Hello,

Earlier this year I bought a Venus II with the intent of using it as a pattern trainer. My intent is to enter a competition or two at the Sportsman or intermediate level. At the time, I also considered the Focus sport, but I picked the Venus because I thought it looked a little better. Now that I have become aware of how important it is to trim a plane correctly, I am starting to regret my decision: the Venus II does not have an adjustable wing like the Focus Sport does.

I wanted my Venus II to look a little different so I stripped the plane with the intent of recovering it. Now that the structure is bare I started to think that I could re-do the stab and modify the fuselage to make it adjustable. Maybe not as good as having wing adjusters, but hopefully better that the stock Venus II. Since the stab would have to be built new, I would also give it an airfoiled section. I would probably do the same to the fin and rudder.

Before embarking on this project, I am wondering if it is worth the effort. I think that it might make the Venus II a better plane, but maybe the stock airplane is good enough for my intended use. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Teo

IMO, the effort to add an adjustable stab on the Venus II is not worth it. We have several flying in my club and all have only required a slight amount of up trim, or alternatively, a 1/16" shim under the trailing edge to slightly increase the wing incidence to fly very well. Even knife edge tracking is pretty good on the Venus in stock form. Adding stab adjusters seems like a waste of time to me on the Venus II.

Woodie

I wouldn't bother. The plane is a good airframe without that and adding weight in the tail is just weight you have to put in the nose later. It is not a FAI airplane and was never intended to be. The plane will fly the lower classes just fine.

Arch

My Venus was requiring quite a bit of down elevator to fly inverted even though the CG was aft around 7.25". Coupled with the necessary up elevator trim to maintain a positive angle of attack to fly it took about a third stick travel to maintain level inverted flight also making point rolls more difficult to perform well. The solution we found was to add another half degree of down thrust to the engine setting it right at two degrees improved things significantly. I had tried adding shims under trailing edge of the wing, but that didn't workout that well, the airplane would trim half throttle then want to climb significantly when power was applied with the extra incidence.

My Venus also got a washer or two under the engine mount and flies pretty darn good. I wouldn't go through the effort of making the stab adjustable. One way to look at it is one more thing to go out of adjustment or need to change. My plane will fly the intermediate schedule much better than I can - it flies pretty good.

Well guys, thanks for the advice. It seems that common sense prevailed so I will leave well enough alone. I just thought that it was a neat idea. Glad to hear that the Venus II is such a good flyer. Mine will be a little different anyway since it will be an electric conversion.

Thanks,

Teo

Teo,
Are you cutting a canopy hatch to change the batteries ? Putting the batteries in the belly pan makes it roll that way in KE flight.
Ed

If I were to redue my Venus the only mod I would make is to lower the gas tank about 1 inch to help in outside maneuvers.

I agree with lowering the gas tank. I was considering an inverted 4-stroke for mine but decided against it because the needle valve was way below the centerline of the tank.

I ended up with a 1.20AX mounted close to horizontally. It's actually -4 degrees to center the Jett muffler in the cowl. There's some pics in the Venus II thread.

ARTP47 and CustomPC - Thanks for the advice regarding the glow set-ups. In my case, the plane will be electric, so the battery will weigh even more than a fuel tank. I will keep it in mind when trying to figure out where to put the battery tray.

Ed - The answer is yes. Battery access will be through the canopy very much in the same manner as you did in yours. My power system will be a little different since I will be using an AXI 5320/28 instead of the E-Flite 110. I have not decided on the battery just yet, it will probably be a 8S but I was thinking about going to 10S since I have a few 5S packs. I know that weight could be an issue with the higher count pack. We will see. I tried out my first Rhino's packs and they seem to work well, so buying a new set of batteries for an 8S pack may no longer be an issue.

Thanks for the advice,

Teo

Teo,
You will need 10S if you go with the 250kv 5320/28 ..... this adds undesirable weight. With 8S you will have to run too big a prop for the stock landing gear. You really need to run a 300 kv motor for 8S in the VII. I would even consider the new E Flite 90 (325 kv). This would give you more revs and the slightly smaller prop would give you more of the much needed prop clearance.... plus reduce nose weight 1.5 oz.
Ed

Ed,

I did some checking and I believe that the 5320/28 will work, even if used on 8S. My initial intent was to keep the peak current in the 45 amp range. With this in mind, on 8S, the motor will spin a 17x12 at about that current. The power might be a little modest at 1200 watts, but felt that it would be adequate. On 10S, the prop of choice would be a 16x10 and the power would be in the 1600 watt range with a current draw closer to 50 amps.

The 5S packs which I own are the 3200 mah NEU Energy packs which are relatively light. A 10S pack of these cells is no heavier than an 8S of the 3700 mah Rhinos. I made this assessments earlier this year before I realized that 3200 mah might not give me the duration I would like: this is based on a plane with a 45 amp peak draw and a 28 amp draw average. These packs allow for only a 6 minute flight.

I think that in the end, I will have to play with props and batteries to find out what works best. I do appreciate your advice since it is based on actual experience and it is a better indicator of what to expect than the Motocalc or P-calc.

Thanks,

Teo

Teo,
If 1200 watts is satisfactory .... then yes, you can do that fine. Personally, I would use a pair of those 5S 3200's and get about 1600 watts at 45 amps.
It is all a matter of personal preference. I'm sure it will fly just fine on 1200 watts. Good luck .... and please keep us posted on your results.
Ed