BJ64

A few words of advice, if I may...

Regarding yeasts used in home fermentation.

Steer clear of bakers or bread yeasts - their fermentation is far too rapid for beer/wine making. There's yeast, and then there's yeast. A good quality brewing/wine yeast has been cultured so that it does its work over an extended period of time, and in relatively cooler and more stable temperatures. Bakers yeast is designed to do its work in tepid temperatures and within a couple of hours - even shorter.

The upshot of that is that 'fast' yeasts can produce undesirable 'fusil alcohols' when used for fermenting malt/fruit extracts. The 'fusil' alcohols are the higher order derivatives of Ethanol (booze, as most of us know it). This can lead to the production of a whole raft of nasties on your ferment. Or, conversely, the production of Methanol. In tiny quantities, their obnoxious taste and odour is almost imperceptible - but they're still there. And their presence can lead to 'headache' wines and beers. And we've all come across that sort of thing somwhere along the line. Or even just plain toxic results when created as a bi-product in larger quantities.

As a basic rule of thumb - the slower you can ferment at, and the longer and more even the process, the better the quality of your project.

A fine purpose-cultured yeast doesn't cost that much more than a basic bread-making yeast - yet the end-product can be worlds apart...

BJ

saucerguy

My brother has a massive custom built pro brewery, he makes an extensive amount of beer, wine and cider. He uses only bread yeast, 100% of the time.

critterhunter

For our first attempt at "wine" (with Pears it's called a Perry) we used champain yeast. Not only is this stuff more robust than bread yeasts, it will survive into higher alchohol contents to achieve higher ABV (Alchohol By Volume) levels, where as other yeasts might peter out at a much lower alchohol level. That being said, this stuff still completed primary fermentation in only about 5 to 7 days. When we transfered it to the secondary (glass jug) we never again saw any traces of fermentation such as the occasional bubble in the breather. In fact, it tasted totally dry at that time and having used 10 pounds of sugar it appeared it had all been converted to alchohol (7 gallon primary, 5 gallon secondary).

The other thing about bread and certain other yeasts is that they create a lot of foaming action, requiring you to provide a good amount of head space in the primary to prevent it foaming over. We only kept about 2 to 3 inches of space in the primary bucket and still we never saw any foam rise above the very surface of the must. I've heard horror stories where even in the secondary a wine will foam out if you are using certain yeasts.

The one thing to watch out for with any yeast is a sulfur smell as it ferments in the primary. While this is a natural process, if that gas stays trapped in the wine for too long it can start affecting the taste. To get around that besides stirring it well twice a day in the primary, we also "splash racked" the wine the first two rackings. What that involves is simply pouring it through a funnel or otherwise splashing the wine up (egg whisps work well for this) to release the gas. If it still has a sulfur smell when you first open the secondary to check a week or so later then it needs another splash racking. The trick is to know when to quit, because normaly you are trying to avoid exposing the wine to oxygen to prevent oxidizing it, so it goes against the traditional goal when racking. Later rackings we did it the normal way to prevent this, by placing a siphone hose at the bottom of the container we are racking to and allow the wine to flow in under the surface. Campden tablets from what I understand do help prevent oxidation, and actually we probably splash racked the wine 3 or 4 times because we didn't know what we were doing and kept trying to squeeze juice out the of sediment through a mesh bag when we really should have just been dumping that, because most of the sediment kept getting back into the wine. It was only the last racking about 3 or 4 weeks ago that we just siphoned down to the sediment and threw the rest out, so had we done it the proper way from the start I bet we could have bottled in less time than the 9 weeks it took to clear this batch.

Saucerguy, did you catch my pictures and update on the previous page at the bottom of my stick glider. Remarks?

critterhunter

Also, some yeasts (and especially bread yeasts) can give off flavors to wine, so I'm staying away from them. I'm sure there are reasons why some people like to use them, though, in particular in beer I could see why you'd want certain "bready" or "grainy" flavors.

