mauryr

Awesome flight and perfect landing Mike, congrats.
Just a question: what's the size of that airstrip? Looks like you used less than half, but the one I have available looks about half as long

Seeing you land that plane so easily really gives me courage.

Save me one of these reinforced spars, I might need it in the months to come How about a carbon tube + wood dowel, have you considered that?

One more month to delivery!

Cheers!

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

Thank you.

It's one of many great landings we made so far. It's very relaxing to set this plane up for landing if you deploy the flap fully. Remember to mix up-elevator for flaps. You need about 1/2" up trip on elevator at full flaps.

Runway is 650' long at our field. You should be OK with runway of 450' or longer.

If you are waiting for your plane, inform FB to put wood dowel on the spar. I had informed them to do so on all new plane. The new aluminum spar we got here is made in USA.

Mike

mauryr

Our runway is about 100 m long (330 ft). It's gonna have to make do as I don't have an alternative. The first take off is going to be intense If I overshoot the landing I can still brake in grass no problem, there's 100 more meters of flat grass after the runway, it will just make me look like the newbie I am

I will try asking FeiBao (quoting your name in the mail if you don't mind), but it's very likely the plane has been shipped out already, it's due around march 15. Not a big deal: adding a wooden dowel to the spar shouldnt be too complicate.

About the elevator mixing with flaps, I was considering to use the flight conditions available on the Aurora 9. That should allow me to trim the plane individually for 3 flaps positions (0, 50%, 100%): that way I don't need to setup any mixing and I can easily fine tune the asset in-flight, assuming the flaps are going to be on a 3p-switch, rather than a proportional lever. I'd keep the gear control on a different switch. What do you think?

Thank you.

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

You can lock the brake and go full throttle, you will take off within 200' or shorter. I did not go full throttle during take-off. I just like the nice and gentle rotation.

Your flaps set up seem fine. Just don't drop the flaps too fast without elevator compensation or the nose will dip.

Landing on a smaller runway will make you better pilot. See this video of my MIG21 landing. High Alpha and high power aircraft carrier landing approach can make it land within 200 ft. Remember it's a plane with very small wings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARydpkCtEvo

Mike

mauryr

My shortest landing, in strong crosswind, good for a laugh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg43Gbo-nao

(Of course that is not the runway I was talking about)

Locking the brake and increasing throttle to at least half before starting to roll was what I had in mind, and the reason I talked about intense first take offs: keeping it straight the first few times will be fun to say the least! I plan on doing some take off practice rolls before doing the real thing, just to get confident with this carrier style take off.
One of my greatest worries is to overspeed right after take off, having the need to do a power roll and not knowing how it will behave when up in the air.

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

Nice landing. You are ready for the Velox XL! Don't worry too much. Just don't try to practice landing by jumping off Taipei 101. I thought that Velox Xl was having some issues after seeing these reports of problems. I then decided to build one and tested it out. My conclusion is that the set up of flaps, control and CG was not correct on some of the air frames that were reporting the problems. Once got that all figured out, this Velox Xl is becoming our favorite plane to fly. We just pass Tx around at the field among jet guys who were only flying scale jets. Just practice my landing patterns and bring the plane slowly in on final. If it's going too fast go around again. It has enough fuel for 8-9 minutes of flights.

Good luck.

Mike

mauryr

Thank you Not so sure being able to land a profile foamy in crosswind means I m ready for the XL though!

I will maiden it when it's ready, meanwhile it's just chatting to kill the spare time before it's delivered, it'sagaintoo windyto fly out there
I don't plan on jumping off the 101, dun worry!

ira d

Mike have you flown the smaller Velox if so what do you think of the way it flys.

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

Hi Ira,

No, I have not flown the smaller version. I plan to get one build in 2 months and test it. Mike

mauryr

I just exchanged some mails with FeiBao to find out about the wing spar and it seems like the container hasnt been shipped out yet and it won't until end of march (which is when it was supposed to be delivered...). I'm still awaiting confirmation by my reseller but I am pretty annoyed, considering I've been saying since october I wanted it delivered before april and given them plenty of time
Now I wonder when it will be delivered...

