Build 2 House of Balsa AT6 Texan Micro Electric

[drummaker]

Originally Posted by rreid7

You might be interested in this post on visibility and orientation on my website. Not That I have anything startling to offer, but I included a link in there to a really good article on the subject by someone who knows about colors and visibility.
Visibility and Orientation

rreid suggested an article on orientation visibility. although I read it, and it seems to make sense to me, I am struggling to figure out what to do with things model. the only thing not wet covered is the fuselage. is there anything I can do with just that which might help

[Bill G]

Originally Posted by drummaker

rreid suggested an article on orientation visibility. although I read it, and it seems to make sense to me, I am struggling to figure out what to do with things model. the only thing not wet covered is the fuselage. is there anything I can do with just that which might help

What I've found is that the model outline is really what your eyes pick up. Once at distance, they all get small and tend to grey out. Your subconscious is more powerful than you think. I regularly lose orientation, like all flyers that fly small models at distance. The key is to give a stick input, observe the change in the model outline, reestablish it's orientation, and then give the necessary input to regain control from there. Your mind will develop the ability to process those things near instantaneously, and the reactions become almost instinctive. Your mind will literally process in an instant, "Okay I gave a left aileron input and am now seeing this, so I can now see that the plane is in a certain orientation, and I now need to give a this input to correct it".

Personally, using specific colors and different colors on the top versus bottom surfaces have not made a difference for me. Unless you are flying close or flying large models, I believe the color thing is overrated, and not the way your eyes and mind process the model.

[drummaker]

Well.... I finished. I built a battery compartment in the very front behind the prop which allowed me to put the battery in without removing the wing. I used a 2 cell to make that work. The output with the shown 3 blade 8/3 prop was 120 watts.

Well...
I took it to the field and my flight instructor Gary agreed to fly this for me. It was wind of about 10 mph.

The plain went down the runway lifted off almost immediately, banked right and crashed.

oh well

It was clear that I should have told Gary about the tendencies of the T6, I guess I thought everyone knew this...

anyway damage was minimal. Broken cowl, motor mounts came apart, and the bracing that the rear of the wing attaches to came out. I had this fixed quickly.

So

I slept on it saturday night and realized

A this is a 1,450 kv motor. Not particularly high speed.
the 3 blade prop, only 3 pitch, although it had plenty of thrust while not moving had a Very low top speed.

I believe this plane was destined to crash.

I put on a 8x6 prop. This took the wattage output up to 220 on a 180 watt motor... hmmm. I chopped off the ends of the prop (about half an inch very carefully and accurately)
After balancing it ran very smoothly and put out about 190
close enough.

I believe next flite will go much Better


Good news.

Flying the club trainer was pretty much exactly as it was on the emulator. I was fine! I have to do 3 consecutive flites without incident before I am certified to solo alone at the field. I have ordered a Hawk Sky to do this on, and I know I really do need some actual flight ecperience before I fly my kits builts alone.

The Cub flew well except it was under powered, and struggled to go against the wind. It was also just too light to land effectively against a 10mph wind.

I changed motors to the one I bought for the t6 by accident and put in a 3s 2000 mh pack this increased the weight by about 4 oz... Not much but maybe...... anyway it is also pulling 180 with an 8x6. Bam


We will see.

so here are the pics. this is pre crash so the prop on it now is different.

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by drummaker

Well.... I finished. I built a battery compartment in the very front behind the prop which allowed me to put the battery in without removing the wing. I used a 2 cell to make that work. The output with the shown 3 blade 8/3 prop was 120 watts.

Well...
I took it to the field and my flight instructor Gary agreed to fly this for me. It was wind of about 10 mph.

The plain went down the runway lifted off almost immediately, banked right and crashed.

oh well

It was clear that I should have told Gary about the tendencies of the T6, I guess I thought everyone knew this...

anyway damage was minimal. Broken cowl, motor mounts came apart, and the bracing that the rear of the wing attaches to came out. I had this fixed quickly.

