RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I tried to fly again today to get some video from my new camera but it was simply too windy.

The plane flies GREAT. When Kyle flew mine he commented it would be a great plane for a Red Bull Air Race event. He loved the speed and thought the plane had great tracking ability.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Hello cap10b,
                          That is the same color scheme and radio I have!

                                Looking good :)

          Doug

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

TheSteam,
I am over on the "Oh woe is me 2.4 thread" So in defiance of those who say otherwise, I now pronouce you "The King of Cool planes and Radios" for flying the same equipment I do. I say some good things about Airtronics over their and stirred up a hornets nest.

Oh well they dont know what they're missing.

JDS

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

LOL We share the Title!  :)

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I had my e-Slick 540 out again last night. I'm using one of Tom's 6c A123 packs, and I think I have my CG just a little too far aft. It flies great at speed, but gets snappy when I slow it down. I also broke another set of landing gear when I got it too slow on landing. You'd think that falling from 3' at landing speed, directly on the gear wouldn't snap a gear leg off, but it did. Better to loose a gear leg than have to repair the gear plate and some stringers, and maybe a hole punched through the wing.

Tom, I'll be ordering another set of CF gear for it soon (gotta get my allowance first :D)

Jon

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Im gonna be ordering one of these babies soon! Time to get back into flying on a smaller scale. I certainly miss my 30cc edge :( The holiday deal you have going in is insane!

And bterry, I notice in those vids that the field looked awful similar to the kitsap arcs, Saw your location and realized that it must be that field !! I used fly there back when I was in HS. Very nice facility. Looks like Kyle was whipping around your plane pretty darn well

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Have a look. Wild Hare RC in Texas are selling their electric ARFs at half of the original price.
It's $100+$15 shipping in the USA.
http://www.wildharerc.com/

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Zach,
I just saw your comment. Yes, it is the Kitsap ARCS field. Kyle love the plane, thought it was like flying a Red Bull Air Races plane. The stock power system is rock-solid reliable and has been very powerful. I am up around 750 watts depending on the quality of the battery, and the plane flies very well at under half throttle. Vertical hand launches are simple at full power, just give it a simple underhand toss and off it goes!

I was flying my Slick at a local park the other night, and lost depth perception after the sun went down and hit the upper limbs of a tree. The plane spun around 360 on its axis, then fell. I hit the power to try and salvage it and it hit another tree, flipped over, and landed on its wingtip in the soft mud. As I walked to my plane I said to myself, 'Good thing it is on sale now...'

The total damage to my plane was I stripped the rudder servo, knocked the cowl free from its mounting ring, got some brown tree marks on both prop blades and a few on the wings, and mud on the right aileron. I expected to pick up pieces, but was happy to see it come away nearly unscathed. Credit Tom's design because it is both strong and very light for its size.

(I don't even want to talk about what happened to our 3.0M Comp ARF over the weekend. It accidentally clipped the wingtip on a dirt mound during the roll out from a landing and the fuse cracked in half like an egg. The plane flies SO nicely, but the ~$1600 repair bill is hard to swallow.)

For now I am happy to fly the small electrics at the park, and will likely grab a red Edge from Tom so I have a matched set!

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Wow that sounds ugly! I'm not sure I could ever sink that much money into a plane (1600), let alone for a repair!

I got my edge in today, very nice quality. I think I may go the pull pull rudder route but I am unsure. Have plenty of time before the power pack comes back instock. I will also be getting a 73" redwing mx2 in here on Friday. Going to go brushless on it as well. I spent me a lot of money this last week. Getting back into it is expensive

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

The wheel pants/wheels are extremely frustrating. I spend an hour tonight trying to get the damn things on with no avail..... Looks like I am just going to get my own hardware as I can not even get the wheels on without the wheel pants due to the phillips screwhead. Everything else seems to be designed fairly well though

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Zach,
I turned my screw around and mounted it to the landing gear leg with a locknut.

It goes, from inside to outside: screw-> gear leg -> wheel pant -> washer -> locknut -> wheel -> locknut or wheel collar.*

The far outboard end of the screw ends 3/16" inside the outer edge of the wheel pant, so it still looks great (no holes in the outer wall of the wheel pant)

I will find a pic when I get home. Everything stays in place, and the wheel pant it able to rotate if it gets bumped. No problems this way!

*edited for clarity

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

The problem is we either spend the money for a new fuse, or chuck the wings and tail in the trash can and write off a $2850 (+shipping) plane entirely. It flies extremely well, but this is the last time I will ever consider a composite plane.

An all-wood 40% plane like a Wild Hare, Radiowave, Aeroworks, etc model would have survived with barely any damage at all, needing only a small repair on the wing tip and perhaps a few cracked stringers in the fuse. Nothing more than a few hours of work and few dollars worth of covering to fix it entirely.

Back to my electric, I realized my stripped rudder servo is a metal gear servo. So much for that! It stripped the single nylon gear. At this point I am thinking of going with a standard servo around the wing tube in a pull-pull configuration. It will add about 2.5 oz, but will be on the CG and will remove some of the weight on the tail.