Ran across this cool thread in the scratch built foamie forum on RCGroups and felt it would fit perfectly in this thread with the theme being cheap and easy and not always EPS construction (though I prefer it). It's a glider with a 60" span built from a single sheet of dollar store poster board. Talk about cheap and simple, and for a pretty good sized glider. The weight is real low too. I'm not a big fan of flat foam planes but I just might build this one, or should I say my own variation of it as I never like to follow other's plans and always have a few design ideas I want to try. I figure a variation of this glider should be a good candidate for my Rhino 750ma 3 cell packs.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1138106

saucerguy

Critterhunter, I think the dihedral is plenty for a tail feather controlled bird. I've done them too dramatic and they got so tossed around by the wind.

With the first batch of cider, it was using bread yeast for the fermenting process, I heated it up after it was done, "just needs to get 130 degrees for it to be pasturized", added some sugar to sweeten it up, and just a dash of Turboyeast, sealed the 3 liter bottle and let it sit for a week. Perhaps the turbo yeast ate away the bread yeast flavor, then again, letting it sit did allow it to clear out, so the settling process might have something to do with it as well.

All of the latest batches are using turbo yeast, it's producing 14% within 2 days, or waiting 5, it's at 25%, but I'm probably not getting that high since I'm just winging it along the sugar content. I do like the taste of the ones with the Champaign yeast better regardless., So, all in all, if you are on a limited budget, bread yeast is fine, if you want to pay for the premium stuff, go for it, it's only a matter of taste. My brother swears he's not seeing any difference in alcohol content regardless of what he's using., and the guy is such a die hard experienced brewer, with an overkilled set up, I'm going to take his word for it rather then what's floating around on the web.

critterhunter

If he's that experienced then by far I would rely on his input, as I've only made one batch of wine thus far and am reading what books I can from the library with much still yet to learn. I just know that from what I've been told champain yeast gives a good flavor without as much risk of off flavors and such, not to mention being more robust in a high alchohol content, although I think there are several other yeasts that can survive at even high ABV.

The other reason why you want a good hardy yeast is so that it crowds out any wild yeasts or bacteria that are trying to live in the wine. The quicker the wanted yeast gets a foot hold and crowds out unwanted things the better. That's why Campden tablets are important to some people. You put that in at one per gallon when you first dump the fruit and such into the primary. It sterilizes the wine, killing off bacteria and wild yeasts. 24 hours later you put in your yeast, and ones like champain yeast can tolerate the sulfite (campden tablets) better while others can't. Some people don't even use campden tablets, or use roughly half what it calls for as sulfite is one of the things that cause headaches. The cleaner you are the less you need to use them or not at all. I think it also prevents oxidation and gives off CO2 gas to fill up the head space in the wine but I could be wrong about that. My guideline is 1 per gallon (crush it up and mix well) in the primary, then 1 per gallon every 3 months after that, preferably when racking it. On our pear wine we didn't know the rules and only used 3 in the 7 gallon primary and then 1 per racking. Despite how many times we splash racked the wine as a result of trying to squeeze juice out of the sediment and pouring through a funnel the wine didn't oxidize.

Another trick: Most people like the primary to be a gallon or two bigger than the secondary, as you can pour any excess juice into another gallon jug or two. Then when you rack the wine the first time or two and lose a good bit of volume due to sediment you just pour in the juice from the gallon jugs. Or, just go heavy on your fruit per gallon and just add water and it won't water the wine down. Some use glass marbles to make up for lost volume or even pour a bottle of wine in. Mainly once fermentation stops or is very slow and thus it's not giving off much C02 gas to protect it that's when you have to worry about too much head space. Three fingers tall in the secondary. In the primary it doesn't really matter with the fermation gases creating a CO2 blanket over it to protect it. In Italy many old schoolers pour olive oil on top of the wine to protect it as it will float on top and seal it, and then head space isn't a problem. Some even use a bottle of CO2 gas to fill up excess head space.

