Panzlflyer

My Feedback: (15)

Jon, I think your chasing an impossible dream. The WH is not a particularly light build by design if you look inside the lighter ones you see no balsa but many holes in light ply. ( and weaker as a result )
Even if you get a DA on it you are still 18+ so that wont make you happy.
1.So get out a hole saw and spend a bit on CF parts however after spending 100= I have given up on that as they delam real easy.
2. Sell it to someone who doesnt care
3. Put the DA on it and go fly knowing the limitations of that model
4. Wait until AJF gets bored with another plane and make him a deal!!!
Your spinner, Gear and batteries are heavy, loose the wheel pants,cut out the canopy floor,run just one battery and a smaller fuel tank,
cf wing and stab tube and dont land 2 hard !
Just my 2 cents

AJF--2

My Feedback: (119)

HEY! I resemble that remark!

Dangerous Dan

My Feedback: (1)

My extra special is 16lb 14 oz.

BME 50
True turn lightned backplate spinner
Mejzlik 22x8
3 fromeco 2200mha Li batteries
2 fromeco regulators
5945 elevator and ailerons
8611 rudder
Standard throtle
no choke servo
CF wing tube
CF tail Tube
Cf tail wheel
CF main Gear
Dubro light weight 3 1/4 wheels
No wheel pants
Toms instrument panel
H9 pilot(the rubber kind you paint)
1/64 ply over all motor box and firewall holes

I may switch back to the aluminum main gear the ground handling got terible wen i installed the CF gear.

I was at 17lb 2 oz but lost 4 additional oz when i got rid of the ignition regulator and switched from fiberglass to CF gear.

krayzc-RCU

My Feedback: (31)

well it thats answers that is there plywood were there should be balsa

jongurley

My Feedback: (29)

Do you guys think that one 2400mah Fromeco Lithium and regulator will be enough for my setup,,

Panzlflyer

My Feedback: (15)

Its not the capacity but the amp draw, probably one the edge with the current capability of one 2400 as they are not like lipos, also the regulators are usually around 5amps max , but 2 2400s are about the same weight as 1, 2700nimh, call Fromeco they are helpful. They also have regulators but they are heavy due to the heatsink. Smartflys are smaller and rated 5amps (real)

krayzc-RCU

My Feedback: (31)

its not the lightest set-up but all my planes on that size run

2200 and 4400 li po on the iginition and servos with 2 4400 on the 40% extra. i may run a 2200 on a fun fly as far as servos are concerned. hate to lose a bird due to those digital sucking the juice its not a concern about being lite anymore when you need a trash bag for your favorite bird.....

before i swapped out of the li po from fromoco i went 1650/2700Nmhi on the above deal with 1650 on fun fly birds[&:]

Dangerous Dan

My Feedback: (1)

Batteries second to dumb thumb is the number one cause of crashes, a little extra $$ for a redundent battery system is well worth the cash.

My motto is duplicate or eliminate any single point failure if possible.

So go with two regulators two bateries and two switches. Fromeco Is by far the best regulators they weigh 1.5 oz each. A 2400mha Li battery is 3 oz. I have had cheaper regulators fail on two ocasions.

my .02

jongurley

My Feedback: (29)

Truth be known I will probably go with the 2batt,2 reg, package they sell,,,

jongurley

My Feedback: (29)

Does anyone know what a DA50r and the stock muffler, ignition box weigh,,(I take it that the stock muffler is the lightest),,, I weighed the Hare tonight and the plane with everything even with 12 oz of fuel weighed in at 14 lbs on the dot,, so what will the ignition battery and DA50 muff, ignition box, weigh,, any ideas,,

Panzlflyer

My Feedback: (15)

Jon,
While quite a few people have been wailing about how scary the lions are I have put them in all my stuff and its been 3 yrs now. I recently put one of them on a West Mountain battery analyser and still see almost full capacity on my Fromecos...they Duralite are in the trash as they failed and wouldn not charge anymore. As long as you charge them properly and do the tests as per instructions there is nothing wrong with them.
You may want to invest in the 8 Ball checker as well as its a neat little device that runs a load test everytime you plug it in.
I will show you the discharge graph sometime and you will know why I recommend having a good load checker.

Panzlflyer

My Feedback: (15)

graph...note it was not fully charged

Dangerous Dan

My Feedback: (1)

figure at least 1 pound over the advertised weight of the engine for muffler, ignition, battery, standoffs, and regulator

lithium batt 3oz
regulator 1.5 oz
ignition 4.0 oz
muffler 7 oz
Standoff's 2 oz



don't forget prop approx 3 oz and spinner 2-4 oz

A BME 50 will weigh the same have the same or more power and outlast the DA..I had my ignition converted on my BME so I could run lithiums direct without a regulator. A friend of mine had a Wildhare Extra Special identical to mine, except mine had a BME and his Had a DA. He was swinging a mejzzlik 23x8 at 6400 rpm, mine was swinging a Mejzlik 22x8 at 7300 rpm's. We flew in formation and my plane was faster straight and level and pulled out harder and quicker on the uplines. I am the second owner of this BME 50 the first owner put around 60, 15 minute flights on it and I have flown 166, 15 minute flights on the same engine. That is 3390 minutes or over 56 hours of runtime. The engine pulls as harder on flight 166 than it did on flight 1 and keeps getting better. I recently checked the timing and compresion and it was still well within spec.

