JimmyD

YOW!!!! Are you sure you need to hang a quarter pounder on your wing tip?!?. I had a Saito 80 and now an OS91 on. I started with 1 1/2 oz on the wing tip and after balancing more carefully using string tied around the propeller shaft and at the back under the fuse realized I only need about 5/8 oz. or so to get it to balance laterally.

4 oz at the wing tip (27 inches out) is enough weight to counterbalance 34 oz 3 inches out. The extra head weight of the Saito 100 is not 2 lbs!

If thats what it takes to stop dropping a wing tip I'd check some of the other reommendations in these threads, like maybe imbalanced elevators.

lxcoupe

My Feedback: (34)

the elevators are fine. Yes i was shocked. My buddy and i tried balancing it several different ways. Every time it came out the same. The thing is that it wasn't that bad before the weight was added. I had a 60 size cap, that was way worse about dropping the right wing compared to the funtana. Even with the cap being balanced it was never any better. Now with the lead on the wing tip, it just mushes forward at stall. Elevators are solid except for the occasional wing rock which is controllable by letting up on the elevator slightly. Harriers are the same. In a stiff breeze i can snap roll her in either direction with no forward movement. Looks very cool, and comes out slightly nose high and wings level. So it might sound like a lot of weight, but it is now super stable.
Al

JimmyD

Hey if it works dont screw with it. Or rather, if its not broke now after the quarter pounder wing tip tweak, dont fix it. This is a perfect example of practice bucking theory, check my signature below. Still weird as hell tho.

Mike Parsons

I am flying an electrofied FuntanaS and have had no problems that you all mention. Interesting reading though.



Mike

JimmyD

electrofied Funtana... awesome. Please give details, which motor, batteries, gearbox, prop bla bla. I too am interested in making things fly with electrons. Thanks!

Mike Parsons

Here ya' go.
FuntanaS
Mega 22/30/2
MEC superbox geared 4.6
17X10 APC E
Pheonix 80a Electronic Speed Controller
UBEC 5V
4- Hitec 225 Mighty Mini's
16 HR-SC 2600 Sanyo (8 minutes of flight)
------ Thunderpower 5S4P 8200 mah pack gives about 30-35 minutes.
Carbon Fiber Canopy and (not shown) CF gear for 1.5" extra clearance.

A fun plane. Here is a picture of the batteries sitting on the wing.

erjpilot

My Feedback: (4)

Atlantaeflyer:
How does your Funtana 3D with the electric powerplant? Do you know what the ready to fly weight is? Also is that Thunderpower pack that you mention a Lithium Poly?
Thanks

Mike Parsons

It 3D's as well as some of the videos I have seen of its fuel counterparts. Hovers are non eventful, but it will not punch out of them. It pulls out though. The Hacker C50 Acro is a bettery motor for this plane. It punch's out with authority and with power to spare. You can see some of the Hacker planes fly including a Funtana. I think there is a video of Jason flying one as well as Gary Wright. I have never flown fuel engines, but others have said that mine fly's as well as a Saito 72. The AUW is 6 lbs. However the Hacker is three times the price of the Mega Setup.
Yes, Thunderpower is Lithium Poly. The 5S4P is tolerant to 60 amps with 70 amp bursts. My setup is running about 53 amps static WOT so there is quite a bit of headroom. It takes about 2.5 hours to fully charge a pack. But you can charge the pack and fly two weeks later as the pack retains its charge. I think the stats are like 10% loss a month, but dont quote me on that although that is pretty close. Still, 30 minute flights! I am bored after about 10. So think three seperate flights without having to charge or change the pack. You can push that time with some throttle management.


Mike

Mike Parsons

I can get you guys some video of mine flying this weekend.
Here is a video of Chuck's Funtana on the exact same setup as mine. He is not into 3D and more into Sport, so that is mostly what the video is comprised of. Plus this was his maiden I believe.
Funtana with a Mega 22/30/2
Here is another Electric Funtana with an Aveox F27. Also a good motor and priced reasonable. This I believe was also the Maiden flight for him. Also sport flying.
Funtana with an Aveox F27

Mike

MID-AIR

My Feedback: (10)

to the pi--ed off owners of a constantly right wing droping or stalling funtana, i finally found the answer on mine ,no help from horison . you would think on an arf that the thrust would be built in corectly, not so on mine and mabey on a lot of others. i finally checked mine and removed 9/16 of exess right thrust and 5/16 of down, leaving me with 1/8 in. to the right and no down. going out to fly it this morning if it dont rain me out. hope this helps some of you! AL

Ryans Rebel

My Feedback: (12)

O.K. I started this thread and have studied everyone's comments on order to cure my tip stalling to the right. I'm convinced it is not a lateral balance problem. Mine tip stalls to the right when it is laterally balanced and when it is left wing heavy. I've put enough lead on the left wingtip to make it almost impossible to fly inverted. It still tip stalls to the right. Lateral balance is not it. For those of you curing the tip stall purely with left wing weight are entering into the theory of momentum and kinetic energy, where the momentum (kinetic energy) of the additional weight on the left wingtip counters the right wing stalling.

