RCXPLANES

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Well I couldn't stop myself from putting the 90 degree side supports on the fuse today. It is amazing how much these control the side flex. I did use a full length piece from the motor mount to the rear stab and glued it across the top of the wing and stab. I really think this stiffens the wing/fuse interface a lot as well. The torsional rigidity did not get as much of a gain as the side flex. I don't know if you will ever be able to stop all of the flex, and that is fine. It helps disapate some energy if you dork it a little. As long as we can control the flex in flight to keep it at a minimum, it should be ok. I am still undecided as to whether you can go without the carbon in the fuse though. It does seem promising.

mups53

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I'd like to try a fuse without the CF also. I thing it would work just fine. I could get a chance soon to. I stuck my new 3DX in a tree in front of my house yeasterday on it's maiden flight. 40 ft. up. I busted her up pretty good gettin it down. Keep me posted on yours please. Mike

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Mike,
Darn sorry to hear about your maiden misfortune. It was the wind right.

Just got all of the electronics today. I don't think I will be able to get airframe only weight at this rate. I'll have more pics this evening.

I was reading the Castle Creations Phoenix 25 manual and was unhappy to find that for a 9 - 10 cell battery they don't recomend four standard micro servos. I really wanted to use the Flaperon and mixing functions of this set up. I may still. I find it odd that with more voltage that fewer servos can be used. Anyone have any experience with this?

sloanfs

The reason it gets worse with more voltage is that it has to step down the voltage to operate the reciever, the higher the voltage the harder it has to work, the more servos theharder it has to work. Alot of the guys I fly with use 4 servos on a CC 25 on 3-s lipos
( the same voltage as you are using ) and have no trouble at all. IMHO on these foamys you dont really need the mixing but I if thats what you want it will work out fine

Hope this helps

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Dave,
Thanks for the clearification. I just had everything plugged in to center the servos and it seemed to work just fine. No smoke anyway.

You are probably right about not needing any mixing but The elevator to spoiler or flap mix is so much fun on my full sized flip, I just want to be able to do it.

I have heard that to attach the servos to a flat surface you wrap some tape around them and epoxy them in place. Any suggestions for alternate methods or type of tape?

RCXPLANES

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Mike,
Did you get your 3DX out of the tree yesterday? I hope it isn't to badly busted up. Let me know. BTW, Thanks for the pic. I am working out a couple of bugs in my design for the pull/pull tail feathers and dual wing servos today. Hope to get my charger and maiden her today. No limbs on the trees in my front yard LOL.

mups53

My Feedback: (41)

Errol my brother lives next door and the tree I stuck it in is next to his house. It's an old cottonwood. We had to go on the top of his roof(2 story) and we mad a 20 ft pole. We got it down but like I said it doesn't look to good now. I'll have her repaired tonight though. When you get the pull pull in take a pic. It's probably going to work alot better than my way. Good luck with the maiden and watch out for the moving trees ( like the ones in Lord of the Rings)! Mike

RCXPLANES

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Well, the Foam Flip is ready for her maiden today. Here are a couple of pics I took so that you can see the finished plane before gravity takes over.

This is after the motor was mounted. I used a screw to keep it on the block. You can see the front of the side support in this one too.

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This shows where I put the aileron servos. They are going to be set into the wing like the rudder servo unless I can sink them just to the top surface accurately. I will do this after the maiden flight.

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This one shows how I decided to mount the tail servos for a pull/pull system on both elev and rud.

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Here she is ready for the maiden flight.

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This one is of the bottom showing the layout.

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Other side of the bottom.

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Detail of the completed pull/pull setup. It is the DuBro micro pull/pull system and is very light.

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In this one you can see the profile of the side supports. I tried to make it look like the full size Flips tapering top view.

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Enough pictures, let's fly already. Come on man, let's fly.

Flight report to follow..........................

mups53

My Feedback: (41)

I really appreciate the time you've takin to share your building techniques. It's better than mine. I will most definitly use the pull pull next time it's far superior. Also I like the 90 degree use supports running the full length. I'll buid a 4th new one soon. Any chance that you have the plans for the Flip? Thanks, Mike
Let me know how she flys today.

Clayshobbies

My Feedback: (16)

Bud,

This is superb! I can not wait to build one myself.

Hope the charger arrives before the battery is discharged, I’d hate for you to be grounded.

-Clayton
www.clayshobbies.com
Fly All Out
Or Don’t Fly at All

RCXPLANES

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Mike,

I do not have plans as such. What I have is a set of Christmas wrapping drawings and corrected initial templates, After I get a real maiden flight in, I am going to clean them up a bit and make some new ones. I am also going to see about a decent CAD program and some way to Adobe them. That will take a while though.