once again take it with a grain its just my .02

krayzc-RCU

My Feedback: (31)

i hear that 23 x 8 is a good da prop my brison 3.2 did not like being out of its powerband at 6300 on the ground with that prop i can do 7200 on a 22 x 8 mejzlik and 7050 on a 22 x 8 menz

jongurley

My Feedback: (29)

I heard that Dave and at Desert Aircraft reccomends for 3D the MenzS 22x8,, I will of course verify that with them,, O.k so being the weight money wasting FREAK I am,, I am still going to go carbon gear, wingtube,, so the DA50 should weigh around 4 pounds with prop,, the 14pounds i weighed the hare at tonight included the spinner and standoffs(had them layed on top) ,, but anyway by the time the fat lady sings, and I get the 50 bolted on and the carbon parts, I should be around 17ish,, does that sound obtainable,,,

krayzc-RCU

My Feedback: (31)

oh yeah u can do it

u da man!

jongurley

My Feedback: (29)

Thankyou, thank you very much,,[&:]

FlyinTiger

My Feedback: (45)

I went with all the lightest components out there - still waiting on my CF gear from RC SuperGear - and my 28% Extra came in under 16 pounds - no fuel. Mine is the second production run with the elevator servos moved forward and up, I don't know if Tom made any structural changes in the second run.

You can look at my on going review in the "User Product Review" forum for more information on the parts I used. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2773490/tm.htm

Send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll forward you the Exel spreadsheet with the weight of every part on the plane. I decided to weigh each part before putting it on the plane and record it for future reference, or in case someone else was curious.

Good luck getting her to lose some weight...sometimes a batch of planes can just have some heavier wood too, slightly different grain. That can make a difference.

The biggest weight saver for me was going with the CF stab tube so I could run a CF spinner...no added weight in the nose to get her to balance at 3-1/8" back from the L/E at wingtip, right in the range where Silversurfer recommends. It still drops out of a 45 degree line like it should at this CG, yet does nice knife edge loops.

av8tor1977

My Feedback: (6)

I have one of the earlier model Wild Hare 28% Extras. I just finished building it and it is ready for the maiden. While double checking for info on the C.G. on the web, I ran across a lot of people having problems with this bird being "snap happy". Mine came out at 21 lbs. I'm in "deep do do" huh?? Wing loading is a horrible 38 oz. per square foot and the cube loading is a nasty high 12.9. Should I even bother with a maiden flight, or start ripping stuff out of the plane??

At this point I'm pretty well convinced I just built an expensive "turd".

AV8TOR

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

I think you are right. With more investment you could end up with an airplane that will fly fairly well or you could just get a different airplane and transfer your equipment. Just out of curiosity, can you post detailed pics and an equipment list?

av8tor1977

My Feedback: (6)

When I said "rip it apart" what I meant was put it on a major diet and rip out all the extraneous things. I never expected this plane to be so sensitive to weight. (I was thinking it had more wing area than it did when I set about building it.) One thing to keep in mind is that I don't fly 3D. I fly sport and IMAC aerobatics, but I still don't want a snap happy over weight pig to fly for sport.....

Well, here's what I figure my mistakes are in this case:

Fairly heavy wheels. (I hate those cheap pure foam ones.)
Dual 2200 mah 7.4 volt Lipoly flight packs with dual regulators and dual switch/charge assemblies.
Slimline electric smoke system.
2000 mah 5 cell 6 volt Nicad for smoke and ignition.
Re-enforced the engine box and firewall, and made elaborate cooling ducting.
Choke servo.
Two pilots weighing about 5 oz. each.
Hitec telemetry system.
A Sthil 62cc engine that I'm quite proud of, but weighs 12 oz more than a DLE 55
Heavy aluminum spinner.
Needed weight, (epoxy and lead shot) in the tail for C.G. (about 4 oz.)

And pics attached.

AV8TOR

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

I do see lots of things that can be removed and/or replaced to get the weight down to an acceptable level. For IMAC basic class you would not want this airplane to be more then 18 lbs. I think you can get there but with a fair amount of work and expense. If you are flying anything past basic class you may want to research different airframes. Go to ebay and search for CF wing tubes. You will find a Chinese vendor called happychoice. I have ordered from them numerous times and have always been pleased with quality and delivery. They sell wing and stab tubes, landing gear, tail gear and spinners. You will invest an additional 200.00 of so on those parts. Running a single 3000 mah battery and an ignition BEC will further reduce weight and then simply remove anything else that is not absolutely nesessary.

av8tor1977

My Feedback: (6)

Yep, she's going on a diet for sure.

Thanks,
AV8TOR

scoeroo

My Feedback: (9)

I would sugest reassesing your elevator linkage geometry -
Looking at your pic's I see the rear servo to elevator linkages should be 180 to what it is now......

av8tor1977

My Feedback: (6)

Yes, I would agree. Left to my own devices, I would certainly have installed them the other way around. However, the instructions clearly show to install them the way I have them. I could only theorize that installing them that way would give a leverage advantage on up elevator application, which is what most 3D moves need; lots of up elevator movement and strength. Once again, that's just my guess as to why the instructions say to do them that way....

AV8TOR