ORIGINAL: jvk1976
DTB - How do you think this plane would handle floats for fun, and ski's for winter? I would like to have a plane I could fly all year round. Usually snow here from December till April. Also what would taking the dihedral out of the wings do?
What a sound!!! - I put the nexstar in a highspeed dive the other day and the sound was scary - It was like how a kite sounds when the fabric is whipping in the wind. I think I was lucky the wings didn't rip off. Don't think I'll do that again.
Thanks everyone for your reply's.
jvk1976
Hey dude, I'm glad that you had a good experience with the flap setup. It will fly great with the flaps. I live in Jackson, Mississippi and we fly year round here. The weather rarely goes below freezing even in the winter. Floats or ski's would work great on there. Just make sure to rebalance it before you fly in case the CG was affected.
Ok, for the wing quesiton. Taken the "V" (dihedral) out would make the plane fly very differently. The plane would not try to right itself and would fly faster also. You would actually be flying the plane more. Point and go flying would happen. The plane would become more acrobatic, the flat bottom would still create more lift so it will never be a speed demon.
I have seen the new wing setup for the nexstar and the center is plastic which is not good for trying to remove the dihedral or any major modification. This is where the dihedral is put in actually. I would not try to remove the dihedral on the Nexstar. You could do it better if it were an avistar, it would fly more like a Cessna 182 with the dihedral removed. The new Nexstar design is good, but does not allow for a lot of mods due to the plastic pieces being used. You can remove the center plastic area, epoxy the wings together, but the flap servo may have to be adjsted maybe. Get an Ultra Stick for your next (2nd) plane if you want no dihedral or a Super stick if you want about 2 degrees of dihedral. a mere 2 degrees will allow it to fly very stable, fast, acrobatic but will slow down for easy landing. I own a Superstick actually. Very fun... A Sig four star is a good second plane also, but is completely different from a trainer, but does have dihedral and is a low wing and taildragger. I own one of these also. That is why I say a Ultra stick or Super Stick. Highwing, tric landing gear or tail dragger with no to very little dihedral. A hopped up trainer really.
You are lucky that you didn't rip the wings off in that stunt with a trainer. I am sure that they were stressing on the down leg. If you haven't done this already, I would highly recommend epoxying the wing halves together. These RTF aircraft are notorius for have the wings screws come out in flight and the wings seperate while in flight. I will spare you the outcome of that happening.