rednote

Wow, I'm really happy to find this thread...just picked up the 540 BP and can't wait to get it in the air now that I've read all the great comments. I not a great 3D pilot, but I'm practicing like crazy on Real Flight G3.5. I plan to hand launch my Edge and land on tall grass, that's my only option for and airfield right now. And from what I've read, the landing gear that come with the kit aren't worth putting on.

Should I go with a folding prop for now since I'm landing on tall grass? Any advice would be great.

I'm also looking for a new radio that's got expo, and advice on that would be welcome. I'm using a 5 year old JR 6 channel, it's been a good companion, but I'm guessing that I need expo if I'm going to be learning 3D moves.


Thanks!
Rod

mflander

Put mine together on sun. Flew like crap... I thought I had the CG just right with it, turns out I did not. Battery placement is very sensitive with this one. I re-cg'd it last night, and will do its second maiden tonight.. more to come!

rednote

Too bad about your CG troubles. Please share your CG placement...what's your set-up?

tcclong

Yeah, this plane is very sensitive to the battery placement. I put 3 strips of velcro side by side just in front of the wing. The battery was mount vertically. This allowed me to move it about .75 inch forward and aft to find the best spot. It gets pretty squirrely if you put the CG aft very much. But that can make it more fun if you know what you're doing. I think it's a great plane to practice 3D stuff. It is, however, a profile plane, so it doesn't handle quite as smooth as a full fuse plane.

RCB757

E-Flite Edge 540 BP Landing gear is made of soft alumimum and will hardly support the weight of the airplane.

I called Horizon Hobby Tech support and spoke with Rusty on 10-04-07. Rusty advised me that the landing gear is "adequate" for the airplane, however it will not take much abuse. I explained to Rusty that the main landing gear needs to be redesigned because it will hardly hold the weight of the airplane up and bends badly with even the smoothest of landings. Also after reviewing some comments on the landing gear on RC Universe, I was not alone.
Rusty did not agree with me at all and said that once one person complains about something on the web sites, everyone chimes in. Of course people are "chiming in" because there is a design problem with this landing gear.
Rusty finially resolved the issue by offering to send me a new set of landing gear legs. I guess I will just use these gear legs to make a new set out of better material.
E-Flite makes some fine products and I have and will continue to purchase their goods, however they missed the mark on this landing gear and really don't plan on making a stronger replacement.

tcclong

Well, "Rusty" has apparently never tried to land one of these with the stock gear. Like you say, even on a slightly non-perfect landing you will bend the gear. I actually bent mine and bent them back so many times that the gear finally snapped off. I agree with you that everything is great on this plane except the gear. On another one of Eflite planes that is about the same size, the Tribute FX, the landing gear is great. It is a steel wire gear which works perfectly. You can land just about as hard as you want and the gear just springs right back. Just like the gear on an Airfoilz - works perfectly. I am guessing Eflite uses that aluminum gear on Edge 540 because it bolts onto a flat surface. This would be a little harder to accomplish with a wire gear, but not impossible.

Another drawback to the very soft aluminum gear is that is doesn't protect the plane. I broke the motor mount stick several times from hard landings because the gear did almost nothing to absorb thelanding. They just immediately spread and allowed the prop to hit the ground. Changing to a different gear on this plane would be a wise move.

IFlySlowPlanes

I've had my 540BP flying for a few weeks now and absolutely love it. I don't do any 3-D with it at all (lack of skill being the limiting factor here), but wanted something fun to fly in the local parks. What's been said already about the gear, I won't repeat, except to tell "Rusty" that he needs to take the blinders off when it comes to seeing the problem for what it is. Mine lasted one landing...one. Bent like a pretzel. The aluminum could not be any softer unless it was still in the forge at 1100 degrees. Took it off and have flown just fine without it ever since.

As to balance issues, yes, it does seem extremely sensitive to battery placement. I first set my CG at the recommended 4.5" but it was WAY to twitchy there for me (maybe you 3-D guys like it better that way, but I got tired of my knees knocking. Moved it forward about 1/4" and suddenly it's tame as can be when I want to putz around, and still plenty wild enough to impress the local kids with my flipping and flopping (I tell them it's aerobatics, see, and they, having a mere public school education, believe I am good at it).

