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Joined: 2/19/2002 From: Munster,
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quote:
I like the appearance of the SU-26 better than the 31 so we followed that design. If you find someone who can tell the difference you are dealing with a pro.
It's the gear Tom that's the only difference.
So I guess you got a 31 instead of a 26.
Still a great looking plane and a nice change from the Yaks.
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Well, I suppose I'm going to have to tell everyone how it went. I also suppose that will be a lot of typing so I'm just going to post this one and take a short break.
First picture is the new BME-115. 4 pounds, 1 ounce folks, and it comes with it's own tunnel ram manifold! 5-1/2" backplate to face of prop hub. Accepts any hole pattern for props that you already have, 3W, DA, whatever, with a snug fitting 10mm prop shaft the fits all the standard center holes.
Second pic is an old fat guy with the Sukhoi
Third Pic is both of the W/H Sukois. One out of production, one going into production. The old and the new.
Rabbits are starting to multiply out here in the country.
One for a little variety. The Yak owner is the other guy that flew the Sukhoi today.
Ok, here we go.
Took the new girl out for her first appearance this morning and discovered that I had a glitch that would show up in the rudder at the same places in the field at a couple of spots while in flight. Brought it back down and changed out the PPM receiver I had been doing the checks with and installed a PCM rx after checking things over. I'm fairly certain that some interaction betwen a carbon fiber tiller plate I made, the C/F tailwheel, and the wires I used to connect them up was probably the issue but there were no more problems after dropping in the PCM rx.
The first two flights were pretty uneventful with the C/G located 1/2 inch forward of the center of the wing tube. Two clicks of up elevator and a click of left aileron. Inverted flight took a little more "down" elevator than I usually like, indicating that the C/G could move back a little more and still be happy. I had the control travels dialed way down from what I usually like with 15 degrees of aileron, 20 degrees of elevator, and 25 degrees of rudder at low rates. Expo was at 35% for the rudder and 30% for the ailerons and elevator.
High rates were dialed back at everyone's persuasion to 30 degrees on the ailerons, 35 degrees on the elevators, and 45 degrees on the rudder. Expos were increased to 70% for the ailerons and elevators nd 75% for the rudder. The dialed down elevator will have a lot more importance later. Now it's time to fly!! The 105 with a 27-10 Menz was running just great so it was time to feel her out a little at low rates. Level flight was an easy hands off. Inverted flight was quite comfortable. Rolls were extremely axial and point rolls stopped right where it was told to. Snaps were down right pretty. You know how well a 40% plane performs a snap and just has a certain "elegance" in presentation as it moves through the maneuver? This one looks just as good.
Here comes one of the fun parts of the second flight, since the first one only lasted a couple of laps due to that stupid glitch. I figured what the heck, lets check the knife edge at low rate rudder. Well, I carried a little too much power and it was climbing in K/E so why not, will it go over the top? You bet!! and then the rest of the way around and never needed full throttle to pull it around the bottom!! A K/E loop on low rates and less than full power for the bottom quarter. Not possible but absolutely true. Lots of witnesses. Big round perfect loops, with Cuban Eights to repeated loops with no problems. The shoulder rolls are sweeeeeet!! All of this at low rates now.
The next attempt at K/E had me a little more ready to use less power and went trucking the length of the runway in K/E with no notable pitch coupling. I'll get back to that more in a bit. Time for a Hammerhead so I flicked in high rate rudder to go over the top and instantly stopped the plane with full rudder deflection. Oops, a little too much rudder!! That sucker is effective. OK, if it's that effective, how will it snap, rudder only at high rate? WOW! Tried that Hammerhead again with low rate rudder and it just pivoted over the top like it's supposed to, on the same line it went up, with very little roll coupling as it came over. Matter of fact, I did not need any opposite aileron to keep the top facing me. That's nice!!
