crasharama

I've been with my club for a couple of years & have to say it wasn't too bad to get through the wings program. I had my bronze wings within 6 weeks of starting up & gold wings inside 12 months, admittedly I was on the simulator at home for a couple of months before I went out there, & working on 1/1 scale Learjet 45 simulators probably helps a bit too.

Flip, we do seem to be the dumping ground for most electronic stuff that doesn't sell anywhere else. So I guess we might be on the end of the pecking order for models too.

Kangaroos don't taste too bad

This our club site too www.coolumflyers.com

ChuckL

My Feedback: (2)

I think both of you are correct in the debate of mods to arfs, I have to agree that the quality of arfs has improved dramatically in the past ten years however there is still much room for improvement. I don't think many arfs are built to withstand the high output Jetts etc. that we stuff in them an example is a sonic that I own that the firewall came loose on, it turns out the whimpy 1/4 inch firewall was hot glued in and not very well at that. I modified my firewall on my viper due to numerous reports of the firewalls coming loose. It wasn't long ago somebody lost a magnum when the wing came off, I had already modified my wing attachment prior to flying and tossed most of the stock hardware and so far keep my fingers crossed as hard as I've tried mine has stayed in one piece keep in mind this is a plane designed and marketed for high output engines. From what I've seen most arfs are fine for sport flying even hard sport flying but not for extreme speed which is what we are talking about. Those of us that have built the flanker have had to make mods due to flutter weak points on the landing gear mounts etc. and this is not quality control problem since we are doing the building it's just a simple matter that the plane wasn't built around a jett 90

Flip 3D Guy

Hey Crash or Blue, what prop are you/did you useon the F20? I tried a 11X6 for my maiden cause that's what I had, but it was to long and hit the snow easy when it sank in. I bought a 10X7 today at the LHS and will try this next. Now don't laugh at the engine I'm using, it's a OS LA .46. I wanted toput my Tower Hobbies .46 in it but long story short, Tower took it back after the problems I had and I just got the LA because I have had such good luck with them. I needed, I will put in my OS FX .46.

HaveBlue

currently on my OS50sx , I'm running a 10 x 6 .

1) cause its a good run in prop,

2) when I bolted on my 9 X 8 , I didn't notice that the blade was to wide (as in pitch) for the backplate, so when I took off the prop I noticed that by tightening it up it notched the blades of the prop..so of course I wont use it..

but now I have to find out if it's ok to sand small recesses into the root of the blade so that it will clear the backing plate.. but to answer your question ..I am intending to use something like a 9 X 8, but this will be open to experiment's once I get the ringed 50 satisfactorily run in, so a 10 x 6 or 10 x 7 will be on there for a little while yet, maybe 10 or so flights before I'll start mucking around with props

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

HAVEBLUE:

Gd day mate: Do we want to gamble a $3.00 prop against a complete airplane or serious injury. Nope! Charge it off to another lesson learned in the hobby and future. Its a cheep lesson at this point. If you will only use it on a say 40 LA, sand the rough spots of the notch and leave it alone. Murphy's law will eventually catch up to the thing and you, chuck it. My Alley Cat is coming along slowly. Tail feathers are on, servos in and connected, front end wood work epoxied, wing joined. A fiberglass center section is not called for, will do it anyway. want to keep this one for a while. Am going to try the stock landing gear, will only hold up to great landings which will be ok except following a race heat. I am one of those people who focus so strongly during a race, everything is blocked out except the race. In the past, I have been able to divert the adrenaline rush to raceing focus intensity with no after affects. Now I get shakey like the rest of the guys, unusual for me. Now part of my focus is keeping cool. The joy of winning is still there, the agony of defeat is more intense, it hapens more frequently these days. Its part life and getting older, but just not acceptable to my basic nature. I recall a 80 year old from the bay area in the 70's who was just flat the guy to beat when racing. His engine never failed to start and run correctly, he flew the course like he was on rails, never cut etc. So, I know it can be done, now I just need to find how and follow his footsteps. If someone else has done it, I (we) shoule be able to acomplish close to the same thing. Hope you guys are enjoying the hollidays down under, and have good weather on days off. ENJOY.

HaveBlue

G'day rmenke, I know your right, all the warnings on props tell you to chuck them if they are scratched dinged or chipped etc
its a pity because the damage looks so minor , but I know that "minor" could easily turn into major damage should a blade let go in the wrong place..something I never ever want to experience..

as for the Holidays , yes typical aussie weather , we getting a heat wave in the next few days of 40 degress celcius or in your lingo 100+ f..so no time to build planes, I have to get my mums air-conditioner installed(replacement larger system)

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

What's the weather like in July?

