Before I share with you my experience flying a my second Vectorflight Extra 66” on its’ maiden allow me to digress.

What are the best airplanes that you have flown? That’s a interesting question for most of us. My list would include- my third airplane, a CG Tiger 40, CG Chipmunk, CG Extra, Sig CapEX, Greatplanes Shoestring, Cermark Javelin and a Pacific Aeromodels Edge. What are the worst planes you have ever owned? My list includes my second plane a US Aircores' Colt, Greatplanes Cap231ex, CG Sukhoi with a foam wing, Tecate Biplane, and of course the pain in the butt CG Cub (everyone should own one sometime). Is there any correlation between the great flying planes and the duds. Oh. . perhaps wing loading? Well not always but in general I think this is true.

Last Tuesday I maidened the VF Extra. This was my second attempt to maiden this plane.
My first attempt failed miserably. This flight turned out to be on the evening our Club has its meeting and we were hosting a barbecue at our airfield. Although I was nervous I was confident that my plane would fly well. I had checked and triple checked both balances. It was necessary to add 3 ounces of weight to the nose and 1 ounce of weight to the right wing tip. This surprised me because I had a OS 91 up front. It balanced at 4 1/8” exactly. My last disastrous maiden I had no weight on the nose and am now certain that the plane was tail heavy. We carefully check the control surfaces for alignment and for correct movement.

I waited for a solo flight and taxied out to the runway in front of 20 some folks ready to
laugh at any goofy problem or weird flying experience I might have. The take off was
flawless and I quickly trimmed the plane. And kept trimming. It seems like I had this problem before. After about 6 or 7 clicks of aileron adjustment and 3 click of down. The plane was flying pretty true. Instead of doing a bunch of aerobatics I decided to just “fly the plane”. After about 8 minutes of fast and slow flying I decided I had enough fun and was ready to make a basic aircraft approach. For some reason I decided to make a long final. It was too long.
The plane hit a cottonwood tree about 500 feet out from the runway. She
spun around but somehow kept running?! She wallowed like a wounded duck and went straight in next to a car that had been approaching the airfield. I and a fellow flyer went out
to survey the wreckage. It was a miracle The plane had landed nose first into a pile of blackberry vines. Other than a broken prop and a small hole in the leading edge it was fine.

I made two flights after the meeting including a knife edge pass straight down the runway.
After several minutes of aerobatics the engine died on approach and I made a perfect dead stick landing.

I now have six flights on her and am ready to share with you my likes and dislikes.
First the pluses: This is a good looking plane. She gets attention. A young boy at the airfield told his dad it was the best looking plane at the field. This plane is very aerobatic.
It will do all the basic imac maneuvers and do them well. With the OS91 up front it has unlimited vertical with a 13x8 APC. She is a fast plane and has a very decent glide ratio all right now for the down side. This is not a light plane. She’s not a pig but she’s no twiggy either at 8 lbs 6 ounces. Landing her gracefully takes some skill and for some, a little bit of luck. On my third flight she stalled 4 feet in the air and did the lame duck imitation. I was able to power up and get the heck (can we say hell) off the runway but it wasn’t pretty. She has a definite stall and drops a right wing tip. If your not done flying when she stalls - your going to be in trouble. She also had a dynamic stall in elevator control and rolls like you were using ailerons. I didn’t notice this problem until I flipped on the dual rates. What fun.

So where do I rate this plane. Right now its in the middle of the road, somewhere between the best and the worst. I think I will try a Saito91 and see if a lighter engine makes a difference. I do need to share with you that VF offers customer service that is unmatched in the industry. How often to you get a email from the distributor asking how your plane is flying and genuinely interested in solving any problems. I have probably talked with John at VF a half dozen times. Greatplanes are you listening? No.

