Slo-V Flyer

Hi!

I just spent the last 6 hours putting together the Great Planes Mini Super Sportster EP. Went together pretty straight forward, except being only my second ARF plane (first one is foam mini slinger just last week) I probably took about an hour longer. Those tiny pesky servo horns and mounting screws took up that extra hour trying to thread them and stuff. This is my very first all wooden plane, so more likely than not, Im probably gonna baby this one till I get some good flight time in with it. I can't wait for the wind to die down here in Arlington (Grrrr....) so I can maiden this beaut. It's gonna be my first true 4ch plane. Been used to my Slo-V, and Sky Fly, Mini Slinger.

Considering the fact that this plane's ailerons are relatively small and wide, I think I should be able to keep out of trouble from over controlling (rolling....), plus I've setup all the controls to about 40% expo so that its not touchy, at least during my first few flights. It's gonne be hell for me to try and land it, I just cant imagine messing this wooden plane up and tearing it all up, unlike my foam wing'ed Slo-V and etc. Wish me luck (and most importantly calm winds)!

spicedcrab

hi, im glad you got a MSS. you should have no problem in the air with the way you said you set it up, as long as you have no prob with left and right coordination as it comes back. also you will need a BIG field to land at 1st till you get used to it, as long as you have a long landing spot you will be fine also. turn the plane upside down and put the center of gravity right on the main spare coming out across the wing.

John

Slo-V Flyer

Gah! I crashed my brand spanking new Mini Super Sportster into a neighbor's yard during its maiden!!. It spiralled outta control, due to radio signal loss I think (r124f receiver bad for this), my inexperience of getting out of spirals cost me dearly. My heart sank as I saw it plummet down in a death spiral.[x(] It was my worst nightmare come true with my very first wooden plane!! God I hope its in one piece (it seemed to be, sitting upright as I peeked through their fence). The neighbor's aren't home. Im such an idiot to not land it when my gut told me to! The wind took it back away from me. There goes $145 of plane and electronics as if I need to be spending that much to begin with. I put up a little note on their door. Pray they'll be home early and be nice and call me.


BTW, I like your upgrades in the other post.

As you said though, I didn't have any problems with the CG. Spot on the spar. The plane flew well (for windy conditions). This thing is fast! I easily kept it on 50-60% throttle and it looked like it was going faster than that. I got the feeling it was porpoising a little. Very small amount but it was visible. And it felt a little tail heavy in the air, as it wanted to nose up even in slower speeds.

God I feel like crap right now, not knowing what condition it is in. the battery is probably still connected, heating up the electronics. I was near with my radio when I found it through the fence, but it didnt respond to any controls. After this crash I really really hope the only dmg is the radio and /or ESC. I dont wanna find out that I spent 6 hours of work and $80 in vain. Crashing a woody is my worst fear, as I dont have to worry about it with my lighter foam winged planes. Could I possibly improve the receiver's range by adding ~10" of spare antenna wire to it? It seems to cut out around a block away from me in the air. Im betting its the cause for my loss of control. God, why does this harsh stuff always happen to me!?

spicedcrab

hi, very sorry to hear. i had all kinds of radio problems in my 1st MSS, i tried receivers, speed controls, antenna placement NOTHING helped. i finally cured the problem by twisting all the wires as they run were they go. (anywere there was wires to go somewere they would be twisted, not straight) i dont know why this stopped the problem, but it did. and dont change the lengh of the antenna, its tuned for the exact lengh that it was from the factory, also make sure that the antenna wire doesnt double back on itself, this will cause problems too. as far as the damage, you just may be lucky, and surprized by how it can hold up. hopefully if you hit mostly light branches and leaves it may be repairable. i crashed my 1st MSS about 15 times and was able to get it repaired to were it would fly again, my last crash did it in though as i hit a super high light pole at a football field that i fly at sometimes. it hit dead on into the metal light cluster at the top, about 75 feet in the air, i thought for sure i was about a 100 feet away from the pole when it hit, i was shocked. lol, anyway the wing came down in 2 pieces, and the rest nose dived straight down right next to the pole, All electronics were fine, but the rest of the plane was a total loss.

