v-snap

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I am glad it all went well. I will definitly be following this plane for a future project.

texomalaser

My Feedback: (2)

Hey Tom...How about 45 degree lines and inverted flight?..Whats the characteristics of that? Im glad you got to fly the plane and that it did good. Great job Tom...Cant wait to see it in person...

rctom

We didn't explore the envelope with that much detail. Mostly just checked all the usual stuff to be sure it's a solid design and that all mechanical stuff is OK.

Maybe later.

TF

Bruce Rolfe

My Feedback: (37)

Tom,
Any Video?

Bruce

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

I doubt it. As a rule I first flight a plane with just myself and one other person. One will be busy flying and making comments while the other takes notes on trims, balance, incidences, and mixing. It rarely leaves much time for filming if you're serious about a maiden flight on a prototype aircraft. These are more of a shakedown series of flights rather than pleasure flights.

You're going out with a plane that is one of a kind. It has no construction manual, guesswork for control travels, a C/G that's iffy at best, and you don't know if it will stay together. Just basic flying has to be done for several flights just to get a decent feel for the plane and make determinations about what is good or needs to change. All this stuff absolutely must be done as quickly as possible in order to notify the factory of any necessary changes before the production run is due to start. If you don't do all the work in the beginning, you end up with a lot of really mad customers later, a very delayed delivery schedule, or both.

All the fun, wringing out stuff comes a little later in the process. Now that's the stuff worth filming.

G-Pete

Thanks Pat, looks like it fit in my truck diagonal. I could not justify to buy a new truck “just” because I get a bigger airplane.
…interesting reading of the build progress.

Tom, good to see you are a happy camper about the plane.

Happy landings[sm=thumbup.gif]
G-Pete

rctom

What Pat said. Too many other things to do, video comes later.

TF

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

G-Pete;

I don't know if it helps, but the width at the elevators is 40 inches with the rudder extending about 9 or 10 inches aft of the elevators. Unless I get real creative I don't think I'll be carrying my Giles and the Sukhoi at the same time in the pick up.


To All;

One thing of note, this isn't really a build process as much as it is a prototype fit and test process. I figured that I won't be home when the production kits come out so what's getting done here will apply pretty much to the finished models. It also let's people see some of the work that goes into a new plane before it's released to the public. It eats up a whole bunch of time checking fits, making sure parts locate where they should, going over incidences, finding covering errors, taking notes and pictures, and putting all the info together for changes and confirmations. Then going out for about 10 to 20 check flights before getting into any "heavy" stuff. Sometimes it's interesting to see some of the "behind the scenes" process.

"Bookmarking" this thread for later use may be helpful to all when the production kits hit the market. It will make it easy to come back to without searching a bunch of "pages" to find it.

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

Incidence Checks;

We've all been there. Get the plane all together, go out to fly and something's not quite right. That's not going to happen with this one!!

I set the fuselage and wings up in the back yard and broke out the incidence meters and the long bar to check it all out. Sitting on the main gear legs without wheels and propping up the tail to within 1/2 degree of perfectly level, I came up with all flight surfaces dead on the same angle that the plane was on. I used the hatch deck for the zero reference. It had the same 1/2 degree angle that I had the plane sittng at so it was good to go for checking the rest.

I checked every wing, maintaining the hatch deck as a reference, and every surface read the same as the deck at 1/2 degree. If I had raised the tail and shimmed the stand a little to hit zero all the numbers would have changed equally and hit zero, meaning that the entire plane is set at a zero/zero incidence reference, setting the stage for some neutral flight parameters that will let a person fly whatever type of regimen that they desire.

I'm posting some pics, but some did not come out as well as I hoped. You'll get the main gist of it, though

RTK

My Feedback: (1)

Pat, did you check at the tips of the wings for washout,etc? Curious minds want to know
Too bad I was not able to make it up to your place and have a look see at it today.

Tired Old Man

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I can't seem to post any pics at the moment. I guess the RCU server is getting a liitle too much action with all the W/H threads. I post big picture files so they can be downloaded and expanded, so that makes it even harder to get them through, even at 100mbps. I'll post them later.


RTK;
Yes, I checked the tips. There is no wash in or out. Did I mention that I broke out the long bar? The long bar is about 6 feet long. I also use an 8 foot level to do a lot of cross the hatch types of measuring. Neither Di or An of the Hedral family is anywhere to be found. If it anhedarl or dihedral it would be very hard to get the wings on since the roots are recessed into their own pockets. That plus that arrow straight C/F wing tube would make a bent wing quite a fight to install.

