Luke,

I am jealous... I may not be able to fly until next weekend. Glad to hear that you have a better grasp on the landings. Despite their wing loadings, these planes really float on in. If mother nature is cooperative tomorrow, I may try to get a couple of flights in before the rain hits.

Does the increased aileron throw make a big difference in roll rate? When I hit the LHS today, T am going to pick up some longer servo arms so that I can increase my aileron throws a bit more if needed. Right now I have them set at the same throws that you are using.

Gary, good luck on flying tomorrow. Maybe the rain will hold off a bit. I would say the aileron throws are perfect at this rate. They are very responsive.

Gary,

I will have the pics for you on Saturday.

Well my plane is now done I just need to find some decient weather and finish breaking in my Saito. This weekend we are expecting about 5-8 inches of snow so I think I wont be flying or at least starting the motor any time soon.
I again weighed my plane and checked the balance again after a few more tweaks i did for supporting the fuel tank. Balance came out to be exactly 4 3/8 with no weight with the battery under the servo tray. I may add some temp weight to the front for the maiden and slowly take it off as i get used to the plane. Also full flying weight less fuel came out to be 8.5 pounds. So im really happy about that.
As it keeps getting futher into January the flying weather will be going bye bye, becasue we seem to get all the snow during that period. After this weekend of snow we will probally have it still on the ground for about a week. Guess i will have to wait. But i want to finish running in this motor before anything.
I did re check the balance on the propeller again to see if the vibration was comming from that. But, it balanced out perfect. I dont konw if you should balance the hub on the propeller because if you hold the prop vertical it should stay there but, it dont. So i know my hub i heavy on one side. I tryed balancing the hub on my last prop and destroyed it. Ended up I had to taken off too much material for it to be safe. So i didn't on this current MAS prop. So do you think it would be a problem?

rcfury,

Believe or not I use clear fingernail polish to balance the hubs on my props.

My wife laughs at me when I ask to borrow hers.

rcfury, what about adding some skis to your Edge? Then you won't have to miss flying time due to the snow.

That would be a really funny sight to see an edge with SKI's!!! I may go for it but i really hate freezing my buns off..
Anyway.. when i tryed balancing the hub on my last prop I used a lot of epoxy to add weight but, it ended to be too much.. Then i decieded to take some material off the other side and destoryed the prop.. I went to lengths and using silver solder in the holes on the back of the prop.

Wouldn't it be fun to put it on floats?

Gary, what kind of tach readings are you getting with your 16x6? What type of fuel?

I don't know Luke. I am having visions of me having to fish my Plane from the bottom of the Lake. Not a happy thought at all! LOL

Gary

I was browsing on the VectorFlight website, and admiring my next Plane(Extra 300), and I got to looking at the Sukhoi also. I noticed that the stock photo of the Sukhoi shows it with straight legged landing gear like you done yours on your edge, but if you look at photos of the individuals that have that Plane, you will see that most have the half moon shaped landing gear on the Sukhoi like the Edge comes stock with. I don't know if this change was due to people having troubles with the straight legged landing gear flattening on landings or what, but it is probally a smart thing you done by adding the reinforcement wires. Just an observation I made.

Hey you! Ya you.................the guy that has sat there and read through all 386 Post in this thread trying to make up your mind whether this would be a good Plane for you. How much more do you have to read before you realize that these Planes are great? Its time to go get that VF edge on order! .................................................. ...............................What do you mean the wife won't let you? O.K, but you don't know what you are missing!

Hi, I have both the 66" Extra and the 60" Sukhoi, both have the curved gear.
I did look at a full scale Sukhoi and the gear was straight.
.91TTfs w 14x6 MAS K series in the Extra and a .61 Evolution 12x6 APC
both are very good planes both in construction and in flying.

Hey Bum, Got any pics of your VF birds?

Hey Bumstead
This is the photo I am refering to. This is the Sukhoi pictured on the Home Page of VF. Only Plane shown with the stright gear. All the others show a rounded gear. Yet most photos that I have seen of individuals that own the VF Sukhoi show rounded gear. So I was just assuming that this was something that VF changed in the design.

I would imagine they changed it to make all thier planes use universal gear. At least the planes with the same wingspan would anyway. Makes for easier production and saves cost only having one type of gear.

Luke, my Saito 120 is turning my APC 16x6 at about 8500 rpm on Coolpower 15%. I am using regular 2-stroke fuel and have had no problems.

Chuck at VF told me the reason for the rounded gear is for strength. He explained that they are stronger than the straight design. He is interested in my mod and they may decide to change them based on the performance of mine. I informed Chuck that the factory gear just doesn't provide the necessary ground clearance when you go with a larger motor and prop. I will keep you posted on the outcome.

Later.

I am going to switch to 15% and try to slow mine down some. Will try to get some steady tach readings this morning when the sun comes up. It's 3:00AM. As soon as I have them I wil post them up.

