well as my Expo settings for each mode. With that all accomplished I did a quick trial flight and so far everything is working as planned. Of course nothing is perfect and I started thinking that I really wanted to insure I powered up the radio in flight mode 1 and with the throttle cut engaged.

This got me to looking at another underutilized (at least by me) feature of my DX18 and that is the preflight checklist. I immediately found this feature to be quite simple to use. I have to say I sure wish I could edit the checklist descriptions, but I found two that are close enough that reading them will get me to thinking about these two important switch settings. My Mode Switch is using a switch that I often use for flaps on other aircraft so the “Flap Position” checklist item works for that and the “Thro. Trim Position” gets me thinking about throttle enough to remind me to check the throttle cut switch. Of course these check box items don’t actually check the position of those switches for you, but you can (and I did) set the radio so that it will not start sending RF until I check the boxes, and you have to do it before each flight (assuming you turned off the radio or went to another model memory in between). At least it gives me one more chance to get it right before taking control of the Nano! Here is the setup screen for that feature.

And Here is what the preflight screen looks like on power up.

Lastly another thought occurred and I went into the warning screen and made it so my radio would alarm if my throttle wasn’t at idle (or at least nearly so) and/or I wasn’t in FM1 when I start up the radio. That’s even more foolproof than the checklist! Here is the setting for that:

I think this gets me “in the ballpark” as far as radio setup goes. I’ll undoubtedly adjust my expo and dual rate settings but those are minor tweaks. With this configuration I have checked off all of my wish list and gone a bit further on safety and initial start up settings. So far after a couple more test flights after all this was configured I am well pleased.

Only 0ne more issue to tackle… that of visibility. I have some ideas on that and I’ll post on that soon. Happy hovering!

November 19, 2014March 13, 2015

My Second Quad – The Blade Nano QX. First Impressions

Two months or so after first picking up the ProtoX, I was in my local hobby shop. I was just perusing through the latest toys and thinking how I really liked the looks of the new Platinum series Super Cub from E-Flight… but decided to wait on that for a while. I already have plenty of unfinished projects in the shop. As I continued browsing I came to the section where all the quads were displayed. I started thinking of what I wished my ProtoX could do… Binding to a “real” radio, better stability, maybe just a bit bigger to make it more visible… and not too expensive.

After looking over the options I realized the Blade Nano QX might be a lot closer to what I really wanted… and for only $65 or so plus a couple spare batteries… This thing looks great… I should get one. I deserve one. I was reaching for my wallet when I remembered. I was just looking!! I tore myself away just in time and roared out of the parking lot with my money intact… Whew… that was close.

24 hours later I was walking out of the hobby store with my new Blade Nano QX… I was already thinking about how i could program my DX18 to make this thing smooth. Hey, I’m only human!!

Here are the most important parts arrayed on the table…

To buy your own from Amazon click here –>BLADE Nano QX BNF Quadcopter

In addition to the additional props, extra canopy and grommets (shown above) there is a USB charger for the included 150mah 25C single cell LiPo.

So I’ve only got a few flights but here’s what I’m thinking so far.

First of all the Nano QX can fly in one of two modes, Stability or Agility. Stability mode utilizes the built in SAFE (Sensor Arrested Flight Envelope) system to keep the 18g quad from getting to far off level to quickly. The biggest noticeable effect of this mode is that when you release a directional control, the system seems to feed in opposite control in order to arrest whatever motion was happening. Add this to the slightly heavier airframe (compared to my ProtoX) and this thing is much easier to keep in a smooth hover.

Switch into the Agility mode and “wow” does everything change. No more automatically stabilizing the Nano when you release the controls. If you push in some “aileron” and then release… the Nano just keeps on moving. You now have to push in some opposite control to get things back to level. It’s very easy to get into oscillations… trailing behind the flight and over-correcting. It can quickly become a problem if you don’t switch back to Stability mode! This is no fault of the Nano of course, just my inexperience with the little quad showing through.

Flight times seem to run about 5:30 to 6:00 minutes before she powers down and forces a landing. The on board LED is used to let you know this is occurring as well as signaling the two modes, for binding, etc… It is not particularly useful for orientation. For that you will have to rely on the canopy coloring and shape along with the color of the 4 props.

