wedgewing

Thanks

I flew the planes today in about 36 degree weather with about 10 mph winds for the maidens (fun).

Both fly very well even in the windy conditions if you call 10 mph windy, it seems like it is always that speed here.

for what it is worth I have the 260 3D using the recommended 12 x 6E, while the GP 330s specs a 10 x 7E. I think for the next flight I am going to place an 11 x 7E on the GP 330s to see if it helps as it seemed to me that the 260 3D was floating around and tracking very well at a lot lower rpm than the GP 330s , but the 12 x 6E was taking a nicer gulp of air with it so I think the going with the 11 x 7E will help.

both airplanes made their landing approaches at walking speed which was very cool and if I was landing on something that did not look like a prairie dog community I might have walked away with the nylon screws in my landing gear in tact. reviews say that the 330s needs a powered landing but in this case today with the wind i used almost idle prop and very little trim and both planes have a very smooth sink rate and may need a little distance for landing (sort of like a floating mini pulse)

I had the control horns on the 330s set on their lower settings as I intend to have my son and I fly it through the buddy box. even with the lower rates, the ailerons are super responsive, so don't think you have to go with big throws to make the 330s roll. The 260 3D rolls very well too. Both are nice planes

word of advice. GP/Electrifly uses a 3 mm x 8 mm screw (x 4) to hold their landing gear on with the same size blind nut. if you are flying any E Flite stuff they use 4-40 threaded blind nuts, and you can pick up the nylon flat headed screws at Ace hardware for $0.15 a piece and keep the plane in one piece following a rough landing. I cannot find 3 mm x 8 mm nylon flat headed screws so I changed the blind nuts to the 4-40 on the 330s ( a real pain to do the ones closest to the outside of the fuse). very cold today and wet grass so despite the fact that I almost VTOLd the landing one of the 330s gears popped with no body damage. If they would get torn off they would do the fuselage some nice damage so consider the modification to allow for nylon screws for the gear.

once the grass levels out a bit and is cut, I should not have any issues with the wheels. nice thing about the MPI wheels is that they don't look large. the wheels that come with the 330s are too small and spongy if you are going to fly off of anything more than a parking lot.

If we don't get a bunch of snow I will have them back up again

Happy New Year everyone!

carguy1994ca

Wedgewing, your report reminds me of flying my extra. Seems to be flying like mine (heck, should be !).
Feels kind of funny reading about snow at this time of year, because on the front of the house, there is about 2 and a half feet of the white stuff !

I'm ordering floats for the heli and I fly the planes on skis. Lots of fun !

Carguy

wedgewing

carguy1944ca

we have the lake effect machine working today on the snow. about 4 inches, and if the gusts weren't so bad I would have one of them on skis and flying today.

Rebuilding day today, (fixing a crashed Mini Ultra Stick and an E Flite Gypsy modification where I have added some ailerons to with a servo on top of the wing, flies great, but not on a day like today.

If the wife does't kill me for disappearing for 5 minutes that turns to an hour and involves hot glue, I will spend this snowy day battling my 10 year old son with his AirHog Havoc laser tag helicopters. Those are a blast and I can understand why people enjoy the helis.

Glad to hear that you had the same feeling on the Extra 330s too. I guess we built them right

KP

sevans16

I just picked up one of these babies today at the LHS. Trying to decide on a motor now.

brenthampton79

I got my stuff from tower last night to build the extra my wife bought for me for xmas and waiting on the lipo's to show up im getting anxious to fly the darn thing, sounds like everyone likes it so far!

carguy1994ca

Brenthampton79

I think you will like the plane very much. What motor and battery are you getting for it ?

