Nick King
Dec 09, 2004, 02:00 AM
!Introduction
| spec2
| @911098
|> <b>Wingspan:</b> |< 58"
|> <b>Wing Area:</b> |< 624 sq. in.
|> <b>Weight:</b> |< 88 oz.
|> <b>Length:</b> |< 61.5"
|> <b>Wing Loading:</b> |< 20.31 oz/sq. ft.
|> <b>Servos:</b> |< Futaba S3004
|> <b>Transmitter:</b> |< Futaba 9C
|> <b>Receiver:</b> |< Futaba PCM
|> <b>Battery:</b> |< 4.8v 2250 mah NiMH
|> <b>Motor:</b> |< Super Tigre G-45 ABC
|> <b>Manufacturer:</b> |< <a href=http://www.Cermark.com>Cermark</a>
|> <b>Available From:</b> |< Your Favorite Local Hobby shop, or online from <a href=http://www.Cermark.com>Cermark</a>
Not too long ago, before 3-D flight was popular, even before the rise of ducted fan powered aircraft, there was one competition that defined radio control flying. Being able to fly a specified routine with precision and grace was known as Pattern Flying, which has now been broken down into several classes. Many of our current generation of 3-D and Freestyle Aerobatics competition pilots began in pattern competition. Fifteen or more years ago, names such as Chip Hyde (more on that later) were on the lists of competitors in pattern events.
Fast forward to today’s flying fields, and you’ll find a lot of different aircraft. Several 3-D type aircraft, scale planes, and sport aerobatic planes will dominate, along with the obligatory trainers. One plane you’ll rarely see is a true pattern aircraft. This could be attributed to several factors. Perhaps the precision of pattern flying is intimidating, the planes too expensive, or too difficult to enjoy flying. While in the past this may have been true, there are a few aircraft on the market now that swiftly eliminate any reason to not have a pattern plane. One of the sleekest is the Javelin II from Cermark.
!The Arrival
@911099:The Javelin arrived in a rather large but flat cardboard box.
@911100:I was immediately disconcerted at an area on the box that looked as if a hockey stick had gotten into a fight with it.
The impact was so hard it went through the outer box, through the actual Javelin II box, and into the fuse. Since the delivery man had conveniently left it on my doorstep without notifying me, I didn’t have a chance to report the damage or refuse delivery. The plane was actually packed very well, and had a rather violent incident not occurred, I don’t believe there would have been any issue.
@911101:Wearily, I removed the Javelin II box and opened it, expecting to find broken parts and some major damage.
@911102:Remarkably, there was only cosmetic damage to the fuse outside.
@911103:The radio gear mounting tray in the fuse was broken in several places. They were, luckily, easily repairable.
@911104:A few popsicle sticks, some epoxy, and spring clamps and they were rebuilt, most probably stronger than before.
!Inspection and Construction
@911105:I began by laying all the parts out and verifying their presence via the included parts list sheet.
Everything was accounted for, and I began reading the instructions. I classify the instructions as adequate-one could easily assemble the plane going by them, but some more detail would have been appreciated. The pictures were nice, but more of them would have been a plus. In all actuality, if one had assembled several ARF’s in the past, the instructions for assembling the Javelin II shouldn’t present much of a problem.
I did manage to pick up a few tricks along the way that would have sped up construction incredibly, had I discovered them earlier.
!!Pull-Pull Rudder Cable Routing
The first tip, and the one that will save you a lot of stress, is how to route the pull-pull wires for the rudder. The manual simply stated to run them through the fuse. This was not as simple as it sounded. Running a flexible cable through the exceptionally long fuselage was not easy. I discovered I had some very small pushrod tubing from a park flyer that was perfect to fit through the slots. I routed the wire through the tube, and then fed the tube through the required slots and formers. After routing the wires, I simply pulled the tubing off, and proceeded to the other side. I had to take care to run the wires properly-they only cross once. Basically, the wire on the left side of the rudder attached to the right servo arm, and vice versa. If the wires wrapped around each other, the linkage would bind, and there would be a lot of difficulty centering the rudder.
