flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

So I got this thing on the 4th of July sale for $29, good enough price for an ARF..strange building techniques, anyway this thing says it will fly on anything from CO2 power up to a .10 seems like a very wide range to me.. I ditched the electric motor and mounted my .061 (norvel rc) on it...still wondering so I do search and find folks saying it will be way overpowered with an .049..so does anyone actually have one flying like I did mine ? I can use micro (dragonfly) or mini (GWS) servos,, I am done building other than the tail feathers and radio install........thanks, Rog

rrragmanliam

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Rog, How ya doin?

I wouldnt sweat the .061 too much. If you build it with a throttle servo then being overpowerd won't be a problem. Frankly as long as I have throttle capabilities I've never been disapionted with an overpower issue. On the other hand however ,for me, there's nothing more disapointing than an underpowered "DOG" even if it's a non aerobatic slow flier. Good luck!

Darren

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Darren, thanks, this was the .061 I was gonna put on the half-wit that you sent me the plans for,,I cut out all the pieces and built the wing for it and put it aside.........heck I have 2 crashed planes in the kitchen being scavenged for this bee and my SS cap...along with the other 1/2 dozen kits/casualties in some stage of assembly somewhere throughout the house...Rog

mclintock

My Feedback: (3)

I bought one o' those bees too same time you did.. haven't finished it yet.. I agree that the building is interesting..
My rudder was falling off of the sub fin thing where the hinges are straight out of the box, so you may want to check your hinges, as mine aren't glued at all.

The whole rudder without a fin thing makes me a little nervous, I might even add a wee fin just as a way to have a third rudder hinge.

I'm going to try the 280 geared rig it came with first, but I have plenty of engines to slap on there should that be too wimpy..
Since the .061 weighs the same as the .049, then it looks like we can't loose..the owners manual says the ap .061 worked on the prototype, so the norvel original (the ap wasp being the clone) should also be perfect.

This will be my first electric, and i bought the minimum battery recommended in the manual, a 7.2v 600mah pack.
Dang that batt is a big lump of weight. The gear motor rig sounds horrid, like a dental drill doing bad things..

I'll probably wind up putting in a proper engine, as it seems such a waste to have micro servos, micro rx, wee little lite wheels and structure then slap in a big ol battery the size and weight of a padlock.

On rcgroups, a search for yard bee gives many results, none I've found have put on a glow engine, but several have gone with bigger motors and battery setups. One guy claims to have ripped off the wings going straight up, so I guess there is a limit to the power it can take!

SST

My Feedback: (2)

Put the extra shims in your .061 and slap a 8X4 Cox gray on it. It'll run on low nitro at a slow putt-putt speed. My .049 turns 6,500 on 15% Omega with this prop. Sounds cool as all get-out and will fly at around 25mph (if you're worried about overspeeding), and runs forever on an oz. of fuel.

rrragmanliam

My Feedback: (1)

Yea I hear ya there Rog, my whole house is a nothing but a big parts bin and I can never find what I'm looking for.

Darren

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

I agree that the building is interesting.. I have the exact opposite, with my rudder its stiff as a board am I'm thinking no way a mini servo is gonna move this thing enough to turn, then you have to see the instructs..glue the top of the fin to the bottom of the top of the fuse on the inside (serious you have to see it to understand) 1/2 inch of fin supporting 3 inches of rudder..oh and now the dragonfly micro servos are too small and the GWS mini servos are too big so here we go fabricating again.......
that motor sound is normal and its the gearbox and prop mostly..Ive done a few park flyers and the battery weight , is why I went back to glow, messier, but , its what I like....Rog

one more thing, some people swear by the motor cleaning method ,,,take the prop off,,put the engine in a jar of water (distilled), hook it to the battery for a few seconds, and repeat until the motor stops releasing dark particles into the water.......

mclintock

My Feedback: (3)

Maybe I'm lucky the hinges were not glued in my rudder-
they look like 'ca' hinges that never got any ca on 'em.
I think they went with those cause they are cheap and easy, and the stiffness might make up for the lack of fin and the fact the only two rudder hinges are close together. The elevator is just using tape or the covering.
Whether I try to make a vert stab or not, I think better hinges, like pinned nylon ones are in order for the rudder. A fin and third hinge would probably be needed to use pinned hinges to prevent the rudder from fluttering all over the place.

I had a bad experience (well, the tree got it worse) once where my rudder came off in flight on my vastly overpowered (thus, just sub-sonic) and overweight cadet jr, so now i am overly paranoid about that.

I'm thinking the electric motor may sound better after the straight cut gears grind together for a while.. Maybe I should tweak the mesh adjustment too.

phuffstatler

My Feedback: (20)

Well, after starting all this confusion... I got to test fly mine yesterday at the San Antonio Pop Gun Flyin.

First, the little AP .061 I got with it runs fine on a MA 6x3 prop with just a little needle tweaking. Second, I forgot that the plane doesn't have ailerons! I promptly dorked it in about 15 seconds into the flight. (I'm used to full-house planes now, and didn't adjust in time. Totally my fault!) The wing popped right off the front, and knocked one gear leg loose. Quickly repaired, rudder to aileron mixing (or is that the other way around?) added, and off we went. Tough little plane, as simple as it is. Mine may be a bit tail heavy, or maybe too nose heavy, as it tended to porpoise a bit, or I may not be used to this type of airplane. Or, I have too much elevator throw in it (maybe 1/2"?), but it seemed that the elevator would not have much effect, then it would balloon up like I was slamming the stick. Anyway, it flew without incident other than that. Even with the .061 wide open, it wasn't too fast as to blow the tail off.

