mbilar1

I was told some of you might enjoy a FF story. I have just reentered the RC hobby after 30 years and enjoying the heck out of it. My thing is learning to fly glow trainers. But one day I was at Harbor Freight Tools with my kids and we saw a small Freeflight electric plane on sale for less than $10. And since my 5-year old son apparently has inherited the model airplane gene from Daddy, he begged me to buy it and we took took it to a huge mowed field behind a rural church. It had a charger with AAA batteries. A couple flights, corrected the trim to fly a nice circle and then the Final Flight. Hand launched it, it made a couple real close calls to the ground as it circled, and then began to steadily gain altitude. Round and round, up and up it went, and we were thrilled at first, then as it got higher my son said "Daddy bring it back!" There were low clouds that day and I literally watched in amazement as the now tiny speck circled into and out of a passing low cloud. There was a gentle breeze out of the south and as it circled higher and higher the drift took it beyond range of the field. We watched it as long as we could until there was nothing left to see and it was still going up. My son Aidan at first was heartbroken because he lost his toy, but to this day we laugh about the plane that flew into the clouds and we never saw it again!

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

I did the same thing, watched it disappear over a tree line, way up there. They were going for about $7 at our store.

Raymond LeFlyr

My Feedback: (2)

Its amazing how greedy the thermal god, Hung, is. He has several of my FF models too. But ain't it great to watch a perfectly trimmed model circling in a thermal - even better if the dethermalizer works.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

What is the best way to trim for big circles?

mbilar1

Indeed! We were so proud to have a long flight untill we realized it wasn't ever coming back. LOL! I'm glad I didn't spend time buliding it! We have an EP P-51 brand new we found at a yard sale and my son won't hear of actually flying it!

burtcs

cp:

For big (or small circles) put some washing on one wing and a trim tab on the opposite rudder.

For example: put wash in one the right wing (this will bank to model left) and then put a trim tab on the right rudder
to turn the model right. How much depends on the circle and maybe the model. Nice flat turning circle.

A trim tab is a small rectangle of balsa (1/4" sq) sanded to a wedge shape. A little dap will do ya...

regards - Steve B.

build light

This is why you should put your name and address on all your planes. Even such a lowly inexpensive model like that. While you may never get it back even if you did do this, think how much more of a story you would have if indeed you did get it back!

My first flyaway was when I was a young lad and t had the cheapest North Pacific glider available. Cost a whole nickle! Actually six cents because they would charge tax on a nickle!
I used to prefer the smaller cheaper glider because I could for a quarter get a candy bar and 3 of these gliders. Three times the fun!
There was this one... It somehow had everything just right. and it would fly better than any of the more expensive ones would. Till that one day it caught the "big one". I was so excited that it was flying so high. Higher and higher. A little too high. I was not so excited now. It of course finally went OOS and I cried because it was my very best flyer. Of course I never saw it again but at least there were witneses who also saw it go. We mounted our bikes to chase after it but once out of sight we could go no further. I always wondered where it wound up.

A very great memory and a great story now!

Robert

mbilar1

I dunno except I bent the styrofoam rudder a little left, and the elevators ever so slightly up. It worked! Up, up, and away!

rainedave

My Feedback: (1)

cp, stab tilt. The same angle as the inner panel with polyhedral wings.

Steve, everyone has their own trimming methods and I respect yours, but the ones that you describe are what I have always used for the power segment, not the glide (although it will effect the glide, too). The inner panel wash in prevents the model front entering a flat spiral under power. It makes the model climb. The trim tab on the rudder should be small enough (a short section of TE stock) so that it only has an influence at high speed, i.e., under power. I use the wash in to control climb and the rudder tab to control how tight the model turns under power. The stab tilt has a negligible effect under power, but will cause the plane to bank in the glide and turn towards the high side of the stab. I like to use as little down and side engine thrust as possible. Too much down thrust will cause the model to swing upward into a stall when the engine cuts which ruins your transition (the changeover from powered flight to the glide segment). These are simply the methods I have used and aren't necessarily right or wrong, they have just always worked for me.

BMatthews

I've lost far too many planes over the years. And the tough part is that only the good ones seem to suffer this fate.

Among the list is the little Bostonian in my avatar that decided that it needed a new home about two years back after I'd had 4 or 5 dozen enjoyable flights over a couple of year span.

burtcs

rd:

your right mybad. I just forgot about stab tilt. The model with just washin and stab tilt will fly straight. Loonnggg chase.
Trim tabs will put it over the edge, I use them.

Speaking of long chases, I just got my chase bike put back together after it got a new clutch. Boy was I a smiley happy camper.

regards and sorry - Steve B.

