rlarkin70

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hi all, just finishing up a 4-Star 60 build. i made a few mods: inverted engine, glassed/wood cowl, on-board glow, an access hatch. covered in 21st century film. Saito 72 for power, JR radio, futaba servos. since it was going to probably need some nose weight anyway, I opted to put in the on-board glow, mostly just for kicks. it turned out to work great though. the Saito had been sitting for a year out of an airplane. yesterday I finished up the servo installation and set the end-points, calibrated the microswitch for the glow. Then I realized....all I had to do was fuel it and start it up. I primed the engine, and it started first flip. like those Saitos. and this will be very convenient! just flip and go. I put an arming switch in the circuit so I can enable/disable it. it just uses a radio shack microswitch to do the job. I wired a charging jack on the panel so I could charge it up easily. 1800mah nicad, so should be plenty of capacity. only comes on at 1/4 or less throttle.
I couldn't find too many pictures of the build, these are from the past couple weeks or so doing the final stuff.
-Ron

rlarkin70

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oh and I forgot to ask...if any 4*60 pilots out there run flaperons, what settings do you use? I have heard that this plane will really slow down for some short field landings with a couple degrees of flaperons. But at the same time, I know this can sometimes lead to tip stalling problems. I was thinking I would experiment a bit, start with 3 degrees or so and do some one mistake high flight tests. =)

rlarkin70

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Well, last weekend I took the 4-Star to the field for the maiden flight. She flew great! Even at 7.5 lbs with the Saito .72 it has enough power to do all the aerobatics I want it to. Not much in the vertical of course, but it will do a decent sized loop from level flight, and you can do figure 9s and stuff, but it does decelerate once you point the nose up. Very docile and easy to handle on the ground, taking off, and landing. I haven't played around with the flaperons yet, I might just for kicks but it sure doesn't need them. I really am glad I put the on board glow on. It is only an 1800 mah cell, but there is a charging jack for it under the hatch and I can just top it off between flights. I found I get about 4 flights on it between charging the cell if I just leave it.

I did have a couple of problems. One, the Macs Mufflers flexible pipe cracked on the 5th flight, due to vibration. I think it is how I mounted it...I used a clamp on the muffler and fixed it to the fuselage. It broke right at the header coming from the engine end, so I think having the far end fixed and the engine vibrating did the job. I put the original threaded header (cut-down a bit) back on the engine. Not sure if I will bother to re-do the flexible tubing, but the cowl will now need to be cut down to accomodate the stock set-up. (I did not have the cowl on for the initial flights as you can see from the photos)

The other problem was with the fuel tank. I have a Hayes 13 oz. tank and I experienced 2 deadsticks in the first 10 flights. I havent used one of these tanks before, but in extended negative G nose-down maneuvering the engine is starved for fuel and dies. The good news is that both times I managed to bring it in to the runway, and the plane handled just fine. Decent glide, but by no means great. Good to get that first dead-stick out of the way though! I did make an access hatch so I could remove the tank easily. I took it out and looked at the pickup ... it just doesn't drop close enough to the front of the tank when down-vertical. I am going to re-do the pickup and fix this.

Here are some pics of before, during, and after the flight. All in all, I enjoyed the build, the mods I made, and now I can really enjoy a nice handling, docile, and mildly aerobatic plane. I think I will put in a lot of stick time on this one. =)

-Ron

Mustang Fever

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Ron:

Very nice looking airplane. The 4*s are real sweethearts in the air and on the ground.

I wonder if your flameout problem might be related to fuel tank size. I'm running a Magnum 91 in mine, and the instructions said don't use anything larger than a 14 oz tank. I have noticed that if the tank is too big, the exhaust can't pressureize it enough to insure reliable feeding, especially at lower throttle settings.

I go to great lengths to prevent my pickups from ever getting to the front of the tank, as they tend to get stuck up there. Even with this, I can do a 5 turn nose down spin late in a flight and my engine comes right back everytime. I wonder if a 10 oz might be better for your engine.

Regards.

pilotpete2

Hi Ron,
I have flaperons set up on my 4*60, I can dial them in for as much as about 25dg. surprisingly it doesn't show any signs of wanting to tip stall, but it seems to make the plane want to float off the end of the runway, so I tend not to use them. I'm going to see what a little spoileron will do, wish me luck I'm enjoying flying this plane more than any other I have had, including a 4*40. Mine is a BIY kit I bought at the WRAM show the year it was introduced, I finally got it finished for this flying season, It's built with no mods just some hardware changes and has an old Saito .65 which flies it very well, but overpowered it's not
Regards,
pete

rlarkin70

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Thanks, I thought I bought the 11oz but I got the 13oz. maybe I will try the smaller tank and see what happens.
-ron

rlarkin70

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And by the way, nice looking planes there guys. I've always wanted to try float flying, looks fun.