oliflyer

My Feedback: (4)

Did you guys manage to get 40+ degrees elevator throws with the control horns provided in the hardware kit?

I am using Hitec servos with the aluminun arm and the control rod hits the bottom of the stab at approx 40 degrees!

Let me know,


Chris.

rctom

The problem is the aluminum arm, it's not long enough to give you proper travel. You need a longer arm to get the pushrod farther away from the surface.

TF

bandjc

My Feedback: (5)

Toms right
Those aluminum arms are cool, but the first time I saw one I thought, what was Hitec thinking, they are seldom long enough for proper throws.
If Hitec would include an aluminum arm that is 1.25 or 1.5 then it would really be nice.

oliflyer
With most of the Hitec digitals, there is a large plastic servo arm, that is plenty robust for the 1.20 edge. I used those, and have had no problems, plenty of throw.

The aluminum arms are such a waste for most large scale control surfaces. I always have to buy longer arms to go with the Hitec digitals.

rctom

I think the aluminum arms are in there for stuff like R/C cars and robots, where strength is more important than travel. I don't think they were ever meant for this application.

My guess is also that they made 1,000,000 of them in 1 batch and when they are gond we'll quit seeing them.

TF

Bob101

You can use the aluminum ones on ailerons usually and all around on non 3-D planes that you don't need 45 degrees of throw. I use them on several other 1.20 size planes that are purely aerobatic. I have a similar sized extra that I run less than 1/2" throw on the elevators and can do a full IMAC routine with no problem.

bandjc

My Feedback: (5)

Very good points on the servo arm.

I have such a one track mind with the application being a PLANE, and setup being 3D throws.
I'm sure those arms are very good for standard throws and non plane applications...
Man, I been doing this hobby tooo long, don't even think outside the box any more! LOL

FlyinTiger

My Feedback: (45)

Any YS engines getting mounted yet? I am curious how this thing does with the large YS 4-strokes...

oliflyer

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks for the comments.

For sure longer servo arms do it but I was just curious and I also mentioned "with control horns provided in the hardware kit" in my question. I had to replace the 6-32 screw by longer ones to get the required throw and get a correct linkage geometry. The problem with the big plastic arms is that they are thicker and wider and there is no room for a piece of tubing on the clevis or for the "clevis lock". I may have to sand the arm or go with ball links.

I finally decided to paint the canopy, instead of using dye. The Pactra "tint" color was sold out then I airbrushed some Faskolor water based paint. I put a few coats to still be able to see the battery meter, it is not as transparent as a tinted canopy but it looks OK.

Chris.

olstoney

My Feedback: (19)

FlyinTiger,
I believe the one in the website photos belongs to a friend of Toms and has a YS 120. The last time I spoke with Tom it hadn't been flown yet and no further reports. When mine arrives that's on order a YS 140 FZ will be installed. Last we heard the next shipment was due in around July 1st.

bandjc

My Feedback: (5)

oliflyer

I did use ball links on the longer Hitec plastic servo arms.
I did not need to change out the provided 6-32 control horns provided in the hardware kit to get enough throw, or correct geometry.

rctom

The one on the web site with the YS 1.20 has been flown many times now, and from what I am told it is an excellent combination. I have not flown it myself but the owner is a close friend and he's very happy with it.

TF

Bob101

Flew mine today. Wound up 11.2 pounds ready to fly minus fuel. The best thing this plane has going for it is the weight - it's defently not fit/finish.

It's amazing how the little things that add up that get on your nerves. Stuff like the firewall just being put in (it's tabbed to hold its location) with little/no or no glue, the motor box stringers coming pulled off because of lack of glue while installing the engine, all my control horn hardpoints were drilled WAY off. On one aileron when you put it in the 6-32 screw it pointed forward about 20 degrees while the other one pointed the opposite way the same amount. Meaning the screw horns were about 30-40 degrees off from each other. Same thing for the rudder. Installing the 3" or so 6-32 screw that came with the hardware kit thru the pre-drilled hardpoint in the rudder wound up with one side approximately 1/2" to 3/4" in front of the other. Which technically if you cared nothing about your geomtry being linear you could have left it like this - except one side hit the elevator and one side didn't.

