Mojavegold

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Wow, sounds waaaaaay nose heavy. Mine floats quite well, but has a very neutral balance. Take a look at my vid in this post. The 4 inch tires make her look like a bush plane. I'm partial to bush planes, so I don't mind. So 86 those girly wheel pants and go fly...

Don M.

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That was a step I am going to take. I kinda think it maybe nose heavy also but it balances in the middle of the range. I'm going to pull the 6S4000 battery and try a 6S 2100 for a flight ( it will be short ) and see if moving the balance point back helps.

I just went back and watched your video. Your landing decent looks just like mine - fast & furious, except yours didn't bounce. If I landed mine like that ( and most are ) it would have made at least 3 basketball bounces before it settled in. I do fly from asphalt but did try at least one landing on the grass - same thing.

q8cub

I have the black horse decathlon. It is a size 40 plane with 67" wingspan and I put a 70 os 4 stroke engine on it plus a pumpless smoke system. Yes, it bounces very easily if you don't land it smoothly. The trick in my case is to flare early and to use the fare as a brake (maybe 30 meters before the runway), and then fly it almost flat (maybe with 5-10 degrees angle), until the wheels about one to two inches off the groung, then try to add slight little throttle just to let the wheels touch the ground very smoothly. Of course use rudder and ailron when in cross wind landing.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

I'm running 2 3700 MAH 3S in mine, with the lipos just behind the firewall. That maiden was on a no wind day, with a good head wind (5-10mph) she slows down really well. I flew her yesterday with 2 5000 MAH 3S lipos and she was nose heavy after moving the lipos back 2 inches. Long story short: first time I have ever bounced this plane on landing The biggest lipo I plan to run in this plane is 4400 MAH.

sowega flyer

I maidened mine yesterday evening- what a joy! I had a little bounce on the landing, but I will start playing with the balance a little as I get used to the plane. I have an ASP .80 4 stroke in it, mounted inverted and a 13x7 prop. I thought it might be overpowered before I flew it, but I'm now willing to say that it is an excellent combo.
I had some frustrating hardware issues when assembling the plane, which I hope is a fluke because I have always thought Seagull had some pretty good hardware for an ARF.
All in all, I am extremely happy with the plane. I didn't have any ground handling issues to speak of, it tracked straight on take-off and landing. (asphalt runway)

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

Looks like you have a winning combo! I keep telling guys at the field how much fun this plane is to fly. I also have the 1/4 scale RC Guys SD and it flys like a dream.

sowega flyer

I've never seen the RC Guys SD, but a 1/4 scale Decathalon could certainly be on my list of must have's! Do you have a link for it? This plane is my first scale (well, semi-scale) plane and I really enjoyed the way it looked in the air and the way it flew.

Mojavegold

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Here's the link. If you are picking a motor out for this plane, be aware that a realistic all up weight is around 17 lbs for electric.



http://www.rcguys.com/decathlon.html

cmoulder

I had an OS .61 FX and a Bisson inverted muffler (for the .91, fits the .61 perfectly) hanging around in the attic with nothing better to do, so I put them on the nose of the Seagull Decathlon.

The inverted mounting worked out quite well and I managed to get everything "under the hood" - I don't like cylinder heads sticking out!

Also put a little smoke systemin it.

Video link.

cmoulder

Had an absolute blast flying the little Seagull Decathlon today!

The model has the familiar quirks of short-coupled scale planes, but nothing that can't be toned down with a few adjustments.

The most obvious problem to me was the non-axial nature of aileron rolls, so I kept increasing the differential until it felt about right, and ended up at 50%! I was then able to do decent slow rolls without the plane yawing significantly. Of course that decreased the roll rate of the small ailerons, so I cranked the throw all the way out to the max and used only 30% expo to get it to roll pretty fast, but not blindinglyfast, whichit is just not capable of under anycircumstances.

As those who have flown it know, the rudder is extremely effective. I was tending to overcontrol it on take-off, and while I never groundlooped it,the overcontrol led to a sort of fishtailing andit was hard to keep it straight. That particular problem was solved by using a verylow rate (22% on mine, YMMV)combined with highexpoof 50% to keep from overcontrolling therudder. After that, take-offs were very controllable and nearly always dead straight.

I did a bunch of landings, and now I have a feel for the stall speed, which is surprisingly slow. Earlier, I was landing it too fast, which led to bounces because it was still above stall speed. Now, I just use the elevator to float it along at ground-effect level until it settles on its own. Looks fabulous when done right!!

KE's are a thing of beauty but require a good amount of cross control with the ailerons. Still, solid and locked in once the sticks are in the right position.

I've got the elevator and rudder maxed out, but even so the flat spins are pretty good though nowhere near dead flat as they are with my Phoenix Extra.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

Yeah, that is one really fun plane to fly! I have 40% ailerondifferential in mine and 60% expo on the rudder and she takes off straight as a string. I also mixed 20% ail/rud which takes most of the yaw out of the turns. I also put 2 degrees down and 2 degrees right in the motor, which helps out on take off.

cmoulder

Yep, I was also using rudder for turns, but I prefer not to mix with ailerons (at least not yet) until I get a feel for what is needed when flying it in other attitudes. Because of the little remaining yaw, it does a splendid aerobatic turn - usually requiring a little opposite rudder - all by itself without losing any altitude!

Much less pitch coupling the rudder than I expected, but still figuring that out as well. Does some really nice flat rudder turns at moderate throttle, and not overly sensitive at all on the elevator.

