RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Sorry for the confusion Diablo, I meant suggestions for hole power from prop performance, as referenced by David Cutler's response.

BTW, say your retired Extra. May she enjoy her rest

John

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Sorry about that John! hehe I would suggest the 14x6 for the 91. Its what I had on it and its an awesome prop. Power was great and braking was awesome for landings, just like David mentions above.

yes the ol girl after 2 happy owners is getting her rest. Im already planning on the 66" this winter and want to practice IMAC this winter. :)


matt

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Hey Miloh,

Did you get your Extra yet? Last I heard from you in this thread, they thought it would be to you by yesterday or today.

John

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

No John it did not come yesterday, should be here today I hope but the mail does not run here till 3:30 to 4:00. I'm sure I'll be letting everyone know as soon as I get the box open. I'm off the physical therepy this morning so I might not even be able to get the box open today.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Something i've noticed quite a bit in the thread and in others is references to IMAC flying....Could someone explain to me what exactly IMAC flying is...? Yes i realise it's probably really obvious etc etc but it's failed me to understand what it means

Miloh, Can i ask what date did you place your order? Did VF e-mail you when your order was shipped...? I ordered my extra on the 10th of october....Was told then that there was a 10 day (presumably working day) backlog before orders were shipped out...

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Yes Mark VF stayed in contact with me every step of the way. I do not remember what day I ordered mine but I payed with a check that had to get there,4 days, before the order was put in, after the check showed it was 7 days after when it shiped. At the time I ordered the wait was posted as being 5 day back log. If you contact them they will respond with the info you want.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

IMAC is organized sequence style flying. There are rules and different classes. Each class has a preset pattern that they must complete and are rated on. Here is the link:

http://www.mini-iac.com/main.asp


matt

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Ah ok. Thanks for the quick responses!

Miloh- i'll send them an e-mail now to see if there's any news re my order.I paid using my credit card but they haven't taken them money out of the card yet.

Matt - Thx for the link - i've got even more stuff to read up on now :D

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

no probs mate, enjoy and feel free to ask if you have any questions. I am practicing the Basic sequence right now with my pals [8D]

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

It took them like 10 minutes to e-mail me back. My plane is in the current batch of orders and is going to be shipped out by the end of the week! Though i'll prolly still have to wait 2 more weeks after that for it to wind it's way to ireland....

They should just fill it up and aim it east from the US! It'd only take three days then like that RC plane that went from NY (i think) to galway in ireland. It had sat nav and autopilot etc etc. but needed a 'human' pilot for take off and landing.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Ok Fellers:

It's here, the mail man came to the door with a smile on his face like he knew what it was and how bad I wanted it to get here.
Anyway, First impressions are good, It's pretty nice in appearance, Big and light!! man it's light. Still studying on the landing gear plate so I'll post on that when I get it figured out. Has anyone put rudder servo in the tail? I want pull pull but might skip that if it won't balance with the servo in the tail. if it will then I will use two servos on the elevator.
Has anyone performed a successful knife edge with the mfg's setup on the rudder?? And has anyone used different control horns than what came in the kit and what did you use?? I have something in mind but it might be a little over kill for this bird?
The cowl and canopy are a little lighter than I would like but until I try them out I won't know if I like them or not. I do think that the cowl is to light to use for a tooling mold to make a fiberglass mold but I can carve one simple enough now that I have one to go by. Otherwise I need to run to the hobby store in the morning for some goodies and should have it ready to maiden by Saturday morning.
Off to the building table, Cya Later.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Miloh,
Glad to hear that it finally got there! Couple of opinions on some of the questions you asked:

1. I think you will find that if the Extra is anything like the Edge, that putting servos in the tail will be difficult for two reasons. Both revolve around weight. You said it yourself, these birds are lite. Putting servos in the tail will only increase tail weight on a plane with a pretty long tail moment anyway. Of course this could be offset by the engine weight. Guess you'll just have to play with it. Second is sub-structure. One of the reasons they are so lite is materials used. I would think that in order to get a set-up that you would be comfortable with for reliability and durability that a fair amount of reinforcing would need to take place. Adding again to the weight issue.

