carlf

My Feedback: (1)

Welcome JR!

I’ve been flying a Accipiter Badius for 2 years now…. Although I haven’t flown it with a camera mounted I can tell you it is a fun plane to fly. It is the plane I learned to fly with.

Here is a link that takes you to some setup tips I rounded up.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=4522103

They’ll help newbies make needed adjustments that will help it fly better, all are not needed but have their place so look them over and ask away!!

There are a lot of guys here that can help you with advice for this plane and are happy to help you out.


Also, This thread has been continued... It is now called "Badius Owners Club (CONTINUED) "
This link it to the first page so you know the nature of our thread...

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5202911
Please stop on over!!!

Loubud

Welcome to the Land of Badius.
It's fortunate for us that Carl has kept tabs on where to find the modifications for this bird. It was a long process for those of us at the early part of the thread. There are just too many pages to try to read as a lot is flight stories and making the plane do what it should is pretty spread out. Besides, who has that much time?
Follow Carl's advice (because it's all been tried and tested) and if you need anything, post it here or even better, on the newest thread that is actually Part 3 with this one being the 1st. The funny part is that the guy that started the thread never bought one.
Good luck and keep us up to date. We like flight stories both good and bad.
Lou

Jolly Roger103

It was a grim day. I was flying my new Accipiter Badius for about the 10th time and it was just a little windy about 10mph when one wing folded up and the plane spiraled into a small pond. I am very disappointed in the Accipiter and should have re-enforced those wings. I was afraid this exact thing would happen. It appears others have had great success with this plane but not me. I am going back to my ParkZone electric SpitFire Mk 11B, it can fly in stronger winds, is faster and the wings hardly flex at all even when doing loops and pulling out of dives.
My advice is not to buy this plane. I was attracted to it because it came with the camera but it comes with RCA connectors to your camcorder so if you have a new model camcorder it will not work unless it has the round yellow and white RCA input plugs.
While I am still only an intermediate skill flyer my advice to the novice is to get a plane with seperate elevators and rudder, this is important because it enables you to cut through the wind and bring the plane forwards and down if you need to. Some planes only come with a V-tail and from my experience I advise against it because these planes usually just have a throttle and left/right controls so if the plane gets down wind you are in trouble because when you want to bring it back and it is being drug down-wind you must give it gas but when you do it wants to climb and when you let off the throttle it just glides backwards. Some planes like the SDM Yellow Bee have no control surfaces and rely on the twin props alternating power to steer the plane. The Yellow Bee flies amazingly well for $30 at Harbor Freight Tools but it better be a calm day.

Loubud

Jolly,
Had you have followed the advice given by Carl, your plane may still be flyable sans the water landing. We were with the understanding that you are a beginer and needed help to get your Badius to fly. The upgrades you can do to this plane are unreal. We have many Badius' flyers that added ailerons to it and as far as adding power and having the plane climb, it has an elevator. A little down elevator and you can stop a climb. A simple, cheap upgrade is to use a Permax Speed 400 7.2 volt motor along with an 1100 mah battery. Or just go brushless and fly easily in 15 MPH wind.
That Badius will fly with snow skiis, huge wheels, and more.
A shame you didn't bother to help yourself.

carlf

My Feedback: (1)

JR,

Is there no chance of recovering it from the pond? It is such a cheap plane to repair and or upgrade... and once you get it setup right it is a lot of fun and quite capable that is for a 3 channel plane. I've had mine in the clouds before and I’ve also gotten over 45 minutes of wide open throttle flight using one 1350 mAh 2 cell Lipo to do it.

We hate to see you give up on the Badius since you haven't even seen what she will do yet! Well keep us posted!

Jolly Roger103

Yes Loubud I agree but read my letter again. One of the main reasons I got the Accipiter Badius is because it has an elevator. My problem is that as I was bringing it down one of the wings just folded and the plane spiraled to the water. I was warning against the V-Tail configuration where you give throttle to climb and ease off to descend. I like the idea of putting ailerons on the plane but an operation like that is still beyond my expertise. The Accipiter would be a much better plane if the wings were stiffer. Let me stress this was not pilot error but structural failure that resulted in the plane going in the drink. Thanks for taking time to reply, this is a cool thread.
Having said that what I really look forward to is finding a good P-38 Lightning, electric or another large warbird. I like electric and would love to find an affordable German Stuka or B-25 Mitchell. Do you know of any good buys fitting this general description?

