Ayrton, have him check e bay. I bought a case of 6 picoos from a character called world sport card. He might check hobby people as well. Whether he can find it in his area is questionable. But I bought mine from the LA area. From my point of view, LA is 70+ miles across north/south and 70 miles deep, the ocean keeps the creeping east only on that axis. I could be underestimating the north/south axis. Good luck, tim

for those of you thinking about the stir stick mods, single and double, they may ruin you for standard mono mods. The turn circle is about 12' for the single, and about 20' for the double stir stick. The standard mono mod turns in something around 50'. The performance of the planes is different, single vs double, but is better than a mono mod.
Tim

i took a shot and tried electrifying the little Fling, the one straight off the plans. .6g actuator for the rudder, AA motor and prop, Silverlit SingleWing Plane RX, and a 50mah lipo from the Picco (talk about a grab bag of parts!).

unbelievably, it actually flys, and very quickly. i'll need to reduce the size of the rudder as it gives way too much turn. unfortunately, i'm having a little issue with the RX so i need to tinker with that a bit more, but i got few little flights to show me that it will actually fly. the motor has 0 degrees thrust on it, and the weight is at 7.2 grams. with 0 degrees thrust, it didnt want to climb much untill i really gave the little canard wing a high positive angle.

i'll try to get the RX working tonight so i can get some more time with the plane tomarrow.

nick

Hey guys i think im gona make an alley cat. has anyone made one of these before? is it easy? Also, has anyone made skis for their aa for the winter?

unbelievably? hey, I have faith!
Hope you get the RX squared away. I found that too much of a motor angle
causes a tail spin and the canard is sufficient enough for lift on the smaller
versions.

I think I may have solved the lift problem by adding spoiler flaps to the
trailing edges. Lengthening the bridge also helped quite a bit. It seemed
that the larger and heavier the plane became the more top surface resistance
it needed to keep it aloft.

It now flys very well with the 10 grams of weight but she's pretty beat up
so I'll have to build another one. It actually flies better with the wing tips
down. (can't figure out why either)

i should've had faith too! i didnt think it was going to fly cause i figured i was going to end up with some terrible prop torque issues, but even though there's 0 degrees left or right thrust, prop torque didnt seem to be an issue at all (just the oversized, over deflecting rudder!). the soldering iron is warming up right now so i can try to fix the RX.

what i find interesting about the Flings design is that most flying wings have at least some amount of reflex in the LE and TE to give it some stability. the fling doesnt have either and is still quite stable, i'm guessing its got something to do with the dihedral mated up to the anhedral of the wing tips (though anhedral usually creates a less stable craft). interesting that the larger it gets the more reflex it seems to need, at least on the TE side. i think having the wingtips down more would help stability, acting as a rudder of sorts.

nick

Is this an aircraft by Grumman? I'm familiar with the F7F Tigercat which would
make an interesting conversion.
Still working on skis....

The basic design I found I lifted from Airplane News Jan 42.
It's a Northrup design I don't think ever was built. At least I can't find
anything like this prototype.
(notice the lil rudder) you may want to add the rudder under the plane.

The lil foamie I built of it had the usual flyingwing problems. It jus fluttered
about no matter what I did. It needed a stab but after adding the canard
forward it didn't look like a flying wing anymore. So I went Star Trek on it
and added a bridge. More like a canard cheat.

I can see why it wasn't built in its day. Unstable without the present technology
of computers. Not to mention the problems you would have in a full scale
model. Not to mention the problems making it an AA conversion.

edit: I'm having no luck at all making a forward swept flyingwing (FSFW?)
version with a bridge. Sorry micro, but it's just too unstable.

interesting design on the Northrup, no surprise it never made it to production, tailless wings are just too much without computer assistance.

i've built a slightly larger version, 8" span, and re-installed the electronics on it. interestingly, it didnt want to climb much, like your larger one, neurotex. i think it had more to do with the CG and canard angle, after a crash, the canard was at a very high angle of attack and i flew it that way and it climbed very nicely. the lipo is recharging right now, so i'll see what happens when its charged and ready.

