While looking for a full bodied 3D plane I noticed that the length of the fuselage varied between planes where some have the wing length = to the Fuselage length and wile others are longer than the wing length. I would just like to know which makes a better hoverer.

Thanks,
Flyer 202

Flyer 202:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! If it were that simple. The best hovering planes are those that hover best. Short coupled, the Mojo. Long coupled, QQ's Yak 54, any size. Mojo is a profile, one of the best, QQ Yak 54 full body, one of the best. Go figure. Does Chip Hyde's airplane fly better than mine, off the same assembly line, same engine, gear, etc. It sure does, at least the two I have been privledged to fly. Why? He knows how to set them up perfectly, even changes the CG durilng exhibitions to provide different characteristics. Hours of testing. Does the 60 UCD fly better than the 40, yes, buy a bunch. Do guys like Chip and QQ have better eyesight and reactions, you bet, they are not human in my view. Can you be as good? Possibly, but you must practice, practice, practice, learn, learn, learn, for years. Starting out as a youngster helps. Yes grasshopper, thats whats involved. At 30 I could design and fly with the best of the time. 40 years later, I fly ARF's and hope to keep them in one piece over he weekend. Its still fun, i'm still learning, just at a much slower pace. Regardless, ENJOY

That would be great, just buy a plane that hovers easy right out of the box. I always thought long tail moments did make hovering easier but now I have one short coupled plane (Velox) & it hovers quite well. I'm much better at hovering now, but when I had a 68" Yak, I couldnt keep that thing in a hover to save my life, it was also relatively short coupled. I also used to think the long tail moments made KE easier but again the Velox makes you re-think it. In short, dont think long tail moments will give you any sort of advantage, it might help a little at first, but again it depends on the plane/engine/setup. You want the tail surfaces to function well in hovers, not having enough control will make it almost impossible to hover, having too much sensitivity can also be a problem. The X100 and Velox both have nice control while hovering, bordering on too much, but you can adjust it. The Do (60) is in the middle somewhere, enough to get the job done, not too much which helps you from over-controlling it. I have other planes that would be better hoverers if they had more tail control, if you need full rudder often, its not very easy to hold a hover.

Both post have been very help full on the in site in to hovering. Both posts have been motivating and inspiring to push forward on my flying adventure. Now in both of the posts the emphasis is on setup and I am wondering what a good set up would be for lets say a Carl Goldberg Ex-treme 540 with a O.S. .61?

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXBY46&P=0
O.S. .61 Link

http://www.carlgoldbergproducts.com/12078.htm
540 Link

Thanks
Flyer 202

the plane should work for you,the motor is good,but not a 3D type.
I'd put the OS 50 in it.Also look ahead,do you want to fly larger planes soon?
If so I would get something a bit bigger,and get a motor that will pull a variety of airframes.OS 50,90,160,YS63,110,140 Saito ,82,100,125,these are examples of good 2 and 4 strokes that will fly a variety of birds,from small to medium large.no fun geting bored with something and having to buy another motor.It really pays to do some research and then buy the best your budget allows.

If you're new to 3-D, its probably a good place to start. For me .40 size tends to be a bit too "zippy", evrything happens a a faster rate & wind can make them harder to 3-D. Thats why I like the .60 size U Can Do, its pretty big, but cheap. Its does things fairly slow so you can keep up with it, the rolling harriers are slow motion with standard servos, give you plenty time to adjust timing & get low. Its a good hoverer, recovers & flys out of stuff at near stall speed, so recovery is a plus. Its a good 3-D trainer I guess, just not a pattern or IMAC for sure. If you dont mind building, sounds like a Mojo would be a good start too, if you already have covering & glue & building supplies, a Mojo would get you there pretty cheap. Just get started!

I am not sure fuse length makes a lot of difference when hovering. I had a UCD 46 (recently crashed) with a long fuse and I still have my OMP 47" profile Edge, which has a short fuse. They both seem to hover about the same - the profile may be a little easier. (Thought you were looking for a "full bodied plane")

I would not buy the OS-61. I would buy an OS-91 instead. They are the same weight but the 91 has much more power, which is really important when hovering.

Yes I was looking for a full bodied plane but this one is to start me off in the 3D world and we had this one all reedy before we the motor will power the plane quite well. The plane is from Nitro Models .Com and is only $85 and we were thinking of getting the full bodied plane now we are thinking of a smaller Yak with a .51 Super Tiger which for a .25 size plane we will not need to buy a new motor because we had the Super Tiger from the Ex-Treme 540.

Thanks,
Flyer 202

http://www.nitroplanes.com/newyak543dfu.html
Yak 54 3D

Dose any one have any thoughts on the plane and motor setup please speak freely.

So your going to put a .51 in a .25 size plane? Well power would not be an issue but keep in mind unecessary weight kills a plane trying to do 3D. Will it fly the plane I am sure it will. Will you be able to float around as if it had a smaller engine I dont think so. I think an OS .32 would be a better choice if you want a little bit bigger engine.

If this is your first 3D plane try to match up the gear as best as possible to your plane. If not you could end up with a plane that will be a handful and have you disliking what would normally be a great flying plane.

It totally depends on the pilot skills, then setup and engine power.