I have been flying the Nano QX with the setup of my DX18 configured exactly per the manual for the first flights but I now have some ideas about additional programming I intend to add. I’ll cover that in another posting soon.

Overall I am very happy with the QX so far. It looks like the Stability mode is doing a very nice job and the overall flight characteristics in this mode are very encouraging. Having the advantage of full capability radio (the Nano is a DSMX compatible craft) even doing just the very basic functionality allows for much smoother control of the QX.

I’m already seeing that the biggest disadvantage of the QX is the lack of “navigation” lighting. This means that when moving quickly or when the airframe gets off at a distance, orientation becomes a challenge. I’ll have to look into ways to address that eventually. I’m also going to start with some additional programming to help tame the Agility mode.

Otherwise, my initial impressions are that this is a big step forward compared to the ProtoX. I’m looking forward to getting in some more flying and learning a bit more from the Nano QX.

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November 16, 2014March 13, 2015

My Introduction to Quads… The ProtoX

Recently at a charity event I was looking for a way to contribute a few dollars to the “Toys for Tots” when I noticed a tiny little quad on the auction block. I really was just looking to either contribute some money or drive someone else into giving a bit more to the charity but ended up owning a brand new Proto X. Since that event, I’ve been doing a little flying with this little nano-sized quad and having some fun with it.

This is a big departure for me in some folks eyes because I am an unabashed… helicopter basher I guess is the phrase. Much of it is in fun, I have every respect for a good pilot regardless of what he flies. It’s just that I have very little interest in helicopters, especially when flown 3D style. They seem to me the epitome of what I dislike about 3D flying of all types. No grace or beauty… just smashing the sticks and overcoming gravity with pure power. Sure, I know lots of folks love that kind of thing… I’m just not one of them. 15 minutes of watching “3D” flying or helicopters flying in a “non-scale” manner has me itching to do something more interesting. Watching a glider “defying gravity” or any aircraft flying a well flown scale sequence is much more inviting and awe inspiring to me. I know I’m in the minority, but that’s OK with me.

I still have little interest in helicopters in general but the new breed of quad and other multi-rotor platforms are fascinating. With the development of stabilization systems and superior battery technology these things now have some unique capabilities.

The quad I picked up is the Proto X Nano-Sized, Ready-to-Fly. The Proto comes with most of what you will need to fly. A couple AAA batteries inserted into the also-Nano-sized transmitter and a quick charge at the nearest USB port and you are ready to go.

You can buy your own Proto X at amazon by clicking here –> Estes 4606 Proto X Nano R/C Quadcopter

Above is most of what comes in the box… note that you get a spare set of props. The wall wart USB charger is NOT part of the package. I quickly added it to the box so I’d always be able to charge the on board battery if I could find an AC outlet.

Here is my experience with the little quad so far.

First, the good. This little flier is tough. Running it into furniture, ceiling fans (off), walls, etc… has resulted in almost no damage. I have always tried to drop power whenever a collision is imminent, and I believe that helps. Occasionally a blade will pop off… or two… but as long as you can figure out which motor they came off of (they are coded by letter, blade A to motor A and B to B and you will be fine) it is usually just a matter of press fitting them back in place and you are ready again. In theory you want one color of blade in front and a different color in back but once they start spinning neither are highly visible. There are 8 LEDs on the Proto (Blue in the front) and these serve to keep directional orientation much better than the colored props ever will as well as warning of low voltage (blinking with ~30 seconds left before power loss forces a landing). These make a huge difference in keeping orientation… a real concern for such a small quad. It also has plenty of power and seems to fly for a nice long 5 minutes on a charge. I’ve never timed it but it seems like 15-30 minutes will have it recharged and ready to go again. Here’s a shot of the LEDs doing what they do.

The range of the radio seems to be more than sufficient… I haven’t been able to get far enough away to lose radio link. The Proto is to small to fly more than about 50 feet away anyway! I have read on-line that the battery in the Proto was not meant to be replaced but upon taking off the canopy, I found the battery simply taped in place with an easily removed connector and batteries order-able on line from several sources. I presume earlier models did not have this options so Kudos to Estes/HobbiCo for getting it right!

