RC
There is snow at my house to, but I have been flying the VectorFlight Extra 300 all day long! Just have a look at the photo below!

Luke, sorry about your Egde going down. Hope you can at least use some of the parts on your next plane from VF. Dead sticks are rare with a Saito, but they do happen. Please let us know if you figure out why the engine died on you. You may save one of us from suffering the same fate. Hey look at it this way. Now you have a great reason to buy and build another VF plane. You can also start a new thread on building it as well. I am sure mine (which I do not even have yet) will find the ground some day, and I can almost assure you I will not be able to say it was a dead stick, more like dumb thumbs.

Luke, tough luck there, but they all bite the big one some day, sooner or later. I agree many times it looks bad at the crash site but it may be repairable. Was this the first dead stick on your Edge?

Thanks for the kind words everyone. After a careful review of the damage, I have decided not to attempt a repair as it would be structurally unsound with the 120 up front. The motor itself should be repairable, I will be sending it in to Horizon for a good going over to try and save some of my large investment. At this time I believe the cause of the deadstick was a lack of sufficient fuel flow to the thirsty 120. Once I get it running again, I will make sure it has a better fueling setup. I'll be chiming in from time to time to keep on top of the latest developments. After all, tax season is coming up very fast

Hey Ray, any possibility of sharing that G2 Extra? I am about 70% complete with my Extra 66 build. I am in no real hurry as there is about 15 inches of snow on the ground now, and I won't be able to fly anytime soon. But I always have G2....

rkohler663
I went ahead and put the Scheme up on my web page for download, but it didn't work right so I have edited this message to let folks know that I may try and put the scheme up on the RealFlight Website later. That would probally be the easiest thing to do.

Ray,

That is an impressive scheme for the Extra 300. Looks identical to the real VF Extra.

I tried the link and it opened a page with nothing but appeared to be gumbled letters and symbols.

Later.

Ray,

Right clicking it saves it as a htm file, renaming it to a tda or dds file does not work...neither does renaming it to a shorter name

Guys, with all the snow I have not had the chance to get the pics of my carbon fiber installation but they will get taken and get posted.

I will take the Link off my site for the scheme, and maybe try uploading it to the RealFlight Website later in their Color Schemes section. Sorry it didn't work for you.

Gary,

What servos did you use in your Edge? I have 2 Futaba S3010s (Hi Torque analog) and 4 S3151s (Digital) and a few S3004s laying around.

I had planned to put S3010 on the rudder and S3151s on the ailerons and elevator. But I'm wondering about putting Hi Torque on the elevator. Speed of the two is essentially the same.

rcjon,

I used standard 3004's on ailerons and throttle amd 9202's for the elevator and rudder. With such an efficient wing design, I didn't see it necessary for anything higher on the ailerons. They are more than enough for this plane.

Almost done with the wheelpants. Will post pics when I am done.

Later

I used the 3010's on my elevator and rudder, and alerions i used the 3004's. Thottle was some off name "Expert" standard servo that i had laying around. Then i use 6v. to power everything. Very nice I should say.
Since I knew that the evevator is very touchy and you didnt' need a lot of throw to anything i just hooked up the linkages on the inner hole on the servo and the upper hole on the elevator. Granted the speed is a little slow but, the extra torque i gained doing it that way. Should hold just fine.

OOps. csheppard is my other managers screen name. Didn't relize till i posted. So that was I talking there. hehe

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!

Ray,

Forgot to add that after I tried to get the color scheme, I browsed your site. Very nice. I am honored that you list my reviews on your site. I wish I had the time and funds to create a website for myself. One of these days I will.

I tried the zip file and it still isn't working. It says that it's an invalid archive. Hopefully we can get it soon, I really like the fact that you made the Extra 300. I am about to get Photoshop from my bestfriend and I plan on making the Edge 540 scheme. I am going to try to recreate the entire plane (minus the Saito because G2 doesn't have any Saitos). I am going to take every measurement as accurate as possible to get the G2 Edge to behave as closely as possible to the real thing. If it works out, I may try to do the checkerboard too. That may be a little more challenging, but I will try.