One little glitch with this ARF is that there is no right thrust built into the firewall. I re-drilled the engine mount holes anyway because I mounted my engine inverted, so I had to scoot the engine to the left side of the firewall and tilt it back to the right significantly. I gave mine 3 degrees of right and 2 degrees of down. Might sound like a lot to guys that don't know these models, but one must keep in mind that the nose is pretty short (requiring more right) and the airfoil is semi-symmetrical and a high wing configuration, thus needing a good amount of downthrust. Flies dead flat throughout the throttle range, and zero rudder corrections for vertical, so it must be right.

I think that perhaps the guys who needed gyros to fly this plane might not have had the engine thrust set up properly, or might not have toned down the rudder with expo. Once I did that, it was very well behaved during take-off.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_82...tm.htm#8219615

X2 100% agree. The first thing I did when I built this plane was check for firewall angles. It's an easily missed detail because it's an ARF and folks think that all the details have been addressed and it's time to glue it all together and fly. I converted mine to e-power, it flys on 6S lipo and performs great. I may end up running flaperons to slow the landing down a bit. The link to my build is up top ^^^ IMHO, folks who need a gyro, haven't addressed the motor angle, or need to practice rudder take offs with expo. It's easy to get thumb happy and over control the rudder on take off, so the expo makes all the difference.

cmoulder

Excellent conversion!

This model lends itself to customization because of its ample cabin space, generous wing area and, in my case, the voluminous cowl. How sweet it was to be able to get the smoke tank on CG!

Nice trick putting the battery hatch in the bottom of yours... how'd ya like to take that wing off every time to change batteries??

Speaking of batteries, I hate adding lead and can nearly always achieve desired CG by mounting the battery way back in the fuse. For this model, I made a little ply platform for the battery, cut the covering in the bottom of the fuse, glued in the platform and re-covered with red Oracover, which is an exact match.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

Thanks! I like the battery door in your airframe also. I don't like removing the wing to swap out lipos, so I look for good areas to put a hatch. I have done a lot of gas to electric conversions over the past couple years. I just finishedconverting a KMP spitfire running on 9S lipo. It's a great flying plane. I'm building a BUSA 1/4 scale cub in e-power right now. I'm building it in super cub configuration with flaps, fiberglass specialties cowl and Wallace gear. The pilot door is my battery hatch. I'll post pics tonight. Next project is a scale Huey running 60 mechanics.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

Here's the pic of the 1/4 scale BUSA cub fuse that I am building. It has been a straight forward build so far.

cmoulder

That's going to be a beaut! (And a LOTof work, especially covering.) Just guessing, scale power would be something around 2kw??

I don't have a shop so I must buy ARF's and assemble them as quickly as possible to get the mess out of the way. Nice weather is - for the most part - here so I am also able to use the deck, hence the extra latitude to work on the smoke system for the little Decathlon. If not for re-jiggering the engine and figuring out the smoke system and making an elevator joiner, I would have finished it in a week of evenings.

Next is probably a biplane for me, and probably the Seagull .91 Ulitmate with a 1.20 4c and smoke... now that I have a blueprint for a very lightweight smoke system.

I was very impressed with the quality of this Seagull Decathlon - not very often with ANY ARF that the stab and fin mount dead true in the fuse,right out of the box!!

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

I have aTurnigy motor running 2200 watts on 9S lipo with a castle HV85 esc. It's the samecombo that I run in my 1/4 scale decathalon. It's way overkill, even on 9S lipo. That just means reserve power for my left thumb. My decathalon gets great vertical performance out of that combo. On 12S, it puts out 3200 watts. I figure this cub should come in around 18 lbs AUW.

cmoulder

Wow!

Sometimes I get the urge to do a big electric, but it always comes back to the issue of recharging batteries. And none of the 3 fields where I fly has electrical outlets. When I get to a field, I like to get in 5-7 flights, so buying 5-7 sets of big batteries is cost prohibitive for me. Glow fuel is getting very expensive, so for anything needing an engine larger than 1.20 4-stroke it's gas for me.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

Yeah, I know the feeling, lipos are expensive. The way I get around the cost is I run all my planes on multiples of 3S in series, 3S, 6S, 9S etc.. That way I don't have lipos that are specific to any given plane and if I smoke one, I haven't tossed out a very expensive large pack, just one single 3S pack. I run my helis the same way. I have quite a few packs when I go to the field. Another secret: Buy Zippy lipos from China, they kick ***** on a budget and I haven't seen any difference in run time, power, or reliability compared to my expensive Polyquest and Flightpower lipos for 1/3 the cost. My field is limited to electric flight only, so unless I feel like making a long drive, I have no choice.

cmoulder

If my local field (about one mile away!) were electric only, I suppose I would "find a way" and do some conversions. As it is - with the encroachment of condos and other developments - it may come to that sooner than I think.

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

I maidened my Modeltech 81 inch super cub today. She's running 1125 watts on 6S lipo with an AUW of 8 lbs. Great flying plane, floats forever, got a 17 minute flight out of her!! Just mounted the scale gear on my 1/4 scale cub project and put the 6 inch Dubro inflated tires on. Should make a great bush plane. Boy have we hyjacked this thread... :O)

cmoulder

Have you got a thread going on this?

Looks like an awesome project, a large electric such as this!

Mojavegold

My Feedback: (71)

I hadn't started a build thread on this one yet, because I'm shipping out for Cape Canaveral next week and won't be able to complete her till I get home. I'll get a thread going when I get back. Thereare a few threads on the BUSA 1/3 scale cub, but none for the 1/4 scale and none for a 1/4 scalee-power conversion. I'm also converting it to super cub with flaps and glass cowl.

Slats!

My Feedback: (1)

Hi been reading this thread would this plane be easier to fly, land and takeoff than a Extra 300 or Cap 580 once you correct the thrust etc. Thanks