RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF  
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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/16/2008 9:19:46 PM   
*JCB*



Posts: 598
Joined: 9/23/2004
From: Redondo Beach, CA, USA
Status: offline 		Well, if you mount your engine in the vertical position, you might as well not even install the cowl. You will have to do such a hack job on the cowl for the engine and muffler to fit that it would just defeat the whole purpose. Just mount the engine on it's side, tune your engine correctly and preserve the looks of the airplane. If you tune your engine right, a side-mounted engine runs just as good as a vertically mounted engine. I haven't had a single issue with my engine mounted sideways...

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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/16/2008 9:55:45 PM   
sqeakalong


 

Posts: 207
Joined: 2/8/2008
From: Interlochen, MI, USA
Status: online 		I don't see any reason you can't mount the engine upright. You'll end up cutting a lot of the cowl away for the engine head and exhaust/muffler which might take some cowl structure integrity away as the cowl is quite thin. You'll need a muffler extension to get the muffler away from the side of the aircraft to avoid having to carve away some of firewall. Come to think of it I CAN think of a reason...that's a LOT of work !

I've mounted my O.S. .46AX per the instruction manual with the Pitts style muffler and it required quite a bit of work to get the cowl to look good with all the cutouts. Plus it's a pain in the butt to put the cowl on and off. I added a couple of additional hard point mounts on the lower firewall area to allow securing the cowling cutout around the Pitts muffler's two pipes; this will keep the thin cowling material from vibrating too much in that area. I also removed 3/4" length from the two Pitts pipes as they dumped right on top of the front wheel pant. An Atlas Super Saw (avaliable in the train section at the LHS - used for sawing train rails) works very well for cutting the aluminum.

Question for those using the Spectrum DX7: I'm using a Y-Harness to connect the flaps to one channel - which receiver port do I plug into for this? Also, I'm using separate leads on the Ailerons to allow differential setup with more up than down; one lead goes into the Aileron port - which port does the other lead go into and what is the best way to mix these together? This first 'Puter radio is a humbling experience !!

Soft landings.

Joe

(in reply to cjensen)
       Post #: 102

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/16/2008 11:47:45 PM   
*JCB*



Posts: 598
Joined: 9/23/2004
From: Redondo Beach, CA, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sqeakalong

Question for those using the Spectrum DX7: I'm using a Y-Harness to connect the flaps to one channel - which receiver port do I plug into for this? Also, I'm using separate leads on the Ailerons to allow differential setup with more up than down; one lead goes into the Aileron port - which port does the other lead go into and what is the best way to mix these together? This first 'Puter radio is a humbling experience !!




I am using an X9303 w/ an AR6200 receiver and I used the same setup that you are using and here is what I did:

GEAR: re-assigned this channel for the flaps to work on one of the 3-position switches (pg 58 in your manual). My flap servos have a y-harness hooking in to this channel (I actually slowed down the servos via the radio so the flaps deploy pretty slow. I thought it was cool )

AUX1: This is used for the left aileron.

I'm not terribly familiar with the DX-7, but from the what little experience i have with it, the programming seems to be very similar to the X9303. SO, set up the airplane on the DX-7 as a "Flaperon" plane (pg 39). This will automatically set AUX1 on your receiver as the left aileron. Then for differential, you just need to go setup the endpoints or dual rates for the throw you would like in either direction. You should be able to set end points for both directions of deflection for each surface. For example, for your left aileron you could set the LEFT end point at 100% and the RIGHT endpoint at 75% and do just the opposite for the right aileron (pg 50)

Hope this helps you get going on the right track!

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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/17/2008 1:24:53 AM   
sqeakalong


 

Posts: 207
Joined: 2/8/2008
From: Interlochen, MI, USA
Status: online 		Thanks, JCB!! Had the right idea on the flaps and you really helped on the ailerons. Will set the radio up tomorrow, balance her, and it's skyward bound!! Actually, I have to say that after "cleaning up" the sloppy build and working on this ARF a bit she does look nice at 5 feet. I even put the wheel pants on (the front one is way cool) so will see how it holds together.

I'm still jealous of your float site, though !! Something like that could get me thinking about moving to CA....ah....hold that thought a bit...

