RE: ESTES Airforce 1 Ducted Fan 747 Jumbojet
An email from a friend on the forums......
> Good Morning Dave,
>
> I was reading your posts and I saw that you were having the same
> problems with your Air Force One as I am having. I placed the
> shim in the wing mount but I am still having trouble getting this
> thing to fly. Have you been able to get yours to fly
> consistently? Any advice on how I can make mine "air worthy?"
> Anything would be appreciated. Thanks You.
>
> Frank.
OK, sooooooooo:
>Well, I finally was able to get the plane in the air and keep it
> there. I must say, it flies pretty decently but I have to really
> practice the controls with the motor thrusts. As for my "recipe"
> for flight, here it is:
>
> First, by accident, on one of my landings before I made any
> changes, the front nose weight busted out through the plastic
> shielding. Prior to this, I had made the change which was
> referred to you about adding a shim (I added standard 3/16" thick
> balsa) to the rear wing mount to get a better "angle of attack" on
> the wing. I extracted the weight from the nose and left it out. I
> then hand launched it like it was a glider. I had no power on it
> and it flew great. Needless to say, I have been taking it out to
> the field the past couple of days and it has taken off really well
> and it starts to climb pretty quick. Also, in case you were
> wondering, below the wings about 1" from the fuselage on each side
> about mid width is a small protruding dot. It is smaller than the
> other "foam finishing" dots all over the body. These are the
> balance dots, one on each side. If you hold your plane right now
> as is using your fingers on the dots, you will probably find that
> the plane nose
> dives pretty hard. Once you remove tha nose weight you will
> notice the plane will be up biased, which is a good thing. I
> found out about these dots after talking to Naomi at Estes
> customer service about the plane. She is pretty knowledgable
> about it so you may want to talk to here if you are in need of
> some technical data. Anyway, I hope this helps and works for you.
>
> Have a good day,
>
> Frank
One more thing. Assuming your plane acts the same after these changes, you should be able to launch it by hand overhead with a soft to medium toss. It shouldn't take much and I haven't had to use the bungee cord either. Also, the way to find the nose weight is to lightly push on the bottom of the plastic shield under the nose and you should hopefully feel a depression. This is where the weight is. You should be able to get away with cutting a small slit in it and using needle nose pliers to extract it.