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The Hangar 9 Fokker D-VII 60 ARF is an accurate and beautiful rendition of Rudolf Berthold's mount that mimics the original in the air as well as on the ground.
 








Hangar 9 Fokker D-VII 60 ARF Review
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Introduction


Wingspan: 64"
Wing Area: 1114 sq. in.
Weight: 9 lbs. 10 oz.
Length: 51"
Servos: four (4) JR DS821 Digital Sport High Torque Servo
Transmitter: Spektrum DX7 7Ch Air
Receiver: Spektrum AR7000 DSM2 7Ch Receiver
Battery: Thunder Power 3850mAh 6-Cell/6S 22.2V 25C eXtreme V2 LiPo
Motor: E-flite Power 60 Brushless Outrunner, 400Kv
ESC: E-flite 60-Amp Pro Switch-Mode BEC Brushless ESC
Manufacturer: Hangar 9
Available From: Horizon Hobby

Many of you know me from either my reviews here on the the E-zone or from my discus-launched glider design, the Gambler. What most people don't know is that years before I entered the R/C hobby, I was enthralled with the first world war, in particular the war in the air. Fourteen years ago I created the World War I Modeling Mailing List and Website, wwi.wwi-models.org. The list, website and my interest in World War I planes are all still going strong. My interests started in plastic models but soon facilitated my entry into radio controlled models.

I've built and flown several scale World War I R/C planes and have always been a believer that when it comes to scale R/C planes, bigger is better. When Hangar 9 announced their 60-sized Fokker D-VII I knew this was one plane on my "must have" list. When I saw that the offered markings were that of German ace Rudolf Berthold, that only fueled the fire more.

Rudolf Berthold And His Fokker D-VII

Rudolf Berthold started his career not as a pilot, but as an observer in two-seat Halberstadt aircraft. After a short time as an observer, he made the transition to fighter pilot flying Fokker E-IIIs in the newly created Jasta 4. Berthold earned a total of 44 air-to-air victory which ranks him as Germany's 7th highest scoring ace and the 19th highest ace of the war across all nations, both Central Powers and Allies. It's understandable that Berthold isn't as widely known as his more flamboyant contemporaries such as the Richtofen brothers, Max Immelman, Werner Voss, Eddie Rickebacker or Charles Nungesser. Although Berthold was not as large of a personality as some of the other pilots of the day, he is still one of my favorite aces. Berthold was a man's man, returning to fly after being wounded no less than three times, one of which crippled his upper arm. Berthold's death was something that seems straight out of a Hollywood movie: He was murdered by a rioting mob in Harburg, Germany, in 1920 after the war. Although it is rumored that he was strangled by the ribbon of his Pour le Merite medal, this could be just the type of legend that great men attract.

Berthold's Fokker D-VII was the plane he was flying while he commanded Jagdgeschwader 2 and suffered his final battle wound of the war during a crash after a flight in which he downed two Allied DH.4 two-seater aircraft. The plane, which is pictured above with Berthold standing next to it and two mechanics servicing the engine, was colored with a red nose and blue fuselage. This was a color scheme shared by several other aircraft of the squadron. Berthold's personal insignia of the flying sword can clearly be seen in the photo. A close examination of the photo also shows the darker (red) nose and lighter (blue) rear fuselage. Although it is impossible to replicate in R/C iron-on covering it can be noted in the photograph that the original factory crosses do partially show through the blue paint that was applied to the fuselage in the field as most squadron markings were.

Kit Contents

The Hanger 9 Fokker D-VII 60 ARF comes in a very large box. Each of the major components come separately wrapped to insure they don't damage each other during shipping. Although the box is large, it's not because it's filled with packing materials; it's because it's filled with everything you need to build the plane for both fuel or electric power.

Kit Contains:

  • Pre-covered airframe: fuselage, wings (4), stabilizer/elevator assembly, rudder assembly
  • Painted fiberglass parts: cowling, cockpit turtle deck hatch
  • Wing struts (4), strut keepers (12), wing joiners (2)
  • Landing gear: struts(2), 'wing' spreader, axle, scale wheels(2) , wheel collars (8)
  • Fuel tank, motor mounts for fuel and electric motor systems, electric battery tray, foam inserts
  • Pushrod hardware: pushrods (4), clevises (8)
  • Scale details: Pre-painted pilot, engine, exhaust, spandau machine guns (2)

The airframe, covering, accessories and scale details was that they were of first-class quality all around. Everything was as good, and in most cases better, than I could build myself: cleaner, lighter, stronger, and most of all, better looking. Sometimes I purchase ARFs to save time. The Hangar 9 Fokker D-VII is a plane I'd consider to purchase not only to save time, but in order to get a higher level of fit and finish than I could build myself.

