I doubt you'll hurt it, it can really take a beating. You'll see! "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking"

Tom

I was thinking of taking the AA guts out of one of my beat up old aas and making a fan boat. Has anyone tried this? also should i try making the propellers pull instead of push? Also diewhatevermietser WHAT did you use for struts and pontoons i MUST know that thing is awesome!

tim(tcarp) this tim, I would check and see if the second plane you bought is an a channel. The A channel is notorious for cutting out or fading out. I.E. your flying along telling the plane to run at full throttle and bank and suddenly, just for a moment, it cuts power, or stops turning. In the fade you are at whatever speed and and the controls go away for a second or less. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it usually happens at the worst possible moment. My theory is that it is happening often, but you don't realize it until the worst possible moment. If the plane is still new you could return it if that is feasible. IF it is an a channel you could also change the channel with a little bit of solder work. I think I posted where to look in the last 10 pages.

As to the next step up, I'm searching for a depron(ebb foam) airplane with a wingspan in the 10-12 inch range. None are available in the US, That I can find. If you want to go bigger, there are many options. You have to decide about the number of channels, the AA is a 2 channel with proportional steering. I had a firebird scout, apparently the only one that did not fly, that was a 2 channel. I replaced it with a flyzone redhawk 3 channel. It has throttle, up, down, left, right, in 360 degree options. And it is cheap, and the replacement parts are cheap. Both plane are in the $50-$70 range. Enjoy your plane(s), Tim

googled person I know cobalt or micro built hover craft. Maybe in the 40 page range. At some point we, including myself, need to codify our mods, both good and bad. Tim

tcarp, the redhawk has a 41" wingspan, the firebird scout has a 38" wingspan, I think.

Sure enough..Its an A channel...I will fly it in the morning and then exchange it for a C if I can find one then.

I will take a look at the other suggestions as well....

Thanks!!!

tcarp, b channel is just as good, or better, depending on who you ask. My best plane was a c chanel but that is just me.

Do you think it is insane to practice with the 3 channel plane by taxiing? I thought it was, but my brother thought it made perfect sense.
Tim

Google, I just cut a basic float shape from blue styrofoam. It's kinda rough but it was just a proof of concept. Struts are toothpicks. I did find that they might be just a hair too small as at full throttle it almost submerges the front. Surface tension and the inability to hydroplane (lacks the power) keeps it firmly nailed to the water. Have to play with the adtl. wing & maybe a different shape float.

Micro - Take 94 to St. Cloud, then south on hwy23 for 35 miles and you're at my back door! Swing by and we'll fly sometime.

googled, are you thinking of an air boat. That would be a boat hull that is pushed by a propeller? If so, I don't know of anyone that built one. It seems like once you have a hull, flat bottomed or nearly so, it should be relatively easy. I think the hull would be challenging. The more I think about your Idea the more I like it. Maybe a Testors model kit to get the hull. Mount the motors close together so that you get max thrust, and max turn. Then waterproof the rx and shield the motors. Maybe stack batteries for more time. Build it, please. It seems like a great idea.

I made some floats for my x-twin and as you can see they work i guess yours didnt work because they are smaller also it flys better with floats.\\

Darn it!![:@] its second test flight the wind got a bit choppy but every thing I tryd would not bring the plane back down, if i had the no throttle mod I would have saved this plane and the strange thing is that the neighbours house where it must have crashed are not opening the door though I can hear them inside. I dont think Il ever see it again unless I pay one of my freinds to go on a covert operation in the middle of the night and rescue my downed aeroplane Well im going to go sob now cya.

Googled, I made this boat out of Defender Spiderman plane parts, after I realized how lame that plane was. The boat is also lame, but fun. too much throttle and it will lift on one side which noses in the other. If I were to do it again I would definitely use two or four amos or pontoons, the best setup might be 4 long slender pontoons, above and on the water, such that if you roll it your electronics don't get soaked. This boat is fun to scoot along the lakeshore. I had originally hoped to put my waterproof digital camera on it and take some movies with it but it only has about 2 minutes of flight time. You can see that the props were not pushers, so I had to put them on the pillars.
John

That diefluggster pic of his sea ace mono has got to be one of the most satisfying ever. Nice one! I thought I would counter it with a few pics of my crude green aa, which I recovered (yay!) from nearly 100' up in the oak. It had been up there for weeks, torrential rain, etc. I spent about 20 minutes looking over every leaf and branch in that tree, combing the ferns below. Finally I sighted it in silhouette (my clever 'jungle camo' paint treatment was working against me until then), about 40' up. Chucked a couple of sticks, it broke loose, dropped then disappeared again. I shook every tree that I could within 100' of it, my buddy kept saying 'it didn't go that far,' finally he came down and shook a tree a foot from the big oak. I saw it drop behind him, he never saw it, but teamwork paid off and we recovered it! I had used the fishing rod trick to recover his orange 'c' type a week earlier. Anyhow, the off/on switch was rusted but moved, it was otherwise undamaged! It took a charge fine and seems to function well though I did break off my replacement horizontal stabilizer somehow in the afterparty celebration. These pics are of the new tail, this is my second try on the tail. I've increased the horizontal stabilizer surface area to try to offset the slight pitching that can happen when turning in wind. Not flying this one again until I find some flourescent orange paint (hardware store opens in 20 mins)! Alterations to this plane, little nubs mostly cut off or sanded, motors moved back & gorilla glued, elevators added, guillows landing gear (rear skid not yet replaced), body cut down, mono mod. Uglified with green paint. on 3rd set of batt's.
john

where to go from aa? slightly off-topic but this guy's work is amazing. My experience limited to hang-gliding.
John

http://m--sandlin.home.att.net/bug.htm

Im probably going to build some sort of fan boat but i need to re soulder some of the wires that go to one of the motors first i figured out that that was why one motor wasn't working. I dont know how it happened but i took it apart and the black and white wires from one motor were completely detached. not too bad tho because i think i might shape the 2 halves into boat like pontoons. As in not using solid foam and shaping into somewhat of a hull. maybe this, coupled with the wing extensions will allow me to take off! Also, i have been aware of some reports that local targets have reduced the two pack price to $6.24!!!! Can anyone confirm this, i went to my local target about 4 weeks ago and they were 17.84 Also, i'm pretty sure theyd still have mroe because they were hidden. and at 6$ apiece hello 5 new aero aces to my fleet.
EDIT: motors wires were not seperated from the motors but from the mothreboard or whatever you call it.

I've gotten my latest project down to test gliding. I'll use some
clay for weight instead of the RX until I get it trimmed out.
The wing is hinged and spring loaded allowing it to move up & down
according to prop thrust.
Wingspan is 15"
Length is 9"
Weight empty of AA guts- 7.8 grams

You guys beat me to it! I was thinking of the airboat idea last night and I was planning to post about my idea today! ok, well, I'm guessing you guys still want to hear it. I would take a foam block and shave it into the shape of a J16 Carolina Skiff (just the hull) with a filled hull (totally flat on the top and bottom)-because I think it would float and work better that way. Also, since I live on a canal, which is saltwater, and would be mostly using it In saltwater, I would fiberglass the hull since I already have a fiberglassing kit. I will design and build the hull first if I plan to then possibly get my second AA and work out an idea for the electronics.

I have one question about the actual plane, what are the three aluminum strips for?

edit: I forgot to mention, It would be nearly impossible and I'm not gonna try it, even though it would be so awesome, a micro hydro foam using the kit, for anyone that doesn't know what a hydro foam is, here is one including a couple of videos.
http://www.hobby4less.com/hydro_flyer.htm

neurotex, that is one bad looking plane! nice job on the wing stripes too. how did you rig the wing so it moves with the throttle position?

I made an airboat a long time ago. It's simple, waterproof and works great. It actually handles the waves pretty good too. The runtime is VERY long because you don't have to use much power. Most of the time i'm on the lowest throttle setting because it doesn't need any more power than that.

do you guys even remember the 2 airboats i made?

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4334711/tm.htm

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4232934/tm.htm

monstermaker I somehow missed those posts, and your boats are quite impressive. The coke bottle one particularly! Was it stabile? googledperson I have had trouble with motor leads coming off, they all came off the defender electronics and I had one lead pull from the aa motor as well. My flat bottomed boat seems to 'stick' to the water such that it really doesn't move fast, there's a laminar friction going on. Did you run into that problem as well monstermaker? The defender electronics seem to have a wierd powerband so that it's out of control for about 5 seconds then mellows out, but it doesn't overcome that laminar friction thing so even though the thing is screaming and there's lots of wind, the boat doesn't go too far. Definitely needs more work. neurotex has a plane in his hangar pics that looks like it has a defender motor, but neuro is that a defender motor with aa electronics? I could barely get the defender that I had to fly at all. maybe a different defender.
john

Monster, I am afraid I was totally unaware of your airboats. Very cool.

I have a perfect, well nearly perfect, flight day and the big field for the redhawk is closed for the next 3 weeks. So I decide to break out the jet and take it to the other park in town. I get there, and they have construction in the back and have closed it off as well. Now I'm thinking of driving down to the beach. Given todays track record, the wind will be about 45 mph[>:]. But at the end of my oddessy, I can always fly at home. Tim

I'm sure the design could be improved upon or used in other ways.
It works the same way as a shock absorber, with the spring being
around the CF rod. The rod is glued to the wing but free floats through
the fuselage. Full throttle will push the wing down, eliminating the
porpoising caused by full thrust.
I'm sure changes will be made during test flights but you get the idea.
I just noticed that a lot of initial energy is wasted on wing loading that
could be used to power other devices.

I finally got to fly my aero ace, and I love it! It was really windy so I stopped early though.

on another note, will someone please answer my question: Does anyone know what the 3 aluminum strips that it comes with are for? the manual doesn't say.

They are for the rudder and/or flaps. You put the sticker over the middle of the creases to hold them in position if you have to trim the plane. Hope I explained it clearly enough.

Tom

yes it was very stable. didnt have any trouble with water friction . went as fast as i told it to.