An experienced 3D pilot can make hovering anything look easy, conversely a inexperienced pilot well you get the picture,,,

Most 3D planes will hover pretty easily once you get the cg and thrust right. That is probably the biggest factor other than power to weight.. You need an engine that will respond really quickly and definitely to get you out of trouble or back to straight up and down if you make a small mistake. IF the engine is just a little underpowered hovering will be much more difficult for a beginner. You need something that will really yank the plane back upright quickly if you get a little out of whack. As you get better, excessive power becomes less and less a necessity and more a convenience because its nice to have when you want it.

You want the CG back far enough that the plane is not top heavy. Thats not to say you want it super tail heavy, You just need it on the tailheavy side when you go through the trimming process. If its noseheavy then its going to be harder to hover.. If its TOO tailheavy its going to fly like crap. Just a typical setup where the plane requires a little down elevator while inverted to hold level flight will be fine.

Then you need the throws setup right.. You want plenty of throw, really about all that you can get to control attitude and manage torque. BUT, you dont want it oversly sensitive. SO you might need some expo to soften on the middle so that its not twitchy when you just want to make small corrections.

I like to start with 45 degrees of elevator and ~-50 expo for elevator, max rudder throw and ~ -75 expo for rudder and 35-45 degres of aileron throw with ~ -50 expo for the ailerons and then tweek from there. IF you are flying fingertips you will need less expo, more if you fly thumbs.

It took me 3 years of hovering practice before I could get DOD & touch the tail, (& get out without a scratch!!!) I had been flying RC for over 15 years before I started 3-D, I'm still learning, learning to get out of hovers with barely enough power for pullout, I have to "fly" it out. I think hovering & then torque rolls are the hardest to do, it can seem impossible at times. If you have a simulator, use it a lot, if not, fly a lot. I dont think there is a plane out there that will do it all without a good pilot making it happen. You can get lucky sometimes and get one thats setup right the first time.

Took me a year to hover on a full fuse plane, then I crashed it. Got a profile. In about 3 months I was down on the deck and doing tail touches. If I started with a profile I think I'd be much more further along than I am now. There's times in a hover with my mojo profile that I can put no inputs in for 2 seconds or so, the plane just locks in. My full fuse plane I was all over the sticks. Of course I'm probably a better pilot now, but I think the plane has a lot to do with it.

Edit: Just saw you have a ST51. I'm flying my Mojo with a ST51. Not ballistic power, but it's reliable and still will pull from a hover decently. At the end of this video you can see my mojo with the 51. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showa...mentid=1370198

Mike

Nice vid, did you use any editing software? I like the Mojo best, that water fall-harrier-hover thing is cooool, specially since its all DOD. Also, you got a ST running good enough to hover like that? Any mods?

Thanks. My brother edited the vid using Adobe Premeire. No mods to the ST51. Just running a 12x4 APC and 15% nitro. The midrange is a little ragged. I was able to tune most of that out but the ST51's still are too rich when trying to quickly throttle from low rpm to wide open, just the nature of the beast. Not the greatest 3D engine, but as you can see it works. A 12x4 keeps it spinning in it's "happy" range where it has great throttle response.

Mike

I've been tinkering around with a couple video converters/editors, cheap, low end stuff but one looks promising-AVS video, only $60 to use the entire library. I'll look up Adobe to see how much $$$ , I want to capture some flying vids here too. There's some good flying going on here too. I had a ST 90 that had the same mid-range you described, I rotated the spray-bar so the fuel hit the back of the carb wall instead of straight down(about 45 deg. angle) and that did help a lot too. ST do last a long time, very durable engine for the $$$. Keep on "huckin".

You really do not need to spend money on video editing software. I use the software that comes with Windows, Windows Movie Maker to edit all of my video. That includes the stuff I do for my RCU reviews and other online sites. It will do pretty much anything you can think of and its very easy to use.. It one of the few provided programs that comes with Windows that is really useful. Take advantage of it and if you have any questions about how to do something feel free to ask.

That might be just what I'm looking for, the software I've played with(free trial downloads)requires more computer than what I have. All I want to do is edit the DVD vids I take at the field, delete some thumbnails,cut out parts of a clip,merge & rearrange some. Then it would be nice to add in some text and effects to spruce it up. I dont have a DVD -R drive, just DVD player(read only), I dont think I need to burn DVD's to edit a video, just do the editing & convert it to Wmv. file or other computer format. I will check it out.

DVD is different. You need software to convert DVD into an editable format. None of the video editing software (that I know of) can do anything with DVD format. If your camera uses DVD you can still use Windows Movie Maker if you buy the software to covert the DVD to a format that video editing software can use.

So all the editing is done with a computer file like .wmv? If so, thats not a problem, there are quite a few "media conversion programs" out there, AVS for one, I've only used the demo so far but it works, it converted .vro and .vob(if I remember right)files on DVD to any media player compatable format.

Thanks for the post Mike, I looked at MSWMM yesterday and edited a .wmv file I had converted with AVS software. It was on a DVD mini-disk from my cam-corder. Now I know how to do it, first I record onto DVD, then run AVS to convert the video from a .vob or .vro file to .wmv computer file, then use Movie Maker to edit-I ran the Auto-edit just to see, it works well, now I have to learn how to do custom editing. I spent $60 on the AVS software which also gives you access to video editing sftware in addition to digital media conversion.

i've found helicopters hover very well

That is great to know.. Where did you get the software??