adam_r Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Hello guys. As some may know i enjoy flying RC planes and gliders. Well for the first time in around 6-8 months i was able to go out on sunday morning and have a short fly. Nothing too amazing to watch, but my confidence grew with flying her this time (apart from my shoddy hand launch!) and took her up quite high. I stuck my contour roam camera to the Wing to record a little video... Best skip to around 2:30 in the video.. Before that i was doing last minute pre flight checks. My knees still knock when i have to hand launch her.. Shes 3.8kg flying weight and is a 3.34m wing span. So shes not light or small so rather 'fun' to hand launch and get my hand back to the remote as quickly as possible! Unfortunately my folding propeller seems not to want to fold when in flight... So i will have to sort that out as it adds a huge amount of drag Thermik Excel In Warsash over the cliffs: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Nice video Adam. You must be pretty confident with flying them to be so close to the sea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 I wasnt really that close to the sea.. I was quite high up really. If i go out again i will try and fly further out as my confidence with the model grows. I still need to learn how to land her properly Though...im so used to my planes that 'tip stall' when they fly too slowly.. This glider can and does happily fly at just above walking pace ( as you can tell by my landing! Or failed landing).. Im bringing her in far too fast and i dont trust myself yet to let her go far out and bring her back in low and slow so she doesnt have to scrape the ground quite so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Looked superb..... Are they very difficult to fly compared to a powered RC plane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Thanks Tony. Its and Odd question to answer. With a plane, upu have to use the motor to fly. Because the wings on the plane are smaller they are more unstable, but allow you to perform rolls quickly and be very aerobatic. The wing on my biggest pattership is 1.8m When you fly too slowly with a pplane, it will try and stall and drop a wing (either left or right). And normally its stall speed is still quite high, so you need to effectively fly the plane using the motor to the runway, then cut power. With this glider, the wingspan is 3.34m this gives it a much greater surface area and allow much greater lift. But it sacrifices this for stability over the more unstable aerobatic wing of a pattership. This glider is fairly easy to fly once your happy with how the controls are set up. At the moment i have 5 different flying modes for this glider. 1) launch... This provides a bit of down elevator... This is because when the engine is on full power the glider wants to climb, so a bit of down helps curb its need to find the sky. 2) normal mode... All control surfaces are as streamline as possible so litte or no defection of control surfaces are needed to fly straight. 3) thermal mode... All the servos on the wing ( 2x flaps and 2x alierons) drop down by 2mm from 'normal' position. This allows the gliders wing to collect more of the hot air that it is penetrating through as it will fly slower... There for allowing greater use of any updrafts avalible. 4) penetration mode.. Its almost the opposite of thermal mode.. All control surfaces on the main wing rise by 2mm from 'normal' position. This actually forces the plane to drop altitude,but by doing so it increases its speed through the air. This allows you to fight in to the wind that you would not normally be able to fly in to.. Circa 30mph head on wind for this model.. Above 30mph head wind if the plane is pointing in to the wind, it will fly backwards unless penetration mode is used.. This mode can also be used to find another thermal if you drop out of one. 5) landing mode. This shuts the motor off and allows the wings to become a 'butterfly' or 'crow'. This is where the flaps drop to around 60degrees and the alierons rise by about 40 degrees... It effectively acts as a very big airbrake to slow the model down. If havent got this last functio. Working properly yet which is dissapointing.. But im Working on how to do it with my transmitter. Overall as long as you have a good sense of visual feedback and subtle control enyone could fly the glider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Reads very skill full, did you train to fly or learn as you go...... As a kid i bought one of those motorized planes you fly by wire/ string control, it made half a circle and i crashed it braking off the engine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 I started flying i.c. planes when i was 14. By 16 i had my A certificate ( can fly on your own safely) my B certificate ( i can fly at a public show) and my instructors licence. On my 17th birthday i crashed a 2.3m patternship with a 50cc engine in it(pretty much killed it for me as it cost so much) plane was a total write off. Part caused another pilot not understanding rules of the flying field. I found girls and had little time for the models as i thought it was goofy to do this sort of thing. But now im purposefully making time for the hobby and getting back to enriching myself with all the new tech avalible for us. My plan for this glider is to use it as a bit of an expensive test bench... I was inspired by this video.. And this is whati plan to do to her over the next year, when i have some spare cash... I will make the model in to an FPV (first person view) platform so i can fly further that line of sight. Fascination Maiden (FPV): I have flown a friends foam glider using fpv and found it an amazing Experience. We flew around the whole of portsmouth island using a camera Mounted on the plane with a video rx at the ground station where we were standing. It really brings a whole new perspective to the hobby as im sure the above video will show Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHAHZ Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 That is seriously cool Very surprised at how quick it gained altitude, but then watching the second video at the very beginning showing how it takes off, it shows how quick they actually are! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Shahz. My glider is able to climb vertically from the word go... I just prefer to give it a little forward airspeed first. I will try and mount the camera facing towards the wingtip next time and do a vertical climb. It can climb to around 1000ft in under a minute Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 17, 2015 Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 What is the radio range out of interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 For my stock 2.4ghz radio its around 3km Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 17, 2015 Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Wow that's way more than i expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 My system is very good. Its one of the better controllers. If i went to a different frequency like 92Mhz you can get 60 mile range if you have the right equipment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHAHZ Posted February 18, 2015 Report Share Posted February 18, 2015 Shahz. My glider is able to climb vertically from the word go... I just prefer to give it a little forward airspeed first. I will try and mount the camera facing towards the wingtip next time and do a vertical climb. It can climb to around 1000ft in under a minute Thats well quick, that would be great to see if you can get it mounted that way!! I was also gonna ask the range too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 18, 2015 Report Share Posted February 18, 2015 I think i would want to keep it reasonably close to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted February 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2015 Its all about trust really Tony. Plus when the model is 3.35m wing span and 3.5kg you cam still see if fairly well when its high up or a long way off. In my video i was keeping it very close (in rc glider terms). Next time i get a chance to fly i will take it up much higher and further from me in search for thermals. You can tell im really not accustom to taking the model far away at the moment. If you skip to 10m in to my video this is me heading down wind before landing... At 10:20 i have turned around and heading back towards myself. At this point the model is too high and too close(you can see me on the left side of the screen in the video).. At 10:50 i power up and go around ( true sign of my powered flight history)... What i should have done at 10:20 was to circle a few times to drop altitude and speed. At 11min in.. I have shut off the motor and heading down wind again to try landing again... At 11:08 i deploy the flaps and start my turn for approach(again far far too early) in all honesty i should have flow for another 10 seconds down wind) At 11:22 you can see me again.. But yet again the model is too high, and flying too fast here... I should have done a slow circle to shed more speed and heigh but i stupidly didnt. The result of my poor ability is the model skimming accross the floor for far too long and far too fast. Its all things i should learn, but trying to remove how to fly powered aircraft from my instinct is rather difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 19, 2015 Report Share Posted February 19, 2015 I would have stacked it for sure but as you say no one is an expert off the bat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted March 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2015 well Shahz asked for the camera mounted backward to record its climb rate. stupidly i didnt do a vertical climb ( i did when the camera was forward facing! :doh: ) anyway, here is a video from this afternoon, wind was around 15mph, so i was mostly just tracking back and forward and its not too exciting (apart from the landing where i had almost exhausted the battery and lost motor control). for some reason the video is in a ruddy awful format 360p! (YUK)... so i am currently re-formatting this so it will be 1080p.. but obviously this will take a while on the processing front! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted March 19, 2015 Report Share Posted March 19, 2015 I think the picture quality is fine....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Well after a bit of being a silly bugger and asking too much of her during a high speed dive / roll... I ended up semi folding one of tails on my V. Ended result is this: Seemingly a nice crack on the surface.. But actual results where a snapped main spar, fractured front spar and obviously damaged skin . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 That damage occured almost a month ago... And to be honest i have been so p**sed off about it and a few pther bits... It has been sat in the garage being neglected. So yesterday whilst looking after the children i decided to get nasty... IGot the dremel out and cut (as neatley as possible) all the damaged area and tried to not damage either of the spars in the process. .... More updatesto come soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 What a pain but I guess it has to happen at some point. How are you going to repair it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 I fortunately have another Vtail (indentical) to this that i used to create a mold from. I used 6 layers of 40gsm wovwn glass cloth and around 1 gram of resin to creat a patch to fit inside this cut out. I will then fill any lows with a 5 min epoxy. After thats done im going to sand about 5cm either side of the damage on the top and bottom of the tail surface and use another sheet of 40gsm glass cloth to cover the effected area and slightly further along. I will then use a small amount of high build filler to smooth in the raised surface and then i will paint the tail. Im wondering what colour i should go for?. Im really tempted to get a deep purple with red fleck or white with a purple fleck. Any suggestions ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMARTLY Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Well you want to see it on the ground and in the sky? Orange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_r Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Like your thinking! Orange would be very nice. What type though? Day glow? Florescent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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