parkzone albatros d.va

[hoghead5150]

well i finally broke down and bought the albatros. it arrived and looks alot better than i thought it would! got it all put together and have a couple questions.

first, what battery is everybody running in this thing? i know it calls for an 1800mah 3s, but read that alot of guys were running 2200mah batteries. i ordered some 2200mah batteries but since they are not here yet, i borrowed a 2200mah battery from my brother. it will fit, but hits the lower wing inside the battery compartment.

second, on the flight control surface throws. reading the book i can get the elevator and rudder set per the manual, but the ailerons are a different story. the ailerons say high rate is 40mm up 30mm down, low rates are 26mm and 24mm.

on my plane with the ailerons set to 100%, i only get 30mm up, 30mm down.

what is everybody else getting as far as aileron travel on their planes?

[hoghead5150]

well got the maiden flight in today. flew really well, and landed alot better than i thought. had alot of problems with trimming the plane tho. the first flight it wanted to climb really bad, and turned to the left constantly.

after fighting it, i finally got it trimmed for sorta straight flight. was a little windy today, so maybe the wind had a little more effect than i thought it would. either way, got a good 10 minutes of flight out of her, and 2 really good landings.

tomorrow i'll try it again and see if the trimming problems were caused by the wind or what.

[wattman]

Congrats to you and your Albatros , I sure enjoy flying mine , and the PKZ SE5a also , when its not windy , for all of my flying I prefer no wind . I fly the stock batteries in mine , and am happy with it .

[hoghead5150]

i know it really doesn't make alot of difference, but i can NOT get my aileron travel up to what the book says they should be.

could somebody with the parkzone albatros measure their aileron throw on high rates and let me know exactly how much throw they are getting...

right now on high rates (100%) i'm getting 1 1/4 inch of up travel, that equals out to about 31mm. the book calls for 40mm!!

[JetPlaneFlyer]

To get more travel first make sure that the ailerons have enough free movement in the hinges.. disconnect the pushrod and make sure they can move 40mm without getting stiff.. If not moving by hand several times may free them up.

If the surfaces are free then the steps following should get the movement out of them:

1. Put the pushrod in the outermost hole on the servo arm.
2. If you have a computer Tx go in to end point adjustment and dial in some over travel, up to 125% should be safe enough
3. If necessary move the pushrod to a more inboard hole on the control surface horn.

Those steps should get you your full travel.

Some differential is quite important on this type of model, that is the aileron should move up further than it moves down. There are two ways to get differential movement:

1. With a computer Tx and if you have two aileron servos on dual aileron channels, then just dial in some differential in the Tx programming.. simple!
2. The old school way is to offset the servo arm. Take the arm off the servo and move it one spline so that the arm points about 15 degrees forward rather than straight down. Adjust the pushrod to suit and re-connect. (Note this assumes the servo is on the bottom of the wing, for top mounted servos point to arm backward)

Good luck, it looks like a really nice model. From my limited experience of WWI types you might want to be prepared to use the rudder quite a lot in turns because the ailerons might not be effective at low speed. Differential helps a lot but aileron response may still be poor under some conditions. If you have a computer Tx you might even try a aileron to rudder mix.

[hoghead5150]

well got some more flight time with the albatros today. after alot of trim issues on the maiden, i went back over the entire plane to make sure i had everything lined up. today was a total different story. a couple clicks of down trim and she was flying great.

one thing i like is the fact that you have to use the rudder to fly this thing. sure you can bank and yank turns, but it looks terrible. a little rudder action and it really makes this plane fly beautifully. landings are very graceful (except for one today!) and pretty easy to manage even in our little crosswind today. did have one nose over today, but it was totally my fault. came in a little crooked, was fixing to run off the edge of the taxiway so i ruddered the crap out of her to keep on the taxiway. well i over corrected, got the death wobbles, and plop on her nose. no damage to the plane, just to my ego!!

[wattman]

Glad its flying well for you , its another great biplane of the great war from Parkzone .

[hoghead5150]

think i'm going to swap the tail wheel out and put the skid on the plane. just seems odd to have a wheel on the back of a WWI plane.

over the winter i think i'm going to do a tear down and add some scale details. been reading threads and looking at pics of some of these planes and it is just amazing how much detail some people have added. this will be my first time trying to modify a plane, so i have alot of reading to do!! gotta learn how to do woodgrain details.

[wattman]

I land and fly and taxi on pavement , so I want the tail wheel on whatever plane it is , for just me . Sitting it looks really bad , but flying , you can not tell there is a wheel on the tail . And I agree there are a few of the PKZ SE5a and Albatros DVa that have been detailed out and really look fantastic .

[hoghead5150]

got a question on the CoG for the albatros. i have been flying with a 2100mah battery borrowed from my brother and these flights took place in light wind (5mph or so). plane flew good, got it trimmed and adjusted for level flight at just over 1/2 throttle. landings were good. can cut power to under 1/2 throttle and she would slowly decend with her nose level, and i could land at a pretty slow pace. tried this both into the wind, and going with the wind. i know your not supposed to land with the wind, but i just wanted to see how she would react.

today, NO WIND, and my batteries showed up!! 1800mah ones. now today my plane wanted to dive slightly. took 5 clicks of up elevator to get it flying level at just over 1/2 throttle. now landings were totally different. if i cut the throttle to just under half, the plane would put her nose down and come to the ground. up elevator was required to keep her nose level and the slower the plane got, the more elevator was needed.

when i was flying hi in the air, i could cut the throttle completely, and she would drop her nose and come down at about a 60* angle. she would stay nose down like this until i pulled her up (if i didn't save her she would auger in). so if there was a case that i had to dead stick this plane, it wouldn't be pretty as there isn't much of a glide slope at all.

the plane seemed very responsive to elevator inputs today, and landings had to be at about twice the speed as the rest of the flights.

i have it balanced right on the money per the manual, but since i'm new, does any of this sound like the plane might be a little tail heavy??

[touche]

Well I added this plane to my fleet. Was putting off getting it until I got more stick time in but a guy sold me his detailed plane for a great price. Too late I guess, lol, the war seems to be over for now.

[MX5Seeker]

Hoghead5150,

What did you have to do on the first flight to get it to stop turning left? Just a lot of trim clicks? What did you do long term? Just change the clevis position?

I bought one and my initial flight went hard right (a barrel roll basically), then almost straight up, then augured in. :-/ I'm no pro, but this my forth plane (and one very small quad). I had all control surfaces flush with the stationary surfaces. At the COG (2 ¼ in behind the upper leading edge), it was slightly nose down. All controls were correct (none reversed). Never had any plane snap this hard. I now have wings to fix and a few compressions in the fuselage foam to take out.

But now, even when it's fixed, I'm going to be a little paranoid to take off again. I could try high speed taxi runs to just get it off the ground, but if it snaps right and cartwheels, there goes the whole thing.

Any suggestions?

[JDMJim]

I'd say make sure the vertical stab is straight. Otherwise, right rudder trim should solve that. I've got a right trim on mine. And someone on RCGroups inspired me to paint the engine....So I did.

[wattman]

Looking good , I can almost see the rocker arms moving
Its a beautiful plane , flying and on the ground .

[JDMJim]

I also used a bit of putty in the rear strut mounts to get rid of the rattling. that was a tremendous help and the plane is no louder than anything else taxiing around