The prototype flew. as planned for the first flight. for about 30 yards as a powered first glide to landing. Seemed ok and would have started to fly around after that but as you might have suspected. one of the aileron servos came unglued. Popped right of clean as a whistle. I am sinking them into the wing now and will have to give it a full flight evaluation tommorrow. It is difficult to tell how good it will be in 30 feet. I just wanted to get a feel for its landing. I was tempted to just glue it back on and fly, but I also want to do it with a freshly charged battery. Charger should be here tommorrow.

Stay tuned.

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Ok, I know some of you out there were looking at those aileron servos saying, "Those things are going to pop right off, especially with that tape on them". I was sceptical as well so before the first flight, I traced around their location. Good move on my part. The other one came right off with little effort as well. This is how I planned on doing the update. I removed all the foam in the servo area except for the skin on the top side of the wing. If you look close you can see the paint color from the botom cutout. Unfortunately, I messed up on the second cutout and holed through. A more paitent or talented builder could pull it off. I ended cutting both out fully. OOPS.

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So I ditched the tape and sunk them flush with the top surface so they came out like this. They come through the top spoiling that color scheme a little. I'm not as happy as I was but I think the servo is there for good.

Look at that rudder servo back there just waiting to pop right of because of the tape. The good news is I have traced that ones location also. The pull/pull system doesn't transmit as much force on the servo body as a pushrod either.

The jury is still out on the pull/pull in it's current servo location. The line is supper strong and doesn't stretch by hand at all. I think it would be better if it was located farther back though. I just didn't want to add the weight of two servo extensions after saving the pushrod weight.

I also ran into a geometry problem I didn't think about when I beveled the stab and fuse for the tail surfaces on one side. When you try to have the control horns the same length on both sides of surface, one comes out 6mm longer than the other. Next time I do this I will double bevel the hinge line and that problem goes away. For now, one control horn looks much longer than the other on the same surface and the center is a little offset. Center your hingeline for pull/pull and avoid this entirely.

Ian.W

i once put about 4 odd caple ties around a throttle one once lol

RCXPLANES

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Well, the bad news is, I still didn't get a cherger in todays mail. The good news is, I test flew the Foam Flip on whatever battery charge was available as delivered and after radio, servo and ESC setup and 2 - 3 min of hand held hovering in the garrage last night. I went to my local Little League field so I could have some room to check it out at first. The funny thing is, I only used an aera from homeplate to the pitchers mound to just past first base to the dugout on first base line. What a blast this silly thing is. I have no real idea how much battery was available. The pack voltage was only at 11.35 V when I started. After a little trimming I did some rolling and hovering and harriering and quick turns then landed. I flew it for about 6 min at first as the battery instructions called for. When I landed, I checked the temp of the motor and battery to find they were just barely warm to the touch.

I launched it again and started playing. It hovers easily at half throttle or just below. It seems to have similar torque charicteristics as my full size flip with the Saito. The thing can TR or be fully controlled rotationally in hover with the large ailerons. It seems to be more controled when backing it down in a hover than the full size plane right away. The plane will float in a slight breeze at less than walking speed. The Elevator/Flap mix worked nearly the same as on the full sized model and spins in pitch pretty quickly. The pull/pull system worked out perfect in the air. There was no hesitation or wandering at the tail feathers at all. I thought I might see some problem as the tail flexed but ther was complete control at all times. I will see if it remains stable when it is wrung out harder. It seemed to have the same power right untill battery cut off so I think it will be even better with a full charge. I have read a lot of posts that state they land when they feel a drop in power. In all, I only got about 8 - 9 minutes out of the battery before cut off.

Man, I want that charger now. I can't wait to be able to explore what this thing can really do. All indications are that it will have an extreme high rate of Fun Factor. This is my first and only Foamy, so I can't really compare it to any of yours out there. I can definitely see why these things are so popular and why it is difficult to get all of the necessary components to build one. I can't believe that for less than the price of just two high end giant scale digital servos, this whole plane can be built first rate. Another mid range servo and you have the charger and whatever power supply that requires and really everything you will ever need to have an absolute ball. No wiping of glow fuel oil. No glow fuel to buy. No Glow plugs. No starter and box. No large airfiled and runway. Just a small patch of grass and some uncluttered air, RF wise.

Now where is that charger at anyway. I think I saw a post on building one for about $8.00. I hate waiting on USPS sometimes. Their delivery can be inconsistent at times. Some things come in a couple of days, others a week. Oh well, I have little choice now but to wait till tommorrow or build one. Darn.

mups53

My Feedback: (41)

Awesome report! Glad you like the crazy lil things. Best thing about them is you can fly them on your lunch break at work. Of course the weather needz to cooperate. Wait till you put the real juice to it. I'm hopin to get one of those when you get around to the plans. No rush though I'm about half way done with my BA Attitude so in need to focus on that for now. Good luck with the caharger. Mike

Ian.W

WOW< cool! what servos are you usng in there???