!!Elevator Linkages
Another hint was to pre-bend the elevator linkage by laying it on the top (or bottom) of the fuselage and marking where the bends needed to be. Even doing this, I still had use a pair of hemostats to grab the individual elevator wires and pull them through the precut slots. I had to be careful not to “hog out” the linkage slots, as there are fairings to put into place, and they would not have fit if the holes had been enlarged.
Other than these few quirks, assembly was fairly straightforward. Remember to take all the time needed in assembly. The Javelin II is meant to be a precise aircraft, and in order for it to achieve this, all the parts must be in proper alignment. I used the typical methods of strings, tape measures, masking tape, and visual inspection to align all the parts.
!!Landing Gear Mounting
@911106:I was concerned at first by the simplistic gear installation...
@911107:...but it held up perfectly throughout all flight testing.
!!Flight Gear Installation
Flight gear installation was simple enough: the servos went into precut holes, and there was PLENTY of room for the receiver, wires, and other flight gear. I was careful to solidly mount everything. In a performance plane like Javelin, I did not want to rely on Velcro to hold the receiver in place. I used zip ties to secure the foam wrapped receiver to the plywood mounting tray. Battery mounting proved to be difficult, however. Because of the long empennage of the Javelin II, the plane came out very tail-heavy. The battery was wrapped in foam, and then pushed all the way up against the firewall, above the fuel tank. Being as my hands are large anyway, and there wasn’t a lot of room up there, it was fairly difficult to secure it. I wedged a lot of foam up there, and glued a couple of popsicle sticks to keep anything from sliding back. I shook the life out of the plane with no movement, so I assumed my makeshift mounting was adequate.
The engine mounting was as easy as it can be. Mounting the cowl was a challenge, and I recommend the builder use whatever techniques they are comfortable with. My chosen engine, the Super Tigre G-45, required a lot of cutting because of the massive carburetor and it’s associated parts. Since a majority of the engine was covered, I use a Dubro remote glow driver and a Hangar 9 remote fueling kit to keep starting and fueling simple.
One problem I encountered was the inverted mounting of the engine. Fuel would constantly siphon out of the carb. The easiest way to prevent this was to clamp the fuel feed line. This is difficult when the engine is enclosed, but on the recommendation of a flying buddy, I came up with a simple way around it. Since the muffler had to be attached after the cowl was on, two holes had to be drilled to access the muffler screws. These happened to be inline with the fuel feed line. I ran the feed line out the rearmost screw hole, then back in the front-most, and used hemostats to clamp the exposed line when the plane wasn’t about to be flown.
!!Setup
With construction complete, I set up the control throws to their recommended points, and balanced the Javelin II. It required about an ounce of weight on the nose to reach the recommended balance point. This was acceptable, and it even stated in the manual that nose weight would probably be required to achieve the proper balance. With all of the specs within specified spec(whew), I trotted to the field in anticipation of carving the sky up.
After some coaching on what to expect from some more experienced club members, I tuned in the Super Tigre and measured it’s performance. With the Mac’s “Black Pipe” aluminum muffler, and a Master Airscrew 10x7 prop, the G-45 sang to the tune of 14,500 rpm’s. This was quite a number on the ground from a relatively new engine. I am very impressed with the ST-G45, it’s performance and price are both excellent!
!Flying
@911108:The Javelin 2 looks great!
@911109:All set and ready to fly!
@911110:OK, engine's running great, no more excuses....let's fly!
!!Taking Off and Landing
@911111:Taking....
@911112:....off!
@911113:The Javelin II settling in to land.
@911114:The stock gear position did not handle grass landings well, but bending the gear forward slightly made it manageable at our site.
