Arrowhead--I ain't been hiding--just at work mostly--now get your Yak finished before I turn you out on RCU

Whatever.[8D]

Is the lanier edge wing tube metric or standard?

At 19lbs how does this plane fly?

I haven't flown it yet--I believe it will fly fine at 19 lbs on 1450 sq inches of wing and with zdz 80 super on front there should be plenty of motivation--seriously considering selling the Edge and putting all the stuff in a 33% size plane--will post when I can make up my feeble mind

If you don't fly it at least once, I'm going to kick your butt. The least you can do is give it a chance before you take a big loss on it.

Arrowhead--started bolting up the motor last nite--cut the bottom off the engine box so the muffler would clear--now I need some ply to place in the big ole hole I cut out ( Hodges Saturday morning ? )--will epoxy that in place and glass corners so it should hold up ok---BTW-just envisioning you trying to kick that high is hideous ( that's your word ain't it ? ) hehe

What size ply do you need?

1/8 or 3/32--gonna need to beef up the front after cutting so much out of the bottom to get the muffler to clear--it will fit now if I use 1/2 " standoffs with a little extra room to spare--will measure distance again as 1/2" standoffs might put engine out a little further than I want ( that's a lot of weight up there for this plane )-- I'm going to need some lite ply to make the battery tray with also--it looks pretty good so far--I need a Futaba pcm rx also

I don't see any way possible that you can come in at 19lbs with a zdz80. I'm a little over 18lbs with the bare minimums. DA50, stock muffler, no wheelpants, no spinner, lightweight menz prop, etc. I made the first three flights last sunday. Easy torqueroll, little coupling in knife edge, harrier rolls are fairly easy, great knife edge spins. This plane excels at high alpha flight. No rocking once it locks in. It harriers as good as my Double Vision. My only complaint is that it is about a pound or so too heavy. It really shows up in snaps that over-rotate. Once you build up the momentum, it is hard to stop it. It will sometimes get tippy on downlines with low throttle and excessive elevator pull. The DA50 is new and rich, but still has unlimited vertical and lots of authority. This plane would be absolutely perfect if it actually could be built to 15 lbs like Lanier claims. I will try to get some video on here soon.

Well all I can say is what the scale tells me and it seems to pretty accurate--remember planes do vary in weight from plane to plane and mine has more or less been sitting in an oven ( my workshop ) for several months so it's pretty well dehydrated----19 lbs will definitely be attainable with a carbon spinner--no wheelpants for me as I don't like the big holes they punch in the wings when the gear come off--I considered the Evolution 58 but it seems they are having problems with engine rings and the Super 80 is only about 5-6 oz more--it really wont matter if it flies good--I have a Hangar 9 Extra 260 with a DA 50 and almost everyone says the wingloading is too high ( 29 oz/ sq ft ) but the plane doesn't care--I've harriered it down the field at 60-75 degrees with the wings rocking like monkeys on a trapeze and it is yet to snap--I'm just hoping this plane flies as nice as that one

mine was a tad over 17 lbs with a small spinner, AND wheel pants. I use lion batts and no redundant receiver. I had to do pull-pull to make that work. This plane does really well in harriers. So far, my mixing has been about 19% rudder - aileron, and 9% rudder elevator.

My yak wit a 3w 75 comes in at something like 20# 2.4 oz! No wheel pants, no spinner bottom of the canopy is cut out, single servo on the rudder, one receiver/battery(nimh), all the extensions are cut to length so there is no extra wire,lite fly wheels, cf pushrods.
I can't think of any where else to lose weight without doing the single servo mod maudib posted.
There must be a huge weight range from one plane to the next.There's no way I could even come close to 17#. When I had the da-50 on there I think it was still almost 19#.
Even with the extra weight, it still handles it well. Feels pretty light on the wing considering.
I think I may have made it a little lighter today,though.I drug a wing tip and it spun into the cornfield. The cowls pretty beat up and there's a gaping hole in the wing where a corn stalk impaled it.[&o]
All in all, it faired pretty well. The landing was a little faster than usual.( I can't get that 3w to low-idle reliably yet)
Tough airplane though. A lot of planes wouldnt have faired that well.

I looked the Yak over real good a while back--nice plane and built like a tank so I don't doubt your weight--there is a good deal of difference in weight between these 2 airframes--the fuselage on the Yak is stout---good to hear it flies well--- I not going to get hung up trying to make the Edge as lite as a feather--if it doesn't fly to my liking I can always swap some things out to drop some weight

Our club (Alamo Radio Control Society) in San Antonio had a fun fly today. People were commenting how pretty the Edge looks. That's after I've been beating the frame up . I'm getting very comfortable with the frame, doing harriers down low, and I've managed to hover pretty well now. TR is the only 3D repertoire that still eludes me. It's amazing how well this frame tumbles, and how strong it really is. On the 40th flight or so, I dorked it trying to do low harrier with a rich engine. The only thing it did was bent the LG. Now, closing in on 70-100 flights or so (I don't log flights), the frame is still just as strong. Waterfall and KE spins are spectacular, and it does very stable harriers, inverted more so than upright. Positive and negative snaps hold their heading, but KE snaps mushes a bit. That being said, one of my favorite move is to do Figure 8 KE with a 1 1/2 negative KE-KE snaps in between. It's a real beauty. The only thing I find difficult to do is HA KE (not counting TR). my mix is good only for regular KE, but once I get in HA, it wobbles greatly and I'm just too afraid to keep at it because if I'm not on top of it, it'll snap.