HaveBlue

The weather has been weird the last few years, but June /July arent that bad, sure on odd occassions we get like only about 10-15 degress cel.(about 50 - 60 F)during the day but its not unusual to get up to about 23 - 25 cel (70F +) , in fact this august we took the kids to local pool for a swim.. the thing with July is that is does get warm but only for a short period say like from 11:00 am to about 2:00pm ..outside of those hours its can be rather cool to cold..(cold by our standards).
ps at night in July it can drop down to 0 degress cel(32 f) but we can basically fly all year round.. ..September/ October can get a bit windy but thats the worst of it.

one point about summer though, some covering film doesnt hold up to the heat , they get rather wrinkly, I remember when I first finished my F4 Phantom( Vmar..and this isnt the best example due to VMAR quality film covering ) It was the middle of summer, I took the plane outside to take a photo, by the time I put the plane on the ground , ran in to get my camera..the covering wrinkled so bad it would have given a 100 year old granny a run for her money on a wrinkle count!!!

cheers
Roger.Z

edited due to spelling corrections!!!

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

ROFLMAO!!!

Flip 3D Guy

Looks like our snow may be melted enough for me to put my wheels back on for our kRaZy SnOw FlY this Sat. Unfortunately, at our events they usually only want you to fly already flown planes and no maiden flights, but if not many people show, it may be possible for me to get a flight in. I'm still worried about my antenna that I ran inside the fuselage. it's totally in the plane and goes up to the firewall then down half way through the other side of the fuselage. Anyone ever have any issues when doing this?? Some club memeber advised me to NOT run it around servos and now it is pretty much going around the two front servos.

HaveBlue

wish I could help Flip, all I know is that the wire shouldn't be doubled back on it's self as your reducing your radio range, now I'm not sure if what you did qualifies as doubling the antenna and halving the range..but your fellow clubbers are right about the servo's etc... I would love to run my aerials internally..but from what I've heard about interference from internal components gets me to nervous to try a complete internal route.. I love my planes to much to wreck them over something stupid I may have done.. so I run mine as far internally as the model allows then let the rest hang out or use a piece of sticky tape and run along a wing or fuse depending on the model and usually underneath..

diggs_74

Flip,

There are quite a few guys racing pylon that do exactly what you're talking about and have been doing it for years. As long as you get a good range check you should be fine. Actually, there are some guys that are just wrapping the antena around a straw and the sticking it to the inside of the fuse. There's a small "how to" article somewhere on how to do it... I just recently tried this on my beater winter plane and everything seemed fine. I'll probably start doing it on my racers... Just make sure and do the range check...

crasharama

Hey guy sorry I hadn't repiled, Xmas time & all that.

I had the antenna installed completely inside the aircraft, & it range checked fine. I used the antenna straws that the RC car guys use & cut them to get the antenna into a rectangle inside the aircraft without touching itself & effectively shortening the lenght of it. We run 36Mhz here so our antenna's are a bit longer than yours.


Where I live the weather is a bit different to where Roger is in Sydney, as I am about 1200 Km's north. Our average temp during winter (July) is 22deg C. It does get cold in the morning, but is back to 22 by 10 in the morning. I couldn't imagine having to wait for the snow to go away to get outside, I have never seen the stuff !!!

Tony.

diggs_74

All I can tell you is it's white and cold

HaveBlue

snow??, oh yeah I know that stuff , it comes in a can and you spray it on your christmas tree and windows...

Flip 3D Guy

You kill me Blue... LOL. Be thankful you don't have any snow. The worst part of winter are the short days where it will be dark by 5:30pm. No time to fly after work cause it gets so dark. The only thing good was when I was younger and we got to play hockey on the frozen lakes.

