Fisher

NvMike,

Here is a link to Foamflier's current page. It contains many broken links but it does still have many live ones too. If you do not find what you are looking for just e-mail foamflier as he has been very good about responding in the past.

http://grosj.tripod.com/radiocontrol/rcmain.html

Good Luck,

Fisher

saucerguy

I need to let this guy know I can extend to him free hosting on my server, there is no need to shuffle from one to another and have to deal with the hassle. I do this for only a select amount of people, at least there are no banners, pop up's, or commercial interests that free hosts often require you to comply with.

That note to the side, I've opted to ditch RC Groups forever, I'm also yanking the links I have to them as well. I was flagged for posting a thread about being sick of being shot down by a local club that only wants everybody to fly heli's, it also happens to be initiated by a local hobby shop, Fantasy World of which benifets greatly if you are flying heli's, because you are going to be in there constantly to buy replacement parts. Yes, that is Fantasy World in Tacoma Washington, avoid them at all costs guys, they have stooped to very low levels and decided that since I'm giving away planes to the heli guys at the local field that are sick of playing the expensive repair game, this is there way of retialiating.

That said, my last flight with the latest So was a nose dive directly into the ground at full power upon launch. We are talking about the 5th generation of this design for me, it fly's exactly as it did from day one, each maiden is a non event, there are no odd tendacies to this design regardless of the materials I use to construct it, it always feels and performs like it's the same plane. Yet, that last launch, I toss it just as I normally do, power it up and away it's supposed to go, yet to my horror, the elevator is pointing opposite of where it's supposed to, like I had my controls reversed. I pre-flight test it to the hilt on each plane evrey single time, and in this flight, even more so, just to make sure it's all functioning perfectly and I had a little time since I was finishing up a cig and don't like to do both at once.

Needless to say, in spite of those turd balls attempts at thwarting this plane into oblivian, I designed it for abuse, the repairs will be extreemly minimal, I only need to throw in another dowl in the fuse and glue back the elevators leading edge. If I find out the exact club member that is doing this, I will take a baseball bat to his heli, and I'm not kidding guys!!!!

critterhunter

More AP Shots from another spot Sunday. Did live video as well but still figuring out how to upload that.

AP plane flew well there. Last night I took it to my friend's farm and first test flight went well without the camera. Threw the camcorder in and about a minute into the flight it went into a death spiral. Wasn't sure what happened but later found that the elevator control rod slipped in the horn. Camera and plane are fine other than a wrinkled nose that will be easy to fix. Glad I build my planes like tanks.

If you look at picture #4 you'll see me in it, along with the dual boomer and my streamlined Stryker on the ground.

critterhunter

A few more from that day...

critterhunter

Yea, that might work. :') Problem with fuzzy photos is I always forget to turn the focus to closeup or distance, and then it's a judgement call on which works best. With AP it's easy, I just adjust it to long distance.

critterhunter

Saucerguy, sorry to hear about being shot down via another TX. I've heard of it happening to people but usualy by accident. Dual boomer went down last night. Same exact death spiral as the AP plane minutes before. I got real suspicious until I figured out why the AP plane lost control with the elevator rod. Initial investigation into the dual boomer doesn't show any problems. Servos/linkages are fine but will double check them and other things. Only the fuse was damaged but the rest of it is fine and will be an easy fix.

saucerguy

Critterhunter, my next purchase will be in a TX checker, just so I can prove that there is another radio out there. Funny thing is, that stupid hobby shop has plenty of transmitter detectors for their stupid little cars, amazing how fully aware they are of that one. This plane is such a kitten in the air, I find it hard to believe both of us are just now encounting problems with it. I'd be suspicious about where you are flying at as well, apparently it seems that these lhs's will stoop to any low level possible just to keep us builders from exposing those at the fields our cheap alternatives to store bought planes. I know the economy is bad, but man, this is taking things way too far.

BTW, good job on the AP plane, it's a sweet design.

critterhunter

Well, I didn't think I was shot down (on purpose), since this is at a friend's 800 acre farm out in the middle of no where. However, there are several cell phone towers nearby so it could have been that on the dual boomer, but I'm still checking for equipment malfunction.

I'm finally clearing some old photos off my camcorders compact flash card to insure I have plenty of room for more AP, so here comes the photos...