Soft landing'

Joe

(in reply to *JCB*)
       Post #: 104

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/24/2008 1:55:08 AM   
Marine_S7



Posts: 46
Joined: 1/15/2005
From: Clinton Township, MI, USA
Status: offline 		Hello all
Has anyone had any issues with the main gear mounted in the wing? Seems that ARF's in the past always needed to be reinforced in this area, I just brought mine home today and I am doing a little research before I start to build it, I am putting a OS 50 SX into it with a Slimline muffler, this should be a nice power house for this plane, but the gear mounting area is it fragile?

(in reply to sqeakalong)
       Post #: 105

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/24/2008 4:28:48 AM   
*JCB*



Posts: 598
Joined: 9/23/2004
From: Redondo Beach, CA, USA
Status: offline 		no problems at all with the wing-gear mounting. I have 15+ flights on land with plenty of touch and goes both with and without flaps. This plane is so easy to land that even if you had the landing gear CA'd into some balsa sheeting, you wouldn't have any problems!

Just build it up bone stock and you will have a great flying plane!!

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       Post #: 106

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/24/2008 1:55:49 PM   
sqeakalong


 

Posts: 207
Joined: 2/8/2008
From: Interlochen, MI, USA
Status: online 		Flew my Cherokee last night on its maiden flight: new plane, new engine, new radio (Oh boy...). Real nice flying airplane. Needed a bit of down elev. and a couple of clicks of left aileron to fly hands off from the beginning of the flight. The O.S. .46AX was running rich but this plane would scoot at 1/2 throttle or so..can only imagine how fast when the engine get broken in. BTY: that Bison muffler sounds real nice with this engine. The O.S. engine started, brand new, on the second hand flip (!!) and never looked back. What a nice engine. Did loops, rolls, etc. and the Cherokee flew great. Handed it off to a couple of fellow flyers and they were impressed with the smoothness of the flight. The straight ahead stall was unbelievable: very soft and kind of hung in there still flying 'til I finally just flew it away; never dropped a wing!

Had too much flap though: when I used the flaps (which are very effective!) the Cherokee shot straight up about 15 feet or so. Was having so much fun flying the Cherokee that when I finally HAD to land I came in over the trees (new field; first landing) and the plane was moving a bit faster than I would have liked, was about 15 feet over the grass and applied the flaps. HOLY#*^$@%!! Up the plane rose and...and...the engine decided that was a great time to quit.
The end of the runway was coming on and a valley and trees were looming. Put the plane down on the runway and ended up with the front wheelpant poking a hole through the balsa under the fuel tank, and one landing gear block broke loose. Didn't break my wooden prop though . We re-programmed about half the previous flap deflection and it should be much more docile.

Plan to have the minor repairs finished in time to go fly it again tonight! This plane flys great and was worth the trouble to make the corrections during the build. I will, however, remove the wheelpants (not great on a rough grass field, even during the takeoff roll) and replace the soft sponge rubber tires with some applicable sized DU-BRO tires. Other than that we are good to go.

(in reply to *JCB*)
       Post #: 107

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/25/2008 2:39:10 AM   
sevans16


 

Posts: 314
Joined: 11/16/2006
From: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Status: offline 		This should answer your landing gear question!! I had a couple of rough landings and a full throttle lawn dart. You can see it ripped the servos out!! It destroyed my engine. Worst wreck for me ever!!
Something went wrong at low altitude!! I was trying to recover and never got the throttle backed off.

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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/25/2008 3:07:49 AM   
sqeakalong


 

Posts: 207
Joined: 2/8/2008
From: Interlochen, MI, USA
Status: online 		Ah....a moment of complete silence please. Thank you.

Went flying tonight. Took the wife along so she could watch the new Cherokee fly. O.S. .46AX started on the first hand flip and ran GOOD; only the second time it had been run. Took off the grass runway alot better without the wheel pants and with larger (3" rubber tires. Looked nice too. Flew great...tried some inverted flying and was surprised at how well she flew. Came across the field at a pretty good clip, in full view of EVERYONE, including my wife, and went to do an inside loop to go back the other way. Ah...wait a minute, she's responding pretty slowly and loosing some altitude to boot...oh crap...I'm on low rate!...ah.....er..let me just say I've never seen an R/C airplane explode like that before!! I'd definately landed. My wife went to get a bag (actually brought back two) and we spent a bit of time loading up these really tiny pieces of balsa...after the motor had been pulled out of the ground. One of the guys behind me said..."it was inverted Joe". Well, DUH...