bummer about the forward swept version. maybe a more traditional approach with some major reflex in the TE and LE would help stabilize it enough. wouldnt be suprised if it needed an oversized rudder to help calm it down too. i suppose i should finish the Fling first though

googledperson,
the Fling is a pretty straight forward build. only takes a couple foam dinner plates and some foam safe glue. the AlleyCat has been built by a number of people over on RCG, i havent built one myself, but it looks pretty straight forward too. the plans can be found in the plans section here: http://aatoolbox.no-ip.org/ speaking of the toolbox site, Chris is working on a "master toolbox" page where the AA, Picco, and the Silverlit SingleWing mods can all be accessed - http://www.rctoolbox.no-ip.com/

nick

edit: woohoo, she flys! bit more stable than the smaller one, climbs well enough, and the turns arent so bad now (though a right hand turn causes it to lose some altitude). she cruises along at a pretty good pace, at one point i had it high enough that i made a hard left turn, and she rolled over and looped! AUW is now at 7.8 grams, i'll try to get some video. nice design, Neurotex...you know if you dont enter this into the foam plate cook off, i'm going to have to, right?

THX Tim!

I'll pass the info on. Hmm... 6 Piccos?? No wonder they call you the Aeroplane guy!

Do you realise there have been 10 posts today (19th) so far - almost a page full! Mind you, Neuro & Micro have probably built at least that many models today too!

Cheers

Ayrton

Another random thought as to why it flies better with the wingtips down... Its having the same effect as STOL wingtips. (pic below)



They decrease spanwise flow (air spilling off the sides of the wing) effectivly increasing lift. They also make stalls less severe and easy to recover.

The Alley Cat is an AA conversion plane on AA toolbox...Its the jet that looks like the BVM Bobcat.


[link=http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=528376]Video here[/link]

Congrats micro, fantastic job!
Sure, by all means enter it in the cook off. You've made it into the air while I'm
still on the board.
Making the bridge adjustable is the way to go since I've noticed on the larger version
with the spoiler the bridge flap causes fluttering. With the flap down for lift it causes
air turbulance over the spoiler, and the plane rocks up & down. Having the bridge set
at an angle like you described is enough for smooth flight, even with the spoiler, it flys
nice.

Oh yeah, this plane keeps pop'in up so it must be having success.
Very sleek looking plane!

well then there's only one thing to do, strap some AA gear to it and give her a rip!


armedzagi, good point, i hadnt even thought of that.

nick

googledperson,

The Alleycat is a great plane to make at 10" I've built 3. The latest one was 8". Wingloading goes high below that.
Its fast, and can turn in abt a 15-20' radius. If you get it up abt 50', turn sharp. Power back right then and let it angle down then giver full throttle!
If the CG is right ( AoA is set for just nose up at 1/2 throttle) it'll come ripping across the field at full throttle starting a really nice power climb almost vertical till you let off and you are right back up to a nice flying altitude. Very well mannered plane. I love it. I built mine from RacerX208's plans at the Toolbox. It flies alot like my 10" Sea Vixen. I have a vid posted of it at RCG and Racer has the AlleyCat vid posted too.(pretty sure)

In the AA world, so far, the Bobcat and AlleyCat are strikingly similar looking.

Tony
ARS Software & Innovative Solutions
http://www.falcon1.net/~ars/rcmodels.html

Ayrton, in my defense, all of the picoos have new homes in thier future. It's an rc christmas. Tim

I know I posted this earlier, but, I am used to the responsiveness of the stir stick mods(single and double)I again realized that flying stock and mono mods is really more challenging than is necessary, as compared to the stir stick mods. I'm now used to inputting the turn command and having the aircraft respond immediately. If I input a turn the wing drops right now. As lame as it might be, this may be my entry into the Christmas Challenge. A novice can fly the stock model and learn to fly and, depending on the mod, have a fast steady plane. Or go with the single and have a stunt plane. I'm also going to fly with the stock controller. That should give me a variable input on turns. I suppose I should reach for some of my proven fliers. But I posted a while back that I wanted to provide mods that you could do with the original plane. In this case I'm trying to ensure no trip to the hobby shop. The only requirement is a hot glue gun. And the purchase of a coffee drink. Tim

The following is just a probably not very interesting rant and observation so sto preading now if you are not interested.