I immediately noticed that the Javelin II was very easy to nose over. In fact it was nearly impossible to taxi in grass. I bent the landing gear forward slightly, and it helped a great deal. I was still required to hold a lot of elevator to keep the tail down, both on take off and landing. This was something to learn-when landing a plane such as this, one has to learn how much elevator to apply at what speed to keep the tail down without achieving flight again. I had to stay aware of the throttle in case the landing turned into a bounce, so the plane can be brought around for another attempt.
!!Flying the Pattern
@911115
@911116
All nuances aside, the Javelin tracked very straight down the runway, and didn’t so much leap as just fly into the air. Not having flown any type of precision aircraft, I was amazed at how true it was in the air. She flew on the proverbial rails the whole time, whether tracking through loop, roll, or inverted. While inverted, very little down elevator was required, and knife edge flight was easily accomplished with almost no coupling of any kind. Snap rolls were a sight to behold, and stopped immediately when I released the sticks. All manner of pattern maneuvers were possible, and the Javelin looked great performing them.
Upon the recommendations of a more experienced pattern flyer, I increased the aileron throw by 65%, the elevator by 15%, and gave as much rudder as I could squeeze out. I also propped to a 10x6, which gave a bit more thrust. After these changes, the Javelin exhibited no bad characteristics, but was more responsive for the more aggressive aerobatic manuevers. It would snap out at full elevator which, of course, I wouldn't be giving full elevator except in a snap or spin command anyway, and the added throw would allow it to complete the snap at the top of avalanches. Overall, it improved on its already nice flying characteristics.
I recommend starting with the manuals specified control throws, then altering to suit your style. Remember the key ingredient to great pattern flying is smoothness, and it's hard to be smooth in flight when the slightest control stick movement results in a 90 degree alteration. For this reason, I used a light amount of exponential (30%) on all surfaces, but it wasn't really required. Alternately, pattern pilots generally do not like to "mess with" dual rate switches, so the increased throws provided enough response for crisp 4-point rolls and such, without making the model overly twitchy.
!!Thoughts of a Pattern Flyer
One of my local club’s president, Tim Treneff happened to be a pattern competitor for many years, and I was anxious to get his thoughts on the Javelin II. After wringing it out for the duration of a fuel tank, and a dead stick landing that had my heart racing, he gave me his thoughts on the plane.
He stated that he recalled spending twice as much as the cost of the Javelin on a kit in the 80’s that didn’t fly nearly as well. As mentioned above, he felt that the control throws were less than he’d expect from a pattern aircraft. He recommended at least twice as much aileron, about a quarter more elevator, and as much rudder as I could squeeze out. He would have also liked to have more thrust on tap, perhaps as would have been supplied by a .70 4-stroke engine with a 12x9 or 12x10 prop. Overall, he seemed to think it was a good pattern flyer, and with the proper setup could take one on to competition.
Speaking of competition, most probably have heard of a fellow by the name of Chip Hyde. Early on in his career, Chip was known as a pattern competitor. Tim went up against a very young Chip Hyde at a pattern completion many years ago. Although Chip came out ahead in points, Tim wasn’t very far behind.
Now don't misunderstand -- that is NOT to say that this isn't a very cool sport model for the average sport pilot who wants something a bit more racy looking and a bit more precise than the average stick! The Javelin 2 performed great for me, a sport pilot with no real pattern experience.
!Final Thoughts
The Cermark Javelin is a great flying, precise aircraft. It doesn’t require expensive engines, high dollar servos, and exceptional abilities to have fun with the plane. I wouldn’t recommend it as a second, or maybe even a third plane. An ultra-low-drag aircraft such as this requires some finesse to land without flying miles past yourself! To safely fly the Javelin, the pilot should have quite a bit of experience with low wing, tail dragger, and responsive aircraft. This is NOT to say the Javelin is HARD to fly at all! Just the opposite -- it does EXACTLY what the pilot asks of it. Therefore the pilot needs to be sure he knows what he is asking. After learning to fly such aircraft, the Javelin would be a blast. It is stable and aerobatic enough to enjoy, and challenging enough to improve pilot skills. If not for bad luck, I would be flying the Javelin II for many years to come.