Jolly Roger103

I did recover my Badius from the water after a little wading but even after recharging the battery the unit is dead. There may still be a little water on the circuitboard so I will let it dry out for a few days in the sun inside the truck. I really like the design but still feel the wings are flimsy. I would like to upgrade the plane with a brushless motor and the Li-Po battery as you suggest.

carlf

My Feedback: (1)

JR, I invite you to post your questions to a larger group of RC flyers on the following thread...
Badius Owners Club (CONTINUED)

This is a thread that has no specific topic so most anything goes.
Page 1 here explains it. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5202911

Current post http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=6086459
(advance to the end of the thread and make a post)

We are a group of over 25 RC flyers of all experience levels and plane interest that hang out and help each other and anyone that needs it and you are welcome to participate there.

Here is a link to a photo page of many of us (and our planes) that participate.
http://www.sharlottesmith.com/Badius_Boys_Pics.htm



Oh and on the Badius Wing collapsing… Well the Straight wing that you where flying is the weakest one of the 2 types available….The Poly wing has one solid reinforcing rod across the wing and performs better…But even with that being said, I always install a second rod in the wing to help make it even stronger…. I’ve see the wings give and nearly fold after attempting to perform a tight loop at the bottom of a steep dive when I was flying at speeds between 45 & 65mph...

Anyway, come on over to the other thread and hang out!!

Glider21

I used to build the large 4 chan balsa wood gliders with my dad when I was very young but unfortunately never got the chance to fly any of them. Recently I have been training to fly real gliders and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to get a cheep easy foamy. I chose the badius because of its price and versatility. My first flight ended up going poorly. I was too anxious to fly it, threw it into a crosswind and proceeded to rip both wings off. Since then after countless mods I have been really quite pleased with its performance. I use the strait wings for high wind because they flex more and hold up to rough landings very well. I used pieces of vertical blinds to strengthen them.
The polyhedral wings are good for low wind high thermal days. Recently I got two extra battery's and a 400s motor. The batteries are great . Unfortunately I stalled the badius over the only cement road in the whole field and jammed the shaft and everything else inside the motor into a state of fubar... not to mention the prop too. Any ways I am very exited to get back into the world of rc flight asfter all these years and couldn't be more pleased with the badius.

Rotorhappy

Hello folks,
The badius was my first RC purchase 2 years ago. I only flew it a little bit as I was disappointed in the goofy transmitter set up. I became obsessed with helicopters soon after that and they... well... are fantastic. But. recently I have been wanting to get back to airplanes. I fixed up the badius last night (except for some of the mods I have learned in this thread, which i will start tonight), but I would like to change out the transmitter so I can get back to a throttle left, everything else right configuration. My badius is 27mhz. Can I use a 72mhz tx & crystal? , can i use my helicopter gear? or what should I buy that I know will work? or could smeone point me to the place in this gigantic thread that already explains this.

I have flat wings... I don't know if that's good or bad

thanks a bunch

nyflyer56

You can't change crystals between 27 and 72 mhz. You might be able to use your heli stuff, what is it?

Rotorhappy

unfortunatly all 3 of my helis with removable crystals are 72 mhz. I do have a 3 channel 27mhz heli that does not have a removable crystal, but I could get one. However, that heli only uses motors, not servos, so i assume that one will not work.
I have been looking on the net and finding a 27mhz w/crystal is so for impossible! I am looking for the badius tx (Ican't find it) When i do, can't i just move the guts to another tx with the right set up and solder it in? Seems like i should be able to do that.
Thanks a bunch for the response

nyflyer56

I know most of the guys here are running standard 72 mhz gear in their Badius set ups. You can get a cheap Rx from GWS or others, so you might be able to use one of your Heli transmitters if they are standard types.

Rotorhappy

That sounds like a good solution if it works.

I found my badius tx - I am going to see if I can drop it into a 2 stick tx body... bet i can!
thanks

Rotorhappy

I've just about got it. Just 1 question. I took the electronics out of a century hummingbird heli and dropped them into the badius. I had to hard wire the motor in because it was hard wired to the original SC. The fact that the motor was hard wired worries me a little. Should I worry that the GWS speed controller (in the mixer) will not be compatible with the badius motor? A stupid question maybe, but this mixing and matching components is new territory for me. Other than that it seems to be working fine. I'm really happy

nyflyer56

It sounds like it might work. My only worry is if the speed control on the heli mixer/receiver can handle the amp draw of the Badius motor vs the Heli motor, which I think might be smaller. Also are you going to use a battery that is comparable voltage to the heli? You don't want to overstress the Heli controls in that manner either.
What I thought you were going to do is to use your transmitter with a separate reciever and speed control, but if the heli all in one unit works, then I guess it is ok.

