Monday, June 20, 2011

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.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

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!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

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.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

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.

Friday, June 3, 2011

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