More funny RC stuff

Some funny stuff happens with RC don't you reckon - like beyond the looking back on the destruction of your pride and joy and being able to have a hearty laugh about how maybe if you hadn't been trying to buzz a mate's head at mach 3 in 400km/hr winds you might not have nosed in your stryker. But other stuff - everyday stuff.

Classic case in point - instructions from all those Chinese model manufacturers - it looks like the model factories get the translators who weren't good enough to work on the IKEA instructions.

This was spotted in the instructions for a small electric heli:

"DO FLY NEAR LOOKERS TO INJURE THEM" - I guess ugly people are spared the inconvenience of helicopter blade lacerations.


And check out the reassuring brand name of this LiPo:

Will it fly or fry? Will it give good output, or just go kaput? Who knows - it's a mystery...

Of course who can forget the ground glider made by aluminium alloy.

Then there are all the funny RC stories like when my semi-expensive, gutless (before the upgrades) GWS Zero collided with DJs ElectraFun crippling the Zero but leaving the EF flying with no problems despite a huge gash in it's wings (it's always the beautiful who suffer most between the ruggedness of ugly planes and killer electric helis).

Ground Dancer ran his HobbyZone Super Cub into an electric light pole, and still pulled of a landing even with the wings offset at 30 degrees.

The madness of the indoor night as a ten brave people demonstrated the concentration to focus on only their model knowing that at any moment a plane may collect them from the side as circuits were flown in the tightest imaginable space. This unwritten contract of grim determination only broken by the fits of laugher and cursing as planes went in - one guy's StevenAero diddle rod only had one wheel left making every landing a crash landing - watching the little thing settle in to line up - knowing that a good outcome was never going to happen.

So much fun..., so - do me a favour - keep the spirit going and post your own funny RC stories, things you've seen etc as comments.

Share the spirit.
Oz.

Part 3 - Planning Your First Flight

Learning to Fly Part 3 - Planning Your First Flight

Prerequisites: Have plane, have practiced on simulator and can take off, fly circuit and land most of the time.
Objectives: Identify where you are going to fly, Watch the Weather, More Simulator Exercises.

Choosing The Right Venue

Model planes take a lot of space to fly, and beginners need a little more space again. If you are using any of the three planes identified you need to plan to have an area at least as large as a cricket field (US Visitors - cricket is a strange game played by most of the former British Empire - this explanation might {not} help) for your first flight, ideally completely free from any obstructions (making an actual cricket field a reasonably appealing space). If you don't actually know how large a cricket field is allowing for the run off area you probably want a space at least 80-100 metres square on either side (90-110 yards).

As you are travelling about in your day to day life keep an eye out for such a space. Ideally it will be reasonably flat, you don't want anywhere that is tightly surrounded by people's houses if you can avoid it. Apart from an actual cricket field and other sports ovals there are all sorts of other spaces (Farm paddocks {make sure you get permission from the owner}, parkland, etc. You probably want to avoid anywhere that has a significant amount of water (definitely not the beach), and as I mentioned, best if your space isn't infested by trees.

Why is so much space necessary? On your first flight the odds that adrenaline and a little bit of panic are going to kick in are reasonably high. You need enough time (space) for that to happen, you to realise you still have control of a plane, and correct. You need enough space to start turning in the wrong direction, realise your mistake and turn it back the other way. The Electrafun XP, at cruising speed, will cover 50 metres in 5-6 seconds. That is not long for you to have to make a decision on your first flight about which way to turn. And (this is a really important point) unlike a car, you can't just stop. Your plane needs continual control whilst in the air. Whilst you can take a moment or two to figure out what is going on, you can't just stop and reassess the situation - so, do yourself a favour and find a field big enough.

Picking the Right Weather

For your first flight you want to have zero, or as close to zero wind as possible. Getting this can be tricky and frustrating.

Generally the lowest times for wind will be either early in the morning, or late in the day before sunset. Keep an eye out and figure out which of these is the quietest where you live. The tips and leaves of trees will give you your easiest indication of wind when you aren't actually in it (like if you are in the car).

If you can't find a zero wind day then how much wind could you attempt to fly in. A lot will depend on how much simulator time you have done, and which aircraft you have. The Electrafun XP is very suseptible to breeze and so it really does require light wind conditions. The Supercub is a little more stable in slightly heavier breezes.

For the Electrafun XP you wouldn't want the wind to be more than a slow walking pace (0-3kmph/0-2mph). For the Supercub, for your first flight maybe a briskish walk (0-6kmph/0-4mph). However - no wind is best.

How do you figure out how fast the wind is - attach some ribbon to your trasmitter aerial and walk somewhere where the air is still. Note how much the ribbon deflects from the vertical for a slow walk and brisk walk.

Other things
Try and make sure you aren't going to be distracted while flying - if you are one of the unfortunate people that needs to carry a mobile for work in your own time then either pick a period when you aren't on call, or just make a mental note before the flight that if the phone rings you let it go to voicemail and check it after you land (yes - I've seen a beginner, ont he first flight no less, try and answer their mobile while flying).

If you've got someone experienced who can give you a hand think about whether you would like them to or not. If you would try and tee up a time that suits them.

Simulator Exercises

Given you are going to have to land your plane for real shortly I though I might run through how to land again, and then you can take this stuff and practice on the simulator.

For your first flight I am going to suggest a dead stick (no power) landing. There are lots of reasons that dead stick landings are good, and with these trainer aircraft they are usually reasonably easy to achieve because these trainer have nice low wing loadings meaning they glide quite well. Probably the most important benefit to a dead stick landing as a beginner is having one less control to think about.

This diagram will hopefully explain how a deadstick landing is done. The distances are approximate, and may not work for all trainer aircraft depending on their flying speed etc, but they should be good estimates. If you don't work with metres much you can just substitute yards directly - close enough for this exercise.



The critical thing for a dead stick landing is that you must dive below the glide angle so that you have airspeed to flare at the bottom of the dive. Most planes glide angle is steep enough that the aircraft will actually be damaged if it hits the ground at that speed and rate of descent (although honestly - your trainers are so tough they will take it but no reason not to try and get it right from the start).

So, give that a go and see how smooth you can make your landings in the simulator.

One more simulator exercise for you. Try flying with a little bit of wind. For FMS just put in 1 m/s winds with no gusts. Just try this for a while. It will be a good chance for you to get used to real flying where the model cannot be relied upon to react perfectly to your instructions because of other factors.

Next Part - yes - your first flight. Thanks for sticking with me so far.

Back to Learning to Fly

Back to Main

Firefox Down

After a few days of pushing our luck with the wind my Killerbee had a pretty serious impact yesterday. As best I can tell there was no pilot error excepting being too close to the ground in such windy conditions.

Given that she went in at almost full speed I am absolutely astonished by how little damage occurred. Let me describe the situation as best I can. I had her on her level about 5 metres from the ground at Wide Open Throttle. A wind gust tipped her up on her left side. I pushed back to the right to correct (I've thought this over a few times - I'm absolutely certain I gave the correct input). However, rather than correct she turned through 90 degrees so her nose was pointed ag the ground and went in. I closed the throttle just before impact, but she basically went in at full tilt. I know it isn't me that put her in because no control input because no input on an elevon aircraft can make it rotate along it's vertical axis (which is exactly what happened). Anyway, that's what I think happened.

When she hit there was so much energy that debris (like my 4s LiPo) flew about 1.5 metres into the air and scattered out in a small pattern around the plane. All that being said, the damage is very light. The EPP wing core is undamaged. The control surfaces are undamaged. Servos seem fine, engine seems ok (have only tested under no load at the moment), the LiPo took a charge and seems OK. The main damage was to the canopy and engine mount. The motor ripped the cable ties that mount it, and the battery bashed its way through the polyeurothane canopy. This is one tough bird.

