Joystick TX

For those of you who were wondering how I obtain such precision alignment on my aircraft tail surfaces, here is my secret. I use a computer, see picture below to see how it works.

Joystick TX

Almost ready to fly. Had to get a little help from my wife. My big monkey paws wouldn't fit inside the nose and it was taking me too long to try to get the engine mount bolts installed, hers fit perfectly. I used to leave the bottom uncovered till I did that, but this time I forgot.

Now I need to add some weight to the nose to get the plane to ballance.

Will do the maiden flight without the cowl and final paint job.

Took a picture that shows the original plans for the little electric plane that I used as the inspiration for this one.

Joystick TX

Tried the Vanessa Balancing rig to see how far off the GC was. Turns out it was pretty tail heavy. It would take about 20 oz of nose weight to get the CG at the correct point.

I moved the engine forward by 1" and will move the two elevator servos out of the tail and put a single servo in mid fuselage.

The CG on the plans works out to 4.5" back, or 28%, from the leading edge of the 16" cord wing. Seems pretty nose heavy to me. My Giant Super Sportster wing has a 16" cord and the CG is at 6.25", or 39%.

The wing is similar to a Stinger which has a 28% to 33% CG range is is very hard to fly at the 33% point.

I think I'll stay in the 4.5" to 5", or 28% to 31%, GC range for this plane.

Joystick TX

According to the Vanessa Balancing rig, the CG is right on 4-5/8" which should be a good start. I can move it back a little by shifting the battery.

The first mark on the left was the original balance point. That would have taken over 20 oz of weight added to the nose to bring it to the 4 1/2" mark. The second mark is the balance point with the engine moved 1" forward. The plumb bob is pointing to the balance point, 4 5/8", after the two servos were moved from the tail to the fuselage. Each servo weighs 2 oz. I had three of them in the tail originally. Tail weight really adds up. For this plane the ratio was about 3.5 to 1, so a six oz weight in the tail would need to be balanced by 21 oz in the nose. I hate adding weight to a plane.

No additional weight was needed to balance the plane. The weight so far is 11 lbs 6 oz. Well below the design weight. Paint will add some weight, I'm not sure how much, it has been over 20 years since I painted a plane. I got lazy when the plastic film covering came out. I didn't try to cut weight anywhere. My GSS is 82" and weighs 13 lbs 4 oz.

Joystick TX

Did the maiden flight today. Only needed a few clicks of up elevator. The plane flys great. Good low speed flight and slow landings. Stable as a rock. Getting it back to the field for a smooth landing was no problem. I found that the vent line was pinched which caused my engine to run rough and die periodically. I managed to get in five flights before I peeled the gear off during a hard landing with the engine off.

Now all I need to do is make a cowl, get the pilot and canopy on, paint it and put on some decals and it will be done.

Joystick TX

I have 9 ea, 10 min flights on the plane so far. Replaced the Syssa engine with a new DLE 35ra. It turns a 19-8 prop at 7,800 rpm. That provides plenty of thrust for the plane that is now 10 lbs 14 oz. I moved the CG to 5-3/4" which seems about right for the way I like to fly. No additional weight was needed to balance the plane. The 3 degree wing washout seems to be working well. The plane lands like a dream, really slow without any tendency to drop a wing.

Time to quit messing around and get to painting.

Joystick TX

I got some paint and decals on the plane. Just finished flight #13. Still working on the cowl. Almost have it done.

Joystick TX

Finally finished the cowl. Also got some decals and art? on the plane.

The "8" in the arrow is not scale and has nothing to do with the Corsair, but it does have a history. It was the "unofficial" squadron emblem for the 56 AMS at NKP Thailand in the mid 70's. The "up" arrow was official, it had something to do with us keeping the planes "up" and flying. I added the "8" to it as a sarcastic way to show my disdain for the commander. He never caught on to the real meaning of my modified symbol. The term "Ate-Up" meant nothing to him, I think SNAFU would have been too obvious.

Joystick TX

A few more shots.

Stick a fork in it, it's done.

Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

Steve,
Great looking plane, nice work!

Bill S>

Joystick TX

Canopy lost during flight

I did the root cause analysis on the canopy to figure out why it took 37 flights for the canopy to depart the plane on a routine flight.

The magnets did a great job of holding the canopy on during the maiden flight when I tested their holding power at different power settings and maneuvers. They also did a great job for 36 flights. So what changed?

When I installed the magnets, I had a hard time figuring out what glue would stick to them AND to the expanded PVC bulkhead. CA would never cure, white Gorilla Glue would never dry, brown Gorilla glue expanded and never dried, epoxy and hot glue would not stick to the magnets even though I roughed up the surface with emery cloth. It seemed like plastic wood filler would work pretty well and to make sure the magnet would not pull out, I covered over the bulkhead with Solartex.

I lost the canopy on flight #37 during a routine flight. When I found the canopy, it was all intact, the magnets were all in place, and the paint and Solartex kept the balsa dry and the closed cell PVC was completely waterproof.

One of the magnets did appear to be loose. I took off the Solartex and found that the magnet had rusted and delaminated. The only way for water to get under the paint and Solartex and between the magnet and the PVC was water from the plastic wood filler which had “dried” rock hard.

The rusty and delaminated magnet lost most of its holding power which caused the canopy to come off on flight #37.

Another lesson learned. Who knew a magnet could rust this quickly?

Joystick TX

Just finished flight number 51 today. That's a little over 8 hours of actual air time. The plane is still doing great. The DLE 35 is running like a fine Swiss watch. No dead-sticks or starting problems. The canopy is staying on now with the application of a 1/4" nylon bolt at the rear where the magnets used to be and two 1/4" dowels up front.

The weather today was light winds and really hot, temps are in the high 90's now. Not many people are at the field nowadays due to the heat. Gives me more time for touch and goes. I need all the practice I can get.

Joystick TX

Even though the plane lands like it is on an elevator, I decided to activate the flaperons. I have two positions for the flaps. Both work well and don't cause any control problems. The plane does descend at a pretty steep angle with max flaps, about 10 degrees, with the no-flap descent being about 3 degrees.

It is fun to play with the flaps when the winds are light.

I have over 70, 10 minute flights now with no major issues. I did have to tighten the prop a few flights ago.

The plane is a real joy to fly, I find it really hard to drag out my Giant Super Sportster which used to be my all time favorite plane.

Joystick TX

I'm not sure what caused the centering problem on the HD 1501MG servos. It may have been that the testing was done with a 4.8 Volt battery pack. I'm using a 6 Volt pack now and there have been no centering problems.

I have over 100 flights on the Bell Hop now and the servos are doing great.

Joystick TX

I'm only averaging one flight a week on the Faux Cat now. The Extra 260 is occupying a lot of my flying time since my reflexes are getting a little better since I'm off chemo for a while.

I did bite the bullet and switch the batteries from two NiMh 5 cells to one LiFe 6.6V type. Will see how that works out.

optech

My Feedback: (9)

I've been away from RCU for a while now. Got bored tonight and thought I'd stop by and catch-up. Really good to see you finished this plane and have been flying the beans out of it and I really like the "Wildcat" style paint job. Very cool man!

Joystick TX

Thanks.
I just started to build a new plane, hopefully, it won't take as long as the Bell Hop.

I'm building a version of the Chuck Cunningham "Lazy Ace" biplane and it will be made from coroplast.

Joystick TX

Thanks to David Hill here is a video of the Faux Cat flying.


This was flight number 155.