Burrito Bandito

Re-Maiden is a success!!!!!!!!

The Saito 91 was a good move. Reduced weight by almost a pound and balanced at 4 3/8". The flying time was cut short by rain moving in, but it was obvious that this is gonna be a great plane. Weight reduction was noticable from the second it started down the center line. Much more nimble and smooth in the air. However, even with the weight reduction, there is still a little snap in it with too much up elevator too fast.

All in all a very camper here and I can't wait to burn a lot of fuel through this one. Thanks again to all of those who helped with suggestions and information during the build.

Cheers,
John

Miloh

SAD SAD Times here!!!! Thought mine would show today, I ordered this thing to give me somthing to do while I was at home recovering from surgery with nothing to do. I'm sure it will show monday and I've got to go back to the doc monday and probably work tuesday. Oh well lost of work next week in the evenings to get it together for next weekend.

Miloh.

David Cutler

Congrats on the re-maiden John!

It still snaps? Can I suggest you just check the following:-

1/ Both elevator halves should be exactly in line through the whole movement. A good check is to tape a length of balsa stick to both, so that they touch behind the plane, and move the elevator through its whole movement to see if the sticks move different from each other.

2/The lateral balance.

3/ Only a very small elevator movement is needed. (A lot less than looks reasonable!) and aircrafts as pitch sensitive as these don't benefit from excessive elevator movement anyway, as it will probably 'mush' at the extremes.

Good luck with the next flight!

-David C.

Burrito Bandito

David,
Thanks for the hints. Lateral balance is good....always check that. Engine is inverted and battery and receiver is right down the center line of the fuse. There is only one ounce difference between the wing halves.

Elevator halves I thought were good with throw meter, but I'm headed to the shop to try the stick method as soon as i finish this post.

Throws were dialed down to the factory sepcs only. I think I may try to dial them down a touch more at the field tomorrow if I get to go. Rain looks like it may have set in. I will point out that the snaps are much less than with the 120, and pretty easy to anticipate, but I still want to smooth it out some more. I also remember an email from Vector tha tsaid they may be thinking about reducing the recommended throws even more, but I can't seem to find it so I'm not real sure about that.

Having never flown a pattern plane, I wonder....are their throws adjusted down to small amounts? Not that this is a pattern plane, but the principle is the same...I thnk.

I will post results when I get done in the shop. For the record, it's up and to the right.

John

Burrito Bandito

You win the prize David. Right elevator half was 1/32" high on low rates and as much as 1/16" on high. Makes sense too, since it goes up and right. That right half was acting like anothe aileron! Four turns on the clevis and I went too far. One and a half turns and it was just right.....We'll see.

Kind of a bonehead miss though. When I set up elevator halves, I clamp 2 pieces of stock accross the stab and the elevator half in a sandwich. The theory is that everything is flush and in line with the stab. Hook up your clevis to your control horn and viola! Didn't work this time though. Thanks a ton for the suggestion. It should fix things nicely, and if it doesn't, I know exactly where to start tweaking!

Good thing I don't work for McDonald Douglas or Lockheed! Then again, it would be kinda cool though.

Thanks again David I can hear the rain as we speak POUNDING on my roof, so it looks like tomorrow may be a wash (Literally) but one can only hope.

Miloh, sorry to hear that your package didn't show up. Keep the faith, it'll get there soon I bet. BTW, my last email to VF has not been returned, but I haven't heard from them.

I took the plung last week and worked out a deal on a 27% Extra from Colombo Anderson. This is gonna be a big deal for me. One of the members at our club also has one and we are talking about building them at the same time. He is a lot further along in the gathering of his gear though. I hope to be able to put together JR 8411's throughout and a DA50 gasser. Like I said Big Deal for me.

More to follow.

John

SunShyne

My Feedback: (68)

Just FYI to all those wo are still snapping, I had the smallest amount of throw possible on it and it NEVER snapped once on me. I did all the basic stuff and threw it up high for blenders and flat spins and the levator throw was sufficient.

Capable plane but not a 3D monster so be careful with too much throw as many of the guys have already stated.

David Cutler

Hi John,

Sokay. they don't use the balsa stick method either!



-DC

BasinBum

My Feedback: (2)

I don't think 1/16 differance is going to be that noticable. I'm betting on too much elevator throw. Combine that with a rearward CG and you have a real snapper on your hands.

Tracon

Hey guys,

I just got in from flying my Extra today, I got three flights in...I'll have a bunch of pictures to post as soon as my buddy gets them email to me.

Today was good and bad, all three of my flights were great, I'm still trying to get used to landing at such a high rate of speed, the logging dry land I fly off of is pretty big but it still seems small. I bent my landing gear a couple of times but hand straighten them out without a problem.

One question for you guys, I have dual rates on my Futaba EXA 6, what percentage would or do you set your high and your low rates at I have the lows at 40% right now but it still seems like too much and the highs at 100%.

One sad note, the young guy that I fly with just got his Vector Flight Sukhoi finished yesterday, he came out to maiden it, he took off and got her all trimmed out perfect, she flew like an arrow...snap rolls, total vertical the whole nine yards until he was out over the water and his brand new OS .91 flamed out...