The scaring you see on the engine case is just where the heatsink separated (a small amount of CA held it in place)

Now the only question for me is whether I just get her back in the air as is (which should be reasonably straight forward), or whether I take the opportunity to mod the elebee for better and greater things. One idea is to cut away about 4 inches from each wing tip to reduce drag - she wont glide as well, but she will be faster under power. Not sure. With the RV4 out of action due to battery issues I am a bit short on servicable aircraft at the moment (although the TigerMoth seems to have arrived back in action just in time).

Speaking of the TigerMoth I had some more fun with her yesterday and have figured out how to get some enjoyment out of this plane. Get her to about 50 meters, and then just give random control inputs and watch the crazy stuff she does. Anyway, no flying today unless the wind buggers of, so I'd better get some mundane domestic stuff done.

Learning to Fly Part 2 - Before your first flight

Learning to Fly Part 2 - Before your first flight

Prerequisites: Ideally done at least one hour simulator time with one of the trainer models. In simulator can take off, turn with coordinated elevator to maintain altitude.
Objectives: Establish budget, purchase plane, prepare plane for first flight, new simulator exercises, exercises for people who don't have a flight simulator (because they don't have a PC perhaps).

Don't forget, if a term confuses you check it out in the glossary. If it isn't in there, please email me at 0zrcboy@gmail.com, or leave a comment, and I will make sure it gets put in.

Establish budget

Before you begin looking at planes you should have a budget in mind. You probably want a budget of somewhere between $150 and $250 (Assuming you are Australian and these are AUD - if you are from overseas you need to figure out local prices). If you are looking at buying a sub $100 plane, unless it is second hand, chances are your plane will not have enough performance, or be robust enough for you to learn to fly.

Unfortunately, although quite a bit cheaper than it once was, RC flying is still a somewhat expensive past time. In many ways, if you can't find that much money you might be better of waiting until you can, or looking at other hobbies. Also, if friends have found and referred you to cheaper trainer planes then consider them - I've presented info on planes I know, and I think that sub $100 you are not going to get anything new that does the job.

It is better to save for 3 months for a plane that flys, than 6 weeks for the wrong plane that crashes and disintegrates on its first flight.

If you buy a good robust trainer your ongoing budget should not need to be that much. You might need to replace a couple of parts, but these should have modest cost.

Plane Selection

Hopefully you haven't already bought the aircraft, or if you have, you have bought a beginner's aircraft. If you have a 4 channel warbird then in my opinion, that bird needs to sit on the shelf for a couple of months while you skill up on a trainer. You will fly your warbird someday, but not for a little while yet (unless you want a twisted pile of busted foam/balsa).

These are the characteristics you want in your trainer:

• Three channel controllable (even if it is upgradeable to four channel)
• Docile
• Robust (can take some bumps and bruises)
• Self correcting (has dihydral on the wings - the up angle of the wings from the fuselage)

There are three trainers I'm going to talk about below, but there are many others. Of the three below two I have direct experience with, and know are readily available in Australia. The third is so widely recommended that I'm sure it is a good plane based on reports. The planes are the Electrafun XP, The Hobbyzone Supercub and the Multiplex Easystar.

Electrafun XP

The Electrafun XP is a 3 channel pusher prop trainer that comes with everything you need to start flying. It's main strengths are its price (it is about as cheap as you get for an all in package), its performance (which is quite decent from the base package), robustness and availability of spares.

Its weak point is the build quality (which can be a bit random from kit to kit).

Depending on where you buy it this plane will cost you around $130-$150. It is stable and solid in flight, and provided she is correctly trimmed will prove to be a good trainer. Parts are widely and cheaply available - for example a new main wing will only set you back about $12.

The plane has a surprisingly good flight envelope, and it will take quite a while before you are bored of it. The one downside is that it is not a pretty plane.

If you check the sidebar on the right you'll see plenty of notes about Electrafun XP, and how to prepare it etc. This for those that are interested is the plane I learnt to fly on.

For the FMS simulator program I use the Vortex Extreme model which performs somewhat like the Electrafun. You can download the model from the fms downloads page.

Hobbyzone Supercub

The Hobbyzone Supercub is another all in one package like the Electrafun XP. It is a little more expensive (around $200-$230), but its strengths are its scale looks (it looks like a real plane) and quality of manufacture. Like the Electrafun XP it is also robust, and has a docile flight envelope. In terms of robustness the Electrafun XP probably still has the edge slightly by having the pusher prop. One small gripe about the Supercub is the avionics (flight electronics) that come with the plane. They are non standard and so can only be replaced by other hobbyzone parts. If you want to upgrade the supercub to a normal transmitter later you will need to upgrade the servos, and speed controller at the same time.

The supercub's non standard transmitter is a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the custom transmitter means the pilot doesn't have the opportunity to make mistakes about which control stick to use turn the plane, as only one of the two sticks moves left right. On the other hand, with the slider throttle amongst other things means the controls are not teaching the pilot all the things they need to know for the next plane. On balance the transmitter is probably a positive overall for begining pilots. It is just a shame it is not easier to switch to a proper trasnmitter later.

In the FMS Simulator program I've created a modified "lite cub" which flys much like the Hobbyzone Cub. You can get that model from the FMS Downloads page.

Multiplex Easystar

Unlike the other planes discussed above the Easystar is not an all in one kit. Instead it is just an airframe, which you need to add other components (like an engine, receiver, servos, batteries and transmitters) to for a complete flying package.

Its price of around $90 seems very reasonable except that the avionics are normally the most expensive part of any aircraft, and a complete easystar (without a transmitter) would be unlikely to come in at less than $170, with a good transmitter adding anywhere between $150-300+ dollars.

Why would you spend so much? One of the problems of the all in one packages is that the electronics used are not usually of high quality, and cannot be safely moved to other models. This will mean, for example, that you will end up flying your second plane with a different transmitter to the first plane.

Buying something like an easystar from the outset will mean that rather than spending some amount of your complete package on a radio that you wont use after your first model, you can put that money towards getting a good radio to start with. This is a bit of a risk. You might decide flying is not for you, in which case you will have spent more than you needed. However, if you decide to stick with the hobby the more expensive radio will have saved you money on your next plane.

I don't know much about the easystar in particular as I haven't flown it, but I imagine its flight characteristics are quite similar to the Electrafun XP although it seems to have a lower wing loading (see the glossary if you don't know what that means) which means it can glide further and maintain level flight at lower speeds. It certainly has a very good reputation as a trainer, and there is pleny of information on the web about it.

On the FMS Downloads page use the Multiplex Easystar model for FMS.

Other Beginner/Trainer Planes

There are quite a few others in this category including Aerobirds and the like. Be very cautious of so called trainers from places like ebay. They normally aren't, and those guys will say anything to move product.

Not Training Planes

Here's a few planes I've heard people try to fly as trainers which are definitely not that:

• Any low wing warbird (in fact pretty much any low wing aircraft all together) including the Parkzone Mustang, FW-190 and Spitfire - these are not beginner's planes.
• Accipter Badius - this is a great plane, but an aerobat not suitable for beginners.
• Extrafun - not an Electrafun, an Extrafun - these are midwing aerobats as well, and definitely not for beginners.
• Parkzone Stryker - although some people eventually learn on this they usually have a pretty mangled aircraft, and to be honest they very rarely have good habits - deltas are both tricky and easy to fly for different reasons.
  

I sometimes wonder why people end up with unsuitable planes. Sometimes unscrupulous hobby shop owners are blamed, but I'm not sure that is the problem, at least not most of the time. One thing I have seen happen is that the beginner, in a rush of enthusiam, rejects the advice from the salesperson for a more sedate, appropriate training model and insists (sometimes without realising it) on looking at aircraft beyond their capabilities.

