Adding spoilers to RE 2M birds

[DACeller]

Has anyone thought or actually hacked spoilers into a basic 2M RE ARFs, like
Aspire, WindStar, or others? I know that some Spirit models come with them, and you have to cut them in. I'm looking to do a similar hack into such birds. Its the only feature missing that's needed on these that would help my landing activity where the terrain is rough and causes regular damage. Better control on landing would help minimize that damage and let me fly longer each outing.

Oh, mostly the covering gets poked/ripped so repairs are probable, but it would be nice to land a bit more often without any damage by repetitively hitting some of the smaller/better landing targets and have a longer outing.
I"ve had a lot of fun with other hacks to my Aspire to reduce weight and add strength and the results are astonishing! I've got a GL tail on her to remove those awful ARF planks for tailfeathers; glassed the bottom of the wing for added strength, so I can/do now get quite aggresive with my winch launch. These were done as repairs were in order at the time. She really pays me back in peformance, now.

Thoughts?

[lrsudog]

Many people do add spoilers to RE 2 meters while they are building them. With an ARF it takes some serious motivation to peel off the covering, but beyond that, spoilers are a relatively easy mod.

Spoilers are nice to have, so I guess it is just a matter of judging whether or not they are "Nice" enough to justify the time involved.

[rscarawa]

I built one wing with out spoilers and I think I will never do that again. I fly in an area with a confined landing space. With Spoilers, I can comfortabley approach for landing at a safe height where I can do a stall recovery from as well as turn if needed. And I do not have to worry about overshooting my landing area. Before, I had to make a turn about 100' away from my landing spot about 6 feet off the ground. Heaven forbid if I misjudged the wind, height or speed. It was a dangerous situation. Spoilers definitely make landing approaches safer.

As far as hoping spoiler will keep your covering from getting holes poked thru it, I do not see this having much impact if your landing area has stiff grass on it.


Scot

[Ollie]

It depends your purpose. If your purpose is to improve your flying skills, then I think you will teach yourself faster without spoilers. You improve your skills spot landing by judging speed, energy and glide angle without spoilers. Your improved flying skills by learning to fly a dihedral, two control glider to fly inverted to loose altitude quickly and safely.

It is like the Navy Academy teaches the seamanship with sailboats before powerboat seamanship. It is like teaching math with learning addition and subtraction tables before using a computer for answers. It's like going to a scout camp to go into the forest to feed yourself without going to a fast food joint. Get my point?

[dephela]

The glide of most planes can be made much steeper by giving commands that are "very bad" for maintaining a good glide:
Wiggle the stick left, as the plane responds, give it right stick, as it responds, give it left stick. The plane will fly a straight line but yaw terribly, slow down and not glide as well.

Spoilers without servos!

[Ollie]

Good example, dephela!

[kak8]

I don`t know how the wind is in your area, but my 2m RE glider can fly backward. Just give it some more washout and you can do it without tipstalls. It makes it easy to catch before touchdown.

[DACeller]

I built one wing with out spoilers and I think I will never do that again. I fly in an area with a confined landing space. With Spoilers, I can comfortabley approach for landing at a safe height where I can do a stall recovery from as well as turn if needed. And I do not have to worry about overshooting my landing area. Before, I had to make a turn about 100' away from my landing spot about 6 feet off the ground. Heaven forbid if I misjudged the wind, height or speed. It was a dangerous situation. Spoilers definitely make landing approaches safer.

As far as hoping spoiler will keep your covering from getting holes poked thru it, I do not see this having much impact if your landing area has stiff grass on it.


Scot

Well, this is exactly my situation. If I can hit my intended landing space, no problem with destruction; if not, I land in a farm field where poke, tear is
inevitable. I hate when I do that!

When I fly elsewhere, I'll stick with my RE planes cuz like someone said, it's a better practice and I love to practice.

Sounds like no one else out there does this as I described.
Thanks