Quigleywins

Good to see that some of my old friends are still looking into see what's going on. I'm still working towards finishing but and there is always a but.I'm also working on a Telemaster the 100 inch job. So I have a distraction in the shed . Sandal I can remember you starting that model Years back . I will try to do some more work today and get a photo up for all to see. I did the tail feathers yesterday only to find I used a different shade of yellow so that bit is back where it started. Also looked at retracts just to be different, that took two hours before I gave it a miss. I was looking at a single wheel set up but the ground clearance was a problem with what I liked. Enough about the dreaming. I'l get dressed and head to the shed Take care all my friends.

DGrant

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A Butterfly is timeless!

Quigleywins

OK OK OK I know that I had reformed and was going to do some building a week ago, well if I'll realy try in the Morning I should get it finished for Sunday. I will post a photo of the progress at lunch time so you can have a look see.

ejam

My Feedback: (1)

Well, its been 8 years since I started this thread. I pulled out the butterfly and took it to the field the other day and had a great flight. Ive changed some things to it over the years. It now has an eflite power 32 with a 5000mah 3 cell lipo. cg is spot on and I was able to take off the nose extension. Im sure I will be able to get long flight times with this setup.

skylark-flier

Cool! Mine's still running with the ol' OS.26fs - wouldn't trade her for ANYTHING!

QUIGLEYWINS!! You ever get yours airborne???????

Quigleywins

Yes we have have 2 built and I still have 1 in the box I will always have one in my collection.. Great to see Earl back maybe he might stay.Earl about to start a Balsa USA 1/4 Sopwith Pup. Gee this is like old times. Just great. Yours Paul T

ejam

My Feedback: (1)

I still don't have a good place to build, but Im trying to. Went through my kit collection last night. I have a Dynaflite Skeeter, Piece o cake, a Step 2, Mini Bird of Time. I had started on the Skeeter a few years ago and never got finished with the first wing half. I am in need of the wing ribs. If anybody has a Dynaflite Skeeter kit they would like to sell, let me know. Paul, The butterfly sure did bring back some good memories, and was great to get her in the air again. I plan on being at the field more this year and would like to built this Skeeter.

ejam

My Feedback: (1)

skylark-flier, how has your butterfly held up to that engine? I had put an eflite power 15 on mine probably 7years ago and maybe 5 flights. Then 3 years ago I pulled her out and took her to the field. For some reason it was nose heavy. So I installed a eflite power 32 with the 3 cell 5000mah lipo. That balanced her out. I hope to do more flying this year.

skylark-flier

Plane's fabulous - engine's good (gettin' old). With the 4 oz. tank I tend to get 40-60 minute flights on her - great for those days I really don't feel like working hard. I HAVE been known to sit back on a lawn chair with my coffee and donuts, and fly her with a single toe, control box on the ground. 95% of flying this bird is simply turning left/right and an occasional up-tick or down-tick (single tick) on the throttle to climb or descend - sometimes I get lucky and find that sweet spot where she simply holds the same altitude for the entire flight, but not often.

Yeah, she's my "lazy" birdie.

Don't remember whether I've posted a pic. Here's a couple from a couple years ago:


Oh, yeah - this one's got trike landing gear. Had a camera mounted on her YEARS ago, along with special air-quality test equipment for a project and she needed the trike gear for that. Never changed it.

WIbowhunter

Hello!!!! I have been studying this thread for awhile and decided to join up to see what else is going on with the butterfly. I was looking for a powered glider and stumbled on the butterfly. Seeing as how I just finished a Sig hog bipe I really started looking for the glider. Some how or another I found the Butterfly. Then as I always do I went on the net to see what I could find. This build thread is what I needed. I have built 4 now. the first was J3 Cub kit that my kids gave me 30 years ago. A year ago I decided to build it and that got me started. I may not get the butterfly started until later this fall as flying time is just about to get started after this nasty winter.
I am a very rooky in this flying game and I want to get on with it. I do hope you guys are still around and help me with this when I get started.

skylark-flier

For sure, we're around. The butterfly's what you'd call an EASY plane - easy to build, easy to maintain, easy to fly, easy.

Mine, as an example, has been used for aerial photography, air sampling, flight training, fun, fun, fun, well....

