koelling

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Here are a few pics of my new ride for the 2007 IMAC competition season. This 40% Carden Aircraft Extra 300 was built by Cam McCausey. I have chosen Cam to build my planes because he pays very close attention to building extremely lightweight aircraft that are straight and true. Last year Cam built me three beautiful Carden 260s which I competed with at the IMAC Nationals, Don Lowe Masters, and Tucson Shootout.

Here are the details on my 300:

Power – DA150 with MTW headers and Greves tuned pipes
Prop/spinner - Mejzlik 28.5x12 3 blade with Mejzlik 5 inch spinner
Radio – Futaba 14MZ with 2 Rx, 9152 digital servos (rudder and elevators) and 9155 digital servos (ailerons)
Batteries – Fromeco 5200 (1 per Rx) and 2600 (ignition) with 3 Fromeco regulators
Electrodynamics fiber optic ignition kill
Sure-Link Custom Control Systems servo arms and rudder horn.
Built and covered by Cam McCausey Competition Aircraft
Painted by Mike Barbee (monsterhangar.com)
Graphics by Dan Rathbun (not installed yet!)

Final Weight (checked on three different calibrated scales):
34 pounds, 10 ounces with a TBM carbon fiber wingtube!
35 pounds, 1 ounce with the stock aluminum wingtube

This is within one or two ounces of the weight of two of my Carden 260s, so it will be fun to compare the flight characteristics of both designs with identical wing loadings.

Thanks to Dennis and Caroline for a great kit, Cam for the awesome build/cover, and Mike for a great paint job!
Kurt Koelling

koelling

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Yesterday the weather improved enough in Columbus, OH to maiden my 40% Carden Aircraft Extra 300! Here are a couple of pics at the field. I have thousands of flights on Carden Extra 330s and Extra 260s, so I am very interested to see what the similarities and differences are between all of these fine aircraft. This will probably take quite a few flights, but I will report my first impressions after about 12 minutes of flight time on the 300. I plan to post more impressions after additional flights and will be interested to hear from others that are starting to dial in their new Carden 300s! During that short amount of time I flew slow rolls, point rolls, positive and negative snaps, hammerheads, rollers, rolling loops, positive and negative spins and one run through the 2007 IMAC Unlimited sequence. Since the 260 and 300 share the same wing and horizontal stab, I decided to use my 260 program (including same mixes and same throws) to begin my comparison.

Snap rolls – the 300 snaps identically to the 260 (both stop on a dime when you release the sticks). For identical degrees of throw on all surfaces between the two planes, the 300 might require just slightly less rudder deflection which is probably due to the significantly larger rudder.

Hammerheads – much easier to rotate the plane about its CG due to the larger rudder (should not need to worry about flopping a hammer during competition this year).

Rolls, point rolls, rolling circles – the 260 and the 300 both excel in this category due to the mid wing design. Minimal mixing is required for knife edge flight on both designs, maybe just a little bit less mixing for the 300, but as with all planes it takes many flights to really get them dialed in. The main thing I noticed while doing rolls on horizontal and 45 lines is that less rudder is required to draw a straight line while on knife edge. This is most likely due to the larger side area of the 300 fuselage (much larger/longer canopy). This should be a big advantage for the 300!

Spins – spin entry was very clean, but the nose seemed to come up a lot more than with the 260. Currently I have the CG on the 300 set just under 3 3/4 inch behind the leading edge at the tip (same setting as I run my 260). Based on the flight behavior it appears that I may want to move the CG about ¼ inch forward on the 300 relative to the 260. Not sure why the two planes should have a different CG, since the wing/stab are identical?

I am very excited about competing with this plane in 2007 – the design is capable of winning at major competitions. Now all it needs is a good pilot on the sticks!

Should get more flights on Sunday!

as722

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Hi Kurt,

I'm glad you liked yours as I sure love mine. I got five flights on mine and will be leaving to go to the field shortly and get some more flights. I'll be interested to know where your CG ends up at. My 300 is a little nose heavy when compared to my 260 at the same CG location ( per plans) and it shows in the air so I changed the hanger nine wheels for some kavans which are 5oz lighter, I hope this gets me where I want to be. I talked to Cam yesterday and he liked his as well. Keep this thread going as I have a lot of interest on your set up as well as others.

Thanks
Albert

wgeffon

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Albert and Kurt,

Get some VIDEO.

koelling

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Just put the video camera in the van - should have some video this afternoon!

DMichael

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Kurt,

Thanks for the report. Your weight is oustanding. I see you have the straight gear on it. Did you do that so you could lighten it more easily?

Looking forward to more reports.

Dave

BBW Walt

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Hey Kurt: How about some pictures of the pipe installation on this. I'd love to see the inside and outlet of these Greve's pipes, Thanks Walt

CAPtain232

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How can I get in touch with CAM..... I would like to talk to him about some of his lightening methods

as722

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I'd like to see some pics. of the pipe tunnel as well. BTW plane looks great.