Thanks for the info on the stick glider. Without much fuse hanging below the wing I was a bit worried that it my counter act the dihedral and cause instability. I did some more work on it this morning. ESC wires shortened, extended servo wire soldered in where I needed things to reach, wing mounted with plastic nylon bolts. Just have to shim the wing in the back, solder up the newly shortened motor wires, re-check COG battery placement and then glue in the velcro loops to hold it where I want it, and then build some landing gear. Anxious to see the final AUW weight so I can computer wing loading, which I expect to be the lowest on any plane I've ever built. This plane is a type of hybrid. Not quite a Slow Stick or Slow V (a bit longer wingspan and not as wide), and not quite a glider (a bit shorter wingspan and a bit wider of a wing), so it's a true hybrid that I hope will retain some traits of both types of planes. Should be able to fly at walking speeds lightly and easily just off the ground, while also being able to float on the lightest of thermals. I've always enjoyed a friend's lighter builds in this respect with the ease of very slow flight ability if wanted on those windless days when you just want to take things super slow or catch a very light thermal or two.

Not that my So or my 6 foot wingspan glider won't fly at some really low speeds, but just the same they are a fair bit heavier and certain qualities are gained and lost at higher weights. Just like the So...A few versions of that that I built in the past were very light (for me), closer to the I think intended 15 ounce AUW weight. Those builds showed certain abilities such as that 360 turn around on a dime type deal the So is known for. A bit up elevator and a hard left or right and the plane almost seems to stop in mid air and turn around in one spot. My current So still retains some of this ability but not nearly as well, but on the other hand it's heavier weight gives it other advantages such as handling higher winds with greater ease. I can't remember off hand but I think my current so is like 27 or 32 ounces in AUW. Maybe as low as 24oz but I doubt that. Still, with the oversized H-stab and dual rudders of a So design it still has great low speed traction and handling ability. Being a pusher also helps in that respect because of the direct air flow over the tail surfaces even at very low throttle.

saucerguy

One my later batches, it was the first time I used the tablets, I boiled the water with them, which dissolved them, let it get to room temperature, and used the water to mix up with the frozen juice. I didn't read up on the time frame, ie. waiting 24 hours, and added the yeast immediately instead of waiting. Low and behold, 2 hours later, it was bubbling away nicely. So, there is an option for those that want to be overkill with sterilizing it and not having to wait. Along the stick creation, slowsticks don't have any noticeable degree of difference and they do just fine, so that's a good example to use as well.

critterhunter

Good point about the slow stick/slo-v designs.

As for wine, all fruit has wild yeast on it, so if you don't put in the Campden tablets are are late to putting in your own yeast things can go south. On the other hand, some don't use Campden and things work fine, and on another hand some even ferment the wine using no added yeast. They let the wild yeast do it's thing, though it's a much slower process and risks off flavors if the wrong kind gets going.

BJ64

Those "off flavors" are due to fusil and other alcohols being produced...

BJ

critterhunter

I've just about finished the Stick Glider and will be throwing up some new pictures of it that are easier to see details in. Just have to re-solder a few motor bullet plugs that I shortened, shim the back of the wing, glue in the battery velcro loops where I want them for precise COG balance, and make up some removable landing gear. This has for sure been one of the easiest/fastest builds I've ever done due to having no body to sand/cover or having to sink the electronics.

critterhunter

There was/is a great thread on RCGroups about showing off your scratch built foam motorized gliders. One of the planes that really caught my fancy was this one a guy dreamed up and built in the pics below. I may have to try my hand at building this thing, as he was kind enough to post some specs on it for everybody. Just love the looks of it, but I'll probably build it in EPS as always. Here's that thread...

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=595238

BJ64

Finally got back to my 'project' - a scratch-build 1"16 F-111.

But, alas, it's not 'foam' - I'll be going for glass as the end product...

BJ

saucerguy

critterhunter the leading edge of that bird seems rather sharp, I hope it doesn't pose a problem for the pilot.

BJ64

Here's where I'm at with building the fuze plug for the glass hull - and I just had a thought...

I wonder if I could somehow put foam slabs in between the formers and wire-cut each 'sandwich' using the contours of the former on each side, then remove the foam blocks and re-assemble them to form a foam core?

Anyone done that sort of thing before? Would make an awesome scale foamie if it worked...

BJ

critterhunter

I would figure that would work fine, so long as you kept the hot wire temperture low enough to melt the foam but not dig into your formers, or at least try to move fast. An alternative would be to trace out the contours onto the foam and then cut near those lines, sanding the final shapes out.

I ran into a problem with my stick glider. Got everything finished up and just needed to shim the wing and then re-check COG to find the final spot for the battery and then glue on the velcro loops to hold it there. Went to remove the nylon wing bolts. Forget the size but they are smaller than the standard 1/4" (or whatever) I normaly use.