The following are the build photos of the dual boomer. Keep in mind this plane has since had several other changes, including a new thinner/shorter fuse, ultracoat covering instead of the Tyvek paper/paint job. Some other changes were the motor is no longer inside of it's cowl (got too hot), I put carbon tubes in both booms for strength in the event of a crash (saved them the other night), a second carbon tube in the wing to prevent the fuse from breaking through the wing in a crash, etc. I'll post some updated photos of the plane soon.

critterhunter

More of them...

critterhunter

And more...

critterhunter

Last few on this plane for now. I drilled holes in this really dense falcon EPS foam to save some weight. Order of all these photos probably isn't in sequence, either.

calvino

nice, cool idea with drilling the holes, just currious what cammera you run because the only ones i find on the net are cheapo cams that do like 30 seconds of video and thats it, ive really got good at flying with the slow stick, and am considering the "Soo" as a secondary plane, just curriuos how well it flies in 8MPH+ ish winds, if i stuck a good brushless motor and lipo on there it should fly for a long time

saucerguy

I like to have at least one "wind tester" plane, something I can gauge the risk for the more expensive planes, this one is a good one to use as it.

Hole mod shown from the first thread, the airfoil is symmetrical and the plane is a tractor with overkill to the hilt brushless motor set up. lol. Shown in back.

http://www.*********.com/forums/atta...4&d=1191281216

replace the *'s with the following without the dashes ie. "_" r-c-h-a-n-g-o-u-t-.c-o-m

Fisher

Calvino,

All my SO builds have been powered by an inexpensive TP-21 brushless motor, 18-20 amp speed controller, 10C 2000 mah LiPo battery and a 7x4 APC prop. They all handle wind fine as long as it is not overly gusty. I get 30 minutes of continuos mixed throttle flying. Almost wears you out before the batter is empty.


You can get these motors from just about anywhere. United Hobbies, BP Hobbies, Grayson, 2dogRC, etc...
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...3.8_Prop_Combo (you will have to replace the **** with h o b b y c i t y . c o m )
http://www.graysonhobby.com/catalog/...roducts_id=624


The best aerial video camera I have found is this 5 in 1 that can be easily mounted on the front of a SO for some great aerial video.

http://www.gorillabobsrc.com/catalog...products_id=96

calvino

ok thanks, ive got a 2200 3s that i run on my Slow Stick, love hobby city tower pro outrunner combos, so cheap/powerfull , seems like a nice cam, sometimes when i head out for a flight, its "later" in the day and, well, light isn't so great, is the cam good, bad, forget it with low light, im not askin for a high rez picture, just something that could be used for a little "chase video" or things like that

critterhunter

The So flies very well in rather strong wind, especially if you build the plane a bit heavy like I do...in the 27 to thirty-some ounce range or so. The camera is an Aiptek 5100M pocket camcorder capable of 5 megapixel stills and 30fps video. It'll also do Super VHS video but at only like 15fps. I'm using a 512mb compact flash card in it and it'll do well over an hour of live video with that.

Went out to a park last night and got some pictures near where the East and West branch of a river converge. It was a bit hazy out but the view is pretty good in a few shots of the river and cliffs.

I've still not been able to perfect the trim on this bird. The plane wants to pull right at WOT and when I trim that out with some left it will then drift left with the motor off. I've decided to use this to my advantage. I've now got the plane trimmed to pull lazy right turns at WOT and lazy lefts with the motor off. It makes for a great safety feature. If I ever loose orientation on the plane at very high altitudes I can just let go of the stick and let it do lazy rights with the motor on until I get my bearings. Same with the motor off, and the slow left turns when gliding make for some easy AP work, since I have the camera sticking out the left side of the plane.

critterhunter

Only reason why I drilled some holes to lighten it up is I'm using a really dense and strong (but heavier) EPS. If I was using the white EPS from Home Depot or Lowes I wouldn't bother as that stuff is light anyway and also needs all the strength it can get.

saucerguy

I hear you on that one, I didn't notice enough difference in the weight to justify cutting holes in it as well as a standard procedure, it sure looks cool though. I too was given some of that heavy eps, it was used for packing some industrial stoves, this is really dense, I can't wait to tear into it and make a plane or two from it.

critterhunter

Can't wait to hear how you like that dense EPS. It sands really nice and smooth, the plane will break clean and not chunk, and the darn stuff will bend a lot before breaking much like EPP. It's weight isn't really a concern for me. It's just that the dual boomer was already getting rather hefty due to other things so I figured I'd drop a bit with the holes. I don't see myself doing that with other builds using it. Wait to you see how strong a wing is cut from the stuff. Doesn't even really need a carbon rod to stiffen it, but you know I overkill the strength mods so I put one in anyway (2 in the dual boomer's wing to keep the fuse from breaking through it on a nose in).

