OkadaKeisuke

My Feedback: (1)

Oh yeah, I was gonna ask...

Would an OS 46 LA work well with this plane. And what is the difference between an LA and AX anyhow? They both look awfully similar.

Thanks.

Noah

Tom Nied

Noah, the 46LA would probably work just fine. Major differences would be the LA is a bushed engine where the AX has bearings. The AX will have more power over the LA. But the AX probably will weigh just a little more. I was first considering the Thunder Tiger GP 42, which is a bushed engine just like the LA. My reasoning was that I had a couple, and I really liked them. But I ran into a deal on a Magnum XLS 46 (bearings) that I couldn't pass up. Actually cheaper than a TT GP42. But if you have a 46LA, I would think most guys here would agree with me that you would be fine using it in the Escapade.

MetallicaJunkie

well guys im gonna maiden her this moring....ill keep you posted

bonebreak

I bought my Escapade yesterday, and I don't see any of the issues that some are having with the elevator. Mine is solid as a rock, as are all of the hinges. I will be looking very carefully at the tab that slots in on the front of the wing as it seems a little janky to me also. I saw a few places I will probably add some epoxy to strengthen, especially around the landing gear block. I put together a couple Cmpro models, and this needs far less attention than those do. Im happy overall, and cant wait to fly her. Sure is a pretty plane.

MetallicaJunkie - I hope your maiden goes great!! Can't wait to hear the report.

MetallicaJunkie

She flys great...i have a Surpass 70 with an 11x11 apc and it hauls ass.....I snapped it a few times and it stops quite well. it does nice loops and some of the easiest hesitation 4 point rolls ever.... very gentle landing airplane.. I also forced it to stall and it was quite hard to do, i couldnt find any bad habbits. This has had to have been one of the most pleasurable maidens ever... Im gonna order another before the price goes up, or sell out.

I flew this bird with only one rate,(not reccommended), so everything maxxed out with expo of course and it was quite responsive. I would recommend this as a second airplane on low rates

bonebreak

Congratulaions on the maiden!! I'm happy to hear it's such a good flyer. I wanted a plane that was capable of aerobatics, yet gentle enough to be a pleasure to fly. It sounds to me that this is exactly what she is. I will be powering mine with an OS .46 FXi which I think will do just fine. You said you flew it with an 11x11? Is there such a thing? You have gotten me very excited to fly this bird.

MetallicaJunkie

yeah its a pattern prop 11x11 ....it turns about 9300 rtf which is ok on a 4 stroke. however i will probably go to a larger prop and a 6" pitch for sport flying.... i was just seeing how fast it was and if she could handle it....

bonebreak

I am almost done putting the escapade together. I have only spent about 3 hours so far, and all I lack is deciding what to do with the main wing (servo's are installed already), and mounting the engine. I think I will probably glue the main wing together to help strengthen the front mount. How did your front wing fix hold up?

eric_f

I just finished my build with a TT GP-42 I had laying around. I'll let y'all know how it maidens tomorrow if the wind dies down. I spaced the engine as per the manufacturer and it required 5oz of weight in the nose to balance at 2.5" :S I think the GP-42 is a little light and the 5 cell RX pack I'm using doesn't help :P I'll probably re-mount it after the maiden flight so it doesn't need all the extra weight. I gave the plane a thorough looking over and didn't find an unglued joiner wire or evidence that the wing tab was weak. I was yankin and tweakin pretty good too lol. I can see where a rough landing wold do this one in structurally though. There's just not enough beef in the main gear/wing tab area. If I have a hard landing you'd better believe I'm inspecting it Other than that, for under a hundred I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything comparable.


Edit: Forgot to mention I glued the wing halves together. It fits in my trunk without taking it apart, another plus. I got this after my uproar had an unfortunate full bore run-in with a lightpole due to bad judgement. I learned my lesson, lol. For 5 bucks more it looks like I got a winner. The uproar was built way cheaper than this and takes twice the time to put together.

Tom Nied

eric, you say you used a 5 cell rx pack? Could you be a little more specific? mAh and where you eventually placed it? Also what servos did you use? The TT GP-42 is lighter than the ball bearing 46's others are using, but its a good performer.

Hope your maiden flight goes well, and stay away from the light poles.

eric_f

i put it under the radio tray, pushed all the way forward til the pack's foam rubber is touching the throttle servo. I'm using a 2000mah hydrimax pack. I'm using JR ds821s, the digital sport standard servos. HS300 on throttle

Tom Nied

eric, you might try to move the battery to right above the tank. There is almost some room there sneaking it in under the canopy. Then you could remove some nose weight.

The JR ds821s are some pretty nice servos. Not too heavy, but plenty of torque.

eric_f

hey, great idea! I'll give it a shot. I just noticed that my right wing has some unintended washout oh well. I thought the aileron was warped but this straightedge says otherwise.

edit: thanks, that did the trick! ALL the extra weight (prop nut and large lead sinker (my other vice) were taken off by just moving the pack to the top of the tank, separating the two with a lil foam rubber. I can't believe I didn't think of that! you deserve a cookie :P

Tom Nied

Excellent! Glad I could help. I've been studying this thing like a bible recently and recently just made a radio purchase and thinking this was a possible solution.[sm=49_49.gif]

And I'm treating myself to a cookie!

