Bah!

I went flying yesterday... in a snowstorm!!!

maybe you guys will let me setup my control throws first and tell me where you would set them up if it were your first flight again
i have a jr6102 so i have expo and 3/8 in on ele just dont look good(i know i know its pitchy)

thanks flr the help guys, i appriciate it

I actually have more on elevator - the 3/8 for me didn't seem enough (yes, flying - not looking at it on the ground). I am not using high rate, it's somewhere in between. I need to check to get the exact measurement. I think its more like a half inch instead of the 5/8. For my plane, its not snappy at all - using about -35% expo (futaba). Actually using that amount of expo on all control surfaces. I set everything else up per the manual and fly on high rate rudder/ailerons.

Low rate ailerons per the manual are fine, its just my personal preference to have a fast roll rate. I'd go with less expo with low rate ailerons,obviously. It flies great either way

ok, i flew that damd plane

im not good for long stories but here goes.

was perfect weather and the plane flew great
gonna open up the throws some today and see what she will do
love it, gotta go fly now[8D]

LOL !!!!!! You do keep it short and sweet don't you ? Wish the weather here would let me go fly too.[]

Exeter: Yeah michican does yeild some nice snow storms. Which always means not a lot of flying. Well for some people that is. I just got back from MI like 3 weeks ago. Granted it was before the snow but, OMG colder than ever!!

well, i have about 10 flights on it now and finally worked up enough nerve to do a flatspin with the hight=er rates after my near deadly snap at about 50 ft[X(] Man this thing does a great inverted flat spin can hardly wait for my next time out.love the speed too[8D]

this thing lands like a piece of cake, everyone had me worried but as long as you bring her in about a ft high it just settles right down nice and sweet, i love this plane i did kill the stock tailwheel the first day out and installed my dubro tailwheel as soon as i got home.

great plane!!! love those booties!!! (off my old ucd 46,sweet fit)

Wooohoo! I haven't tried to flat spin mine yet, that was on the agenda for this weekend (but weather sucked so no flying). Just a couple of questions about it
Did you use high rate elevator? How much throttle to keep the nose up? Also, was the rotation pretty quick or fairly slow? I'm going to enter it a couple of ways, blender - inverted stall and any other way I can possibly do it

Well, is that it? Does anyone have another VF Edge to assemble or are they all finished now. VF passed into history in the last month. We need to all enjoy their works of art and fly and maintain them to the cult standards that VF has created. We are all lucky enough to have one, hopefully for each of us more than one of their planes. I received my last one today, the Small Extra which just so loves a Super Tigre .90 in the front end. My Edge currently is home to a Magnum .91 that is not fully run in yet. Can someone tell me what kind of prop you are finding works well on a .91 four cycle. If anyone has a magnum .91 what kind of rpm you tach it to and if you get unlimited verticle out of it with a .91? The magnum is new and I'm running an apc 13X7 and not tuned to max power yet, not the verticle authority I like yet.

Anyway, keep em flyin, then don't toss em, hang em in the shop in a place of honor and keep the legend alive. VF was one of the last of our North American companies still building here. Sad. But it is going to make for a great legend!

bob branch

Shakes, i entered from a blender and yes on the high rates, i have mine set at 1/2 in low and 3/4 high and after flying a ucd with 3.5in throw on elevator i was a little skeptical about it being able to do it at 3/4 in but it was awesome with a little right aileron to balance and iwith my saito 100 i believe it was around 1/3 throttle and it spun kinda quick but was what i think was a perfect flatspin, couldnt get it to rise like my ucd46 but was way past my expectations
almost forgot, Max Rudder also!

next is the knife edge spin[8D]

have fun

Amen my brother... Great company, great models, great friends; I have my feelings they are going to come back better than ever.

Anyway, I can agree with the flatspins this plane produces. Super flat. What i usually do is i climb verticle and execute a knife edge spin (which this plane does pretty good as i might add) then i start adding more aileron and transisiton into an inverted flat spin.
My cline regulator just arrived at my door step so ill probally try it get that all situated later. That may come a little later as fixing my computer is my prime goal, after a bad install of linux which wiped out everything.

That must have been one rabid penguin. Which distro?

suse 10 to be extact... As I havn't learned from my mistakes. I chose the wrong partition when doing the install. The penquin isn't sick, the person operating the penquin was.

was out today after work flying and having a ball at my new flying site and looked down the runway and saw a c-130 military cargo plane lining up an approach on my runway about 500ft off the deck[X(](i live between china lake naval weapons station and fort erwin in the mojave desert and this plane did a buzz on me and then did a turn about and came back, needless to say i packed up my little edge and made a stage left exit and went to my old strip and will only fly at the airport on weekends when the military is off duty

got my knife dialed in today, needed to mix just a hair of ail and a little up ele but when i put in my 125 the extra 3.6 oz will take care of the up ele.

