I think this is true for the larger sizes I have seen, and probably translates down to the smaller sizes so you are probably correct.

This certainly describes the original Fliton gear for the Extra 330 Freestyle that I am now using, and they need replacement by now so I will likely get the TNT aluminum version.

I have asked TnT for their suggestion regarding whether 3/32" stock would be suitable. I am not interested in 3D flying and saving weight on an airplane that is already a full pound lighter than my Ultra Sport 60 that this replaced, is not important to me. If, however, the landing gear is too stiff, a hard landing may rip the gear mount out,

It must be asked, stab incidence relative to what?

If it refers to the stock location for the stab "saddle" in the fuse or the stab incidence relative to the canopy rails, then those really don't have much meaning because what is really important is the wing/stab relationship.

My suggestion is to assemble the plane "box stock," getting everything as squared up and straight as you can, with CG at the suggestet 120mm. The plane is definitely flyable in this configuration, if not (IMHO) nearly as good as it can be.

Both the ones I have assembled - as I have mentioned before - flew with a funky nose-high attitude, needed a lot of down elevator trim, needed a ton of down elevator to fly inverted and were a handful to land. The wing incidence mod erased all these characteristics.

That said, some guys seem to be happy with the way the plane flies with no modification. I can't know if perhaps Phoenix tweaked it a bit at the factory, but this is possible. Recently an older gentleman at my local field got one and I noticed that the canopy attachment has been changed a little, using two tabs in front captured in slots and two canopy bolts in the rear, so I can only wonder what else they might have done. He hasn't flown it yet due to recent cataract surgery, so I don't know yet how it flies.

Bottom line is, assemble it stock and see how it flies. If you think you need the wing mod, it is dead simple to do and would take about 20 minutes tops as a field repair.

That is interesting Bob.. Mine has those 2 catches at the front of the canopy and is supposed to have 2 bolts at the back. I glued magnets at the back so my canopy is easy to remove quickly. My stab is at 0 to the canopy rails and the wing has -0.5 degrees,(trailing edge up). That is how it came out from the factory. Of course the tail has an airfoil and the fuselage mounting pad is flat. I shaped my pad to match the foil and be at 0 to the canopy rails. Mine flies flat with no down elevator and requires almost no down push when inverted. I do like the spoileron trick for landing on a windy day. I mistakenly took off once with the spoilerons up. I could hardly notice the difference.

OK, well it sounds as if they have made some more significant changes.

This is what makes it difficult to say what will make a particular plane fly better, without having seen it fly.[&o]

the virt with the ST90 is pretty good... well depends on what you want i guess. 15x6 zinger pro had very nice pull so long as you had momentum. Same with the APC 16x4W.. They both seem to go and go and go..
Pulling out of hovers are not fast at all with this motor so dont expect a rocket or anything. I want to say my plane is 7lb 2oz.

Thanks for your guys input too. hopefully i can get some more testing done at the field tomarrow. I think will mess around with some tail wieght this time.

I also noticed that i have been practicing Rolling harriers the wrong way on my simulator... rolling right doesnt work so good with engine torque. I was wondering why it would just stop rolling some times.. I will need much greater allieron throw to be able to do rolls when the plane is near stall speed.

its fun learning going the other way after you got one direction down.

i think its almost time to make another video.

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The stock landing gear is junk.. no matter how soft you land it gradually starts going flat. if you make hard landings it wont last you very long at all.

Yesterday I did some CG changes. I added in ~2oz of weight to the tail to shift the CG to about ~130mm from 120mm.

The improvements were drastic. Just about every thing felt better for me. Landings are much much smoother and slower than before. Hovering and high alpha maneuvers are not much trouble anymore.

Overall big change to the way the plane felt.

I said I would report back on the landing gear situation. I have ordered one from the outfit in Swanton Ohio. I filled out the custom form on their website and the charge for that custom gear is $40.00. I am having it made a touch wider as that will fit easily into our recepticles. The rest of the dimensions are exactly what we have now. The suggest 1/8" based on the 7.8 lb. weight of my airplane. Next I will let all of you know how it works out.

Thanks again Maynardrupp for reporting in on the gear again. That outfit in Swanton,Ohio is TnT?
I measured 3.6mm or 9/64" on the gear that came with my Extra. So this 1/8" gear should be 1/2oz lighter than factory by my calcs.
8/9 x 4.15 factory wt.= ~0.5 oz. Not bad, especially considering that your 1/8" gear should be stronger than the factory gear.
Looking forward to your next report: the test flight!

PS didja see the video link on Graphtec's site where the guy just POUNDS his gear?
http://www.graphtechrc.com/ click the "click here to see" link
Now THAT'S a hard landing (attempt). Almost what we affectionately refer to as a Pancake landing!

