Anyone out there have a Nexstar with the 2 aileron servo's and flaps. I just picked up the parts needed to do these mods. How do you like the way it fly's is it worth making the changes. I've flown mine about 20 times since i removed the speed brakes and droops. I miss the nice slow and soft landings I was getting before they were removed. In theory the flaps should give the plane a higher rate of decent at a lower speed. For those that have made these modifications I'd like to here how she fly's.

jvk1976

I would pass on the dual servo setup. Plane just dosen't have the roll rate to make it worthwhile, and flaps are going to get you in trouble on approaches.

Andy

I have a buddy that did this to his Nextstar. The plane is setup already to have seperate aileron servos used with a center flap servo for both flaps. I have flown this plane both ways. I am a instructor for my club and the plane flys great either way, but the flaps allow the plane to land much slower and a lot more stable, but allows the speed to be gained in level straight flight without the plane climbing. It is a trainer, so it will not come in wide open anyway. The removal airbrakes IMO make the plane climb too much while learning or teaching in my case.

The mod is worth the time if you plan on doing it. It will make the take off distance shorter and landings more stable. In higher wind (windy days), I would not use them (flaps) as they will slow the plane too much while landing into the wind. Land normally on windy days, unless it is a cross wind, but then you may not want to use them that way also. Depends on the day.

My buddy only has three servos in the wings joining the flap control rods together to make them move together. Make sure the middle (flap) servo has enough clearance and will not touch the rear bolt holder or the balsa itself. May have to trim the balsa some to allow for clearance of the arms and rods.

Hope this helps

I put the two aileron servo's in today and set up the centre servo for the flaps. The pre fabed holes for the servo's were to small opened them up a little. The wiring was a piece of cake since there is a string taped inside the wing to pull your wires through to the centre. It took some time to get the push rods bent into the right position for the flaps. A litttle bit of trial and error and a bit of swearing helped.

I went out to the club field, took off without using the flaps and climbed to a safe altitude for some tests. I gradually lowered the flaps to fully down. My tx has a flap trim nob to raise and lower the flaps. I couldn't believe how much it slowed the plane down. With the help of a slight headwind I could make it stand still without stalling. On final approach I could cut my distance in half and bring it in from a higher altitude without having to worry about slowing down. I sometimes fly off a fairly short runway so I'm happy I made these changes. The flaps will definately help me out with landing in a short distance. Its going to take a little more setup to get things trimmed properly plus I need some longer servo horns to get a little more throw in the ailerons. The roll rate is a little slower than it was before. Guess thats because of the shorter ailerons.

I have a thunder tiger champion 45l which is twice as fast and a great aerobatic plane. So I'm not pushing the nexstar to do more than it can anymore. I really like the nexstar for its supper slow flying and reliability. Its a good plane for nocking the rust off when I haven't been flying regularly, I don't mind it in the wind, and always a crowd pleaser when it comes to trainers.

DTB - How do you think this plane would handle floats for fun, and ski's for winter? I would like to have a plane I could fly all year round. Usually snow here from December till April. Also what would taking the dihedral out of the wings do?

What a sound!!! - I put the nexstar in a highspeed dive the other day and the sound was scary - It was like how a kite sounds when the fabric is whipping in the wind. I think I was lucky the wings didn't rip off. Don't think I'll do that again.


Thanks everyone for your reply's.

jvk1976

Hey dude, I'm glad that you had a good experience with the flap setup. It will fly great with the flaps. I live in Jackson, Mississippi and we fly year round here. The weather rarely goes below freezing even in the winter. Floats or ski's would work great on there. Just make sure to rebalance it before you fly in case the CG was affected.

Ok, for the wing quesiton. Taken the "V" (dihedral) out would make the plane fly very differently. The plane would not try to right itself and would fly faster also. You would actually be flying the plane more. Point and go flying would happen. The plane would become more acrobatic, the flat bottom would still create more lift so it will never be a speed demon.

I have seen the new wing setup for the nexstar and the center is plastic which is not good for trying to remove the dihedral or any major modification. This is where the dihedral is put in actually. I would not try to remove the dihedral on the Nexstar. You could do it better if it were an avistar, it would fly more like a Cessna 182 with the dihedral removed. The new Nexstar design is good, but does not allow for a lot of mods due to the plastic pieces being used. You can remove the center plastic area, epoxy the wings together, but the flap servo may have to be adjsted maybe. Get an Ultra Stick for your next (2nd) plane if you want no dihedral or a Super stick if you want about 2 degrees of dihedral. a mere 2 degrees will allow it to fly very stable, fast, acrobatic but will slow down for easy landing. I own a Superstick actually. Very fun... A Sig four star is a good second plane also, but is completely different from a trainer, but does have dihedral and is a low wing and taildragger. I own one of these also. That is why I say a Ultra stick or Super Stick. Highwing, tric landing gear or tail dragger with no to very little dihedral. A hopped up trainer really.

You are lucky that you didn't rip the wings off in that stunt with a trainer. I am sure that they were stressing on the down leg. If you haven't done this already, I would highly recommend epoxying the wing halves together. These RTF aircraft are notorius for have the wings screws come out in flight and the wings seperate while in flight. I will spare you the outcome of that happening.

just put the flaps back on and with mine I took the AFS out and it actually controlled itself better.

The Nextstar I am instructing on never had the AFS system activated. If the wing's shadow is not directly under the wing, it will try to fly toward the sun. So I have heard. I would rather instruct the old fashion way, seem better to me. AFS is good if there is no instructor available, ever...

Hello jvk1976,

I flew my NexSTAR with dual aileron servos and independent flaps while using the Futaba 6EXA radio system. I left the fixed leading edge devices on in this configuration as well. The model flew good in this particular setup.

Seems like the NexSTAR Instruction Manual called for 6" flaps; however, I was missing one of the CA hinges so I went out to just past the next available hinge. Mine had 10" flaps.

Mile-Hi Flyer

Mile-Hiflyer,

Take those leading edge devices off, the nexstar's performance is soo much better with them off. Your roll rate will increase quite a bit without them. All there doing now is slowing you down. I can do an outside loop without them. I bet you can't with them on. The only trouble i'm having is finding the right setup for both flaps to come down evenly. I am also using a 6exa with my nexstar. I can not find the right setup with the flap servo to go with the flap knob on the tx - if you know what I mean. Let me know how yours is set up.

Jvk1976

jvk1976,

I pretty much just followed the instructions from the NexSTAR manual for adding independent flaps (except for the size. Take a close look at one of the pictures that I posted and you can see that both pushrods for the flaps are connected together. The flaps deploy evenly in this configuration.

If you need a better picture, I can probably find one that has a close-up of the flap/flap servo area.

I don't have the NexSTAR anymore. A guy wanted to buy it to teach his grandsons with it. I'm flying a SIG Somethin' Extra now.

Make sure your flap knob is set fully counter-clockwise prior to setting up the throw for your flaps.

Mile-Hi Flyer