Did you put your mix on a switch or always on? I can see me coming in to land and applying rudder and the thing ballooning on me

Good thing you made it out of there - your Edge would have been no match for a C-130

yea its on a switch shakes, i use the same switch as i use for my knife on my ucd so im already used to using it because a knife on a ucd is way out of wack[&:]

C. C. C. C-130 rolling down the strip, 64 troopers on a one way trip. Mission top secret destination unknown. Dont even know when we'll ever come home. AIRBORNE!!

Ha Ha... sorry just brought back good memorys. And a few painful ones.... My knees are still begging for forgiveness.

Well actually i just used a constant on mix becasue all i needed was pictch correction. Which actually helped out with everything else.. Because in straight flight, with full rudder application i needed pictch correction. So no i can do flat turns with no work needed.

Mine is 75% completed. Just have to hinge the ailerons, install belly pan, install canopy, CG it and then trim it all out. The weather is very cold here (it will be -20 by the time I am ready to fly.) If I can get a warm enough day to break in the SA100 in my garage then it will maiden this winter on a good day perhaps with skis if the snow decides to stay ... otherwise it will be March at the soonest

The build has been super easy - I just haven't had a bunch of time. I had no problems at all with the Robart hinge points... I just used a pin-vise with a big wooden handle and went slowly by hand. Holes seemed to line up every time. I also was able to apply Ultracoat under the wings (some yellow stripes) - just used a low heat to avoid bubbling the vinyl. Even the wing joining went smoothly. I got a *little* staining from the epoxy - but I did go with thin stuff that they didn't recommend (3hr)... I was paranoid about making it strong and having it all lined up. The staining is hardly noticable and I had time to mount it on my building board and set the jigs so the wing and joint came out absolutely perfect.

I decided to go with 6635 Hitec Digitals and a standard throttle servo. I was going to go with smaller 5245MG servos but it would have been too much work to make all the mounts smaller... I got lazy... and with 2 other planes still in construction its probably better to get this one done LOL.

I have the tank mounted 1/2 way into the front bulkhead on some hardwood rails (secured the tank with silicone and velcro straps.) I was planning on using a 5-cell 1100 Mah NiMh pack. If anyone has a similar setup please let me know how far forward you were with your battery to make CG. I'm hoping I can mount it from the rails I installed (just in front of the wing joiner.) I used a Saito 100 w/slimline muffler and carbon-fibre control rods to save a little weight.

Chris.

Neve mind the CG question - I just looked back in the thread and I see folks are mounting the battery quite far back... which will also work just fine for me.

Chris

Re the cg, having it right on the front of the wing spar is the point of virtually zero down required in inverted flight.

bob branch

Thanks for the tip Bob.

Well I'm 90% now. Ailerons are hinged. I found that I could not get a 0 gap on the ailerons though. I have about 1/16" or so to allow 1" of up-travel. Down travel is greater, but because of the position of the aileron being lined up on the upper surface of the wing you get some differential which is what the manual said they were going for. Anyway - I can make the high-rate throws easily.

Using the Robart hinge pins was not so bad. I had to make some small slots for the hinge knuckle in the aileron and cut the pins down to 3-barbs (removed 2.) I only had the larger #308 hinge pins on hand. For the tail feathers I was able to get 0 gaps. I skipped making a jig and went slowly by hand... worked out perfect, no binding.

All I have left now is build aileron linkages, set aileron throws, seal gaps, add white stripes to the cowl, install belly pan and set the CG. Should have pics of it this weekend. I might put the skiis on and taxi it around without the wings to break in the engine LOL... more fun than just letting it bench run LOL.

I'm planning to try the stock landing gear first. I have used the Dubro before and I even have a set that I drilled 1/2 the weight out of that were still plenty strong (I think you could land a 20lb plane on the dubro gear - they are very very tough)... but rather than using the nylon bolts with the dubro gear I figured I'd stay with the flexy aluminum ones. My reasoning is that our field is very bumpy - with the dubro gear you get a little speed up hit a bump and you are airborne, ready or not... with Alu you get a nice smooth takeoff run and just have to bend them back every now and again. Not to mention if you mess up the landing and drop it they spread out and absorb a lot of the shock.

