ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

DLE a good plan. I like the RCGF 20's as well, but this plane likes to be light. Really light if you want to see what it will really do. The 3 oz difference RCGF vs. DLE will make a difference, as does that big shiny lead weight of a spinner that comes with it! OK for test flights, but you might want to keep an eye out for a lighter one... -Al

Sloviper

So i finally maidened my revolver. I cant seem to balance it properly. It is very nose heavy with a saito 125. I using savox 0252 mg servos all around except the throttle which im using futaba 3004. It flew awful and was very dissapointed since everyone i talked say that revolver usually flies like it is on the rails. So it must have been me done something wrong.
i didnt have to trim much just the elevator since it was nose heavy and then all of sudden it would be tail heavy. When flying every so often the plane would want to do the roll like i would play with the ailerons, but in fact i didnt touch anything. And that day it was a very calm day, no wind at all.
Please help me figure out what im doing wrong

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

First, congrats on the maiden!
Then, 2 thoughts that might help-
1. Start with your balance. The suggested CG is forward of what a lot of guys find to be optimal. If you're even further forward of the suggested, well it's not going to handle correctly or as good as it's able.

2. Revolver's are little hot rods. They need to be flown. Would you ever take your hands off the wheel of a go-kart? If it was a real forgiving plane (like a trainer?), it wouldn't be near as much fun to fly. If the servo installations and control linkages are working properly, it might be that you just need to get some time on it. If the servo and control linkages have any slop in them, you might want to revisit those to see if you can remove that slop.

microdon2

My Feedback: (47)

Sloviper - From what I've seen this plane is pretty forgiving on CG. As Ahicks mentioned, the recommended CG is a bit forward of where most of use end up having. Did you check your CG, in both directions? With the side-mounting of Nitro engines you may need to add some weight to the wing-tip opposite the engine. (on my Rev 70 with the DLE 20 there is no such issue, as the engine in pointed down.) I usually end of adding a bolt or two, buried underneath. A bit of trim to cover and you'll never notice it. For longitudinal balance, of course, you can move the battery. To get the CG back I add a platform behind the servo platform and tie-wrap the battery to that. You should be able to balance this plane so that all control surfaces are pretty much neutral (level to the wing) before takeoff. btw - the Rev 70, when balanced, is stable at high AND very low speeds. It can be a rocket, but also can land pretty slowly with a little head-wind. Let us know how you do.

Stone17

Here my CG mark. Can you post picture of the inside of you plane?

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

hopefully this worked. For what's it's worth. Pics are side ways

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

I seriously thought that after the fire wall pulled lose. I would have nose weight issues. But not so! Not even so much as a click of up trim! And the revolver does fly well. Check to make sure nothing is lose. I can take off and land my revolver in very tight field. Just let it settle in on final. You will be surprised.

microdon2

My Feedback: (47)

Sloviper - just check my GC and it's at 5 1/2". That's with a YS140 4s (overpowered, but what the heck) - which is definitely heavier than the Saito 125 4s.

Stone17 - your CG looks close to mine - maybe yours is 5 3/8. Does it fly well?

lean-run

Just received Revolver 70. Very impressed. Will be fitting DLE20, just wondering if while new and clean if anyone running same has beefed-up fire-wall
area, or run as is. Looks fairly tough, only second arf in 40yrs, so advice welcome.

Have a scratch-build I really should finish before starting the Revolver, but...........

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

I didn't beef mine up much, but I did go over it REAL well with medium and thin CA to make sure everything was glued as well as possible. Wait until you get the engine mounting set up though. The upper left hand corner will need to be massaged a little - on mine anyway. Be easier to do that if it's not hard as a rock due to CA.

mach2

My Feedback: (5)

I recommend it. I epoxied in triangle stock onto the corners of the fire wall. Also where the engine box meets the fuse.

