Brian Roth

Great plane for the price. 20cc all day long 3d.

Dan33klein

Mine will be delivered tomorrow! Dle 20ra and everything needed is waiting to go in. Except servos. Still deciding on what I want. Can't wait to check it out! I just wish they were still coming with carbon fiber gear instead of aluminum to help with weight issues. I also ordered the Sullivan tail wheel assembly mentions earlier in this thread.

Dan33klein

I'm debating between power hd or turnigy servos(bluebird copy).

Dan33klein

Received my edge 540 yesterday and got a head start on it. Compared to pictures and videos of this model I seen from a few years ago, Phoenix may have seen people are mounting gassers and beefed up the fire wall. Mine came with a 3/8 thick firewall with triangle stock inside and outside of the firewall/ engine box. I'll attach a picture. I need to epoxy in 3/16" dowels to fill in all the holes that were already drilled in the firewall.The engine mount also looks different then what used to be supplied. It will work just fire for the dle20ra and allow the correct spring away from he firewall. I already purchased a great planes mount so I am going to use that anyway. Hope to get the engine mounted tonight. I thought the servo extensions came with the kit but they don't so I am going to have to pick them up.

Dan33klein

Dle 20ra is mounted, Nyrod throttle is into the fuselage, epoxying a strip of light ply in tonight to sit the fuel tank on. Also going to epoxy in the horizontal stabilizer. I think I am going to just stick with the ca hinges, I bought the dubro pinned hinges but look like a lot of work, plus everyone seems to have had luck with the supposed ca hinges.

fireynz

My Feedback: (2)

Mine came with carbon landing gear and tail wheel
The problem I've got is that I want to change the wing bolts to steel. I was a bit confused on the wing nuts size but after contacting Phoenix have found that the nuts in the wing are 1/4 unc
When I try 1/4 unc steel or plastic wing bolts they are very sloppy in the nuts buried in the wing and could easily pull out so have probably been drilled the wrong size for 1/4 unc. I would like to drill and tap to a larger size but Phoenix don't know the outside diameter of the nuts
Has anyone had the wing open to see how thick the nuts in the wing are
Dle 20 ra and will make my own aluminium mount plate to the firewall.

Dan33klein

Have you considered epoxying in all thread rods into the wings and then using wing nuts inside the fuselage? That is what the guy did in the video I posted earlier. He just did one in each wing then used the nylon bolt for the other one. An aluminum mount plate will be cool. I used the great planes 1.2-1.8 mount with little issues. Mine came with the aluminum landing gear and tail wheel. Wish I would have gotten the carbon. I am not using the factory tail wheel anyways. I purchased a Sullivan one like the one posted earlier in this thread. Is more compact and lighter. Should help with the balancing. I was going to epoxy in the horizontal stabilizer and my fuel tank mount last night but I am busy with outside projects right now.

Dan33klein

Got the edge assembled. Just need to apply all the decals and cut the cowl, trying to get this dle 20 dialed in. This is my first gasser. But I have worked on smell engines before. For some reason my needle settings are way richer than what the manual calls for. But that is how the engine was shipped to me. If I set the needles at 1.5 turns out the engine wouldn't even transition to wot. It would just die. I just received a genuine ngk plug and I am going to play around with it some more before taking it up in the air.

JoeMamma

Got my Edge 540 finished up and got in my first flights this past Wednesday.

Used an O.S. 1.55 FSa 4-stroke for power. What a nice sounding engine ! Overpowered ? Nahhhhh !

It went together pretty nice. The only real problem I had during assembly was when I cut the cowl openings for my muffler clearance, for both adjustment needles, for the cylinder head and for my fuel fill dot.

The problem is: the cowl has some kind of a weird clear-coat, or clear heat-shrink material ?? Don’t know what the heck it is. As I cut each of these cowl openings, this weird material started to delaminate and peel off. For a fix, I mixed up some epoxy, dipped in my finger and rubbed the edges of the cowl openings to keep the delamination from spreading.

On another note, and for whatever reason, this plane seems to be VERY sensitive to slight CG changes. I usually set my initial CG slightly tail-heavy (just the way I prefer to do it).

I calculated the factory recommended 115mm CG setting to be slightly over 4 1/2 inches at about 4 17/32 inches. I set my initial CG to 4 7/8 inches. I thought this small amount would be OK for its first flights, but boy.......was I wrong !

She was terribly tail-heavy and almost out of control. Had to put in 12 clicks of down elevator just to keep her level. While doing my first CG dive test, she went into a loop. When I tried my first inverted maneuver, she showed me she didn’t like it and went into a severe outside loop.