Mark Stafford

Mark,

Great report. On the stall and wing drop, remember these are foam wings and as such are extremely efficent. I have the Edge from VF and my total throw is 3/8 inch on HIGH rates both up and down on the elevator, anything more than that and she stalls with the customary wing drop and she still flies just fine. VF planes are not for 3D so tons of throw is not needed. I know when you set the throws for that little movement you will be asking if it's really enough, trust me, it really is. The wing drop can also be from the elevators not being in sync through the whole range of travel.

You can always start changing the throw by doing a flight and stall it, land, change the throw in the radio, takeoff and stall it and keep doing that until it just stalls straight ahead. Then fly the snot out of it and once you land measure the throw with a ruler and you'll see it's very little and all without changing how it flies the IMAC sequences or the low speed handling

Bill,

Thanks for the input. I'll try reducing the throw in the elevator. This may help a great deal. My high rate isn't really usable.
I was also thinking of taking the weight off the wing tip. What engine are you running in your edge?

Saito 100 sitting sideways with the Slimline pitts muffler

I was really blown away once I got the snappiness out of mine and measurd the throw.

I could agree with bubbagates on that one. I also have the edge and when setting up dual rates, looking at the measurements on the intructions I thought it wasn't enough. Well i was all wrong. The plane was WAY to twitchy and very snap happy. After toning the rates down this plane becomes a very nice flying machine.

So what are you guys running your low rates at? If Bill's is at 3/8 of an inch - whats low?

Shakes,

Just set both low and high on the same settings for the elevator. There is really no need for a low rate as once you get it dialed in the planes flies so very well. Like I mentioned before 3/8 inch is a good start but if you really want to find the "sweet spot" on your own start out at no more than 1/2 or 3/4 inch max throw both up and down and work your way back and you'll find that you'll be very close to 3/8 inch

I maidened my 66" Extra last week and was pretty pleased with its performance with a Saito 100. I believe I was a bit tail heavy but that has been fixed with the 5-cell NiMh battery almost up to the firewall beneath the tank!

Takeoff was great and I did a little flying around on low rates. It needed only a click or two of trim on the elevator and ailerons. Slow speed performance was good and the plane did not snap when it stalled. I haven't experimented with high-speed snap (using hi-rate on elevator).

Landing - The plane was easy to line up and control on landing. Dropped the throttle and it came in nicely. Apparently, I did not have quite enough speed and it simply stopped flying (stalled) about a foot and a half above the ground. It just dropped out of the air without dropping a wing and thumped down right on the landing gear. These things seem to need a little more speed on landing and have to be flown into the ground. I'm sure that the slightly tail-heavy condition of the plane didn't help!

The main landing gear splayed out a bit and the tailwheel wire snapped. Also broke a wood 15 x 6 prop. The gear bent back easily and I already have replaced the tailwheel. Haven't had a chance to fly it since then.

I think it will be a very good plane once I get it set up properly and get used to it.

Ross

I adjusted my elevator throw from 1/2 to 3/8ths last night. I also adjusted the left elevator a
couple of turns on the clevis to try and match up the neutral setting. I'll let you know how
things fly this afternoon.

Mark
ama 471218

Please do, I'd love to hear how it comes out

I'm looking at buying one of VectorFlights planes. I see that the Edge 540 has a new designed fuse. I'm going to be putting a Super Tigre G90 on the business end and would like some input as to the performance and prop size from someone currently running this engine on either the 540 or the 300.

All of this info will come in handy as I just received my 300 66" today. I'm going to start a thread so I can get help and some q's answered. Thanks for the info and good luck with your xtra

Glad to hear you got the Plane suitcase. I think you will enjoy it.

Great Report Mark!

Bill, I owe you a beer.

Thanks for your input. I flew 3 flights yesterday evening and had 5 landings. I swear this is not
the same plane. By adjusting out 1/4" throw the plane is now a cake walk to land. My VF now moves
up the list of favorites, where as I was going to hang it in my "Museum of RC Aircraft". I am now going
to put some carbon fiber landing gear on her as well a a real pair of wheel pants.
I think I will even throw a 4 stroke in her.

