ECalderon

Hi guys.

Here are some pictures of my ducted fan Avonds F-15 that, weather permitting, I hope to fly for the first time this weekend.

It is powered by OS 91 & Ramtec fan with bifurcated pipe from Aeroloft, and it weighs 16.5 lbs dry. The CG is as per instructions as well as the throws on the tailerons. I count it as my first DF jet beause I had a Regal Eagle that crashed after only two flights due to flutter.

Do any of you have any recommendations that I should follow on this first flight. I fly off a 400 ft paved field.

Regards

Eduardo

ECalderon

Regards

Eduardo

jason

My Feedback: (1)

Just ensure there is very little or no slop in the tailerons.These jets are very easy and enjoyable to fly and have no vices whatsoever apart from a little unstable inverted at low speed due to the large amount of washout in the wings.

Enjoy it it`s one of the best!

jason

DF_Flyer

Nice looking jet, Eduardo. Good luck on your first flight. Let us know how it went.

grbaker

My Feedback: (29)

Sorry about your Regal Eagle. The same thing happened to me once opon a time. Your Avonds F-15 looks great and will fly better than the Regal Eagle.

Good luck

Oso

Eduardo,

Your jet looks great! I travel to Santiago a few times a year and had asked around for any jet flyer but I couldn't get any information...where do you fly? I'd llike to go out to your field next time I am in Santiago and watch you guys fly!
Good luck with your bird!

Bruno Filio

HotelSierra

My Feedback: (9)

I flew my ducted fan Avonds F-15 for a year before I converted it to turbine. Like everyone else who has mentioned it before, this plane is very easy to fly and is very stable. It will probably take all the 400 paved ft to take off though. Just make sure you get max ground speed and keep your climb out very shallow. You won't believe how slow this plane will fly & climb. During mid flight be careful to keep up the energy state because the F-15 can bleed alot of airspeed in a hurry and in fan version is doesn't accelerate quickly. In ducted fan you will have to fly 95% of the time at full throttle, so be sure you tune your engine properly and make sure you have a smoke trail. Mine completed all the textbook maneuvers including a decent loop. Topspeed was about 120mph. In turbine version however, this plane is awesome. Good Luck!

CobraJet

My Feedback: (4)

Eduardo,
Nice looking -15. Like everyone said this is a very forgiving airframe and it should fly very well for you.

For the short field takeoff I hold full up on the stabs till the nose begins to rotate then relax the stick so she climbs out nice and scale like. At this point you may have to continue holding some up but relaxing it as she climbs and gets up to full speed then you should be in trim. If you get too excited and continue to hold full up she will be unable to accelerate and will just mush along. As someone stated earlier, you will probably use all of the 400 feet of runway for takeoff so make sure your engine is running right and has had a few tanks of fuel run through it for break-in.

Best part of flying an F-15 in my book is the landing. They sure look nice coming in nose high. On final approach I establish the landing attitude and control the descent with throttle, if needed. You want to make any correction high and early in the approach so there is little or no correction needed at the bottom. If you come in at the right (slow) speed you should be able to progressively pull the stick back all the way to touchdown and continue to hold it during the coastdown for the aerodynamic braking. Very pretty! With a little practice you should be able to land and full stop within 150 feet.

Good luck!

JetflyerJ

My Feedback: (67)

As an F-15 flyer I second his advice as well. Do yourself a favor while you're up nice and high see how slow she will fly using the nose to slow her down along with power (after she's all trimmed out).

Once you see up there how forgiving and slow she flies you will be very very comfortable on landings, on your third or 4th flight take her nice and high and see what is the stall point on her and that'll teach you how slow you can get her.

Try to do two or three slow approaches always on the throttle, the F-15 Loves to land Nose up with a bit of power, the more power you give her the more you can pull on that nose up to a certain extent.

F-15 is the right choice to learn and practice slow flights and I'm really sorry you lost your other 15, you will be very happy with this one as it came out beautiful.


Good Luck Eduardo you will be very happy with this Jet as they have no bad habits whatsoever.

My best Regards.........Johnny Hernandez

ECalderon

Thanks for all yor comments and suggestions. I will follow them and let you know how it went after I fly it.

Bruno.

There are two or three clubs in Santiago. As far as I know in my club there is only one more person that has a ducted fan but doesn´t fly it on a regular basis, so when I start flying mine I will be the only one.

My club is about 20 miles from my house to the north side of the city. We have a nice club house and apart from the airlplane field it has a separate areas for RC helicopter and U-control. Also it has two tracks for RC cars (dirt and paved). Our club new website is

www.clubaeromodelosdechile.cl

it's still under construction but it has several photos to give you an idea of the club and ist activities.

If you come by Santiago in a weekend, send me an e-mail and I'll show you the club.

Regards

Eduardo

ECalderon

Hi guys,

Long time I haven´t posted here. Just to tell you that last weekend, after more than a year and a half of things that prevented me from doing it, I finally fly my Avonds DF F-15.

It took off in about 350 feet and flew just fine. I thought it would be a little faster but it was OK. It didn´t need any trim at all an after about five minutes of flying around I set up for landing. I overshot three times because I came in to high and didn´t raise the nose enough, the engine performed perfectly (the break-in in a stand payed off). At the fourth try it landed beautifully. When I opened the hatch the header tank was 3/4 full so probably I didn´t have enough fuel for another go around, I was lucky .

I only flew it once because a strong crosswind started blowing. Can't wait to fly it again

Regards

Eduardo

KFalcon

My Feedback: (18)

Congratulations on the successful maiden! WOW that was a long time waiting! Hope you have many more great flights with it!