Ok, I have been waiting 2 weeks to fly my New Hanger 9 80!QUOT! cub until my instructor was able to meet me. BUT - we were having a HARD time finding a day when the weather, our schedules, etc could all be in agreement. SO - since I have flown alot of electrics I went in to his shop and talked over me soloing it by myself He gave me all the good advice (it will float, take your time setting up your approach....use up elevator to hold the tail down on the takeoff roll, etc...

I setup in the large field I fly electrics in and got it all running and pointed into the wind. On my first takeoff run, things started to get squirrelly so I aborted and taxied back for another try...

The second lifted off steady as a rock, beautiful....My Magnum 61 had plenty of power and it actually started flying around 1/2 throttle, although I powered up to full to get altitude....It was SWEET!

I ended up with around 10 flights this weekend, no mishaps. There were around 3 aborted takeoffs, but I thought that was better than trying to force a bad one.

I also had 3 dead-sticks, but this plane literally floats forever. I was even having to spiral down to lose altitude (my son almost passes out...he is a firm believer in GET IT ON THE GROUND) :P

Thanks for listening....my wife doesn't understand the difference in skill between a 16 oz GWS 109 and a 8 lb gas plane, so I don't get many high 5's from her.

Thanks for listen to me ramble...

Jess

Awesome Jess! Glad to hear everything went well with your new bird. Just don't get too cocky though. We don't want your next post to be in the crash forum![X(]

Luke

Ditto to what Luke said.

But WTG!!!

Yes, I know what ya'll mean. Once in the air at half throttle, the cub is very docile, and landings are no big deal (although I am still have about 1/2 my landings nosing over due to rough field and not getting on the elevator soon enough...). The real trick is to try to stay ahead of the plane on takeoff. It can get out of hand quickly. I had a couple of takeoffs where I held the elevator down to keep the tail on the ground, but didn't ease it to neutral soon enough. The plane would jump off and start to roll, and you have to be quick to get the nose down and wings level. I learned to stay on the sticks until I had airspeed and altitude. This is one plane that seems like it will bite you in a hurry if you get complacent.

One question...I noticed I had to input alot of down trim. The CG seems to be dead on now (but just using the old finger method), but the model wants to pitch up until I put in alot of trim. Is this a thrust line issue? I know that with a high wing plane, especially with a flat bottomed airfoil, that the angle of thrust should be down and right. I mounted everything according to plan, but didn't see any reference in the manual. It really feels more like a CG issue because the model seems to want to pitch up, not just climb aggressively. Thanks for all the good info!

Jess

If the CG was too far back, the elevator would be very touchy, if it was too far forward, not twitchy at all. Sounds like either a wing incidence problem, thrust angle problem or elevator incidence problem, if I were to guess without seeing the plane. If the elevator is very sensitive, you could try easing the CG forward a bit. You can try shimming the trailing edge of the wing where it bolts to the plane to decrease the incidence a bit and see if that helps. Do a search on CG, and Incidence in these forums as there is a ton of stuff on both these issues. Good luck!

I think the CG is too far forward. Move the battery back but only in small increments so you can test the effect it has.Hope that helps.

Cubs love to pitch up with power, especially if a little (or a lot) overpowered.

Since most R/C models are overpowered ("experts" may differe there... but they generally have more than they really need. ) Its not suprising that it pitches up as you add power.

think how long a SCALE take-off would be for that Cub... probably 6 times what you use for your longest. Think what the climb rate is for a full scale Cub... nowhere near what you get from your model.

The trick of shimming under the trailing edge... its sort of like putting 2 times the angle in down elevator deflection. It trims the model for a faster base cruising speed. The change in incidence also is appropriate for reducing elevator trim needed due to... excessive power.

Your landing nose-overs are another symptom of having more power than needed. You get used to the plane flying fast... and slowing it down for a NICE 3-point touchdown just at stall speed (cranking full up elevator just as the wheels kiss the grass) gets scary if you don't practice flying SLOWER. The closer I get my tripe to that perfect 3-pointer... the less trouble I have with it when landing.

As for the CG... its possibly dead-on, as you think it is. I'd just practice flying the Cub... like a Cub instead of a whizz-bang speedster.

How much should I shim the TE? 1/16" balsa, maybe? You are right about the nose overs being due to excess speed because my prettiest landings were the deadstick ones

I got my plane home Sunday night and did a complete inspection checking for any post flight damage or loose bolts. She is back together and ready to fly again. I agree about flying at scale speeds, and that is how I fly most of the time. I think what I did was after takeoff, I would climb at WOT and trim (this would take alot of trim) then slow down to fly scale...It still seemed to be pretty close to in trim when I slowed down.
Well, now that I am more confident I think I may spend some time flying it, and see if some of the trim issues where more nerve related...

Thanks for all the info. It was well worth the time and energy. How can you explain to someone who doesn't fly? My wife said to me one time, "It's easy, you juts point the plane where you want it to go..."

Thanks everyone

Jess

one of my students just finished his H9 80" cub. I maidened it last sunday. Before the cub, he had about 8 flights on his nexstar and was doing good. but hadn't soloed yet. Sunday we forgot the buddy cable, but i felt confident we could do the TX toss thing. I got his cub up, gave him the controls, he flew it wround then said, i wanna take off. I said OK, landed on gave him the TX. He did a great take off and flew around, i never needed to save him. He goes, i want to try a landing. Now up until this point he has done all his flying and landing on the cable, but never realized this. I said go ahead, land. He came in for approach and did a great landing! I looked at him and said, "you know you just soloed?" He looked at me and said "oh my god!". He didnt realize it was his first flight and landing without a buddy cable or anything. We thought is was very funny.
BTW: he put a saito .56 4 stroke in it, i was doing very low and very very slow passes all day. What a joy to fly after bombing around in my funtana! so relaxing. his cub has a small trim problem, i wont put it here cause i have already started a thread in the ARF/RTF forums, check it out.

sean