Malcolm King

I'm a beginner to IMAC and I'm looking for a decent 30cc plane to get going in competition. Has anyone flown the Aerobeez brand of aircraft? Are they decent IMAC planes or are they geared more toward 3d? They are certainly very affordable.

drube

I have a 30cc Sbach and love it! I bought mine to learn IMAC. Great customer service also.

Check out this thread.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/3d-f...-aerobeez.html

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

Malcolm, just about any modern aerobatic scale airplane will be fine to get you started. The biggest thing to look at when selecting an airplane is wing loading. The more important aspect is learning how to set up the airplane to fly through the sequence as easily as possible. There have been several airplane trimming tutorials published, I suggest you look them up and start reading. You will also want to ( you and your caller ) download and read the IMAC judges guide.

Malcolm King

Thanks for the input! I have two more questions: Is it practical to fly an IMAC aircraft with a six channel radio? Or do you need something with more channels and greater mixing capabilities? And at what point does it become necessary to power the servos in an aircraft separate from the receiver, with their own battery and at a higher voltage?

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

A radio that has capability for dual aileron mixing and dual elevator mixing is IMO a must. You need to be able to dial in each ailerons and elevators travel independent of one another. For the ailerons you need to adjust them so that they have exactly the same travel up and down right and left side. Once you have this you can dial in a little expo so that both ailerons travel upward about 3/32" more then down. The reason this is so important is so you can get a true axial pivot when you give an aileron command. Without the proper aileron setup you end up with a roll with some pitch and yaw thrown in. This makes the pilot workload much higher. For the elevators you want to have the same adjustability. If the elevators don't track exactly the same you will introduce some roll input when you give an elevator command. Then comes the need for mixing. All scale aerobatic airplanes have control cross coupling. What this does is make the airplane want to tuck towards the gear when rudder is applied. This can be reduced by moving the CG forward some but most guys will end up mixing some up elevator when rudder is applied. Some airplanes will want to roll the same way as the rudder is applied so you will want to mix that out too.


As far as battery power goes, for a 30cc to 50cc airplane I would go with a single lithium 7.4V 3000 mah battery and 6V regulator that is capable of 10 amp surge. Power the ignition Via a IBEC. There are other batteries you can use without a regulator however the benefit of the regulator is that your servos always see the same voltage. This means the airplane handles the same from the first flight of the day to the last. Very important when you are trying to nail snap rolls. No need to go with a power expander or power box until you get to 120cc or bigger.

Jetdesign

My Feedback: (8)

Hi Malcolm,
I just bought the 30cc Aerobeez Sbach. It shipped today, I'm happy to report on anything once I get it. But there is plenty of good info out there about the company, and also a great build review by 'aesthetic dentist' on Youtube, who goes over the whole experience of buying and assembling the plane. The value is great, there web site is accurate with respect to stock and pricing (for example, I got the plane on sale, it was the last one and I was not able to add another to basket) and I got order/shipping/tracking information the next business day (which was this morning )

I've been flying pattern for a few years (similar to IMAC but different kind of airplane). I flew in 1 IMAC contest last year, actually in a class above my skill level as no one else showed up to fly Basic (I will be OK in Sportsman, I just had never practiced snaps, spins, or point rolls before). Anyway, I think any decent scale plane is fine for starting out, and as said above the key thing is to set it up right and to practice.

Where do you live? You should try to find a club with other IMAC pilots to fly with, it helps a lot and is a ton of fun.

For this plane I am running electric. The receiver and servos share one regulated lithium battery. 6 channel radio can work, can also not work. I had the Airtronics 8 channel radio with which you can not set up individual aileron rates. It was a learning lesson. I had the Futaba 6EX radio before that, and found it lacked a feature I really wanted for precision flying. So, you can make it work, it might not be perfect and if you are looking to buy a radio, you're probably better off looking for 7-10 channels.

I still have to figure out servos. I have 4 Hitec 7975's which are marginal with respect to the karbonite servo gears (good up to 12lbs) and the 140oz-in of torque for most surfaces. I do want to keep it light, so I might use them and get a set of smaller/lighter elevator servos (Savox 0251 maybe).