What all this means is that the jigs and patterns used for the prototypes are correct for all the important stuff and do not require changes to make them right. That also means the probability of some super straight airplanes is pretty much assured.

I have some photos I'll edit in a little later of the control deflections with all the wings in place. There is no linkage connected up yet so they depict what's available the way it comes out of the box. For those that are wondering if this plane will 3D, the pictures should pretty much answer that!

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

Tom,, need anymore heat and humidity down there in Big D ? Same muggy weather here up I-35 North from you .
Thanks for braving the sweat zone for us. The new WH looks great.

charrua

My Feedback: (47)

Silver.. or TOM are the Elevator servos in the Stab or the fuse???

rctom

We spent the day painting the floor in the new building. My wife did all the work, really.

The biggest problem is at 100+ degrees epoxy paint only has about half the working time. By the end of each gallon the stuff left in the tray was like fudge.

I used an old trick and kept the mixed paint in a tray of ice, that extended the pot life a little.


TF

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

Charrua,

At this time the elevator servos are located in a pocket in the bottom of each elevator. I just got my servos in today so I will be making up the extensions and installing them tomorrow probably. The pockets in the horizontal stabs currently are 31mm deep at the shallow end and about 35mm deep at the other end. I had to file about 1mm to extend the top opening for 8611's, but there's a lot of room to work with to open up the side a bit if needed.

It looks now like just about all of the commonly used flight servos will fit in all the servo opernings on the plane. Some servos may be sized a little larger or smaller than one from another manufacturer, but all that's required is a file to make life easy. I prefer to start with smaller openings that will let me open them up to fit tight around the edges of the servos that I prefer. If you build in a "one size fits all" servo opening it's often difficult to securely add wood that may be needed to install a servo that's smaller.

All the servo bays on the plane appear to be very well built. The servo bays in each wing panel is a full depth ply box that very much resembles a box spar. You would have to break the wing panel in half to tear it out of there.

I'll post some pics of all the elevator stuff as soon as I can.

dhooks

My Feedback: (24)

SilverSurfer, didnt your plane get lost in transit?[&:]

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

This is the SECOND one!

euclid

would a ZDZ80 be too small an engine for this vision of beauty? Or are the twins the way to power?

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

That's a real good question. One that would depend entirely on how light the plane could be kept. Tom's came in a little under 26 pounds. I don't have a clue where this one is going to land yet. Depends on whether that BME 115 gets to me before I've got to go ahead and run the Brison. That's why an engine hasn't been fitted yet.

This is a good sized plane, just a couple of inches smaller that the 2.6m Comp 330. I've seen one of those come in at under 23 pounds with a 110 on the nose so I suppose this one could do it too. RTK and I were comtemplating just this scenario last night, and we both thought it could be done at 21.5-22.5 with a lot of attention to detail. Keep in mind that larger planes carry some additional drag penalties. That might be where an 80 could stumble a little.

Sorry I can't give a firm answer one way or the other, but from my perspective it's a little too early for me to make the call. I'll need to fly it a few times and get the feel first. I wouldn't rule it out, though.

NeoGenesis

My Feedback: (27)

A ZDZ 80 RV-J "Super" on a pipe would make a real interesting combo. I know mine is fairly new yet "breaking in" and is making a ton of power. It would be interesting to try.





Neo

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

This plane is supposed to be in the 80 to 100cc class, so why not? The cowl is big enough to stuff anything up to about a 150 in it.

G-Pete

Yes it does, thanks Pat. The elevator servos sitting in the horizontal stabs – easy to take off for transport. My Truck-Bed has 100 inches diagonal room. I don’t see any problem. Next week I need to make a trip to WH and lay eyes on this bird…[8D]


Happy landings[sm=thumbup.gif]
G-Pete

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

Man I am going to have to get one of those

Pot life of Epoxy paint....ahh. My brain is fried from my test. FWIW you can apply epoxy floor systems over just about any good floor except for asphalt.

Whats the ETA for the rest of the planes?

rctom

I'm hoping for a pre-xmas arrival.

TF

rctom

You should work in Texas, we need contractors that have some actual knowledge.

There is no licensing of contractors here, any numb-nuts can call himself a contractor and take somebody's money for building a house. It's absolutely scandalous.

TF