RC Planes

Yeah I set it up with the camera on it, in my house, then transported it down in one piece, put batteries on and it was flying like a pig.

I think the flaps might have been cocking it up, I noticed earlier that one is slightly higher than the other.

Would the motor affect it? I'm gonna get a new one anyway I think, only £9.
 
you say you set up the CofG THEN put batteries on/in? if that is the case, then your CofG would be wrong. you balance with batteries in, But I could be reading what you wrote incorrectly.

It also highly recommended that not only do you check CofG but you also balance the wings, check that the wings are equal weight both sides.

As for flaps, why ? does it come with flaps on it? or were you using flaperons?

Model like that would not really need flaps. Not as though it is a big heavy model and you need to slow it down.

Also was the model trimmed up correctly, ie did it fly straight and level 'hands-off' and also did when you applied power to the motor, did it pull to the left /right, up etc?
 
Last edited:
Yeah no sorry I mean just plugged them in. They were in there whilst I was balancing it, just connected them up.

How do you tell if the CofG is balanced left to right?

Just hold it down the middle?

No, it was far from level when letting go of the controls. :(
 
To check balance of wings. Hold tip of nose and back of plane - wings should be level, if one wing drops add a bit of weight to the one that did not.

As for it not flying level, maybe your control surfaces were not set up correctly as per instruction manual, not flat, maybe needed some reflex in them. One of the first things you do on a 'maiden flight' is trim the model up for straight, level and hands off flight.
 
[TW]Taggart;21331682 said:
a lot of good advice here, still stand by my hot glue as the quickest and easiest foam safe adhesive
Click to expand...

I must admit I have never used it. Will give it a go next time instead of epoxy to see what its like.
 
I'll nip down B&Q and get me a glue gun later. Think we have some cocktail sticks downstairs. :)

I was looking earlier at the plane and some chunks of foam have come out of the unerside where the fixings have ripped through. I'll go to town with glue and some kind of washers to spread the load across the two wings and just fix them together permanently.

I think what had happened to make everything skew whiff is that the wings had been previously damaged in some of my earlier landings and the wings weren't facing straight forwards with the plane. The reviews did mention that the fixings were a weak point, so if I can fix the tip and get the wings fixed where they meet the fuselage and fix them together (two parts to the wings) then I should be OK.

Hopefully I can get it flying the way it used to, as when it was first up, with the old motor, and as you can see in my earlier youtube video, it was stable and easy to fly. I guess this is now part of the learning curve, actually setting it up properly rather than being a bit lucky with it in the first place. :)

EDIT: Also, I'm reading that lots of people are actually recommending Contact Adhesive for EPO foam... will it really melt it? :confused: Some say it does, some say it does not. Hmm...
 
Last edited:
If you want to do two packs, you have two options:

Link them in series so they become one 2200mah 6S pack. You'll need adapters to make this happen.

Or, you can wire them in parallel and charge them as a 4400mah 3S pack. If you choose the latter, then make sure the cell voltages are within a tenth of a volt. Again, you'll need an adapter. I parallel charge 6 batteries at once.

Something like this is great for parallel charging: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...ging_Board_for_6_packs_2_6S_T_Connector_.html

You can get them with T/Deans, XT60, EC3, and EC5 depending which connector you use.
 
Yes you can use it if the batteries are being used to similar voltages, not 100% sure what happens if the two packs are on very different charge levels to be honest.

I found out the hard way with CA as well, used it to stick some velcro to one of my planes, only to see it start melting away in front of me. So I of course then started getting as much of it off as possible by hand. In the end I stopped it doing it too much and hands totally covered in CA. :p

I got my Dad's plane all sorted last night so I am ready to go flying when the weather is decent. My Formosa is also all fine, just need to sort out the motor mount and linkages on my little flying wing. Though not sure I will be able to handle it, may need to go flying a few times first before getting my reactions quick enough for it.
 
Bigpops said:
If you want to do two packs, you have two options:

Link them in series so they become one 2200mah 6S pack. You'll need adapters to make this happen.

Or, you can wire them in parallel and charge them as a 4400mah 3S pack. If you choose the latter, then make sure the cell voltages are within a tenth of a volt. Again, you'll need an adapter. I parallel charge 6 batteries at once.

Something like this is great for parallel charging: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...ging_Board_for_6_packs_2_6S_T_Connector_.html

You can get them with T/Deans, XT60, EC3, and EC5 depending which connector you use.
Click to expand...

To me it seems like series is by far the best way then as long as your charger can do 6s. I've never done it before so to be honest it is all a bit new to me. I need a new charger before it becomes worth it as it has a max charge power of 36W. So doing my 3s I just charge at 3amp which is charging at 2.3C. I suppose the only thing I would gain is I would be able to be kinder to the cells by charging at 1.1C.
 