since i have repaired mine so many times, when you get it back, send me a pic of the damage, i may have a suggestion on how to repair it, it may be damage that i have done before to mine.

john

Slo-V Flyer

I picked it up from the neighbors' earlier. It's in ONE PIECE!!!! Gah!!! HAhahahaha!!! The only dmg I can see is a bent prop shaft (grrrrr I hate those), a dark smear on the LE of the right wing (probably from sliding down a wall or roof etc), and a small crack in the firwall between the two top most holes (CA'd that, no biggy). I am so relieved that my MSS is in one piece. Only thing that'd make me happier is if the LHS stocked replacement gear boxes for it. So I ordered 2 sets of gearboxes $12.99 each. I tried to take the gear box apart to test a shaft the employee showed me, but the stupid screws started to strip on me. I really hope the part they order wil include the spur gear and shaft. Or else that'll be another week before I can get it flying. I had the feeling this plane is too pretty to crash, shudda listened to myself and landed it sooner!

Thanks for the offer to help though.

Im off to fly my Slo-V.


Later!

Slo-V Flyer

[:@][:@][&o][&o]

I straightened out the shaft, and flew it again. Surprise, it was dark, and I lost track of it, even with the LED lights on it. CRASH! Another neighbor's yard. BUT, this time Im not so lucky:

Ripped off and broke the motor mount attachment wood and firewall (lost firewall in yard) Cracked right side elevator on the non-moving area. Cracked and destroyed a rib the top of left side wings LE left tip. Cracked and bent the base LE area of right wing. Electronics are fine. [:@][>:] Why me?! why me!? I am soo stupid and stubborn. I shudda waited till next morning to try to fly again. Geez, it was flying so well before I lost it in the dark. Nice smooth, quiet. But alas without any wooden model repair skills, I think this beautiful plane's gonna be sitting around broken for a good while. That's the one thing I don't like about wooden models.

Maybe I'll give it a shot and try to patch up the wings, and *try* to fabricate a firewall/motor mount again.

Slo-V Flyer

Well, I got a firewall fabricated for it thanks to a kind fellow customer at my lhs. Here's what it looks like. It aint pretty but it should work just as well, and he helped pick out a different nylon motor mount to try on instead of those wooden arm mounts.

Slo-V Flyer

With the firewall stuck on, finished mounting the nylon motor mount. Other than that, I just need to patch up the left wing's damaged rib. Hopefully the replacement gearboxes comes in this week to finish up.

whwong

Nice job done. It should fly as good as before You will probably upgrade to brushless later so you have to do substantial modification to the firewall anyway!

whwong

Slo-V Flyer

Haha you know what I'm gonna do before I do. . Yeah for now I slapped on some glue and stuck the firewall onto the plane, with the edges and some inner parts touching it. I tugged on it real good to see if it would come off easily, but it looks good for now. BTW, I was thinking, what would be a good motor (nothing too crazy) to use for this plane, that would still not be too overkill for my Slo-V? An 380-400 sized inrunner for convenience due to the gearboxes on both planes I'd have to deal with, or just slap on an outrunner-on-a-stick setup on both? I was thinking on a budget, hmm.. maybe eflite 400 + their bl esc combo should be < $100? I'll worry about that next month though.

whwong

As I mentioned I am just a beginner but I will try to share my experience here. As the usual power rule we need 100W/lb to get aerobatic performance. So for MSS, it weights at most 24 oz = 1.5 lb, then we need 100*1.5=150W. So we aim at motors provide 150W output or more.

