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First flights and final thoughts on the Flyzone Beaver

Yesterday afternoon, April 8 was the first flight on the Flyzone Beaver.  The first flight was done on wheels with an 1800 3 cell (older, brand unknown) LiPo.  Power was adequate with the 3 blade 11×6 MA making little excess noise.  After a bit of aileron and elevator trim she smoothed out fairly well considering the slightly breezy conditions.  Taxi on our early spring uncut/rough field was adequate even with the stock wheels.  Roll rate was acceptable (not fast, but OK considering the long wingspan), tight to mediums size loops were possible but don’t stretch it to far or you may run short of power.  Turns needed a bit of rudder to avoid “skid” and add some authority.  Nothing wrong with any of that.  It was hard to get a really good feel for the handling with some 15+ MPH gusts up there but generally I would say it handled well.

That success led me to spend the time to attach the floats and try it again.  Attaching the floats was a bit of a job with 2 people working it.  I probably would have given up and waited to do it on my bench where I have a better stand, no wind to deal with etc… had I not had help.  I don’t see doing this often as a real option… certainly not at the field.  I will probably only switch them back and forth 2 or 3 times a year.  They could make this a lot easier with a bit of design work but that seems to be the theme for this airplane.  I pulled the water rudders off to avoid any untoward encounters with the ground.  Unfortunately they are not pivoting like my larger water rudders are (“spring” loaded via a rubber band) so flying off of hard surfaces like snow/ice/dirt with them attached is not recommended.  At least not by me!

Here I am with floats attached after all the days flying was over with…

Photo by K. Bogigian

The second flight, the first with floats, was more of a sit in place and struggle to move due to the increased friction and a less than fully charged battery.  Swapping the battery for a smaller capacity but fully charged power source got it sliding and once moving it took 30-50 feet to get up to speed and then was off.  Not terrible considering we are talking dry grass here.  Based on my experience with larger planes with glow engines flying off both water and grass this gives me confidence that getting off the water won’t be difficult.  Flying was not a lot different than without the floats.  The extra weight was not a big issue and did add some additional stability in the wind.  Here’s a couple flight photos.

Photos by K. Bogigian

You can’t deny that straight out of the box the plane looks pretty good in the air.  The lines look good to my eye and with the added weight of the floats the plane has a bit more stable track as well.  The flaps seem to do almost nothing with the factory available travel.  I will eventually have to do something to correct that.  There is simply no more travel available with the existing control arm and linkage geometry. Maybe as part of that I will change the linkage to something much easier to re-connect like a snap on ball link or something similar.  This would help to overcome the whole wing removal and attachment difficulties without having to readjust the flaps each time.  Even with my SUV it takes up entirely to much room with the wings and floats attached.

Here are my current overall feelings on the Beaver at this point.

The Beaver certainly seems to fly well and has excellent ground handling on wheels.  I expect good things from float flying as well based on my “floats off of grass” flight.  The outlines and color scheme are good which results in a good looking and very visible aircraft.  The quality of the build is somewhat lacking… not in any way that will affect flight-worthiness but rather making the plane’s cosmetic details poor.  Errant glue, lack of same where it belongs, “smeared” colors, etc… all take a potential A+ aesthetic and bring it down to average.  The biggest drawbacks however are based on a lack of consideration to the things that make an RC plane easy to get ready to fly and maintain.  Access to the interior is limited, “daily” assembly is painful and likely results in changing centering/trim on the flaps and wing removal and attachment just isn’t thought out well.  Ditto for swapping between landing gear and floats.  Even changing batteries can be a tricky balancing act since there is no easy way to support the plane while inverted while simultaneously using 2 hands (a necessity) to swap the battery.  At least not without a cradle of some sort.  For around $200 I expected a bit better.

I hope Flyzone will spend some time re-engineering and come out with a Beaver version 2 at some point in the future as the subject matter is great and it could be a great little RC airplane with some better engineering.  I expect to have some fun flying on floats (always a favorite of mine) but this plane will not get the number of flights it deserves due to the drawbacks noted.  To quote Maxwell Smart… “Missed it by that much”.  It’s a bit early to give this plane a final grade but I think at this point I would rate this plane a solid C+.

