latch66

TailSpnr,

That looks cool. Where did you get the Budweiser Coroplast?

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Latch, its just red 4mm coroplast with some vinyl stickers made up at a local graphic/sign shop. I think I paid $14.00 for 3 Bud stickers. Its my little "Ode to Termagator" thing.

latch66

TailSpnr,

It looks great!

I'll have to keep something similar to it in mind for another project.

BTW, what happened to the other two PBF's. I thought these things were suppose to be "unbreakable"?

latch66

LOL!
After flying a Brushless equiped Zagi since August, I can assure you that sometimes having a fusalage is not all that its cracked up to be!

When I fly the Knife or the Magic, most people don't take a second look. 3D and aerobatics are pretty popular in the area where I fly. We have some really top notch 3D flyers in the area. And, I'm not that great..... YET!

But let them see for the first time an electric flying wing blistering its way along at speeds they are not use to seeing an electric achieve and put in some low level loops (start at 8 to 18 inches off the ground and loop it at full throttle). And I'll get a crowd at the flightbox after a Zagi flight. Never fails!

When the guys at the field see the PBF, they are actually going to probably say, "That looks like something you would try to fly!"

PaulSwany

My Feedback: (45)

You flying a Pizza box yet latch? If not, you can fly mine when we have that taco building party...

latch66

Paul,

Thanks for the offer, but I finished mine last night at about 9:30.

It's first flight will be this weekend. Of course, weather permitting.

But you know, I just might throw it in the truck when I come to the Taco Building party.

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Mine havent been 100% indestructible but close. They generally where replaced because of broken motor mounts and or spines. In all cases the coroplast was reusable but I opted to make a new one because the coroplast was pretty wrinkled. But the PBF has without a doubt been an absolute blast to play with. The only guys in the club that dont like them are the guys that cant manage to fly them as they do require a certain level of skill. That skill level usually extends beyond the ability of the amateur pilot.

latch66

TailSpnr, you are right.

If you are not pushing the envelope on your flying skills.....your not getting any better!

I can already see I'm going to have a blast with this PBF.

I do need to thank Dave. Putting the PBF plans on the website and helping with all the multitude of questions has been a big help for all of us building and flying the PBF.

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Latch, I dont know if you read it way back in this thread but the only mods that I have found that improve the performance is the enlarged rudder. Mine are now 6.5" tall x 7" deep with 3.5" of vertical stab and 3.5" of rudder. This to me improved the rudder response needed in the harrier position which you will find yourself flying in quite a bit.

I also developed my own little mod for the rudders pull-pull system that seems to develop a little slack as the weather temperature changes. I found a little spring and attached it to the pull-pull strings in the center of the servo after only wrapping the strings though 2 holes of the servo arm and leaving just a little bit of slack. This system has worked great so far and I no longer find my pull-pull strings with slack in them.

Hacker

Tailspnr,
I'm going to make the rudder mod on my next pbf, but what is the advantage of the pull pull string set up vs balsa push rod i am currently using?

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Hacker, Im using pushrods for my elevons but I use the pull-pull string for rudder. Are you using a single balsa pushrod for rudder?

Hacker

yes,
seems to work great. can roll that thing in hover with lots of authority. Do the down wind drift thing in vertical hover give her a touch of throttle, some rudder and we are going the other way.

some where in the neighborhood of two trillion crashes and the worst damage was the rudder pulled off of the nylon 440's...push it back on and away we go. (mine is getting kinda wrinkly too)Just not sure what we gain over push rod system.

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Well I say hey, if the balsa pushrod rudder control works stick with it. I just tried Daves original thread design and never changed from it. I just kept having the problem of the thread becoming loose as the temperatures would change so I devised a simple system to resolve that problem. I cant wait for warmer weather to get here so I can get to some more PBF'in.

Hacker

It has become a major addiction....have to leave my battery's discharged after flying or i blow off work early to get in 2 hours of pbf'ing .....but there charging now! weather is GREAT here in fl. we are having coldest weather of the season this week end (hi in the mid 50's) guess i'll tough it out.

BUCKETOBOLTS

My Feedback: (1)

I have my servo's set up similar to yours Tailspnr. I have them tiestrapped down, but they still tend to slop around and make it hard to keep it trimmed. I thought of putting a dab of Goop on the back of them and strapping them back down.

How do you keep them from slopping around?

hoverit-RCU

Heres my own design with a mvvs 40, it's 30x30 inches and is 2 pieces of coroplast, the top piece has airfoil, and its zip tied at the edges, radio gear zip tied also. 5 inch elevons and 4 inch rudder.

hoverit-RCU

Here's another pic.

BUCKETOBOLTS

My Feedback: (1)

Cool idea!!! Hows the landing gear working out?

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

I use 2-sided sticky tape to attach the servos first then I wrap a tie-wrap around them tight. And then I dont have any problems with the servos coming loose. I did before when I only used the 2-sided sticky tape though.

So how does your design fly?

BUCKETOBOLTS

My Feedback: (1)

I have my newest almost ready to test fly. I have a Magnum 32 and all full size gear. I would like to put some type of landing gear on this one before I fly it. I believe I'm going to swap out the rudder servo for a faster one. The one I scrounged up is pretty slow. I also balanced this one at almost 6". Hey it don't hurt to try any thing?

hoverit-RCU

Just finished it last night and its f'n 20 degrees here so i'm not real geeked about rushing out to fly it, but probably in the next couple days if it gets up to atleast 35 LOL I will toss it up for a minute or two. pretty sure it'll need a little more tail weight to hover good but I'm sure it'll fly, anything will with enough power. 5 dollar P.O.S. what bordem will do to a person hehe. Well back to kit bashing the contender now.
Oh should I name it the zip tie flyer?

Hacker

Bucketobolts,
if you go back to page 52 ,posts 516 & 517 you will see the gear i'm using,with practice you can hover/land, (you gotta hover to a tail touch then chop throttle an drop to wheels) took me a while to get where i can do it almost all the time....then hold full up and give it full throttle.....short roll to vertical then jockey throttle to hover...its really impressive if you can keep the whole thing under 4 feet hi.

hoverit-RCU

Dude I've been hovering since 98 with profiles, I'll be doing tail touch n goes and tail landings the 1st flight with this bird.

latch66

hoverit,

Cool bird! Keep us posted on the first flight.

TailSpnr,

I had a Du-Bro Pull-Pull system sitting in my box with nothing to put it on..........So, it wound up on my PBF.

Your Tail mod sounds interesting. Thanks for bringing it up. I did miss it earlier. If I can get to it before the weekend, I'll change it, but otherwise it will fly on Sunday as is.

Can't get any flying done during the week due to its dark when I get off work. And Saturday, I've promised the misses that I'll be a good boy and do some things for her.

tailspnr

My Feedback: (1)

Latch, I'd go ahead and fly her as is. She will fly fine with the stock rudder and you may or may not find yourself wanting a little more rudder authority. I think I read were Dave mentioned that the original design ended up with a 6"x6" rudder because he already had pieces of cut coroplast laying around that size.

Anyway have fun with it and let us know how you like it once you give it a shot this weekend. And hey......make sure you take atleast 5 or 6 props with you on the first day out. Im not saying that for sure you will need them but................