Hi all,

Well after all the fun and games I had trying to get the servos on my Funtana to stop fluttering, I finally spent some time flying my Funtana myself this morning.

Now I guess I should give you some background. I started flying RCs at the beginning of November 2003 and I solo'd with my local club on Nov 30th. My trainers were all Tower Hobbies 40s and I have built two other planes from ARF kits since:
1) Hangar 9 Ultra Stick 40
2) Hangar 9 FuntanaS

I bought the Funtana before buying the Utra Stick. I was looking for a plane that was a little more of a challenge than the Tower trainer and the guys at the hobby store suggested the Funtana. Only after I bought it did I read on this forum that this plane is a bit more advanced than what I thought it was. Anyhow, I built it and decided to go back and by the Ultra Stick as the intermediate plane. I figured I'd fly that first then come back to the Funtana once I get the hang of the Ultra Stick.

I finally got both planes to the point where they could fly last weekend and so both of these planes had their maiden flights on Sunday. I left it to our chief instructor to fly them both on their maiden flights. I landed the stick (piece of cake) even though the wind was blowing quite hard. I decided, though, that discretion was the better part of valor as far as the Funtana was concerned, so I left it to our chief instructor to handle taking off and landing. He was quite happy with the plane's setup, though, so I did fly it briefly.

Today the wind was dead still, although we had a nice coating of ice on the field yesterday. I decided that seeing I have DuBro skis on both planes I was going to take them up. I flew the Stick for about half an hour with no problems. Boy, does that plane fly well!!! Phenomenal handling. Eventually I decided that the time had come to try the Funtana.

I fueled her up, fired her up, and got her ready to fly. I put her on the field and started taxiing out but found that the tail wheel was digging into the snow a little. Not much to do about it.

I turned her into the wind and opened up the throttle. She climbed out like a dream. Couple of circuits, some trimming, now time for landing...

Now the chief instructor warned me last week that this plane will probably snap close to stall speed. So I was VERY wary of letting it slow up to much. I have an OS 46AX with a 13x4w prop on and all the time I was worried that I would lose her coming in.

So on approach I came in pretty high. Throttled right back. Float... float... float... and she doesn't want to drop. Still way to high to land so I opened up the throttle and went around.

Tried again. Came in a little lower on approach. Same thing... float... float... float... no landing this time... full throttle and go around...

Third time I came in a lot lower on approach. Throttle back. Glide... glide... float... flare... touchdown main gear... tail gear... turn around... off we go again.

This planes handles like a dream. The fear of not being ready to fly it was totally unfounded. It's a bit more direct than the Stick, but it flies beautifully.

I even succeeded in doing a Harrier (inadvertantly) on one of the missed approaches... I got the angle of attack too high and she just dragged herself up...

I am so psyched with my Funtana and I am so glad I got it. Now I need to start learning some of that 3D stuff...

regards,

Bruce

congrats!!
Glad to hear you like her.Spend some time with it and set it up gradually and she will change in behaviour a little.She is well behaved and with a 46 up front your wing loading is exremely low,so you may not see the tip stall as many of us have.The more you fly it the harder it is to put it down.This plane is addicting and one can learn a huge amount with it.You may get bored with the 46 soon,but a motor swap is done very easily.
Have fun!!

yeah this is an excellant airv plane to fly wait til you get more exp. under your belt. take it from some one else who loves to fly it that plane will grow with you and do any thing you ask of it. if you at www.horizonhobby.com and look through the pages you will find some aerobatics stuff from the pros there when you are ready.if I can be of any help post here or email me

I just bought one of these and a YS63. Building it in my basement right now. Gald to hear that you're liking the new bird.

So what finally fixed your flutter problem?

Joe

Hi Joe,

There was a whole thread on this: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/Weir...1470093/tm.htm

In a nutshell, it was a combination of keeping the extension leads as short as possible and twisting the leads so that any interference on the wire was cancelled out. I almost had to stand on my head and whistled "God save the Queen" through my ... to get it to work!!!

I would also go so far as to say that you may want to look at Hi-tec rather than JR servos. I am almost sure (but I have yet to prove it) that the problem would completely go away with the Hi-tecs.

regards,
Bruce

13x4w on an os 46, you should prop that down. You will get more power and better throttle response for sure.