I am pretty new to R/C (1st solo couple months ago) so forgive the ignorance. I recently acquired a number of Jemco models at an estate sale. Have started building the the Dora one. I'm trying to keep the weight down in this little plane so i'm not using retracts. Also, since i'm building it just as a fun scale, I want to keep the wing simple. I'm just gonna put in the non-scale ailerons (just a long strip of balsa) and was thinkin that flaperons would work great for this. If anybody has used them can you tell me your thoughts please?

Exactly what sortof airplane is this? If it is a typical fixed wing airplane then the flaperons arent really necessary. Plus if you are running 1 aileron servo you cant use the flaperon function. Have to have 2 seperate servos on 2 separate channels.

Flaperons allow your ailerons to work as ailerons AND flaps at the same time for landing. Most model airplanes dont need flaps to land. The bulk of people using the flaperon function is it for some 3D aerobatic like waterfalls.

It's a 50" wingspan Fw-190D9 Jemco kit. The wing loading is a bit high and I was intending to use a servo for each ailerlon. It's not a big plane so i was thinking that the use of flaperons would help keep weight and complexity to a minimum.

LIke Bigned said, generally flaperons are used for 3d manuevers rather that being used as flaps and alerons for landing and takeoffs. If you are keeping the weight down on the plane most likely you wont need flaps. You said the wing loading is a bit high, do you have a rough estimate of what it is?

It's gonna end up about 30.

I guess what i'm tryin to find out is just which direction to go. I'm at the point where i have to decide weather or not to put in flaps. I just though I would not put them in, save the wieght and use flaperons if i need to. Just tryin to find out if people have experience with them and if it would be a viable option.

Ok, Did a websearch and its a 190 D9 fockwulffe or whatever... a warbird... That depends on if you are wanting to go scale or not. If you are going for scale then it need to have separate flaps. If not then I think flaperons are the way to go..

You ought to go to the scale warbird forum and ask those guys,,, should be some gurus over there on the subject. That is probably your best bet...

That is NOT a beginner plane by the way. Warbirds are real tricky to land in general..

How scale is it? Does it have strip ailerons? If so, you can safely use flapperons. However, if it has scale type ailerons, don't even think of flapperons -- it will tip stall very easily configured that way.

If you want flaps, I would use separate flaps and ailerons with 4 mini servos. You can mix them so they all work as ailerons, but only the two flaps work as flaps. That's assuming you have a computer radio which you need even for simpler flaperons.

Hellephant,
If you are going with dual aileron servos and strip ailerons, you can do either plain ailerons or flaperons. There is no difference in how you build the wing for either/or. You will end up using the same surfaces for either. The only difference is how you connect the servos to the receiver. With ailerons only, you can connect both aileron servos to a Y harness and straight to the aileron channel of your receiver. With flaperons, you have to connect each aileron servo to a separate channel and mix them as flaperons with the transmitter, which has to have the flaperon function built in, i.e: you will need a computer radio for flaperons.

Jesse

Jesse's got it right.

There's no difference in the build. As long as you use separate servos and have a computer radio you can use Flaperons or not depending on how you plug the servos into the receiver.
Dennis-