-pkh-

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Here she is... almost done... hope to have her ready to fly tomorrow!

I had a "Swiss-cheesed" American gutter pipe fuse and a 540 motor and gearbox in her awhile back, but the power:weight ratio sucked, could barely keep it in the air! I ended up nosing it in a breaking the Swissed fuse, so I made up a new fuse (still American gutter pipe) with no Swiss-cheesing, and put a brand new OS .32 SX on her... she should haul ***** now! You can read my trials and tribulations with the electric version here if you're interested...

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2389972/anchors_2389972/mpage_1/key_espad/anchor/tm.htm#2389972]ESPAD Thread[/link]

bulletbob

You will notice the improvement in power, can you spell rocket? I have the .32 on the Dogfighter and it one of my favorites. Fast and fun.

rsieminski

Agreed, a rocket she will be. Godd lookin too!

-pkh-

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Here she is 100% complete. I got rid of the narrow red vinyl electrical tape and put some wider red reflective tape on the wings so I can tell which side is up! You can see the reflective tape "light up" with the flash in the photos. I also installed my usual VoltWatch batt monitor and air alert plane locator (inside the fuse). I used a hole saw to cut the rounded ends of the access port on top of the fuse. I found that square access ports tend to crack at the corners if you "stress" the fuse too much (i.e. land hard a few times ).

I took her to the field to fly her today, but the fuel tank & tubing was AFU... fuel lines were getting pinched. I've got another fuel tank that should solve my problem, though. Oh well... maybe I can maiden her next weekend, weather permitting.

Thanks for having a look! [8D]

RC-Captain

Where did you get the plans for this plane . It looks good and I think it will be my next SPAD. I am planning on adding ailerons to min though. Good luck on maiden.

I.C.O.N.

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The tape does look kewl when the flash hits it.

Question. I have seen a lot of planes built with the wing ends open.

Does this cause a lot of drag?

-pkh-

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The plans are on http://www.spadtothebone.com . This is just a Derelict with "conventional" tail feathers instead of a V-tail. I believe I just scaled down the Dagger tail feathers. I cut a couple of L sections from some gutter pipe to mount the vert stab (this is probably described in the Dagger plans). If you're interested, I can measure the tail feathers and post the dimensions and maybe a diagram.

The wing is pretty much per the Derelict plans, but I cut the top of the wing in half to make gluing easier, and used a wing wrap in the center to reinforce the servo mount. I also put some cut wire coat hanger pieces in the front/back of the wrap for rubberband crush protection (this is typical construction in other SPAD wings). When I glued the wing, I tried to make the wing semi-symmetrical by pulling up the LE a little (I believe the Derelict plans show a flat-bottomed airfoil).

Even with the heavier .32 in it instead of a .25, it was a little difficult to get it to balance with a standard size servo in the rear... I had to put the battery as far forward in the fuse as possible, just behind the fuel tank. Alternatively, you can just move the wing back to put the spar on the CG. I had done this with my first SPAD, and didn't like the look of it with the wing farther back, so I just fixed the wing location and toughed it out balancing it!

Razguel

That close to the combat plane i have built. No doubt your power issues are resolved. Let us know on your flight tests. I have not test flown mine either. I used a foam core wing on this version but plan to use spad wing on future projects.

-pkh-

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I'm really not sure how much drag the open ended wings induce. I've got larger SPAD with an OS .50 SX and it has open ends... never really noticed any adverse affects. I was afraid that a cross wind might actually be a problem, but that's not been a problem so far either. I tend to over power my planes, so I guess a little drag wouldn't be very noticeable to me! With that said... I'm sure it induces some drag, and closing the ends would definitely be beneficial.

I built these just to have fun and learn to fly (i.e. I plan to be crashing and rebuilding them), so closing off the wing tips and the flute ends on the tail feathers are things I haven't worried about yet. Besides, I like to see the reaction I get from people when they look into the end of my wing and see the Home Depot yardstick wing spar...

-pkh-

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Razguel,

Did you make that foam core wing? How did you make it, or where did you get it?

Thanks!

-pkh-

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Well, I maidened her today, and all I can say is... SWEET! She flies very nicely... this is now my favorite plane! She flies much nicer than my Gnat. I must admit that the OS .32 SX has more power than I really need at this point... I flew around most of the time at 1/3 to 1/2 throttle. An OS .25 FX should fly this quite nicely... I probably would have been at 1/2 -2/3 throttle with a .25 FX. Man does it go vertical with the .32! I almost need to mix in some down elevator with the throttle... she really wants to go up at full throttle! I'm assuming that the wing produces so much lift at higher speeds that the down elevator is needed to compensate.

It belly lands very nicely... I flew it 9 times today, and didn't bust a prop once... it's nicely balanced and glides in "deadstick" quite nicely. I had to make my Gnat relatively nose heavy to tame it down, so I have to bring it in pretty hot to keep the nose up and the prop in one piece... I flew my Gnat 10 times on Sunday and went through 3 props! If I crash my Gnat with my OS .25 FX on it, I'm building another Derelict for it! I hate having to fold and glue the wing (I never get it aligned as well as I'd like), but it sure is worth it!

The only thing I've noticed that I don't like is that I get a little bit of wiggle, side-to-side, with my Derelict on occasion. I'm not sure if this is due to misalignment in the vert stab, or the prop/drive-shaft, or if it's just because of the wind... it was kicking up a little... 8-10mph or so. That's the only SPAD-like problem I've seen so far, it doesn't detract from it's flyability or fun, just a little annoyance on occasion. If any of you other SPAD builders have ideas as to what might be causing this, I'm all ears!

Here's some pictures of my SPAD starting setup and a photo of my two "little guys" together at the field... my Gnat and Derelict. My field has safety benches, so I just needed something to elevate the belly landing SPADs to get some prop clearance for starting... this plastic storage box from Walmart works quite nicely... just cut some slots in the lid to velcro the rear of the plane down...

I.C.O.N.

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10 flights in a day! I can't wait till I get a plane to last that long![sm=lol.gif]

Good to hear she flies well.

Been pretty wet around here lately. Nice to see a green field.

ChrisSpad

2 things that'll help you tremendously - if its climbing, either add a couple of degrees of downthrust to the engine, or reflex the ailerons up - it'll probably take about 1/4" at the root before you see a difference - but both help decrease the climbing tendency.

The dutch roll your getting - or side to side wagging is caused by a couple of things - the simplest solution is to increase the size of the vert. stab to at least 9% of the wing area - if its that big already, i've heard that closing your wingtips will help - but haven't tried it myself - i like that little waggle - looks kinda cool after you get used to it and realize that it doesn't hurt a thing.

-pkh-

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ChrisSpad... Thanks for the suggestions!

ICON... the 10 Gnat flights on Sunday and 9-10 Derelict flights today are the longest runs I've ever had without a crash! We did have quite a nice day here in PA... got up to 55 or so... was overcast in the morning, but the sun came out in the afernoon and it was a great day to fly! I took the day off of work to take advantage of it... and I was dying to fly this little bugger!

bulletbob

Thought you would like the addition of some power. The wobbling or yawing of the spads is something I have in all of mine, Deb, Sickle, numerous Dogfighters, SNS, DPS, Derringer and believe it is correctly termed Dutch Rolling. All aircraft exhibit some of it but larger real planes use computers to control it, like the 727. I have never seen a positive fix but then really never got to excited about it.