Above is what it looks like minus the canopy. As you can see the battery is easily replaceable.

Another big hit is the price… at $40 (and even $30 in some places) the value at the price seems quite good.

Now for the bad. The included controller for the Proto is more toy than RC hobby grade. For my big hands it is difficult to find a comfortable position to hold the controller. The trim buttons only exist for the right stick and are oddly placed. Finally, the on off switch has “ON” to the left… OK, I realize that may not be universal but it seems like 90% of everything in the world is up or right = on. Here is what it looks like.

I understand there is a better controller available out there that will mate up with the Proto and also enable some additional functionality but that is not what comes with the Proto, and I don’t think I really want to double down on my investment. I find the included controller very distracting/difficult to master. The sticks are just very toy like/very short sticks and not comfortable to my feel. Granted, I’m spoiled with my DX-8 and especially the DX-18. I’d love to try flying this with a real RC radio but sadly just about every manufacturer these days is incompatible with every other.

Continuing on, here are my general impressions of the Proto. I think the Proto is a fun little quad. I don’t know if it’s possible to make such a small and light quad any more stable but I find it to be quite difficult to get the Proto to hover in place or really fly in a truly straight line. It always wants to twist or drift one way or the other. I can herd it in the direction I want it to go and maneuver around obstacles but you have to be constantly correcting to do it and forget getting it trimmed to hover “hands off” and hold position. If that’s possible I haven’t figure it out yet. Add to that the understandable tendency of a craft this small to get pushed around by literally any air movement and stability is not really in its ballpark.

In spite of that, I enjoy flying the Proto. Hopefully, I can still learn some directional awareness the way you can learn control reversals for a fixed wing by flying on your simulator. Fixed wing craft don’t do much flying tail first as a rotary craft can, so that is probably a useful skill to work on. Otherwise the small controller and stability issues will probably limit my learning much I can apply to larger quads. That’s not to say I won’t keep flying it for a while. It’s still a lot of fun. Just more toy than RC fun in my estimation. For $30 it would be hard to find anything better. This is the definition of a beginners quad.

Pick one up if you want some basic flying fun in the living room. Just make sure you turn off the ceiling fan! 🙂

November 7, 2014

P-51 Redtail – Electric Retract mistake… no good deed goes unpunished!

A while back, Kelly brought his P40 over to complete final piece of the install for his electric retracts into his Top Flite Giant Scale P-40. The tail wheel. We had the main gear already installed in the wing and tested and had just the tail left to complete the job. We were well into the job and ready for some testing when we realized that we needed to cycle the gear to finish up… but a problem presented itself. Kelly had not thought to bring the wing for the P-40 and attached to that wing was the control unit! There is no way to cycle this gear without a control unit, but luckily (not as lucky as I thought at the time) I have a very similar control unit in my Mustang so I just walked across the shop and pulled it out. That is where the trouble began… You see, for some reason over the course of the last 6 months, Robart has decided to switch the connector type from a standard servo type plug to a 2 wire… I’m not sure what it is so let’s just call it a “Robart connector”! They also decided to change from using type 1 and type 2 to using type A and B… but more on that later.

OK, so this connector issue is “no hill for a climber”, right!? First, cut out the plastic around the opening on my control board and plug in the P-40 tail wheel there, then create a female to female servo lead to hook the control box to the receiver… my lead is tied down in the Mustang… and wallah!! That taken care of we can now cycle the tail gear. Yahoo! With a bit of custom fitting (Dremel tools are great, aren’t they?) the P-40 tail wheel is all good. That all accomplished, just stick the control board back in the Mustang and reconnect it… careful of polarity… that would be expensive!! All good and the Mustang can retire back to it’s corner for a few weeks…. All good… I thought.