So, if you go to the shop make sure you listen to what the salesperson trys to tell you. If you get this training right then one day you will fly that warbird/parkjet, safely, for many many enjoyable flights. But if you take her home as your first plane the odds of not destroying her in the first 5 flights would have to be about 100 to 1. Nuff said about that I spose.

Preparing for your first flight

So you get home from the shop with the model, put the batteries on to charge, assemble the model, and get ready to head to the oval to fly her - after all the salesperson said you would be flying in 50 minutes. What they didn't mention was that without the right preparation you will be crashing in about 50 minutes and 12 seconds.

Before you fly your new model there are two very important things to do, particularly if you are trying to fly solo.

1. Get your plane correctly trimmed and prepped for its first flight.
2. Get some practice on the simulator.

Getting the Plan Trimmed and Prepped for Its First Flight

After you've followed the assembly instructions that come with the plane, and setup your control linkages (the rods that connect the servos to the rudder/elevator etc) you also need to decide where to connect the linkage to the control horn (glossary). Generally you want the least sensitive position, which means the hole furthest from the control surface. If you've done a lot of simulator practice, and have some finesse about how much control input you give (so it's not always full rudder for example) then maybe you can choose the middle hole for the control horn.

There are two parts to trimming - the first is where you trim the control surfaces on the ground by lining the control surface up with either the horizontal or vertical stabilizer (so elevator with the former, rudder with the latter), so that it is parrallel. This is called trimming by eye.

To trim by eye we need to turn on the transmitter (TX), make sure the throttle closed, put the charged battery into the model, and then look at the position where the control surfaces come to rest (they will jump to a position when power is applied). By the way, always make sure your TX is on when the plane is connected to its battery. Using the trim tabs adjust the control surface using the TX until it is parrallel with it stabilizer. It must be exactly parrallel. A difference of even three millimetres will make your plane turn and be very difficult to control in flight.

This first photo on the right (sorry for the bluriness - pushing the abilities of my cheapie digital camera) is an out of trim rudder from my Electrafun XP. Although the image is not sharp you can clearly see that the rudder is slightly to the left of the vertical stabilizer. If a beginner tried to fly this plane it would, from the hand launch veer to the left until such time as a corection was made, or more likely it crashed. If a beginner was flying chances they would over correct, possibly leading to a crash going the opposite direction. I'm not trying to be down on beginners by any means. I was there myself and I remeber pretty clearly what I was and wasn't capable of dealing with.

Okay. The second photo on the right shows a correctly trimmed by eye rudder. The rudder is parrallel to the control surface. Although this plane may still need some trimming in the air you've given it the best possible chance of flying straight and true from the hand launch.

If you find that you cannot trim the surface to "neutral" (parrallel with the stabilizer) using the trim tabs (after maximum throw in one direction the surface still isn't neutral) then you need to mechanically adjust the trim (yes unplug the battery from the model, turn of your TX etc). How this is done will depend on the model. If you have an Electrafun XP these notes might help. If you have a Supercub or other model that uses threaded rods you will need to rotate the control horn connector until the right distances is achieved.

In an ideal world, your control surface will trim correctly somewhere reasonably close to the middle position for the trim tab on your TX. If your surface is trimmed by eye at a maximum extreme then you should make a mechanical adjustment to bring the trim tab position back closer to the middle of the range on the transmitter. This is because once we have the plane in the air we also need to "trim in flight". Trimming by eye will hopefully stop the model from spirallling out of control on the first launch/takeoff, but until we fly her we wont find out about the more subtle trimming we will need to keep her flying straight and level without input. If when you fly her you cannot trim her, because you can't go any further in that direction, you will have the unenjoyable experience of flying an out of trim aircraft. This is difficult and annoying for experienced pilots. For a complete beginner the chance of disaster is very high.

So, do your best to trim you plane by eye and then if possible take it back to where you bought it (if you bought it locally). A good hobby shop will happily look over your model once you have tried to trim it and give you advice on what is right and wrong - in fact they will probably be glad that you have bought it back to them for their opinion .

If you didn't buy it locally there might still be people that can help you. Check the Internet RCUniverse and RCgroups forums. You might even find another parkflyer in you local area. If y0u are an Aussie there is a great forum on RCuniverse with Australian parkflyers.

There are often other steps to preaparing your plane. On Electrafun XPs it is often a good idea to put some tape on the wings which will save you the cost of many wing replacements. I have some notes on this and other things for the Electrafun XP. Supercubs benefit from a layer to tape to protect the leading wing tips and the leading edge of the aircraft. Just lay a long piece of clear packing tape (fiberglass laced tape is better if you can get it) lengthways along the leading edge, centred over the edge and just fold it over the top and bottom of the wing to make it flush with the wing. For other planes, check the Internet etc for info - rcuniverse, rcgroups and wattflyer are all good forums (put those words into google).

To save yourself money it is best if you do these strengthening preparations before your first flight. If your plan is fly once, then do the preps you are ignoring the fact that your first flight is likely to be one of the hardest on your aircraft.
Undercarriage

The undercarriage on the cub is good and worth using. The undercarriage for the Electrafun XP isn't worth the trouble (it is worth playing with when you have some more experience perhaps) and I don't actualy know about the Easystar but I don't think it has undercarriage.

Simulator Exercises

Now that you have chosen your trainer it is time to start practicing with that particular plane only in a simulator. If you are using FMS, and have one of the planes I've talked about above then one of the models on my FMS downloads page should be a reasonably close match. If one or the other of these isn't true then you will need to find your own model close to yours.

Now that you have a plane make sure your actual control layout is the same as your model in the simulator.

Okay, here are some exercises:

Takeoff, Fly at least 10 Figure 8s, setup approach, land: Flying figure 8s is a little more challenging than flying a four cornered box because you turn a different direction at each corner. This will start to test your orientation skills. So, figure eight circuit is away from you, turn slowly right, towards you, turn slowly left, repeat. Reverse the directions and just see if your orientation holds out for the whole flight.

While you are flying try coordinating the elevator to make the plane turn faster, and maintain altitude through the corner. If you are still losing altitude in corners, then make sure you use the straight sections of the circuit to restore the same altitude.

Intentional stall turns: Stall turns are what happens when an aircraft with high dyhedrayl (the up angle in the wings) is given rudder inputs that take it past the point where it's wings are almost perpendicular (at right angles) to the ground. If you get an orientation loss this is possibly what will happen to you, where you continue to turn the plane the wrong direction. Eventually what will happen is the plane will stall, and rapidly lose altitude until it restores enough airspeed and recovers (providing it doesn't meet the ground first). Practice a few intentional stall turns with some altitude. Just feed in rudder until the plane falls out of the sky. Use some up elevator to restore level flight.

Throttle Control: Up til now you may have just been flying with full throttle all the time. Try something else now. As you are flying your figure 8s see what the minimum throttle you need to keep the aircraft airborne and flying comfortably is. You may notice you need to use the elevator to keep the plane level, but that their is more than enough airspeed to fly. As a plane flys faster it will generate more lift, slower less lift. This means that when the elevator is trimmed for level flight it is actually trimmed for level flight at a particular throttle position.

Landings: Now that you know which model you are trying to fly with it is time to put in lots of landing practice. For your first flight we are going to do a power off landing. So get your approach setup (about 10 metres off the ground and about 40 metres away) and close the throttle.

Now, here comes the hard part because it is counterinutuitive and doesn't feel right. Dive the aircraft - just slightly, just below its natural glide curve. Here we are attempting to build up enough airspeed so that we can flare properly just above the ground. When you are about 1 foot of the ground use very slight up elevator to make the aircraft fly parrallel the ground. Eventually the airspeed will drop to just above stall point (at which stage there wont be enough lift to hold her up, and she will gently settle onto the ground).