Breaking with apparent tradition, I used a brushless inrunner through a gearbox (left over from my not-so-dear-departed 3-Buddy Yak profile). I get unlimited vertical and fly around at half throttle much of the time. broke the motor mount stick once by flying in circles around myself lower and lower until I equalled the low-altitude record, caught a wingtip, and cartwheeled the thing. Wasn't going too fast, so the damage was limited to the motor mount. A little epoxy and we're back in business.

I hope to have this one for many seasons to come. And if I wreck it, I'll defintiely get another. Terrific little plane.

FlooredCOBRA

This plane is extremely addictive and thats a fact! I find myself flying pretty much every day after work in the front yard. That is main reason why I bought it in first place. I dont have to load up anything just charge battery and go.

I messed around with the CG and found my sweet spot. I just took a permanent marker and made a line where the battery should line up and place it there. It is fast easy way to slap the battery on and knowing where your CG is at.

Well I am back in the air after messing around with speed control problems. But on my last flight motor cut off and plane belly flopped to ground while my gear did the split. I tried to bend back but one of them broke off. That poor thing could only be bent back so many times.

I now been debating on how to correct the gear problem. I like having gear because I like taking off from the street but besides the stock gear what else is there to do? Are there any to purchase out there that would fit? I plan to make some myself but would like to see what u guys are coming up with also.

rednote

I'm thinking about using some JR NES 241's or should I go with the recommended E-Flite S75s instead? I don't really want to throw another $75 into the fire at the moment

-Rod

TOYMAKER

My Feedback: (6)

The l.gear on this plane has to one of the worst I have seen on any kit I have built since the seventies. I threw the gear away after the first day of flying. I bolted the wheel on the fuse where the gear was bolted and just hand launch it. Havent broken a prop yet belly landing it. A set of c.fiber gear woulld be ideal. Plane flies nicely and does flat spins that can be held just three feet off the ground.
Dont use cheap servo's(BTDT) had some bluebirds(crap servo's) and switched to HS55's and the plane flies good now. Before when I would push hard in a loop the plane would try to roll out. It was a combination of one wing tip being slightly heavy and the aileron servo's where blowing back. Problem went away after replaceing servo's and balancing tips.

AXI 2212/26 Pheonix 10 controller 10x4.75 APC 1320 dualsky bats HS55 servos

Wayne G.

mytjbend

I just ordered carbon fiber landing gear for my 540 from atlanta hobby. They are made for one of their balsa profile planes and cost about 15 bucks, I'll let you know how they work out. By the way I am new to this forum site and this is my first posting, so forgive me if I can't get pictures up right away and all that stuff. C'YA!!

Han2007

Would this plane work for indoor flight in a gym? I've got a hacker 20-22L with some thunder power 1320 milliamp batteries looking for home.

mytjbend

Ya, I think the hacker is lighter and has about the same power as a park 450. As for indoor flying I'm not experienced enough to trust my flying in a confined area yet, but it does have the characteristics for it, in the right hands. I'm still learning close in flying and 3d handling, so your best bet is to ask a more experienced pilot before trusting my opinion. Good Luck!

804

My Feedback: (1)

If you like to play around hovering, doing harriers, and high-alpha rolls, I think this plane would be fine inside a gym. I plan to try it this winter myself. But if you want to fly traditional aerobatics, especially with other planes in the air, it might be a little too big and fast. I guess it just depends on experience level
OTOH, If where you fly is mid-air crash-o-rama like the indoor fly-ins I've been to, the BP could sure chew up alot of foam!

P47Tbolt

My Feedback: (20)

I will be installing this landing gear setup from Dubro.
Looks to be a bit taller,but I think they will work.

http://www.shopatron.com/product/part_number=943/101.0

chips303

I changed to the dubro landing gear a month ago, and after put it through the ringer. It finally broke on a harrier flat spin landing. One it wasn't a perfect level landing, to bounce on, and two it was 40 deg. out side that day. But by far, the best gear for the edge 540. Only bad part was I had to move the battery back on the plane, over the wing. The leading edge of the wing is were i start the leading edge of a thunder power 3 cell 1350 lipo battery. Heavy gear and heavy battery and still getting over 20 minutes of run time. Sorry for the late post, but i only get the week ends to fly. later guys (( early post for set up ))^^^^^

ambrosesquadronca

I tried the MicroDan 2510 motor on mine. This is a great motor! Weighs .1 oz less than a hacker A20 and pulls a little harder than Hacker and AXI. It is also quieter than AXI, Hacker and E-Flite. I get 13 minutes with a Thunderpower 1320 doing hard 3D. It came with a motor mount hole pattern that didn't match the supplied E-flite plastic stick mount. I told Dan of MicroDan his mount doesn't have a standard hole pattern for that class of motor so he machined and shipped me a new mount to the standard AXI, Hacker, E-flite hole pattern the same day. I believe he now offers this mount. The motor looks great too, reminds me of a radial engine.