Rotorhappy

It's working terrific right now... But for how long? I am using the entire system from the heli... Battery included. Both plane and heli use 8.4V 600mah. The chances I will be ok is pretty good. The best part is that when I tried it for the first time, I realized that the transmitter pots were dirty and made the servos "stutter" like crazy. It took 5 min. of fooling with them to get them to smooth out. I could never get the century heli to fly and I never figuered out why. Now I know. I will look for a new flight pack for the badius and when I get my heli stuff back from it, I'll bet thet Century will work! YEA! In the meantime I'm almost ready to FLY THE BADIUS!!! Still have to do the breakaway wing mod... what fun!http://image2-0.rcuniverse.com/e1/forum/micons/m9.gif

AJ1202

woofer why don't you step on over to the Badius owners club thread, there you will find more than you wanted know about the badius and about everything else
Come on,, Join the Madness

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Yeah what is this, the thread that wouldn't die?

We've learned a whole lot more since this thread was active, join us over on the "Owners" forum. You'll be surprised at what we know about other stuff too.

As an example at our most recent meeting we were honored(?) to have experts from fields you'd never even thought of, giving hands on demos of "certain" products.

AND NOBODY DIED!

p.s. You must provide your own foil beanie. We'll explain that when when you get there.

ktaylor

Hard to believe there weren't any fingers missing, all I got was a really nasty blister right above my thumbnail, & maybe some toxic poisoning from glowsticks...

mad web tv scientist

phillips, just noticed after all this time that your question wasn't answered in a reasonably accurate or timely manner. Having read the entire thread some time ago I am sure the answer is contained therein. However, to save you some reading time in case you are still interested, my best estimate using airport information from near the end of the runway where I was flying, my ABs seem to fly just over 35 mph at maximum level flight speed.

madwebtvscientist [sm=lol.gif][sm=cry_smile.gif]


____________________________________________
Culturally Relevant Modeling Promoting Blog:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/community/...g&memid=266748

shschon

My Feedback: (4)

Does any one need replacement wing and prop for Accipiter Badius? I lost my plane and you can have my large stock of spare parts for cheap. Check out my ad
http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemID=341461

mad web tv scientist

Modeling's rendezvous with destiny will surely be unstoppable when something greater than the narcissistic pleasure of an esoteric chosen few is adopted in modeling.

madwebtvscientist [sm=lol.gif][sm=cry_smile.gif]


P.S. I still have hope that the Badius club will pull out of it's power dive.
____________________________________________
Culturally Relevant Modeling Promoting Blog:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/community/...g&memid=266748

nyflyer56

Mad Web,
This is why you have problems with the group. There is no power dive. The Badius club is stronger and healthier than ever. We have a real flying field, Our own website, and a real, not just a virtual club. Our first annual get together brought guys (and gals) from all across this country, and Canada, and will be an annual event. We have elected administrators and a board of directors.
Even tho we have our own developing site, we have kept to our roots right here on RCU, and currently are in part 3 of this thread. We are still welcoming and helping new members worldwide, and invite anyone to post on the new thread.

It is beyond me why you feel the need to make people think there is a problem here. We have been down this road with you before, and I have personally contacted you in an effort to curtail this negativity. I really don't want to have to lock this thread in order to direct people to the new one, as there is a wealth of information here.
Last I knew, you had started your own thread, and stopped meddling here. I would once again ask you to refrain from messing with the most successful thread on all the modeling web world. (We must be doing something right)

Phil

Loubud

MadWeb,
Why do you come here? You may or may not have read the entire thread as it is hard to fathom that you still do not understand what this or the other THREE Badius threads are. You are a big distraction to those that just want to fly.
May I suggest you continue with starting your own threads and leave this one to those that wish to learn the fine art of flying RC planes.
Lou
And look no further than I for reporting your inflammatory post. It was me and when you decide to post further rude remarks, it'll be me when that happens also. I will not stand iidly by and witness someone demeaning those that have given so much.