This chronicles the build of the Dos E, 2 meter sail plane available through www.northplanes.com for which I am importing these models.

Specifications
Wingspan: 2000mm
Length: 1125mm
Wing Area: 30.5dm^2
Airfoil: AG35-36-37
Airframe Weight: 330g
Flying Weight: 630~650g

The Dos E is a light weight, all composite model great for ALES or other thermal competition.

It comes as a kit, requiring around 10-12 hrs for completion. The wing is a 2 piece unit that requires the user to join it. To aid in assembly, an injection molded....uh mold, is included to clamp the wing parts together at the correct angle. The fin comes installed to the boom. Horizontal tail bolts in place, making transport easy, and if you ever need to replace it.

Before joining the wings, I pre-ran servo wire through the lightweight tube inside the wings. Since I dislike splices, I directly soldered these to the servo board, in this case, Hitec HS-45s. I left a little slack so I could wait until the servos had their plugs reinstalled to center them, and finally glue them into the wing.

For joining the wings, I did it in 2 steps for my own sanity. First use 30 minute epoxy to glue the two panels and wing bolt tubes together. Let it all cure. After that cures, I then remove the plastic mold, apply the included carbon cloth with 30 minute epoxy, and re-clamp. I would suggest waxing the plastic mold to aid in releasing it.

After joining the wings, I installed a Deans 4-pin connector for...Continue Reading

May 21st dawned mostly sunny, light winds, and a Freya waiting for a test flight.

I headed up to the field, the Spokane RC Flyers field, met up with my buddies Dwaine and Randy, both are heli guys. Randy brought his Raptor 50SE, and Dwaine had his Sceadu 50. A couple of the airplen guys were there, most of the other regulars were over at the Barons for the pyplon racing....so we pretty much had the field to ourselves.

Randy was trying to hunt down a tail drive in his GY611. I test hopped my Freya, Dwaine was flying his Sceadu practicing FFF to backwards inverted transitionsl.

Finally got a few things figured out the Randy Raptor, though didn't solve the drift...

All in all though a great day of flying.

Well, it was a long process, well not really, but it took longer than I wanted it to, but I finally finished my Hirobo Freya 90.

First off, this is my 2nd Hirobo ship I've owned, and of all the helis I've worked on over the years, be it my own helis, or those at work, or when I worked at a local hobby shop, this is my favorite. I can say that after only 2 flights even.

On the test flight, the OS 91 SZ-H fired up right away, and set plenty rich for break in, it hummed away very reliably. Lift off was a non event, perfectly trimmed, even the blades were tracking perfectly. I noticed a slight head shake, though the rest of the ship was pefectly smooth, even the antenna tube was smooth.

The head shake was due to the low head speed I was running. A quick bump of the throttle curve and all was well. I decided to drop the gyro gain 2%, and then it was dialed.....

Some basic hovering, quick climbouts, and some slow forward flight just toolin' around the runway was par for the course. Did some backwards flight to test the tail, though at the speeds I was doing it, the gyro wasn't working too hard.

The 2nd flight was a little more hovering and then forward flight taking up the whole field. I tested the piro rate, a little slow, did some stall turns, a couple of rolls, and then some short 5-10 foot autos. Those MAH blades are pretty sensitive around neutral, but I think that could be how good the resolution is on the Airtronics 94358 on collective.

Anyways, great flyer. I can't wait to really put its through its paces.

--Paul