The E-Flite 540 is a great little 3D plane. I have a blast flying it. I can't believe E-flite still ships the ARF with the junk gear in it though. This may be the first time in aviation history somebody designed landing gear with aluminum in the "O" (soft) condition. Should have used 2024-T3 or 7075. So much for doing "slam and goes" with this guy.

My 540 wish list,

Slightly larger elevator.
Thrust line is too high, put it on the MAC. Plane wants to plop forward in a hover and tuck under in knife edge, I attribute both to a high thrust line.
Of course, fix the gear.

mrbigg

My Feedback: (21)

Been looking at this plane. Never done electrics and was wondering which of the small servos would be best.

chips303

HI Mrbigg, as u see i have been using eflite s75 servo's, cheap, kept the cost down. I'm more of a stick banger, but some of the good 3D fliers in my club love taking my 540 and doing some great ground scraping 3D moves with the cheap servo's. So why waste money. the only thing i changed was the prop. I went from a 10 x 4.7 to a 10 x 7sf, for more air flow over the wing. helps my slow fly skills i think. I'm getting 20 mins of flight time.

RCB757

Landing gear update;

I spoke with Rusty at E-Flite about the landing gear problem in early October 2007.
Rusty was totally in denial that there was a problem with the soft aluminum landing gear and suggested that my landing technique might need a little work.
I explained to Rusty that the landing gear had a hard time even holding the weight of the airplane sitting still on the runway!
I also explained that many people were complaining about the same problem on this forum.
Rusty said he would send me a replacement set of landing gear legs.

Early January 2008 the landing gear arrived at my door. (Three months!)
I took the original landing gear and the replacement landing gear to a good friend that works in a machine shop.
We tested both sets of landing gear on a Rockwell Hardness Tester.
Now this Rockwell Hardness Tester was setup to test steel not aluminum so the numbers are meaningless.
However it was apparent even without the Rockwell Hardness tester that the replacement landing gear was stiffer than the original landing gear.
The Rockwell hardness test for the original Landing gear was below zero and the diameter of the test mark was large!
The Rockwell hardness test for the replacement landing gear was 39 and the diameter of the test mark was very small!

I have not actually had a chance to fly it yet to see if it holds up in service for two reasons;
1.)The weather was not good in Detroit this weekend
2.) The hardware was faulty that came with the replacement gear!
As soon as I put the nut on the bolt with my fingers the nut skipped several threads! I knew right away that there was either a size issue, and/or a quality issue.
When I have the hardware problem solved, I will follow up and post the results here.

hobbyncrafts

I'm Ken of 'hobbyncrafts'. I've been making custom carbon fiber gear for about 10 yrs. I have made gear of a similar configuration for the flat foamy. If one of you will send me some dimensions, I'm sure I could make replacement legs that will be more solid than the weaker aluminum gear that you all are refering to here. You can email me direct at [email protected]

tcclong

That's pretty interesting about the soft aluminum. Yeah, figured that they were using annealed aluminum in their stock kit. I had toyed around with the idea of trying to heat treat the gear that comes with it myself. At least the new gear they sent you is a little stronger. I will have to see if I can get that.

That's ridiculous that they won't admit that they made a mistake. It's frustrating having to deal with the lousy gear, expecially when the gear spreads and the prop hits and breaks the motor mounts. How hard would it be for Eflite to admit to the problem and supply some decent gear?

mstcitabria

P47Tbolt,
Thanks for the DuBro landing Gear suggestion, perfect fit for the Edge and more clearence for the 450 motor 12/6 prop. Easy to mount the wheel pants too....

http://www.shopatron.com/product/part_number=943/101.0

mstcitabria

ready to go, think I'm gonna like it....

chips303

Thanks for posting the pics mstcitabria, some day I'll figure out how to post pics. Looks good tho.