Flying in the wind

After complaining about too much wind and not being able to fly, I was now waiting for a chance to fly with wind.  Yeah, I wanted to test if it would make much of a difference flying in the wind with ailerons.  So, finally a chance to fly and a day with wind.  About 8 to 10 mph.

I started with a full charge on the stock NiMH battery and tossed the aileron equipped Wild Hawk into the wind.  Wow, it flew great!  The ailerons really made a difference if keeping the plane in the air.  I continued to fly and enjoy playing in the wind.  I did notice that one drawback to flying in the wind is that you can only fly into the wind if you have the battery to do it.  I had to bring the plane in long before I normally would have while I still had enough power to bring it in.

So my flying in the wind was a success and I had a great time.  I was so eager to fly again that I went our as soon as I could.  I was having a great time and even decided to try a few loops.  Good thing I only tried one though because as soon as it pulled full Gs, I noticed that the wings had an odd angle to them.  I put the plane through a few more maneuvers and noticed the same odd wing angle.  Oops, time to bring it in!

Servo label nicely glued into the cutout!

Well, I brought the plane in a little too aggressive in an attempt to keep the wings in one piece and lost an aileron servo.  No big deal, and it will teach me not to hot glue servos in on the side with a sticker.  The bond is only as good as the sticker glue!

Wing crease right about where the window divider in the back groung meets the wing

Ok, so upon inspection, I found that the wings were both starting to kink and flex right at the line where the wing spar ends and the aileron servo cutout and aileron cutout weakened the wing.  Another learning experience, watch out where you make alterations and  where the stress points are!

Now I need to figure out how I'm going to strengthen my wings so they don't crack and give out during a flight.  That will be my next blog.


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Hinged Again

Ok, no sooner did I buy the CA glue and the thin hinges, and I saw a video about making tape hinges.  This was the best hinge advice ever!  The idea is that you take strips of tape about an inch long.  These are joined together by overlapping them about 1/4 of an inch sticky side to sticky side.  These are then run from one side of one surface to the other side of the other surface.  Oh heck, this will make much more sense if you just watch the video.  The part you'll want is about 5 minutes in.

 So, here is my progress on installing this type of hinge.

This hinging system is awesome! They move  so freely and have so much more movement.  I no longer have any issues with the tail spar yawing when the servos move full lock.

Well I'm still waiting for he weather to behave and allow for some nice flying.  So far any time I've been able to get out, the wind has been 10mph and higher.  We'll see.

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Unhinged

So, I want to redo the hinges on the tail.  I had the feeling that the stock foam hinges were too stiff.  This stiffness has been somewhat confirmed when I observed the whole tail strut torquing over when either of the tail surfaces was pushed full lock in either direction.  I also noticed that my rudder (and I say mine because I did not notice this on my Dad's plane) would not move as far to one side as it would to the other. This turned out to be due to the rudder hitting up against the elevator bracket.

What did I do to fix this?  I cut the hinges and shaved them down.  Now I need new hinges.  My Dad's plane had a broken rudder hinge when he got it and we repaired that just with tape.  So my first idea was to use tape.

Because the elevator connector piece was part of the issue with the rudder, I took it out and replaced it with a dowel and opened the gap between the surfaces.  You can just see it in this photo.

Well, it looked good.  They worked ok.  But, I didn't like them.  They made crunchy, tape sticking sounds when moved.  Yeach!  I flew it once like this (well attempted to fly, it was very windy).  So, I pealed the tape off.

I started looking for other hinge methods and found people who were using sections of zip ties.  I looked into this and found several videos that made it look easy enough and like a good idea.  I had some zip ties and so gave it a try.

You can barely see the two hinges in the ruder.  These were really easy to do.  I just lined up the two pieces and used a marker to mark the locations and then used the pointed end of one zip tie to make the holes.  I then used Goop glue to hold them in.

Well I put things back together and tested it out.  Still torques the tail over.  Darn!  These are too stiff also.

Now, I was at my local hobby shop and found some thin plastic hinges that get inserted into a slot and then secured with a drop or two of CA.  So this is my next project.

See my next post Hinged Again for an even better option for thin surface hinges!

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Yes, new stuff (sorta)

Wait, there was some new stuff to post today.  Well sorta.

I was able to hook my laptop with FMS to my big screen TV (38")!  That was a lot of fun and a lot better than the puny 15" display.

Well, it didn't photograph very well, but you get the idea.  I think I was flying around the island scenery selection.

So much for the FMS update.

There is some construction going on at my work and I noticed that they are using the blue Styrofoam insulation.

I hear this is great stuff to use to repair foam planes so I hunted around and found a scrap piece.

Now I'm not exactly hoping to use it, but if I need it, I have it.

More to come.  I still need to attach my rudder and elevator to the tail of my plane and resolve the issue of my rudder moving more to one side than the other.  So keep posted.

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More tweaking and modding

So I know that there were some issues with the tail of my plane because, as I noted before, I noticed the tail of my plane torquing over when moving the control surfaces.  I finally had a chance to take a look at it and found some causes and more issues.

 You can see from this picture the bush rod is bumping out the side.  This was due to the rudder not moving as freely as it should to one side.  After I fix the cause (see below) I will use some clear packing tape to secure it down and add rigidity to the tail spare.  I will do both sides for symmetry.

 In this picture you can see that the push rod is touching the foam slot and really binds when the arm is moved to the left and right.

 This is the right side (rudder) and it is  doing the same as you can see.

 Here is the culprit of the rudder push rod bowing out.  The rudder is hitting up against elevator.

 In this photo it  looks like everything is where it is supposed to be and that the issue is with the elevator surface connector.  I have decided that I will remove the surfaces and redo them with more space in between and give the rudder more room to make those left turns.
You can see the knot I put in the antenna wire.  This keeps it from pulling inside when I pull out the receiver.

I also found  that the foam hinges, while helping it go together fast, are very stiff and make it slower to respond and you don't get as much movement.

When I  put them back together, I still have not decided if I will use tape hinges (fast, easy, but not as robust) or thin plastic film hinges (much more difficult to align and glue in, but more sturdy).

As usual, more to come.

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All taped up and no place to fly

So, here's what the plane looks like now with the added clear packing tape wrapped around the nose, tail spar, engine nacelle, and along the leading wing edges.

I still need to get some strapping tape to provide extra support on the underside of the wings.  I know a lot of folks use carbon fiber or bamboo rods, but I'm not into cutting the required slots at this time.  I'm happy with just taping on a little extra support.

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Flying and crashing

having a great time flying.

Really enjoyed this part!

Had many landings, none of them very good and one of them bad.

We both had that one day ending landing!

As bad as it looks, it was all worth it because we had a great time.
Next is reconstruction.

Here we go. Unboxing the plane

Everything came in the box and it was easy enough to put together.  I think the hardest part was pealing the cover off the tape on the rudder and stabilizer.  The next difficult part was sticking the rudder and stabilizer on.  With the tape to tape surfaces, your only have one chance to get it together right.

My Dad was nice enough to have unboxed the battery and given it a full charge.  So, once it was put together, we would be ready to fly.

We were really aching to fly and soon enough the wind died down.

We walked to a nearby field and were ready to fly.