Well....my AA wasn't getting charged AT ALL. The light stopped coming on this morning and I've tried everything to get it to actually start charging again. I opened up the Tx and nothing looked wrong. So I went and cut open the plane slightly and looked around in there. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it! I glued it back up with some CA and after that, one motor isn't working AND it won't charge! Ugh what a day...what to do?

Yay, the wind is finally getting calm so I might get to fly my Stryker after 3 weeks of bad weather.

Maybe you need new batteries in the TX When mine stopped charging, that fixed it.

its UT-931, I was suprised mine wasnt in pieces, all the little sophmores were fighting over the Tx, our flight instructors had a blast with it to

Well, I'm going to be very lazy about my broken AA. My mom and I have to go to Target today anyway so, we're just going to return the broken one, say "One of the motors didn't work", and then get a brand new one for no cost. I'm lazy...I know.

Gotta new AA and it now has removable landing gear landing gear. Its made of foam, hot wheels wheels, epoxy, and velcro. Kinda on the heavy side and drops flying time to about 7 minutes but I'm just having too much fun with them to take em off a lot. I'll time the plane without the gear for comparison, but I love em.

cool 451...I gotta go check that out...


does anyone know anything about the hobby/park zone planes? I was just wondering how the aerobird challenger/extreme planes have three channels if they have elevons (v-tail)...my FBS has a v-tail too but it has only throttle and steering!


PB_2

The Challenger and Extreme have 3 channels. They are throttle, pitch and steering (yaw). The V-Tail can handle pitch and steering just fine. Pitch is implemented by deflecting both ruddervators (tail flaps) up (or toward the centerline) at the same time for up pitch and vice versa. Steering is implemented by deflecting one toward the centerline and the other one away from the centerline. There are some real airplanes that have this configuration, such as the Bonanza, but they are rare.

I believe the Scout implements steering a little differently by deflecting only one ruddervator at a time. This is really a combination of steering and up-pitch which helps maintain altitude in the turn.

I just bought a Challenger.

thanks barry, that makes sense. tell us how the challenger works out, too...


PB_2

The Challenger is a GREAT step up from the Scout. That's what I did....I just never want to buy the Scout again cause it was absolute crap compared to the Commander or ABC. The 3rd channel takes some getting used to but I got used to it in no time and now have a stock Stryker and working on a brushless. You think the Scout needs room? Wait until you see the brushless Stryker screaming by at 85mph. And I thought that the ABC needed lots of room[&:]

Forget getting landing gear for the AA if you fly indoors. I was being sneaky and brought my AA to school. After school, I went to one of our 3 gyms, 2 were in use, and this thing can do an awesome belly sliding ROG on a gym floor. It LOVES the indoors.

I'm still waiting for my FBC2 to arrive off of eBay, so I've recently been flying my Scout and the AA. One thing about flying in a gym or anywhere- fly alone if at all possible. Letting others even watch can be very risky because some jerks will grab it out of the air while you fly a sweet low-speed flyby. I have found from losing 2 of 3 FBSs to only let mature people (best friends and adults) watch and fly.


PB_2

Thought I'd show you guys the coin 'mod' my office mate and I have been using. Without extra weight they fly around the office pretty well, and adding weight seems to increase the turning radius, which is bad for indoors. But for flying outside in the wind, adding some weight to the nose balances the plane better, and makes it more wind-resistant. We've been experimenting with various weights (coin sizes) and find that dimes and pennies seem to work best--at least out in the parking lot (surrounded by buildings and cars).



We simply cut a little slot in the nose to hold the coin. Different positions make for different flying conditions--moving it back will let it get higher, moving it forward will keep it low and fast. Adding a quarter makes it REALLY fast. Having the little slot makes it easy to change weights based on mood or conditions, and is a lot easier than splitting it open to move the inside components forward for better COG (though that would probably make it better for indoor flight).

I attempted that...You'll have to remove a lot of foam in order to actually move that stuff forward. It all has it's own little "chamber" thing.

For indoors, stick with no coins, for outdoors, I sometimes still go no coin. It all depends on wind. And yes, my friend and I fly ours in our neighborhood and his little brother LOVES to try and grab it out of the air. What's really fun is to fly the plane at pretty much 6 feet off of the ground, my height, where it is just out of the little guys reach. (he's like 4'7" or something, and can't jump high so it's fun and then he actually goes away so we get to fly alone again)

hey the coin thing is a pretty neat idea,better than opening the plane. i trashed one opening it up , the foam simply ripped away from the orignal seams.i will have to try this. i fly mine in the wind with about 5 to 8mph, i almost gotit to where i can hover pionted into the wind. my 7 and 12 year old fly there own . they have never flown a plane before and had ifgured it out in about a minute or so .

Hi.

What quicker re-chargers are available for the Aero Ace Hogs?

I made a modifcation by removing the wire charger plug and putting it on a 9volt wall charger and the plane charges in about 7-9 minutes. It unfortunately burned the plane battery the other day when I forgot and left it charging over 20 minutes.

I am wondering if I keep the charge at under 10 minutes, if it will eventually fry the plane battery again, or if will be ok in the long run? This quick charge sure is nice as charging from the controller takes so long.

Bear in mind that the Aero Ace has a Lithium battery. Lithium's should not be charged at more than 1C or 1 times the capacity. Normally this takes a while...eg...the 30min wait times with the stock battery.

Yeap, I burned my plane doing that, but I thought it was because I left it too long charging - 20 minutes.

I did get about 6 flights using this modification and making sure to not charge it longer than 10 minutes. It sure was nice having the plane fully charged in under 10 minutes ready to go again.

Are there any fast chargers out there for this plane?

EDIT:
P.S. What about this one?

http://h1071118.hobbyshopnow.com/pro...?prod=EFLC3000

It says:
* For 3.7V or 7.4V batteries.
* Automatically detects between one and two cells
* LED light and beeper to indicate charging status
* Protects against reverse polarity
* Includes JST (BEC) plug and Mini-Tâ„¢ plug adapters

For the price of a charger you could just get another plane--charge one while you fly the other, and swap them off. That would get you more flight time than a quick charger would anyway (and you can't really quick charge the lipos).

Ok thanks. Sounds like a good idea.

how long is it taking you guys on average to fully charge your planes?

I am getting upwards of 40 minutes to re-charge the plane.

I don't think mine has ever taken more than 15-20 minutes.

Man...Im having an absolute blast with this little plane....Now that Ive seen what it can do...Im ready to buy another one, and modify the stew out of it. I want more speed. FASTER.. We are planning on doing pylon races down here with them. Im thinking about scratch building a mini BVM KingCat and putting some aeroace stuff in it.

If you want a lot of speed, you might consider the 'quad mod'
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3968433/tm.htm

Got some video of our stock AA flying around the office if anyone's interested. It's a tough space to fly--provides some challenges for sure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py7duHX0JjA

Very cool!! looks a tad tail heavy though, but for indoors use that can be a good thing. 8)

Yeah, works fine for indoors. I'd put a penny in the nose for outdoor flying.

Looks like fun inside. I wish I had room in my house but I don't and when I try I just hit the walls and my cats go crazy.