Oldest person that I've taught to fly her (successfully flying with buddy box for over 30 minutes) was celebrating his 95th birthday. I took off and he took over at about 50' altitude. He landed it. It was his FIRST RC flight.

Youngest person that I've taught to fly her (successfully flying with buddy box for over 30 minutes) was 7 yrs old. As I see it, a 7 yr old doing ANYTHING for 30 minutes, is hooked. SHE is now 9 and has her own ARF Nexstar and kit-built Gentle Lady (she built it with her dad's help).

My butterfly's just a bit nose-heavy, mostly due to the tricycle gear set-up, and I keep her that way for flight training, but I have put a bit of lead in the trim box in her tail to truly balance her on occasion. Actually "balanced", she's a TOTAL "puddytat".

WIbowhunter

Nice hearing from you! The more I keep thinking about the butterfly I will have to get started on it. Of course I will have to get my building bench cleaned up all the way across it. This thing is much bigger then anything I have built before. I see in one of the threads that someone was using a sheet of stiraform on the work bench. At this time I am using a ceiling tile. I have a os 20 that I am thinking of using. I bought a Sig lt40 for $100 and instead of one there was 2 of them. In the bunch of stuff that came with them was this engine. I haven't tried running it yet but will do so. I gotta go over to Menard s to get some paint to paint the landing gear on a Sig hog bipe. It will be ready to fly then.

buzzard bait

A guy in our club had a Butterfly with an old OS 20 FS and it was perfect, hope you get yours going. Jim

WIbowhunter

The more I think of it I think i will start now as soon as possible to get going on long winged flyer. The only thing I am flying now is a little sport cub. This is my second one. The first one I had Was about 200' or so up and headed West. Searched many hours for it but never found it. I could fly the Lt40 I built that is setting here waiting for it's first flight. I have a mentor in the club that I will let fly it first.

Pork Chop

My Feedback: (5)

Jim, I was just getting ready to ask Dave if his OS-26 was more than enough power for the Butterfly since I have an old good running OS 20 FS I could use. Sounds like it will work good. Otherwise I'd go eflight power 15 or 25

buzzard bait

I don't know what prop he used, but I would try a 10x5, which it should swing in the mid to low 9000s; the guy really loved his Butterfly on that engine. I've flown my OS26 on quite a few planes and I consider it quite strong on a 3 lb plane, so I would expect the 20 to be fine on a floater like that. Jim

WIbowhunter

I just finished about 2 hour read on the manual of the butterfly. Not sure i understand everything it says but when looking at the plans I will get it a lot more. I will be needing to get a razor knife to do the wing leading edge but that won't be that hard. I'm going back to reading and see what else I can pick up.

Pork Chop

My Feedback: (5)

Thanks Jim

skylark-flier

Your .20 will do just fine. My OS.26FS surpass does just fine with her, probably actually overpowered a bit. 95% of the flight is at around 25% throttle - up a tick to climb, down a tick to descend. The only time I've usually got her at full power is for take-off, and that's usually no more than about 15 seconds or so. As she lifts off the ground she tends to rotate up rather decisively and I usually have to put a fair amount of down elevator on her to compensate for that last couple seconds before I cut power to about 30% for a much more gentle climb. I use a 9x6 prop that's now about 10 years old.

BTW, did I say that I usually get 50-60 minute flights with that .26? That's with a pressurized 4 oz tank. My longest, ever, flight was 73 minutes but I had her awful lean and eventually burned that plug out about an hour later. That was about 2006. Present plug has also been in her since that day. Don't run too lean - it's hard on the plugs.

Workbench - use whatever works. I've seen guys with workbenches that were worthy of a commercial cabinet shop, and guys who used the dining room table. Myself, I'm closer to the dining room table. I have a 1/4" sheet of poplar ply that I cut in half lengthwise and glued together on the back side, making it 1/2", about 35 years ago. That's always worked just fine FOR ME. Pins stick into it, although it takes a bit of effort, and I usually have to sand it down and add another coat of polyurethane every half-dozen years to keep it looking and working good. Cheap and easy enough.