On another note. I royally screwed up my new wheelpants. I found a plastic model paint that was as close a match, without computer matching, that you could probably find. Everything was going smooth. I snaded the seams and filled in all low spots with contour putty. I had the pants feeling as smooth as glass. I had did my final sanding with 400 grit to ensure the paint had something to "grab" on to. After a couple of even coats, I decided it was time to fuel proof it with some Lustercoat clear coat. Well I didn't read all the cautions. The Lustercoat proved incompatible with the other paint and screwed it all up. When I tried to remove the paint, I think the combination of chemicals created a reaction and the plastic started bubbling. Oh, well. I gues this is one of those live and learn experiences. At least I know what went wrong. I will pick up another set on Tuesday and start over. This time I will do it a little different. I am going to use primer so that I need as many coats to hide the seam/putty. Then just a couple of light coats of the red, and finally followed by polyurethane clear for the fuel proofing. I was actually able to fix one of the pants, but in the process had to add several more layers of paint. I think it is too heavy now. I will post the pics of the two pants in a bit.

I was also able to do the flying wires on the tail group. This went as planned and I had no problems. I used the Kevlar wire to avoid and possible interference with the antenna. Besides, I didn't have the right materials to silver solder the cable to the clevis'. I may set that up too, just to have a back up system.

Later.

Gary,

G2 does have saito engines. I have a 56 and a 100 setup on mine. They come with certain planes but I cannot tell you which one came with which

I just tried to repair the zip file with winrar and plain old RAR on my Linux box and the header in the tga file is corrupted so that indicates a problem with the zip process itself

Oh gosh we got a linux geek here. Finally!!! I thought I was the only one. Mandrake all the way!!

Gary: Let us know about the wheel pants mod. I just ordered some sig wheel pants hope that comes together better than stock. Actually what happened was i never had a plane with wheel pants and i royally screwed it up cutting it out etc. With your flying wires what did you use for bolts. I went for 6-32 for the extra beef with nuts on the bottom. Granted the kevlar probally would have been better i just didnt' like the look of it. The wire just looks that much better. Plus it added the weight it needed in the tail to balance the plane.

Hey rcfury,

Yep Linux Geek all the way. I use it at work along with BSD in the lab plus host multiple web site and email account here at home (Apache and Postfix)

I took the pictures of my CF rod tailfeather braces and will post them ASAP

Sorry for your Edge loss. It never gets easy to lose a plane. []

rcfury,

As I stated earlier, the wheelpants were coming out great until I was on the final stage. The Lusterkote clear that I sprayed on to fuelproof had a nasty reaction with the paint I used. I will be picking up a new set of pants on Tuesday and completing them for this weekend. I will definitely post a step by step assembly with pics.

Later.

Hey guys,

Let's take a minute to give a brief intro of ourselves. We have been communicating for quite some time and I would like to know everyone a bit better.

I'll start. As everyone knows, my name is Gary. I started in the hobby in highschool, 16 years ago. I started with electric r/c buggies. I had many different offroad vehicles from Tamiya. I soon became bored with the cars and got into planes with my two best friends. The airplane aspect soon proved to be financially difficult to maintain. My friends and I started on our own and spent more time repairing than flying.

After highschool, I joined the military and started up with the r/c cars. I stepped up to Team Associated and picked up the RC10T. By this time I was in Florida and started racing at a local track. I soon became successful at it.

After several years, I moved back here to New Orleans. Divorced and on my own, I had to stop the hobby for a bit so I packed everything away. Then one day I met a new friend and he expressed interest in r/c. I dug out the RC10T, dusted it off, and got it running. My new friend resparked my interest. A few years later and I purchased a T-Maxx. I did modification after modification on it and began racing again. I remembered everything I learned from previous racing experience and soon steadily moved up to the expert class at my track. At one point, no one locally was able to beat my Moster Maxx. I would estimate that I put roughly $1500-2000 in that thing.

Well, one day my best friennd (from highschool) asked me to come over for a surprise. I arrived to see a brand new trainer (World Models Mach I) sitting in his room. This was summer '04. After several weeks of talking and Realflight G2, he convinced me to get back to planes (my true love). I soon had me a H9 Arrow trainer and new Futaba 6EXA and everything else. He was a uch better pilot than me because he continued to fly throughout the years. He took me up on the buddybox. After a few flights (and many hours on G2) I was soloing and landing with ease.

After many flights, radio interference took the Arrow down. I wasn't gonna let that stop me and picked a US40 and ST51. I was soon back in the air. This time, instead of flying at an large open field, I got my AMA and joined a club. I continued to hone my skills at the field and on the simulator. I then bought a H9 Aresti40. I have enjoyed many flights on both planes, but I was ready to take the next step up in size. Then in Nov. '04 I placed my order for my VF Edge 540. The rest of it is history.