If you don't dive there are a few things that can happen, and none of them are particularly good, and unfortunately FMS probably wont actually teach you about any of them (there are limits to the simulator). Here's a summary of some of the stuff that goes wrong:

Electrafun XP - as you just let your plane glide in you will lose so much airspeed that it no longer responds to controls. The plane may start to roll in one direction or the other, and no amount of rudder will do a thing about it. The EF has quite small control surfaces and needs reasonable airspeed to respond to controls. Also, the plane will probably fly further than you expected, overshoot the landing area and typically end up in the one tree on the whole field.

Super Cub - If you just let the super cub glide in it will hit the ground hard, nose over, possibly bust a prop and the cowling. However, there is a fair chance it will be okay as well.

Easystar - from what I've seen behaves a bit like an Electrafun - starts to porpoise (stall recover, stall recover) and gets a bit thingy about responding to controls.

So - here is the point - powered aircraft cannot land at glide speed - you need to dive (just slighly) below the glide curve so that you have enough airspeed to flare, and settle the plane.

So get plenty of practice trying to land your plane. Fourty metres out, ten metres up, cut throttle, slight down elevator for airspeed, and then just slightly flare at about 1 foot. Hold the plane parrallel to the runway until it settles.

Okay - one more exercise for simulator landings. As you are typically landing towards yourself you are in a prime position for an orientation error with the aircraft close the ground (the worst of times). We need to spend some time practicing this as a slight breeze, or a change in the trim of your aircraft at different airspeeds may mean it doesn't land entirely straight.

So, setup a landing as normal. At about 5 metres altitude close your eyes and give a quick jab full left, full right, full left rudder input. Open your eyes, and either recover and land, or power up and go around for another approach. Try this a few times - you need to push one way, opposite and back the same way to disorient your brain, otherwise it will remember what you last did and correct by doing the opposite. By varying the jab time just slightly you should be able to well and trully mess it up, and force it to figure out how to correct the aircraft (remember - think of yourself in the pilots seat).

I Don't Have A Computer - What Do I Do? Okay - if you don't have a computer obviously you can't spend much time on the simulator. Now that you have your plane you need to spend some time learning the associations I spoke about in Part 1.

Turn on your TX, close the throttle, connect the battery to your model and sit inside, behind the plane looking at its tail and working the controls. Watch the controls, how they respond. Practice giving small inputs, smooth large inputs etc.

Once you think you've got this right, if you can get someone to "drill" you. Setup as before, and get the person to call out things they want the plane to do ("Pull Up", "Nose Down", "Turn Right", "Turn Left"). You give a smooth but decisive input to the controller, hold it, check that you made the correct choice, and then ask the person to call out the next one.

If you have that working well then turn the plane so it is facing you. Now have your helper call out either "Pull Up", "Nose Down", "Plane's Left", "Plane's Right", "Your Left" or "Your Right". Now you will need to do the transposition on the fly. Once again, make a smooth decisive control input as soon as you can, hold it, and check that you made the right decision.

Once you've done this thank your helper and let them get back to whatever they were doing. Now you want to try practicing some coordinated turns. Give moderate rudder and a little elevator. Try this in both directions. You wont know exactly how much you need of each until you fly, but learning to coordinate this manuveur will help you.

Finally, with the battery in the plane unplugged and your TX off, spend some time playing with the throttle, just getting a sense for how it feels. Without looking at the controller you need to be able to set the following throttle positions easily: Closed Throttle, Quarter Throtte, Half Throttle, Three Quarter Throttle, Full Throttle.

Like most mental things once you have it you need to practice to reinforce it. Your first session of doing these exercises may take 30 minutes or maybe more. Come back to it half a day later and run through the same thing (probably only taking 5 minutes this time), and then practice it the next day for 5 minutes. By now you've made a good start on getting these associations built. If you have time, keep on practicing before your first flight.

Next Part

The next part will be a short one (I promise - about planning your first flight - you will get there! Stick with me).

Back to Learning to Fly

Back to Main

FMS Downloads

Here are some FMS Downloads I'm hosting locally just in case they dissapear from the wide open Internet.

If you are the owner of any of these files, and are not happy with me hosting them please contact me (ozrcboy@gmail.com) and I will remove them immediatelly:

The main software:

FMS Software version Alpha 8.5

Training Models:

Litecub - I've modified this electric powered cub so it flys like a hobbyzone super cub. (Here's another supercub I found - I haven't played with it, but you might find it a better approximation than they one I have hacked together.)
Vortex Extreme - Flys a bit like an Electrafun XP.
Easystar - Flys like, well, an Easystar.

Aileron Trainers and "Others":

Cessna 182 - This is probably a reasonable match for an estarter and minimag although it does have a different undercarriage configuration to the estarter.
Tigermoth 400 - Probably a bit too much dihedral (self correction) on this model, but otherwise is a good approximation of the GWS 400 Tigermoth on 2s power.
ST1 - low wing easy flying. An easy introduction into low wings, but if you are going to get a low wing make sure you fly the "advanced" below.
Formosa - A foam aerobat that isn't really a great approximation of any of the planes, but it is one worth having a play with, particularly if you are thinking of one of something like the Extrafun.
Stryker - This model is much faster than a real Stryker C, but I'm not too fussed about the extra speed. It handles much more like the real thing than the Stryker b FMS models you might find.
ST1-Advanced - Although it looks like the ST1 above this plane behaves quite differently. It has a lot less dihedral, it has less power and higher control throws. As configured it is a reasonable approximation of a GWS Zero on 2s power with medium throws. People contemplating the Extrafun will also get some value out of practicing with this model.

Training Aids:

A "Transmitter" style controller that you can plug into your PC such as this can be handy. You can order one here, or similar things can normally be found on ebay.

If you already have a playstation style controller (two analog sticks that you can operate with each thumb) for your PC this can also be used, at least when you are first learning and the important thing is building that mental pathway.

The main FMS homepage is a good starting place for other models etc.

Other Models

Looking for other FMS Models - two great places to start are:

Gary Gunnerson's models - some of the models on this page are either his, or derived from his.
Kimagure Hikoki - although all done for Beta 7 of FMS there are still some great models here, and great info on how to edit par files (that define how a model flys in FMS).

Learning to Fly - the beginner's guide

Introduction

Over a series of articles I'm going to attempt to write information designed to help those people who want to try and teach themselves how to fly RC.

If a term in here confuses you then see whether I have it listed in the glossary.

The Course

The Christmas Morning 30 Minute Special Learning to Fly "Course" - 30 minutes worth of extra stuff that might, just might, stop your first flight from being a disaster. Not really part of the course.

Part 1 - Before your first plane
Part 2 - Before your first flight
Part 3 - Planning Your First Flight
Part 4 - Your First Flight
Part 5 - Your Next Few Flights
Part 6 - Starting to Get the Hang of This
Part 7 - Getting Down to Business
Part 8 - Now you are really flying!
Part 9 - The Possiblity of Flight.
Part 10 - Silver Wings

When you are finished the course head over to tip and tricks for more useful stuff.

Rotary Wing

This isn't really a course like the last one, just my notes of stuff I've found useful as I've learnt to fly my RC Heli.

Start by looking at and doing the course at Radd's School of Rotary Flight.

Then:

Part 1 - Hovering in Ground Effect

Maiden Tips

You are planning to maiden your new pride and joy - what do you need to know/do to maximise your chances of success?

I've put together a list of things I think are important. It's not exactly aimed at the complete beginner, perhaps the beginner on their second plane through to whatever. I'm still writing up a series of articles for beginners first flight etc but that is still a work in progress.