WIbowhunter, you mention your "little sport cub". I have a vision of a electric with about 18-30" wing, something like that. You're going to be super happy with the Butterfly - she's WAY BIGGER than that, has VERY gentle flying characteristics and, like Jim said, she's a floater - - and BIG floater. I'm going to assume you'll use a modern radio in her with "hi/lo" capabilities on the control surfaces. If I might, when you get to setting the radio up, make sure that you do it on "hi" and set up the control surfaces to their max deflection. On mine, the rudder (on hi) can nearly touch the elevators and the elevators (on hi) go about 60 degrees or so - pretty steep. Set "lo" to 40% max. You might find, as I did, that 95% of your flying is on "lo" but once in awhile you want to play and impress yourself so you click both to "hi". Set up that way, the Butterfly IS capable of loops in a 15' circle (maybe less), spins, and what can only be described as the most awesome rolls you've ever seen (a 100" sailplane wing doing rolls is rather impressive) - and that's WITHOUT AILERONS.

For stuff like that you want to make sure to be able to lock you wings together. I use a simple hook and screw - hook on one wing, screw to lock it onto on the other. Here's a super-crude pic of what I've got in mind:

The blue line is the 2 wing halves joined together. Screw for the hook to rotate, screw for it to lock onto.

Don't let the instructions mess with your mind. She's a pretty easy build, most everything's pretty straight forward. My only improvement on the instructions was the wing spars webbing. Mine goes all the way to the polyhedral joint, front AND back side of the spars, just front side outside the polyhedral to the wingtip - but that was because I needed a much stronger wing for the sampling equipment and cameras.

Just remembered - LT40??? Get that critter in the air!!!!!!!!!!! FABULOUS PLANE!!!!!!!!!


Just remember

WIbowhunter

Man oh man that is a lot of info and I will take a few days to understand all of it but I will. That hook on holding the wings together is very nice. It took me a couple of seconds to decipher it. The engine I have is a OS max fp 20. The prop on it is 9-4. Is that ok or should I get something different? Yes the sport cub does have a 24" wing span. I should get it out and go flying. Although I'm trying where i stored the batteries. They are around here somewhere. supposed to be heavy raining so guess I won't go.
Do you double web the first part of the wing and then single web the last half?
How do you make it spin? The J3 cub the real one that I used to fly I did get it to spin now and then.
Tom
Tom

DGrant

My Feedback: (4)

I have pics in my blog at RCGroups.com... as well as a thousand more if you run into any issues. I've built 2 so far(albeit 28yrs apart from each other.. ha), and they're not bad if time is taken to understand and study it. Post up here if you need some help.

skylark-flier

Yeah, doubled to the polyhedral join, single past that to the tip. It's good that it gives the wing a whole lot more strength (remember, this plane was "purpose-built") but it DOES add some weight.

Spin - doesn't always work, but you get it into a full stall, cut the engine to idle and pull full elevator & rudder on "hi". She'll usually spin 2-3 revolutions and then convert into a long corkscrew. Impressive when it works.

Roll - rudder on hi, elevator on low, y'just pull up and hit full rudder with power on. LOOOOOONG easy rolls.

WIbowhunter

Skylark thanks for the info. As I read through it I think long slow ovals will be my flying for awhile. I do wish this weather would clear up so I could go fly the sport cub. I did fly a little stick built rubber model for my grandson. Was a little surprised the two long flights we got before it started raining again.
Tom

DGrant

My Feedback: (4)

One thing you want for a Butterfly, at least in my experience, is a looong clear runway.. at least for the approaches and landings. It jumps up easily when taking off, and does climb very well... but getting it to settle for landing just takes time. There's alot of lift in the wings. It's always very controllable, it just can't be forced down. It slows up very nicely though, and will just crawl around a tad above idle... and with some practice, the landing distance can be cut down some, just by slowing the plane down. It's just best to have plenty of room until you get to know it.

Once you get the hang of it, you can cruise around at 3'-5' all day long just passing the day away.... as you'll see how slow it will really fly... then it's much easier to spot land decently. The rudder is very effective, maybe moreso then some might think... It will whip the plane around very quickly.

Mine has the stock "tail-skid" just as the plans call for.... I didn't see much need for a tail wheel, as I'm not seeing the plane taxiing around... especially if there's even a light breeze... as again the wings have so much lift, it wouldn't take much to blow the plane up when/if taxiing... as it is it will take off in a foot(12") if there's even a slight head wind.

WIbowhunter

DGrant your threads is what got me here on this site. I read you web site here several times. I then decided to sign on and see if anyone was still around. I guess there is as there have been several threads from several different people on here.
Tom