OKay finally got round to finalising the plane, here are the pics, I decided to go with the a smoke system, and as you can see I have added an equivalent smoke tank. Will have some more pics up later today with more shots of the final touches .

The C.G did not balance out at all as per the manual, as per bonedoc's c.g neither, I will have to wait and see if it balances out once a spinner is in place.

If all else fails I might swap out the smoke pump with a sullivan smoke pump that may address the problem, lst resort will be dead weights.

I dumped everything at the front of the plane there is nothing left to add, also I decided to opt with a single pull pull single servo setup for the rudder as per bonedocs building tips, looks like a winner.

Maiden flight schedule in the coming days will see what the result is.

Nice work. I'm not sure how you can hover with that much weight though. As long as you're good with your landing, starting at .75" aft from the aft-most recommended CG shoudn't be a problem.

Bonedoc have not weighed her in yet will do so once the spinner is in place, then will have a fiddle with the weight issue prior to her first maiden, most likely going to swap out the smoke tank something smaller. after her weigh in will see how much I can drop her down to.

P.S. I did fiberglass the Firewall wit hobbico 21 g cloth as well with epoxy resin from zap. That would have added easily 25 to 30 grammes in the front.

Here are the updated pics

some related qustions:

Has anybody found a good replacement CF wing tube? Where from and what are the dimensions?

Has anybody found some good CF replacement main gear and/or tail gear?


I've looked through quite a few sites selling CF gear. Nobody seems to be listing the Lanier 87' series in the list of products they carry...


Thanks.

yarom, most cf replacement after market supliers dont specifically mention by name, but by weight and dimensions, so lets say for the lanier if your looking a 16lbs or 20 lbs cf tail wheel then finding that matches those specs would fit the purpose, in terms of the wing tubes then diameter and length of the wing tube would be something to base on.


Here is a couple of links that can help identify what your looking for.

http://www.graphtechrc.com cf tubes and tail wheels

http://www.gatorrc.com/ for wing tubes.

P.S. on the tail wheel i usually base my choice based on the actual weigh in of the plane after the build as opposed to the manfacturers weight specs.

Alright maidened her yesterday at 6am, was a succesful first flight, two left clicks on the ailerons, and one click on the elevator down, the first flight was with an empty tank of smoke just to consider the added weight issue that bone doc pointed out, however. Like bone doc mentioned the added weight of the smoke tme setup really was very apparent with a da50 as an engine choice.

The first landing was un eventful, she landed on rails, just like a trainer with plenty of glide.

The second flight filled her up with smoke, the take off was noticeably more heavier, zero trim. Couple of passes with smoke on, took her up, rolled her into a flat spin another low pass, and then up again, while flying inverted the engine quit, flipped her over and landed her safely, however missed the landing zone.

Inspection revealed no damage even though the landing was some what bumpy. I'll second bone docs comment on a tough landing gear it will take a beating to really show any sign of fatigue on these gears.

At the LHC carefully isnpectioned revelead that the fuel line in the fuel tank wiggled itself loose, at that point I decided to strip out the plane from the smoke system and go with a lighter setup.

P.S. the hover on the initial setup was at full throttle, and there was no room for errors, not ballistic at all.

Running 23x10 prop with slimline pitts style muffler.

Will do another test flight hopefully this week with the lighter setup and see the difference. In performance, but at the end of the day, this plane did get my attention bigtime compared to my WM 330 160, this is defenitely a keeper, just love the glide and the overall feel of flying her.

Running 20 on all the control surfaces for normal rate mode and 40 on extreme rate mod will be pushing her to 45 next time and see what the end result is.

I think if it was a matte of engine choice on this edge I would have opted for a 60 with reasonable climbout and an 80 for ballistic.

How old is your DA? mine has around 8 gallons already, and even in a 100 degree humid texan weather, I still get a decent pullout. Not spectacular, but acceptable for me.

If your DA is new, I suggest 22 x 8 for break in, and then no more than 23 x 8 (not 10) afterwards. Instead of slimline pitts, I heard JTec pitts I is better (more powerful). I have the bigger of the two, and it's as quiet as cans. My DA has a nice purr now, instead of a high pitch whine.

Have you tried harriers with this plane? Harriers are a beauty! KE is painful without the mix, but once mixed out, it's a non-event.

I just started working on mine. l'm installing a 3W 55i with pittts muffler.

Bonedoc, my DA is new, already broke her in at 5 gallons ashless and have about 2 gallons worth on her in synthetic oil, am guessing her undue performance was related to the fuel tank issue probably, will see today when I tune her back in.

The way she glided in after my last flight, I can imagine how the harriers are going to be

Will throw her in the hands of a friend at the LHC and get some down on the deck shots. Just to see what she is capable of on this setup.

Airwizard, the 55 would be nice, personnaly I would have gone with a MVVS58 or maybe the ZDZ60 in terms of the weight. Do consider a 70 choice or 75 choice for a power plant, the wings are quit big

i have a 3w 75 in mine

it is too much power

it is hard to hover because i need to work the trottle []
but it flys at less than quarter trottle so you cant work it much
at ful trottle it incresses speed like you would not believe

it is impresive to watch

i like it all


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