Have a second hand Mirage that I picked up sometime ago. Am trying to decide if it should be built with seperat ailerons and flaps or should I build it with flaperons? What is the opinion out there? What kind of control throws should I use?

Will be powering it with a Dynamax and Rossi 65. Want to get the new area ruled inlets from JHH and get rid of the cheater hole.

Thanks
Jim

The issue of elevons vs separate elevators and ailerons has been flogged to death several times in this forum.

Pros for elevons are "simplicity" and weight (marginal).
Cons are guaranteed loss of aircraft if either servo or linkage fails.

Split control surfaces cost you the additional weight of 2 more servos (and associated linkages), but give you (with the appropriate mixing on your computer radio), dual redundancy in both pitch and roll.

My advice is go with split control surfaces.

As far as the new inlets go, buy them. JHH did a beautiful job with the new, area-ruled, inlets and your Mirage will will definitely display improved performance with those inlets.

Good luck,
Peter

Did mine as Kfir C2 with elevons and fixed canards. 300+ flights. DF OS.91 started with Dynamax and ended with Ramtec. This kit was from the late 80's.

Aileron function needed next to nothing - maybe +/- 1/4". Anywhere close to +/- 1/2" made the rolls a blur.

Elevator function required a lot for takeoff. Maybe an inch of up. Low rate after takeoff and for landing was maybe +/- 1/2" and it was plenty. This is Cg dependant and T/O depends on fuselage angle to the ground. Mine was level = not optimum.

One elevon failure on takoff around flight 125 due to a broken wire. Airplane was about 2' in the air when this happened and I salvaged a repairable airplane. Any higher would have been a total loss.

Here are some pictures of my JHH Mirage and one from the Arizona Jet Rally, they my help.
If you would like to see more pic. of my mirage internal and external let me know.

Carlos
CARS II

I'm very sorry, that's not what I wanted to send, wrong disk.
Now here are the real pictures.

Carlos
CARS II

Top

On the previous pic. the Mirage was flying up side down.
top.

sorry.

Here you can see the ailerons and the elevators clearly. I also have the builder e-mail if you like to ask him any questions about it.

Carlos,

If you could post some internal shots that would be great. Have decided that I would make some internal formers for the fan ubnit as I don't like the idea of just mounting a couple of plates to the side of the fuse to mount the fan on it.

Thanks
Jim

Here is what I got.
If you are going to use a bigger engine the the formers are a good idea, I'm using a K&B .45 so the plates are more than sufficient, the airplane has flown more than 25 times and there is no signs of damages on the plates.

Pictures.


Carlos

I added two half formers under the fin, the original builder had one very small piece of soft balsa under the fin as a former, when the airplane flip over during a landing it just came undo.

No formers here.

Tail cone

another one

Here you can see the rudder servo with push rod, old former for the fin.

Nose job.

Thrust tube the way it was with the servo attach to it, no more, now I have move the throttle servo and the in flight needle servo mount on the fuse just behind the fan unit.

Another one.

Great photos. Will help a lot.

Thanks
Jim

I just used the plates stuck to the fuse sides with my setup. Worked fine for the .91 size DF units I used and never came unstuck. I also did the saddle tanks like E-120 driver is showing. I had all my servo's (except elevons) up front for Cg purposes. Make sure the fin mounts are strong. Mine had a habit of doing rolls on the ground if I turned too sharply.

For the last 50 or so flights with the Ramtec/.91 setup, I covered over the cheater hole. It wasn't needed. Takeoff roll didn't change and it was faster up and away.