Blade47

Thanks GSnut ... I seen you have been following the thread

GSNut

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Heheh...You Bet !!

Been lurkin and wishin you the best ! It looks beautiful both on the ground and in the air. Now I can get up and work on mine again.. Too many airplanes and so little time.

Great Job, Pete !


How you been Bill ?

GSNut......DinD

timfarrar

Fantastic Pete, Im glad you had a good day with your plane, and I hope to hear of many more.

SEEYA, TIM

Build-n-flyer-RCU

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So they really DO fly! Great job Pete, and congrats on being the first to post a pic of a 2/60 in the air.

Now get those engines reliable!

Walt

Blade47

Thanks Walt !!

After the first flight (7 minutes) I removed all hatches and the fuse and went over it looking and checking all nuts..bolts and what ever and came up with a clean check list .... I was a little lacks with the engine tuning for this flight but will take more time for the next flight.

I will also like to have in place a Twin-Sync system which should be available the end of this month ...maybe Bill can get me in the line up for one

Blade47

smaller pics this time NOT very good but what the hey

timfarrar

Pete :

Did it require alot of right rudder when your engine went out ? and did you have to react instantly ? The reason I ask is I havnt flown a twin and Im afraid my first reaction would be to go right aileron and then discover I need right rudder. If you had made a mistake like that, would you have had time to correct and save the plane ? My problem is, Im not much of a rudder flyer yet, Ive got to learn.

I hope I made my question clear. And I hope these threads stay up for a long time after there done, because if I ever get to building mine, I wont have to bother you guys to much, I can just look at this thread from time to time.

SEEYA, TIM

roncoleman

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Pete, I like to add my congrats also. This has been a great thread from the beginning to hopefully not the end.
I'm like Tim, hope to hear from you with updates as you get more airtime in. Keep the info and photos coming.

roncoleman

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Well Bill, That's that. The end to the dream and maybe the start of a new legend.
These babies do fly, even on one engine. You and EHFleming did good!

ehfleming

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Pete,

Let my voice join the chorus! Great job from the start. I truly appreciate the hard work and time you spent to get her in the air.

Ernest

roncoleman

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Ernest, So when will Lonnie Fuller get his in the air. Did he have to add weight to the tail also?

William Robison

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All:

Let’s have a quick flying lesson here. For the purposes of the lesson we will not consider the number of engines on the airplane, just suffice it to say the airplane is under power.

We have just broken ground, altitude about three feet and the air speed is, say, 15 mph. A cross wind gust catches the plane. Now the left wing is down, angle of bank is 30 degrees to the left.

Low, slow, banked and angled away from the wind. What do you do? And why?

Most people will react first with right aileron. This will not guarantee an immediate crash, but it probably will.

The upwind side of the plane is flying in clear air, it’s on the side the wind is coming from. The low wing is masked from a large part of the air flow by the fuselage, its effective air speed could be as low as 10 mph while the high wing has 18-20 mph air flow. Do you see where we’re going? Right. The high wing is flying, the low wing is on the edge of a stall, if not already stalled. Right aileron will serve to lower the high wing, but the aileron input raises the aerodynamic angle of attack on the left wing. If not already stalled the aileron input will stall the left wing, with an immediate spin entry. You might “Luck out” and have just enough air speed to make it, but more likely you’ll get out your trash bag.

So what should we do when the wind catches us just off the ground? The first thing is to get the airflow up again on the low wing. The common way we increase air speed is more throttle, or down elevator. We are just taking off, so the throttle is already up, and three feet altitude doesn’t give much air speed to be gained in a dive, even if you don’t “Land” before you gain much speed.

There is a simple method, that few people flying models ever use. If the one wing is high, give the plane rudder into the high wing. This will yaw the plane, exposing the low to the air flow again, you go merrily on your way having survives Ma Nature once again.

But you have to know the rudder control is there, and you have to use it.

Getting down to the single and twin engine basics, you are more likely to survive this situation with a twin provided both are running, as the air flow from the prop will still be flowing over the low wing, and even at stall you do have some aileron control on the stalled wing.

Now consider this flight at altitude, you’ve just lost one engine. Good air flow on the side with the engine running, you’ve just lost a lot of lift on the other side. Just like the gust of wind on take off, you have to get the air flow on the low wing again. Even discounting the off set thrust, the rudder is what saves you. The elevator helps here too, but the rudder still should be first.

Hope I’ve made it clear.

Bill.

Blade47

Tim: The 260 was on base leg when the fan stopped ..power was at about 1/4 heard the sound difference not much of a yaw appeared... and brought the right up slow .... a slight yaw was induced and rudder was put in not much and it was not a violent yaw so with more power coming on the speed was coming up I would think weather vanning started to help as rudder was eased ....well back around to base and final .... power down no need for rudder and in for landing .... Tried to taxi on one fan ..BUT.... lol no go there maybe on pavement.

All: Thanks for all the Congrats ..it was fun to build and been a blast to help build this thread as well.. I will continue to add as I fly for more test data ... I think now that it has flow-en I will wait until I put a Twin-Sync to fly further so that maybe be the end of this month.