Carguy

brenthampton79

i bought a 35-30-950 rimfire and a ss-35 esc from tower on the scratch and dent list for half price. going to use lipo's from all battery center on ebay, i know the rimfire motor is not the recomended 1250 but hoping that it will fly it fine since it was recommended for the yak, ultimate, and reactor and they're the same size. the battery are 25c 3s 2100 mah battery and the other is a 15c 3s 2100 mah
the first was like 52 and the second was 35 i think and about 12 to ship them both i think the total was 77 bucks for both wanted to try them both out and hoping the 15c will be enough i was told so but figured why not get the big one in case, i've had really good luck with their nimh batts in my vxl so wanted to try their lipo's as well.

thanks for the interest carguy!

carguy1994ca

Brenthampton79,

I am sure your motor won't have any problem flying your plane. The plane is very light and it will deliver enough power to do aerobatics. I do not know about unlimited vertical and would think you won't have unlimited but surely it will go up high before stoping.
With my rimfire 1250, 2100 mah and 10x7 prop I had unlimited vertical, but since I am not into 3D, I am sure the 950 would have been plenty.

Have fun and come back with your flight impressions ! Would like to hear about that motor.

Carguy !

brenthampton79

carguy yeah im not much on 3d stuff either i like to represent realistic flight characteristics more so especially with my gas models, will let you know how the set up turns out thanks again
brent

carguy1994ca

Brent

Cool !

brenthampton79

Got the battery's today starting construction tonight hoping to get done tonight or tomorrow night and fly by the weekend. one pack has a different balancer pack obviously the 25 c on so ill have to order the other tomorrow when i get to the airport, but the 15c should work, if so 35 bucks a pack will be awsome! Anyway i'll post pics and my impressions of the combo package as well as the pack performance, take in mind i don't know much about e-flight that well yet!

carguy1994ca

Hi Brent !

I began electric flight last summer but now I have a Dornier twin motor on the bench to build, I also bought an helimax MX400 pro electric heli, and I put a brushless motor in my Parkzone Stryker. I can tell you I am hooked ! No more fuel mess, no vibrations (well only good vibes from the flight ), and in the winter you don't have trouble starting the engine....just keep your batteries warm.

I am sure you will like it. Also, don't forget that you should not discharge the batteries more than 80% of their capacity to make them last longer. You should fly for about 4 minutes and check how much your putting back in the battery with the charger. If it is lessthan 80 % of the capacity, you can fly a little longer until you use 80 % of the capacity. With my Extra it was around 6 minutes flight time of aerobatic flying and with a 2100 mAh lipo.

Have fun !

Carguy

brenthampton79

Well got the extra finished tonight! can't wait to fly it either! tried it out in the shop tonight to see if it will maintain full power with teh 35-30-950 motor and it will .no problem with the 15c battery that everyone suggested so thanks all of ya'll for that. the motor will almost hover it though, i did make one mod and put a steerable tailwheel on it and opted to not put the wheel pants on it.

the thing balanced out perfect too.

somewhat dissapointed with the covering on it though. the clear celphane on top of the covering has seperated on the blue and makes the model look like crap in a few places

anyway not bad for an arf though

carguy will take your advice on the batts, and put a 4 to 5 minute timer on my radio looks like hte 35 dollar lipos are going to work great though

carguy1994ca

Brent,

Did the same with the wheel pants. The wheels are small but on our short cut runway I never had a problem. Too bad you had problem with your covering. It is monokote and usually of good quality. The tail wheel will help on asphalt but on grass the plane always turned easily.

Have a ball !

brenthampton79

yeah i can't wait to fly the thing, We run the local airport and they just put some new asphault down for our loading area so i thought the tail wheel would be good since it wouldn't take long to grind the skid off. hoping to fly this wkend its suppose to be in the high 40's so that won't be too bad.
hoping that this electric turns out better than most of my other expeirences with electric

thanks again for the advice

carguy1994ca

What were the other experiences ?

brenthampton79

well the flatouts were fun but didn't know you could ruin a lipo with just running it down to far, no one warned my brother and i of that, thats the biggest disappointment we have had with electric the others are the rotofly helicopoters, not to mention the whole charging thing, we started with the gp lipos that first came out, we also used the brushed motors with the kits and worked good for the most part but one esc would toast the motors the other wouldn't., but i think this new plane is a lot better as far as technology.

carguy1994ca

Brent,

Indeed the power system in the extra is very good. The most important thing to remember is to land before the voltage cutoff of the esc stops the motor. The plane will glide OK but it will not absorb shocks very good since it is made very light. Also landing before cutoff will protect the battery, although I didn't encounter problem with mines ( before I knew all that, I would fly til cutoff...).

