thanks all, that really makes life easier, where is a good place to get the foam, I checked Lowes and everything was a inch thick or bigger?

Here's my latest adaptation:

Its a Guillows biplane glider, both wings have been fiberglassed for added strength.
Wind handling characteristics are better than the foam bipe and it flies faster or slower depending on if you slide the wings forward or back. I haven't had a chance to try it indoors yet, it should do great with tiny landing gear.

That's cool, Dan. Is that one of those little balsa planes you get for like $1 at toy stores? That's great--will have to try that

Yep. Nothing beats a $2 dollar ARF.

Here's another glider that should make a great conversion: http://store.yahoo.com/explorestore/siriusglider.html

I think I had a few of these sirius gliders when I was a kid that my dad bought at KB toys, I'm pretty sure it was the same glider just without the rubber cap on the nose. I used to cut flaps and elevator in to the wings and they were the best flying gliders that I can recall.

I just placed an order for two sirius gliders, couldn't hold back the temptation.

I remember flying them outside when I was a kid and tweaking the flaps and elevator to get the smoothest and slowest glide possible. Now I can relive those days flying the same type of gliders with electric R/C power, isn't technology great

Here's the larger version, I’ll have to test both and see which one is best suited for the r/c equipment.
http://www.christianbook.com/Christi...7339&p=1013824

Question regarding alternative way of charging plane.

Will it be ok to hook up a 9volt DC charger directly into the battery compartment of the transmitter and then use the transmitter in it's normal way to charge the plane?

I have 2 AA planes. I use one to charge 1 plane while I fly the other. Rechargeable batteries are ok, but they died quickly, so I was thinking of hooking up an AC Transformer that outputs 9Volt DC hooked directly to where the batteries normally go. The transformer should not notice any differences since it's getting power from the 9Volt transformer instead of the 6 1.5volt batteries. Or am I missing something here?

Just wanted to say I am really impressed with the designs people are coming up with to throw these electronics into. All of them are really cool and tempting. I should be buying an AA real soon and look forward to doing a conversion into one of these designs once I've beat the tar out of the original body. One question about that jet, I notice the props are sticking up through a slot in the wings slightly. Why was it done this way rather than dropping the motors a bit low on the body? It would seem to me that slight blockage by the body would take a little power and speed out of the motors?

Just got finished with the 1st flight of my new AA. Been searching ever since this
thread was started for a local outlet. Finally my local zellers got a batch. (The
White Rock BC Zellers for those still looking;7 left)

The only sad thing is they were $50 CAD before taxes. So I only bought one for
now. And I looks like its the older revision so must be careful not ot let it fly away.

It was too windy for this little thing to do much today. But it worked great, no trim
necessary once I used that perfect penny in the nose trick. Got 8 minutes fly time
before it could not fight the breeze. I did find out though that the trim nob on
the transmitter was more functional if I pushed down while a turned. Flies so slow
its fun to fly around and through objects. Even landed it on my antenna as well
as catching it.

Got at least 50 feet away from me this time around no apparent problem. Once
I have a bunch more play time, will try taking off the bottom wings for some
speed and better stability in a breeze. As I am near the ocean so almost always
too much of a wind for micro's.

[8D] [&:]

Anybody figure out what the amp draw of the AA is? I'm about to shop around for some cheap 1 cell lipos with a slightly higher capacity but need to know what C raiting to look for. Also, what's about the max weight and/or MA raiting I should look for in a lipo that it will be able to carry?

Also, anybody found a cheap source for these motors or some kind of aftermarket props besides mail order?

Still reading through this thread's pages as time allows so excuse me if this has been covered.

hey schuh, I find very reasonable foam at my high school cafeteria. Their plates are of black, thin foam that would be just a tad heavier than the AA foam, but still much more suitable than something from a hardware store.


PB_2

critterhunter,
each motor draws 390ma, so a total of .78A draw. not sure what the C rating of the fullriver 130mah cell is, but its obviously enough to power the plane. there's two new cells out, a 160mah and a 170mah, both weigh a gram more than the 130s and would probably give you a better duration. you can get both cells (the Plantraco 160mah and the DU 170) from here, http://www.bsdmicrorc.com/products.cfm?catID=10001

bsdmicrorc.com also carries motors that you could use for replacements, 6ohm - 10ohm 6mm motors would work. i've yet to see any other counter rotating props for 6mm motors, but you could use the blue Aero-X prop as a replacement as well.

nick

I think my flanker is a little heavy since it has a hard time keeping altitude. Any of you guys know what kind of screwdriver i need to remove the rx from its plastic casing? And where to buy it. Right now i have it still attached to it. I also need to get a scale so i can weigh this thing any suggestions for scales?

Just purchased the AA yesterday flew it today.............love it.