| spec2
| @911098
|> <b>Wingspan:</b> |< 58"
|> <b>Wing Area:</b> |< 624 sq. in.
|> <b>Weight:</b> |< 88 oz.
|> <b>Length:</b> |< 61.5"
|> <b>Wing Loading:</b> |< 20.31 oz/sq. ft.
|> <b>Servos:</b> |< Futaba S3004
|> <b>Transmitter:</b> |< Futaba 9C
|> <b>Receiver:</b> |< Futaba PCM
|> <b>Battery:</b> |< 4.8v 2250 mah NiMH
|> <b>Motor:</b> |< Super Tigre G-45 ABC
|> <b>Manufacturer:</b> |< <a href=http://www.Cermark.com>Cermark</a>
|> <b>Available From:</b> |< Your Favorite Local Hobby shop, or online from <a href=http://www.Cermark.com>Cermark</a>
Not too long ago, before 3-D flight was popular, even before the rise of ducted fan powered aircraft, there was one competition that defined radio control flying. Being able to fly a specified routine with precision and grace was known as Pattern Flying, which has now been broken down into several classes. Many of our current generation of 3-D and Freestyle Aerobatics competition pilots began in pattern competition. Fifteen or more years ago, names such as Chip Hyde (more on that later) were on the lists of competitors in pattern events.
Fast forward to today’s flying fields, and you’ll find a lot of different aircraft. Several 3-D type aircraft, scale planes, and sport aerobatic planes will dominate, along with the obligatory trainers. One plane you’ll rarely see is a true pattern aircraft. This could be attributed to several factors. Perhaps the precision of pattern flying is intimidating, the planes too expensive, or too difficult to enjoy flying. While in the past this may have been true, there are a few aircraft on the market now that swiftly eliminate any reason to not have a pattern plane. One of the sleekest is the Javelin II from Cermark.
!The Arrival
@911099:The Javelin arrived in a rather large but flat cardboard box.
@911100:I was immediately disconcerted at an area on the box that looked as if a hockey stick had gotten into a fight with it.
The impact was so hard it went through the outer box, through the actual Javelin II box, and into the fuse. Since the delivery man had conveniently left it on my doorstep without notifying me, I didn’t have a chance to report the damage or refuse delivery. The plane was actually packed very well, and had a rather violent incident not occurred, I don’t believe there would have been any issue.
@911101:Wearily, I removed the Javelin II box and opened it, expecting to find broken parts and some major damage.
@911102:Remarkably, there was only cosmetic damage to the fuse outside.
@911103:The radio gear mounting tray in the fuse was broken in several places. They were, luckily, easily repairable.
@911104:A few popsicle sticks, some epoxy, and spring clamps and they were rebuilt, most probably stronger than before.
!Inspection and Construction
@911105:I began by laying all the parts out and verifying their presence via the included parts list sheet.
Everything was accounted for, and I began reading the instructions. I classify the instructions as adequate-one could easily assemble the plane going by them, but some more detail would have been appreciated. The pictures were nice, but more of them would have been a plus. In all actuality, if one had assembled several ARF’s in the past, the instructions for assembling the Javelin II shouldn’t present much of a problem.
I did manage to pick up a few tricks along the way that would have sped up construction incredibly, had I discovered them earlier.
!!Pull-Pull Rudder Cable Routing
The first tip, and the one that will save you a lot of stress, is how to route the pull-pull wires for the rudder. The manual simply stated to run them through the fuse. This was not as simple as it sounded. Running a flexible cable through the exceptionally long fuselage was not easy. I discovered I had some very small pushrod tubing from a park flyer that was perfect to fit through the slots. I routed the wire through the tube, and then fed the tube through the required slots and formers. After routing the wires, I simply pulled the tubing off, and proceeded to the other side. I had to take care to run the wires properly-they only cross once. Basically, the wire on the left side of the rudder attached to the right servo arm, and vice versa. If the wires wrapped around each other, the linkage would bind, and there would be a lot of difficulty centering the rudder.