Recently a guy on here posted about his fire wall coming off. Maybe "warbird".

mach2

My Feedback: (5)

Here ya go...

lean-run

Thanks for advice. Both the idea of plenty of CA, and looking at it , engine box to fus. beef-up.

Am impressed with the finish and the over-all build quality, I guess mount engine early in build to check servo/battery locations to work toward c.g. Rear mount for elev. sevo and pull-pull rudder.

Think I just might start this before the scratch-build is finished.

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

Add some beef!! Well worth the effort. Don't go crazy with weight. If I were you with a new kit. I would drill 1/8 holes around your fire wall. And Dowell it. IT is the lightest way I think. Mix up 30 minute epoxy. Cut about 8 1/2 dowells put epoxy in each hole. And drive in the pins. Then cote everything with either epoxy. Or ca.

lean-run

Hi warbird72, like your work. Had a plan but yours is better. Realize that with the DLE20 extra weight up front is not what I need.
Still learning the art of a.r.f., good to learn by what others have found before. Apart from various sizes of the Ugly Stik type, don't think
I've owned a model with an almost "cult" following of the various sizes of the Revolver.

Looking forward to full throttle, up elevator.

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

You will be surprised. This plane flies well! Very well. I would drill a 1/6" hole about each 1/2". Around the fire wall. Go in about 1/2" deep. After you have installed your pins. The where you drilled your small holes wick in thin CA. That alone will strengthen everything. And keep weight down.

RoyR

I just lost my Revolver yesterday. I had a good first flight. I put it through it’s paces and everything was normal. I left it on high rates and landed. After a while I took it out for a second flight. It was a good take off and I turned down wind and made a roll. Even though I used full ailerons, the roll was the speed of a purposeful slow roll. I thought maybe I had switched back to low rates accidentally, but it even rolled slow for my low rates. I had to fight to bring it level.
I was going to turn back to land, but there was a few second delay between my input and the action so I ended up over controlling. I chopped the throttle and tried to turn back toward the field, but no go. The plane was on the wrong side of the field, and in my excitement was still at low throttle and it stalled out, making a nose dive on one of the sheds. Fortunately, there were only three other guys out there and they were not close to the crash. The Revolver is not salvageable.

I Checked my transmitter. Everything was normal, and it was still on high rates. The battery was fully charged in both the plane and transmitter.

After thinking about it over night I have some theories. It has been a few months since I flew the Revolver. I have been spending time breaking in a new engine on a Big Stick, which handles different than a Revolver. The Stick is running a gas, and I run it mostly full throttle where he Revolver is electric and I vary the speed.

Although it didn’t seem to be flying too slow I may have had the throttle back a bit when I did the roll. I tried to milk it back around and still may have been flying slow. When I cut the throttle, I don’t think I had speed to make a controlled landing.

So, I’m biting the bullet and saying it was probably pilot error. After all, I am getting up in age and I may have been slow too. Lol. I flew (Full Scale) helicopters for 40 years, and that’s why I retired at 62, Just the slightest hesitation can sometimes lead to disaster in both the large and small aircraft.

At least with the small, I just buy a new one and keep on flying.

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

Roy, Man, can I relate to indecision. I quit flying full scale because I take too many chances, and I knew that one day one of them was going to reach up and bite my a#s. That, and I hate filling out log books....

RC not as much of a sensory overload as full scale, but it satisfies most of my other prop head tendencies....

Sorry to hear about the plane. Will you replace it with another Revolver?
-Al

RoyR

i really didn’t have any close calls before I retired or anything, but I was getting burned out.
The sad thing is I have had two friends that were close to retirement age and another two that could have retired years earlier but kept flying and were all killed in separate accidents. (over a period of 6 or 7 years I may add, not all at once) Ironically, each of the two that were about to retire were killed because of pilot error. The two that were passed retirement age were both killed by mechanical failure, not the fault of the pilots.