All-up weight is going to be right around 8lbs, that's with 6635 digitals and a 1100 5 cell pack... The CF control rods save a surprising amount of weight and I didn't have to use any servo extensions. The plane sure looks small once its built - when I built the wings it seemed bigger than I though it would be but somehow once it's all assembled it "shrinks" optically. The wings are almost the same width in comparison to my 22% scale Sukhoi and oddly enough the wing loading works out very similar. My Sukhoi is a heavy beast too (well I thought so) 12.5 lbs but thats with a Saito 180, dual batteries and on-board glow... the VF really should take a pounding - the fuse is built like a tank!

I wonder if VF ever come back if they would consider selling an ARC (at the same price even)? I'm thinking vinyl is very heavy... if you had an ARC you could save some weight here and there, cover it light, maybe even sheet the wings and still come out at a lower weight. I'd say offer a kit but the darn thing is so well built I don't think I could do any better.

Chris

When you gap seal the ailerons its not critical to have a small gap between the surfaces. The gap seals really make a noticable difference. Be sure to gap seal the rudder too. My VF 58 in Extra was the first plane I gap sealed and I waited til I had flown it a bit. Man it was like having a whole higher rate on every surface!

I use the Dubro gear. The aluminum is just too much hastle. I don't find this plane jumping off before it is ready to fly. An acceleration with the motors we are shoving in them is just not an issue. These aren't planes that are gonna run 2/3 the length of the field before they break ground.

Anyway, gonna enjoy hearing about how it flies with skis. Have a good maiden... but if you are going to taxi at anything above idle, be prepared for a flight.

bob

So close now! I had to restrain myself from staying up too late... all that remains now is add a pilot, glue canopy and CG it.

I sealed all the surfaces last night, got all the throws set etc. The only issue I have is that my belly-pan fit really was not good. It was in fact quite lousy and I had to really force it on there (the rear was fine but the front of the pan is too small - not conoured right.) I got it on with 6x 2/56 screws with blind nuts. I think it will hold but really I'm gonna need to make something better... the belly pan has to come off every couple of days all summer long to take the wings on and off (my vehicle is not big enough to leave them on.) I think the plastic belly pan is only going to last about 5 to 10 removals before the holes round out. It looks ugly too...

I suppose building a balsa one will not be a huge project... make templates for 4 formers to get the right contour, some stingers and some thin sheet should do it. Really one complaint for a plane as nice as this at the price I paid is not bad at all

It looks REALLY cool on skiis and amazingly my aluminum Jay Dee 60 size skiis are lighter than the bigger Dubro 3.5" wheels I planned to run!

Extreme pilot goes in tonight... temperatures just plummeted again so break in will be in my garage... with the door cracked and the extractor fan helping... and me no where near there until the smoke clears. Its AMAZING how much smoke a rich-running little four stroke makes in a 10 min run. When I broke in my 180 in the garage some neighbors came running over... they thought the house was on fire there was so much smoke everywhere LOL.

I plan to maiden next week if I can convince my instructor/test pilot friend to do a winter maiden flight. He's not a huge fan of "rushing things" (an old-time pattern guy with 25 years flying and a HELL of a pilot so I always "let" him fly my new stuff first.)

I have mine in a box in the basement waiting to be assembled since last March. I am looking forward to it. I am sorry to to hear about VF closing.

Going to fly mine tomorrow at last. Been quite a spell since I did the major overhaul . I'm hoping the new hi-torque servos and mass weight reduction cures the small problems I had before. All hinge gaps are now sealed as well.
For those that didn't read back a ways and see where I posted about a diet plan for the VF Edge I'll briefly hit on a few things I did.

Starting at the DuBro nylon gear,,, I carefully shaved and narrowed the heavy landing gear in areas that wouldn't be effected by stress. The gear is the best for soaking up hot landings but heavy. I reduced the weight by 4-1/2 oz.
Next I removed the pilot, fuel tank shelf, throttle servo tray and the heavy rubber tires. I replaced the tank shelf I had made with light foam that keeps it in place just as good at half the weight or less. Built a lighter servo tray for the throttle. Removed the rudder servo and the heavy fuse length rod and installed it in the tail section. I also sanded everything I could but would still be strong like before. Total weight reduced RTF....one pound 6 ounces. Which puts the total weight at 7 pounds even, dry.
All this will most likely make landings and everything else much easier and allow the engine to work at a lower rpm to achieve the same results. I predict the stall speed will decrease by 5 mph.