So

I slept on it saturday night and realized

A this is a 1,450 kv motor. Not particularly high speed.
the 3 blade prop, only 3 pitch, although it had plenty of thrust while not moving had a Very low top speed.

I believe this plane was destined to crash.

I put on a 8x6 prop. This took the wattage output up to 220 on a 180 watt motor... hmmm. I chopped off the ends of the prop (about half an inch very carefully and accurately)
After balancing it ran very smoothly and put out about 190
close enough.

I believe next flite will go much Better


Good news.

Flying the club trainer was pretty much exactly as it was on the emulator. I was fine! I have to do 3 consecutive flites without incident before I am certified to solo alone at the field. I have ordered a Hawk Sky to do this on, and I know I really do need some actual flight ecperience before I fly my kits builts alone.

The Cub flew well except it was under powered, and struggled to go against the wind. It was also just too light to land effectively against a 10mph wind.

I changed motors to the one I bought for the t6 by accident and put in a 3s 2000 mh pack this increased the weight by about 4 oz... Not much but maybe...... anyway it is also pulling 180 with an 8x6. Bam


We will see.

so here are the pics. this is pre crash so the prop on it now is different.

Yea my planes are built on the kiss method (keep it simple stuped) so i dont like gyros on anything i fly, just somthing else to go wrong. joe

[Bill G]

It's likely that the club instructor is used to larger planes than this one, often more docile like the club trainer. I know that a number of people are leery of hand launching, but one benefit is that it is not difficult to achieve a 20mph initial launch speed by hand, with a plane like this one. A solid hand launch should easily put the plane well over stall speed. For ROG, a paved runway or really smooth grass runway would be required along with a decent run to achieve a good takeoff speed. I would not be surprised if the instructor was simply not aware of the speed necessary for this plane to launch at.

Mine takes a pretty stiff throw for good launch, and with a geared brushed 400 it has just adequate power. The prop size was initially increased by 1/2", just to achieve adequate power. I'm leery about increasing the prop size much further, as the motor is pushed hard for a brushed motor. It doesn't need to fly terribly fast, but is not a floater either and has proven to have a pretty rough right hand stall. I discovered this directly above the town's leaf pile at the park, which was an ideal and lucky place for it to happen. They've piled up a massive pile of leaves at times, which is perfect for launching over.

[drummaker]

Originally Posted by Bill G

It's likely that the club instructor is used to larger planes than this one, often more docile like the club trainer. I know that a number of people are leery of hand launching, but one benefit is that it is not difficult to achieve a 20mph initial launch speed by hand, with a plane like this one. A solid hand launch should easily put the plane well over stall speed. For ROG, a paved runway or really smooth grass runway would be required along with a decent run to achieve a good takeoff speed. I would not be surprised if the instructor was simply not aware of the speed necessary for this plane to launch at.

Mine takes a pretty stiff throw for good launch, and with a geared brushed 400 it has just adequate power. The prop size was initially increased by 1/2", just to achieve adequate power. I'm leery about increasing the prop size much further, as the motor is pushed hard for a brushed motor. It doesn't need to fly terribly fast, but is not a floater either and has proven to have a pretty rough right hand stall. I discovered this directly above the town's leaf pile at the park, which was an ideal and lucky place for it to happen. They've piled up a massive pile of leaves at times, which is perfect for launching over.

Hi Gill
I have an update on this plane.... It no longer exists.

I put the heavier prop on it and took added a stabilizer. When I took it off things seemed like they might be fine. then when I went to straiten it out I realized that I needed nearly full right aleron to fly straight. Had I been more experienced I would have spiraled it down but not I. I brought it around and tried to land it. I got over the flight line and tried to correct aggressively. This through it into a stall which I compensated for by running the throttle up thus running this plane into the steel roof of a barn at full throttle. It was not really destroyed but part of the main wing gut stuck in the gutter. so.. I now have just the fuselage. I will probably through it away someday. but for now I use it as a reminder of just how much of a beginner I am

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by drummaker

Hi Gill
I have an update on this plane.... It no longer exists.