But....

I have many issues with the kit itself. A few steps needed are totally left to the builder, but they give a whole page on how to straighten the wing, if needed. The servo tray(little ply pieces) did not match the control rods that came with is by a 1/2" or more, so I took them out and used double sided tape to mount the servos. The back firewall for the glow conversion was HUGE in comparison to the space it was supposed to fit, and took considerable reshaping and cutting to get it to fit. No pilot was included (made mine from a bit of scrap), no pilot deck was in the plane (big open hole) so I mounted the pilot head on the bottom of the throttle servo (which was upside down in the plane, taped to the side, as there was no pilot deck to mount it to, per the instructions). The window "covers" when cut out from the decals around the black edges do NOT fit the window holes, like almost a 1/2" short, so I left the windows totally open. Put the switch in there on the left side. Works well, and no fuel gets up in there, as the motor is mounted inverted. Also lets me reach in easily enough to grabe the battery plug for charging, so I can leave the bottom on, and not misplace it.

The landing gear in mine was already built up with the wheels on it, and little brass pieces holding them on, not the plastic as shown in the book. Fine with me. The little Ply blocks that go in the landing gear were actually balsa in my kit, so another discrepancy there. I used them anyway.

When I got the horizontal stab parallel to the wing and glued on, it leaves the rudder slightly leaning to the left. It trimmed out alright, but I was not happy with it. The directions SHOULD tell you to put the elevator on first, get it lined up, mount the rudder to the little skeg underneath, THEN mount the skeg and rudder on the plane, lining it all up. Live and learn. Oh, my rudder wasn't attached to the skeg in my kit, but the hinges were there, so just glued it all together. The pictures showed early on the rudder already mounted on the skeg, but told you later on to mount the rudder. Confusing...
Also, The wing mount seems really weak, but it holds up just fine with flight, and the wing popped right off on the crash/dorking with no damage. So that works well enough. I used two #64 rubber bands tied together to make one long band, and used that to hold the wing on. Worked fine.

Final weight was 12 1/2" ounces, ready to go. Nice and light. It lands about 2 mph ( it seemed) when the engine quit ( 1 ounce tank, 2 ounce seemed too big), so all that worked ok.

All in all, I'm glad I only paid $30 for it, even as an ARF. At $80 normal price, I would have sent the plane back without even attempting to build it. Now that it's done, I'll sell it to the first guy who would like to have it... It IS cute, however.

Without engine and radio of course.

Oh, which brings me to the Hitec radio! The July 4th ad (which is now offline) CLEARLY said the radio comes with the Electron 6, HOWEVER, the instruction booklet (and the normal info on the Hobby People site) says the radio comes with either that OR the little 4 channel single conversion receiver (HM-04G or something), so I was also disappointed there. Why? Guess which one mine came with... Now I know why the radio was on sale too.... However, the little 4 channel receiver works really well at distance, so I'm keeping that. Big ol' long fat wire attached to it, though. I thought it should have been lighter.

The 3 channel transmitter (that needs dry cells) is for sale. Somebody give me $30 for it????

Anyway, Impulse Buying can be problematic at times [X(], and I'm not sure I want to trust Hobby People's ads anymore. [:@] I know I could have mailed it all back, but I hate returning stuff.

Maybe I should just stick to scratch-building... I always know that if I mess it up, who gets the blame.

phil in austin

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

Mines mostly done, I should be able to fly it this week..the pilot is just a balsa dowel, I decided to leave mine off, and about the windows,,well cut off the covering and replace with a clear sticker didnt make much sense to me so I omitted that procedure too...I agree at $29 its ok,,anymore than that and I would have been disappointed...but I'll have to see how it flys or crashes first.......Rog

WRX

My Feedback: (1)

Norvel .061 = bored out .049.

SST

My Feedback: (2)

Not quite...The cylinders are not interchangeable unless the .049 case is opened up to accomodate the larger O.D. of the .061 cylinder

SAPropbuster

My Feedback: (5)

Phil,

That Yard Bee sure looked good cutting the air down here in San Antonio!

Thanks for coming to PopGun'04!

Hope you can make it next year!!

Bob Severance

mclintock

My Feedback: (3)

I finally got half a chance to do more than look at my still not finished yard bee (how weak is that, an arf and I still take a whole season to assemble it!).

I noticed that the instructions differ from the reality of the kit in that the motor mount beams are not glued into the fuse, but supplied in a plastic bag. I also noticed after I glued in the blocks to the the plywood plate in the nose that the blocks/plate are not co-planar with the wing mount.

The motor mount in my model would yield a few degrees of UP thrust because of the factory assembled nose plate angle. Up thrust bad.

Maybe your porpoise problem could be due to up thrust?

With my bee fuse upside down on a table resting flat on the wing saddle, I can see by putting a straightedge on the motor mount beams that the front of the 2" long beams are about 1/8" closer to the plane of the wing compared to the rear of the mount. yikes!

phuffstatler

My Feedback: (20)

Hey mclintock, I'll go check that. That's a DISTINCT possibility. Funny, I usually catch things like that, but I was in a big hurry on this one... (should never do that).


Thanks!
phil in austin