AcroJo

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Stdun, As fast as these things are its amazeing how slow and manuverable they are. With a little wind you can basically hang it in one spot. For one I believe these flying wings made me a better pilot. You can really get quick on the sticks. The only drawback I can see is too much time on these and you may get careless in the air due to the indestructable qualities of this plane. I've had this thing stuck in the ground like a lawn dart and start it up for another go. High speed passes with about 1" between the prop and the field are edgy to say the least. Great addition to any fleet. Joe

stdun

Worse yet, they land dead stick better than anything I own. After combat season was over it took weeks to land my 3D planes without ripping the landing gear off. The Pred X and the Panther just float in perfectly with or without the motor running.

AcroJo

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That 46FX makes a difference. I have a .25 Norvel to switch out if we ever get our combat act together. With the .25 you better hope your close by on a dead stick or else your walking. The 46La's extra weight makes this glide in from just about anywhere. Joe

Dave McDonald

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I just found this thread, but here's my OS 40FP powered Predator.
And here's a link to a web page about some modifications I made.
http://mypage.yhti.net/~dmcdnld/predator.htm

AcroJo

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Dave, looks real good. I see that you went with hatches as opposed to just burying everthing, any loss of integrity as far as wing stength goes?. Nice and neat and looks like you got everything pretty close to CG. I shoot for that myself, my battery is under the tank. The tank is centered in the wing and everytyhing else is close to my CG. What about the elevon servos in the center as opposed to mid wing. Do the ailerons throw equally out to the end or do you get twist? Joe

Dave McDonald

My Feedback: (19)

The Predator has survived a few mid-airs, plus a crash caused by an elevon servo that failed. So I'm not convinced the hatches weakened the wing enough to worry about. (receiver is under the large hatch, a 5 cell 270 mah NiCd is under the small hatch.)

I haven't noticed any problems with the elevons twisting due to mounting the servos towards the center of the plane. But if I built another Predator, I'd be tempted to move the elevon servos outboard a little farther to help resist flutter. On the other hand, this plane has never fluttered at all, so I'm not sure moving the elevon servos is really necessary.

AcroJo

My Feedback: (1)

Dave, I've seen a few of these that looked like they were just thrown together and I can appreciate your nice neat work which I feel also adds to the aerodynamic qualities of these wings. Go get em and have fun. Joe