HaveBlue

well during winter we suffer the same time wise, it's dark around 5:30 but that's not so bad .Our club rules only allow flying after 9:00am till 6:00 pm so its only half an hour.. summers better due to daylight savings..(move the clocks back an hour) do you guys have that??..but we still can't fly after 6 even though its light till about 8:00pm maybe 8:30pm

but now to my utter dissapointment I weighed the F20 its advertised at 2600grams(2.6 kilo's) mine came in at 2.8 kilos or 6.40lb's (I just received my new digital fishing scales).I'm dissapointed because it's heavier than the advertised weight..I usually manage to get it lighter or right on, but for the first time ever I actually had to add wieght(I knew my old fishing sinkers would come in handy) I couldn't manage to balance it simply by moving things around, and I really had a hard time balancing this plane ..it seems very touchy on the balance, not sure if thats because the engine sits so far in front of the CofG

I wanted this as light as possible, especially after seeing FBD weigh his before his show down with Razor if i remember correctly it came in at 5lb 13oz..wow... I need to send my F20 to weight watchers i'm well over a pound heavier..so much for a speed plane , maybe I'll reffer to it as a brisk sports flyer[:-]

so if all goes well I'll get my maiden in this weekend

thats all for now

Flip 3D Guy

Got the maiden flight in! It was drizzinling rain here today about 30 degrees F. The plane few very slower than what I expected. I was using a 11x6 APC prop on the maiden flight. I have a10x8 for the next flight. This flight was ore or less to mainly test the radio antenna system as it was to see the flight charatoristics. This was the first time totally running the antenna wire inside a plane. The weather was so clod that the entire plane, especialy the prop and leading edge wings got a good coating of ice on them when I landed. My plane flew light it was tail heavy. I knew the CofG was aft before the maiden but being a seasoned plilot I knew I could control the plane. Landing was nice and slow into a light 8mph wind. Here are some pics. I used the wheels as we only had a very light snow covering and was able to use th wheels.

Flip 3D Guy

The second pic with the skies was accidently uploaded. That was from the failed maiden witht the skies.

osborjr

My Feedback: (19)

For all you F20 fans out there, I have a Direct Connections F-20 kit I am not going to build, I am moving up to the SU27 kit from AK Models, already got the Jett 90L, just need to fund it. any takers for $85. Jerry

HaveBlue

well at long last I got the maiden in aswell .. althought I waited till almost everybody had left which just after 1:00pm, .. two clicks right aileron had her straight and level..the engine is still very fresh so it was set a bit rich and still using a 10 X 6. I didnt try any high verticles but she scooted around very nicely..the wing on the Phoenix is a bit big,, I can only guess at the speed but I would imagine it was about 60- 70 mph range maybe atouch more ..not sure..I was more interested in just getting some flight time rather than how fast I could get her to go..thats for upcoming flights.. landing was rather easy ..pretty much like a hot trainer .. very stable ..mind you we basically had no wind today which I dont mind at all on maidens . The only problem , if you can call it that, is I got to much throw on the ailerons and didnt go past half way of the stick movement ..but thats easily sorted out. This was only the second time I've run the engine so I nursed that along and will put her through her paces as the engine beds in..but all in all I'm very happy with it..not sure what the speed will be like , should be able to get to the hundred per hour mark ..the engine is strong, I'm very happy with the combo I've chosen ..although not comparable to Jett , it will do .....for now..


oh yeah flip congrates on the maiden, to bad conditions weren't more favourable for ya

crasharama

Excellent, well done guys. Hope they go well for you both !!!!![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

Tony.

HaveBlue

thanks crash..but that servo on the elevator is a bit of a concern ..even though I changed the horns to ball link type I think its trouble sitting where it does..its a weird angle for the short rod..I think I'll put it inside the fuse..and thanks for the alert to a potentially huge failure ..on ya[sm=thumbup.gif]

Flip 3D Guy

Hey Blue, glad to see you also got the maiden in. I would have to guess mine was only going about 40mph tops. Like I said though I was worried about the range of the antanna system as I ran it inside the fusealage. I didn't have any glitches while flying, and the range should still be further than I need. Hope to get a few flights in today (Sunday), it's warmer today, about 33 degrees already and not drizzeling frezing rain. If anyone is at the field I will try to get some in flight pics. Not going to change the prop yet, I jst want to get some more test flights in with this one so I can compare later.

Happy Landings,

John

HaveBlue

Hi flip , I'm still curious where you guys install the elevator and rudder servos..I looked at your pictures ..I can only see two servos under the wing ..like ours, but in our version, thats the throttle and the nose gear steering .. our elevator and rudder servos are external and the elevator one is a bit of a worry.. I can't see it lasting long where it is..I want to put it inside..another thing I noticed you said yours was tail heavy??? maybe its the engine choice, but mine was very nose heavy and then it was very touchy on the balance point.. I dont have the experience to change things around ..I usually go by the instructions and either shift things or add weight..and this is a first as I usually manage to build it light...mind you I.ve only got 10 planes so not a huge collection and only 5 are completed!!... mostly due to work..but thems the breaks