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

Tom, thank you! You just saved me 2 oz of nose weight. I had the batter pack located under the servo trey in front of the tail servos. It is a 1000 mah flat pack and it just fits over the fuel tank. By moving the battery the plane balances perfectly without the additional nose weight.

Bruce

Tom Nied

Excellent Bruce! Now watch when I get to that point, the battery I'm planning to use (Hobbico HydriMax 4.8V 1600mAh 2/3A NiMH Flat) will be too thick. [sm=lol.gif] At least I know what works.

eric_f

Still too windy here It's about 15mph and that's too much for me to maiden a plane lol. Anyone feel how this handles wind yet?

Tom Nied

Wise to hold off the maiden with 15mph winds. I got out with a beater (its a modified SPAD Debonair) last week with winds I'm sure were gusting to 18. I'm not worried about losing the Debonair and I know how it handles. Landings were sometimes hairy. But with a new plane, best to hedge on the safe side. Now if the winds get down under 10mph, I'd say no problem. That's just my opinion. Another thing I'm not crazy about is having an audience, at least not the first time out.

cjensen

Greetings from Canada.
My escapade also had the elevator issue as was pointed out in this thread. I plan on re-doing the elevator this weekend. In addition, I added a couple of triangle stock to the fuel tank tray - just to make the front end a bit more stiff. I am powering myne with a .46AX. I do feel a .55AX will be too much engine for this airplane. Although I haven't flown it yet, I think this is a great value airplane - reminds me of the Hangar 9 Pulse in terms of build quality and "completeness". Hopefully the snow leaves here soon and we can get out flying.
..Colin

eric_f

Flight report!

The wind calmed down enough for me to have 5 tanks of fun! I would have flown til it got dark, but You'll read about my incident later on in this post.

The plane handles excellent both on the ground and in the air. The only quirks after 1/4 gallon of fuel were negative-g maneuvers and landings. Neg. Gs are not fun for me in this plane, mine will snap out of an inverted pull out at just the touch of the rudder or ailerons, yet flies upside down going straight fairly well. It was actually kind of scary. It always has a self-righting tendency about it, making it a forgiving flier and I could keep mine on high rates at all times no problem. High rates being maxxed out deflection of the surfaces before it'd start stressing the hinges.

Loops: Great Tracks like a dream right side up. Probably due to the flared wingtips and huge vert stab.
Rolls: Circular? Not axial, but very smooth and precise. Could more than likely be solved with some differential.
Inverted: Probably won't do it again...
Knife Edge: Is it even possible? I had to counter the rudder with aileron so much the tail started to oscillate, kinda odd. IF anyone figures out the technique, let me know lol.
Stall Turns: Outstanding, but once again when I went into a stall turn from an inverted climb, it started a downward spiral. Luckily I had altitude to recover.
Stall in General: Mushy, no real drop of the nose. It will almost fall flat out of the sky.

No doubt I've got some tinkering to do. The rudder seems to have a big effect on roll, more so than I'd like.

Landings are faster than I would have thought for this plane. The high tail stance out of the box didn't help imo. I ended up using flaperons and bringing it darn near to a dead stall where the tailwheel would hit first, but that proved a bad idea, because my last tail first landing broke that springyding plastic pin in the rudder and caused the back end to go nuts, no damage to the plane thank goodness. I just had bent tail gear and a shredded tailwheel. I'll just secure the spring wire with some strapping tape and a piece of that antenna tube it came with. The other thing about landing is once you hit ground effect (3ft or so) it liked to 'bounce' back up. This could have been the 90 degree day landings on asphalt, tho got some mini thermals goin on.

Other than that, as long as you stay right side up it's an amazingly stable flier, more so than any trainer I've flown. I think with a buddy, you could learn on this thing for sure. It flies like a spacewalker i used to have. The TT GP-42 pulls this thing along just dandy. It could use more power, but I'll save a bigger engine for a more capable plane with a straight wing and symmetrical airfoil. This will be a great plane to bust the rust off the sticks at the start of a season!

Also, no loose joiner wire or degradation of the wing mounting system. Maybe they're cranking out an updated version. That's probably why Tower stopped selling them for a little bit.

ptuxbury

Thanks for the flight report, eric_f. I can't wait to fly mine... oh yeah, except for the 10" of snow we're supposed to get tomorrow. *sigh*

I replaced my tail gear with one of those Sullivan tail gears with the springs that allow it to move independent of the rudder if forced to.

-ptux

Tom Nied

Great to hear your first time out with it went well. As far as flight ability and expectations, it sounds great. We expect it to be a Sport flier and from your report it sounds like its going to be fun. Very good eric. Great news.

Flaperons? I didn't even think about that, but why not. I never had a plane with two aileron servos. All I have to do is drag my Tx manual out and figure which Rx slots and what switch. Sounds like fun.

ptuxbury

Here are some images I took on my way to work this morning to make the folks that aren't on the East Coast feel better.

There's nothing like a late winter Nor'easter to delay the flying season.

eric_f

Get out the RC skis

ptuxbury

I actually almost bought a set of RC skis last week but though, "Nah, the winter is over. I'll buy them next year."