Fly Safe, Have Fun.
Mark Stafford
AMA471218

Glad to hear it worked out for you. Remember, you also adjusted the one elevator side so that also would cause a low speed high elevator movement snap.

Sorry, no beer, but a shot or two of Crown Royal will work

Now I'll suggest a Saito 100 with an APC 15X6. Killer combo

Thanks, Bill.

Ordered a Saito100 from Chief Aircraft (their just down the road) this morning.
I think I'll get the wheel pants from PacificAeromodels.

I forgot about the wheel pants you mentioned. I actually had a set for a Sig Something Extra Arf that I never used and they fit perfectly. They are red over white and the red is a little lighter than the rest of the plane but unless you really look at it it's not that apparent

Here is some pics of the engine install. Sorry for the fuzziness on some of them. Had the sneezes when I took these

bubba gates, that slimline pits looks beautiful... how much of the cowl you ahd to hack off to fit it under there?

Hardly any more than you would normally do to get the 3:1 cooling and when the bottom is facing you all you see is the engine block since everything else is black.

The valve covers are the only thing sticking out the side. The cutouts in the front of the cowl are a perfect match for the air getting to the head. I had a cowl that the front cutouts were not factory cut so I only opened the side where the engine is.

The pump is needed because I have the tank real close to CG so it's to long of a run for the fuel.

I also use 30% nitro in my Saitos and YS engines so power is not an issue

Zippi

I fly a VF Edge with a Super Tigre.90. It is a superb match. Balances right on spec out of the box, huge verticle performance. I use a Master Airscrew Simitar 13X6 at right about 10K rpm which is just slightly on the rich side. I found in this range the MAZ a better prop for this combo than an APC of the same size. Larger diameter and less pitch seem to hurt velocity and authority coming out of maneuvers. Not a 3D plane. No snappiness in the Edge at all. A real floater on landing. I had the same engine package in the VF 58 inch Extra and no snapiness there either. I aggree with all of you, VF's planes do not need alot of elevator throw. I found the small Extra did need high rate elevator though to flair enough. You may find some negative Expo very helpful on the elevator to calm things down on landing.

A note on cowling. My ST .90 fit completely in the Edge so I did the remote glo thing. The Edge has alot of exhaust area at the bottom of the cowling. But I did run into overheating issues. I went ahead and cut the cylinder head opening and even though it is 1/4 inch below the cowling the overheat went away.

Just my thoughts on powering VF's with over 1.0 2 cycle, I don't think you will find a way to use it. The planes are pretty fast and get their performance much from speed. they are not the 3D hover planes with big fat wings that are so commonplace. As you will see, in the air they are very nimble. I'm a big believer that more power solves lots of things, but originally these were .60 powered planes. A .90 2 cycle really is overpowering them, but they really do perform well at that power range. I don't fly 4 cylces so I can't speak to their power ranges.

Bubba, I am curious as to the rpm's you are getting on the Saito 100 with the APC 15X6.
I also have the 66 inch 300S with a Saito 100 and a 16X4W spinning 9100 and have tons of power, but not much speed. I would like to get a little more speed as flying into the wind just looks much too slow. As such, I tried a Master Airscrew K-Series 15X6 tonight and initially got 10K rpm and dialed it back to a more conservative 9500. What surprised me is the plane did not fly noticeably faster, I needed more throttle to do the same maneuvers, and I definitely lost my up line power. Do you think the APC 15X6 would perform that much differently than the Master Airscrew?

I think the APC will give you more upline power as they do output more thrust. I'm running a APC 14x7 with a Saito 100 on another airplane and it's a great combo - 9500 rpm and its still a little rich.

i am getting around 9200-9400 with my apc 15x6 on the saito 100. My tuning still needs a little work though. I can tell you that with this prop i can get some very nice verticle.