Pilot Dolphin Review and Build
#226
I got three more flights on the Dolphin Jet today. This time I flew at my club's field where the strip is only 300'. Here is the video link: https://youtu.be/_rwtjZcKJjA
The landings were nothing to write home about but i did not break anything, I just need to get more familiar with this jet and then I'm confident I will be able to hone my landings. My buddy radar checked my speed, my normal cruise speed was about 105 mph, this was about 1/2 throttle. Approach speed was 46-48 mph with full flaps. I went full throttle on one of the passes and was clocked at 134 mph, I believe I can get this jet to 150ish if I have enough room to let it spool up. Our field is just too small to accelerate to full speed. One thing I figured out today is not to chop the throttle on short final, this will cause the nose to immediately dive making the flare more difficult.
I still feel the oleo struts are not right for this jet, the struts should not be fully compressed just sitting there under it's own weight. On another note, the replacement brakes that Tony sent me are working great!
Tom
The landings were nothing to write home about but i did not break anything, I just need to get more familiar with this jet and then I'm confident I will be able to hone my landings. My buddy radar checked my speed, my normal cruise speed was about 105 mph, this was about 1/2 throttle. Approach speed was 46-48 mph with full flaps. I went full throttle on one of the passes and was clocked at 134 mph, I believe I can get this jet to 150ish if I have enough room to let it spool up. Our field is just too small to accelerate to full speed. One thing I figured out today is not to chop the throttle on short final, this will cause the nose to immediately dive making the flare more difficult.
I still feel the oleo struts are not right for this jet, the struts should not be fully compressed just sitting there under it's own weight. On another note, the replacement brakes that Tony sent me are working great!
Tom
#228
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Fired up my K-140 yesterday. Ran great! We've finally got some decent weather in northern Mi., so should be able to maiden the jet soon. To Rcbidder...I used the same pilot figures. Put two in mine. They look great! My tail cone, by the way , worked just fine.....
#229
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Well, I went and flew the trainer wing today. I had absolutely no trim in the jet. Take off was strait and landing was predictable. My set up on the trainer wing was a little different than the sport wing. After hearing some problems guys were having I made some changes right out of the box. First is I went a little nose heavy. Second, I set reflex or crow in my ailerons at landing flap. My landing flap was reduced to 35 degrees and ten degrees of up aileron. This will all but delete the possibility of a tip stall. We took it up high and deployed the landing flaps. The plane literally came to a stop and fell on the nose with no tip stall. The jet likes to land at about 38-45 mph depending on flap configuration. We also landed with the jet on take off settings without reflex. This was my preferred way. It by no means needs full flap to slow down to land. You can drop it right in at 40 mph with take off flaps and have a perfect flair. The turbine we were running is the Power Pack cheetah from JC. I am a dealer for them now and this was the perfect engine. I was worried about tailpipe size but after numerous flights the pipe looks brand new. I am at 34 lbs full of fuel. The turbine is a 34 lb turbine. You can't ask for much more than one to one on this jet, and it is a blast. Our top speed was again right at 154 like the sport wing version. I do custom gear for these that converts it to electric gear and brakes. And they are awesome. Yes my struts almost bottom out when you are sitting on the ground. As you come in and land they settle in just fine and never "bottom out" the idea behind having a soft and hard spring in the gear is to keep them from bouncing on a bad landing. If they were any stiffer you would not like the results of a bad landing, believe me, I can almost make a living fixing jets that have bounced because of hard landings. Some people may find it odd or disheartening that the jet appears to be bottomed out, and yes you can bottom them out, but if your landings are a little off, the gear is saving you. I have already replaced a set of wings on one from 6 hard landings in a row. The gear box is strong!! And the gear was fine, but it managed to finally brake when it basically dropped 6' strait down. So fly the gear with confidence. Here are a few pics from today and the set up. The weight shown is a rtf weight, and the more nose heavy CG is also RTF CG. I will load a couple short videos of T/O and landing.
Last edited by MorseAircraftDevelopment; 05-04-2015 at 08:26 PM.
#231
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Here is the take offand landing. You can here me calling for my friend on the maiden flight. That's just how we work together on windy days. If one of sees something wrong we call go around, other wise you hear what you do in the video, having a caller is very important in my opinion when flying jets, especially in bad wind.
https://youtu.be/NHnTzpKTUuo
https://youtu.be/GZCRUw8lXI0
yoy can also watch the jet get picked back up with a gust of wind, it was very stable even in that situation.
https://youtu.be/NHnTzpKTUuo
https://youtu.be/GZCRUw8lXI0
yoy can also watch the jet get picked back up with a gust of wind, it was very stable even in that situation.
#233
Nice work Jordan!
I agree and can attest to the strength of the landing gear box, I've had a couple of bouncer landings and everything is holding up nicely. I also agree that the recommended full flap setting seems to be a bit much, I'm going to trying using less flap in my next flights. I really like that Xicoy weight and balancer, I can't wait to get one! I also really like your electric conversion on the gear, do you offer this conversion as a service or sell the gear as a package already converted?