Yes, TnT is correct. That video is great. The carbon gear would be nice, but I will save some money and try the 6061 T-6 aluminum gear first...More later. I don't know if I will get to try it before I leave for Florida on Jan. 3. I have not decided which plane to take to Florida. If I take the Extra I will have the answer soon. If not the test will have to wait until spring.

I happened to have a spare gear lying around from my (crashed) Great Planes Extra 300sp. I had to re-drill the mounting holes but the dimensions are the same. Its painted with metallic blue and seems to be MUCH stronger than the one that Phoenix sent with the ARF.

I spent the last two nights installing a YS .91 FZ and new radio package (S3152 Digitals), hope to try flying her again this weekend. The first two maidens ended with my POS GMS .76 Deadsticking on me. Luckily flaperons were programmed in and saved my ass (twice).

Needless to say, that GMS is going to be a Duraplane-only engine from now on.



Greg

theglog.org/

gmooney- That GP gear looks very sweet in blue. How thick is that GP gear- 1/8"?
Glad to hear about your slight upgrade from a GMS/POS to a YS!
I'm curious how you used the flaperons on a dead stick.... flaps (Down) to stretch it, vs spoilerons (up) to stop it.
I have never sensed that flaperons stretch a dead glide much further, so I'd only pop them in at the very end when the airspeed is low and I need another 10 feet or so.
Usually on an ill-timed deadstick I just mutter "Oh, snap!" and hold on tight- no time for switches!

The gear is the same thickness as the stock gear, its identical other than the mounting holes and the color. It was the first two flights of the plane so I hadnt gotten use to how it handles at low speed, no approaches had been made until I was forced into it

I have flaperons on a dial on the right hand, so as soon as the engine quit, I threw them on right away. I just wanted to make sure I had plenty of lift to maneuver to a safe spot on my crappy field.

My father took a vid using his snap video camera, its up on my site here:<a href="http://theglog.org/flying-and-crashing-videos">http://theglog.org/flying-and-crashing-videos

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Flaperons also add wash-in at the wing tips in addition to slowing the plane down and causing pitch changes, which is a huge invitation to a tip stall. As a general guideline, it is best to test the effects of flaperons/spoilerons only after the engine is running well and reliably, and at a good altitude. There is a huge difference between flaps and flaperons.

In my very humble opinion, you got it down in spite of the flaperons, not because of them.

And I would not re-start an engine and take off again until I figured out what made the engine quit in the first place. Again, just MHO.

The very idea of using a contol surface that extends to the wingtip as a flap is crazy. I have 18,000 hours mostly flying corporate jets and a lot of stuff we do with models makes me scratch my head. I have been using "spolierons" on this Extra. It seems to work good for killing the float on a landing, but I can't believe that it isn't more violent or effective. I guess its the power to weight ratio thing. I have mistakenly taken off with 10mm. of spoileron, (both ailerons tipping up), and hardly noticed the difference. Maybee I have numb thumbs eh?

Yah, Maynard, I wouldn't do spoilerons or flaperons on a plane that I was IN, ever. Especially not flaperons- see Cmoulders note above. He's been a font jof good info for me!
Quoting "Flight Magazine":
"In typical business jets the thrust to weight ratio is close to 3.0 pounds of airplane for each pound of takeoff thrust. With that much thrust the Learjet .."

so that's 1:3 Thrust:Weight ratio vs the >>1:1 ratio on a model plane (like mine @6lb 13oz w/Saito91) that can climb or even pop out of a hover. More of a guided rocket in many ways. I'm guessing that your 75 still puts you at 0.8:1, a-kickin' the feathers off a Learjet!!
But it is really neat, since we lack FAA certified mechanics and fly in some incredible scale winds, that we can instantly pop the spoilerons up to shorten a floaty or otherwise problematic landing (like OOPS, I got the CG too far back!).
My engine idles at well over 2300 rpm, so with the 7 pitch prop, on approach it has 15mph+ blast coming out of it. I'm guessing my Phoenix lands at 10mph tops with no spoilerons. To just bring it down, on a runway that is NOT miles long, dumping the lift on ~20% of the wing chord sure works wonders! What's more, spoilerons give reflex and wash-out, stabilizing roll quite a bit, and making the stall more gradual in addition to speeding up the landing so that wind speed and variation are less significant vs the landing speed. To your point, I think that we (I) use spoilerons and flaperons because they are cheap and fun- no extra hingeing, no extra servos and pushrods and servo wires! I think that real flaps or spoilers would add 2-3 oz minimum, and I for one wouldn't want that. I've done a dozen or so planes in the past 15 years, and never bothered with flaps, many call the simplistic flaperon/spoileron setup a "full house" in this hobby!