When you land the plane, keep a bit of power until final flare because that big prop slows the plane, it is very easy to fly though. Firts fly it with low rates, I dialed mine for low and high rates shown in the manual. If you perogrammed the 3D throws, man you better be good, cause it will roll like hell ! But ion low throws it is very forgiving.

Carguy

brenthampton79

yeah i always have a lower rate and wide open as far as they go rates on my gas models, honestly i don't ever look at the throw rates on any model and just eyeball it to what i think it should be, i know no one will recommend this but hey im just a little redneck about it, hey ya'll watch this attitude.

brent
but will watch that on the cut off i somewhat figured that because of the flatouts would do the same also a real plane will do that too expecially if you have it pulled in reverse a little on final

brenthampton79

Well after a lot of anticipation i finally got to fly the darn thing today, i had to put one click of aileron trim in. First impressions are good, i liked how it slowed down, even snapped similar to my gas models. I am really impressed with the flight characteristics. Even with the 950 motor it still would hover and climb vertically , not great and don't think that it would on a warmer day , but hey thats okay with me for 20 bucks for a outrunner i cant complain. I may upgrade to the 1250 motor eventually. My 15c lipo i got off of ebay worked great lasted a while and couldn't ask for more only 35 bucks!!! I haven't tried the 25c pack yet as my hands were numb from the cold( not much on cold weather). All in all hoping to fly it again this weekend.
I am really looking forward to many more flights!!!!

brent

carguy1994ca

Brent,

Congrats for your maiden ! How long did your flight last ? And if you went for a 4 or 5 min flight, how much current did you put back in your battery ?

Try a transmitter mitt for your next flight. It's a must in cold waether !

Carguy

brenthampton79

I beleive I flew it for around 3 minutes or so i just wanted to test fly the thing and get it out of my system, my wife was her to watch since she's the one that bought it for me i thought it would be a good idea to make sure she was there to see it fly first, I didn't really ring it out like i wanted too my hands were getting kind of numb and knew that here in a week or two it will start to get to be better flying weather, i really like the electric to just grab and fly especially in the summers when we're working, its always nice to get out to the aport, and get one flight in before we dig in for the day, since we sometimes don't stop running till after dark its about the only time i get to fly during our busy time and don't have enough time to get my gas ones out. I am really looking forward to flying it a lot more!

I haven't charged the batts back up yet, but will tomorrow night probably and will let you know on the mah put back in it.

Brent

kom

hi all


i want to order the extra too but first i must know if my setup is ok for this plane

[link=http://www.modelmotors.cz/index.php?page=61&product=2808&serie=24&line=GOLD]axi 2808/24[/link]
jeti advance 30 plus
11.1v 3s 2200mah 16C

if thats ok what prop would you choose for it

thanks in advance

Paul.

carguy1994ca

Kom,

I looked at the chart for your AXI motor and, although I am not an expert at choosing an electric system, the chart says that this motor will fly with 3D performance an airplane of 28 ounces. The Extra is a little more heavier than that at 34 ounces. Greatplanes recommends a 10x7 prop for the EXtra, and the charts says that at this size of prop, you'll see 35 amps and an efficiency of 77%. The 16c battery can deliver 16x2.2 = 35.2 amps so at peak power, you will reach the limit of the battery.

I would say that your motor will give good performance with a 10x5 or max 10x6 prop, but it will not be possible to 3D. You will loop and do most manoeuver but not with unlimited performance. If you already have this setup you could use it but if you are buying new than I would suggest buying a little more power so you can run a 10x7 prop that will give you unlimited vertical.

carguy

kom

you were very very helpfull dude thanks so much

well i already have the above setup so i have to consider another plane then

any suggestions ?