Now I'm not into all that IMAC stuff but I had to see how it would fly for someone that was looking to do a perfect maneuver. 2.6 meter Comp Arfs just took the back seat!! This is a MUCH better plane!! I could not find anything wrong with the way the plane performed and I was looking for anything. Now it's time to play a little. Went for a fairly high attempt at a hover and found that she likes to use the high rate ailerons to counter a torque roll. That 105 was a bit more than the low rate ailerons could stop. She held rock steady in about 5 knots of wind and felt quite comfortable. Let's go up to see what a Blender looks like. Took her high and flipped everything to high, including a 60% elevator to flap spoileron mix. The only mix set in the radio. Went over the top at idle, three aileron rolls down and kicked it all to the inside top and she popped into a beautiful inverted spin which instantly flattened out into the blender spin as soon as the ailerons were neutraled out. Went back up for upright and inverted flat spins and drew a whole bunch of ooohs and aahs. Inverted flats are difficult to describe, other than they are very flat, lose very little altitude per revolution, and do everything right off the wing tip. Oh man, where was this plane last year??
Now I don't get a lot of practice in because of my job. In fact, this is probably only the 6th time or so I've been able to get out and play this year. Why not try a Harrier Roll next? Worse I could do was fall out and have to recover, right? Took her back up a little, flipped in high rate ailerons, spoilerons, and elevator and proceeded to impress everyone there (including myself) with the best Harrier Rolls I have EVER done. They were so good that I had to go back and do it again just to prove to myself that it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't, this plane makes even me look good. Yea, buddy!!
Remember that detuned high rate elevator? Going back up to do a Wall, then Waterfall, I found out that it would do a soft wall and fall out to the side of a Waterfall. I had forgotten that I detuned the elevators and only had 35 degrees. Tuesday the elevators go back to 45 degrees. Consider though, that this plane is performing really nice Blenders, Flat Spins, Harrier Rolls, and Hovering at about a medium rate elevator setting and a low rate rudder setting. Wow again!! What's she going to do when all the control starts becoming available? Should be real fun.
Brought her in, fueled up for a last flight and to let Dennis give her a shot. He likes to fly pattern maneuvers with a pretty good empahsis on the slow roll. He does them very well indeed with anything he flies. So I tell him, Dennis, just no low, slow rolls, ok? Sure Pat, no problem. Next thing I see is a slow roll and Dennis is going "WOW, I like this airplane!!". That's in the first 30 seconds of flying it! His later comments just got better. Brought her back, landed to a full stop, taxied back, and said what the heck, and blasted off again to go straight into a hover about 30 feet off the deck after a straight up take off. She just sat there waiting for me to tell her I wanted to do more.
The only difficulty I had with the plane was in getting used to the landings. Just about the time you're sure she's ready to put the wheels on the ground she blows right on past that spot for about another 40 feet or so. The wing is extremely effective. Say "Floater". It presents like a larger plane, but conforms to stick inputs like a smaller plane. You begin getting that comfortable "I think I'll fly a lot closer in and lower" feeling quickly. Stalls are a non event. It just mushes forward a little bit wings level and begins flying again. She will fly very, very, slow. My conventional Harriers were nothing to write home about, but I think the biggest part of that was the low elevator deflections, and my lack of practice. That will come around on Tuesday when she (and me) get pushed a little harder.
There are a couple of mods that need to take place with the lower cowl supports and the landing gear attach plate but Tom gave me a heads up about them before the plane arrived. Those issues will be handled before the production planes begin the manufacturing process. There are a couple of other general items that will probably be changed more for customer convenience than any real need to. I like it just the way it is, so the changes should make for a perfect plane. It flies better than a 23 pound 2.6m CA, (sorry Ralph) and that's saying quite a lot. I already told Tom to put me on the list for a production plane because I want a back up "just in case". I can't think of anything I'd want that would fly better. Oh, yea, she fits in the back of a long bed pick up with about 10 inches to spare set on a moderate diagonal, elevators and rudder on.
This plane loves to fly!!
