Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

I just measured the contents of my Giles 300 kit, and assuming I use a YS 91 engine, I come up with a total weight of 8 lbs 2 oz. (14.5oz for a flight pack, 31oz for the YS, and all the kit contents unassembled.)

That gives me a wing loading of 27.9 oz/in2, which is HUGE in my standards for a 60" span.

I left everything in the plastic bags, assuming that I would probably add that much weight in adhesive. I'm hearing guys come in with 7 lb or 7.5 lb planes, and I just can't see that happening.

Is my postal scale really that far off?

How much do YOUR Giles 300s weigh? or for that matter, your 60" 674 in2 area planes? I'd like to get the loading down to 20 or so.

Dave 6.0

I have a Giles G-300 60 size also that is still in the box, Saito FA 100, Slimline muffler, and a regulator that will go on it. I also have an old postal scale from the early '80's, I will check and see what I get tonight or tomorrow night. From just picking up the wing panels and fuse and other parts, it didn't seem bad at all.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

Davomatic - I'd be interested what the Saito 100 weighs - my Saito 91 is 20.5 oz, compared to the YS91 at 30 oz.

One thing I like to do is keep the wing loading per inch of chord value down below 2.0. I've found that planes below 2.0 float very well. Planes below 2.3 fly well but must keep up speed. Anything above about 2.6 is a brick.

The Giles 300 would come out to 2.48 at 8.16 lbs - close to a brick. It would have to get down to 6 lb 9 oz to get the load/chord down to 2.0.

Dave 6.0

I inquired about this kit before I bought one and didn't get anything too negative and got mostly good opinions about this and other YA kits, of course there can always be a lemon [] but I hope yours is not. I didn't get any comments about the plane being too heavy, of course it isn't a plane in the 3d category like a Hype 3D, Madness, or Freestyle, etc., not to say that you can't do some 3d stuff with it, but it's just a good acrobatic plane - or so I hope. You can see posts from a thread I did a few months ago [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_1312180/mpage_1/key_giles%252Cg%252D300/anchor/tm.htm#1312180]here[/link] .

P.S.: I will weigh the Saito too

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

Right - I saw that thread, which is very encouraging. But I just had a real bad experience with a ModelTech Giles 202 that came in REAL heavy and put me on pins and needles every time I landed it - very bad snap tendencies. So before I get too involved with the Yellow kit, I wanted to see where it sits.

jsonin

My Feedback: (4)

Seems hard to believe, but I haven't weighed my YA Giles. The YA 60-size birds have great flight characteristics... the Extra and Giles are almost identical (they have the exact same wing and a very close fuse). 8 pounds seems heavy, but I'm using a Saito 100 and in previous 60-size YAs, I've used Saito 91s... with good results.

Strange...it seems very high. I'll weigh my Giles eventually and post.


-Juhan

captainpitts-RCU

My Feedback: (24)

Juhan Don't mean to be one of those nay sayers but doesn't the Giles have a straight trailing edge and an extra have a double tapered wing? And yes I must agree all of the yellow aircraft that I have flown are awsome. I have the 60 size edge and the 1.20 size sukhoi and I had the 30 size cap and all are great performers. Just for reference my 60 size edge came in at 7#3oz with a .91 fx bisson pitts muffler and dual elevator servos.

rozzibandit

My Feedback: (1)

I have a YA cap 232 60 sized with a saito Fa-100 and the thing is incredible, What a bird is all i got to say!

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks for the data, captainpitts.

Dave 6.0

My Giles G-300

I think I will leave the bag on the left wing panel to balance [:@]


Giles G-300 60 size
AIRFRAME
OZ.
10.18 Rt. Wing panel no bag digital scale
9.12 Lt. Wing panel no bag digital scale will add an ounce
1.69 Canope no bag digital scale
2.72 fuel tank bag digital scale
1.61 belly pan bag digital scale
19.00 Fuselage no bag Pelouze scale
6.29 prop spinner & mtr. Mt. bag digital scale
3.85 Cowling no bag digital scale Un cut
1.59 V-stab bag digital scale
6.09 Landing gear struts bag digital scale
2.94 rudder & elevators halves bag digital scale
7.46 Wheels & hardware bag digital scale
3.19 Wood components misc. bag digital scale
1.44 Wheel pants bag digital scale
77.14 Total Oz. Airframe
4.82125 Total Lbs. Airframe


POWER PLANT
20.6 * Saito FA-100 * including mounting bracket for muffler
2.285 Slimline Pitts muffler fits inside cowling
1 Cline regulator
23.89 Total Oz. Power Plant
1.49 Total Lbs. Power Plant

101.03 Oz. Total weight Air Frame & Saito 100 power plant
6.31 Lbs. Total weight Air Frame & Saito 100 power plant
Doesn't include push rods& links, receiver, battery, servos and maybe some glue/epoxy,
fuel, or anything else I didn't remember to include

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

All of mine was weighed in the bags, and I included the pushrod pack...

•Rudder & vert fin - 3 oz.
•deck, wheels, mount, tank, pushrods & hardware 1lb, 7.5 oz (including all plastic bags.)
•elevator 3.5 oz
•lg 6 oz
•canopy 2 oz
•cowl 5 oz uncut, wrapped
•wheel pants 1.5 oz
• YS 91 31.1 oz
• Saito 91 20.5 oz
• Standard flight pack about 14.5 oz

When I compared your table with mine, I think we're pretty close. And considering I'm using a $20 postal scale, I'll lean towards your weights. If you were to add in 14 oz or so for radio gear, you'd be just over 7 lbs. My weight guess with a Saito 91 was 7.5 lbs.
At 7 lbs, wing loading comes out to 23.9 oz/in2, and puts my loading per chord value at 2.13, which is good!