I run 15% Cool Power in all my 2 and 4 strokes with never a problem. I buy 16 Gallons at a time to get it at a great price of $10 a gallon which is a cool price for Cool Power 15% fuel. I don't think you will have any troubles using it Luke.

Forgot to mention that I picked up some Great Planes wheelpants from the LHS yesterday. They are about 70% done. They are made of a very thick plastic, appears to be ABS. You still have to glue them together, but the kit came with 1" wide figerglass tape to strengthen the seam on the inside. These pants are very tough. They came white so I plan on trying to paint them to match the plane.

I also picked up the Sullivan Flying Wire kit. Although it was a little pricey at $21.00, it came with the option of using the steel cable or kevlar cable. I will probably use the Kevlar cable.

I am also going to rob my US40 of it's 6.0v 1400mah battery. Although the 4.8v 1000 mah battery is probably more than enough, I just want to get a couple more flights between charges outta her.

I will post an update when everything is done. And of course pics will accompany the update.

Later...

They say all good things must come to an end...[&o] Well, it happened for me and my Edge today. It was a classic setup, low pass, downwind, deadstick at the end of the field. Not enough room or speed to get her back so down it goes.[:'(] It's not so bad losing the plane itself, Vectorflight sells them so cheap I can replace it easy enough. The sour deal is the broken cylinder head on my Saito 120. The silver lining comes from getting all the electronics out intact. Now all I have to do is figure out which VF plane to replace it with!

P.S. I would have had pics but I found out my digital camera has been tampered with by a certain 2 year old who shall remain unnamed.[:-]

Luke,

Very sorry to hear about your loss. Is it a total loss? Can any of it be salvaged/rebuilt? If there is anything (and I mean ANYTHING) you need, just let me know. I will try to help you out as much as I can.

At least the radio gear remained intact. Is the Saito a total los or can it be repaired? That alone is huge investment.

At least you are willing to give this great company another shot. I know many people that won't buy the same plane if it goes down, even if it was pilot error, deadstick, or whatever. At least you can take comfort in knowing that the Edge flew extremely well. Just chalk it up to experience and move forward. Try the VF Extra or SU-31. I know that I plan on getting the Extra in the near future and eventually the SU-31. Than I will have three of their great planes in my hangar.

Keep us posted and please keep up with the thread.

Real sorry to hear about your Plane Luke! What a bummer! Even more sorry to hear about the high dollar Saito which don't come quite as cheap as the Plane itself. Glad you were able to salvage the Radio equipment though. That is always a big plus. I have learnt that every Plane has an experation date, but I am just sorry to hear that yours came sooner than later.

Just curious, but did the Plane run out of fuel, or was the engine just being tempremental? The deadstick landing attempt is always a terrible feeling, and sometimes it works out, and unfortunately sometimes it does not. Deadsticks have claimed a few of my Planes also, and it really bums a guy out to see his prized Plane laying in pieces on the ground, but I think most of us who fly have come to realize that it falls into the same category as death and taxes, it is unavoidable.

Is there any chance that the Plane itself can be rebuilt, or is it pretty much a total loss? I have had a few that looked real bad at the field, but once I got them home I realized that I could repair it, but sometimes after a Plane is tore up bad enough, it just makes better sense to buy another, and save whats left of the Old one for spare Parts if any are salvagable.

My next ARF that I buy is going to be the VectorFlight Extra 300 66", so maybe if you go that route on your next Plane, we could do a mutual build thread on that Plane also.

Once again, I am real sorry to hear about your edge. You really had a nice machine there, and I would imagine you really hated to see its life cut that short. If you can come up with some photos of the damage, maybe someone in here can offer some good ideas on repairing the Plane.

I also hope that the replacement Parts to fix the Saito don't set you back to far, and you are able to get it back to running condition. A damn shame!

Just going back a couple post and reading, and I was just curious if you think this had anything to do with the deadstick?

Man... We got dumped with snow here. Were sitting pretty at around 6 inches right now. I think it just let up. Tomorrow is gonna be all ice. [&o]
Luke: I also should say sorry bout the loss. You are the guy who made me buy mine. Anyway it happens sometimes. I to lost a plane by a deadstick. But, doing so after having it a short while is a big bummer. So did you just run out of airspeed and tip stalled into the ground? If i get a deadstick i always tend to land as hot as i can to keep the plane from slowing down to much. Sometimes you dont have the time to do so.

Well I took the prop off the motor to double check the balance. Well the balance was perfect couldn't be better. I did find out that the hole in the hub is a tad off angle. Probally when i tryed to ream it out for the crank. I straightend it out the best I can and see if that would work any better. Think I may just get a new prop.. This is pretty sorry.. Went through 3 props and the plane hasn't even left the ground. I do have an APC 15x6 on the way to see how that goes. Have to wait a bit. 6 inches takes a while to melt.