Anyway, I always use two dowl rods sunk/glued into a foam fuse and then drill/tap the bolt holes for the two bolts. I feel using thick dowl (almost the diameter of a hot dog I'd say) provides more grab area so that the wing doesn't pull out of the fuse on a crash or something.

Well, I didn't think using dowl rods would be the best method for securing the wing bolts on this stick frame, so I drilled two holes through the carbon fuse then CA'd two blind nuts onto the bottom of the carbon for them to thread into. I had screwed the two nylon bolts down first into the blind nuts to make sure they were sitting exactly where I needed them to line things up, and then used CA around the edges of the blind nuts to lock them in place.

Low and behold I thought I did a good job of just getting CA at the outter edges of the blind nuts without any chance of it wicking over to the nylon bolts. Nope, can't remove the stinking bolts! I don't have any CA disolver so that's out, so I'm looking for ideas on how to fix this.

I could cut the heads off the bolts and then pry the blind nuts free with a screwdriver or something and use two new bolts/nuts, or I was thinking I could heat up the metal blind nuts and that would soften the bolts where they are touching them and probably allow me to unscrew them. The other idea would be to drill them out inside the blind nuts but I don't know how well that would work either.

I could use some ideas on this. It's kind'a frustrating to be this close to a completed bird and then have something stupid I did cause me to not be able to take it for a maiden.

Also, I didn't put any motor thrust angle in and I didn't put incidence into the tail either, which is my normal routine to slightly cock up the leading edge of the tail feathers. I'm not too experienced at shimming wings so I could use a best guess on the amount of shim (in inches) to place at the back of the wing.

On wine, today I think we are going to make our second batch. This time we are going to use pears again as I froze over 30 pounds from my neighbor's tree that we used for the last batch. Instead of 6 pounds of white rasins we are going to put in two gallons of rasberry/apple juice along with the 10 pounds of sugar. It's the Juicy Juice brand, which is 100% juice with no preservatives and on sale right now at Giant Eagle. Two 1/2 gallon jugs for $5. I was tempted to pick up the Kiwi/Strawberry as that's on sale too. Also, a small tip: I had a coupon for .68 cents off a 5 gallon bag of sugar for Giant Eagle and thought that was a great buy off the like $3.85 price tag. I was at Walmart later and noticed their Great Value Walmart brand sugar was like $2.54 for a 5 pound bag. That's pretty darn cheap. Also picked up a few packs of champain yeast at the local wine supply store and they were only like .45 cents a pack. I hear if you are doing up to 5 gallons in the primary then one pack is fine, but if it's more than 5 then you should use two packs.

saucerguy

You can always cut the bolts off, drill and tap new threads into it if you have the equipment. CA is not waterproof, so soaking it for a day or so might also break it down enough to get the nuts back out., or simply drill out the entire nut out of it's position, and drill larger holes for larger nuts to be recessed into it. Keep in mind though, the spot that will break on the fuse will be where you just weakened it through drilling holes through it, I'd find another way, such as attaching something to the top of the stick, such as what's set up in the original slowstick, and rubberband the wing into place.

It's amazing how we are now in grocery land, looking for those deals, coupons included to make a cheap hobby, even more inexpensive. Last night I had a store bought beer as well as tried out some of what I call Grog, on the last batch of experiements. The beer was cheap, and actually a let down in comparison to the home brew. The grog is simply brown sugar, a tad bit of grape juice, and a pear that were all boiled down for the slurry, used the high yeild yeast and let it do it's thing for just over a week. It came out well, not the most flaverful concoction, but adding it to some soda made for a nice mixed drink. I think the alcohol content on this mess was closer to 20%, and really tasted like I went out and bought some expensive vodka, but smoother, but the grand total on just one of the 3 liters came about to around 60 cents, lol.