I go for inrunner route personally. So let's talk about it first. At 150W, a longer can 20mm inrunner will fit the bill, say, Himax 2025 series, Eflite park 400, and many others. For low budget, there are many cheap 20mm inrunner out there, say the walkera 180L, you can find it below $30 everywhere online, I use it on my E-Starter and MSS also. The ARC 20 series is another choice, I haven't tried it though, should cost less than $30 as well. The new GWS 20mm motors will be out soon, they are priced at $25 each. The problem is that if you use a 20mm inrunner then you probably can't use the stock gearbox anymore. The 20mm inrunner can fit into the original gearbox as both the stock 400 and 20mm inrunner are of 16mm bolt pattern, but you have to find a new motor bracket for the 20mm inrunner, and a new pinion as most 20mm inrunners have 2mm shaft instead of the 2.3mm with the stock 400 motor. It seems to be too much hassle to get the original gearbox fitted and I would suggest to get another aftermarket gearbox like the cobri. In the long term I don't think the original gearbox will work since it only provides you 1 or 2 choices of gear ratio but you may have motors with wide range of KV. The only direct drop-in replacement I know is the Ultrafly A30/29, it has the same dia of the stock 400 motor (28mm) and the same shaft dia 2.3mm. If you go for brushless 400 class motor (I think it's a bit overkill now but surely good for your future bigger plane), you need to find a 3.2mm hole pinion or drill the original one to a bigger hole, I am not sure if this can be done well, so maybe you need to get another gearbox as well. The cheapest 400 class brushless inrunner I can find so far is the walkera 380S/M/L, about $30 on ebay. Any motor at 150W-200W should be a good fit to your slo-v as well, but the problem is the plastic gearbox of slo-v may not hold up well with the high power. So I would suggest to get an metal gearbox like cobri for about $30, then you can move around this motor/gearbox combo between the MSS and the slo-v. Of course you have to totally rebuild your own firewall mount for your MSS.

For the outrunners. I haven't tried any yet. I am not sure how vulnerable they are on crash compared to inrunner+gearbox. I see a cheap one on ebay, it calls A20L, seems like a duplicate of hacker A20L series, at about $26 there's not much to lose, may try it out later.

For the ESC you may try the GP silver series 25A at $39 if you don't need any programming. I have a 45A version on my slow stick, it surely overkill! No problem at all so far. The eflite combo you mentioned sounds good too.

whwong

Slo-V Flyer

Thanks for the help. I was just messing with [link=http://brantuas.com/ezcalc/dma1.asp]Motor Calculator[/link], with an Eflite Park 400, 8 nimh cells, 11x4.7 prop, 4:1 gearing, I can get just around ~190 watts, 37 oz. of thrust, staying around 23 amps. Of course that's an approximation, and I may not have access to the particular gearbox, prop etc. But I've been messing around with that for a few days and found some good combinations of brushless setups that seem to be easy on the wallet to get, and still provide enough "fun" power. Welp, first I gotta get this bird flying again, then I'll worry about performance (more power!!)

whwong

I tried the web based motor calculator and seems its result is incorrect due to wrong data of motor resistance, it said it is 0.02 ohms but I found it should be 0.24 ohms on the e-flite webpage, this make a huge difference! But seems the value of 0.24 ohms is wrong too, it looks too large to me. I tried run motocalc with the data from park 400 3700kv inrunner and it makes more sense. Try to run the simulator again with correct motor data from e-flite website. With gear ratio of about 3:1, APC 9x6 SF prop, the park 400 3700kv should give you about 25oz thrust at 16 amp, which approachs the limit to any 2/3A NiMh cells. You can't go up to 23 amp unless you use 4/5A cells which will make the total weight of the pack to more than 10oz I used 4/5A in my E-Starter but it's too heavy for the MSS and it just don't fit into. Also I think you should use prop at most 10" dia otherwise the ground clearence will be a problem.

whwong

Slo-V Flyer

Yeah I wasn't sure how accurate the data was. Thanks for pointing that out. And I didn't think about whether or not the batteries would handle the current or not. Still a n00b in training I guess.

Slo-V Flyer

It lives again! [8D]

I got the gearbox today, and hooked it all back up. Took it out flying, this time, well BEFORE it got dark, . You were right, I would need looong runways to land, but unfortunately the grass is a tad to long and the wheel pants keep causing ugly "controlled" crashes. I did however take off and try landing 4 or so times, before I decided that it was smart to bring it home.

Flew real nice, no unexpected over-controlling or anything. I just took it nice and easy and flew aroudnin large circles and figure-eights to get a feel for it. I spent most of the time half nervous, so I couldnt really enjoy the flight, but hopefully that will change as I get used to it. Gotta practice landing this thing like a scale model to keep it from nosing over and bending the prop shaft, plus the landing gear bends so easily unless I land perfectly level.