Here's my list - you might find it useful:

• CoG as far forward as recommended (or further if you get info on the net to suggest that).
• Control throws measured and deflect the recommended amount. If you have a computer radio mix in some exponential (say 30% as starting figure) to make the aircraft more docile on small stick movements.
• All control surfaces trimmed by eye, and enough throw left in trim settings to trim further in either direction once in flight.
• Make sure control surfaces deflect in correct direction - double check each of the following carefully:
• Aileron: push stick right, right aileron comes up, left aileron goes down - stick pushed to the left, left aileron comes up, right aileron goes down.
• Elevator: pull back (push stick down), elevator comes up. Push up (push stick up) elevator goes down.
• Rudder: push stick right, rudder moves to the right - push stick left, rudder moves to the left.
  
• Before takeoff remind yourself where the trim tabs for all controls are on your radio.
• Try to plan your takeoff so you don't need to do anything but climb until you reach 50 metres altitude (rolling takeoff is best if it can be done).
• Don't try and trim the aircraft until you reach 50 metres - instead compensate for lack of trim with stick inputs.
• Establish a cruising speed at 50 metres (the speed where the aircraft is comfortably in the air, capable of maintaining altitude in level flight easily) and trim your aircraft.
• Once trimmed you now have the remaining duration of the battery to figure out how to land her.
• At altitude intentionally stall her a few times to figure out the stall speed and whether there are any bad tendencies when stalling.
• At altitude figure out what throttle setting will give you that slight downward dive with constant speed for your landing approach.
• At altitude close the throttle and figure out what her glide curve is like.
• If you are confident you still have battery left throw in a loop (you gotta have some fun right - this will also help you trim your rudder), victory roll and whatever other aerobatics you feel brave enough to try.
• While you still have plenty of battery left start your landing attempts. Be ready to wave off two or three while you figure out the correct approach speed, angle, flare point etc.

Don't forget your normal takeoff checklist as well.

If you can think of other things that should be on this list please let me know by posting a comment, or emailing me ozrcboy@gmail.com

Good Luck!

She Flies Again

There is something quite satisfying about re-maidening a damaged plane. Such is what I did this morning with my GWS TigerMoth 400. After an almost career ending crash I always planned to get the Moth back in the air but never knew whether it would actually happen.

One of the big problems was replacing the cowling. I was planning to use a coke bottle top, but attrition on another TigerMoth a couple of weeks ago left its former owner asking if anyone wanted spares. I jumped in and grabbed the cowling, and another mate's brushless upgrade on his TM meant a gearbox with correct ratio came my way.

So, two flights with the TM today from the hardtop at Kambah - both flights went well enough, although my TM is such a twisted horrid monstrosity of foam, hot glue and epoxy that it was kind of hard to trim. Two landings with no snappy undercarriage - certainly the bitumen helped there I imagine.

Must admit the TM was a bit boring to fly, but there was a sense of satisfaction with how easily I flew her. Oh well, maybe I can chase DJ's next time.

Some touch and goes with the Zero and RV4 as well today, and met a new potential park flyer. Am getting the bitumen approach about right on the Zero now, although I undershot slightly on one, the wheels clipping the grass verge about 2 feet from the asphalt, leading to the inevitable nose over (but the only nose over of the day).

The weather yesterday put a dampner on my 6 days in a row flying, but apart from fog (that I almost lost all planes in this morning) it was still and beautifully calm.

The engrish strength in this one has integral

Sometimes you find stuff on the web that you know you just have to preserve otherwise it might slip quietly into the night and never be seen again. Take this description of a flying scale model of a US unmanned predator drone...

The RQ-1L Airplane is designed on the American actual pilotless plane, full emulation base on the scale, having the characteristic of perfect performance and easy assemble. The main wing are adopted the new multiple material technique, contain the carbon fire inside. Obtain the characteristic of high intensity, less weight and resistance. The kit has the quick crawl speed and wonderful function of glider. Especially the landing gear, which was made by aluminum alloy, the front wheel can go around with the elevator and was built the system of cushion. Easily to operate and glider on the ground, so RQ-1L is worthy of the world famous plane.

You can buy the product if you just feel you can't live without a ground glider with a quick crawl speed... 8-)

Happy flying everyone.

What goes up

Just a bit of an update on recent flying activity. At the moment am just past halfway in what can only be described as a flying binge which started for me on Thursday morning, with flying everyday til now (Sunday), with flying planned for tomorrow (public holiday in Canberra) and Tuesday.

Been a while since I did a general purpose post so here is some of the stuff that has been going on.

About a week ago DJ coaxed his wife out to the field to get some happy snaps of us flying with a reasonably serious camera (which has done a much better job of capturing planes than I have). Of course, those of you that have read the Immutable Laws of Model Aviation know that when a third party observes models like this all sorts of bad stuff is bound to happen, and unfortunately this day was no exception. The casulaties were pretty light considering what could have been, but certainly the most spectacular was an accident involving DJ's almost virgin SBRC Spitfire.

You'll need to click on this photo at the right to see what has happened. Yes, that green blob in the middle of the tree is DJ's spitfire and no this shot was not manufactured. His wife was tracking the plane, pressed the shutter and this is the shot she got.

Unfortunately it was still doing about 60-70km/hr at this stage, and she didn't pass through the tree cleanly. A branch jumped out and stripped her of the one thing a plane needs the most to stay in the air - her wing, and the fuselage lawn darted into the ground (like there is much hope at that stage).

Crashing your models is no fun at any time. DJ was just starting to get the hang of this girl in the air, but just strayed too close to one of those evil trees.

Whilst far from destroyed the damage to the model was pretty extensive. The fuselage was snapped through at a strong point (but would glue back up with epoxy). The worst damage was to his Align brushless motor which was irrepairably damaged.

Needless to say that did put a bit of dampner on the day, but some good flying was still done, and a number of great photos were taken. We even got in some Delta "combat" - just chasing each other a bit. The moon got in on the action in this shot as well.

K (DJ's wife) also got a great shot of the Zero flying, and some video footage of the Tucano flying, which I might try and splice into another video if I get the chance.

Speaking of the Tucano I went very close to losing her that day. She had two massive glitches on approach for landing (meaning she was closer to the ground than normal). On both occasions I thought I had lost her, but kept on fighting, and just kept her in the air and got her down safely. She hasn't flown since as I haven't been able to isolate the cause, although I am pretty suspicious about a batch of MKS crystals that I am using. I'll try and post some video of the near miss, although the plane is a bit far away from the camera for good footage unfortunately.

K also caught a couple of good shots of the Zero including this one with her getting ready for a straffing run on the camera position.

The Friday just gone Ground Dancer (his choice for a handle - I don't actually know what it means and must ask him), DJ and I threw caution to the wind (and rain it would seem) by flying our models in unfavourable conditions.

I was impressed at how well GD's super cub handled the wind. He runs her with an 11.1v LiPo, and tends to fly her about on 1/2 throttle a whole lot of the time, but has enough punch to get out of trouble in the wind. Of course the Zero and the spitfire both love the wind and flew just fine in the conditions. However, DJ had a bit of a blonde moment with the spitfire and unfortunately stalled a wingtip close to the ground. The wing retaining mount snapped away (as its designed to) but with no glue to repair at the field that was it for the spitfire for the day.

We got some delta flying in when the rain cleared - the elebee can't fly in any rain - her canopy top is cut open in too many places to facilitate airflow.

Saturday was the usual flying at Lyneham, with some unhappy endings for a couple of beginners. At least one had an aircraft that wasn't really appropriate. If you are thinking of buying your first plane remember ease of flying and robustness is more important than looks (besides which, a Hobbyzone Super Cub is a great looking scale model). If you start with a warbird or mid-wing the odds are really high that it will end in tears.

The Zero had a hardish (harder than normal) nose over on Saturday which busted the plywood firewall away from the fuselage - bit of epoxy courtesy of GD saw her back in the air in about 15 minutes.