Thanks
Albert

Flyfalcons

Nice looking plane, what is with the straight landing gear?

koelling

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Dave,
Thanks - I am extremely happy about the final weight! Yes, I decided to go with the straight gear from the 260 because it is much easier to lighten up. The final weight of my aluminum gear is 15 ounces (about 8 ounces was machined out of the gear). I know that others have machined out a flat sheet of aluminum first and then formed the curved gear. Have not heard what the final weight would be from those that have done it that way. All I know is that the stock 330/300 gear from Carden is heavier than the stock 260 gear!
Kurt

wgeffon

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Kurt,
We got 8oz out of mine doing it that way.
I dont remember exactly what the gear before milling (flat aluminum) weighed but I do remember Walt saying it was lighter than the 300 gear that came with the kit.

koelling

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Walt and Albert,
Here are some pictures of the tuned pipe installation and tunnel construction on my 300. The Greves pipes are VERY long (almost 1 meter) so the exhaust exit from the fuselage is actually behind the back of the canopy. This requires the installation of an extremely long pipe tunnel. I know guys are running Greves pipes in some of the composite planes without a tunnel, but I would not want to do that on a Carden. Cam had already built me a 260 with Greves pipes last year so he had the opportunity to refine the design of this years tunnel. This year he sheeted all of the crossbracing on the bottom of the plane (to about 6 inches behind the back of the canopy) and then attached the belly pan. This makes for an extremely strong fuselage with all of the crossbraces tied to the sheeting. The trick is keeping it light since you are actually adding more sheeting to the kit! I designed a lightweight pipe mount that only weighs 0.9 ounces and is bolted to a cross brace in the fuselage so the mount and pipes can be removed as one unit. Adhesive backed silicone sheeting is used to wrap the pipe before sliding into the tunnel. The pipes come very close to the belly pan (sixteenth of an inch) and to the top of the pipe tunnel (1/4 inch) - the location of the pipe mount and drop on the headers is key to making everything fit!
Kurt

koelling

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Got out to the field today (Sunday) with my good friend Lou Matustik. Unfortunately, we had a 15mph dead crosswind which made landings and flight trimming interesting...
Lou has just bought one of my Carden 260s, so he was anxious to start practicing Advanced for the 2007 IMAC season. Watch out Advanced pilots in the NC region - Lou is looking good with his new ride!

I was able to get in two flights with my 300 today. I continue to be amazed at how axially this plane rolls - very little rudder is required. Lou commented to me that my rolls are looking better with the 300 as compared to the 260 and I have only got a few flights on the plane as compared to over 500 flights on the 260 airframe. I am running a three blade prop and had added an extra washer on the left engine mount bolts to increase right thrust. It appears that was too much right thrust, so I removed the washers tonight and will fly again this week to see if that improves the vertical uplines.
I am also noticing that the 300 seems to roll faster than the 260 for the same aileron deflection. I have my 300 setup with the exact same aileron throws (18 degrees) and elevator throws (10 degrees) as my 260. I can't explain why this would be since the wing is the same on both planes?? Only ideas I have at this point are that it is very cold out right now, so the lower density altitude makes the ailerons more responsive, or it could be that my new wings that Cam built only weigh 2 pounds, 13 ounces RTF (a savings of a half pound over my previous wing set). Less rotational mass could be increasing roll rate.

As of now I am only aware of three people in the country getting flights on the new Carden 300 (Albert, Cam, and myself). Anyone else out there??? Of course Mike Stoner has many flights on the pre-prototype, but that plane had the old 330 wing which is a completely different animal (not nearly as good for snap rolls in my opinion).

I hope to get more flights in early this week as I will be leaving for Italy on Thursday....
Kurt

BBW Walt

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Thanks Kurt, I'm in the process of installing the same set up in a 260..Walt

koelling

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Walt,
Are those pipes removeable or are they permanently installed? Don't see any way to slide them out of your mounts??
Kurt

BBW Walt

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Stingers will get 1 inch cut a off the end and they will slide through the front. As soon as the stinger passes through the mount you can raise the pipe up to align the pipe with the mount. I see your running only one mount. Because of the length of this pipe I felt more comfortable using 2...Thanks for the pictures, Walt

as722

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Kurt I noticed my snaps felt much faster than on my 260 with the same amount of aileron but I blamed it on the fact that I haven't flown a big airplane all winter and may be the 260 is that fast. On the other hand my 300 wings are a little lighter specially on the tip than my 260 wings so that might have something to do with it. Have you noticed any difference bettwen the two on a down line as far as amount of down elev. needed ? I have 1 % less than on my 260. BTW thanks for the pictures.

Thanks
Albert

rcplanefan

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Uh oh.

Ken

koelling

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Hey Mr. IMAC VP - 8 flights and my pipe mount hasn't fallen apart! For a small fee I might let you borrow my patent pending design - it will definitely help you win IMAC contests!

koelling

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Albert,
Currently my 260 and 300 both have 1% of down elevator mix (I don't notice a difference between the two planes on downlines). I have been flying some different CG locations today (due to awesome weather in the 70s!) which slightly change my elevator trims and thus change the amount of downline mix (but not by more than 0.5%).
Kurt

mlstoner

Kurt,

You are right about the wing. The wing in the production kit of the 300 is the same (I believe) as the 260 wing. Matter-of-fact I'm in the process right now of building a new set that are my own design and should be much better in snaps than the ones I adapted. As for the other flight characteristics you're finding - they sound like mine too.

Enjoy,
Mike

rcplanefan

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Good point - I'll take all the help I can get! Congrats on the maiden, Kurt. Have fun in Italy and keep that plane locked up while you are away!

Ken

as722

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Kurt,

Congrats on the nats win !

Albert

ifly3d

Hey Kurt,

Can you give me your final set-up for the 300. Throws and cg placment.

Thanks, Josh