I have a nexstar and i love the plane never flown before and with the trainer supplied i soloed right out of the box and have had so many flights without incident i would swear by this plane. BUT.... when i take off the whole plane tweaks to the right like i have full aileron. i compensate with rudder while taking off but i am sure theres a better way to fix my problem, but for the first ten feet after takeoff this plane pulls to the right horribly.



Any help is really really appreciated.

The president of my club had a similar experience when taking up a student's Nexstar for the first time. Pulled to the right real bad and just missed the cars in the parking lot! I am not sure what he had to do to correct it though. It sounds like the ailerons are trimmed for a right turn and the rudder is correcting for that once the plane is up to speed.

I think I would try trimming in some left aileron. Just a little at a time and see if that tames that right twist. Then you might need to trim a little right rudder to compensate for the ailerons.

Actually, it could also be the other way; in that the rudder is set a little right and the ailerons are compensating when it gets up to speed. This might make more sense since the rudder is more effective at lower speeds (ie. landings and take-offs) than the ailerons.

How about this: try setting your rudder for a little bit more left, but adjust your nosewheel so that it is still rolling straight.

Boy, I'm just full of ideas, aint I? You can tell I'm no engineer! But, I have been flying RC for about 15 years. And I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night!

Perhaps one of the more aeronautically educated types can chime in here!

Is the nose wheel in alignment with the rudder? What I mean is do you have the rudder trimmed so that it is lined up with the fin? If the plane does not taxi straight down the runway it is tempting to correct this with the trim tab on the transmitter. Correcting the steering this way will also change the trim of the rudder since they are controlled by the same servo. Having the rudder aligned is more critical than the nose wheel. The nose wheel should be adjusted manually.

Also look at the engine and make sure it is not canted to the right. Having the engine canted to the right 2 or 3 degrees is OK. Lots of planes need the engine canted to the right a little bit, but having it way over to the right would cause a problem like you are having.

Eric

Check These Tread's Out...

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_20...tm.htm#2087480

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_19...tm.htm#1981655

Have you checked the wings for lateral balance, this I have found is often overlooked and can lead to problems like you are experiencing. This would only be the case if the airplane is banking severely, if yaw is hard to compensate for, then the recommendations that ho2zoo and depfife are right on
-Tom

thanks for replying guys..

Yeah the wheel and rudder and ailerons are cool the plane flies straight as an arrow once its off the ground.

The engine is off to the right tho ... i dont know how many degrees but it looks like its pointed more right than straight.
When i asked someone about this they said it was supposed to be like that so i let it go.

i havent even had to tighten a screw on this thing its awesome. i check them but nothing has come loose.. i'll recheck all of those things
you guys mentioned and i'll make the guy at the shop take a longer look at my engine.

Thanks again guys.

Don't mess with the flying surfaces trim -- your Nexstar has too much right-thrust. This is a Nexstar QA fault that seems to affect a small nunmber of them to varying degrees-- some are so bad as to be uncontrollable. The fix is to reduce the right thrust. It can be done by removing the engine mount & fitting a wooden wedge to the face of the firewall (hard balsa will work -- just toughen & seal it with thin CA). Another fix is to remove the right-side engine mount screws & fit thin flat-washers between the mount & the firewall, then replace the screws -- this one has the advantage of not having to remove the engine & mount. The disadvantage of the flat-washer fix is that it concentrates the impact loads in a hard landing (crash?) & can accelerate firewall failure.

heck yeah...just before liftoff i am at almost full right rudder which i dont really mind cause it forces me to control more stuff at once....

if i had crashed in the beginning because of it i would have been furious..

i have a couple other questions. Right out of the box i disabled the autopilot and never used those flaps i took them off
but i left the airfoil extensions on. If i took those off what would i expect to see? will it be more mmmmmm loose??

could i just loosen the engine mounts and straigten out the engine?