With a lighter engine, the right battery set up, and a single good rudder servo this plane can get down to 24 pounds easy, and perhaps a little less. Is 23 possible? I don't know but 'm going to try for it with the next one. A good 80cc engine up to the 115 will fly it very well. Something super nice about that big round cowl is that you can move a lighter engine forward a poke the prop hub out a bit and still be scale in appearance. Better still, the guy that does that will gain a little increased propeller efficiency.
Did I mention in an earlier post that the 5" fiberglass spinner from Esprit Models has knurling inside the spinner backplate to help prevent prop slippage? I know I forgot, but it's in there.
(There were some rough videos taken but I have to wait for the guy to mail them to me since he has dial up)
< Message edited by Silversurfer -- 8/28/2006 4:14:08 AM >
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Posts: 4017
Joined: 4/20/2003 From: CENTRAL ,
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ben beyer
Nice carb plate cover.
I thought so Can't wait to fly it.
I was only there for the first two flights (under the weather the last couple of days) but the plane seemed to fly really well as Pat has so eloquently stated. It would have been nice to take the sticks for a few rounds. Maybe Wednesday, I think I am off Pat. As for the comment about the comp-arf, we will have to see Well I think I am going to lay down again before my head explodes.
Posts: 269
Joined: 9/26/2005 From: sherman,
TX, USA Status: offline
I like the basketball goal in the pits...Gives me an idea..LOL. Good to hear the plane flew good surfer..Did you ever get it balanced out? keep us posted...
Posts: 6173
Joined: 10/11/2002 From: An Iceburg in, ANTARCTICA Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: rctom
Production has not started yet, but very soon.
In the full scale world, the SU-31 is made of a lot more composite material and is therefore lighter that the SU-26. Other than that the only visible difference seems to be a lower turtledeck and larger canopy onthe 31 to give the pilot better visibility.
The photos below illustrate this. The red Honda plane is a SU-26, the other one is a 31.
I did a poll on here a few months ago, the SU-31 and 26 combined out polled the yak by a good margin.
One of the Russian aerobatic sites claims the SU-26 is the worlds most popular competition aerobatic plane, probably because it is relatively low cost and very high performance.
I like the appearance of the SU-26 better than the 31 so we followed that design. If you find someone who can tell the difference you are dealing with a pro.
TF
Good photos to show the differences. Looks like this one is a 26 with 31 gear. Any chance that the bowed gear will make it to the model?
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Posts: 12012
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Regarding that basketball goal.
Our flying field is part of the back yard of two neighboring houses. Both the owners of those homes fly full scale Luscombs so they have a runway cut and semi maintained behind their homes they are nice enough to share with us. We installed pavement on a 300' section of that dirt runway for our use, and have another 1,200' left over for overrun. Sometimes the owners like to go out a shoot a few hoops so the positioning of the goal on the edge of their taxiway near their homes is definately not an inconvenience.
Tom will have to answer about the gear thing. Personally I hope that the curved gear doesn't happen since I'm not going to try and use this to compete in a judged scale contest. What I'm always looking for is an excellent flying airplane at an affordable price that looks about 95% like the real thing. I don't think the gear shape will have any impact on the rarely enforced 10% IMAC rule.
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If you can''t fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.
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Joined: 2/19/2002 From: Munster,
IN, USA Status: offline
quote:
not bowed, because of strength
It may be apples and oranges but I had a Goldberg Sukhoi 26 and at 11- 12 lbs and strength was never an issue. If you saw the they way I landed you would understand. Heck the full scale ones have bowed gear and it works for them.
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Joined: 2/25/2002 From: Central, CA, USA Status: offline
I don't believe the subject of gear shape is in question any longer. Call it a straight legged 26, or a great flying single seat Sukhoi. For an extra 100 bucks or so TnT will probably be able to make a curved leg set for a 24 pound plane. Better still, if you're the first one to provide them with design measurements they will then make up a few extra sets, assign them a part number, then sell them to everyone else like it was their idea in the first place and give you nothing, including credit for the design, in return. Don't ask how I know, but think G/P 1/3 Pitts.
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If you can''t fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.
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RE: New Wild Hare Sukhoi ready to fly - 
