I bought my Aerobird two weeks ago and I had a great time flying it, battery only lasts 18min but I got an hour of flying in by getting it to a high altitude and letting it glide. Towards the end of the flight the wind picked up and causes it to loose control because the wing bent and went into a spiral, right into the ground. Well I got a replacement wing and put it on, since it was to windy that day I thought I could even out the trims and totaly messed them up. The following time I flew it it turned rigth when throttle was nuetral and when I pushed the throttle all the way to the left it flew straight and I can not seem to get it back. Any tips on what I can do? I think their might be a small defect but the company will probaly say it was due to the crash. I love this plane and I am looking at getting a more powerful electric or possibly the nexSTAR trainer or the Alpha RTF trainer by Hanger 9. Any tips on what I can do to fix the aerobird and tips on whether to go glo or stay electric. I am planning on getting lessons in december by a guy who has a charter club. I would greatly appreciate advice on correcting the Aerobird, good electric planes (near/under 400), good beginner glo planes. By the way, I spent almost a whole day periodically reading advice you were giving to a highschool student I believe on getting into the Hobby under 250 and I must say all your advice was amazing. This forum is truely the best I have found, and the only one I check. Good job !

I learned to fly with the Aerobird this summer. I am amazed you got an hour out of a flight. That is awsome! I never go more than 10 minutes. I had a similar problem to what you are having. It flew fine then I had to replace the wing and it would not fly straight at all. My cousin has an aerobird. We took the wing off of his and it flew great. The wing I got from the store was slightly warped, it wasn't the same countour on each side. Almost as if it had been caught under the hatch of my car or somethign and the heat worped it.

Take a good look at your wing and make sure it looks the same on both sides. Also make sure the wing is attached in dead center of the fuse. If it still won't fly straight, adjust the trims more. If it will not turn to the left, shorten the control line on the right to raise the right flap about a 1/4 turn. Try it out, just keep adjusting it till it flies straight. The control surfaces may not be even at nuetral by the time you get it trimmed, but thats not a problem. Also, sometimes those screw that hold the spool to the control horn come loose and it slips. So make sure those are tight.

I assume you tried moving the trim lever to the left. If you havn't, try that first.

Sounds like all you need to do is just raise the right control surface or lower the left. That should cure your problem.

Just for your information, the throttle is what you use to control the motor speed.

I agree this forum is great. I am sure you will get a lot of good feed back to help you make the descion to stick with electric or go with glo. Personally, I like glo because it is more powerful in my opinion and I don't like dealing with batteries. And I like how they are much bigger and faster.

I just got a Sig LT -40 and I love it. If you can fly the aerobird you should't have much problem learning to fly the LT-40, specially if you are joining a club. There are many other trainers to choose from. But when I made my descison I based it off what I found from this forum. A lot of people recommended the LT 40 and I like it a lot. But its the only one I've had so there may be others that are better.

You may like electric better, aeajr can help you there. He seems to know quite a bit about electric planes.



Good luck with the Aerobird,

Wings,

wings (& snowwave),
Good advice wings, except for one little bit. I don't have an Arobird, but if it's turning to the right, I think your advice for trimming was backwards. If you're going to trim to get more left, you need the right "taileron" (I believe that's what it uses) trimmed down, and/or the left one trimmd up.
Dennis-

Thanks for the advice but the problem isnt on the main wing, its on the tail wing, i really messed around with the screws adjusting the lines. I def think I messed it up. Anyway yea I think I want to go with Glo too, who makes the LT.40 ive heard a lot of people recommend that. And who did u say knows a lot about electric?

Sig makes the LT 40 . I tried to post you a link to it from www.towerhobbies.com but I can't get it to open. Do a search on here for LT -40 and many people have a lot to say about it. Try tower hobbies, I think their site is on the blink right now, but it has always worked in the past. You can look at all the technical info on tower.


aeajr is an RCU member that always has a lot of good information on electric planes. He will probably reply to your post.


Best of luck,

Wings,

'Bout Glo: GLo = more flites / day 1 gallon of fuel = about 16 flights = about $9.99 - 12.99
Electric : 1 flight / battery. 1 battery = about $15-20.

I think two good glo trainers are the avistar(by Hobbico, found on Tower) and arrow(By hangar 9, found on horizonhobby.com)

Both are a bit more aerobatic than the Superstar and Alpha. The arrow is same price as alpha and same config (JR Quattro, Evo TSystem) Same with Superstar. ALso, beware what radio your instructor has! Im a beginner and bought a JR Quattro. All instructors at my field use Futaba/ Hitec. So, i had to return the JR and get a Futaba SkySport 6.

Listen to DB, Minnflyer, etc. They know their stuff better than I do!

I may owe wings an apology. Is the tail on the Aerobird an inverted "V"? If it is, then he was correct in his instructions to raise the right control surface.

Sorry if I was mistaken.
Thanks wings. (By the way, I don't have a manual, and you didn't provide a link.)
Dennis-

Sorry, I tried to provide the link, I guess it didn't work.

Here it is. http://h1070635.hobbyshopnow.com/sha...000-manual.pdf

It is a V-wing. (not inverted though)

I know from flying it that when you want to turn left, the right one goes up. So if you want more left, you tighten the line to make the right one higher.

I might add that the way you trim it (right up or left down) will influence how it climbs. You trim rigth up it will climb more, left down makes it climb less. Sometimes you may have to do both to get it to fly the way you want it. But I would start with doing one or the other and seeing what happens. Usually you can adjust the how it climbs well enough with the trim lever.

You had me confused, lol. Thought I was loosing my mind.

Thanks,

Wings

Thanks for the information guys. I am gonna look into glo trainers and which radio my instructer uses as well as the club.

Well, I looked at the manual and according to that your instructions were correct. However, that is completely opposite to every other airplane trimming that I've ever seen. [sm=confused.gif]

I'm presuming that this plane has a large amount of adverse roll coupling which requires opposite inputs. Think about it, if you raise the right taileron, the air passing over it pushes it "Down", which should cause the plane to roll to the right, not turn to the left.
Dennis-

Forget all that, the nexStar is definately the best combo around

Ya,

I agree it is a bit confusing. When you disagreed It confused me too, because I tried to think through it logically. So then I just went out in the garage and moved the contoller to put my mind at ease that I wasn't going crazy.

But, think of it this way. When you turn a rudder on a regular tail, the plane turns in the direction that you move the rudder. This taileron is at about a 45 degree angle, but is kinda doing the same thing. If you only take into consideration the movement in the plane that the rudder would move, it is the same.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if the tail wasn't a "v-tail" but straight across. You would be right. Right up would cause right turn. But, since it is at an angle, the tail affects the"yaw" I guess a litte more than roll. That is why it is like that I think.

I am no expert, just trying make since off all this [].

Do you agree with my explanation?


Wings

In reality both Wings and Dennis are correct.....it all depends how the V-tail is configured to be used. If there is differential movement then the V-tail works as a "ruddervator" which will behave like Wing's aerobird. Now if there is symetrical or opposite differential control then the V-tail behaves as "elevons".
Ruddervators are more mild in behavior and more responsive at slow airspeeds. Therefore thats why its used in this type of aircraft. Elevons would loose roll effectiveness at slow airspeeds, not a good idea for a trainer.

[sm=sunsmiley.gif]

Just to make sure snowwave 83 don't get confused, my original post is the correct way for the aerobird. But heck, by now he's probably already figured it out on his own, hopefully..


Wings,

Thanks for the help guys, sorry to get you all confused hahah