critterhunter

Once again I wrecked the freshly fixed dual boomer! Same place, same spot, and same loss of control. It seems it's RX doesn't like the nearby cell phone tower. Funny thing is my Stryker with the same GWS RX has no glitch issues. I suspect the antenna running near a servo wire down one of the booms is causing weak reception. No problem at other places with glitching on it. Really cheesed me off since I just put a new fuse/covering on it. Once again that's the only damage...the fuse. I'll have to remove the covering to see if it's just covering wrinkle or if the foam is beyond repair. This plane was looking really pretty and had some fancy new mods but now I'll have to wait to take pictures and post them. That makes about four fuses put on this plane so far!

saucerguy

I hear you on the cell phone towers, guys playing with the 27mhz systems really get nailed by them as well big time. Funny how we can keep going through fuses on these birds, it's kind of like a break away area that is easily replaced of which takes the bulk of the damage, saving the rest of the plane in the process. I don't recall if you are reinforcing the battery pack area with some balsa or light ply, it's a must do revision on my So's.

critterhunter

I lined the battery chamber with balsa and covered the bottom of the fuse with balsa as well. The battery chamber didn't break, just the fuse got bent a bit upward and detached from the wing. Time for a detachable nose, I think, to help absorb momentum. I've got two carbon tubes in the wing near front/back of fuse to keep it from chunking through the wing, also a weak spot. The booms and everything else is fine thanks to the carbon in them. I think a carbon tube in the fuse and perhaps balsa between it and the wing would prevent easy damage.

A friend flies Spectrum and often he gets more glitching than I do. I'm glad I didn't jump on that band wagon. He's not too happy with it.

I've got a new project in the works for the near future...A scratchbuilt P38 using dual 2409-18D motors. It'll be my first dual motor plane. Probably going to do a 4 foot wingspan and to scale. Just printed out some prints to use as my guide. Will post pictures when I get to building it.

saucerguy

The detachable fuse is a must do for those of us that desure a little more refinment, you'll like that revision big time, it certainly has saved my stick So., once when I had the controls reversed, and the other when I got shot down. The plane would be toast without that revision in place.

Back on the build table, I've opted to simply grow this one from scratch, no plans or anything at all, I'm just thinking WWI biplane fighter, but it may be better as a bomber. For now, it's undecided, I'll simply wait for inspiration to guide me as to how this one comes out. The wingspan is 39", and the chord is 8", so I have a ton of wing loading which should have this one float along quite well. I still have a long way to go, it will be more scale like in it's function, ie. I'll be using pull/pull cables strung through the wings so a bit of extra engineering will be necessary. My shop is rather cluttered as you can see from the photo, I'm overhauling it in between building, doing my guitar recording, and general tinkering with stuff I try to explain to people that tend to look at me with a blank face, not knowing what I'm talking about, hehe.

Anyway, I turned 41 today, I have a ton of stuff on my plate to accomplish today so it's not going to be a relaxing one at all, but I'm hoping I can get some stick time in regardless. My schedule has been brutal lately, not to mention having to babysit my own board to boot since some idiots from an outside forum decided they think it's ok to troll it.

Fisher

Sounds like you two are still chugging along nicely. I have been flying my two F-22s and giving the SO a break. I am coming to realize what a good design the SO is even though I liked it before I am truly appreciating its performance capabilities after flying other planes. The Stryker too. I gave a set of SO parts to a friend and he jumped right in building it. I have not seen the outcome but he already took a sanding block to it and says it looks like a goose now. I was too afraid to change anything until I had gotten one in the air and this guy starts modifying his before he is even done building it.

Cheers,

saucerguy

Fisher, I am in the same boat as you, this plane design has some unique properties to it. It's stable, scalable with ease, it always fly's the same regardless unless you completely change things. I have flown now 5 different permutations of it and they all feel like the same plane. What ever genius or random element the original designer stumbled upon was simply spot on, this plane simply is a clear winner of a design on all levels.

I'll reinterate, I can still put this one to market, should anybody want one kitted up, this is one of those bring to the field if all else fails, you at least have stick time on the So. It's reliable, predictable, easily and cheaply repaired, and not only makes a good aileron trainer, it will do things most other planes cannot, not to mention it absorbs the shock in a crash saving your gear in the process.