I put landing gear on it, from match box car and used a battery watch to power two LED's for night flights.

awsome plan.

Picked up an AA today. I got the red "B" version since some seem to hint this channel has faster response and is less prone to range problems. Not sure how to tell if you have the new version of the AA? Anybody? Anyway, winds were 5 to 8 mph and I knew this was probably too much for it but I had a nice big field to try it in. Launched the plane into the wind and the wind speed made it climb way too much...to the point of almost a stall, yet at lower throttle speeds the plane couldn't make progress against the wind. So, I landed it and stuck a penny halfway into the nose. Launched her up again and she handled great! At full throttle it would climb at a good pace and still make good progress against the wind. Even at about 1/2 to 1/3rd throttle the plane would make good progress against the wind yet stay level and not climb on me. Was very surprised the plane could handle these wind speeds but I wouldn't recommend it. A few times I had to play with left/right and tap the throttle to get the plane to loose some altitude and not get too high on me. The amount of air time I got was amazing even on this very first charge. Very neat little plane and it's much smaller than I thought it was. I can see how it would be very hard to damage the thing since it's so light. Looking forward to this body going on me sooner or later so I can yank the electronics and put them in a custom build. By the way, I haven't removed the lower wing yet but will when I get more flights in the stock setup first.

Someone had posted some examples of serial #'s for telling if it was an old or
new revision. But I think the easiest way to tell is just leave the antenna down
power up half way or so on ground, walk away or maybe turn off transmitter
and see if motors turn off or keep going. The newer ones are supposed to power
down I think.

I did that test....Ran the plane at full throttle on the ground and then flipped the TX off while still at WOT. After a few seconds the motors shut down, so I think I got a new version?

Took the plane over a friend's tonight. He has flown a Challenger and so has some experience in RC like me. He is not the best pilot in the world yet he was flying the thing like a pro right off the bat. Another guy showed up who's never flown RC and he also had good control over the plane on the first flight. This goes to show you that this little guy is real easy to fly for even a total newbie. And, I might add, we were flying in a long but narrow backyard that was bordered by trees. It was also a bit windy and I had to use the penny trick to keep it from nosing up to much on us. These guys even were doing some rings around small trees, flying between the limbs. One guy smacked a tree branch and the plane flipped a few times. In the process the penny popped out of the nose. He recovered in mid flip without hitting the ground but instantly was fighting the up/down motion caused by the wind without the penny nose weight. Pretty neat stuff.

One of the best things about this plane, besides it being so light that you'd practicly have to step on it to damage it, is the long flight times you get with that little lipo. I don't see the need now to install a larger MA lipo as the flights are as long as I care for. Keep in mind that this was only the second charge of this battery and it should "ramp up" (get conditioned for longer flight times) after 10 or 20 charges as most batteries do.

My only concern at the moment is charging the lipo off the TX. I will be using 2500MA Energizers ($17 at Walmart...make sure they are the 2500MA ones) as these things last much longer than regular batteries off the shelf in my other TXs. Anybody who thinks regular AAs last longer than nimhs isn't using 2500MA ones. They also give me a good 2 to 3 times longer run time in my digital camera than regular AAs.

Still, I'd prefer to charge that little lipo off my Celectra 1 to 3 cell lipo charger. It will go down to 250ma. Now, I know lipos should be charged at 1C, but since I read the AA charger is pushing it to about 2C this should be roughly around 260MA anyway (130MAx2). So, I need to sort out a few things here first. If I remember right, somebody said there is a diode on the RX that will prevent another charger from seeing the battery? Can you be more specific about the problem? A diode should only prevent voltage from backflowing. I can only think of one way this would interfer with an aftermarket charger. A lipo charger "sees" the level of voltage the battery has. If this diode is connected in such a way to prevent voltage to flow to the charger then I guess that could cause the charger to think there is no battery hitched up. However, thought I also read that the RX board requires a specific amp rate? Either way, if somebody could go into more detail about the problem I'd like to hear it as I haven't opened it up to take a peak at the circuit board yet. Also, what type of plug is this little guy and can I find something similar at Radio Shack because I'd prefer not to cut the plug off the TX to use.

Just did some peaking onto that RC Groups AA Jet Fighter thread. Man, those guys are deep into it. Figured I'd ask the question why I was thinking of it...What's a good design for an indoor really slow flyer for these AA guts? I'm thinking of something probably along the lines of a bi-plane (like the photo above in this thread) or anything else. Want something I can fly around at slow rates of speed in a living room.

On the battery issue.

So far, I have been just fine using some old Ni-MH 1600Ma rechargable batteries
for my AA transmitter/charger. As long as I charge them once a week, no problem.
(As theses old ones now lose 1/2 their charge in a week)

I use them for everything so I don't keep paying for regular batteries. Only my TV
remote and 1 emergency flashlight use non-chargables. The only thing I have ever
had a bug with using the Ni-MH us my portable cd player. It always skips from
half power then will not give any warning when they are about out. As Ni-MH
don't drop current from 1.5v to 1.2v like regular batteries, to discern battery left.