Two parts of the plane that are particularly praiseworthy are the cowling and the cockpit turtledeck. Both of these parts are made of lightweight fiberglass that is pre-finished at the factory. These parts are strong, light, highly detailed, and the coloring matches the fuselage's iron-on covering exactly. When installed it's nigh impossible to tell which parts are covered wood and which are fiberglass.

The underside of the upper wing surfaces show off the quality of the covering. The attention to detail carries through to the servo covers on which the scale lozenge camouflage pattern matches the wing precisely. Although this is a larger plane, Hangar 9 delivers it in a state of completion that makes it easier and faster to assemble than many parkflyer-sized ARFs I've built. All of the flying surfaces come with the control surfaces hinged and glued in place. The control surfaces also have all of the control horns installed in the proper locations, and the pushrod tubes are pre-installed into the fuselage. In addition to the control surfaces, all of the mount points for the landing gear, struts and tail-skid come with pre-installed threaded fittings which means that the only drilling that needs to be done is to attach the cowling to the fuselage. Although you do have to drill the holes in the cowling, the blocks the cowling screws go into are pre-installed onto the fuselage.

The laser cut plywood and balsa structure on the inside of the Fokker's fuselage was obviously designed to be powered either by fuel or electric power. It's very strong where it needs to be and light everywhere else. This is not simply an older-generation glow ARF retrofit for electric power but a brand new design purpose-built from the inside out. Inside the fuselage there is a removable slide-in tray for the recommended Lithium Polymer battery. The tray makes it easy to remove the battery for safe charging outside the airframe. In addition to the battery tray, the top deck of the fuselage, which includes the false cockpit, is designed with a magnetic hatch retention mechanism that allows access to the battery as well as the receiver and servos without using tools. As an electric pilot, this easy-access hatch might be my favorite design feature of the model.

Horizon Hobby was generous enough to provide my review model with the recommended power system components from E-flite:

  • The Power 60 400 Kv brushless outrunner motor
  • The E-flite 60-Amp Pro Switch-Mode BEC Brushless ESC.

If you've owned some of the smaller E-flite outrunners, you're familiar with their high quality, and the Power 60 is no different. I was unable to detect any play in the bearings, and the machining on the entire motor was perfect. The 60-Amp pro ESC contains a Switch-Mode BEC, which means it can handle six digital or seven analog servos no matter how many cells you're flying with. With this ESC there's no reason to use a dedicated receiver battery even on six LiPo cells.

Considering the size of this model, control is very important. Horizon insured that I would have no problems with control by including the recommended Spektrum and JR components:

  • Spektrum AR7000 DSM2 7Ch Receiver
  • Four JR DS821 Digital Sport High Torque Servos

For transmission I used my Spektrum DX7 7Ch transmitter. Although I did set up dual rates on all control surfaces with some negative expo on the low-rate setting, the Fokker is quite comfortable to fly on high rates with no expo. My high rates were set to the recommended control throws from the manual. A six-channel non-computer radio would be quite capable of flying the Fokker without compromising control.

What Scale Is "60-Size"?

The first question I asked myself when I started this review was what is 60-size? I know the practical answer: it's the size of a model that can be comfortably flown on a .60 two-stroke glow motor. For different airplanes this can be different scales. Being a biplane also affects how large the plane can be and still be flown with a .60 motor due to the increased drag of the struts and additional wing. As a scale aficionado I wanted to know what scale this equated to for the Fokker. To figure this out I divided the full-sized Fokker D-VII wingspan of 351 inches (29' 3") by the model's wingspan of 64 inches to come up with a scale of 1:5.48, or roughly halfway between 1/5 scale and 1/6 scale. When people at the field ask me what scale the Fokker is I tell them "bigger than 1/6 scale" because it's easier than telling them "1:5.48 scale."

Assembly

Assembly of the Fokker was a true joy. I've built a lot of ARFs and Hangar 9 really knows how to make assembly easy by having many of the most time consuming steps already completed when you take it out of the box. Because the assembly process is fairly similar to other ARF builds, I'm only going to note the areas where I strayed from the kit's instructions or where the kit had notable differences from other ARFs.

Wings

The upper wing of the Fokker is assembled using a plywood wing joiner. I prefer to use polyurethane glue (Gorilla glue, Elmer's ProBond, etc.) for my wing joiners instead of the epoxy that the manual recommends. I find the the polyurethane glue foams inside the joiner box and provides for a superior bond. Because the glue foams, it's important to immediately cover the wing joint with masking tape to prevent any glue from oozing out onto the wing's covering. Hangar 9 provided a matching piece of white covering to cover this joint on the top of the wing after the glue had dried. On the underside of the wing I covered the joint with clear tape, which allowed the lozenge pattern of the covering to show through. My careful masking tape application during the glue-up insures that even though I used clear tape, I had a clean seam. Epoxy users also will have no troubles since epoxy dries close to clear.

