I flew the WattAge Sopwith Camel
07-13-2003, 07:52 PM
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I flew the WattAge Sopwith Camel
I've have just finished building the WattAge Sopwith Camel. The picture of it in the ads doesn't really do it justice. It looks even better in person. It flies beautifully and is equally impressive in the air or on the ground. It gets lots of looks from everyone at the flying site, hobbyist and non-hobbyist alike. It doesn't look like a "toy" airplane. It is very impressive and very cute at the same time.
I'm fairly new to this hobby, only been at it for about 6 months. I have a Slow Stick, a Crazy Max and a GWS P-51. I really took my time building this model as it took me about a week to finish. I'm just slow and savor the building experience. I'd say someone who was in a hurry could finish in 2 to 3 days. The biggest problem I encountered building it was in joining the two foam fuselage halves together. I made two mistakes in doing this. First, I should have used a longer curing epoxy. I used 5-minute epoxy. Second, I tried to use rubber bands to hold the two halves together while they cured. By the time you apply the epoxy to both of the huge fuselage halves you have very little time left to align them. The rubber bands only made things worse by distorting the alignment. By the time the halves had set up, the sides had not joined correctly and I had to sand the sides to even them out. Of course this destroyed the factory paint job. This actually turned out not to be such a disaster. I found just the right paint to match and ended up painting both the fuselage and the tail surfaces because their edges were sanded, exposing the white foam. The brand of paint I used was "Delta Ceramcoat" acrylic paint, color: "Medium Foliage Green". It comes in a 2 oz bottle. I happened to get mine at Jo Ann's fabrics. The color matches well with the green that is already applied to the model and when applied with a brush it leaves no brush marks. I did not paint the wings. I left them their original green.
I was concerned that the cabane struts would not be strong enough but they are plenty strong. I built them exactly as in the instructions except I used transparent nylon sewing thread instead of the darker thread shown in the instructions to reinforce the center cabane attach points. Disassembling the built-up wings is a little bit of a pain but after doing so a couple of times it really isn't that bad. You have to dissemble both wings to access the electronics compartment. I'd say the weakest assembly point is where the lower wing leading edge is held in place with the landing gear wire. I would like to modify it to make a more secure hold down, however; as it is, it seems to have no problem holding up in flight even after several loops and several hard landings. By the way, it loops very nicely. The decals provided add a lot to the looks as do the machine guns and the pilot figure once they are painted as per the instructions. I only wish they had provided two more bull's eye or "rondel" decals for under the wings. That would really add a lot to the effect while in flight. I'm going to order a new decal sheet in order to do accomplish that.
I'm getting about ten minutes flight time using a 7-cell, 720 mah, NiMH battery, two Cirrus CS-09, 9-gram micro servos and a Castle Creations Pixie-20P, 20 amp, programmable ESC. The instructions call for a 5-amp micro ESC. On my first flight I was using a Great Planes C-10, 10-amp micro ESC. It fried 6 minutes into the flight, shutting down everything. The airplane made a nice little landing completely on its own without a hint of damage. The plane seems to have so much lift from its two massive wings and thrust from the 10-inch prop that I think I could put a hamster inside it and it would still fly. I'm flying it mostly at half power and that seems plenty.
I'm having trouble finding where I want the center of gravity. I added weight to the nose to get it within the range of the instructions but now I have very little elevator authority upon landing and it won't flair. It lands squarely on the mains and promptly noses over, a rather ignominious ending to an otherwise beautiful and impressive flight.
Takeoff is smooth and predictable on a fairly smooth surface (baseball in-field). In flight it is steady, true and realistic looking. It is capable of very slow flight. I have only flown it in calm conditions. I imagine it would do fine in a little wind also.
In conclusion, this is one heck of a kit, well worth the $59.97 I paid at my local hobby store. It is easy to fly, able to slow way down, impresses everyone at the field, a well-designed kit and beautiful to look at when it's just standing still. Looks cool, flies great and priced right. What more could you want? Now if I can just get a decent landing without nosing over.
UPDATE: I just flew it for the third and fourth time. It's 109 degrees here in Phoenix right now. The thermals threatened to take the Sopwith Camel away. It was going higher and higher even with the motor shut down. It did finally come back but I was so flustered that I ended with another nose-over landing.
After the wind died down I decided to try it one more time. As always, it flew great. This time, however, when I brought it in for a landing, I held in just a little bit of power. That seemed to do it! It landed perfectly on all three points and just stopped. I'm satisfied with the center of gravity location now. It seems that the folks at WattAge were right about that. If you just balance it where they say to balance it, it will be fine. I used the farthest aft suggested balance point. I also increased the elevator throw beyond what is recommended just for use in landing. This airplane is a true park/slow flyer. I love it and highly recommend it.