My first landing was a death ride. She came in floating with her nose up over 45 degrees high. I was fighting her to keep the wings level and then she finally settled in.

After checking my underwear for heavy staining, I taped on about 6 ounces of weight to the top/front of the cowl. The second flight was MUCH, MUCH better ! After I got home I rechecked the actual CG including my added weight and it was at 4 3/8 inches. Here my Edge seems to be very stable. Just a warning that this plane seems to be VERY sensitive to slight CG changes, so be sure you set your initial CG at or below 4.5 inches. Again, don’t know why she is so sensitive as all of the control surfaces are straight and the engine thrust angles are factory set.

Joe M.

Wild Willy

My Feedback: (4)

Good to know. I'm finally getting started on mine. Going to use a DLE ra20. As slow as I am, it will be spring b-4 its done.

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

Joe, thanks for sharing that, big time! I likely would have done the same as my stuff is generally flown on the tail heavy side as well.

As some others have mentioned earlier, I have a pile of parts sitting in the corner of the garage that used to be my SECOND Revolver. As nice as it flew, looking for something with even more enhanced capabilities - possibly with a 3D emphasis. Air frame options that work well with a 20cc gas are still hard to find - unless you consider profiles, and I'm already set there.Looking for a fatty to replace the Revolver.

I KNOW what the Revolver would do on about the same amount of wing area, at about the same weight (850 sq in and 10lbs +-). My question for others that have "been there done that", can this plane be built with a DLE 20 at 10lbs or less? If you've done that and have some 3D experience, how well did it Harrier or behave in high alpha? Wing rock? Were you balanced on the wing tube?

I enjoy playing with the slower aspects of 3D, so power, weight, and wing area play a key part in what I'm looking to do. If I can get that here, I'm a customer. If not, still shopping.

If you have something else that might be interesting with 20cc power, please shoot me a PM to avoid moving off topic (too far!).
TIA! -Al

extra300crazy

Guys,
Joe's plane was very tail heavy with the CG set per the instructions and scary to fly, I know as I was there. Joe lets get out there on Sunday and give it another go.
Karl

TexasFlash

I recently started flying one of these and found the same issue with the tail heaviness. I didn't bother reading the balance point in the instructions as I tend to balance this type on the wing tube. After the first flight requiring a winch to withdraw my underwear out of a location they shouldn't have been, I added a bit of lead with little change. It would shoot up at 30+ degrees inverted, took about 1/4 forward stick to land, and was a handful in the air. Later I bothered to look at the specs as I figured my laziness was the problem. Nope, this plane is very tail heavy prone even when in spec. I'm still looking for the happy place as time allows. 3D wise I'm not real impressed yet as I'm still getting started and this plane wants to snap rather than harrier so far in my learning curve. Overall handling seems nice although rudder coupling is horrible which I hope gets tamed down with better CG location. At the moment there is about 12-15% up elevator mixed in for knife edge which I hope to reduce with forward CG adjustments, and around 5% opposite aileron which I may just live with.

Engine is standard issue DLE 20, low rate and high rates just a bit higher than each spec, 3d rate maxed on all surfaces.

JoeMamma

First off, I really do not fly much 3D, mostly pattern maneuvers.

More very frustrating flights ! Got a little better with the CG set at 4 3/8", but she still felt unstable.

After a few expletives, and then threatening to send her to an early retirement, almost everybody at the field that day had their comments, but then one of the guys noticed a small amount of engine up-thrust which I seem to have overlooked. Got home, and sure enough, it did have some up-thrust..........about 1/2 degree. Factory right-thrust was at about 2 degrees. Because the engine box was already installed to the fuse, these up-thrust and right-thrust angles were factory made.

I added some washers to angle the engine down to just about 2 degrees.

Wow.......that was the trick !! Now she's a very pleasant flyer. I made a couple of inverted passes. Took only a touch of down elevator to keep her level. Also now makes beautiful stall turns. I now feel very comfortable with her ! Also did my CG and stall tests again. Everybody seems to have a different opinion on how to perform the CG test. My CG tests are all done flying three mistakes high, 45 degrees downward, a little less than half-throttle, hand off the sticks and then observing what happens. I like the nose to rise slightly.

To satisfy a club member I also performed the CG test inverted while climbing 45 degrees.

Anywazzzz, I don't know what the factory down-thrust angle should be, but mine now flies great with about 2 degrees of down.

Joe M.

TexasFlash

Time permitting tomorrow I plan to check my thrust angles. What all traits were you having problems with and which of those were cured with the thrust adjustment? Mine finally settled down at 4-4.25" cg with neutral inverted handling but as usual I haven't had time to wring it out or test further.

