gemarl

It started out as a slow stick. But I wanted ailerons. I knew it wouldn't work well with all of that dihedral so I straighten the wings. Since I have a Brushless motor I lengthen the wing by about 3 inches. I used carbon Fiber tubing on the leading and trailing edge of the wing instead of the fiberglass rods that came with the kit. The aluminum tube fuse that came with the kit was bent. I did a pretty good job of straightening it, but by the time the plane was finished it, the tube had multiple minor bends. I straighten everything out as best as I could, but I cringed at the though of trying to trim this thing with at fuse that might have some weird offset or angle that I have missed.
So I took it all apart and put it on a Slo-V Carbon Fiber fuse. It wasn't as easy as I thought. The Slow Stick aluminum tube is 1cm square. The Slo-V CF tube is .8cm square. So I couldn’t bring any of the fittings over. My T-tail was epoxied onto the Slow Stick. So I had to make another tail. The CF tube has vertical holes drill into it for the V-Tail saddle. The T-tail needed horizontal and vertical holes. I didn't want to put more holes in the CF so I made a new V-tail with some 3mm foam I had laying around. I used CF strips to strengthen it. I had to mount my servos a little high to clear the material at the base of the V. I cut the top off of the Slo-V motor mount and mounted the V-tail servos there. Mounting the engine was a little difficult as well. After a couple hours of trying to make 1 mm shims with hardwood and CF strips, I took a piece of the larger aluminum tube from the Slow Stick and used it as a sleeve over the smaller Slo-V tube. I also fitted hardwood into both ends of the Fuse. In front of all of this I have a Himax 2025-5366.
I plan to reduce the wing incident as much as I can get away with to help increase wind penetration. I also made two flat sheets that I can tape (with vinyl tape) to the bottom to get more speed. The goal is to fly in 10-15mph winds. Flying weight with a 7Cell NiMh battery is 17.8 oz (add 2 more oz for the sheet and tape)
I'm calling it a Slow Stick for now. It doesn't have any of the stock equipment from Parkzone, except the fuse. Of course, the only GWS equipment is the wing, but I think the wing is the most prominent feature.

I'll make another post when I fly it for the first time.

1LO64

I'll be waiting for a flight report

gemarl

Flight report:
When I got to the park and tried to open the door, the wind blew the door close again. I should have stayed in the car! But, like so many other enthusiastic Slow Stick flyers, I had to fly. I did have the advantage of a brushless motor and slightly lower incident angle.
Take off was easy. I gave it half throttle and the thing jumped off the ground. I really don't remember a roll-out of any significance. One moment it was on the ground, the next moment I was fighting 12mph head winds. I was able to maintain speed with about 1/4 of the throttle. But the slightest cross wind sent the lead wing up and started a turn. The ailerons worked ok. But with high deflection rates needed to stay straight in all of the wind, the wing would twist. When the aileron went down, the back of wing would go up. The result would be the wing would roll somewhat then stay there. I'd have to kick the rudder to force the turn or neutralized the control and try again. Landings were tricky I had to do 2 go arounds on each landing because it was not directly into the wind and the wing keep flipping up with the cross wind gusts. I got two 5 minute flights out of it before I decided to stop tempting fate.
I think I'm going to take the tape of the leading and trailing edges and glue in the CF tubes. Maybe adding the flat bottom kit will help, too. I'll play with it some more during a calm day.