jnaarnold

My Feedback: (4)

Built a SPAD about 8 months ago, and self taught myself to fly. The problem I am having is, the plane flies beautifully, but when landing, if the power si cut back too much it drops like a rock. The cg comes out right, but I'm afraid it's too heavy. Is this comon with spads? The wing is a 4mil, 60 inch dihedrahl, with a 2.5" downspout fuse. The tail feathers are also 4 mil....I just cut a 60" foam wing for it and need to finish to try, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
[link]http://www.tapeinos.com/AirplaneStuff/index.html[/link]

Woodsy

No, it's not comon, either the wing loading ( weight v's wing area) or the cg is way out.
all 4mm is not a good idea, try and get some 2mm as well especialy for the wing

a SPAD or any othe plane flies, glides, performes EXACTLY the same as a plane built from any material if the numbers are OK

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

You used the heaviest possible materials to build the plane. Of course, they're the most available... There's nothing heavier than that vinyl downspout material. It adds at least a pound to the plane.

I've built a couple of trainers completely out of coroplast over the past year. Both came in right around 6 pounds, and float on landing. There were two ways I saved weight:

1. Built my own "downspout" out of 4mil Coroplast and strip of 1/8x1/4 spruce.
2. Built a "RNAF" style wing with a 4mil base and 2mil top.

jnaarnold

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks guys for all the input...i guess I need to try and round up some 2 mil stuff.....in my tiny rural town in idaho that will be hard...

Quicker

These places can help with supplies:
[link=http://home.comcast.net/%7Etipstrickslinks/sup_coro.htm]http://home.comcast.net/%7Etipstrickslinks/sup_coro.htm[/link]

Mike in DC

My first suggestion would be to state the obvious, the best way to find out if it's too heavy would be to weigh it. A Spad with a 60" wingspan should weigh, with the engine ready to fly, no more than 7 pounds. The other obvious suggestion is that the plane is fine, but you just need a little more than idle to land it gracefully. Just cut back to a click or two above idle when you land. Since you are self-taught, you may be just cutting throttle, and letting the plane float in. That can be a recipe for disaster even with a balsa trainer. If you let the nose come up, even a little, you can stall and the plane will just drop out of the sky. You need to keep the airspeed up so the controls work, and usually that means the nose slightly down.

Zombie

You don't "have" to have a two mil wing for the Deb to be a good flyer. The original deb had a 4 mil wing, 4 mil tail-feathers, and gutter downspout fuse. I heard tell it weighed-in around 6 lbs, 14 ounces and flew (and landed) just fine.

Check the weight of your plane. That's the only way you'll know if it's heavy. And if it's the one I see at your website, you might consider getting rid of some of that metal on the monster landing gear - if you need to lose a bit of weight. I drilled mine out and dropped a couple of ounces. You could easily drop more being you could drill larger holes than I did. See it at the bottom of the thread at: [link=http://spadworld.net/viewtopic.php?t=6361]Birth of a Bubonair.[/link]

Check the weight! As Mike stated, if you are under 7 lbs you should have a good flyer. So if you have problems after that, maybe you're throttling back too much for landing.