I'll be doing beer soon, the one thing that bothers me about my brothers brews, he always has insane amounts of alcohol content to them, so you only get to enjoy a couple, else you end up regretting it the next day. I like the taste, not trying to get hammered out of control, so I'll be keeping a closer eye using the hydrometer I just picked up to limit that one. The carbonation in authentic German beer is something I missed since leaving that country so many years ago, it's going to be a tough fine balance to get it up to that level without the bottles exploding.

critterhunter

Know what you mean about how things change when you are at the grocery store looking for juice through the eyes of a wine maker. It can be pasteruized, it can be filtered, but it can't have any Sorbate, sulphites, or say anything else about preservatives. That will stop the yeast from working it's magic.

Saturday at around 4PM we dumped the 30 pounds of pears plus 10 pounds of sugar and a gallon and a half of raspberry/apple Juicey Juice brand juice, about a gallon to two of boiled (cooled down) water to top it off, along with pectic enzyme (helps to break the fruit down), acid blend, and 7 campden tablets (1 per gal). We left about 3 inches of head space in case it foamed when the yeast started working. It's important to wait 24 hours after this before putting the yeast and yeast nutrient into it because the campden (sulphites) that sterilize things need that long to go away so it doesn't hurt your yeast. We only waited about 18 hours and we had problems (see below), but it turns out it wasn't the campden.

The fruit was half frozen and that along with putting the bucket in the cold basement didn't allow the yeast to start working. Since we had put the yeast/nutrient in Saturday at around 9AM or so, come Monday when we didn't see any bubbling from the breather we started to wonder why. Well, we brought the bucket upstairs and it still felt ice cold, so we then taped a heating pad to the side of the bucket and put it on high. That night (Monday) we still didn't see any bubbling. The bucket temp was probably 65 degrees or so, so we figured it might be still too cold and we'd let the heating pad work over night.

This morning (Tuesday) it was bubbling madly. Checked the temp of the must and it was 82 degrees. That's a little iffy, because best heat for champain yeast is 70-75. Since the yeast was going like wild we took the heating pad off and are monitoring the temperture. Since the house is about 66 or 67 degrees I bet now that the yeast is going it won't need the heating pad, but will watch the bubbling because it should bubble for at least around a week. Somebody told me to bring the temp back up to about 72 degrees when it looks like it's done just to be sure all the sugar has converted. The alchohol/temp thing is that once the alchohol gets real high the yeast might go dormant if the temp is too cold, so it's good to get it to 70-75 to be sure it's really done and not just sleeping, otherwise your wine might be too sweet having not ate all the sugar.

Anyway, had it not started fermenting this morning we were going to go get another packet of champain yeast and start that in some warm water along with a teaspoon of sugar or so. Once it starts foaming/blooming in an hour or two you throw that in. We never have done that and just sprinkle the yeast in. If the temp is lower than 70 it's probably a good idea to start the yeast in a cup of warm water/sugar to get it going.

So it was about two days from yeast to when it started fermenting, once we got the temp up above 70. I was starting to get worried because the longer you go without the yeast working the more chance of bacteria or bad yeast taking over. The fumes from the breather smell sweet and wine like so I think we are OK. The 7 Campden tablets should have killed anything anyway in there.

I learned a big lesson. The wine should be 70 to 75 degrees when getting the yeast to start. After that I hear you can let it get down to say 65 or so because the yeast now has momentum, but 70 to 75 is best. Also, the cooler it is the longer fermenting takes. And, fermenting fast (say keeping the temp above 75 to like 80 or more) is not a good thing either. The yeast can burn it's self out and also cause off flavors. We are going to do our best to keep it at 70 to 75 for a week, but if it drops to say 66 and is still bubbling well then we aren't going to throw the heating pad back on. When it looks like it's stopped in say a week we'll put the pad on and get it up above 70 again to make sure it really is done.

I was sick with worry that all that good fruit was going to go bad on us if we couldn't kick it into gear. I was pretty sure it was the temp but I was also splashing the juice/must a lot when stirring to release any gas from the Campden tablets. They say to do that to get it out of there. Stirring twice a day now. Watching temp. Everything looks fine.

