Dandy Sport on Floats

[peterv]

Thanks Brian for starting this forum!! I have a Dandy sport with stock EPS100 drivetrain. Bought some Foamfloats hollow floats and built them up and covered. Will be working on the mount this week and am wondering if anyone else has tried floats an a Dandy Sport. Will be running ETec 1200 2S1P Lipos and 8 cell AAAs. Flys great with wheels and wonder about the floats. I fly a WIngo with floats and am finishing a Puddlemaster.

Pete

[peterv]

Well since no one else has replied that they have installed floats on a MM Dandy Sport I finished it today and had its maiden, CARNAGE!!. The Foamfloat hollow 19" floats went together great, covered in blue transparent solite with dark blue bottoms. Plane is stock EPS100 10x8 prop and 3 ETec 1200 LiPos. Flew great on wheels with this combo but on floats it was ugly! Did some slow then high speed taxi runs, all ok came up on step quick with the 280, surprise, so I let it spin into the light wind and hit the power, up on step in a few feet and ROW in less than 20'! THen the fun began was very unstable when I let up on power, landed with a stall about a foot above water and brought it in to check and move the CG forward. Take off again and come around in a circle and the Dandy staarts acting real strange, looks like the RP6 was glitching, never did it before, and I set up for an emergency landing. Glitching all the way down and hits the water on one wing and flips over.:mad: Well it's about 50 feet out and the wind is picking up. Try to motor in with the prop under water slowly but cant steer! Go to get my raft and inflate it, launch and row out and some kids in a canoe have it and are bringing it to me. Good deal, the plane is starting an stopping the prop and the Xmiter is in the raft with me. Well almost 30 min in the water and the wing has water in it, fuse not bad, and my hollow floats have water in them, probably seeped in from the top seam or the ply mounts. That stinks! I have over 150 flights on my Wingo Float Plane with twice that many takeoffs and landings. A couple of tipovers but this was bad, range check was ok and taxi tests were OK to 200' out but boy did the Dandy Sport fly bad with floats!!! Once I get it dried out and the electronics checked out will do some hand launches over grass to sort this out. Could be a CG issue or radio problems, but all I changed was routing the antenna out the top of the fuse versus the bottom.
Flew the Wingo later and all was good, 8 takeoff and landings and all perfect.

Here are some pix.

Pete

[peterv]

Another Pre Carnage Pix.

[willshep]

hmm interesting.
You might consider bringing the floats to level rather than the AoA that you have (the rear wire is shorter). I know i mention that in the kit, but too much AoA will sometimes cause the plane to leap into the air at takeoff, and in the air they can force the plane down (as the wind is hitting alot of float surface). It might be something to play with.

Floats might also be a bit on the short side, looks like they are just getting past the airscrew, but the step is in the right place vs. the CG is it?

The dandy doesnt appear to have alot of dihedral either, and while the floats add some good lower CG to the plane, a lack of high dihedral ( and no ailerons) might compound the pendulum effect. Please keep us posted with your experiments. I do suggest hand launching from now on.
Floats look great, btw.
-will

[peterv]

Thanks for the input Will. Yes it does ride low in the water, but comes up on step OK. Takeoff run was short but was just acting like I was overcontroling it, even though I had the dual rate on mild. This plane with the sport wing has very little dihetheral and the ailerons function well, just not with floats yet. Some hand launches are in order to check out the trim levels. Next time I'll have the rubber boat ready! That was too long in the water. The step is about 1" behind the CG.

Pete

[Ironsides]

Pete:

Bad luck. Your Angle of Attack looks pretty aggressive. The step looks to be too far to the rear - but the angle on the photos might be deceptive.

The glitching sounds like some water got into the electronics. I have both my Rx and ESC covered with the finger of a surgical glove tied off at both ends with plastic tie wraps.


