1/2alover

I wonder has anyone had any thoughts on converting a baby flite streak to r/c.With all the micro equipment these days it shouldnt be to hard.

BMatthews

Yes it would make a great model. With a TeeDee020 it would just be a hot one. With a mild 049 it would be laser fast. I don't even want to THINK about how it would be with a hot 049 or 061 on it. "Faster than a speeding bullet" is the all that comes to mind....

You're thinking of the Brodak BFS at 26 inch span and 150 sq inches?

1/2alover

Mr. B Matthews,yes I am refering to the brodak flitestreak.I'm thinking of buying a kit and converting it.I've never done a conversion before so hopefully the forum here will help alot.I have a medallion .049 I'm thinking of putting in it.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Wow. Putting an .049 on it is pretty gutsy. As I remember, they were awfully fast dragging two 35" lines around.

The conversion should be pretty easy. You've got lots of wing area to work with and to carry the weight of the gear. The lighter the gear you can load it with the better. LiPoly batteries are very light (pricey, but light) and you only need 1 or two. The biggest 'if' is the servos. There are very light servos that will provide the torque you need, but how the really light ones would stand up the the vibration???

Should be exciting!

BMatthews

The Medallion would be a nice matchup with that I suspect. It'll still be a hotrod. Hope you're used to keeping up with fast stuff or have one of the throttle sleeves to put on it. With 150 sq inches to work with you will want to keep the overall weight down to 12 oz or less. 9 to 10 would be ideal so it'll glide well after the engine cuts. As a side benifit 9 oz should provide you with true vertical performance. You'll want to use micro gear for sure and some 160 mah NiMH cells for the airborne pack. Change the pack after about 20 minutes of flight time to the backup pack to ensure you don't go low.

I'm not sure what the airframe weight is but you may need to cut some lightening holes or build up the tail surfaces to gain a few grams here and there to keep the weight down to the target.

CoosBayLumber

My Feedback: (1)

This was run past in another forum about a year ago. Their comments back then were much as this:

There are problems in that the tail needs to be a little further out there in older to gain some stability, unless you like it that way.

Also the airfoil is full symetrical and needs to be converted to a semi-type. And there is no dihedral on the original, so for R.C. it really needs some.

Some decalage needs to be inserted too.

I have three, but for me it really ought to be left as a controlliner, considering all the modifications.



Wm.

nekked_man_2000

I've thought about it, even have the majority of the plan drawn up in CAD format, not quite finished yet...haven't done the airfoil. The only problem I saw is radio fitment, it would be very tight, there isn't much room in that wing even for the sub-micro stuff, not that it wouldn't fit, but you'd probably have to build it into the plane. I don't like anything hangin' out in the breeze, especially on a plane with a Cox engine slobbering all over it. (that's not a knock on cox engines, just an observation that's true of all of the small engines I have) I build nearly all of my designs with a symmetrical airfoil, and 0/0/0 incedence, so don't see that as a problem.

I was considering a built up fuselage, then I thought about scaling it up just a little for my FP 10 instead, then I kinda lost interest, but don't see any reason why it won't work.

Found a screen shot of the FS plan I was working on, I have the side view done also, but that's about as far as I got. I'm using the 1/2 plans from the Baby FS to input it into the computer, My intention was to build one at about 200 sq. in. for my BigMig .061 start up for CL flying also...so many projects, so little time.

BMatthews

Coos, why the concern over these details? To my eyes there's no real difference between this model and the current crop of 3d profile fun fly types. I wonder if the mods you describe were intended for someone that still needed a bit more of a trainer?

One thing comes to mind in looking at the pic of nekkid_man's drawing. The "flaps" for the Flite Streak always tapered to a point at the wing tips. To modify the design for ailerons you would want to replace the flap wood for a new one that has about 3/4 inch of width at the tips. The raked back tips would then need to be either stretched back to match or the ailerons would be extended to run all the way to the tips.

CoosBayLumber

My Feedback: (1)

One thing you need to remember is that the little Flite streak has a one piece wing. The leading edge is a routed balsa item and the trailing edge is a standard tapered one with rib notches. You build it, and then slide it into the fuselage. There is zero dihedral in this and as I remember in the aero section there was a great amount of discussion about building an A/C without any dihedral. Especially one w/o ailerons too.

The other thing is the very short C.G. to rear moment. It was a bit of handfull in the controlline cisrcles, I would think even more out there in the wilds of rough air. I think the tail needs to be set out there maybe 1-2 inches further.

Wm.

BMatthews

Making the tail an inch or two longer would help but I think it would fly OK as is. Just not as 3D as it might otherwise be. Yeah the CG would need to be further forward than if the tail was longer but that's not a big deal. Not to belabour this but being a symetrical wing these sections have been shown to work for everything from a plank style flying wing (with the elevons reflexed a trifle) through to long tailed 3D machines. If it was modified to a cambered section then I could see the requirement for looking further into the tail volume coefficient in order to ensure proper stability but with a 0% camber symetrical wing it's not really in issue. Just put the balance where it works out to be stable. The old control line models were the same way. If you balanced them a bit far back they were a handful but even a combat model or a Flite Streak could be tame as a puppy with a forward balance point.

And as for the need for dihedral I was assuming that this would be a proper aileron and elevator model. With perhaps throttle tossed in to tame it a bit. With ailerons the one piece wing, no dihedral wing would be fine.

Like I said, just another hot powered fun fly type that happens to look like an old control line model. Sorry Coos but in this case I just don't see the problem[sm=confused.gif] I did a search on "flite streak" hoping to find the thread you're reffering to in order to see what the context of the time was but I guess it's in the archives of the old RCU because I can't seem to find it now.

Clean

Why don't you, and I know this is a silly thought, just build it control line and put a Teedee on it? Man is that a fun plane that way.

BMatthews

Ah yes... But Clean, not everyone has seen the divine, zen like attributes of control line....

Jim Thomerson

I would suggest scaling the top view of the airplane up so that the tip chord was 1 inch wider, but making the wing chord wider only by increasing the fixed flap/aileron chord by one inch. I.e. using the original size wing ribs. You could either enlarge the side view of the fuselage proportionally, or just sneak another inch into the tail moment. Interesting project.

Jim

nekked_man_2000

If you look very closely, the "flaps" don't quite come to a point. But you're right, I would add a little more.

dennis

My Feedback: (90)

on this topic but slightly off point. We did convert a Sterling Ringmaster to 3 channel operation. Didn't use a rudder because of the Ringmaster configuration, oh and it was set up to be hand launched too. The motor was a Fox 25 plain bearing RC.
Flying was not a problem and it was actually quite stable, obviously without a rudder the whole flight regimin was not available and eventually was the reason for the models loss. It was inadvertantly put into an aileron induced spin and without a rudder you all know the results.
Now to the Flite streak that rudder poses a few problems. With the highly swept fin you will have the same problem recovering from a spin. If prior experiences with this shape are any indication it will go flat on you and not come out. A more recent example of this was a super stick that Balsa usa made with the same rudder and fin shape. Everyone of them went into flat spins after 2 rotations, We used to go to full throttle to increase the rotation and it actually would slow the plane down to the point that we had a few landings with the motor still running.
With the Flite Streak .The solution is to make a conventional rudder cutout while still retaining that neat F/S tail shape. You wouldn't want full span ailerons with that huge highly tapered trailing edge. Simplest solution would be to run tapered stock on the trailing edge but then it just wouldn"t look like a flite streak.
Dennis