Oh, one final tip from a newbie. On our last batch we were getting a rotten egg smell. That's normal, but usually an indication that the yeast doesn't have certain vitamins or minerals that are found in the yeast nutrient. We had only put in about half the amount with the last batch, where as we put in the right amount with this batch to guard against that. It still didn't effect the taste of the wine because you just splash it when stirring to release it, and also splash rack it a few times (pour it through a funnel) when racking the first and second time or so.

saucerguy

Those big batches are what can make you worry if things aren't going perfectly. I ran into a similar thing on this current batch of cider. I'm brewing it in the trailer now, so the temps aren't as warm as in the house. I let that batch sit on it's own for a day, didn't see any bubblies, so pulled them out last night to sit beside the heater for a few hours, so got it started to do it's thing. Keep in mind though, without seeing bubles, I held my ear up to it and did hear the crackling sounds they make, so I guess they can be smaller then what you can see, and still doing it's thing, be it more slowly.

I'm going to try to get some progress done on my plane today, it's been rainy and windy all week, so not a huge rush on completing it.

critterhunter

Happy to say we just racked from the primary to the carboy yesterday and all seems well. That was about 5 or 6 days of visible fermentation in that the breather was bubbling.

I've ran into a few PITA issues with the completion of the stick glider but it should be done in a day or so when I get to it. Once done I'll be throwing up some more pics and data on it.

critterhunter

Hey Saucerguy, take my advice...After sampling both batches of our wine right after fermentation was done they were darn nasty. It's amazing how much the taste improves after only a few weeks to a month after fermentation, and of course it gets even better as time goes further on. Our pear wine (really it's called a perry when made with pears) can be bottled/drank fast like ciders and certain other wines can. We bottled/drank our first batch in 9 weeks and it could have been done sooner than that. We are shooting for less time than that with this batch because we know what we are doing with the sediment now (siphon off the juice and don't even mess with the sediment). Just letting you know that if you wait a month or so it will taste much better. I could hardly stomach ours early on. Man, what a difference.

saucerguy

I tried my first batches, just after fermentation using the bread yeast, and yeah, not so good, but waited a week and 1/2 longer, was the best I had, yet I did pasteurize it and added some sugar after fermentation, which changed it from being so dry. I'm using predone juices, so that might help in the process. The campaign yeast's still yield the better tastes, but the turbo yeast is still fine. Ciders seem to be a lot easier to pallet early on compared to the wines, and being a beer drinker, I prefer them over wine. Keep in mind as well, I'm not adding sugar, just letting the corn syrup and natural sugars suffice, so that may also help speed things up, for it's burning off faster then the the ones of which I added sugar to. Last night's tests were form a batch I started around two weeks go, it came out actually too well., wasn't prepared for the alcohol content, but understand I'm letting them ferment at lower temps, periodically bringing next to the heater once in a while to let the yeasties kick into gear. The two were from turbo yeast, and came to absolute completion a couple of days ago, the other were form the champaign, and are still doing their thing, yet even did a little taste of them in that state, and they were quite tasty regardless.

Weather lately is bad, and I'm gearing up a couple of rigs for my food service gig that I'm launching in a couple of weeks, so have been side tracked and not motivated to be doing the rc stuff, but will send a report once I get back to working on that bird. I don't have indoor facilities for working on them, so have to wait for nice days, otherwise get in trouble for making a mess, lol.

BJ64

LoL...

We should start calling this thread "Here's a Simple Hooch Recipe"

Merry Christmas you guys....

BJ

saucerguy

Well, if you follow along here, it's a couple of rc plane buddies, more like online brothers, sharing our lives as this legacy of a thread has gone on. I think we've covered a ton of non rc tangents in the process as well, this just happens to be the latest one. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention in the last post, you can nuetralize any activity going on and mellow out the green hooch with some soda, the preservatives do change things dramatically, and I've done that with some of the early taste tests, "also good if you have a sensitive stomache, lol", don't drink any kind of volume of this stuff if it's still doing it's thing, even if it just happened to cool down and makes you think it's over with. don't ask me how I know, lol.

Still, it's simple and nearly free, so not exactly off topic.

critterhunter

Finished up my stick glider, which I’m calling the Yellow Jacket because of the color scheme. It’s design and wing falls somewhere in between a glider and a Slow Stick/Slow-V type plane. I’m hoping it will do both some thermal riding as well as some very slow flying, sort of combining both worlds from gliders and Slow Stick type airframes.