My charger can do 6s and is rated to 50watts.

How do you connect the balance leads when in series?

My head is starting to ache thinking about all this stuff... :o

.... I think I've sussed it. A female 2 x 3s jst to male 6s adaptor and a series power cable. Phew. That took a lot of mental stress. :o :p
 
Last edited:
Right, took the GWS Beaver out today. Thought I would ease myself back into it gently. Damn I forgot how easy it was to fly it, threw it around a bit and it took it all fine. I surprised myself with the standard of my landings, they were all very smooth. My Dad came with me too, he however did 2 take offs with the plane and 0 landings. Instead he shoved the transmitter into my hands when flying as things started to go pearshaped. :p Shame overall there was too much wind for that plane, it is a lovely plane to fly on a totally still day but any wind affects it too much. Need to build his GWS E-Starter now I think, looking forward to trying that plane. It previously had massive following on rcgroups so interested to see how it flies, if it is anything like a my Formosa he will love it.

In the end I forgot to take my little device to tell me the cell voltage so I have got home realising I still had plenty more battery, though the wind was starting to pick up more. I can say I am definitely back into this hobby. :D
 
Lol, close call to the camera in the end? :p I wasn't being anywhere near that adventurous, think the wings would snap on the Beaver if I tried too much with it!
 
How big is that plane Taggart? Looks like mine, but way more versatile.

I need to get mine back in the air. I ended up using Contact Adhesive on the wings to fix them back together....... err. Well, all looked fine at first. :p

I had previously glued a piece of rubber onto the foam canopy and it all looked fine, so thought it must be OK. I then proceeded to lather up the wing in contact adhesive, both sides, shove in a few cocktail sticks and then squish together.

Everything looked fine, so I got a piece of foam from our hoover box, cut it out as a camera mount that I could shape and stick to the aforementioned piece of rubber. I thought it looked weird, as if it was starting to build a recess into the foam, and then I sat there for a minute watching as it ate it's way through the whole piece of foam. :eek: it must've been about an inch think and it just carried on its merrily way until the foam cheese wedge was barely there at all. :D

I then started to panic about my wings... I thought everything was fine, it definitely was stuck where it had broke. I had also glued the two wings together, so it was stronger. I don't mind it being one large wing as it's not ridiculously big and I could see that the screws were taking chunks out of the foam each time I had a crash. Poor design really.

However on closer inspection... not good. I didn't notice it but the foam itself had turned squishy and was no longer hard. Oh ****. A day later it was still the same - everything was glued, but a good centimetre each side was squishy. :(

So with it being squishy, I started putting some carbon rods into the foam that came through the post (must stop ordering from GiantCod... :o). I just rammed it sideways through the foam ... seems to do the trick. :D Some bits had popped out, but it's fine.

Now, however... the wing has returned to being hard. Phew... bit risky, thought that I had collossaly cocked up the wings in the most important areas - where it was already broken and where it's secured to the fuselage. :o It does now seem to be tough, particularly with the carbon rods forced into it.

I've also worked out a way of securing the batteries. I've taken out the wooden board that was in there, and had smashed to pieces in the crash, and cut little holes in the fuselage that I can pass cable ties through and secure the batteries with. Works a treat. What I want to do is get some washers to reinforce the holes with, though, as I can see the batteries pulling the cable ties through the fuselage in a crash.

But yeah, enough blurb... hopefully should be flying again this Friday, if the weather is good. Should be able to get some better onboard video if I set it up properly this time. :o
 
I did warn you about CA :p EVIL STUFF

if you can remove the wings make sure both wings weigh the same now. If they don't you'll likely crash again as the balance will be out.... also triple check your COG.

Scewfix or toolstation have good hot glueguns and glue sticks. get one it will save you time and money.

I got my hawksky from:
http://www.nitrotek.co.uk/hawk-sky-4ch-brushless-sport-trainer-2-4ghz.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ZFVJg9-iE

Its totally made from foam so it bounces when you crash most of the time
At first it seemed like every flight id crash and i usually did, for the first 6 months I spent more time repairing the plane than i did flying the damn thing. Now I always start flying at 2 mistakes high and then get lower as the session progresses.
I'm on my second fuselage after a massive crash because my ballast came off when slop soaring. but my first fuse was repaired for around 20 big crashes

I've now re-enforced the wings with carbon rod and the tail too. its only a 2800/8 motor on there with a 6:4 prop 30a esc, 2200mh bats

The trick I use to do the narly spins is to use a lot of throttle and rudder right and full down and right on the right stick to get the plane to flip.. using the torque of the motor and wash over the rudder to help yaw it around(I assume your motor goes in the same direction as mine so yours might be left)

The plane is in a sweet spot now so ive stopped modding it and gone on to the scratch built stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom