Azzir325

Just one kid, Pete? I raised 4 and I was a milkman most of that time. LOL. But I appreciate the invite. Maybe someday if I ever get my motor issues ironed out. As soon as I put the cowl on, the motor is overheating again. Pranged it a bit today on the 3rd flight. Not bad, but I am a slow builder/repairer, but I expect it will be ready to go by next weekend. Pete Bergstrom of Horizon was advising me to reduce the intake to attain a better intake to outflow ratio, but as soon as I did that the overheating came on WAY quicker and more drastic. Once I make the repairs I am next going to try with the intake completely UNbaffled, and if that doesn't help, it might be time to repower with a Tower or an OS as I have available. I'm really disappointed after buying the recommended brand new motor and it being a POS.
Rick

Pete Thomas

I have a question regarding motor cooling. I did not install the clear acrylic baffles behind the intake grill so I have a tremendous amount of air coming into the motor/battery/ESC compartment. However there is no way for air to escape to create a cooling effect. How have you handled the airflow across your motor, battery, and ESC? If you drilled ventilation holes, could you describe where ( include photo if possible)? Do you recommend using the baffles to obtain an optimum air-in/air-out ratio?. I was entertaining the idea of trying to open up the cockpit area around the pilot.

Thanks in advance, Pete

Azzir325

Pete, there are pictures in the manual. Exhaust openings are opened in the bottom of the cowl. Here's a pic of mine. I have actually opened these up a bit more and added 2 new ones. My glow motor, a new evo 61 NX, keeps overheating.

Pete Thomas

Thanks. I thought that those cutouts were unique for the glow engines but they should work as well for electric.

Pete

dml232

My Feedback: (18)

Thanks for the firewall dimensions. Dwg. I have is close. I will order the cowl before I get too far along. Thanks again.

jtisch

I have the chance to pick up one of these cheap. Looking in my engine stockpile I see an OS 70 4C and an Enya 120 4C with nothing in between. 120 would be overkill?

J

Azzir325

120 would be way more then you need. Just an educated guess since I use a 60 2 stroke, but I think the 70 would do the job.

Azzir325

I finally had a nice flight with my D 7 wherein the engine did NOT stop until I turned it off! I tried the advice given by HH to cut the intake area down so the exhaust area was proportionately larger, but that only made the problem worse. After the repairs (yes, "worse" included a minor crash with damage) I removed ALL baffling from the screen in the cowl and flew 2 short and one long flight which I landed when I wanted to land, and during which the motor ran fine thru the landing and taxi into the pits. Hopefully, the cure is complete.
Rick

rodneygt

I run a os 91 4 stroke, but the 70 will be plenty. The 120 probably would not fit - the 91 is pretty tight. There's pic of a 70 in one a few pages back. Using a non-saito 4 stroke will require you to get creative with the exhaust. Fortunately, I've posted links of what you would need recently in this thread - just start going back - should be withing a two or three pages.

Jaybird

Hey Azzir...good for you! Whew, it must be nice to finally have a reliable running engine. I haven't flown mine yet this year, but I have been flying between trips and really windy (20 to 30 mph!) days we've had.

I had my second full scale tailwheel lesson in a Citabria this afternoon and it went pretty well. I was worn out though after an hour and half of takeoffs and landings.

I've been building an 18 year old Great planes Super Skybolt kit (yes, a big box of balsa and light ply) and it's coming along pretty well, but probably won't fly this season.

I've got the Rhinebeck Jamboree on my calendar already...will you be there again this year?

Jaybird

Azzir325

Hello, Jaybird! Good to hear from you. As for "reliable running engine," I have my fingers crossed. I'll wait for a few more confirming flights before I start to feel comfortable.

Congrats on the tailwheel training. An hour and a half is grueling doing touch and goes and I don't care if it's tailwheel or not! I got my private so long ago, there was no special tailwheel rating, and I have time in an Aeronca Champ (which if I am not mistaken the Citabria is a beefed up version of) and also J 3 cubs which I used to rent for 15 dollars an hour at the old Zahn's Airport in Amityville, NY. Memories are all we have left after a while...

Glad you are planning to come back to the Jamboree. As things stand now, I expect to be there Saturday and Sunday working the flight line as I did for the last 2 years. Maybe this time I will actually get a chance to fly. I hope the weather is better this time around.

Next weekend I am planning on attending my 1st event of the season, a float fly down in PA at Tuscarora State park south of Wilkes Barre. I have a Great Planes PBY and an old Goldberg Eaglet on floats. It is a 2 day event so I guess I will pitch a sleeping tent on Saturday night. All weather permitting, of course.
Rick

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

Ah, working the flight line at the Rhinebeck Jamboree. I did that in 1973 when I was first learning to fly RC with the Mid Hudson RC Club. My wife and I got to know Bob and Dolly Wisher well that year since they were flying off my station. My wife and Dolly hit it off very well. They were one of the nicest couples you would ever meet. I believe they are one or only couple to both be in AMA Hall of Fame. The next year we moved to Atlanta and have not been back to Rhinebeck since. But I have gotten a lot of building and flying in since then.

Bruce

Azzir325

Nice to hear from you, Bruce. Back in 1973 I was 2 years out of High School, floundering thru life. Interesting how life's paths can merge and things can happen. It's a long drive from Atlanta to Old Rhinebeck, but you know you'd be welcome. I understand there's a "Rhinebeck south" thing being held in Florida, I suspect by some MHRCS alumni. Keep flying!
Rick

nzphil

Hi Guys,
Weather held up for the maiden flight last week[sm=thumbup.gif]
What a great plane to fly, only a couple of clicks on the ailerons & a few more on the elevators & it was rock seady hands off.
The rudder has a lot of authority & stall turns are very tight. Landing is a breeze, just slowly close the throttle on the downwind leg & it lands its self but you have to be quick on the elevator to stop a nose-over. Hope to have some photos to post as our club photographer will be around next flight time.
Phil

Azzir325

Congrats on the successful maiden, Phil, and good wishes for many safe flights to come.
Rick

HornetFitter

My Feedback: (2)

Maiden flight almost a catastrophe!!!

Well, after a few fits and aborted starts, I finally maidened the Scourge of the Skies. The take-off was not too bad and then I got into a left hand circuit. on the downwind, I trimmed the rudder (to the right) and then noticed a significant roll coupling. I tried to trim the ailerons, and the flight charactaristics went all to h3ll! It knife-edged accross the flying field and I figured I had better get the thing on the ground- FAST! Aileron response was painfully slow and full right aileron and rudder were required to keep it from snapping into a death spiral as well as about 3/4 throttle (Saito 82 and a 14x8 prop). I bled off some altitude in a trade for a lower throttle setting and decided to land on the far side of the air field. I managed to get the airplane level and headed for the long grass (still somewhat knife edged). About 10 feet AGL, I chopped the gas and fed in full deflection on the ailerons and rudder. It levelled out and flopped on to the ground. It rolled out about 10 feet then launched itself onto it's nose and ultimately onto it's back. - Funny thing is; it did'nt even break the prop.
So, now I have to sort out what happened to what should have been a very passive first flight. The winds were all over the place though, with calm, gusting to 10knots and swirling/ changing direction due to convective heating and active rain cells locally.
First thing is to adjust the lower wing incidence closer to 0 (the one on the gear), then I will spend some more time verifying the C of G...

CHeerz!

t57f100

going for a possible seconfd flight tommorow here is a question i have a dx7 and a reciever to with it ar7000 what is it when you bid it fly it then when i connect the battery the reciever lights blink all the time i have not flown it like this but why does it do that if i rebind it then plug my battery to the speed controller it goes away seperate reciever pack are you electric guys flying with out a reciever pack and please someone help with my ar 700 issues

Pete Thomas

Well, I finally have 13 flights on the DVII. I was a bit nervous on flight number 13 due to my superstition, but it went like clockwork. I am very impressed with how easy this plane is to fly and land. The last two flying days were in 2-3 mph wind which is about as dead calm as it gets around here during spring.

The DVII balances out perfectly. I’ve included a few photos showing where I located the 7 ounces of lead to obtain a CG of 3 5/8” behind the leading edge. 1 1/2 ounces of lead were added to each side of the fuselage adjacent to the motor. The remaining 4 ounces were attached to the inside of the cowl as far forward as I could get away with. I also replaced the steel rudder and elevator control rods with carbon fiber rods and attached short 3” Z-bend connectors to each end using CA and thread. This reduced the weight aft of the cockpit thereby minimizing the amount of lead that I had to add to the nose. As you can see from one of the photos, the battery (6s 3700 mAh Rhino) is moved 5/8” forward of the mounting plate to get as much weight forward as possible.

