cstevec

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I purchased this plane from Tom about 3 weeks ago to be my winter project & to use next year for airshows I am occasionally asked to fly at (why, I don't know, I'm really not that good). The planes I had been flying at these events were a Carden Extra & a Aeroworks Katana. I recently decided to do some improvements to both of them and tore them down for reworking. Thursday, after finishing up the Katana the night before Iwas out practicing with it & had a battery short out. Long story short, I was faced with an airshow this Saturday & Sunday & no plane to fly. My wife suggested I put the WH 260 together & fly it. I told her that I didn't think it could be done quick enough to get some practice in and get comfortable with it. After Airborne Sgt saying he built his in three days, I decided to give it a go anyway. I'm here to tell ya, this plane is one of the easiest to assemble I have attempted, & I have built a BUNCH of arfs.

The plane will be finished tonight & I spent all day Sunday flying another plane & didn't even start on it until Friday after work. Lets see here, 4 hours Friday, 12 hours Saturday, 5 hours Monday & probably 4 hours tonight & she will be ready to go. I had originally planned to do a build thread on this plane with running commentary on how it went but do to the time constraints, that didn't happen. I did take a TON of pictures & made a bunch of notes though so after I get through the weekend I will try & post all that I learned & all that I experienced during the process. Weather permitting I will be spending Thursday & Friday practicing for the weekend so I will be able to include some flight reporting too.

I ordered the Blue Extra 260 along with the hardware kit Tom has available & overall I was very pleased. The plane was shipped Forward Air & while one of the boxes had some rough treatment, the plane arrived undamaged. The flying surfaces are perfect but the fuse had quite a bit of loose covering, the heat gun made short work of it. I didn't care much for the control horns that came with the kit but everything else has proven very useful. The wheels supplied with the hardware package were 3.5" Dubros & I always use Sullivan Ultralites so I changed them out & upped the size to 4" which are listed as optional in the manual. I will go into a reasonable amount of detail when I get around to writing up the build but I have to tell you I think this plane is a very good value for the money & if it flies half as well as it looks, I am in for a real treat!

I chose to power it with a BME 100 which is one of the few twins that are going to fit in the cowl with no holes except for the muffler/cooling and I am expecting the weight to come in somewhere around 20-22 lbs. That includes a full blown smoke system with 32 oz. tank & seperate battery.

SunShyne

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sounds great, now where the PICS!!!


matt

airborneSGT

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Speaking of flying:

http://www.airbornesgt.com/WH260.avi


Divx codec required!

Now lets see some pics!!

Use Kavan wheels and save even more weight. I also used a CF wing tube, spinner, ect. I came out to 23.5lbs.

cstevec

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A man has all these great plans & then something happens & throws a monkey wrench into the mix. When I lost the Katana last week I just had to have another & ordered one the next day. There went all my spare $ for the upgrades like carbon tubes & the stuff like that. I started to put the Kavan wheels on my 260 but it seems like every field I fly at has a cross wind & I have found they don't seem to hold up very well to the side forces generated from side-slipping on landings so I just stuck with the Sullivans. The ones I use have aluminum hubs & nylon bearings, so they hold up pretty good. The plane is still plenty light though, I don't even have a bathroom scale so weights are only a guess.

I'm at work right now & the security on these computers won't let me install the codec for your video format so I guess I'll just have to wait to see it, bummer.

Diablo kid, just keep your shirt on, the pics will be coming, I took about 30 during the build process & I will take a bunch tonight when I get the plane out to the field (if it doesn't rain like it is supposed to). One thing you got to check out when you see it is the pilot the better half painted up for me. She does stuff like the pilot on the airgraphx site but the detail she puts in them blows his stuff away.