Tom
I agree and can attest to the strength of the landing gear box, I've had a couple of bouncer landings and everything is holding up nicely. I also agree that the recommended full flap setting seems to be a bit much, I'm going to trying using less flap in my next flights. I really like that Xicoy weight and balancer, I can't wait to get one! I also really like your electric conversion on the gear, do you offer this conversion as a service or sell the gear as a package already converted?
Tom
#234
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Thanks Tom, I offer the swap as a service. There is machining involved and it is always cheaper to send me your gear than buy another set already set up. So if you want to have me do it I suggest the off season. Yeah, the CG machine is awesome. You should see the prototype flight computer Gaspar (Xicoy) sent me to test out. It is BA! Has a g meter ambient air info and all your turbine data and hand held data all in one screen that stays in the jet, and it outputs all the info back to your radio. I'm testing it now in my L39. Pretty sweet with my Jeti systems and the JC Rhino.
#236
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Jordan delivered a perfect jet....again!
Guys if you really want to treat yourself, have MAD build your next jet.
#237
Jordan, the new flight computer sounds very slick. Having turbine info on the radio could be very helpful. I have telemetry on one of my jets but it only sends battery info, no airspeed, alt, gps, or turbine info. I am going to be trying out my new SoloShot2 this weekend so we'll see how that works with a turbine. The JC turbine looks really nice!
I'll talk with you more re: the electric conversion this upcoming winter when the flying season slows down.
I'll talk with you more re: the electric conversion this upcoming winter when the flying season slows down.
#239
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Getting ready to maiden mine this weekend. You guys are scaring me a little! Bouncy landings, tip stall, reduced flap settings.....I 've got the " trainer" wing. Any helpful hints as to set before I fly it? Don't want to mess with crow....
#240
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Set your full flap to about 30 degrees then, test how the plane slowes down up high. The plane is able to get slow fast. Watch the video I posted above, that's the speed you want for landing. Landing on the take off flaps worked great for me. In the trainer wing the flaps a re just plain big, so you don't need Much! It flies great, just don't get it slow, like any jet. You will do just fine!!
#241
Jordan, thx for the info on the telemetry interface, I'll definitely be getting one soon.
Regarding your landing speed with the trainer wing, do you remember the wind speed that day? In the video it looked like you had a bit of a head wind when you landed, which could make a significant difference to your ground speed that those of us watching the video perceive.
Regarding your landing speed with the trainer wing, do you remember the wind speed that day? In the video it looked like you had a bit of a head wind when you landed, which could make a significant difference to your ground speed that those of us watching the video perceive.
#243
I got five more flights in today. I backed out the landing flaps to about 30 degrees and I can't believe how much easier it is to land, thanks for the recommendation Jordan, your flap recommendation was spot on! No bouncing today, all of my landings were very smooth. I will post some video shot with my new SoloShot2 robotic camera that auto tracks my plane. I feeling much more comfortable with this jet, it is a joy to fly even at fields with smaller runways. I will post the link to the video as soon as it's done uploading. Cheers!
http://youtu.be/mw5Y1kbvJIM
http://youtu.be/mw5Y1kbvJIM
Last edited by Tip22v; 05-09-2015 at 08:33 PM. Reason: Added Video Link
#244
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Well we are here at Nall and flying the Dolphin, we will post video and pictures soon! Here is link to a Facebook page I have started for all of us owners, and Tony is a member of it as well. FB seems to be a fast and easy way to communicate.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/798793893541249/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/798793893541249/
#247
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Finally maidened my Dopphin today! Flew great...two clicks down elevator....a couple interesting things....on all 3 flights, the jet rotated on it's own....anyone else experience this? Jordan, I set flaps at 30 degrees down, with a small amount of "up" mix...jet ballooned when flaps were deployed....took some out, still had some ballooning....ended up landing without flaps...was surprised how fast the landing was...it didn't want to slow down....landing were good however. Going to take out the up elevator mix next time and try that.
#250
I have a total of 16 flights on my DolphinJet with the K140, each flight about 5 minutes. The the flights were flown at half throttle except for takeoff and a couple full throttle passes. After the last flight I pulled the turbine just to do a quick inspection of the airframe and found significant charring of the wood airframe structure below, to each side, and behind the turbine. This is not good...
I'm going to try install some heat shield tape to see if this addresses the issue, if it does not address the issue then I think the only other solution is a smaller turbine or a different airframe. If you are using a K140 I highly recommend pulling the turbine after a few flights and inspecting for burn marks on the wood structure.
I also closely inspected the exhaust tube and it is showing no sign of unusual wear so I believe the 25mm spacing (between the turbine exhaust ring and the exhaust tube) recommended to me is working on that account, however that's not going to suffice if the wood airframe burns up around the tail tube!
Has anyone else experienced this issue?
-Tom
I'm going to try install some heat shield tape to see if this addresses the issue, if it does not address the issue then I think the only other solution is a smaller turbine or a different airframe. If you are using a K140 I highly recommend pulling the turbine after a few flights and inspecting for burn marks on the wood structure.
I also closely inspected the exhaust tube and it is showing no sign of unusual wear so I believe the 25mm spacing (between the turbine exhaust ring and the exhaust tube) recommended to me is working on that account, however that's not going to suffice if the wood airframe burns up around the tail tube!
Has anyone else experienced this issue?
-Tom