Sorry to get off on that: As far as the Revolver, I have had problems with it from the beginning. I had to get replacement wings before I built it. I still had problems with the covering. Then it never did fly exactly right. I have owned sports planes, scale like sBach and Yaks, but this Revolver never had the feel. It was probably just a faulty kit, but for now I am going to go with something else. I’ll probably take my old Velox, recover it and replace the 4 stroke with a gas.
But who knows, I may go for the Large Revolver some time. I sure like the looks of a Revolver.

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

Maybe something came lose! Or it was very nose heavy. Man im sorry. That thing glide like a feather! I don't understand. Hopefully the radio isn't what caused it all.

Dreamtime

Condolences from me too RoyR -- what more to be said. I hate threads where people try lay blame on every part of the plane and Tx/Rx but most times it IS pilot error (well done for considering this in writing). We all have sudden brain 'glitches' no matter what our experience. It is well possible that you were too slow and simply stipped stalled. I have lost 2 planes when flying away from me and pulling up, applying full throttle at the same time -- suddenly realising in the split second that the plane was spiralling in that I had pulled throttle down instead of up -- why -- I do not know. Part of getting older I suppose. We forget how much the brain has to compute apparent speed, orientation (going away or towards with reversing stick action etc). It just misses a beat and that is all it takes. NO one here can say that it has never happened.

I beefed up my firewall with really fine glass layed up over the whole thing with a very thin layer of epoxy. This adds but a few grams and is very strong. I fly pretty aggressively and this holds very well. Just lay up some glass as a practice run to see how well this works. There are many ways to beef up though, but there is only one certainty -- it has to be done.

mach2

My Feedback: (5)

Roy R, sorry to hear about that. I've got my 3rd Revolver in the box and Im finally about ready to build it. I'm surprised yours didn't fly well. My first two were awesome, which is why I bought a third. First on crashed because I was flying too hard and made a mistake too low and fast. The second one was some kind of radio or battery failure. It just stopped responding to inputs and slowly fell out of the sky.

Hopefully the kits haven't gone downhill in quality. I'll be very bummed if my third is a dud. I never even did a quick wing fitment when I got it to see if it's as nice as the first two. The covering looks good though...

Oh, and lean-run, the pin method warbird described sounds good. But if you want to make it easier, the triangle stock I did was nice and simple. It'll add some weight, but doing rear mount servos for each elevator should be more than enough rear weight to off set it. If not, you can easily place the batter rear of the rear servo tray. I glued in a little plate in there and mounted the battery on it. Its a location that gets the battery out of the way and frees up space elsewhere in the fuse for a nice clean look. I'm just one of those guys who likes to make the inside look clean.

lean-run

Yes Dreamtime, we've all been there. A lot can happen in 0.5 sec., and the model covers distance fast.

Like the idea of the glass, will add this with dowels. Stock is not bad, but adding for gas engine while clean and accessible is the go.
(have seen a lot lighter/weaker engine boxes on arf's than this). Only my second arf and first with "engine-box" set-up, with a little help
there and maybe u/c plate, all else looking good.


edit: thanks mach2. your post went up while I was thinking. Will combo a bit of all.

wjcalhoun

RoyR - sorry to hear about your loss. i think most of us recognize that most crashes are pilot error. i can count on the fingers of one hand the planes i have lost due to a mechanical, but of course those are also really pilot error as well. Failure to check a ball link, improper setup, failure to check batteries,
etc.
If you are thinking about the 50cc revolver, i can recommend it. There is a 50cc Revolver thread. The plane is a straight-forrward build, pretty much right out of the box. The plane flies well, presents well in the air, and really has no bad habits.
Bill

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

I second that!! Even with an engine hanging out. Never missed a beat! Roy Give it another try! I think once you get the feel for the plane you wont fly anything else! I have burnt 10 gallons this year on glow fuel! If I had gone to gas! I would have enough saved up to buy 2 more revolvers lol! Just my 2c..