 

Well, the Beaver is ready for a preliminary flight.  Assembly is done with the exception of some thread lock on a few of the control surface adjustment screws.

Flyzone DHC-2 Beaver ready for 1st flight…

To get to this point I went through the instruction manual and completed all the appropriate steps and other than some slight issues with the order of steps it was all pretty clear. For some reason, Flyzone thought it better to attach the tail wheel before installing the horizontal and vertical stab (which is all one process) and that just puts the wheel in the way so I took it back off as I was fiddling with getting the tail attachment done and then reinstalled it afterword.  It’s not a big issue either way.  I did appreciate that the instructions leave attaching the prop as the very last step which is always a good idea for electrics, which are always dangerous once the prop is installed.  Electrics are like safely handling a firearm… assume it’s always “loaded” or ready to spin the prop and you are a lot less likely to get hurt.

I stripped the windshield off (it looked ready to eject at any moment out of the box anyway, held on with only 6 little dots of glue) and used that access to make some of the build steps a bit easier.  Also, since I have no plans to ever remove the wings again I went ahead and spot glued the aileron/flap/lighting wires down so they were not dangling down and visible in the windows of the Beaver. I left the reattachment ’till the very last thing so I could more easily get to my receiver which now resides in the front seats.  I added a little dark foam over the top of it so that it’s not very visible and reasonably secure.

I did trim one of the wing struts to match the length of the other.  This involved removing the screw and end piece from the tube.  Re-drilling the screw hole for the end piece to attach to the spar tube and reattaching.  This was not particularly difficult but I wonder how/why they are different lengths to start with.  Even after that the wings don’t seem to be perfectly level with the horizontal stab but there doesn’t seem to be an adjustment method mentioned or provided for.  I will likely try some shim washers at the spar attachment point on the bottom of the wing to see if I can force the wing to level.  It’s not bad but straight planes just fly better so I’ll give it try.

I can’t recall ever finishing a plane and flying it exactly according the manual and the Beaver will not be an exception.  Here are the things that I changed prior to being deemed first flight ready:

• I didn’t care for the 2 blade prop and oversize chrome plated plastic spinner so I ordered a 3 blade Master Airscrew replacement along with a prop nut from the ParkZone T28 and replaced this assembly.  It’s an easy swap and looks a bit more scale to my eye.  Everything I’ve read says the Beaver can afford the very slight power loss this will likely cause.  I’m not usually a fan of 3 blade props for efficiency reasons, nor MA brand props as they don’t seem as rigid as some others and just don’t seem to pull as well compared to other manufacturers offerings I could name but I couldn’t find any other that fit the bill so I’m going to give them a try in this case.  If I really need better power I can always switch back to a 2 blade and/or some other brand and composition.
• I pulled the receiver and went to something that is directly compatible with my Spektrum radios.  I wanted to add a channel or two anyway and had a nice 9 channel DSMX receiver laying around so that is what is in the bird.  Totally unnecessary to have anything this high end but it was available and what with splitting the ailerons and adding an “e-switch” I needed 7 channels at least.  Anylink was an option but with the range limited to 1000′ per the manufacturer and the external box and cabling.. etc.. I just don’t like the solution they offer for my radio system.  All the external connections are messy and 1000′ is just not far enough for this big a plane in my opinion.
• As mentioned, I added an e-switch (an RcExcel opto kill switch in fact) so I can turn the lights on and off from my DX8.  I disliked the idea that the lights would constantly pull current from my battery when I don’t need them during full daylight and I had the switch laying around so why not?!  I think it will be cool to switch them on when the light starts to fade.

Of course by the time I stuffed the large receiver (and 1 remote) and the e-switch into the bird it simply wouldn’t easily fit in the compartment up front so I moved the receiver to the front seat area as noted before.

That puts the Beaver in a “ready for maiden flight” status at this point.  Maybe later today if not a bit later this week she will venture into the sky.  Once I get a flight or two, I will go back and thread lock the various EZ connectors that hold the flight surfaces.  I’ve never been fond of these for primary flight controls but for this little plane I will try to live with them.  Next update should be a flight report and/or the float assembly and installation.  Hoping to be fully ready and tested out on floats before Joe Nall 2013 in May.