2. Pull/Pull should not be a problem, but I just do not think it is needed. In knife edge my Edge couples to the canopy which is a function of elevator of course. Pitch adjustment in knife edge is handled fine by the rudder, but with the extremly low elevator throws required for non-knife edge flight, there is not enough movement in the elevator to adequately adjust. I will need to play around with high rates or mixing for that. For a little added insurance on the supplied pushrod and collar arrangement, I took them out of the plane, set the rods to be even, set the collars and then wrapped the spaces between each collar with thin wire and soldered. This way, even if a set screw comes out of a collar in flight, the pushrods are still soldered together.

3. Control horns. I used the supplied control horns. As many others have indicated, I was concerned about the small washers supplied crushing the balsa, so I fashioned some larger washers out of the material that the wheel pants are made of. I could make them in the size I wanted and the spare covering provided goes on them really well.

4. The cowl is lite, but in my experience VERY durable. I took some 3/4 ounce cloth and put one layer inside with epoxy and micro-balloons up to about 2/3 of the cowl. I did this for two reasons. First since I was mounting my engine inverted, any holes in the cowl would be on the underside where the seam is from removing the cowl from the plug. In my opinion, this is a weak area. I did not remove the matching tape as it seemed to be holding things together. The cloth also added durability to the rearward portion of the cowl which on mine, got thinner as you move rearward from the front. The cloth also acted as reinforcement where the attachment screws went.

5. Knowing what I know now about the LG plate, I think I would have just knocked out the blind nuts, gone inside and added a layer of 1/8" ply where the screws go and put a full coat of un-thinned 30 minute epoxy in there if you can reach it. Then on the outside coat everything well with another layer of epoxy. Sounds like a lot, but it really didn't add that much weight at all. Then where the blind nuts were, I drilled and tapped for 1/4 x 20 nylon wing bolts. IMHO it is just a lot more durable and the wing bolts can still shear if they need to....in theory.

6. I had no problems with the canopy. I had a factory second included with mine and used it as practice for cutting out the "good" one. It looked good enough, so I am using it. The picture I posted of the dash is looking through the factory second. Guess I have a spare!

7. BTW, I went with 3" wheels instead of those supplied. My plan is to either get some glass wheel pants from Stans or somewhere when I get some carbon Fiber gear or just make my own pants with the lost foam method.

I really think you're gonna like this plane. Keep us all posted and PUT UP SOME PICS OF THE BUILD! No one else (me included) has done this as they go. It might help those out there lurking and trying to decide whether or not to buy one.

Cheers,
John

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Thank you John, I'll do a few picts of the unbuilt plane in just a little while for everyone to see. Thanks for all the help.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Ok here we go, just a few right out of the box.
First is the packaging.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Heres a shot of the inside and control rods.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

the tail section.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

The tail feathers I have hinged already.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

The fuse.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Still looking it over, no glue yet. Should be a little activity before bed.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

My plane arived today as anyone following this thread knows and today I also got an e-mail from VF that was completely unexpected, you want customer service? check this out.

Dear Valued Customer:

Thank you for your recent purchase of a VF airplane. We recently changed the previously used screw type control horns as they did not have a large enough clamping surface and were digging into the balsa and becoming loose over time. As a temporary measure we have switched to standard Dubro control horns which have a larger clamping base and should work well.

During this change over, we inadvertently left out the clevises which should have gone into the same pack in which the control horns came in. A set of 6 clevises has separately been mailed to you today.

We apologize for the error and the inconvenience.

Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions about your VF airplane. We sincerely appreciate our customer's feedback and depend on it for product improvement.

Best regards

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Can anyone with the extra 300 66" who has installed a 2-stroke .75 or 90 ST post any weights with either combo? Thanks, Joe

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Heres a look at the new control horns VF is sedning with their ARFs The first shows the installed horn on the rudder and the hinges I plan to use, Gerat planes CA hinges.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

After setting up the proper position of the horz stab I marked it with a pen and cut the covering back to take advantage of all the gluing surface available.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

This is somthing new to me, I've never seen it done this way but it's sorta neat. The twisted wire was put on by me after making sure it was all adjusted right. Now acting on the suggestion by Scale Dreamer I will hunt up my pencil tourch and solder and do a little work.

Miloh.

RE: VectorFlight 300s, anygood?
 

Now for the landing gear plate. I made a plywood plate and installed 440 blind nuts then drilled the bottom of the fuse. The ply plate will be epoxied and pulled down tight with the nylon bolts. Hopefully the bolts will go before tearing the gear plates out. Hopefully nothing will have to break. Should see saturday morning.

Miloh.