Alpea42

Good Luck with the maiden Wil if you get a launcher helper. I don't blame you for wanting one on a 5 lb. hand launch.

Alpea42

Well it's Sunday Feb.1 Wil, Hows the weather for your maiden attempt? I remembered you said you might give it a go today , hope it goes well for ya.

wilmracer

SHE FLIES!!!

Hand launch was uneventfull and she flew pretty well. Need to adjust some of the throws... elevator felt good on high rates, ailerons felt good on low rates, so I'll fix that up. When you guys see the video you are going to think I was crazy to maiden in that much wind, but it turned out fine. She flew stable on half throttle but didn't seem as quick as the old F-14. Of course she is larger so it may have just been my perception.

The video turned out a bit grainy. My parents were able to come out and act as a ground crew, but I really need to get a new camera for these things. There is a bit of dirt inside the lense and from time to time the camera tries to focus on it rather than on the plane. But I'll edit it down to just the good shots.

I'll get the video edited up tomorrow and post is asap.

PBurt: I have a similar superstition about my planes, although it is far less practical than yours. I won't give them a name until they fly. She shall be called Svetlana

son of alpea42

Congrats man , glad it went successull. Waiting for your video.

wilmracer

Maiden Video! Due to the new YouTube restrictions I did not add any music to this video. I prefer to be able to hear the motors anyway, but it would be nice to have some tunes on the intro and credits.

One day we'll get the hang of recording these things...

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ1_AckPNl0[/media]

Alpea42

Nice Carl , hope you get many great flights outta it.

MTEXX

Congrats with Svetlana : )

I'm not going to hijjack your thread, but since you asked I'll post some quick pics.

wilmracer

MTEXX,

Hijack away... Hopefully all I'll have to post on this one for a while will be updated videos. Usually when I finish a plane I don't have a desire to build the same model again (at least for a while)... but I keep hearing this little voice in my head that says "Go ahead... build one for 90mm fans... and this time build TV nozzles".

I think Meg would kill me. My projects tend to expand out of the airplane room and consume the entire basement. Fortunately this one was just a bit more than a month from start to finish.

wilmracer

What a lousy morning... It could not be more perfect outside for flying. I get to the field early and get a few flights in on the PZ Corsair, start doing the preflight on the SU-37, and one of the motors wont spin up. I check the connections and get it spinning, only to have it start cutting off under throtle after about 10 seconds. Spent about an hour at the field tring to work it out before giving up and packing it in.

I love this hobby, but sometimes it really pisses me off. Who knows when I'll get weather like this again to get the second flight in...

Alpea42

Sometimes they just don't cooperate HUH? I always say it wasn't meant to be and better to have a small failure on the ground then a major one in flight. Figure it out yet?

wilmracer

Yeah... bad connection to one of the wires on that ESC.

I got 4 flights on her today and have her dialed in pretty well. She flys well and is very stable, and slows down really nicely... I just wish she had more speed. I think the 3W and 36amp ESCs are just not enough, at least for the way that I want to fly her. I'm going to leave her alone for now and wait until she has more flights on her before I do anything about it. The nice thing is that I can just drop in a different motor/esc combo and more than double the watt output from the same fans. It all comes down to how much you want to spend.

I got a much better video today and will post it up in the next day or two. The only problem with this video is that there are no clouds and you don't see the ground much at all, so it is hard to tell how fast/slow she is moving. I wont complain though... it came out really good.

At the field I actually met up with a guy I've seen fly there b

wilmracer

Yeah.. loose connection to the esc.

Got 4 more flights on her today, and a good video of the last flight that I'll post up in the next day or so.

wilmracer

This video came out much better.

My observations after 5 flights is that she is underpowered on the 3W setup. I'm going to give her until later this season and see how she holds up. Once I have everything flying the way I want it and I'm comfortable with her I'll drop in some new motors and ESCs. Should be an easy upgrade as the fans can take much more than I'm pushing at the moment. $300 would more than double the watt output without effecting weight or anything else... just like everything else in the hobby... you've got to pay to play.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98XqWbZDlk8[/media]

son of alpea42

Nice flight Carl. Looped o k. A little right aileron to hold it in the loop huh?

wilmracer

Yeah... it did require a little aileron to hold it in the loop. I'm working the bugs out. Roll feels a bit sluggish at times too, but I've got more throw to work with on the ailerons.

It is really sensitive to crosswind gusts but I'm getting the feel for her. More power would definitely be nice, but it flys pretty stable.

Alpea42

Yeah EDFs are tricky to get electric type thrust out of. You knew that at the beginning of the build cuz you said so. Must be why Shumate flies his on motors. Geared motors if I remember right. A loop is a determining display of power available. Funny it starts banking left when it loses airspeed, just like a pusher on launch torques to the left. You'ld think fans wouldn't have that left torque at slow air speed.

motorhead540

great looking plane just wish i was a builder so i could build one for myself i have only built sticks and flat foam have been working on repairing my crashed balsa but im not so good at it much better with building helis and heavy equiptment as im a diesel truck tech turned weekend flyer for something different