I am a beginner, my flying is pretty good for a beginner on a buddy box but, I have trouble controlling the plane on th e ground for take off. It is not the plane as my instructor has taken off straight as an arrow

DK if your plane pulls to one side that much and you are certain it is not because your wheel is out of alignment then its time to cheat a bit. Put in some left steering at the plane ... get it? Sometimes I am a little lazy with my SU31 and I will add some right steering to the tail wheel so that my take offs are a lot straighter.

I have a smashing idea!!!!!

Take off with some L aileron next time and soften it up as to ascend!

If you have a R crosswind, use less and less L aileron

It's a Nexstar.....I have taught with three different nexstars from different years and they all pull right somewhat......I have found that if you lift off a bit sooner it is not so bad...but you risk a stall, as a beginner......if you mess with anything on the whells or trim then you have to put up with what you just put in on landing...now you pulled right on take off but were fine on landing...try a couple of washers under the right side motor mounts......

Well, my Nexstar never pulled to the right. Ever. And, two others in my club had them and I don't ever recall ever hearing them say anything about it pulling to the right.

CGr.

taking the droops off does help a little not that much but a little bit, it is a Nextar after all

if your going to remove some of the R. thrust then a washer under the mount is a good idea, no! you don't want to fly with loose motor mounts if one side is loose your motor mount can break, or loosen up quickly, this can result in a dangerous situation,motor mount screws need to be tightly secured.

I hear this complaint posted alot with this plane, it pulls to the right hard but flys fine when in the air.

mine did as well untill I stopped dropping the throttle for take offs, alot of beginners and some expierenced pilots for that matter slam the throttle down when taking off, this does cause the plane to veer off to the right side, if you are used to this happening then its easy to correct but for the beginner it can be a real challenge to keep the plane going in a strait line.

when preparing for take off try a nice slow gradual roll on to full trottle you will find the plane is alot more controlable on your take off run, and will also help with the pulling.

before you remove the thrust in the engine give it a try you might be surprised, and yea T.O. the droops, the plane will need some re-trimming after there removed somthing to be aware of.

I agree. I have trained numerous students with their Nextar trainers. I don't remember any of them displaying this attribute. I will add, however, that most pilots wait too long to rotate on takeoff with the Nexstar. If the airplane is light on the wheels, skipping slightly on the runway, or beginning to wheelbarrow, you should've taken off sooner. Sometimes this wheelbarrowing can cause a banking tendency on liftoff.

I don't know if it's a record, but this thread was revived after nearly 5 years...

Ha, didn't even notice that. It is always the new people to the forums that bring thread back from the depths.

It's not like it isn't something to think about, someone did a good search to find it? Most of the time, I can't find what I am searching for. It takes reading hundreds of semi related threads before I start getting where I wanted to read...

Five years, Wow! You think he has gotten better with his take offs! Looking at his posts numbers it look like he faded into oblivian.

skeeter

It is definitely the motor thrust. A guy that trains people at our field has put together and helped at least 10 different people fly that nextar and everyone has way too much right thrust. He actually trys to steer people away from it because of that problem. The people that do bring one to the field, he takes a Peny and sticks it behind the motor mount to take some of the thrust out of the engine. Adding a peny or similar thickness takes care of the problem every time.

You can go back further than 5 years. Just click on the >> to go to page one. Then you can discuss "Engine Mounting Problem-OS FS-70 II Surpass" from 2002.

I don't slam the throttle wide open.....learned the hard way on my 3rd airplane.......The only way I have found without messing with the thrust angle to stop the Nexstar from pulling right is to lift off a bit sooner.....I remember one students Nexstar you had to almost jerk off of the ground.....but I had to move before that was fixed.....

Best take offs I have with Nextars were "hand " launched. I had one and it flew and landed
beautifully on the rare occaisions that I could get it off the ground successfully. Oddly enough, it took off on
skis real well. Fult struts for nosegear helped.
fredsedno