SpiderJets

Sandor,

Mr. Cyprus Airways is only arriving on thursday evening, Friday is for business, Saturday is for flying & packing his JL L-39.
Sunday I am leaving for Manila for a week.
Today I have a day off ; I will be with you in about two hours... Just before lunch ...

Pete,

I fully agree with you, everything ranging in the 5,5 - 8,0 kg thrust class is the right choice.

Nicolas.

Jeremy_D

How many servos on the elevator?

SpiderJets

Two. Left and right. Size Futaba S9650. Standard size would be too thick for the tail booms, and overkill as well.

I think about installing 2 x 2 pcs Futaba S9650 in the twin tail booms, plus Futaba BLS451 for ailerons. Another standard servo for nose wheel steering and eventually a micro servo for the retract valve. Makes 8 pcs in total. Radio will be Futaba 6EX 2.4 GHz FASST with the new R617FS receiver ; Futaba battery pack NR5T1500: 6.0V / 1500 MAh.

Bye. Have to go now.

Nicolas.

AndyAndrews

Here is a vid of a maiden....er...not..just some goofy music and some pics of it:

http://www.rcuvideos.com/item/6J4P5C3R5G0279TC

just found this one - actual flying (or near crash landing):

http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i1...¤t=Frogjet.flv

one more:

http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i1...sterflight.flv

lol, those guys from Singapor are crazy.

john agnew

Who needs an airfield when you can just fly off the highway complete with traffic lights and lamposts?

John

SpiderJets

I just got back from Digitech Turbines, and we checked the different Jet 1A struts. -Thanks Sandor !-
There is a perfect match, which is not on the Digitech webshop. These mains are similar to the KingCat struts but a lighter version.
Very impressed with the Jet 1A quality, and the struts are much lighter than I expected.

PS. Note how well the nose wheel bay of the Formost-150 is lined with a wheelbay.

Note that I replaced the previous nose wheel with a nose wheel from Digitech, because I would need to make new brass bushings on my lathe for the "Excellence" nose wheel and I have not enough time to do that if I want to go flying on Saturday. The main wheels were OK as the axles are 5.0 mm. To our surprise, some bushings were 4,90 mm and others 5,00 mm.... and everything in between for the rest . Blame it on Chinese precision of production of the wheels ; but for me reaming them quickly with a 5.00 mm drill is no problem at all.

SpiderJets

This is the retract set + oleo strut from Jet 1A (same set shown here as for the Boomerang Intro, I believe) No adjustments to the plane would be needed whatsoever, except for the struts which should be a little more straight, but I understood the latest versions are almost fully straight. Also, it is very easy to do yourself : just grind a little bit material away from the strut where the spring touches the strut...

SpiderJets

Sandor had also an almost identical type of air tank in stock, like the one in my retract set.
I inserted this one too in the provided air tank openings, under the main tray. Five seconds work !
As said before, this main tray is removable with four tiny bolts.
You can clearly see the insert nuts for these in the vertical former.
All other formers are laser cut and pre-installed too...

i3dm

My Feedback: (51)

Looks like someone really did their homeowrk on this plane in the factory !!

SpiderJets

Straightening up the older type of Jet-1A struts...
--------------------------------------------------------
This is very easy to do, took me less than 3 minutes !

Remove the pivoting M3 bolt and grind away some material of the strut (pointed here with the philips screw driver) because this little "bump" curves the oleo spring.

SpiderJets

After grinding away, assemble again and use a screwdriver or drill between the two parts of the strut, as a lever, to tension the spring again and to insert the bolt easily.
Do not tighten the bolt too much in order to allow movement of the lower part.

SpiderJets

The result is a much straighter strut (not so clearly visible on this photo) which will allow the use of trailing link struts much better in the wheel bays !
On the photo : lowest strut =BEFORE / top strut = AFTER.
The difference is some 5 degrees.

Thanks Sandor for the hint !

SpiderJets

Yes, I feel obliged to correct my previous statement. This is NOT a quickly produced kit.

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

i was also suprised about the quality this kit has , good space nice paintjob!
i am a bit reluctant on the 2 chinese aloy tubes..
they look to shiny for me , thus under investigation.!
i suggested nicolas to pull some g,s and see it it has more "V" after the flight(s)
i suggested to exchange them for some carbon rods.
secondly one servo in the middle of the elevator would be better and much simpler
you then can use a simpler setup on the radio also.
the forward spar i found to be a bit weak (to thin!) , but easy to strengthen a little.
due to the size of the kit , i believe that without many changes it can have a 54 size engine or a Wren SS.
to use a p-120 i would suggest a bit more of testing the structual of the airframe.
this basicly means give that thing hell on saturday nicolas.
got plenty of parts here

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

god yes i must admit those guys have the fastest landing speeds i have ever seen..
i was missing the electronic sign displaying you are going : 160mph with a smiley next to it..