One wing was covered in one solid piece of white, while the other is covered in 3 peices with a seam. Same thing for the fueselage, one side has a couple of seams while the other side the biggest piece of covering is about the size of a 3x5" index card. Worst part is every seam except the leading edge of the wing is overlapped facing forward so it's only a matter of time before fuel gets under it and it peels up. Oddest seam was the bottom of the fuse where the red is and it was seamed where there was no backing - just a seam over an open bay so I placed a balsa backer to have something to iron it down on.

Like I said the plane finished up and "appears" very attractive and after the first 5 or so flights I'm sure it will fly fine. It's just the little things that add up that make you wonder if someone just threw the plane together. Like my servo cut outs on the wings being different sizes - one oversize for a hitec 5625 that required a shim and the other undersize that required grinding to fit. Stuff like the servo extension pull thrus in the wing not going to the servo bay so you had to punch a hole thru the foam - no big deal but it starts to add up in the aggrevation factor. Also your pull/pull cables will rub on the last inside former even if you cross your cables so be sure to put a tube in there or the steel cable will cut thru some of your former eventually. I didn't notice this at first till I pulled an elevator servo out to look back there and could see it clearly.

Flight Report. Balanced at 4-9/16" with no weight needed with the battery just after of the cockpit. This is a good starting point. If you fly purely precision aerobatics this is good or possibly a little forward. If you can put in more than 45 deg on the elevator this really smooths out the elevators and the harriers. I had mine originally set at 45deg and got a fair amount of wing rock, upping to around 50deg negated most of that.

There's a lot of couple roll wise in knife edge which can be mixed out. I think I mainly noticed it because I'm spoiled from flying an extra that didn't require any roll mix just pitch.

The recommended throws for the ailerons on high rate were a little low for me so I upped them, again a personal preference on how you fly I guess. Balanced like I said it would go flat in a spin both upright and inverted, requiring just a tad more power upright than inverted.

I didn't get around to more advanced stuff like blenders and waterfalls today, after 4-5 flights my tail wheel bracket gave up the ghost. I'd defently look at replacing that right off. It may last but mine got a pretty good bend being strapped down in my trailer on the ride over basically from the weight of the plane bouncing a little in the trailer. After 5 flights it was toast and got into the rudder on 2 point wheel landing and let down on the tail wheel.

FlyinTiger

My Feedback: (45)

Thanks for the honest evaluation Bob101. Tom did say he was getting in some "upgraded" versions of this 1.20 Edge, so hopefully most of these problems will be fixed. The pressure to get the first production run shipped can make a manufacturer do some hasty work...like buying the first run of a new car design.

Keep us updated on how things hold up down the road...say 50 flights from now. Great job being objective and not making any off color comments, just providing us with the facts. I am sure Tom appreciates your observations.

Tom, thanks for the update about the 1.20 4-stroke application, I am quite interested in some more information about the performance, weight, etc with the YS...they tend to have the power of the next higher class of engine and run flawlessly for years.

Keep the good details coming, guys! I'll do the same with my 28% Extra 300LX review that is ongoing in the "User Product Reviews" forum.

Wheels up!

rctom

This first run has not been a masterpiece of quality control, I'll be the first to admit that. This is not an acceptable level of performance from the builder, but there are some things I cannot control directly, the only way to make an impression sometimes is to charge them back as defective products.

All I can do in this case is offer to buy the plane back. I have done this with one other person on several occasions, but so far he will not part with the plane. Go figure.

Fortunately there are only about 15 planes out there and I've heard of problems from only 2 or 3. I will be working on the builder to try to get them to do better. I think on the small planes they pay less attention to qc, which is not right. The small plane buyers have a right to expect good quality too.

TF

olstoney

My Feedback: (19)

Tom,
Nice offer to Bob101, speaks very highly of your integrity and commitment to providing us all with a quality product. Thank You, Brian...