I have only two possible reasons (for now, I may come up with more later if this is not the answer) for the tip stall to the right; roll & yaw. As I mentioned in the first post, the roll could be induced by the right elevator half moving more than the left half due to the servo being on the right side of the model. After hours of thinking, I feel this is less likely the culprit. Yaw on the other hand has proved to me to be the cause of the tip stall. The tip stall is always to the right because the left wing is flying faster than the right half, hence creating more lift than the right causing the tip stall (yaw to the right). Reasons for this are rudder trim and/or rudder alignment (or misalignment in this case). Ever since I have been flying the Funtana, it ALWAYS tip stalls to the right when attempting parachutes. Yesterday, I gave rudder input to the left as I pulled hard up elevator and VOILA!, a perfect parachute. Hence I must have right yaw built into the model. Too much right thrust might contribute (as mentioned in the post above) but a parachute is a “power off” maneuver so I’m not sure.

BTW, I do not think it is a design deficiency, because it always tip stalls to the right. If it were design, I think it would tip stall to the left & right equally.

Any other thoughts?

Ryan

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Ryan, I tinker with mine after every flight session. Thing I've found to help mine are. The lateral balance helped some. My elevator halves were off. I used the stab to level the halves during assembly. Turns out the stab was twisted. This fix helped a lot. Last week I noticed the rudder had a twist. This also helped.I also noticed mine didn't tip out when doing an outside loop from inverted.I started checking and noticed the glob of epoxy that hold the CF rod in the stab will move under pressure.
This is an easy fix. To sum up fixing the elevator was 90% of the problem. In my humble opinion I'll say. A plane with this kind of control authority is going to be hard to get perfect. Most sport planes can be off and still fly good. This isn't most sport planes.
It is so sensitive to every little input that it has to be perfect.
BTW, does yours twist out from inverted?
later daveo

UltraBob

daveopam:

I also used the stab to align my elevators and discovered (after the epoxy had set of course) that my stab had a slight twist as well. How did you fix you elevators?

BOB

Mike Parsons

I did some searching and need to correct this statement I made earlier. The loss is 5% of the batteries Capacity over a 6 month time period, not 10% over a 30 day period.

Thanks,
Mike

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

I cut a hole in the covering above one side of the joiner wire. I then took a small bit and my dremel tool and made a hole 1/2" by 3/4" around the wire and under the wire. I worked at the hole until the two halves would move independently. I then straightened the stab by twisting and heating the covering.I had to replace the covering with Monocoat because I overheated it. While I had the covering off I also took the time to double bevel the stab to get more throw. I then took two old TX boxes and stood them on their side to support the tail. Then weighted down
both ELEV halves till they were level. The TX boxes were just the right height to make the stab and elevators level.I then filled around it with epoxy. I had already made a balsa patch so while the epoxy was wet I set it in place. Then covered it with wax paper and put a weight on it. Once it dried I fixed the monocoat and was done. This whole thing only took an hour plus drying time. Good luck & hope this helps, David

UltraBob

Thanks David.

tknobby

daveopam,

I have flown 3 fun fly airplanes that did this "stop sign" shaped loop; my 1st Fun Fly Hots, my Morris the Knife and now my scratch built Stealth(a heavily modified FF Hots). I have talked with some of the guys I fly with and we think it is an effect of the wing blanking out the prop blast onto the horizontal stab as the airplane rotates. This causes a momentary loss of stab affect. Then as the prop blast catches up and hits the stab, the stab begins to function.

JMO

Tom...

dirtdr

i might have had similar problem. My elevators were out of wack from each other after first ----crash??---
i replaced the single standard servo with 2 hitec hs81mgs. just finished test flying it and WOW what a difference. the thing actually does what you tell it to do now. also put hs225mg's in the ailerons...good and fast
just as a side note.... all the articles that say it flys like a 30% or bigger airplane--- i agree with them now. I flew my 25% edge 540 just before the funtana today. not that the edge is hard to fly, but the funtana is like it is on rails now with both elevators doing the same thing.

adrian-RCU

bingo!!!

vypr

My Feedback: (6)