Fravits

The name on the plane advice is a basic requirement for a FF enthusiast. Back when LA's Sepulveda Basin catered to all types of model aircraft (no animosity there), FF activity was brisk, but you did have to be wary of the fields of corn that surrounded the site. I was flying a Dakota biplane at the time, decked out in Japanese colors, silver overall with airbrushed green camo. Even the lightest Dakotas are not exactly stellar thermal performers so a dethermalizer was never an issue. On this day, however, the Dakota's normal power-off plunge earthward slowed to a stop and she spent nearly fifteen minutes doing lazy circles at about two hundered feet. A slow, northward drift took her well out over the corn before the thermal spit her out and the familliar, ear-popping decent resumed. Even with help, hours of trudging back and forth between the rows of knee-deep young corn turned up nothing. In spite of the red meatballs on the wings, the camo job proved most effective. I should have flown Navy wih a bright yellow and blue scheme, all things considered. Well, a few months later, I got a call from a fellow modeler who, while fighting his way back from successfully retrieving his lost model from the clutches of the now well over head high corn, felt something crunch underfoot. Yep, it was my Dakota. When he stepped on the invisible bipe, the tail surfaces were mangled and he left them as an offering to the Jolly Green Giant. A real comedian to be sure, but he did notice the name and phone number typed on tissue and doped to the underside of the left wing, earning a great big attaboy from me. Two weeks later, the Dakota returned to the Basin sporting a new tail and finding that there were now endless rows of corn stubble to land in. Harvest time brings joy to heart of any Free Flighter. The moral here is always put return info on your plane. I've had five models go OOS and have had three returned, with two out of three finders refusing any kind of reward. Thanks again to these wonderful people!

balsaworks

All FF models will fly in circles. Try to trim for straight flight - nearly impossible.

Usually the prop torque will induce a left bank and left turn that needs to be balanced with a few degrees of right thrust to avoid a left hand spiral dive.
A little bit of wash-in of the left wing may be required if the torque is very strong but in most cases a correct amount of right thrust alone will do the trick.

When the prop stops the plane will go left or right. It’s usually best to go with whatever the model chooses. If you need to widen or tighten up the glide, a little bit of rudder input is usually enough.
If you do change the rudder to trim the glide phase, then it may be necessary to go back and adjust the prop shaft angle again.

It is always best to trim the power-on flight with adjustments of prop thrust. If you counteract prop torque with input of rudder, that will likely throw the model off balance when the prop stops and the torque disappears (right hand dive).

I have once (unintentionally) managed a dead straight flight with a FF Jetex powered flying wing and that was a fly-away. It flew like an arrow 10 feet off the ground, and watching the model from straight behind it was just a thin line that disappeared after a couple of hundred yards.

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

Heh heh, had exactly the same thing happen years and yeeears ago with a Payloader 150 powered canard thing I cooked up. Straight as an arrow, gentle climb, darn wish I put only one pellet in it for the first flight.. but I did find it eventually stuck in the snow a lonnng way away.

Once, only once, I managed to get a paper airplane into a thermal - I used to build Barnaby's design ad nauseum and take them out to the back hill, in hopes of a little slope lift or at least a long glide. Got what I wished for one day and watched it circle away. Twas also fun dropping them off kites using paper clip hooks. Beer caps make good noseweight for windier conditions, I recall a party one night at college, in a buddy's 23rd floor corner apartment.. in the morning we tore pages out of a Playboy (not mine..), folded them into Barnabys, taped beer caps to the bottom of the nose for a more penetration and watched lord knows how many of these things spiralling around the building. Lots of turbulence and updrafts around apartment buildings, you can get long and impressive flights, or total failures when the nose plants itself into the wall and it simply slides down to it's demise. Also, apparently you can be threatened with eviction by the landlord.

[/pointless story mode off]

BANJOAIRPLANE

I lost a Air Hog Aero Ace the same way.[:@]

Raymond LeFlyr

My Feedback: (2)

Whotsa Barnaby?

Falco250

I found this link http://www.dadcafe.co.uk/resources/b...per-planes.php
Luciano ///

Raymond LeFlyr

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks Falco, I'll try one in the morning.

dgliderguy

Well, I'll be darned... just when you think you're the only one. Years ago, my college buddy and I spent an entire snowbound afternoon flying Barnabys out our 7th floor dorm window, and watched them float out across the plaza and between the other dorm builidings, floating up and drifting down in the currents swirling around the complex. The best flight (I'll never forget!) was my buddy's high-aspect-ratio Barnaby, that floated for mustabeen six minutes, eventually clearing the cafeteria building on the far side and disappearing out over the hill toward the sports fields. We searched for it, just for the record, but never did find it.