SpiderJets

My Formost-150 is standing on its legs, and the landing gear is completely done now.
Was much easier than expected, did not have to alter the brass bushings, they fitted fine on your 5mm wheel axles.
Only had to ream the strut for these wheel axles, as the standard bore was some 4,65 mm. I used a precision drill and took me no time to do it. Length of the axle was perfect.
The nose wheel retract is tilted forward some 6 degrees (added some washers under the rear mounting bolts). I like this 'look' much better.

Had some spare Digitech electronic valves too, instead of the mechanical valve, everything functions now already perfectly and I am surprised how many full cycles I get from a 5 bar air charge.
I reversed the gear channel and swapped the air tubes too.
Now, when I switch on the radio, the gear stays down. Before, it cycled for a about second.

Wings are done too, aileron servos installed. Under the wing film covering (Monokote ?) were the servo mounts, pre-installed and laser cut. Was two minutes work.

I have now 5 hours building time on it.
Kit assembles very fast.

Still have to get used to the very small size of these FASST receivers... [&:]

Sandor, I took a look at the single elevator servo as you suggested, but think I will have a serious problem if I follow your suggestion : I cannot lead the servo wire from the middle to the tail boom.
I will go for the dual set-up as per the manual, I think. Too bad as this is an extra expense ; I do not want to compromise on servo performance, so prefer the digital Futaba S9650's.
This size is the maximum you can do in the provided servo area in the tail boom. Not possible to use standard size servos here.

Nicolas.

MF Boy

Looks great, anyone know who is going to bring it into the UK?

Makes a Boomerang intro look kinda overpriced.

I need a grass model I can fly anywhere and this looks like being the new king of this type.

Matt

SpiderJets

If you would compare it with the Boomerangs in size, it is in between the Intro and the Elan.

SpiderJets

The result after 5 hours...

Undecided

My Feedback: (36)

Hello Spiderjets

I have one big question, The wing tubes, do they go from one wing through the fuse and into the other wing like the boomerangs?

Thanks, Neal

SpiderJets

Hi Neal,

This is a very good question ! I assembled the wings and tested the flexibility on my desk. I cannot say it was too soft or rigid enough, only a flight test would tell.
The other 'early adopters' of the Formost-150 seem not to have had any problem at all with the present set-up.
Myself, I would replace with preference indeed the two alu tubes at each side with one long carbon tube (each) for the front and rear tube spars, through the fuse.
I'll check my LHS if they have 16 mm and 10 mm diameter carbon rods in stock this evening.

Nicolas.

SpiderJets

Did not have much time yesterday evening to continue, as we had some friends coming over.
I replaced the typical hectical main tray which comes with such ARTF kits with a neat custom main tray.
Never try to impress with complexity and messing cables, tubes, wires,.... !
I'll finish the design when I have the SimJet ECU and battery pack on hand. (To be placed left and right of the UAT tank).

Also, I went to the LHS to buy a 16mm carbon tube to replace the standard alu main ones. These should be virtually unbreakable, so I can glue them in at the wing side with 5 minutes epoxy (saves me the hassle of installing bolts etc etc at one side of each tube). I also checked the possibility of using one long tube from the one wing to the other (see previously posted question). Not possible. You can see that the wing dihedral ( "V" ) is achieved with the wing slide tubes in the fuselage. They are not designed/installed straight in line. [:@]

For the servos in the tail booms : Futaba S9650's are just a bit too large (in particular not enough depth for the elevator servos). So I did buy some Hitec HS-81MG servos as well. These fit perfectly.

Weather forecast for the weekend is not good at all... We had serious storms last night...

I am more and more under impression I am lacking a tiny bag with some hardware. I see installed insert nuts in the fuselage everywhere, but not a little bag with the bolts...
Also, I have no idea how they meant holding the wings together. If I would see the hardware, I would understand...

i3dm

My Feedback: (51)

Nicolas, for the elevator - arent you better off with a HS-85MG ? the 81 wasnt a very strong servo gear wise !

About the CF tube - how much does one of these cost ? just to be able to take its price into account with the kit.

And about assembling the wings, its most likely to be done with a bolt going into the wing tube ! try to find if they drilled a hole in a hardwood block somewhere along the wing tube line.

RCISFUN

My Feedback: (44)

Yikes HS-81 in the tail[X(]...........you may want to reconsider that decision, these are park flyer servos.
The problem is they will not have enough torque and the gear train is too weak.
I tried to use one for a nose steering servo, it burned up on my bench,
What were you planning on using these for? Rudder servos?
I used HS 225 MG for each rudder on my Baby Boomerang and I used a single HS-5645 for my Elevator servo.

Good Luck
Keep up the build tread

Rich

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

i had a go today on our proto formost.....[:-]

this will NEVER hold anything
all "epoxy"looks like CA chinese way
the cool part about it i dissasembled the whole model in 5 minutes
it is now back to kit form..
all those parts need to be exchanged if this needs to carry a turbine model.
the front retract was hung up in 2 wooden balsa blocks that where only glued to the outershell not even carried by a bearer..
nicolas i am sorry , but it will not survive a landing or take of from grass..

i will need to redo the whole front section , and hope the chinese copy our stuff