On a brighter note, Mike's request for the stronger spar has been adopted as a standard for all Velox XLs which are being shipped around the world after about the 10th of feb.

mauryr

I wonder if FeiBao would do this for me... Yeah it's a poor quality and unfinished photoshopped picture (CBA to finish the elevator and left wing ), but it should give you the idea
They owe me after delaying the delivery by over one month!

yuri_h

Hello all! I also got Velox Xl. With KingTech k170E. Next week - first test in sky )
http://rc-turbine.ru/page_photo.html

mauryr

Nice, it's gonna be a rocket with a 170
Let us know how it goes!

yuri_h

Yes, immediatly after flight!
Before I have those:
http://www.rcvertolet.ru/form_k80e.wmv
Formost with KingTech k80e

yuri_h

First flight of Velox XL with KingTech k170e

http://www.rc-turbine.ru/velox_fly.wmv

mauryr

Congrats on your maiden, how did you feel the power with the 170?
I m still waiting on mine... still in the container from FeiBao... they are delaying by 2 months...

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

Nice flight. Congratulation!

How much flaps did you set at? I have my flaps set at about 55 degrees or more and 0.25" up elevators to compensate the pitching down tendency.

Mike

yuri_h

normal flight - less than 50% thr. Half-loop - (up) - small more than 50% thr
6 min flight - about 2 litre of kerosine

yuri_h

Flaps - 25 and 45-50
without compensate

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

At some compensation so it's easier to pitch nose up on final approach. It will slow down to crawl speed.

Mike

yuri_h

agree, that with a high speed aircraft release flaps to landing position led to a lowering of the nose. but at lower speed aircraft leveled

mauryr

Hey Mike, how are you?
While waiting on my XL I put together an habu 32 and I m having some fun training for the velox with this higher wing-loading little plane. It weighs over 3,2 Kg with a wingspan of just over 1 m...
Here's one of my landings (4th flight I think)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrPtNRamdMg[/youtube]

I tend to think the velox is going to want an approach more or less like this one - lots of flaps, low altitude, low speed, little thrust all the way to the track.

And omg, does feibao always delay this much? If so next order I m going to make will be 6 months in advance

Regards

mikedenilin

My Feedback: (67)

I am doing fine. I looked at the video. Your airfield should be fine for the Velox XL. Use a bit more flaps, like 25-35 for take off instead of 15. Taxi the plane to about 20ft ahead of the runway on the grass, so you get that extra 20 ft of roll out. Apply brake and go full throttle, then release the brake. It should take off within 250 ft.

Landing is a bit challenge because your runway looks narrow and short, but you can slow it down with a lot of flaps and slight throttle. You should be able to landing. Or practice this landing method as seen on this video

http://www.youtube.com/user/Globalje.../1/ARydpkCtEvo

I manage to land this MIG21 like that within 250ft. You can set a throttle curve to bring the RPM to 75% at 1/2 throttle, so it's easier to throttle manage for high alpha, power on landing.

Feibao normally takes 4 weeks to prepare a plane, but they do have some orders, and yours is a special paint so it might take slightly longer. The boat ride is slow too. Just make sure it does not go South after crossing Suez canal.

Good luck flying.

Mike

mauryr

I was just doing some random ranting
The container has been stuck at the chinese customs for the best part of last week. I know my plane was finished around the 25th of march: they sent me pictures of the paint WIP. I am just annoyed I placed my order in january and from a former delivery date around march 20th I am now looking at a may 15th and counting...
We have a competition on a grass field at the end of may and I was hoping to have the xl ready, but there's no way now

Oh well

Thank you for the tips about the landing. I am not sure I m ready to try a high alpha landing just now though...
We have some other big jets operating on that runway, including a kingcat and a few 2,5~3m hawks, mb339s, viperjets, a cougar. They all seem to do pretty well on the short runway even though, sometimes, they do occasionally end up rolling out in grass beyond the runway or - while trying to avoid touchdown too far in the runway - touch down in the grass before the asphalt, sometimes causing some damage to the legs. Some of us mock our runway by calling it "the carrier". I think we should start using hooks

mauryr

Ah, by the way, the runway is about 100m (330 ft) long and more or less 20ft wide.