So, that brings us to Sunday morning which I am just back from. No DJ today, and no Super Cub for GD - he started a brushless conversion overnight (because he has been meaning to for a little while, and because his 480 brushed was starting to get a bit second hand). Unfortunately the project wasn't finished before takeoff time today, so he only had his Stryker and Mini Dragon Fly Helicopter. On launching his Stryker glitch park (our new name for Kambah) struck again, and his Stryker went in at pretty high speed with the nose getting all busted up.

I put in a few solid landings with the Zero on the bitumen, but ended with a nose over (grr) - they really take all your concentration to land and get right, but I think once you can land a warbird you can land just about anything.

The RV4 had a few decent flights and landings, but I am getting some issue where the battery doesn't seem to want to take a full charge. For example, she just finished charging now, and only took 900mAh (1500mAh C) but I got low power cut outs with the RV4 on her last flight today. Maybe the battery is just getting a bit old, but it has only done 60 cycles or so.

Now, lastly - I'm currently putting together some articles designed to help a complete novice get started. They will come in parts, and I'll need to link them all through one central page, but should work out okay I think. Watch this space if you are intrested.

The Immutable Laws of Model Aviation

The immutable laws of Model Aviation according to Ozrcboy. Breaking any of these rules leaves your plane without the protection of the patron saint of model aircraft St Airhart.

1. Always take a photo of your new plane before it maidens. If you don't, chances are you wont after.
2. Always take a least two planes to the field. If you don't have two planes, make sure you take spare props for your one plane.
3. Your runway will be around 10 metres too short when it comes to landing.
   
4. The one time you don't check your TX range will be the one time your battery was low.
5. Any damage once noticed needs to be repaired. St Airhart may protect your plane until you notice the damage, but after that your plane flys without her protection.
6. Low level high speed passes cause glitches.
7. When you lose orientation on your plane close to the ground, it will always be doing the opposite of what you expect.
8. Planes aren't attracted to trees. Trees are actually ambush predators giving the impression of being stationary (the Electrafun on the right had a narrow escape).
9. Land your aircraft when your battery gets low, otherwise St Airhart will punish you for being greedy by cutting power over water, tree tops, or other surfaces not well suited to landing.
10. Landing is one of the most difficult things you have to do, but you have to do it from the very first time you fly your plane.
    
11. When a plane gets stuck in a tree there are only two possible outcomes. Either the tree traps the plane in high branches to eat later, or if it prefers balsa over foam etc it will spit it out towards the ground. This will attract more model fliers and hopefully more yummy aircraft.
12. Any model aircraft under observation is not protected by St Airhart leading to this:
13. St Airhart hates overconfidence. Overconfident pilots are punished by having her protection withdrawn from their aircraft - normally mid crazy manuveur.
14. When the camoflague pattern was designed for WWII warbirds, the designer knew one day park flying electrics would sport the same patterns, and so checked out your park to make sure the pattern would blend in against your trees.
15. There is no such thing as an aircraft which is too straight.
16. If ever you doubt that St Airhart protects your aircraft take a look at one of your foamies. You have a flying fruit box - go forward now that you believe.
17. If it's not tied down it will come off, if it's not secured you will lose it mid manuveur, if you have a crash your plane's nose will be taught about the laws of inertia by your battery.
18. The sun moves around the sky to make sure you lose sight of your plane.
19. The wind always gust either just as you take off or land.
20. The altitude you need for that close to the ground manuveur equals starting altitude + 1 metre.

Learning to fly Part 1 - Before your first plane

Learning to Fly Part 1 - Before your first plane

Objectives: Get flight simulator and controller for computer. Practice!

Simulator Time

In an ideal world you would get your simulator first and practice with some of the trainer models to get a feel for whether you even like RC flying. However, I know what the rush of excitment and enthusiam is like, and that playing with a model on a simulator probably wont be as satisfying as actually buying a plane (did someone say "retail therapy"). That being said, if you put off buying a plane until after you have done some simulator time you will probably make a smarter decision about a plane. Either way, you should definitely put off flying your plane until after you have done some simulator time.

At this early stage the best thing about simulators for you will be teaching you orientation (learning that the controls are "reversed" when the model is coming towards you for example) and most importantly building the mental pathways to associate particular movements of the controls with what you want the aircraft to do.

Just taking a moment to talk about these associations, what do I mean. Think about walking for a moment. You don't consciously think about how your decision to walk is translated into your feet actually moving - you built this mental pathway a long time ago when you were a child - now it is automatic. Also driving a car (if you drive) - you make a decision to turn to the right and your mind automatically turns the wheel to the right, or change gear or whatever you need to do. These are also mental pathways that you built. These mental pathways turn desired results (I want my plane to bank to the right) into automatic control inputs (move right thumb slightly to the right to effect turn).

If you haven't built these associations before your first flight you will crash while you are still at the controls trying to figure out what to do. How badly you crash just comes down to fate.

There is a reasonable flight simulator out there called "FMS". Whilst it doesn't have great graphics or physics it will teach you the first two things very well, provided you use it with a controller that is similar to a plane's transmitter. If you use it with the keyboard you will not build the pathways you need and will find yourself taking 2-3 seconds to change a high level decision (I need to pull up now) into a control input (pull down with left thumb) and the result will be a crash due to slow reactions.

You can download FMS either from my website (I've also posted three models which are similar to the trainer aircraft I talk about in part 2), or its home page.

Once you have FMS you need to get a controller that approximates a plane's transmitter control layout. Unfortunately if you use a keyboard with FMS (or any simulator) you won't be doing one of the most important things - building the association between high level decisions (I need to turn left now!) and control inputs (right thumb pushes stick left).

If you have a playstation style controller for your PC (one with two analog sticks that you can use your thumbs on) this will probably be good enough to at least get you started. If not you could either buy one of these, or look to buy an item such as this which will give you the feel of real radio. Similar items can normally be found on ebay (particularly if you are not from Australia), or maybe at your local hobby shop.

What to practice on the simulator

A simulator is great fun for testing out new theories, trying new manuveurs etc, and you will do all that in time. For now though, once you have FMS get yourself a model of a trainer (once again the three here are good candidates), and just try a few takeoffs, circuits and landings. Some notes on these below.

Just quickly - some notes about setting up your TX (Transmitter). All of my instructions are based on mode 1 control layout. A diagram of this layout is on the right (click on it if you need it blown up a bit).

There is quite a bit of passion about whether mode 1 or mode 2 (or reversed mode 1 or reversed mode 2) are better. My instructions are based on mode 1. If you want to try something else, no problems, but you will need to transpose my instructions.

You may need to spend a little bit of time in FMS with the control mapping to make sure you get the correct layout. This is really important - remember we are building associations between high level decisions (I'm going too fast - I need to reduce the throttle) and physical control inputs (pull down a couple of notches with right thumb). If you've trained with the wrong control inputs chances are under the pressure of your first few flights you will not be able to think quickly enough to transpose the controls.

Is all this really necessary?

At the end of the day you need to make your own decisions about risk. If you just want to try flying without any practice or guidance if you are using an electric trainer in a sufficently large space about the only thing you are risking are your wallet and your pride (although more extreme outcomes including serious injury/death are not impossible, though no particularly probable).

Learning to fly RC is harder than learning to drive a car for exampe, but fortunately the result of mistakes is not normally quite as catastrophic.

Things to practice in FMS or other Simulator

Takeoffs

Open the throttle let the plane build up speed, and then use a little up elevator to get her off the ground. Congratulations - you are airborne. On a simulator getting airborne is pretty easy. In real life your takeoffs will need to contend with things like impefect runway surfaces, planes which are not properly trimmed (and so begin turning the instant they are off the ground) and so on, but for now it's pretty easy.