I put the heavier prop on it and took added a stabilizer. When I took it off things seemed like they might be fine. then when I went to straiten it out I realized that I needed nearly full right aleron to fly straight. Had I been more experienced I would have spiraled it down but not I. I brought it around and tried to land it. I got over the flight line and tried to correct aggressively. This through it into a stall which I compensated for by running the throttle up thus running this plane into the steel roof of a barn at full throttle. It was not really destroyed but part of the main wing gut stuck in the gutter. so.. I now have just the fuselage. I will probably through it away someday. but for now I use it as a reminder of just how much of a beginner I am

Dont be to hard on yourself i sifted one through the tree tops a couple years ago doing around 60 mph. Most every thing flew out the other side (motor and battery)and we nudged the rest out with a pole. The bad part was that a newspaper camera man was taking pictures and i was comming around for a photo shot when it happened . lol joe

[drummaker]

Originally Posted by road king 97

Dont be to hard on yourself i sifted one through the tree tops a couple years ago doing around 60 mph. Most every thing flew out the other side (motor and battery)and we nudged the rest out with a pole. The bad part was that a newspaper camera man was taking pictures and i was comming around for a photo shot when it happened . lol joe

That was a proud moment I am sure.

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by drummaker

That was a proud moment I am sure.

Ha Ha some of my planes have had a lot of photos taken of them but i build and fly them for me not the newspaper. There will always be another water funfly to attend and i have plenty more seaplanes to fly. joe

[Rockin Robbins]

Don't be too hard on yourself, Drummaker. That AT6 has some pretty nasty habits and you can try again later. Lots of experienced pilots have had their hands full with one of those.

You learned a valuable lesson about what you should have done to mostly save the plane. That's better than a lot of crashes teach. A lot of crashes result in little more than bewilderment.

But onward and upwards! Get some flying experience under your belt to balance out the crashing experience and you'll be a certified expert.

And keep building! RTF and ARF planes are great, but there's no more rewarding thing to do than fly a plane that you built yourself.

[Bill G]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Don't be too hard on yourself, Drummaker. That AT6 has some pretty nasty habits and you can try again later. Lots of experienced pilots have had their hands full with one of those.

You learned a valuable lesson about what you should have done to mostly save the plane. That's better than a lot of crashes teach. A lot of crashes result in little more than bewilderment.

But onward and upwards! Get some flying experience under your belt to balance out the crashing experience and you'll be a certified expert.

And keep building! RTF and ARF planes are great, but there's no more rewarding thing to do than fly a plane that you built yourself.

Agreed, between myself and other reports this plane is not a great flying warbird. I'm not a fan of barn door ailerons to begin with, especially when used with a somewhat high aspect ratio wing like this plane has. The plan shows a mechanical setup with a lot of differential, probably in attempts to correct adverse yaw. This is probably one of those planes where a slight mismatch in wing panels would be a much bigger problem than with other planes.

I almost took my HOB Texan to the park earlier today, as this build has reminded me to try it again since changing the prop, as the last prop was a bit underpowered. I ended up flying my Herr Pitts instead, and took a short video clip while flying with the trans in one hand, and the camera in the other. I would say the Herr Pitts is easier to fly with one hand while doing less than perfect rolls and loops, versus the Texan with both hands on the transmitter, and the Pitts is not exactly a trainer. The Pitts has quite a snap and the CG is set to be responsive, but it is always recoverable within one incipient spin cycle. I did a few of those today. I stalled and spun the Texan once, and only still have it, thanks to a massive leaf pile.

It's great that you're building and hopefully you'll keep up the building. We learn things from building that ARFs don't teach and will be much more knowledgeable in the future. All of us have had to scratch off a number of planes in the process.