Bob101

I'm gonna keep the plane. But I wanted to post the stuff I encountered in case you needed to tell the builder etc... Like I said none of it is a deal breaker on the plane and the way it flies. I'm replacing the tailwheel today and hope to get some flights in next week...last week I'll be able to fly 3-4 days a week because of a job change.

Some more stuff I thought of on the flight report. Snaps - like it's been said about edges they weren't the best. This was the first edge I've flown personally..once you get the snap started it did ok - getting it started took a bit of rethinking. I found going elevator first for a split second then feeding in the other controls helped a lot and getting off all but the ailerons at the end helped smooth out the finish. Like I said it's just different coming from my other 2 planes this size, an extra and a cap. Cap you look at funny and you get a beautiful snap roll and the extra is minimal work. Of course this edge is a 3-D machine but I put it thru the IMAC Sportsman routine just to see.

Rolls - OMG I never had a plane roll axially and I mean on a rope axial right off the board like this. No differential required, just breath on the rudder and it's done. No elevator required on the invert part unless you really were slow or doing a sloooow roll. On the second flight I did a continuous fast roll at 15feet or so the lenght of our 750 foot runway if that tells you anything.

Next week hopefully I'll go thru a whole trim process to check the balance, incidence, differential, downthrust and right-thrust (which reminds me when my engine was first bolted on I wound up with 1degree up thrust before I shimmed it down to zero and will possibly need some down). Once that is set and I know I have a good foundation I'll start wringing out the 3-D. I'm decent at 3-D but all my 3-D experience has been on profiles and the such. The planes this size I fly precision aerobatics so we'll see how the transistion goes. Hopefully I'll have her down on the deck soon.

oliflyer

My Feedback: (4)

Tom,

"I have done this with one other person on several occasions, but so far he will not part with the plane. Go figure."

I am probably the person you offered to return the plane, it I think that my answer was not ambiguous and easy to figure out; I told you that I had spent too much time on this plane to return it and that when every manufacturing flaws would be fixed it should be a nice plane.

I have roughly the same comments as Bob101 but I have already e-mailed you some feedback, plus a warp control surface on an elevator halve and the wings that are not parallel with the elevator. I haven't worked on the latter, I will probably fly it this way and see if I need to mess up with the fuse to fix that. I worked on the rudder pull/pull this morning, I am using kevlar wires plus a piece of tubing to avoid the problem of the steel cable which will cut through the former, mine is definitely rubbing too much.

Tom, please do not think "I will never be happy", I only wanted to share some feedback to improve your next batch, it seems that you got me wrong, no big deal though.

Chris.

Bob101

Yeah that's pretty much the conclusion I came to. I put a lot of time in ARF's. Probably more than double than most people to get stuff "just right" - but that's me and I understand that. So I probably have 40-50 hours in this plane up to the first flight. I spent a good amount of time on a two week vacation plus some other odd and end time in there.

ben beyer

My Feedback: (23)

I finished up my 1.20 Edge tonight and ran the OS 160. What a combination this is going to be. The OS ran so well and has sooo much power.

Bob101

Put 7 more flights on it this morning. I dialed in a little more elevator and experienced something I never had before. Now at around 55deg or so of elevator it no longer will elevator. Rather it just mushes out and you get a nose down glide that goes on forever. I either need to dial down the elevators or change the C.G. Something funky is going on, perhaps pick up the throttle just enough to put some airlfow on the elevator.

The C.G. is pretty close where I want it tho - so still a mystery. Inverted only requires you to breathe on the stick to maintain it. Slow landings require just a tad of power to keep the airflow over the tail and it comes down pretty level like that so I know I'm pretty close on the C.G. Flat spins are flat as they get inverted, flat and right around the wingtip - from 150feet or so you can probably get 20+ rotations out of it and have a lot of room to recover. Would of went higher but visibiltiy was an issue this morning due to fog/clouds.