PS Monday's weather looks (relatively) great for SE Michigan if you are off work.... I'm there- we're gonna light a fire and bring our radio muffs and go for it!!!

I once left the spoilerons up (12-15mm) on my Venus II during an aborted landing and was lucky I didn't stuff it. Had it on very low rates - about 6-7 deg of elevator - and only full throttle pushed the tail down barely enough to get a teensy bit of lift.

Gave me something to ponder once the nerves settled down a bit.

Interesting that I don't need spoilerons with the Phoenix Extra or the Focus Sport, or any of the other larger planes.[sm=confused.gif]

The most educational model aerodynamics lessons I have learned have been from the Multiplex Cularis e-powered sailplane with full-house flaps and set up for crow (aka butterfly). The Cularis is particularly good for this because despite the fact that it is essentially a large foamie, it is also a performance sailplane and not at all forgiving. It will tip stall quite easily if not flown correctly. Sailplane responses to control inputs are pure, not obscured (nor exaggerated) by the thrust from an engine.

I restarted after making sure the engine ran perfectly on the ground, I tested on the ground for nearly half a tank, lifting the plane, inverting it, moving it every which way I could and it just would not quit.... till it got flying again..... thats why its a Duraplane only engine now

I wish I had enough stick time with this airplane to make an educated comment, but the last extra I crashed was due to a deadstick into a tip stall into a tree, bad positioning, and wind conditions did not help the situation. This Phoenix bird has a bunch more wing area than theaforementionedGP 300sp so who knows. The plane glided to almost a stand still on landing, If I was walking next to it I probably could have grabbed it out of the air, I dont see that happening without the extra lift provided by the flaperons. Again, I cant be sure.

The good thing is I tested the YS .91 last night and it started/ran like a champ! Now all i need is some nice weather!
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My best guess is that the GMS was slightly lean and overheated during flight. Plane runs fine on the ground, but G loads starve the carb a little more during flight and then the engine quits. Seen it many times.

Why did the GP Extra tip stall after deadsticking? When the engine quits, you have got to keep the nose down to keep the speed up, especially with higher wing loading.

Landing: Don't be obsessed with the idea of planes landing at walking speeds, especially aerobatic planes and warbirds, or ANYTHING with a tapered wing, or ANYTHING without dihedral. As I mentioned to someone earlier in the thread, we sometimes forget that not every plane lands like a trainer. Give the plane what it needs. Learn to make good approaches (most guys approach too high!) and fly the plane to the ground. Some guys get near the ground and then - for some reason, about 5-10 feet off the ground - just keep holding the elevator and won't let the plane down, expecting the plane to somehow miraculously land itself. I call it "milking the stall".

Good luck with the YS. Follow the break-in directions faithfully and it will serve you well. Run it very rich to start, with an O.S. "F" plug and never try running it with anything less than 20% nitro/20% syn oil, or it too will never run quite right and is more likely to overheat.

Excellent points talking about the tapered and lack of dihedral wings.

As for the YS, I bought this new from an ex-pattern guy that recently replaced the cup and piston, so the engine already broken in. Ibought a gallon of Wildcat 30% Nitro 23% SynOil from my LHS just for this engine, test ran it last night briefly and it is definitely a powerhouse swinging the 15x8 APC. Ijust need some clear weather and can get this thing flying.

YS loves the heli fuel.[8D]

What I do for the (broken-in) YS FZ1.10-S is to mix half heli and half Cool Power 10% (18% syn oil) because it is often difficult around here to find the 20/20 in stock. Runs perfectly and takes a little sting out of the sticker shock for straight heli fuel.

15x8 might be a bit steep for the .91, but it's actually better than over-revving with too small a prop with a 4-stroke. Above about 9500 rpm the valves tend to float, and you waste a lot of that wonderful mid-range torque these engines produce.

On a Saito, replacing the piston requires a re-break in period to allow the ring to re-seat against the cylinder wall. I would assume a YS would require something similar. I just had the piston replaced in a Saito 100 and ran four tanks through it before putting in on the plane and it is still set rich. Since most of the break-in instructions for YS engines seem to pretty much be "run pretty rich for several tanks and don't muck with the regulators till you have well over a gallon of fuel though it", I would expect you should be able to at least get stick time while doing the break in.

The guy that had it before me told me he already broke it in, I asked him specifically Needless to say.. I will be running it rich for the first few tanks anyway. Iam unfamiliar with these engines and want to make sure Idont bork something

I selected a 15x8 for this prop due to the information I got on http://www.patternflyer.com/troy/ And a UK site Ifound, they both said 14x10 or 15x8 for the .91

Sounds good. They've definitely got way more onions than OS 4-strokes of similar displacement!