Later!

spicedcrab

hey great job! i remember those week shaking knees the 1st few times with mine too, lol.
try the music wire upgrade for the landing gear thats listed in my thread. its prob the easiest upgrade that i have listed and it really works great, ive tried many diff kinds of landing gear even carbon fiber off a mini funtana, but the wire brace is what ended up being the best, if you want to go even better, also add the 2 1/2 " MPI (maxx products international) indoor wheels, they are just as light and strong as the stock wheels, but let you land in (short) grass.

john

ps, great job once again! glad you made a few good flights.

whwong

John, your landing gear mod is great. Where to get the music wire?

Slo-V Flyer

Hey thanks. I'm gonna try to brace the landing gear, as well as try to get rid of the wheels pants. Also, I find the stock prop adapter system is asking for trouble from nose overs. I'm gonna get a 3mm prop saver type adapter (I believe Maxx Products or similar company) and see if that does the trick. Even though I have a spare gearbox ready this time around, I really don't wanna have to risk bending/breaking propshafts or the propellor or worse transfer the impact to the firewall and vital structures, especially since I only have the one prop and very tight budget this month ($350 in this new airplane stuff to pay off + $150 speeding ticket = ouch!!). Which brings me to the question, what type of prop can I use as a replacement? Seems like APC props match the overall shape, except the holes are a bit larger so I might need to shim them (or not if the prop saver fits correctly).

whwong

Yeah just go ahead and buy a 4mm prop saver. APC slo-flyer prop should fit the prop saver well.

mtntopgeo

My Feedback: (12)

When I got my first MSS, I imediately ditched the original motor, that HEAVY gear reduction, & the landing gear. Installed a geared Astroflight 010, & took it out for it's maiden. Was afraid that the little Astroflight would be weak, (for that size plane), But with the big weight reduction, (the RTF weight was only about 16&1/2 ozs,) the thing flies great! Liked it so much that I bought a 2nd one, & installed a Enya .09-IV. RTF weight on this one is 19&1/2 ozs. Before I ever took that one up, I bought another wing, & made a profile MSS with a .074 Norvel in it. That one weighs about 13&5/8 ozs. Haven't taken that one up yet. Think that the MSS is a great little plane. I'm sure that you're really gonna enjoy it, no matter what motor you put in it (within reason) Just try to keep it lite! The response of the 16 oz one was really an "eye opener", compared to what I had been flying. Looking forward to trying out the 13(+) oz profile. ....... Keep wondering on how it'd do with a Norvel .15, or a 300 watt out-runner in it! .. George K.

Slo-V Flyer

I flew it again today, did some short flights, practicing take offs and mostly landings. First 3 or 4 landings were ugly with the landing gear bending, because I didn't descend slow enough. Last two tries were great, I came in nice and shallow, and really slowed down, trying to keep my vertical descent speed as slow as can be. Hopefully I can sneak in another battery's worth of flying tomorrow before work for practice.

spicedcrab

great to hear slo v, i bet the knees are still shaking though, huh? lol, jk thats how i was for a while also, fun though

Slo-V Flyer

Yeah it's still mostly no-fun/nervous flights for now, I think half of it due to the receiver's relatively low range that I'm always concerned about, [] and half due to the plane's controls and characteristics I have to get used to. For example I also need to add some expo to the Elevator of all things, because it seems to be quite touchy, and of course, since it's a fast, all-wood plane, care and caution are even more paramount. I can always risk flying my Slo-V and experimenting with it because it's easy and cheap to fix, but the MSS is too precious and expensive for me to screw around with, kind of like driving a Corvette, from my stand point.

whwong

I think the MSS can fly quite slow without tip stall, it just takes time to slow down probably due to its low drag. Unlike slow stick and E-Starter, they decelerate like brake applied when throttle is reduced. This is the difference that we have to get used to.

Slo-V Flyer

You're right about the braking/drag. My Slo-V does slow down when I want it to, whereas the MSS takes time. And yes I pleasantly found out during my last few landing attempts that my MSS can fly quite slow. I'll just have to practice flying slowly more and not be afraid to reduce power below 30-40% and learn to keep it steady.