Once you've done a few a few rolling takeoffs try some hand launches in FMS. This may give you your first real taste of RC Flying pressure. When the plane is "launched" you will have just a moment or two to get your act together, get the throttle on, feed in just enough elevator to stop her hitting the ground, build airspeed, and then use elevator to climb away. See how you go.

Turning

You are airborne - now what. Now we try turning some corners. Feed in just a little rudder to see how the plane banks. Feed in a little more and try a 90 degree turn. Because you are using a trainer the plane will eventually self correct and come back to level flight. However, you can get the plane back to level sooner by pushing the rudder the other direction to terminate the turn.

Now - did you note how much altitude you lost in that turn. Everytime your plane turns a corner it will lose some altitude - a common problem that beginners have is they get the plane to a good safe altitude from takeoff, and then lose altitude on each corner without noticing until eventually they try a turn too close to the ground.

You can prevent your plane from losing altitude in the corner (as well as making it turn the corner faster) by feeding in a little elevator as you turn - do some practice on this until you can make your turns without signfiicantly losing altitude.

Also practice getting your orientation right - when the plane is coming at you it may seem the controls are reversed. I find by far the best technique is to imagine yourself in the cockpit of the plane, and then give inputs based on that.

Landings

It is a fact of nature that unless you have enough power to reach orbit then number of landings must equal number of takeoffs, and the bad news is that landing is one of the hardest things to learn. The good news is that most of the trainers are pretty robust on bad landings.

When landing it is important to remember that throttle controls rate of descent, elevator controls airspeed. When you start your landing approach bring the throttle to the point where the aircraft starts to slowly descend. You can now control its airspeed by making it dive for more airspeed if it is going to stall, or pulling slightly up if it is going to fast. Landings are also a weak point in FMS - planes are not as easily broken in the simulation as they are in real life, but if you practice you will get a feel for a good landing.

At the bottom of the glide into the ground, just before you reach it, you need to flare. This final manuveur, where you use the elevator to make the model run parrallel to the ground about six inches of it is designed to get rid of the last remaining airspeed until you settle into the ground gently. Practice - what I've said should make sense after that.

By the way, the easystar and vortex can both be landed off throttle - just close the throttle and dive (slightly) for airspeed before flaring. The Supercub is best landed with a little throttle (this varies from plane to plane).

Putting it all together

So try taking off, flying four corners, landing. Rinse and repeat. Along the way don't forget to have some fun with some loops and stall turns etc.


Next Part - we talk about getting a plane and trimming it for the first flight.

Back to Learning to Fly

Back to Main

The Beauty of Bitumen

We have a new field. Now Curtin was nice, don't get me wrong, but the oval in Kambah across the road from the Burns Club has so much going for it.

The field is nice and green, there is some basic shelter, plenty of space (although three large light posts do need to be kept in mind), not many dog walkers in the morning etc but by far the biggest plus sits between the atheletics field and the two football fields. For seeingly no reason - perhaps a project that was started and abandoned, a large 25x40 m square of perfectly formed bitumen is in the middle of the field.

If you have never taken off and landed your models on bitumen it really is something special. Nose overs are a thing of the past, both on landing and takeoff, and you can do medium power takeoffs with ease and planes pick up speed when taxing quickly (take off run for the zero is probably down to 2 metres) rather than having to be driven through grass at WOT.

The relatively small landing area has another advantage - it really makes you focus on getting your approach right. This is really tricky. Hitting a 25m long strip early enough so that you can taxi to a stop is not that easy, especially in things with high stall speeds, but it is great practice.

Needless to say, belly landings on the bitumen aren't such a great idea. But for everything else - it is awesome.

The wind was up today. Binary boy almost landed his SuperCub at a standstill, and the RV4 came in at about a slow walk just fine. The wind was gone a bit for both zero flights, and she came in a bit hotter (as always) but no nose over thanks to the bitument (go bitumen - you rock).

DJ had his second outing with his new SBRC Spitfire - it really is slick and beautiful in the air. Can't wait til he gets some paint on her rather than the current green tape.

Anyway, better do some work.

Regular Park Flying

Brrr - it's cold isn't it. Our schedule has changed to suit the weather:

Saturday and Sunday Mornings from 9am if the weather is good - Kambah Oval, Kett St, Kambah (across the road from the Burns Club).

Thursday Mornings from 8am sometimes (no guarantees) @ Kambah Above.

Tuesday Mornings from 8am very very occasionally (no guarantees) @ Kambah Above.


This Kambah Oval has a large athletics oval, two football fields, and a large bitument area perfect for landing those nose over happy warbirds. A great field. A couple of large, but easily missable light poles are the real only hazard to navigation through the middle of the field.


If you live northside you might like to check out:

Saturday Mornings from 10ish - Lyneham Oval, Brigalow Street, Lyneham (between the two schools).

This field has two large crickets fields. It is not used for any sport, and is not currently being watered leading to very short, and largely dead grass making landings of most model aircraft a fair bit easier. This Saturday meet is normally a large group of parkflying enthusiasts, typically at least 6 or more flyers, and a number of spectators.

This is an informal get together. There is no MAAA requirements or any such, but you are responsible for making sure that you don't interfere with anyone already flying when you turn your transmitter on.

I don't fly Lyneham anymore - main reasons are there are a few too many people at Lyneham these days, and Kambah is so much closer to where I live.

Want to come join us...

Want to come out and join us but want to make sure we will be there - feel free to drop me an email at ozrcboy@gmail.com

Weekend Flying

Just a quick update on weekend flying. Put in some time at Lyneham yesterday, and we (binaryboy and myself - DJ is away) did some flying at a new field in Kambah today (out the back of the Kambah Woolworths). The field has an old set of netball courts, which the goal posts have been removed from, giving a nice bitumen hardtop for landings and takeoffs. Two zero landings with no nose over - certainly makes a different having the bitumen.

Binaryboy put up his custom stryker b (with brushless) which flew pretty well, although he will need to make some mechanical trim adjustements.

I tried to fly the Tucano but she was getting awful glitches and after three wave off landing attempts (keeping her super close to me) I finally managed to get her down in one piece, but not without broken undercarriage.

Thinking the wind was strong but steady I put the RV4 up, just as the wind started to get gusty. Managed to ger her in for an average landing, but she is in one piece.

Anyway, I've put together a video of the Tucano flying (including some British metal). Once I have stopped her glitching I'll try and put together some better video:

Tucano Maiden

On Thursday (yesterday) morning I maidened my Phoenix Models Tucano. The Tucano is a semi-scale model of the Tucano advanced trainer used by a number of airforces around the world. This one, in read and white trim looks very similar to a RAAF Roulettes plane (the Roulettes of course fly PC9s as any self respecting plane nut knows, but this still looks a lot like one).

She is a balsa ARF. I had my eye on this plane for a few weeks having noticed her on the shelf at Super Toyworld in Fyshwick.

I'm starting to think I might be the slowest modeller in the world, because even this almost ready ARF still took me a few hours to put together, although a lot of thinking time went into how to make a motor mount to suit a base mounting outrunner (I'm using one of those *cheap* ewatts R2212 1500kv motors).

Anyway, stupidly I didn't take any photos of the engine mount as I built it, but I used I 3 stacks of 10mm x 10mm x 25mm pieces of balsa, and then mounted a plyword firewall using each of the three stacks as a "leg" - this was then joined to the firewall. The engine mount with the Tucano would have been just fine, and would suit engines like Align BL450S.

However, I was just trying to save a few bucks, and have been massively impressed at how well the R2212 ran in the Zero. The Tuc' is quite a bit heavier, but she is no porker either. Takeoff weight of about 570g and she has the same prop setup as the Zero (7x5) and should be able to pull about 16A (so, 170watts or so). It's a long was short of 150watts per 450g, but it is still respectable.