My mistake. Normally I fly on full rates and had been checking my plane over after the "fix-up" (see above) and in checking the control throws had checked low rates last. Forgot to put them back on full rate and the rest is history.

Conclusion: I did not care much for the "as delivered" construction for the ARF. Spent some time getting things right. However, this plane is a very nice flying ARF model. SMOOTH!! Looks real cool in the air and on the ground. BEWARE: Does not like sudden landing though.

Joe

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       Post #: 109

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/25/2008 4:18:12 AM   
ChuckW



Posts: 1894
Joined: 6/15/2006
From: Clovis, CA, USA
Status: offline 		Too bad about the crash. I know I felt pretty bad crashing mine. The replacement arrived from GP last week though and I just finished it up tonight. I made this one electric just to try something different. I just used the recommend 42-50-800 motor and 60A ESC. I figure it should be plenty of performance for a simple sport plane like this. This will be my first electric plane that's not a park flyer or a toy. I'm a little concerned about the battery packs I currently have for it so I'll be ordering some new ones tonight. I'll see how it flys on Saturday morning.

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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/25/2008 4:46:35 AM   
*JCB*



Posts: 598
Joined: 9/23/2004
From: Redondo Beach, CA, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sevans16

This should answer your landing gear question!! I had a couple of rough landings and a full throttle lawn dart. You can see it ripped the servos out!! It destroyed my engine. Worst wreck for me ever!!
Something went wrong at low altitude!! I was trying to recover and never got the throttle backed off.


...and Marine_S7 was worried about the landing gear blocks. THOSE ARE THE ONLY THINGS THAT HELD UP IN THE CRASH!!

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RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/27/2008 3:12:15 PM   
Marine_S7



Posts: 46
Joined: 1/15/2005
From: Clinton Township, MI, USA
Status: offline 		Thanks guys

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       Post #: 112

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/28/2008 1:16:34 AM   
Marine_S7



Posts: 46
Joined: 1/15/2005
From: Clinton Township, MI, USA
Status: offline 		should i scrap the wheel pants right off the bat? i am flying off grass.

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       Post #: 113

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 7/28/2008 1:52:05 PM   
sqeakalong


 

Posts: 207
Joined: 2/8/2008
From: Interlochen, MI, USA
Status: online 		I would say yes. And the foam wheels. The plane was much better on the ground with the 3" Du-bro rubber wheels all around and it didn't effect the balance. Another thing: if you land hard on the nose wheel you WILL punch a hole in the bottom of your plane via the front wheel pant "wing". Ask me how I know this?

Just my 2 cents worth. Soft landings! Joe

(in reply to Marine_S7)
       Post #: 114

RE: Great Planes Cherokee ARF - 8/1/2008 3:42:16 AM   
Marine_S7



Posts: 46
Joined: 1/15/2005
From: Clinton Township, MI, USA
Status: offline 		Ok no foam wheels after my next trip to the hobby shop, no wheel pants, came out nice, too bad about my battery pack, the only one I have is a 1400 milliamp nicad a bit heavy but all is good, I like mine a little tail heave any way, I added some tail weight right at the tail end of the fuse it put my cg right a 3 and 1/4 only 3/16 past the suggested start point and still way within range, just doing some finishing up on the wing tip where I add some weight for lateral balance, should be ready to go for this weekend the OS 50SX with slimline muffler and 11-7 propeller, instruction book says that engine spins it at 17,000 rpm, I here there is now a 55AX that is everything you can imagine.

Here is a link to the motor if anyone is interested
50SX
http://manuals.hobbico.com/osm/50sx-40-46-61-91fx-manual.pdf
55AX
http://www.osengines.com/engines/osmg0556.html

This plane should haul, it was ran all last year in a Kyosho super steerman40 and flew that with ease unlimited vertical and was very fast. I sold that plane near the end of the summer season last year and have been looking for a plane to fit the bill I think I have