Airborne Sgt. , when you made up the pushrods for the ailerons, were you able to use the same length rods for all 4 servos? I have the Hitec programmer & all 4 of my servos are matched perfectly but all 4 of my pushrods are different lengths, which is not good for linearity. I'm not sure if the servo bays are not placed correctly (in my thinking) or the hard points are not in the right spot. One wing panel is not so different but the in the other wing, the control rod for the inboard servo is almost 1/2" longer then the one for the outboard servo. It also seems to bind a little bit which is driving me nuts.

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

Actually I did it really simple on the ailerons. Its a trick I learned from a great builder/flyer Tony Russo from Dalton Aviation.

So I centered up my servos (did one wing at a time) and then alinged my arms with the hinge gap. I then simply used H9 Pro links and set them up so that niether servo would bind during deflection. No match box, no programming, and it has yet to fail me. Tony setup my first plane like this and really made me a believer in this setup.

Now I am sure that one control rod might be a hair longer than the other, but it works for me! I think the only servos that need to be programmed ar at least require mixing are the two 8611a's in the tail. Yes I said two....he he he.

cstevec

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Hmmm, Ok, I can do that. I have a couple of other planes that have multiple servos in the wing panels & I use MSA-10s in them which makes matching the servos a no brainer but I kind of figured why not put all of this technology to use . Sometimes the simplest ways are the best!

I have 2 8611a's on my rudder as well, installed in a SWB servo tray with bellcrank. That is a sweet setup & believe me, no shortage of torque for a plane of this size.

SunShyne

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darn, I had it off and now I have to put it back on.. lol

sounds good Steve, look forward to it


matt

rctom

The length of a pushrod has nothing to do with the geometry of the linkage and getting 2 servos to work together.

The things of concern are the length of the servo arms, the distance of the horn from the centerline of the surface, the placement of the horn's pivot on the hinge line, and the angle of the pushrod relative to the hinge line.

If all these things are the same on all servos, you could have a pushrod 3 feet long and it would not matter.

TF

cstevec

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Actually, there are a couple of ways to get to the end result, & I am sure there are a ton of opinions on which way is best. Whatever the case, I figured it out & now things are smooth from full deflection to full deflection. I'm never satisfied until My servos are "Buzz Free" at all points along the way, from end point to end point. The man who builds my Cardens showed me how to set up a plane a long time ago & I been doing it that way ever since. Probably not the only way & certainly didn't work here but its taken care of & I am happy to say she flies like a dream.

cstevec

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By the way, here she is.

airborneSGT

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Wow she is looking good! Yeah thats how I did my aileron servos. When I have done big plane builds for other people I get the same deal - get the buzz out. Big servos fighting each other is a big no no. I was going to fly this morning, but it was overcast. Then it cleared up perectly when I went to work - go figure.

Nice prop too! Does your pilot have a tropical shirt on? Looks nifty.

cstevec

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This by the way is one sweet power plant. The second pic is the pilot my wife painted for me.

airborneSGT

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You know my friend who shot my flying video has TWO BME 110 extremes just sitting around. I really would like to fly one to find out for myself. From what I hear DA has better service. I have had my engine in pieces and had it back from DA in like a week. I am not a big name brand guy, the plane could not care what is flying it so long as it gets the job done.

The BME is really light, which is what I like. Maybe I can convince my buddy to sell me one of his BME's....lol.

Your pilot looks awesome! Your wife did an outstanding job! Perhaps she could paint one up for me?

The only pilots I have gone with so far are the Aircraft International foamie ones. I will admit, I totally stink at painting pilots. I tried once and it came out terrible.

cstevec

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I spent the day flying the 260 & I have got to say, I'm impressed. I have a $2500 Carden that does not do point rolls as smooth as this plane does them & Knife edge needs less then 3% elevator mixing. A true point & shoot airplane. I let a good friend of mine fly it for a couple of minutes & he said it was the smoothest flying plane he had ever flown. It goes where you point it & it stays where you put it 'till you tell it to go somewhere else. I like it! I didn't get crazy with it (new engine) but I did pull it up into a short hover for about 15 secs & it just kind of hung therewaiting for me to tell it to do something else, Hit the gas & away she went. The power is perfect & I was really happy with the Biela prop as well. I think once I get the engine properly broken in I will be a big believer in BME.

cstevec

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Yeah it is a hawaiian shirt. I usually wear one when I fly. Last pilot she painted for me had white hair & a beard too!