I used a mixture of quality and cheap servos for the plane (actually most of them are cheapies - an HS55 looks after the elevator). Will be interesting to see how they go.

Anyway, the plane went together in a reasonably straightforward manner except for two things - the engine mount mentioned above, and the CoG. I was looking at the battery compartment (under the noise, secured by four little screws) and imaging messing around with a little screwdriver at the field, and not really being interested in the pain. Not to worry, without a battery the Tuc' almost balances exactly at the CoG. Oh great.

So, the battery is now mounted inside the avionics bay upside down against the bottom of the cockpit directly above the CoG. That is a bit painful...

The separate wing servos allowed a flaperon setup which I was happy about because I was worried she would have a stall speed just a fraction less than the speed of light.

However, by and large the ARF quality is pretty good. The covering looks good, all the hardware was okay, and the supplied decals do bring the plane to life.

So, on to the flight I guess.

There were a lot of reasons I shouldn't have tried to fly - let me run through them quickly:

1. My camera had flat battery meaning I had no photo of my completed Tucano. Talk about tempting fate.
2. The nut had slipped of the bottom of the quick link rudder linkage at the servo, meaning it could pop out during flight. Rather than lose the rudder mid flight I just took it out now and fixed it at a neutral position.
3. The oval was really wet and the grass was about half an inch longer than last time I saw it. I wanted to do a rolling takeoff but the Tuc's front nose wheel (non steerable) landing gear setup didn't seem like it would be ideal, and even though it had big wide wheels the ground was really wet.
   

The oval was quite wet after more overnight rain (its been raining a bit recently in Canberra - I think we have had more rain in the last two weeks than the last two years before that but maybe that is a slight exaggeration.

So, trusting in my perfect maiden record (no plane ever ruined on maiden flight) I decided to fly anyway.

There was almost no wind. I pointed the Tuc in the normal wind direction (after checking controls etc) and opened the throttle. She was taking a long time to gain speed and started turning slowly to the left. With no rudder at all I had no way to correct her. After she had taxied for 7 or 8 seconds I was convinced she wasn't going to get enough airspeed to rotate so I shut the throttle and wandered over to retrieve her.

I wanted to fly her, so decide to try a flaps takeoff, hoping I might just get enough ground speed to get airborne with the flaps. I was right. Opening the throttle she started her long left turn again, eventually getting airborne after maybe a 10-15 metre rollout (it was really really wet - DJ's Tigermoth had to be hand launched - it couldn't get takeoff speed from rolling).

Once she was in the air she was already very close to trim. Put on some altitude, brought the flaps, one click of left aileron to correct a little roll and then settled into trying her out.

First thing I wanted to do once she was at altitude was check out the stalls. Got her up, shut the power off and waited. I was surprised how much she slowed down before she stalled. Just the slightest hint of a tip stall. Some power, put the flaps on and then looked at how slow I could run on flaps (always thinking about the end of the maiden which always seems like the riskiest part to me). I was surprised at how slow she could fly - yes - she was still going twice as fast as DJ's TigerMoth stall speed, but she was much more manageable at low speed than I expected.

I pushed her up and down the field a few times, deciding the the recommended rates where perhaps a fraction high for the maiden (nothing could be done about it now though). I pulled one loop but didn't have the courage for a victory roll. A couple of times she seemed to take an interference hit, at one stage with her on her side above the trees I had a terrible feeling I was losing her, but whatever it was, she flew threw it, and was fine afterwards.

I didn't fly her for long - was the first outing for a new battery as well and felt I had pushed my luck enough for one day. Flaps on, got her setup, nice low throttle. She of course (it makes sense now) began losing altitude much faster than the zero in the same throttle position.

Noting she was a little nose down I got ready to flare her at the bottom of the dive. I close the engine to lose airspeed and pulled up so she didn't dig her nose wheel into the ground. She had more lift than I thought, and the controls where more sensitive than I would have liked. She nosed up and climbed (I thought she was close to stall speed - she wasn't). I desperately pushed down knowing what was next (I should have opened the throttle and gone around). She nosed down and it was all over an instant later.

Fearing some damage I rushed over - the fuse and cowl looked undamaged, but the nose was very close the ground. Once I got there it was obvious what had happened. The nose wheel undercarriage wire had bent back and absorbed the impact of the rough landing. Further, it hadn't torn from the balsa firewall, and all I had to do was straighten the wire. A bit of a lucky escape, but the undercarriage looks like it is well designed, just strong enough to absorb a very average landing, but not so strong it tears the aircraft apart so as to preserve its own integrity.

So, there it is - that's the flight report. I've messed with the rates a bit and am looking forward to giving her another spin at Lyneham tomorrow.

*late inclusion* Here is the vid from her flight at Lyneham following Saturday.

The Indoor Night

So much to catch up on - I'm posting about stuff I did on Saturday, yet today I maidened my new Tucano as well (she is still in one piece but a post on that to follow).

On Saturday night I went down to Nitrodude's Indoor Night at the MpowerDome in Fadden. The MpowerDome is an indoor Tennis facility in Fadden, which has about 8 tennis courts and a two story amenties block.

It sounds promising but I got to admit when I got there I wasn't super impressed by some of the "features".

Two tennis courts had been roped off for the flying and a whiteboard masquerading as frequency board was posted out the front. The two tennis court flying space seemed a little tight, but the more concerning thing was the overhead lights. They hung from the ceiling on long cables creating a unique upside down mine field for your aircraft to negotiate if you were silly enough to let it fly above about 2.5 metres (particularly at the edges of the court, where the roof came down from being quite satisfactory in the middle to a bit too low for comfort rather quickly.

Now - all that being said, a lot of fun was still had. DJ had put together a ThunderTiger 3D Expo foam thingame - video below which he took for a few circuits around the field whilst binaryboy (a new guy who is flying out at Curtin with us a fair bit - I just made up his handle - I wonder if he gets it) brought a little electric helicopter.

DJ's night came to a premature end when he snapped the prop shaft on the ThunderTiger - to be fair it had taken a fair bit of punishment up til that point - jettisoning part of the undercarriage along the way.

It seems binaryboy's night came to an end when he flew his heli to the middle of the area without his antennae up and had a slightly hard landing busting some piece of the skids.

The SA lil' squirt - seen taxing here on the right (DJ tried to catch some shots of it in the air but with my crappy digital camera, the light, and the relative speed of the thing it never worked out) hung in for a little longer and was getting amazing duration out of her 450mAh Elegance LiPos. However, once or twice she had lost power for seemingly no reason.

After one hard landing the squirt's servos started going mental trying to go past their throw limits (although it's not clear that the servo action isn't what caused the landing). Checking to make sure the guy on my frequency was off (he was) I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. It has since been figured out - was the ESC (which Paul Daniels from NQRC has kindly agreed to replace).

There were many casualties in terms of models, and one casualty in terms of humans - fortunately not seriously - a 3d plane clipped a light, went out of control and speared into someone. Remember what I said about those lights - too low. The most comical casualty of the evening was a shockflyer that passed a bit too close to the net, clipped and feel to ground, but not before leaving its undercarriage in the netting about 2.5 metres up.

Overall certainly enjoyed the night, but the venue is not the best in my opinion and I'm wondering whether somewhere like Erindale college might offer higher ceilings and move flying space (there are a couple of two basketball court gynasiums there if memory serves). Binaryboy mentioned that there are some indoor nights in Queanbeyan which also have a better format (in his opinion) with separate flight space for helis and planes.

Anyway, here's the vid of DJ's ThunderTiger - not doing 3d or anything, but was starting to get the hang of it - shame it ended prematurely, but I'm sure it will be back.

Quick time version .mov (1MB)
General version .avi (5MB)