With a YS91, it goes up nearly 11 oz!! But I'm sure a good investment!

Davomatic - thanks for your input!! From the other posts I've seen, I think this will be a good build!

Dave 6.0

Yeah, I think it will be a good one, nice looking plane too. How much did your wing panels weigh, are they equal? I will probably have to add an once to the left one to ballance laterally. That kind of bugs me but I guess it will be ok.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

I only weighed one, at 11 oz in the plastic. (now that I look at my last post, I see my cut-paste must have been with pinking sheers!) Seing your numbers being a full oz different, I'll go weigh BOTH and get back to you.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

Right wing came in at 10.2 oz, left wing at 9.1! Go figure. Each bag was 1 oz on my trusty high-accuracy postal scale.

I'll bet I could take off another 3-4 oz from all the other bags I weighed!

joeb102072

My Feedback: (9)

I own and have flown the the Giles G-300 from YA nice plane very stable in flight. But I too am curious about the weight issue I fly mine just with an OS 91 no big deal I wish I would of thought it over a little more i prob would of gone for a saito 100. Anyway, aside from a small wing incidence issue during the building process I set mine up with dual elevator servos and got rid of that crappy rudder set up they gave to me. Picked up a better one at my local HS. I am wondering now exactly how heavy my plane is now I never weighed it. I must weigh it and see. I am all for that not having a brick plane.

DownSideUp

I know this isn't the exact place to ask this question, but I know that Keefer can figure it out. How do you figure out wing loading and wing loading per inch of chord? Since you guys were on the subject, I have a couple of other planes I would like to test. Thanks.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

Wing loading is planes weight divided by the wing area in oz per square inch. Most of my planes come into the 18 to 24 oz/in2 range.
But the bigger the plane, the higher the wing loading, and I wanted a simple tool to compare planes of different sizes.

I'b been told that (along with other things), the Reynolds number is affected by the chord of the wing, so I took the wing loading, and divided it by the chord of the wing to see if the number would be useful.

While it's just a personal tool, I found that most of my "floater" planes (light fun-fly planes that can fly really slow) fall in the 1.0 to 1.4 range. My sport planes all fly into 1.4 to 2.6 (regardless of span, area, loading). And I've got three planes that are heavy and stall easily, and they're up in the 2.8 - 3.0 range.

I find these ranges more useful than just looking at wing loading.

So now my goal in building planes is to keep this factor as close to about 2.0 as possible.

DownSideUp

Sorry to sound pesky or something, but I don't know what the "chord of the wing" is. Is there a way to find out what that value is in my instructions, or somewhere else? I think this is REALLY useful information. I have a trainer, a funfly, a profile, an edge, and a stick, and I would like to compare all of these values as well, so I can figure out how a plane is going to "feel" before I fly it. Thanks very much, you don't know how much you are helping me. I appreciate it.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

The chord of the wing is the distance between the leading edge and the trailing edge. For a standard .40 size trainer, its probably around 10 or 11 inches. For your Edge, I believe the wing has a tapered trailing edge, so you would find the average chord between the root (against the fuselage) and the tip. Most trainers are "constant-chord". This Sticks are also.

The area of a wing is it's span multiplied by the average chord. So another way to simply "guess" at the chord would be to take the wing area and span provided on the plans or with the kit, and divide the area by the span to get the chord.

Good luck!

DownSideUp

My edge has a loading of 29 something, and a reynold's number of 2.76. And it's definitely a brick. Thanks for your help.

joeb102072

My Feedback: (9)

I too was concerned with the weight issue of my YA Giles 300 so I weighed it i came out to approx 7.5 lbs I f I used Carbon fiber gear maybe I could save a little .25 lbs or so but I figured I would fly it and get to know it first before messing with anything. My second landing last year on its maiden day was not good to say the least. About 18" above the runway a head wind came in and stopped it almost in mid air as I approached for a landing. left wing stall and head over tail it went and stopped in 3 pieces. Needless to say I was slightly aggrivated. Back together again the very next weekend as if nothing had happened to it. I flew it and couldnt get over the nerves knowing that this plane was not to stable at low speeds, or so I thought. Then this year started up and I said the hell with it and flew it as if I didnt care what happened. Well I tested its stall speed a couple mistakes high and to my suprise it was as stable as a trainner. I couldnt believe it I actually did some what of a harrier until it slowed down so much that it fell out of the sky but even then it didnt tip in like I had thought it would. Maybe something in the rebuild was fixed that was out of wack from the initial assembly. I dont know, but I do know now that even though its not a favorite for 3D I plan on practicing with it trying to hover and flat spin. Seems like this could be a good plane after all.

Keefer

My Feedback: (2)

OK, the verdict is in -
The final completed weight is 8lbs, 7 oz, wich is 5 oz past my initial estimate using a YS 91. Unsatisfactory, if you ask me. That's a wing loading of 28.8 oz/ft2, and the plane flies like it weighs - fast and heavy.

It does great pattern maneuvers, but is too heavy for any slow, flowing maneuvers. 3D?? forget it. Snaps out of any tight inside maneuver. I'll add wing-tip plates to help with that, but no more Yellow Aircraft ARFs for me.