It took me a week of calling to get hold of Keith at Baker engines to get this power plant but it was worth the wait I think I hope I never need servoce on it but then we all hope things like that.

cstevec

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Yeah, a friend of mine put one in a Air Wild Giles & I was really impressed with it. Mine is the 102 but it is really impressive, not the power of the 110 though. That 110 pulls that 38% giles around like nothing & it is a lot heavier then this 260. I am going to weigh the plane tomorrow at the airshow. It came out really lite.

cstevec

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She would probably paint you a pilot for a fee It take her about 3 days to do one (drying time) & then another 3 days for the final coat to dry. He is still a little wet.

Dangerous Dan

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cstevec,
Were you one that bought the bme 100 that was listed for sale on the used engines link at bme? I have found Keith rather easy to get in touch with He has been patiently answering my 100 questions on the 110 and on my existing bme 50. He also responds within one day to e-mail. They are really cranking out the 110's 10 to 14 a week. How long of an upline can you pull with the BME 100 before the plane yaws (all planes have a limit)

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

Wow a lot of activity. Well I am glad I am not the only person who loves the 260. I think an even lighter 260 would only be that much better. Still at 23.5lbs its not that bad. Honestly in South Florida, when it gets windy - a little extra weight will help it track even more so. Dont get me wrong, when its calm at say a half tank or less is my favorite combo for precision and 3D. When it gets gusty I keep the tank full to give me that extra weight. You can see from my video that the thing is a floater and lands like a trainer.

Have to love just telling your plane to do something, and it does it. Its a plane you really dont have to "fly". I can let off of it and just relax sometimes I honestly have to work on my precision flying and getting ready for IMAC. For whatever reason I like doing 3D more than anything else. The 260 like Tom says is the best of both worlds in that respect.

Still, with the newer ZDZ 80 comming out I cant help but wonder what she would fly like even lighter. FWIW the only other plane I have flown that gives the same feel is the Comp ARF 2.6M Yak 55. I have flown a lot of other more expensive planes that cant touch how gentle this thing flies; yet when you want you can really get into the plane and it will still perform. My next video will be some low hovering and rolling circles. I think I should shoot some harrier landings too!

I love the Hawaiian shirt idea! It would be nice to wear something other than T shirts and shorts at the field.

cstevec

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Guilty as charged!

I really don'tknow how high it will go without yawing. I did several verticle pulls but nothing over 3/4 throttle. I would say it pulls 4 or 500 ft without any noticable pull. Full throttle might make a little bit of difference. The airfoil on the WH 260 is very thin for such a large plane which makes it very "slick" in the air. I think this is partly responsible for how true it tracks. That & the fact that it is a mid wing design. I prefer the midwing planes over say a 300lx or a cap/ They just seem to fly truer.

Ken Bryant

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E Gads you guys are making me want on of these.

ben beyer

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I'd be interested in one with the new 3W 80. But unfortunately, it's too big to get in and out of my apartment complex. The door frames are only 80" and I have to go through 4 of them between the truck and the bedroom.

cstevec

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Well you know...... The tail does come off......

airborneSGT

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When I was in the Army I could swing getting big planes out of my barracks being on the second floor....he he. All the way up to 29% anyway. I could have easily gotten this thing in and out also. I take the stabs off to fit in my lexus. My 33% and 28% fit perfectly in my RX 300!!

ben beyer

My Feedback: (23)

Well, I'd also have to drive down the interstate with the tail gate down. But then i'd get better gas mileage...

Might have to think this one over.