!!Elevator Linkages
Another hint was to pre-bend the elevator linkage by laying it on the top (or bottom) of the fuselage and marking where the bends needed to be. Even doing this, I still had use a pair of hemostats to grab the individual elevator wires and pull them through the precut slots. I had to be careful not to “hog out” the linkage slots, as there are fairings to put into place, and they would not have fit if the holes had been enlarged.
Other than these few quirks, assembly was fairly straightforward. Remember to take all the time needed in assembly. The Javelin II is meant to be a precise aircraft, and in order for it to achieve this, all the parts must be in proper alignment. I used the typical methods of strings, tape measures, masking tape, and visual inspection to align all the parts.
!!Landing Gear Mounting
@911106:I was concerned at first by the simplistic gear installation...
@911107:...but it held up perfectly throughout all flight testing.
!!Flight Gear Installation
Flight gear installation was simple enough: the servos went into precut holes, and there was PLENTY of room for the receiver, wires, and other flight gear. I was careful to solidly mount everything. In a performance plane like Javelin, I did not want to rely on Velcro to hold the receiver in place. I used zip ties to secure the foam wrapped receiver to the plywood mounting tray. Battery mounting proved to be difficult, however. Because of the long empennage of the Javelin II, the plane came out very tail-heavy. The battery was wrapped in foam, and then pushed all the way up against the firewall, above the fuel tank. Being as my hands are large anyway, and there wasn’t a lot of room up there, it was fairly difficult to secure it. I wedged a lot of foam up there, and glued a couple of popsicle sticks to keep anything from sliding back. I shook the life out of the plane with no movement, so I assumed my makeshift mounting was adequate.
The engine mounting was as easy as it can be. Mounting the cowl was a challenge, and I recommend the builder use whatever techniques they are comfortable with. My chosen engine, the Super Tigre G-45, required a lot of cutting because of the massive carburetor and it’s associated parts. Since a majority of the engine was covered, I use a Dubro remote glow driver and a Hangar 9 remote fueling kit to keep starting and fueling simple.
One problem I encountered was the inverted mounting of the engine. Fuel would constantly siphon out of the carb. The easiest way to prevent this was to clamp the fuel feed line. This is difficult when the engine is enclosed, but on the recommendation of a flying buddy, I came up with a simple way around it. Since the muffler had to be attached after the cowl was on, two holes had to be drilled to access the muffler screws. These happened to be inline with the fuel feed line. I ran the feed line out the rearmost screw hole, then back in the front-most, and used hemostats to clamp the exposed line when the plane wasn’t about to be flown.
!!Setup
With construction complete, I set up the control throws to their recommended points, and balanced the Javelin II. It required about an ounce of weight on the nose to reach the recommended balance point. This was acceptable, and it even stated in the manual that nose weight would probably be required to achieve the proper balance. With all of the specs within specified spec(whew), I trotted to the field in anticipation of carving the sky up.
After some coaching on what to expect from some more experienced club members, I tuned in the Super Tigre and measured it’s performance. With the Mac’s “Black Pipe” aluminum muffler, and a Master Airscrew 10x7 prop, the G-45 sang to the tune of 14,500 rpm’s. This was quite a number on the ground from a relatively new engine. I am very impressed with the ST-G45, it’s performance and price are both excellent!
!Flying
@911108:The Javelin 2 looks great!
@911109:All set and ready to fly!
@911110:OK, engine's running great, no more excuses....let's fly!
!!Taking Off and Landing
@911111:Taking....
@911112:....off!
@911113:The Javelin II settling in to land.
@911114:The stock gear position did not handle grass landings well, but bending the gear forward slightly made it manageable at our site.