So a few weeks pass and it’s time for the club picnic. Great fun, good food, excellent weather… sounds like a good time to show off the Mustang for the members and especially the families that rarely make it out to the field any other time. Low 110+ MPH, nice slow (for a Mustang) photo passes, big loops and stall turns… and then have the pilot salute the crowd after a perfect main wheels only landing… The perfect recipe for a nice day at the field. At least that’s the plan…

Upon arriving at the field, we (it takes a village) got the Mustang assembled and did a quick cycle of the landing gear and, yep it all works but… wait a minute. One of the mains goes up when the other goes down!?? That’s weird. Power down and back up with the wing opened up… try unplugging and replugging the two main retracts to get them in sync… still no joy. How strange… As I’m standing there cycling them one more time (bordering on insanity now… repeating the same actions waiting for something different to happen) and get a whiff of something hot/stinky. Thinking the engine that someone is running 20 feet down the flightline must be getting hot or maybe something got against the hot engine down there. Back to my problem and now the tail gear has quit moving… just staying down. When I decide to check that connection it suddenly becomes obvious… the tail gear is plugged into a main gear slot on the Robart controller! That must be what’s wrong, the two are reversed. Swap those two and now the main gear works great. But wait, the tail gear still isn’t working…

OH CRAP!!! Now the full impact of what I’ve done hits. The tail retract is what Robart calls a type 2. The difference is that a Type 2 takes less voltage than a type 1. And in case you’re wondering I can attest that plugging a type 2 into a slot that is set for a type 1 will release the smoke that is part of the “smoke and magic” formula that makes these things work. At least it will after several cycles… I haven’t even flown yet and I suspect this trip to the field just cost me $50-100. That burning smell I detected earlier was something getting hot alright… but it was a lot closer than I thought!

If there is a silver lining… that tail gear was fully down and not likely to go anywhere so since I’d already paid the price I went ahead and got some flights in. The last one for the day was a pretty close approximation to the one I’d dreamed of, complete with a 115 MPH high speed pass and a sweet landing that elicited some envious comments from fellow warbird pilots. “You know you make us look bad when you do that, right?” and “Mine doesn’t do that!” were among the shouts from the spectator area.

Once home I sent some email to Robart asking about a replacement and they promptly replied with the appropriate part number and instruction on how to get a unit that would drop in and fit my control board. When it arrived, one more little detour came up. The new unit arrived and was marked with a “Type A” tag. Huh? I only have Type 1 or Type 2 options on my controller?? OK, so type 1 would be A and 2 is B, right? Wrong!! My old unit was a type 2 and Kelly’s tail wheel worked when set to type 2 on my controller… Plus it’s still a lower voltage unit (checked the instructions and confirmed, main gear is Type B and tail is Type A) so not only did the nomenclature change but it didn’t follow what you might think of as the logical choice either!

After reading everything over 2 or 3 times to confirm that things are as I think they are, got the new unit plugged in and tested and it seems to be working fine… no sign of smoke or heat. Nice smooth cycles up and down. So, the moral of the story is…. “Quit being nice to your buddies!” Wait that can’t be right!? Maybe, “Be a bit more careful when plugging and unplugging all those wires in your complicated and expensive airplanes!” That one sounds better! For sure this one applies: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

November 2, 2014November 2, 2014

Sharing some pics and video from 2 recent float flys

Over the past couple weeks, I have attended a couple of events that were in whole or at least primarily float flying oriented. I enjoy being out near a lake or pond as they generally add to the natural beauty of the setting and flying off of water adds a different challenge to RC flight both from an aircraft handling approach and for the technical challenge of setting up a float plane to fly well. I highly recommend you take a shot at “float flying” if you have the opportunity. But be warned, like many things in RC, it can be addictive!

Lake Lemon – Monroe Counry RC

The first event was put on by the good folks at the local RC club in Bloomington, IN and was held at Lake Lemon just to the NW (I believe) of that city. The second was a couple weeks after and was an event put on by my “home” club, the Indianapolis RC Modelers. Below are a few picturess of the “goings on” from each. The Bloomington club had a good turnout with about 15 pilots I would guess, including 3 from my club… myself, Corey Lucas and Steve Woods. The venue is almost ideal with a nice big, low to the water dock as well as a huge body of water with almost no obstacles to contend with. They also had 2 retrieval “party barge” boats and served up a nice lunch as part of the registration fee of only $10 per person.