Also after looking closer at my plane, I realized my tree incident cracked the stringers and fuse sides. I fit them back to together and dripped some CA in there, and the plane is now good to go.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I am now sold out of the HD-1900a servos that I had been selling with the power kits. Rather than re-ordering them I am taking this opportunity to make a few changes to the electric planes and the way I suggest they should be set up.

I have found that they work better with a standard size servo under the hatch and either a pull-pull rudder setup or with a long pushrod. I'm working up a manual revision that will describe how I suggest to do this, and I'm revising the Power kit.

The new power kit will be only $100 but won't include servos. Then I'll have a servo package with 4 Hitec HS-81s and a standard size servo of some sort, probably the Hitec 5485HB like we use on the baby planes. The servo package will be a little more money (like $75) but should give much better performance. I will include the supplies needed, either a pull-pull kit or a long pushrod. It will require a little modification but will be a better performing plane.

The servo tray is already in the plane to mount the rudder servo so this should be an easy change.

I hope to have this all spec'd out in a few days.

TF

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Interesting. I ordered a power pack through you last week, and it was otu of stock. So I assume I will be getting the newest reiteration of the powerpack?

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Yes. I'm not sure which one I quoted, but if you are expecting servos then you need to call me. I want to be sure you are getting exactly what you expect.

TF

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Sounds good, I will call you tomorrow.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

This is a great idea. I weighed a standard servo vs a mini servo, and honestly I believe the total weight will be very similar. The mini servo is 0.5 oz, while a full size is 1.5. Add in the weight of the servo extensions and it is apparent having three mini servos (plus extensions and pushrods) in the tail vs two standards in the radio bay (with an elevator pushrod and pull-pull thread on rudder) is roughly equivalent.

However the standard servos will be significantly more durable.

How will you handle the split elevator? Would you use a Y-pushrod, or would you tie the elevator halves together with a U joiner?

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Let me clarify a little, I did not suggest a standard servo on the elevators, at least not in most cases. The kit comes with a pre-assembled Y pushrod for elevators, but there are two problems with using it.

First, it's kind of crowded up front trying to fit two standard servos in for rudder and elevator along with the pushrods.

Second, if you mount a standard servo in the tray and use the "Y" pushrod, to rotation of the servo causes the pushrod to move not only forward and backward but also side to side. This causes the elevators to move in relationship to one another, so if the elevators are exactly even when at idle when they are fully extended one of them has moved more than the other. There is no way to fix this as long as the servo is mounted in the tray, you would need to lay the servo in its side to get perfect linear motion of both elevators, this is why I decided that two small servos in the back is a better idea. However I am playing with the idea, maybe I can come up with something better.

And in fact my plan is to re-use the "Y" pushrod for the rudder. With a minor modification it can be made into a longer single pushrod.

Adding an ounce to this plane is totally irrelevant, it's so overpowered and over-winged that it will never see a little more weight.


TF

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I agree on the power and the wing. This plane has plenty of power and plenty of float already.

I forgot about the pushrod! I thought about using a standard for the elevators, and set it up the way I used to set up pattern planes. I mount the servo on its side on a mount which places the servo arm on the centerline vertical plane of the fuse (the arm remains in a vertical plane exactly centered between the elevator halves). There is enough room immediately aft of the rudder mount location, and I would run the pushrod down the middle in between the rudder pull-pull threads.

After thinking about it for a while, however, I decided against doing it. The elevators have plenty of authority on the mini servos. The only control surface experiencing blowback would be the rudder.

On the rudder I will switch to a standard servo,probably a JR 821 - it is simple, cheap, accurate, and will be extremely durable in this use.

Thanks for jogging my memory on the pushrod too. I will likely modify it and us it. That way I won't need to replace the cool rudder control horn.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I tried to give you a call with no answer a couple hours ago, tom. If the power pack doesn't come with servo's that is fine, I can order them myself. Will the hs-81's fit without modification? And to add pull pull, can i use the slots in the fuse for the elevator dual pushrod? I can just call to order the motor/esc tomorrow morning, but I'd like to prder the servo's and anything associated with them tonight. Will the pack still come with extensions??

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

Or I'll just wait until you get the new packs together and I can order from you.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

"There is allowance for cooling air to flow through and there are vent holes that can be opened up in the bottom and under both wings."

Could you elaborate on this Tom? I saw nothing in the instructions as to where one should open the vent holes in the fuse.


       Thanks!
                          Douglas

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I will try to get a couple photos.

There is a lightening hole in each side just below the wing, if you have a heat problem you can cut away the covering, this makes a good vent as it's in a low pressure area and is not visible from most angles.

TF

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

I like this approach to cooling vents if it works well.

RE: Wild Hare Electrics
 

BTW, I picked up a couple of these Friday.
Two of the 540's, but one was suppose to be a Slick.

For those of you that have them, did any of you find that the canopy latch would not work.
Mine will not budge and I can't get the canopy off.
Tom says maybe it got glue on it during the construction.

If anyone has had the issue and found a solution, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks, Dan