He spun the bird around and lined her up for the threshold of the dry land, he had to dive pretty hard to build up enough air speed to make it back, at the last second of the dive he pulled up to flair thinking he would make it he came up three feet short of the end and didn't make it up over the end and smacked it into the rocks, she blew up on impact and everything fell into the ocean.

We ran over and got everything out of the water...and ran home to dry things off..
I soaked the receiver and servos in alcohol, then dried them of with a hair dryer...to our amazement everything still worked !!! we stripped the engine down and soaked it in a WD 40 type stuff...then reassembled it...everything looks good except the plane (Which is a total write off)...

I'll get the pictures uploaded here as soon as I get them...I hope to be flying again tomorrow...

Good Flights and Good Landings to all...

Sam

David Cutler

DiabloKid,

Agreed 100%. It's amazing how little elevator throw is needed to get a respectably tight loop.

-David C.

David Cutler

This isn't a coroplast model ya know!



Nice combat model today though!

-DC

David_Moen

Ouch! I think you need to look for a more forgiving field. A couple of weeks ago I head my engine die on takeoff 3 times in a row. Put my VF Extra into the weeds/brush 3 times in a row off the end of the runway. Not a scratch! I think I may plant some nice cushy blueberry bushes out there too!

Miloh

Ummmmm!!!! blueberrys.......


hehe, Miloh.

David_Moen

Yup, something to snack on while out wandering arounf looking for airplanes/parts!

Miloh

Holy crap....Thats funny!!!!

Miloh.

David_Moen

I call it planning for the inevitable!

Tracon

It's the only place to fly here....

we got kicked out of all the soccer and baseball fields... we're going to put up some salmon gillnet at both ends of the dry land to catch planes if they're heading over the edge...like I said to one of the guys today...." This is like trying to land on an aircraft carrier...

Sam

Miloh

Tracon:

What about tail hooks and catch cables???
LoL.

Miloh.

Burrito Bandito

Basinbum,

You could be right about the CG issue. Mine is balanced at the 4 3/8" position which is the rearward position of the range. It's worth a look though. I do think that the 1/16" would make a difference though, in that the varience between the elevator halves would be enhanced tremendously on what we all agree is a very pitch sensitive plane. I mentioned earlier that my throws were dialed in at the recommended range on both low and high rate, but I thnk I will play around with dialing them down a bit more along with moving the C.G. forward some. There is about 4 ounces in the nose (on the L.G. Plate) that could go. That coupled with bringing the battery forward and it may give me about 1/4" movement in CG.

Looks like I'll have plenty of time to tinker with it today as this is our first blustery fall day. Chances of flying 25%.

Thanks for the info guys. Tracon, my condolences to your friend sorry for the loss. Been thinking about the SUK from VF as opposed to the Extra. Something different ya know.

John

Tim Holley

My Feedback: (4)

Hey cootertwo ..what did your edge weigh with the 120fs . I have a Saito 120 with a pitts muffler and would like an arf edge to put it on , but I dont want it to fly like a heave plane I want it be 3-D ......

SunShyne

My Feedback: (68)

Tim I can tell you off the bat that any of the VF planes are not full on 3 D monsters. yes they can perform many maneuvers that can be considered 3D but forget the high alpha stuff with them. They are designed to be aerobatic thoroghbreds. You can run nice IMAC patterns with them and do blenders, snaps, and torque rolls.

My personal preference is a plane be capable of blenders, flat spins, knife edges and torque rolls and I can consider it a 3D capable machine.

Think the 120 might be a tad heavy but I have no exp with it. My 58" version has a Saito 91 and it was a great combo with ample power. Never flew more than 1/4 throttle for most stuff then cranked it for the uplines.

good luck

matt

Miloh

This is frustrating...... BUT!!!!!! it is proper and very good customer service.
These folks are second to none when it comes to keeping their customers informed. Some in the industry could take a lesson from this.

Dear William:

Just an update on your airplane. It was shipped out on Friday from Windsor to Detroit, and reassigned to Detroit USPS on Saturday. Most likely it will arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday. We realize you might be expecting it anxiously and just wanted to keep you posted on a realistic time frame so you may plan ahead. We are aware of the inconvenience our backlog is causing to our customers and apologize for it.

Thank you very much.

Best regards,
C/S
VF


Miloh.

jmc012

My Feedback: (2)

Has anyone had any luck doing a good knife edge with the VF edge ? Mine doesn't seem to have enough rudder to do it.
Jim

Miloh

Hay Jim what servo and system are you useing on the rudder?

Miloh.

jmc012

My Feedback: (2)

Miloh
I'm using Hitech HS-625MG Servo's throughout, 2800 mah battery, Futaba 9 Channel PCM receiver, supertigre .75 engine. The engine does well, but I sure wish I would of bought a .90. I didn't realize at the time that they were just 10 bucks more. I'm really enjoying the airplane, flys great other than the knife edge.
Jim