I opened up a brand new TX last night and found that Spinmaster has been doing a little work - hopefully to remedy some of the inconsistency and quality issues that they seem to have in production. They really need to do something about all the planes that don't work right out of the box. Only one of the 2 planes I bought last night worked. That brings my recent total of working AA bipes to 1 out of 4. The AA is agreat plane but I am getting really tired of the constant trips to TRU to return brand new planes that don't work. The first 2 of the last 4 would not charge. When I returned the second one last night I asked to put some batteries in the 2 that I wanted to buy and verify that they worked before I bought them. Both charged up, so I was happy to buy them. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to test that both TXs were working, I just hooked both planes up to the same TX to charge. When I got home and put battieries in the second controller, I found that it will charge the plane but no control signal reaches the plane. My other TX on the same chanel runs the plane just fine. Unfotunately this one is intended to be a gift, so I kind of need both TX's to work. I am sad about the situation, not only because of all the driving I have been doing to TRU, but also, because I don't see how Spinmaster can continue to sell a product with 75% returns. I would really hate to see the AA disappear.

Anyway, back to the changes that Spinmaster has made. When I opened the TX (the one from the plane that did work) I found that there is a new fuse attached to the lead out of the top battery. The plastic case also has a new mold. There is a little spot molded into the bottom casing to hold the fuse as well as some writing on the battery area. They definitely have something weird going on there with the many leads coming off of differnt batteies. I really wonder what is going on as far as charging, sending signals, etc. with different votages. I wonder if we could save batteries by figuing out which batteries are being used for what finctions. Anyway, the writing on the case is "0V" on the bottom battery hump, "4.5V" on the 3rd one up from the bottom, there is also a "6V" and "9V" on coresponding battery humps moving upward. Obviously this is talking about the voltages at those points, and I think there are leads coming from each of those points.

AHAA, do you have pics? also what is the code on the plane. The code is on the plane near the switch, on the controller bottom, and most importantly on the back of the box. The code should be something like 06xxxxxx . Tim

What is it with the orange planes? They seem to outlive every other color. I have purchased every color plane, except for one A channel, and the orange planes last the longest. But, why? And why aren't they being reproduced? I think I have the answer to the last question. Spinmaster wants to sell new planes not make planes that are solid long term flyers. Tim

This next plane is nearly ready for test flights with the AA gear fully
installed. All that has to be done to finish it is the canard.
I've been doing some tests with different designs and raising it higher
with all kinds of mixed results. Raising it helps the washout over the
tail so I might go with that. Still haven't decided since there's many
ways to go with it.
The glider with the swept back wings flys good with the canard raised
and even flys as good inverted.

looks sharp, Neurotex. i like the deeply angled wing tips, makes it look quite mean!

i would imagine having the canard up higher off the wing would help. when its sitting lower on the wing, it might not be as effective and create more drag as the air tries to push between the canard and the wing. this might be why mine needed a higher angle of attack to be more effective in creating extra lift.

good luck on the maiden, mine was well behaved in the air and i'd imagine mine would be a bit more touchy in the sticks than yours, so yours should be a nice smooth sailer.

nick

What a great lil flyer! Very smooth, quick & climbed nice. Turns were sharp
and very responsive. Would run rings around the stock jet I pulled the guts from.
Tried no stunts yet since it's dark and I almost lost it when she got out of sight.

Total weight is 18.2 grams. Motors set at 0 while I set the canard at about 2 degrees.
It's the tail that made her climb, I ended up setting that at about 35 to 40.
All in all very pleased with the results.

Very slick, neurotex. I don't know if I could make that work. Of late I seem to be a walking "murphy", of the Murphy's Law Clan as far as airplanes are concerned. If I touch a soldering iron, or transfer gear, the new aircraft is doomed to failure. I don't think static has a role due to my regular use of latex gloves. And rubber soled shoes. And the fact that my floors are tile not carpet. But what do I know.

I have a question for you. Do you let the battery cool between chargings? I have been taking a plane that is mid to low battery, sticking it on the charger immediately( so I don't forget), and grabbing the next plane. I also have not read the instructions since my first plane 10 monthes ago. One of the people I bought a picoo for mentioned that the instructions say to let the battery cool before charging. Now I wonder If I've been assisting in the quick down powering of my planes. Tim

nice work neurotex, any ideas for coloring it? Tim, give the Fling a try, it seriously only takes a few minutes to build one and my little single motor Fling flew great and it seems neurotexes AA version flys just as well (probably quite a bit more stable, actually). plus, all it needs is a couple foam dinner plates (cheap is good!). i know what you mean about being a "walking murphy" though, heck, you're preaching to the choir here!

nick