Here are some pictures from the event

Corey and the Nexstar are ready to try some float flying!

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Also while we were there, Steve tried his hand with his .120 size cub… Here’s a video clip of the takeoff… and landing.

No real damage was done… Steve had the engine running again after a brief dry down period. Did you see what went wrong? The consensus around here is the wake allowed the plane to leave the water a bit to soon and this added to Steve doing a bit to aggressive a pull up caused a stall… Better luck next time Steve!

Wilson’s Pond – Indy RC Modelers

The second event is one we have done every year for the last 5 or so, sometimes twice a year, and is held at a pond owned by the family of one of our members, Roy Wilson. It’s obviously not as open around the pond and the size of what you can fly there is a bit more limited as a result, but we consider ourselves lucky to have such a beautiful spot to enjoy ourselves and it is not difficult to fly off of for planes up to about 60 size or so. In the last couple years, we have not had much attendance… perhaps somewhat due to weather being “unkind” for several of the events and undoubtedly because we have few opportunities to do this sort of flying around here so getting a proper float plane setup isn’t the top priority of many folks. We all have to decide where best to spend our model budgets and something you won’t use often doesn’t rank highly with everyone. Another factor is that we have not really tried to promote the event as much as we did in past years so many folks just don’t know it’s going on.

A nice added attraction for this event is that there is a fairly nice field adjacent to the pond that you can fly most anything from so it is not limited to water based aircraft! I flew several planes and played with my air boat this year and had fun as always. I flew the PZ T28 on floats, the Carbon Cub (the micro version) as well as the Flyzone Beaver. The Beaver excels at this (once you re-engineer the water rudder) and I fly it primarily as a float plane so it doesn’t get a lot of flight time away from the water. My flying buddy, Corey, flew his Electric Nexstar from the water and his DLE 20 powered Cap Maniac from the runway. Here are some photos of the action.

One of our members does a little boating...

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Here’s a video clip of my Dumas Windy air boat eventually doing it’s signature spot spin manuever.

And one of Corey’s first landing at the pond with the Nexstar… ignore the first 5 seconds or so while I attempted to find the plane in the sky!

The basic idea here is: Water plus RC airplanes = lots of fun!! Try it, you’ll like it!

September 27, 2014November 7, 2014

Putting the Telemaster on Floats

This weekend is a float fly so I have been in the shop lately swapping out the wheels on several of my airplanes for floats. I’ve been flying off floats whenever the opportunity arrives for a number of years now and I thought I’d try to share both the attachment method I use on my Telemaster and some of the tips and pitfalls for float attachment and float flying that I’ve learned over that time.

Here are a few quick float sizing/attachment guidelines that I have found will greatly increase your chances for success.

Floats should be mounted in such a way that the “step” on the bottom of the floats is in line with the balance point of the airplane.
Floats should extend beyond the nose of the airplane. This seems to help to minimize the chance of the airplane flipping during a “to steep” landing and during takeoff if the tail rises to quickly.
A water rudder is a necessity for most aircraft. Without this feature, you are very much at the mercy of the winds and will have trouble making turns during taxi maneuvers on the water.

Here are the floats I use on my Telemaster 40.

As you can see, I use a second aluminum landing gear as a secondary support, and Ernst water rudder and a separate water rudder servo.

Below you can see the rear mounting holes (there are blind nuts inside the body) that the rear landing gear mounts to. Right behind that is the battery hatch.

Below is the “on float” servo that drives the water rudder. This servo has been specifically water proofed but is otherwise a standard servo. While some espouse dual water rudders, I have seen very little need.

The attachment to the floats is shown here (both front and back look similar). The slack between the two wheel collars allows for a bit of telescoping action during landings to absorb some shock when the floats hit the water a bit harder than planned. For instance when a sudden burst of gravity interferes with an otherwise perfect approach.

That about covers the most important plot points. I run my water rudder on a separate channel and then just mix it with the rudder so I can easily center it and adjust the travel independent of the main rudder.