David

[peterv]

Electronics checked out fine on the bench last night. Will wrap up ESC and Receiver like on my Wingo. Guess I was over confident with all the flights I have had with the Dandy Sport in wind and calm. I will recheck the AOA of the plane in water again but I was more worried about not having enough up angle on the plane than too much. Plus maybe should have used heavier batts for water flying to slow the agressive movements of the plane. Was really surprised how well the 280 got the plane out of the water!

Pete

[peterv]

Has anyone gotten a Dandy or Dandy Sport on the water yet??

Pete

[Jeff Charlot]

No Dandy, but I'm considering converting a Switchback to floats. Would the Sport or 3D wing be better?

Jeff

[Martin Hunter]

Jeff, either wing flies great on floats. Just pick your preferred wing and go.

Martin

[peterv]

Martin Hunter our moderator has a Switchback on floats, think it is the sport wing. Liked the way it flys on LiPos!

Pete

[Jeff Charlot]

Thanks! We're kind of getting close to the end of our float flying season up here, but still have a little while before it's gone for the year. I'd like to give it a shot before it's too late.

Jeff

[peterv]

Anyone float their Dandy yet???

Pete

[Duetto]

Three years later I'll try to reserect this thread, I just got back from a lakeside vacation with my Dandy Sport. Before leaving I buildt my first pair of floats out of 1/32 balsa using an old set of plans posted on this forum in PDF form and scaled to 17.5 inches long. My Dandy sport is powered with a Medusa 4000 in a GWS IPS gearbox, C gearing and a APE SF 10X7 prop. The floats are easily swapped with the stock landing gear. I've attached a few pics if anyone is interested still. Flew great, very easy takeoffs. Did a couple of loops but was afraid to try anything more acrobatic. I did have some trouble getting her to land when there was a breeze, she just wanted to hang like a kite. All in all seems like a great platform for a water bird.

[peterv]

Nice Duetto! Gave up on the floats with the Dandy Sport for now. Have a Soarstar and E-Starter on floats. Just can't stand a tipover with a wood plane! Tail and ailerons were warped and had to be rebuilt. Now BL powered on wheels or skis in winter. Sticking with foam planes for my daily water flights. Just finished a TM 400 with BL Outrunner and some Climate Models floats to be mounted.

Nice job again and enjoy!

Pete

[Duetto]

I would provide a link to the thread with the float plans if I knew how. It is a thread started by Float Flyer titled Light Weight Float Build.

[Airboatflyingshp]

Go to the target page in your browser window at the top of the screen you will see the page address ......left click on it and highlight it then right click and choose copy. Then go to another window or thread click on new reply or quick reply if you haven't already opened it, position the cursor left click then click right and paste and it should appear. just make sure you leave a space before and after any address or It will not read as a true address.

[Airboatflyingshp]

Copy and paste the desired pages address from you web browser Address bar into the new reply box..just leave a space before and after between any typing or it gets read as part of the address.




Dunno what happend :o thought Id lost it first time and did it again in less words :)

[Duetto]

The link as per Airboatflyingshp, http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=497244 Thanks for the instructions

[alexeames]

I would provide a link to the thread with the float plans if I knew how. It is a thread started by Float Flyer titled Light Weight Float Build.

I made some of them in depron and they work a treat :)

All I need now is to learn how to take off and land on water ;)

http://www.tranfree.com/photos/fluorocublake.wmv (31 meg)

[peterv]

Anyone tried just cutting floats out of foam insulation on an electric scroll saw? Looks like it can be done. Heavier than built up floats but should be quite sturdy.

Pete

[jimsp]

Anyone tried just cutting floats out of foam insulation on an electric scroll saw? Looks like it can be done. Heavier than built up floats but should be quite sturdy.

Pete
Here’s a couple of old post of mine for cutting out floats from foam sheets using a scroll saw. One is for ‘V’ bottom floats (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147465)and the other for flat bottom floats. (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165311) I plan to update these sometime with plans for a range of float sizes.

Floats cut from EPS foam ( the white stuff) are probably the lightest floats you can make even compared to built up floats.

[peterv]

Excellent Jim! Need to pick up some foam next time at the home store.
Thanks again!

Pete