bradyb

Hello Folks, I just maidened a Hangar 9 Tango yesterday. She flew great with an Evo .46. Plenty of power for hovering, knife edge loops, etc… The power off full rudder flat spins were gorgeous.

Anyway, I bought this plane in preparation for a Lake Powell Boating trip next month.

have always wanted to fly a float plane in Powell.
I purchased a set of floats from ebay: (Item # 320383842198). They seem about right:
24 ounces
33 inches long
17 inches from tip of float to step
4 inches high at step
3.75 inches wide at step
15-1/2 inches wide stance (center to center of floats) when assembled

With the Tango:
Wing Span: 48.5 in (123.19 cm) Overall Length: 49.5 in (125.73 cm) Wing Area: 747 sq in (48.19 sq dm) Flying Weight: 5.5 lb Engine Size: .46 2-stroke; 4 to 5 in back from leading edge at the wing root Wing Loading: 17.4 oz per sq ft Prop Size: 12x4

The Tango has about 7 inches of tail feathers on it so at 80% from prop to elevator hinge, 33 inches is perfect. She’ll end up a bit more or less then 7 pounds with floats so 3.75” is a touch wide but I assume okay. Do you all think those are good match for this plane?

My question is this, at what incidence should I install the floats? The Tango is a fun fly so she has a super fat wing (3”) that is perfectly symmetrical, she also has huge ailerons that are inline with the wing’s center line. A plane like this will not take off unless you increase your angle of attack substantially unlike a flat bottom trainer that will take off at speed. Should I do more then the usual 3 degrees of incidence for the floats? On the other hand I have a huge elevator that can pull down on the tail.

One more question as a fun fly she has rear mounted/exposed servos for elevator/rudder. What in the hey do I do for those? I guess I could make a quick water shield/blister to cover the servos. Can’t I just cover them with Vaseline and call it good? They are just the standard non digital servos.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

With the top of the floats level, the wing should have a positive 2 degrees

bradyb

Mike, what do you think about the exposed tail servos?

If it helps, it will be dry desert air at about 110 degrees, stuff dries out quickly there.

Ed_Moorman

My Feedback: (1)

I had a Neptune catch a wing tip and cartwheel, tearing the wing off. The rudder & elevator servos, which were side-by-side were different brands. One was a Hitech 425, the other was a Bluebird 621 (or some number like that), Both werestandard size.

When I got home and removed the servos, the Hitech was full of water, but the Bluebird was dry. It has O-rings and is waterproof. Later I tested one by dunking it in a glass of water and operating it with the receiver on the table. No leakage. I am putting Bluebirds in all my seaplanes.

Photos of Bluebird servo in water glass showing 2 positions of the servo arm. I actually cycled it for a couple of minutes.
Photo os servo after removing from water. Note there is no water in the case. The transparent black/gray plastic helps.

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

Mix in a little flaperon with elevator. You can route that mix thru a switch if it flies better without it.
You won't need as much incidence that way. If you get too much incidence, it can make the plane laterally unstable on the takeoff run, pre-rotation.

Unlikely you will have any issue with the tail servos. Wing servos either.

bradyb

Hey Ed those servos look good, they're cheap too!

An amazing thing happened last night with my float install.

I got my floats from FedEX and opened them up, they were double boxed and intact. The floats come with the supports and an extra heavy duty water rudder, all for $40. I’m going to leave off the water rudder, with the double V bottom floats and big Tango rudder she should track fine, if I need the water rudder I can always add the weight later. They looked fine, so I started sanding them. I’m going to paint them orange to match the Tango so I wanted to remove as much paint as I could before I added another coat. I then squared them all up and started assembling.

1st Miracle: The main Hangar 9 gear holes lined up perfectly with the float support forward mount. No holes to drill in the aluminum supports! These must be a copy of the H9 40 size floats as they lined up very well.

The floats came with two holes that they used to hold the floats with when they were painted. Those holes also mark where the ply is that was built into the floats for mounting (FYI the front holes on mine where not straight with center line). From the holes you have an inch forward and back of ply that will support the supports. To line up the step with the CG I mounted my supports towards the rear of the holes on the forward end of the floats. I then mounted the rear support with the guide hole centered with rear support.

2nd Miracle: The rear support lined up with a perfect spot in rear fuse. I’ll need to add another piece if ply with a couple blind nuts but it’s perfect.

3rd Miracle: The plane balances at the 5” balance point PERFECTLY! No shifting of battery/radio gear or adding additional weight for balance, she’s good to go!

I’m currently working on painting the floats orange; they should look great with the orange lower fuse on the Tango, the orange doesn’t coat very well so make sure you remove your sharpie marker lines (I’ll have to do some resanding). I removed the giant “Tango” sticker off the top of the wing too, the plane looks so much better now.

I’m thinking that this build is perfect enough that I will recommend the Tango and floats for a new easy float plane. We’ll see how she flys!

When I get an internet connection back up at home I’ll post pics.

bradyb

Holy Cow!
I was able to fly twice this past weekend, one short flight off the back of a Chris Craft at Willard Bay and 5-6 flights at a nice quiet pound.

Flying a float plane is definitely different. With 20 ounces hanging a foot below the wing you get some strange flying characteristics. Turns are very different with the plane wanting to pull itself back over and so you need sustained aileron control. You definitely need to use a lot of rudder for your turns. Knife edge flight was very interesting; these floats are a bit tall so they seem to actually add some lift in addition to the fuse. The plane slips all over the place with the floats and so with the plane on its side it actually climbs at speed with it slipping nose up. The plane is about 6 pounds which is still plenty light for the .46. Take offs are fairly short and I get a ton of float on my landings. I can keep the throttle on and harrier her all the way down for a 15 foot landing if I’m brave enough. I dropped a wing once yesterday and was able to test how well she floats upside down. With that big wing the fuse actually stays a couple inches out of the water.

My incidence seems fine, I keep just a touch of up elevator and she takes off. If I keep the nose down she gets a bit unstable on the floats and goes off in crazy directions.

I think this is an excellent float plane. It’s very strange to see a float plane hovering, flying knife edge loops, and doing flat spins. The symmetrical wing is a bit of a pain in the turns since you need to fly at about 90 degrees to get a nice sharp turn. But I think the easy approaches and take offs are worth the non-scale flight for me.

The plane and floats took 10-15 inch waves well at the busy reservoir, just aim into the wind and go with full throttle; the big waves actually launch the plane in a short distance. I’m running a 12x4 prop and that’s the biggest I would want to go with, the prop did hit the water once on a not so pretty touch and go.
There wasn’t any “spray” coming off the front of the floats, the built in splash rails did a fabulous job of keeping the water away from the prop. For the money those are awesome floats.

bradyb

Here's some pics, flying pics soon.

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

Looks darned near perfect to me.
My compliments to your gardener, too.

bradyb

Thanks Jim, she worked out well. As for the gardening, wait until those canna lillies start blooming.

The Toolman

Has the Tango thread died? Its still my favorite plane to throw around....