I immediately noticed that the Javelin II was very easy to nose over. In fact it was nearly impossible to taxi in grass. I bent the landing gear forward slightly, and it helped a great deal. I was still required to hold a lot of elevator to keep the tail down, both on take off and landing. This was something to learn-when landing a plane such as this, one has to learn how much elevator to apply at what speed to keep the tail down without achieving flight again. I had to stay aware of the throttle in case the landing turned into a bounce, so the plane can be brought around for another attempt.
!!Flying the Pattern
@911115
@911116
All nuances aside, the Javelin tracked very straight down the runway, and didn’t so much leap as just fly into the air. Not having flown any type of precision aircraft, I was amazed at how true it was in the air. She flew on the proverbial rails the whole time, whether tracking through loop, roll, or inverted. While inverted, very little down elevator was required, and knife edge flight was easily accomplished with almost no coupling of any kind. Snap rolls were a sight to behold, and stopped immediately when I released the sticks. All manner of pattern maneuvers were possible, and the Javelin looked great performing them.
Upon the recommendations of a more experienced pattern flyer, I increased the aileron throw by 65%, the elevator by 15%, and gave as much rudder as I could squeeze out. I also propped to a 10x6, which gave a bit more thrust. After these changes, the Javelin exhibited no bad characteristics, but was more responsive for the more aggressive aerobatic manuevers. It would snap out at full elevator which, of course, I wouldn't be giving full elevator except in a snap or spin command anyway, and the added throw would allow it to complete the snap at the top of avalanches. Overall, it improved on its already nice flying characteristics.
I recommend starting with the manuals specified control throws, then altering to suit your style. Remember the key ingredient to great pattern flying is smoothness, and it's hard to be smooth in flight when the slightest control stick movement results in a 90 degree alteration. For this reason, I used a light amount of exponential (30%) on all surfaces, but it wasn't really required. Alternately, pattern pilots generally do not like to "mess with" dual rate switches, so the increased throws provided enough response for crisp 4-point rolls and such, without making the model overly twitchy.
!!Thoughts of a Pattern Flyer
One of my local club’s president, Tim Treneff happened to be a pattern competitor for many years, and I was anxious to get his thoughts on the Javelin II. After wringing it out for the duration of a fuel tank, and a dead stick landing that had my heart racing, he gave me his thoughts on the plane.
He stated that he recalled spending twice as much as the cost of the Javelin on a kit in the 80’s that didn’t fly nearly as well. As mentioned above, he felt that the control throws were less than he’d expect from a pattern aircraft. He recommended at least twice as much aileron, about a quarter more elevator, and as much rudder as I could squeeze out. He would have also liked to have more thrust on tap, perhaps as would have been supplied by a .70 4-stroke engine with a 12x9 or 12x10 prop. Overall, he seemed to think it was a good pattern flyer, and with the proper setup could take one on to competition.
Speaking of competition, most probably have heard of a fellow by the name of Chip Hyde. Early on in his career, Chip was known as a pattern competitor. Tim went up against a very young Chip Hyde at a pattern completion many years ago. Although Chip came out ahead in points, Tim wasn’t very far behind.
Now don't misunderstand -- that is NOT to say that this isn't a very cool sport model for the average sport pilot who wants something a bit more racy looking and a bit more precise than the average stick! The Javelin 2 performed great for me, a sport pilot with no real pattern experience.
!Final Thoughts
The Cermark Javelin is a great flying, precise aircraft. It doesn’t require expensive engines, high dollar servos, and exceptional abilities to have fun with the plane. I wouldn’t recommend it as a second, or maybe even a third plane. An ultra-low-drag aircraft such as this requires some finesse to land without flying miles past yourself! To safely fly the Javelin, the pilot should have quite a bit of experience with low wing, tail dragger, and responsive aircraft. This is NOT to say the Javelin is HARD to fly at all! Just the opposite -- it does EXACTLY what the pilot asks of it. Therefore the pilot needs to be sure he knows what he is asking. After learning to fly such aircraft, the Javelin would be a blast. It is stable and aerobatic enough to enjoy, and challenging enough to improve pilot skills. If not for bad luck, I would be flying the Javelin II for many years to come.