Hobbyking ASW28 (2M) mods

I decided to replace the elevator servo with a HXT900 servo as I wasn't sure how long the supplied servos would last. So I cut it out and replaced it. No issues and I could check the servo arm (which are cheap!). The servos are glued in place and don't present a problem cutting them out. I don't tend to fly with the rudder servo so I have left it in place. I find you don't need rudder to do (sort of) good turns with the model.

Veco Thunderbird kit

Well you never will guess what I picked up at the annual club auction the other night... yeah ok, I gave the game away with the title of this blog. A Veco Thunderbird kit (control line of course). Its what I understand is the Mark II which is the inverted engine. I haven't gone through the kit yet but I hope its all there.

Parkzone P51D BNF engine upgrade

I had an "incident" with my P51D and bent the shaft of the engine so I have replaced it with another. Well I test flew it today and boy, does it go. It will climb vertically and just keep on going. I love climbing to about 300ft and then powering off and and gliding and doing aerobatics. Its fun!!

Note that I have used 3mm bolts as spacers to get the motor forward.

Great Planes SE5A

Here is my SE5A which I purchased from a friend. I spent some time going over it and now it is ready for a test fly. I have seen it fly and it flys really well. It is 860mm in wingspan.

Hybrid RC Plane?

This guy decided to add 2 electric fans under the wings to his trainer but it was rather unsuccessful. Interesting though.

Radio Control Flying - What not to do #2

This time a biplane. There is more room for this flight, however again the choice of plane is not the best. Most biplanes are not that stable and they are usually designed for aerobatics. This flight lasts 4 seconds before he hits the deck.

Radio Control Flying - What not to do #1

Here is a great example of what not to do when getting into rc planes (now this assumes it is genuine - and it appears it is). This guy has a IC powered 50 size model which he tries to fly in a semi rural area with houses and people around. Not a good idea especially when a model like that goes out of control. You can cause quite a bit of damage to people and property.

He has another where he attempts to fly a Piper Cub foamie which is much better although he puts that into a tree!

Winter Flying in New Zealand

This greeted us this morning at the flying field... fog/mist. The temperature was 6 degrees C and it wasn't until about 10am did the fog clear enough to fly. However it was calm. So it was 2 flights of the ASW28 before I had no batteries left. Then home to take me mum up north.

Servo Failure

I have purchased a number of servos from HobbyKing and had a good run except for one I put in my glider. Its a HXT 5010 standard size servo. I was flying one day and was in a thermal and the glider stopped responding. It went into a gentle spiral dive and came down in some bush, luckily by a road which goes through the bush. So I got it back in one piece. I thought the ESC (electric glider) had failed. But it was actually the rudder servo which had failed. And if you look at the picture, one of the surface mount transistors has got really hot and burned a hole in the servo case!! Goodness knows why; I'm not an electronics expert. Anyway the glider is flying again.

HobbyKing Foam ASW28 2 metre wingspan

This arrived about 3 weeks ago. Its stock except I cut the elevator off as it was too stiff and used a tape hinge instead. Test flew it and there is too much up once it was trimmed. I put some 2mm packing under the trailing edge of the tailplane. The elevator is pretty flat now. It flys pretty well really. The glide it not the best but thats offset as it looks really good in the air. Given the long wings I thought I might need some rudder for turns but its not required. I haven't managed to thermal it yet. I use a 1300mAH lipo and its rather tight in the cockpit area. Overall a nice model. I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner though. You tend to have to fly it all the time (it has no dihedral).

Oh and the prop doesn't fold. I am tempted to replace it with a better ESC but the motor is wired permanently to the ESC. It appears you can't program the esc. People have asked but there is no responses.

Excuse the photo. Its a phone which thinks it might be a camera.

I flew it today (6/6/2011). I really am disappointed with the glide. Well at least in comparison to my Great Planes Spirit 2 meter glider.

I got this from a viewer when I tried to sell it on Trademe... re- programming the ESC is easy turn on your radio with the throtle full forward then turn the model on and wait for 5 seconds this will turn on the engine brake - I found this out the hard way cheers spinner1972 (43 ) 1:14 pm, Tue 5 Jul

Control line Manual by Ron Moulton

Here is my recently purchased book, Control Line Manual printed in 1965. Its an excellent source of control line information from the 1950's and 1960's. I regularly got this book out of the library when I was at school. My wife laughed when I told her it was published in 1965.

Al Rabe rudder

Well my Sig stunter (can't remember which model but its in the same range of the Super Chipmunk) was never a great flyer in outsides. So I was reading up about the Rabe rubber which I have on a stunter I purchased and decided to try it. So it works as designed i.e. right rudder on down and slightly less on up. Still have to try it. I have also put a OS46LA up from as well. Hopefully that will help line tension.

Last night at Te Whiti park for summer 2010/2011

Another Summer Series comes to an end. Drat... another cold winter to look forward to.

Question of the day

Why are EFTPOS company vehicles softroaders? Can't they drive a smaller vehicle? Its not like EFTPOS machines are big or anything.

Duchess

Well I remember reading an article in Aeromodeller about control line biplane stunters and one of those was (the) Duchess. Well I managed to buy one and here it is. I have removed the engine to see if I could fit a larger one but it would require too much modification so I will stick with the ASP 25.

Parkzone P51D BNF - Wing attachment mod

Well I did a really silly thing with my P51D - I launched it and couldn't find the stick to steer the plane (oh dear!!). Anyway it hit a fence and sustained a bit of damage. The wing mount got ripped out. So I had to modify and used a nylon bolt which I prefer to metal bolts anyway. I needed to use some ply to support the bolt on the wing side (on the fuselage side I used a metal nut epoxied to the mounting plate).

Parkzone P51D BNF - Removing the cowl

Well it was not obvious to me how to remove the cowl. Well here it is for you with a photo. The cowl is held in place by 4 screws which also hold the engine exhausts on (they are small screws). You will also need to cut the transfers, so use a sharp knife you make a clean cut so the transfers will still look good when you replace the cowl.

Of course you will need to remove the spinner and prop first. The front of the spinner is a press fit. Once you have removed this undo the nut holding the prop on and this will allow the rest of the spinner to be removed.

Google Searches - we know better than you.

I have just picked up a half built control line stunter and thought I would see what Google had to say about it, so I typed in ‘Playboy stunter’ as my search term (that’s what its called). I suppose I was asking for trouble with the term ‘Playboy’. Anyway Google in its infinite wisdom decided I really wanted to search for ‘Playboy stunner’ and gave me the results for that. Wrong. Just because 1 million punters searched for Playboy stunner doesn’t mean I want to ;o)

Glider flyaway

You are enjoying flying your favourite model and then you realise that it is not responding as it should. You watch it free flight until it hits the ground. Well thats what happened to me last night. It was at about 250 ft and in a right turn and it continued to tighten in the turn until it got into a mild spiral. It hit some bush and fell into the bush on a hill.

Well I didn't hold much hope and the bush is quite thick. There is a road which goes through it and it drove up it until I came around a corner and there it was. I was rapt. The only damage is a broken fin. I suspect the cause is a Turnigy ESC failure. I will replace it. The current ESC still works but runs very hot so that is my theory.

Parkzone P51D BNF

Well I took delivery of a Parkzone P51D BNF (bind n fly), installed my radio gear and took 5 flights to break it. Well it is fixable but I think I will get a new wing as the current one has extra diheral. I launched and then couldn't find the roll stick... doh. Hit the fence and a car. So it doesn't look quite like this any more. However it will again.

And yes, the photo is not very good quality. I took it from my phone.