Desert Fox 1

Hello Woketman,
I am the videographer; the Flacon 120 has split flaps. On this flight it appears he landed with no flaps. On this day the winds were high and crosswind. If you look at the trees in the background, you can clearly see them dancing.

Cheers!
Desert Fox 1

BJ64

Hmmm.... "splt flaps"?

Mine doesn't have any flaps. In fact, it looks like a totally different airframe (??)
My wings come out a few cm from from the fuselage, then the boom slots in, then the outer wings slot over all that.
Maybe what I've got isn't really a Bobcat Falcon 120 after all?

BJ

alasdair

You are right. NOT a Falcon 120 at all. Maybe an early prototype from which the Falcon was derived? Or a later balsa copy.
My Falcon 120, all the ones I have seen, had balsa wings/tail and moulded/painted fibreglass fuselage with a moulded plastic canopy/hatch. The tail booms were bolted to the top of the wing from below, around mid-span of the split flap, thus allowing the flap to extend inboard and outboard (and even under) the boom. A platform was moulded into the fuselage and the engine (turbine or 120 2-stroke) was mounted on that.
Wingspan 63 inches. What's yours?


Falcon kit (apart from canopy and fixed gear supplied) out of the box

Wing underside, show split flap

Home-made tank moulded from this carved foam pattern

BJ64

Thanks Alasdair.
And yep - totally different.
The main fewz is glass. The top of the nose is balsa.
Wings are iron-on over balsa ribs and hardwood (?) spars.
Tail booms and cross-bridge elevator the same. The booms look a bit 'light' - not as robust as I would have thought they would be. Rather flimsy, TBH.
No mounting platform at the rear of the fewz. No flaps of any kind.
Totally different structure and layout compared to your pics. I'll take a few pics of my jobbie from overhead for comparison.
No big deal either way. If I can't fly it, I can Hangar Queen it from a ceiling some time maybe.
Having said that, I'm still not sure what servo's are the recommended ones - even more-so finding out what I have is not really a Bobcat Falcon 120.
Meh - chuck it off a cliff to see if it will Slope Soar maybe?

BJ

alasdair

Main problem I see is that if turbine powered (and you are on a turbine themed section of RCU) it may not land.
Last year I built a turbine powered scale HS Trident, as simple as possible, and to get it down I had to kill the engine. I gave in and retro-fitted flaps.

BJ64

I guess there's one way to find out

BJ

Thoemse

The only question is how much space do you have to land it. Of course it will land just fine without flaps.
The falcon 120 flaps are split flaps. The work very well but they are pretty much air brakes. You can slow the plane down flying nose up as well.
I just had to land my falcon 120 with a malfunctioning flap last week and my landing strip is 90 meters long.
It wasn't pretty but the plane is intact. If you have a longer landing strip no flaps shoudn't be an issue.

BJ64

Thoemse - no landing gear, and no 'strip' up on the cliffs.
Just bring her in for a belly-landing, and hope for the best.
Landing doesn't really bother me for where I fly Slope - you just come in and hope for the best.
Just hoping that it will actually 'glide' given enough breeze.
And yes - this is a Turbine thread - but it's also a Turbine-intended airframe.
I have no flaps - unless I work out how to make some and get them to work between the tail booms and the fuselage.
Might be something to consider.
Fly... or 'crash n trash', hey?

BJ

wayne-RCU

My Feedback: (1)

Hi: Woketman

I have a Falcon 120 on a 120mm EDF on 12 cell setup. Ready to fly, she is 19 LBS.
In a little head wind you have to make sure you don't get to slow using Flaps,
Here is my Falcon 120 flight : I am coming in with flaps on this flight.

Wayne

CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

Guys

These Falcons are simple machines, use servos like the HS5645s, these are digital, strong and fast enough for this jet, I use the same servos I’m my K140 powered jet, for retracts, use a set like the Robart 550s, the 630s are too much for it, smaller servos can be used on the rudders and elevator like the HS225, they are analogs, you can also get digitalis if you like them better.

If you guys want more details on the HS servos got to the Servo City servo chart, lots of info there.

https://www.servocity.com/servos/

Use flaps every time you land and maintain some power all the way to final, the flaps are there to slow it down so, don’t let it till it is over the runway ready to land, 400’ is more than enough runway to land, all airplanes can land with no flaps deployed, the trick is to manage the energy all the way down to the runway.

Boomerang1

Retrofit an airbrake? I fly the smaller Bobcat 50 which have no flaps with a Wren 44 turbine & landing was tricky, you had to fly very shallow
approaches at low altitude to meet the end of the strip at a reasonable speed.

I fitted a perforated air brake approx. 100 mm square under the engine mounting platform which travels 90 deg.
Much easier now to balance thrust & rate of descent. Model flys off grass & has no wheel brakes.

Aussie1

I had two Falcon 120's, both with K80's, so a rocket ship! With your jet, just program flaperons in your TX and they will work as well as sperate flaps and ailerons.

BJ64

Not sure if I've already asked this, but what Landing Gear would suit the Falcon 120?

BJ

jetflyr

+++++++
I used Robart 550's with Pro-Link trailing link struts for the BVM BobCat and a straight nose gear strut.
Greg