By far this is the lightest plane I’ve ever built thanks to the twin carbon arrow shaft “fuse” booms glued side by side, despite my ever present tendency to over do the strength mods like I do with all my planes. The wing loading is also the by far the lowest I’ve done.

She should be a real floater even at almost non-existent speeds lofting slowly just above the ground, but also with the ability to ride the faintest of thermal action on calm days.

This is also the first time I’m using something other than my standard 2200ma 3 cell lipo, this time using a 750ma 3 cell Rhino pack. I only did that because I bought these packs to convert my metal detector to run on them to save some weight.

Another first for me is having landing gear. I figured having such low drag with the almost non-existent fuse I could burn a little on some landing gear. The tail end uses the head of a zip tie as a skid plate.

So with all that in mind, here’s the stats on this puppy.

Yellow Jacket Stick Glider (For My Reference, Radio Name Is YEL)

Wing: Hotwired EPS foam. Two carbon arrow shafts joined at the center to strengthen it and hold the dihedral. Wing bolts on via two nylon bolts. Shimmed almost ¼” in the back for incidence.

Airfoil: Slightly Modified USA27

Wingspan: 47”

Root: 7 5/8”

Tips: 6 1/8”

Trailing Edge Swept Forward 1 ½”. Leading Edge is straight.

COG: 2 & 1/4” From Leading Edge (I Hope)

Wing Area: 323.125 sq. inches

Wing Loading: 7.531 oz/sq.ft (Including 1 ounce nose weight…see below. She should be a real floater! I think the lightest I’ve done so far was like 10 to 12oz or so.)

AUW: 16.9 oz (Wow! That’s real light for me! And one ounce of that is a led nose weight because I couldn’t move the battery any further forward without risking hitting the folding prop.)

Tail Feathers: Cell Foam 88 strengthened with bamboo skewers & some flat sticks.

Plane Length From Trailing Edge Of V-Stab To Tip Of Spinner Cone: 34 ¾”

Controls: Rudder/Elevator

Wing/Tail Covering: Ultra Coat Yellow With Black Stripes & Black Bottom Of Tail For Orientation At Far Distances

RX: JR Sport

Servos: Two HXT900’s

Motor: Blue Wonder Alex Custom Wind. 1300 k/v 13 Turn Y

Prop Options: 7x5, 7x6SF, 8x3.8SF, 8x4 (All should be under 10 amps)

Prop: Siren EP Hotliner 8x4 Folder

ESC: Tower Pro Mag 8 20 Amp

Lipo: 3 Cell Rhino 750ma 20C

Amp Draw: Somewhere south of 10 amps

Sorry about the picture quality. The colors look washed out. It’s a very bright/solid yellow color and not what the pics show. Felt good to build a plane again. This one went together real fast but I ran into some odd problems that took time to resolve. Hope to maiden it with Alex this week.

critterhunter

Those pics were kind'a hard to see the plane in, so here's a much better one. It maidened yesterday and flew great without a hitch, just needing some trimming on the radio, rates adjustment, and the one ounce of nose weight because it was acting tail heavy. Couldn't be happier with it! Landings and take offs in a parking lot! She's a real floater!

I took the cautious route since I haven't flown in a while and had a friend maiden the plane for me since his skills weren't rusty. I let him do the take offs/landings and I took over the sticks when it was up in the air just to scrape the rust off my skills. She flew about 3 or 4 times getting the trim/nose weight/rates right and now she's smooth as silk. Any time you come home from a maiden without a wrecked plane is a big bonus, and if it did crash I could have blamed him.

I can't move the battery any further forward without risking it getting hit by the folding prop, so the nose weight was required. However, I may build a basswood battery box for it slug under the fuse where it is now. That would make installs of the battery easier (it's a pain messing with two velcro loops that are in a criss cross pattern to hold the sides/front/back of the lipo from all sides) and also provide a bit of "constructive" weight where I could then remove some or all of the one ounce led noise weight. I figure a enclosed flat box that just bearly fits the lipo inside it. One side of the box would be open so the lipo would just slide in sideways, with a single velcro strap over that side of the box to contain it.

I was looking through some hi-tech glider stats and my wing loading is right in line with most of those at just over 7 ounces. I wonder how well this plane would do in doors? [8D]