I'm fairly new to this hobby, only been at it for about 6 months. I have a Slow Stick, a Crazy Max and a GWS P-51. I really took my time building this model as it took me about a week to finish. I'm just slow and savor the building experience. I'd say someone who was in a hurry could finish in 2 to 3 days. The biggest problem I encountered building it was in joining the two foam fuselage halves together. I made two mistakes in doing this. First, I should have used a longer curing epoxy. I used 5-minute epoxy. Second, I tried to use rubber bands to hold the two halves together while they cured. By the time you apply the epoxy to both of the huge fuselage halves you have very little time left to align them. The rubber bands only made things worse by distorting the alignment. By the time the halves had set up, the sides had not joined correctly and I had to sand the sides to even them out. Of course this destroyed the factory paint job. This actually turned out not to be such a disaster. I found just the right paint to match and ended up painting both the fuselage and the tail surfaces because their edges were sanded, exposing the white foam. The brand of paint I used was "Delta Ceramcoat" acrylic paint, color: "Medium Foliage Green". It comes in a 2 oz bottle. I happened to get mine at Jo Ann's fabrics. The color matches well with the green that is already applied to the model and when applied with a brush it leaves no brush marks. I did not paint the wings. I left them their original green.
I was concerned that the cabane struts would not be strong enough but they are plenty strong. I built them exactly as in the instructions except I used transparent nylon sewing thread instead of the darker thread shown in the instructions to reinforce the center cabane attach points. Disassembling the built-up wings is a little bit of a pain but after doing so a couple of times it really isn't that bad. You have to dissemble both wings to access the electronics compartment. I'd say the weakest assembly point is where the lower wing leading edge is held in place with the landing gear wire. I would like to modify it to make a more secure hold down, however; as it is, it seems to have no problem holding up in flight even after several loops and several hard landings. By the way, it loops very nicely. The decals provided add a lot to the looks as do the machine guns and the pilot figure once they are painted as per the instructions. I only wish they had provided two more bull's eye or "rondel" decals for under the wings. That would really add a lot to the effect while in flight. I'm going to order a new decal sheet in order to do accomplish that.
I'm getting about ten minutes flight time using a 7-cell, 720 mah, NiMH battery, two Cirrus CS-09, 9-gram micro servos and a Castle Creations Pixie-20P, 20 amp, programmable ESC. The instructions call for a 5-amp micro ESC. On my first flight I was using a Great Planes C-10, 10-amp micro ESC. It fried 6 minutes into the flight, shutting down everything. The airplane made a nice little landing completely on its own without a hint of damage. The plane seems to have so much lift from its two massive wings and thrust from the 10-inch prop that I think I could put a hamster inside it and it would still fly. I'm flying it mostly at half power and that seems plenty.
I'm having trouble finding where I want the center of gravity. I added weight to the nose to get it within the range of the instructions but now I have very little elevator authority upon landing and it won't flair. It lands squarely on the mains and promptly noses over, a rather ignominious ending to an otherwise beautiful and impressive flight.
Takeoff is smooth and predictable on a fairly smooth surface (baseball in-field). In flight it is steady, true and realistic looking. It is capable of very slow flight. I have only flown it in calm conditions. I imagine it would do fine in a little wind also.
In conclusion, this is one heck of a kit, well worth the $59.97 I paid at my local hobby store. It is easy to fly, able to slow way down, impresses everyone at the field, a well-designed kit and beautiful to look at when it's just standing still. Looks cool, flies great and priced right. What more could you want? Now if I can just get a decent landing without nosing over.
UPDATE: I just flew it for the third and fourth time. It's 109 degrees here in Phoenix right now. The thermals threatened to take the Sopwith Camel away. It was going higher and higher even with the motor shut down. It did finally come back but I was so flustered that I ended with another nose-over landing.
After the wind died down I decided to try it one more time. As always, it flew great. This time, however, when I brought it in for a landing, I held in just a little bit of power. That seemed to do it! It landed perfectly on all three points and just stopped. I'm satisfied with the center of gravity location now. It seems that the folks at WattAge were right about that. If you just balance it where they say to balance it, it will be fine. I used the farthest aft suggested balance point. I also increased the elevator throw beyond what is recommended just for use in landing. This airplane is a true park/slow flyer. I love it and highly recommend it.
07-14-2003, 12:38 PM
#2
I flew the WattAge Sopwith Camel
How does she turn? It doesn't look like there's a whole lot of dihedral for a rudder ship (although my readings indicate that a large number of r/e/t planes are designed with far more dihedral than necessary), so I'm curious.
07-14-2003, 04:26 PM
#3
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I flew the WattAge Sopwith Camel
The only plane I have to compare it to is the Slow Stick as far as t/r/e only airplanes. It seems to be more responsive in turning than the Slow Stick. The rudder looks small but has more than enough authority. It turns promptly with a coordinated appearance and returns to rock steady straight and level flight at completion. It's hard to see it in the ad pictures but there is a slight dihedral built into the lower wing. The upper wing has no dihedral. I've included a picture that may illustrate this better.