TexasFlash

Alrighty a quick check came up with zero up/down thrust. Considering wing and stab alignment along with thrust line I will have to refly it before being too critical on the angle.

JoeMamma

What all traits you ask ? Way to many bad ones all at the same time ! I've been flying RC planes for long time, and have never had one fly this bad on its maiden flight. This plane was absolutely out of control for the first flights. Guess I'm spoiled as most of my different ARF's fly pretty sweat during their maidens.

The biggest problem was the fact that initially, the elevator was very sensitive. This resulted in severe over-control and porpoising. After landing, I remember noting to the other flyers to take a look at how little my max elevator throws were. I lowered the max throws from 1/4" down to less than 3/16" and added 70% expo. to attempt to get rid of the porpoising. It helped, but only a little. Still a scary flyer.

The thrust line on the wings and the horizontal stab are good at 0 degrees. Both the vertical and horizontal stabs are dead-on at 0 degrees as aligned to the wing. Every angle I could check was rechecked and everything looks good.

For whatever reason, mine now flies great with the CG at 4 3/8" and the engine down-thrust angle set at just less than 2 degrees. Also, for whatever reason, it also seems to be very sensitive to slight CG changes.

Maybe the designed CG should be listed at 4" instead of 4 1/2". This would explain why mine flew so bad with my initial CG set beyond 4 1/2". After all, mistakes have been made in the assembly manuals before.

Joe M.

Mazeppa1

Glad to hear you got your Edge figured out.

Must say, I'm a bit surprised to hear you had such trouble. Mine is the 3rd Phoenix Models 120 Edge 540 in our club and all 3 fly very well, very nice combination of performance and stability.
I set mine up according to the manual all the way, and it flew well right off the bat. Straight & level hands off inverted, tracks beautifully.
Elevator and rudder both quite responsive, but not excessively so. Ailerons are a bit lacking, but adequate.

Perhaps variations between production runs? Others have reported motor boxes with zero right thrust, mine has about 3deg right thrust built in and takes off with very little rudder correction required. hard acceleration sees only a little kick to the left. I haven't checked for down thrust, but none is obvious, the right thrust was.

TexasFlash

Due to wind, short days, and life in general, I simply haven't gotten back to fine tuning mine. I do agree mine was overly sensitive but tolerable in flight and nearly impossible to land with the recommended CG. But... moving it to 4-4.25" made a ton of difference in the inverted test and made landings less demanding. It's still snap-happy as in an outside knife-edge circle it snapped 3 times endlessly before I recovered it out of our no-fly zone. I thought I had a radio issue as the radio had experienced lock-outs previously, but I took a moment and realized, "Hey, Dumb A.., what happens during a hard right rudder input to hold KE, and you add more down elevator to tighten up the circle plus aileron to correct it?" Yep. That's what I'd call an outside snap input. The Edge is snap-happy to start with so you have to be careful to avoid that.

As for thrust, I still haven't gotten to fly more, but so far I've seen no reason to adjust it. My problems revolve around the CG sensitivity and related elevator over control.

As for 3d? I feel it's too heavy for smooth 3D. I'm looking for more of the sedate kind of harries, elevators, waterfalls, and such rather than seeing how many rolling harriers I can squeeze into a circle and so far I just feel a bit underwhelmed.

3357

Tried to delete this post. Couldnt get rid of the pics. Sry

3357

delete

Boboeing

I will need to take some weight off the tail. Did anyone manage to set up pull/pull on the rudder with the servo moved up inside the fuselage to about the wing tube position?
Hope some of you guys are still viewing this thread. Tower still has this plane for sale on it's web site. Hope it's the updated version.

Regards,
MHB

Wild Willy

My Feedback: (4)

I crashed my first one after 4 flights, pilot error. I had a dle20 rear exhaust for power, had to add 16 oz.to the nose to get it to c.g. I'm currently building another one. I put all three servos where they showed the throttle servo,.Hitec 425's. I used the1/4 scale type nyrod. I think that will help a lot. I'm still building,so I don't know how much weight I'll save.

Boboeing

WOW....16 oz. Sure it wasn't 6 oz? Do you have to open the bottom of the fuse to install the nyrod ? It is a nice looking airplane. Too bad it's so tail heavy.

Wild Willy

My Feedback: (4)

I rechecked my weights, only 14 oz. added. I did not open the bottom, just secured on both ends. Hopefully that will be good enough. I'll find out soon enough, hope to be finished in a couple weeks.