Knife edge...still playing around with some mixes but jeeze it needs a lot of mix on both pitch and roll. Right around 25% mixed into the ailerons (and I already have a lot more aileron throw than suggested so it's a lot mixed in) and 15% on the elevator and I'm still not there - it still wants to wallow out. Of course without the mix putting in knife edge rudder results in a slow roll appearance the opposite way.

That's all I did today. I'm gonna go thru it today and figure out what I can easily shift around to move the C.G. at the field tomorrow assuming the weather stays ok.

Shogun

My Feedback: (2)

You might want to try reflexing the ailerons up or down a degree or two, this seems to really help on mid wing designs like Edges and Extra 260's IME.

For all you guys running the 1.60 here's a tip. If your running a pump or regulator, peak the high end to max RPM's and then back the throttle down to idle and let the engine idle for 20-30 seconds, then bang full throttle and observe the response. If it dies it's too lean but more than likely it will sputter a bit, clean out and run like a champ on the top end. Well if that happens then your too rich so lean the low needle a 1/2 turn and repeat the above process. Do this unirt the engine dies when your throttle it up and then back off 1/8 turn at a time till it stays running. Last go back and repeak the top end again and then back off NO MORE than 150 rpm, reason being is the needles on this engine seem to really interact with each other throughout the entire rpm range so if you richen the top end any more you'll get the popping or stumbling in the midrange. Another point to note is that to get the low end set correctly you need to have the idle down below 1900 rpm to really get it set right, any higher and you'll most likely be in the transition range and the low end will always be too rich.

I have 2 of these engines and they are simply phenomenal, when they are set right. FWIW very new engines may not want to idle down to the 1900 rpm threshold so just be patient with thme as they will get there after running about a gallon through them. After following this advice both of my 1.60's will idle for over a minute at 1850 rpm and advance to full throttle instantly with zero hesitation, throttle response in the air is spectacular and top end power is incredible.

Something else to consider is that of oil type and content, these are ringed engines and as such they will be very intolerant of lean runs. I have never been a big fan of all synthetic(no castor) blend fuels and have on two occaisions wiped out piston rings by running fuels like Cool power in ringed engines. The lesson I learned was that by simply adding a little castor you can get away with a lean run here and there but by not running any you are really taking your chances, remember these engines are usually cowled in so keep that in mind the next time your at the field in late July and it's 105 degrees and 80% humidity and your trying to eek out the last bit of performance from your ringed engines.

Just a little food for thought.

Bob101

Yes, I have spoilerons/flaperons programmed in on a flight mode tied to the elevator. Still no luck. Never had a plane that got worse as elelvator throw was increased...playing with the C.G. tomorrow.

I keep my idle around 1600 on mine. I set it prior to each flight with a tach (I really can't tell by sound so I tach the top and bottom at start each flight). I used to keep it around 1950-2000 but then I lowered it and I liked it a lot more because on landings you can idle down and then plane instantly stops - not a big deal on this plane but was on a previous one. Plus you can get into a stall faster at a lower rpm especially on real light planes that will seem to go on forever.

FlyinTiger

My Feedback: (45)

I am not a top IMAC flier, but I haven't heard you mention that you've run this plane through a trimming process like the one suggested in the MA "Scale Aerobatics" article by the JR sponsored Austrailian Peter Goldsmith. These articles were in the February and April MA magazines.

Bob101, I thought you made a comment in another forum about flight trimming that you had trimmed the plane, or were going to soon?

There might be some issues that you could fix by trimming the plane step by step in the recommended order. Just a thought. This trimming process has worked great for me, though I am not flying the same WH plane you are.

Good luck!

Bob101

I'm not going thru the time to properly trim the plane. I have a buyer for it and I can't see putting 30+ trim flights on it before it goes.

rctom

There is a point where you can have too much elevator. On our larger planes we have found the 45 deg. was actually too much throw and getting the plane into a harrier worked better at about 40-42 degrees. The actual technique of entering the harrier is also important. This also will vary from one plane to the next.

This will vary from plane to plane, but 55 degrees of throw is more likely to act as an air brake than as an elevator. It is not true that more is always better.

TF