[8D]

I've seen people reference the fact that nimhs only have about 1.2 volts per cell versus 1.5. While this may be true on paper, I find that most charged nimh packs show a good 2 to 4 volts higher than specified. While I'm sure this peak voltage doesn't last long, many devices are designed to operate in a somewhat wide window of voltage levels. Another hobby of mine is metal detecting. The top of the line machine I was using (Explorer II) used 8 AAs. This thing was very power hungry and would eat up a pack of AAs in 4 to 6 hours. With the Engergizer 2500ma nimh AAs I'd get a good 2 to 4 hours longer run time. One tip for anybody thinking of using AA nimhs...These batteries should be charged at a low rate to keep them in top condition and also to give the pack longer run times. I normaly charge my 2500s at .3 amps on my Pirahna Digital Peak Charger. I simply picked up an 8 AA holder from Radio Shack, snapped a 9V battery plug onto it's top, and then hitched the two leads from it to my charger. It takes an overnight charge to charge them. I'd stay away from those quick chargers that Walmart and others sell that wll charge batteries in 30 minutes to a few hours. While it'll work, you won't get full life out of the batteries or run times as long as they should be.

I think the AA electronics are a bit too heavy for a true living room flyer like the Plantraco Butterfly. Actually, the stock AA is just about the slowest, most manuverable way to fly the electronics. Most of the adaptations seem to be ending up faster and/or with a greater turn radius, based on most of the comments I have read. That balsa biplane a few posts up was described as being able to fly slower, so that may be something to try.

But really, for the weight of the AA electronics, they are probably going to need more than a living room to fly. It can be done if you just hold full turn and let it circle until it hits something, but that is about it. I think you would need at least a big empty garage.

Or you need lighter electronics or maybe some kind of powered baloon or blimp design.

However, the creativity of people on this forum is amazing, so I guess I won't be too surprised if someone comes up with a way to do it. If it is possible, I think it would be a tractor propeller configuration rather than the more common pusher.

Has anybody tried adding flaps to a mono-wing modified AA?

I recently took the lower wings off of my curent AA and I like the way it flies, but I also let the little neighborhood kids fly it in the street sometimes and I don't think they can handle it now because it is faster and climbs too much for them and the limited space we have in the street. I am afraid they will put the thing high in a tree or on a roof. And they really love the thing, so I hate to deny them a chance to fly it.

I would like to add something removable that will keep it from climbing at low power and hopefully slow it down a bit as well. I thought about adding weight to keep it lower, but that will probably speed it up. I think it needs air brakes or flaps. Obviously not retractable during flight, but removable between flights would be nice.

I am thinking about adding a piece of card stock about 1.5 inches wide on the trailingg edge between the props and drooping down to the boom as a sort of flap/brake device. I think this will help, but it is too windy to test now. Maybe somebody has figured this out already? Any advice?

Putting the lower wings back on is no longer an easy option because I cut away the sockets in the lower fuselage where they mount. Adding the lower wings on the ends of the upper wings doesn't help either because it climbs way too much and won't turn responsively like that.

I need a configuration that will stay under 10 feet high so we can retrieve it, and hopefully slower so they can turn it before it gets into trouble.

The flap idea seem to suite your cause, but I think that might be a bit to large to maintain its aerodynamic qualities, but something smaller should work, youll hav to play with it

DanPeoples, did you pick up that balsa bi plane at a store or on the net? Like to find one as it strikes my fancy for the first body I try these AA guts on. Can you get more specific about it's flight ability or how you went about the build?

While on the subject, can somebody give some rough data as to max weight of a plane body before electronics install for the AA guts? Also need to know roughly max wind length so I can start shopping around at toy stores for bodies.

Anybody ever figure out who sells the mini charging plug for the AA? Something at Radio Shack I can mod? I'm wanting to make an adapter for my lipo charger but don't want to hack off the TX plug.

Seen some blurbs about making the AA RX board even lighter. Would like to hear what you guys have done to lighten the thing? Perhaps removing the plastic cover, soldering on new parts, etc. Think I saw reference to replacing the capacitor on it?

Are all these AAs tending to be tail heavy from the factory. Seems most of you guys are moving the battery forward in the nose so there is no need for a penny/nose trick. Once I'm confident my electronics are going to last I'll be moving that battery forward.

Here is a sweet [link=http://www.selfo.com/airnerd/MIFF%20SU-27.wmv]VID[/link] of a kit bash of the AA.

It is a ten inch SU-27. I hope to get vid of the f-15 also.