Hopefully this has given you some useful ideas about how to get your own airplane on floats and ready to fly. It can be a bit challenging to get everything set up correctly but it is worth the effort.

September 27, 2014November 7, 2014

Glider Carry for the Telemaster 40 – Pt. 2

Just a quick update that the glider carry worked well… but not for George’s glider. While the carriage worked great and the release system worked flawlessly for the Radian, what I hadn’t foreseen was the length of George’s glider would bring the glider’s rudder into contact with the Telemaster vertical stab. So back to the drawing board… I was not happy with the saddle on the bottom of the carriage not properly fitting the Telemaster wing anyway so when I can get back to it I think I’ll be extending the bottom of the unit with new side supports that will raise the whole unit by about 4 inches as well as being cut to fit the wing surface better.

When I get some new parts built and tested I will post again. In the meantime I’d love to hear from anyone else who has done this. Feel free to share your experiences.

September 16, 2014November 7, 2014

Glider Carry for the Telemaster 40 – Pt. 1

Myself along with a couple of other flyers at my club have taken to doing a bit of glider flying of late. A couple of us have Radians while our current president (George) has a true un-powered balsa and monocoat ship. While the Radians have no trouble getting to altitude with their on-board electric motor, the traditional glider needs some external help. We don’t have a winch at the field and a high start takes a lot of time and effort to rig and takes up the whole field for a period of time. In short, we wanted a better way to get a glider to altitude.

We discussed doing a tow but that seemed to require to many modifications and complex release mechanisms… While it looked fun we decided that a “carry” to altitude might be a better solution…. and it so happens I had picked up just such a mechanism at a swap meet a couple years ago. I pulled it out and got to work to get it in “ready to fly shape”.

Of course life is never that easy and I immediately found a couple issues. First, the unit had developed some warp over time and it seemed a bit flimsy. It also doesn’t fit the top shape of my Telemaster’s wing. That last I’m hoping to hold off for another time. For now, I hope a bit of foam will help to distribute the load until I can come up with a better solution… if all else gets worked out!

So first things first, I started out by dis-assembling the carriage and doing some sanding to expose the wood so I could bond on some reinforcing. For this I chose some carbon fiber tape from Dave Brown models that I had picked up on a whim at a hobby shop I recently discovered while on a business trip to Cincinnati. I had never used this product but the instructions were spot on, recommending tape to bind the ends, etc… I think you’ll do well if you just follow the included directions.

Here are a few pics showing the process…

Here is the disassembled structure. Note that one of the bolts that form the pivot twisted off during the dis-assembly process..

This is after sanding. If you don’t get rid of the paint and open up the grain the epoxy won’t stick and the carbon fiber reinforcing will just peel off.

Here is the cutting and fitting process. The tape is vital to holding the carbon fiber together during cutting. Remove it just as you lay the CF onto the epoxy. By cutting all lengths before mixing the epoxy I managed to do one whole side before the epoxy started getting gummy.

Here is one side with the CF laid down and weighted down so it dries straight. Maybe not as neat as I could be but I think it will serve the purpose.

After letting this dry overnight and reassembling I did some tests and things were not working well. The glider would scoot back on the cradle and the rubber bands would slide up against the front of the carriage. This caused release to be unreliable. One side or the other would come off sooner with several seconds before release occurred after the servo released the rotating arms. Sometimes it would be several more before the other side let go. That could cause major issues. I tried polishing up the leading edge of the wood and even waxing it but that proved to be insufficient.

Here is a picture of the hold down system… The bands won’t stay out in the indent area of the release arms. The bands rub on the wood and release is iffy at best.

Realizing I needed to get the rubber bands to stay in those indents at the ends of the arms, I realized that the direction they were pulling had to be adjusted. No amount of sliding the glider forward or careful routing of the bands would make that happen so I decided I needed something to redirect the bands around to reposition them on those release arms.

Here is my fix… A peg (really a bolt held in on both sides with nuts) to redirect the rubber band up and over so that it stays in the indent of the release arms. Now the release is immediate every time.