It's funny to look back and realize all the stuff that you have owned. I have literally spent thousands and thousands in this hobby. But there is not one part of it that I regret. This hobby is so relaxing to me. When I flying or driving my r/c vehicles, I can almost envision myself in them. This is probably as close I will ever come to piloting an airplane. A private pilot's license is beyond my reach, so I believe this is the next best thing.

This is my brief story guys. As you can see, with a lot of flying (both r/c and simutaor time) you can advance rather quickly. In less than one year, I went from no r/c plane stuff to 4 planes, 4 radios, 5-6 engines, and everything in between. I fly every chance I get. I am in my workshop almost as much as I work. If there was a way that I could turn my love for this hobby into a career, I would jump at the chance.

Now let's hear from some others. Later.

Gary,

My name is Jon and I'm an R/Caholic<g>.

I took up R/C planes, March 04, at 48 years of age). Just something I always wanted to do. I started with the Nexstar. I played with the included simulator for a couple of weeks and joined the local club. I got some help setting the plane up on my first visit to the field and someone took it off and landed it for me. On my second outing, I soloed and it was several weeks before I had my first damaging misshap, an encounter with the safety fence. I've read on RCU forum many times about how weeks and weeks with an instructor and a buddy box is required to learn, but it doesn't seem that difficult to me.

After the NexStar I bought a Tiger Stick, then a GP AT6 Texan, then an Ultra Stick, then another Tiger Stick (I just wore the first one out), and I won the Twist in a fly-in raffle.

I go to the field every chance I get, and have missed on a couple of weekends since last March. I also have been going to Andersonville and flying in Tiger Stick contests held there. (I was doing much better there last Saturday, when the ground smote my Tiger Stick, breaking the engine mount.)

Now I await the VF Edge 540 - it has shipped!!

Jon

Gary,

My name is Bill James and I am 45 yrs old. I started in the hobby in June of 2004. I am also a non-recovering R/C aholic Up until the snow we got on Saturday [:'(] I have been at the field almost every day since I started flying, weather permitting. I use G2 when I cannot fly the real thing.

I first started out on the SIG LT-40 with an OS46AX. Did my solo in 6 flights. I flew that plane for a while then turned it into a taildragger and still fly it to this day for Fun fly events. Works great for the wings off trainer races.

After what most people would call a very short time, I purchased a 4*40 with a Saito 56 for it and a H9 Twist with an OS46AX both on the same day. One week later I did the maiden on both on the same day. Both planes have since been sold to other club members that were familiar with seeing the planes fly as I wanted to start moving into larger planes

About a month I purchased my CG Ultimate and put on a YS110 and still fly that plane as it probably is the best bipe I have ever flown. This plane is a missle with wings when I want it to be and 3D's with the best of them. It also is a big puddy tat with the rates on low.

I also own a Funtana90 with an OS120 Surpass with the pump that is a blast to fly. Hands off inverted flight and just falls right into the sweet spot in a hover.

I currently am finishing up my VF Edge 540 with a Saito 100 and also a GP Gene Soucy Extra with a RCS180 . I just finished a CG Sukhoi minus the engine and just ordered a rcignitions converted Zenoah G-26 for it.

Once the snow disappears, you can bet I'll be at the field hopefully maidening my Edge, GP Soucy and the Sukhoi.

At the nudging of the members of my club, I will be starting IMAC basic this year. All I have to do is decide what plane to use. The Ultimate goes through the sequences just fine and I suspect the Edge, Soucy and Sukhoi will also.

I spend my working hours beating up on all types of network firewalls to find security flaws.

Jon and Bill,

Glad to hear your histories. I think we all have something in common (other than the VF Edge). It appears that we all got into planes around the same time. Although I first started in highschool, I was never very successful at it then and quickly got out. But since June '04, I too have been an r/c plane addict. I fly whenever work, kids, and weather (in that order) permits. Flying may be relegated to weekends only since we lost our flying field. I have an open invitation to another field, but it is twice the distance and driving time for me. I may have to settle for the one close to my house. It is an extremely nice with a paved runway and a HUGE pit area, but the yearly membership fee is also HUGE at $200/year. In any event, I will be flying this weekend if mother nature allows me to.

Jon, glad to hear that your Edge shipped. I look forward to hearing your remarks on this beautiful plane. If at all possibel, try to do a step by step build report here on this thread. I am always open to new ideas.

Talk to you guys later.

very cool Gary...