I ended up going with 2 channel aileron control (Aileron on right aileron and and Flap1 on left aileron using Spektrum AR6200 receiver). This allowed me to precisely center the ailerons and add 35% aileron differential. Even though I fly using coordinated turns (start my turn with rudder and then add a slight bit of opposite aileron and up-elevator), there was no detectable yaw if a made a turn using just the aileron.
This plane tracks beautifully. The E-Flite 60 motor produces awesome power. As mentioned previously, I chose to go with a Castle 75 amp ESC in lieu of the 60 amp that was recommended. I also chose to go with a Vox 15 X 8 wooden E-prop because it weighs about 7 grams less than the APC prop, is perfectly balanced, and looks cool (purchased through Precision Aerobatics). I still plan to sand off the Vox logo and clear coat the prop with a satin finish.
One final modification I made for now was to create an air-exit for better ventilation/cooling of the electronics. I opened up about 3 square inches in front of the pilot in the cockpit and between the Spandau guns as seen in the attached photos. I may still open up an additional 2 square inch area behind the pilot to allow for more cooling this summer.

I also plan to remove one of the o-rings on the landing gear suspension and try it with just a single o-ring. Our field is mildly bumpy, however it would take a very hard landing to make the two o-rings move. I think the single o-ring will provide better suspension for normal landings and take-offs, knowing that I will have to replace them about once per month as a preventative measure. I’ll report on how that works out.

This Fokker DVII has quickly become my favorite plane but is definitely not a park flyer. I will only fly this at an AMA sanctioned field with plenty of room and not at our local flying site in South Tacoma. We have a nice electric-only AMA field about 30 minutes south of here in Olympia.

Till next time, Pete.

Photos can be found here due to their more generous allowance of JPEG file sizes. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...=916904&page=8

Pete Thomas

Mine does that occasionally. Just unplug the battery, turn off the transmitter and wait 10 seconds, turn it back on, and plug the battery in. The most common occurance of this that I have noticed is if my attempt to connect the Deans plug to the battery is sloppy. It may happen one out of every 20 times but I learned to live with it. No separate receiver pack needed.

Pete

t57f100

wow no reciever pack does it shorten your time any

t57f100

just would like to say thank you to all the people who helped me so far i have written to another group about another plane and they gave me a english lesson instead of helping me with my project wow i thought free time was our time to help each other.the level of interest here in this group and the ability to help each other has led me to believe my free time will be spent here on this site.thank you to all who spent free time to help each other rather than dare my english apart.

Oberst

If the world was perfect, I wouldn't be here on this planet.


Pete

sparky251

Ive had mine for a while and have tried to start building it a few times but something always came up. I finally got it started this week. I dont care for the version they chose so I figured I doctor it up a bit,I dont have time for a complete recover so heres where Im at. I removed the flying swords and the crosses and am adding white backgrounds for Maltese crosses and Im not sure what else at this point. I used Monocote that must have been hanging around for a while or something,as soon as I applied heat it stuck so quickly and so good that it cant be worked,no stretching etc. I did the best I could but had to use a pin to remove the bubbles. I tried it on an old wing I have and its definatly from a bad batch,sticks like CA as soon as heat hits it. Anyone else have this problem? Ive got the motor detailed and a pair of Williams Bros. Spandau guns all built waiting to be mounted. Im doing a YinYang thing on the wheels also.Im going to check the entire thread later as I have a few questions about the landing gear and want to be sure the questions havent already been asked. B

sparky251

The cowl doesnt even come close to fitting on the fuse. Theres a full 1/4 " gapfrom the top of the fuse to the bottom of the cowl where its supposed to meet the front of the battery access cover and theres roughly 1/5" space there also! Ive tried to dick with it but it still doesnt even come close. B

mobyal

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger! Cowl fit is discussed earlier in the thread; we all had trouble with it. Try putting a couple of extra hardwood blocks to screw into where the top rear mates up with the top of the compartment, and then heat and stretch the cowl as best you can. It won't be perfect but it'll be a lot better than what you have now.
I put custom markings on mine too. Try spraying the area where you're putting the mrkings with Windex, so that you can get them in the right position. Squeegee the excess moisture out. That should activate the adhesive but you can always put a little heat on there if you need it. I didn't copy any particular airplane but took elements from several. I figure that since the German pilots could trim their aircraft anyway they wanted, I had some license! Attached are a couple of pics.
Enjoy the build, you're gonna love the way it flies!
Good luck
Al