The 260 has prove-en to fly well ( even on this short flight )and a side benefit was the engine out ( sooner then I would have liked [X(] )

I would like to thank Ernest and Bill for coming up with a neat concept and I am more then Happy to have tested there hard work indeed does fly .. two [sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif] for them.

I hope that Bill will keep advising those that do stumble across this thread as he has a wealth of information ( hehehe as you can see above )

So with more pics to take and some fine finishing work yet to do on the 260 I will keep you update as I go along for sure.

Cheers

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

Well, Pete, "We" all say to use the rudder, but I don't remember seeing any explanation other than the offset thrust. Just thought I'd throw out a few more of the reasons why rudder is important, even with a single engine.

Bill.

kerrydel

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So, anybody out there with a kit they'd like to sell? Barring that, can I get a set of plans?

Kerry

William Robison

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Kerry:

We never redrew the plan to reflect the changes in the Super Duellist 2/60 Mk II. We instead supplied a “Kinko’s” 125% enlargement of the Duellist 2/40 Mk II plan, in an included set of instructions we covered the changes.

There are some errors in the outlines drawn on the plan, mainly in the ribs. Since we supplied all the parts precut we thought it wouldn’t matter.

If you want to get the Duellist 2/40 Mk II plan and have it enlarged I can send you all the scan files of the formers and ribs, you can print them at 1:1 and use them for cutting patterns.

Let me know if you’d like a set, no obligation but you’ll have to PM or email your address – they wont go through RCU’s mailing system.

Bill.

PS: Anyone else who might like the scans is welcome, just ask. wr.

kerrydel

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Where can I get the 2/40 plans?

Kerry

William Robison

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Kerry:

The Duellist Mk II plan is available from Model Airplane News, [link=http://www.rcstore.com/rs/general/listproducts5.asp?catid=36&catego=PL]here[/link] is a link to the plan on their site. When the page comes up scroll about 1/3 of the way down to find the Duellist.

Bill.

PS: That's not Dave Platt's girlfriend. The picture is about 30 years old, Dave had long hair in that picture. Haw. wr.

kerrydel

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks. I tried AMA, and RCM, but didn't think of MAN.

Kerry

P.S. I sent you a PM Bill.

ZeppelinIII

WR,

I have a question for you that I thought I'd throw out for the general public instead of a PM. I have the MK II plans, and for the 40 size (no enlargement) I wanted your opinion on a foam core wing. I don't see any reason why one wouldn't work fine, but have also not seen any mention of the idea here (although any search has its limits, and it may be on here somewhere). Anyway, I have all the tools and supplies handy and it seems to me like it would actually be quicker and easier than the built up wing called for in the plans.

So any comments from you, or anyone else are welcome. Thanks for the opinions as fun as they usually are

Zep

William Robison

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Zep:

The latest version of the Super Duellist 2/60 Mk II has a sheeted foam wing. There’s no reason you shouldn’t go foam on the 2/40 Mk II as well. Much easier to build as you said, but the all wooden wing can be stronger at the same weight.

In addition to the weight you have the problem of mounting the landing gear. That’s what I’m working on at the moment.

Bill.

ZeppelinIII

Bill,

For strength I was going to run a carbon fiber spar (possibly 2, still thinking) through the foam. The gear is the one piece I've been thinking the most about, and what I was leaning towards were two thin ply inserts (one most likely being the inner piece for the nacell) running chord wise to lock in a thicker plate for the retract mechanism. Still thinking about it though, I'd love to hear any ideas you or anyone else has on the matter.

Zep

JimBrown

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Here's some pics from the build of a DF Jet I'm working on. The original instructions called for four dowels to be glued in vertically to support the retract plate. I did not like that, so did a bit of redesigning and came up with this. The plywood false ribs do not go all the way through the wing, only to the top of the leading and trailing edges. Hope this provides a bit of inspiration. :-)

...jim

William Robison

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Jim:

Been a long time, good to hear from you again. Your gear mounting looks good.

Zep:

A 1/16” x 5/16” CF strip top and bottom would make your wing the strongest part of the plane. If you can join the wing halves and run the CF in one piece tip to tip the wing will never break.

All:

Canopy. Tried to find the post in the old thread where I gave the part number. Couldn’t find it so I dug out my kit and OPENED THE BOX!!

Canopy part number is HCAA 3626. It's a replacement part for an Extra 300S that Tower had. Bad news? It's discontinued, none available. Good news? They still have other 300S planes, maybe the one for the 1.60 size plane would fit.

When we produced the kit Tower had 40-50 of these canopies on hand, we thought that would be enough. Many were ordered and put away, but some people waited.

If you don't want to bother with ordering the specific canopy there are P-51 style canopies in several sizes available, you could use one of them. Or just build the canopy frame shown on the plan and form some flat Lexan sheet to fit.

Bill.

ZeppelinIII

Jim,

Thanks for the pics, that is basically what I had in mind.


Bill,

We've done a fair amount of experimenting with foam wing constreuuction ideas, with more to come, so we'll definately come up with something strong.