With this modification I think I am ready to test the carriage with a glider aboard. I’m guessing on how many rubber bands are needed to hold the carriage in place, how many to hold the glider in place and really about everything else as well. Planning on a test run or to with the Radian perched atop the carriage tomorrow evening. Look for another post with some pics soon with the results and reports on how it went.

If all goes well, George’s glider will be next on the list. Wish me luck!

August 28, 2014December 20, 2014

Hangar 9 Alpha 40 Trainer… Experiences good and bad.

At my local RC Club we have had several of the Alpha 40 RTF trainers (the orange model) used by students while learning to fly. In general, these have been excellent flying airplanes. Stable and well behaved with the included Evolution engine providing more than adequate power. We usually ended up swapping the three blade prop for a 2 blade, especially if the 3 blade got broken. Two blades are more efficient and much more widely available. We would often eventually remove some of the limiters on the motor (needle valve collars) to get more power out of the engine as well. After all, to much power is almost enough! Generally these planes have been pretty trouble free and fly well.

Given all of this, when one of our younger members lost his Alpha to a battery problem another was purchased and the job of assembly was mine. We presumed the new ARF would fly similar to the old RTF… especially using the same motor, servos etc… Pretty much everything except the battery, switch and one of the servos survived and was moved to the new plane. As I was building the new airplane I noticed they had redesigned the firewall and added a bottom hatch (surely a side effect of adding an electric power option, which I applaud).

Unfortunately I also noticed a few issues I was not particularly happy about. First, the throttle rod routing is not ideal. This is not the first plane I’ve seen with this problem so I did a bit of creative warping and rigged up something that was workable. I’d recommend skipping installing the rod and substituting a cable type linkage to make the throttle linkage work with much less binding. Likewise, the nose steering rod binds. For this one it appears to be a problem with the routing of the rod combined with the flat ground on the steering strut and the straight steering arm. As the arm rotates back toward the firewall, the wire binds against the edge of the guide and puts a lot of stress on the rudder servo. If you position everything perfectly and limit the end points during your radio setup you can get a workable setup. Luckily, there really isn’t much travel needed on either the rudder or the nose wheel so I managed but this seems like a poor design to expect a beginner to be able to successfully handle.

Another of our members suggested the use of an offset steering arm might accomplish the relief of this stress and allow for more travel. I think it is certainly worth trying. In the meantime we had a workable arrangement if not ideal. Onward to the test flights.

A bit of tweaking, a balance check and the usual post build checks and we made a few test flights. At that point, we started to notice a pattern of difficult takeoffs followed by lots of trim inputs, etc… This was not good. We couldn’t hand this ill behaving plane to our young member and expect good results. He was still just getting comfortable flying without an instructor and not ready to handle this ill behaved ship.

It took a lot of left rudder to keep the plane flying straight down the runway and if it was trimmed for straight takeoff rolls the plane would constantly turn in the air and had to be re-trimmed for straight and level flight. We tried many different adjustments, re-aligning the front wheel and rudder several times, trying various landing gear bends, insuring the wing was centered etc… but we could not keep the plane from at least often, if not always, veering sharply right when it was near rotation speed. We also tried to add some lead to the left wingtip after noticing the right main wheel often stayed on the ground longer than anything else which seemed to help.

At that point we tried another Alpha wing which did NOT resolve the issue entirely even though after it was removed it was proven the first wing was very off balance… being heavy on the right wingtip. This is an ongoing investigation at this point but after spending 3 hours working with 2 other RC pilots with probably 50 years RC experience between us… it makes me wonder what would cause this plane to act so oddly during takeoff. I don’t believe the new Alpha ARF has this problem generically… it’s just this particular model that is vexing us I’m sure. Once we figure it out… or get tired of this and just move on to another trainer… I’ll post an update.

For now, I can honestly say the Alpha 40 ARF doesn’t seem to be quite as good as the predecessor RTF model but is still a pretty good deal for the price and the only downsides should be readily avoidable if you know what to watch out for and spend just a few extra dollars on a throttle cable and a different steering arm! Hopefully with these tweaks you can assemble a good flying airplane suitable for a beginner and still enjoyed by those of who have been flying for 15 years or more.