About that stop sign shaped loop problem... I've had it with any number of fun-fly type airplanes some of them mine some of them ones I flew for other people. In all cases the cause is the same: One way or another you are stalling the elevator. Most fun flys are fairly forgiving of this but try this: dont pull quite so hard, you will noting that your loops will become round and actually tighten up some, but if you just jam the stick to the stop and hit the throttle you stall the horizontal stab. that "catching a releasiing" feel is the stab catching then stalling again then carching... so on and so forth. I had this problem with an old stinger 10 so bad that if you nailed the elevator full up all at once it would simply nose down and head for the dirt... most fun flys are not this bad and just do this carch/release drill untill you back off just a hair... then it should all smooth out.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Guys, thanks for the input. I also asked Mike McMurtry about the problem. He suggested easing back the CG. This dose help. As a matter of fact the problem is gone on an outside loop. The inside loops were better but not cured.I now only pull full back after the plane is verticle. This fixed the inside loops like ibange said it would.
thanks again David

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

Your problem is not going to go away, because there really is no problem. I finally understood what was happening when a rocket scientist explained what was going on(he was literally a rocket scientist; Mike Fayhe, one of the original "Whiz Kids" with the Air Force in the '60's). No one else could explain it to me. So I'll pass on the info.
Keep in mind that different airfoils react differently. When a wing is put into a certain angle of attack, that effects the airflow over the top of the wing. In order for a wing to fly, or produce lift, the airflow over the top of the wing must constantly remain laminar, or consistant and smooth flowing, or undisturbed. So what is happening to you is this; When your wing"tip stalls," it literally is that;- a stall, or also known as a "High Speed Stall." When you put your wing at a certain angle of attack, it quits flying, and at that point you have three forces working on your aircraft-inertia, gravity, and engine torque. The plane stops flying, inertia carries it forward, gravity is causing it to descend, and the torque of your engine is rolling it to the right. Try adding left rudder and you will find it stops the rotation. How much to add depends on the airplane- trial and error process.
I spent years of adjusting, fixing, asking questions, etc.,With nobody to give an answer untill recently but it boils down to getting to know the flight characteristics of your airplane, and "becomeing an extension af your aircraft," knowing just how far to push it until you can either manipulate it to go further, or stop.
A really aerobatic aircraft is going to be rather unstable, that's why the really easy ones to fly aren't the ones that are used for sever aerobatics.
If anyone feels I'm wrong, please feel free to explain it to me, but I feel Mike knows his stuff, and it makes sence. I just hope you don't get as many gray hairs over this issue as I have!

Airbike

My Feedback: (6)

Say, doesn't the torque of the engine rotate the airplane to the left? (in most normal models anyways). Check out the direction of roll in a torque roll!
I personally think that the tip stall characteristic in the Funtana is aerodynamic in nature for those that do tip stall (since mine doesn't ). Most likely due to a mismatch in elevator throw or linkage stiffness, etc. I don't think that the lateral balance has that much effect on the tip stall issue unless it is way way off balance.
Perhaps the engine side thrust is too far one way or the other as posted above ( probably not enought right thrust). If the ailerons or rudder were trimmed to keep the plane straight and level in normal flight, then when you cut the throttle and pull full up, the thrust is gone but the trim is still in the controls and is making the plane roll off to the right.
I would think that this would show up in a straight and level fly by, then chopping the power and see if the plane drifts to to right or not.
More food for thought. Sure glad that my Funtana doesn't tip stall![sm=tongue.gif]

nitro wing

My Feedback: (1)

I have a servo for each elevator half,with exact movement through it's ranges on both sides.There is no sloppy travel at all.
My CG is at a very conservative 5.5 inches.When flown reasonable it is super stable and relaxing,no weird twitching.But at low airspeeds,like when attempting to Harrier she gets a little nasty sometimes and bails out quite hard to the right.This is concerning as I need to move the CG much more aft for 3D.I thought this would increase the tipstalling tendencies.Maybe it will subside a little.Going to do a laterall balance also.
I only have 7 test flights on it,and been following Funtana threads for awhile.
Seems most people are experiencing this same trait.I didn't like the elevator joiner,but I have the same problem as the guys with one servo.
I have seen Vids and flight reports that are outstanding,do those pilots have the same issues,and have learned to find a way around them?

Ryans Rebel

My Feedback: (12)

After many flights and reading many threads I finally have got my Funtana to stop tip stalling (for the most part). Problem: Lateral balance (1/2 oz. added to left wingtip) and a warpped rudder & aileron. Simply twist the control surface where you want it and shring monokote w/ heat gun. I can now do walls, and HARD, HARD parachutes with no tip stalling.

The only time my Funtana tip stalls is at high speed flight when giving full up elevator. THe model makes about half a loop and then rools out at the top.

Ryan