The lower wing is installed using a wing joiner tube and screws, and therefore requires no adhesives. Both wings are attached to the struts by inserting each strut's wire ends into the wing's strut mount points and then securing the strut ends with the provided hardware which resemble miniature wheel collars. This wing mounting system allows for the wings to be easily removed for storage and transportation. Set up at the field takes approximately 10 minutes.

The instructions recommend attaching both wings to the fuselage early in the assembly process, after which you are instructed to add the scale details to the fuselage and install the radio and power systems. I found it much easier to install both wings, then temporarily remove the top wing while I completed the rest of the setup. At the end of the assembly I reattached the top wing confident that it would fit since I had already installed it earlier.

Tail

I attached the horizontal stabilizer/elevator assembly and the stabilizer/rudder assemblies with epoxy, as recommended. On the king post of the rudder I added a large servo mounting screw installed from the underside of the fuselage for added strength. I'm not sure whether this was necessary but it seemed a very easy and unobtrusive addition. Also visible in this photo is the mount trough for the landing skid and the threaded screw holes to secure it. The security of threaded machine screw connections here and on all of of the struts adds to the quality of the Fokker.

Radio Installation

The Hangar 9 Fokker D-VII interior structure provides plenty of good mount points for one, or in the case of a 2.4 Ghz system, two receivers. I chose to mount the Spektrum's main module on the deck behind the battery tray and the remote module against the fuselage side at a 90-degree angle to the main module per Spektrum's recommendations.

Routing servo extensions to biplane wings is always a challenge, particularly if you want to allow one or both wings to be removed for transportation purposes. The Hangar 9 Fokker handles this problem quite elegantly: One pair of servo extensions are run within the wings from the servos exiting at the strut mount point, and a second pair of extensions are run up the struts and shrink-wrapped to the struts, allowing you to detach the wing by unplugging the wing extension from the extension that is attached to the strut. During flight, the excess extension slack can be tucked inside the wing to keep it out of the air stream and out of sight. After these photos were taken I concealed the exposed servo extension exiting from the fuselage with some red Zagi tape and touched up the shrink wrap with a black Sharpie marker to hide the white lettering.

Power System

Motor mounts and a firewall drilling template are provided for all of the recommended motors. The electric motor mount consists of aluminum offsets, blind nuts and machine screws. The paper drilling template allowed me to easily mount the Power 60 Outrunner. A dry fit of the cowl confirmed that the template had done it's job, my motor shaft was dead center on the cowl's opening. A hole to route the ESC wires to the motor is provided, but I decided that this hole alone would provide inadequate ventilation for the ESC and the large LiPoly battery so I added another six half-inch holes in the firewall. To allow air to escape, I also drilled six half-inch holes in the underside of the fuselage aft of the servos.

Scale Details

They say the devil is in the details, and if that is true, then the Hangar 9 Fokker is pure evil, but I mean that in a good way. The detail parts provided with the ARF are very well done. The pre-painted pilot comes with a leather flight cap (no radio earphones, thank you very much) and scarf. He even looks somewhat like the proud young Prussian he's supposed to represent. The Spandau machine guns are made of hard plastic and come completely assembled. There is a right and a left gun so it's important to pay attention to which is which when mounting them. The model BMW 6-cylinder engine and exhaust are lightweight vacuformed black styrene. The exhaust comes separated from the engine, but I found this to be a benefit: it made painting the exhaust easier because I didn't have to worry about getting paint on the engine. It's also worth noting in the detail section that the cowling comes with the screen which represents the radiator pre-installed. Not only is this screen very scale looking, it allows for unrestricted airflow to the motor.

Although I could have installed all of the detail parts out of the box, I knew my friends on the World War I modeling list wouldn't respect me if I didn't add my own personal touches to the kit's details. For the guns I dry-brushed silver paint over them to highlight the details. Although most Spandau guns were painted and not blued, I chose to depict them as blued as it makes them most recognizable as weaponry to other observers. After removing the engine from the vacuform carrier sheet, I applied a silver dry-brush to it to highlight its details. I painted the exhaust header flat rust to reflect the rusting that happens once the headers heat up and cool down. After painting, the exhaust pipe was glued to the engine, and the engine and guns were glued to the cowling and fuselage turtle deck respectively. Embellished and installed, the details really made the Fokker come to life.

Completion

Once I had completed the basic assembly I started on the preflight testing and setup including setting the servo throws to the recommended settings and checking the center of gravity (CG). The manual recommends mounting the LiPo pack as far forward as possible to allow for proper balancing of the model. The location shown in the photo is as far forward as you can mount the pack without it hitting the firewall when the tray is inserted into the model. I found that the CG was still tail heavy by about one inch with this battery location. My solution was to mount a piece of lead to the motor mount offsets with nylon zip ties. The lead shown in the photo is larger than the piece I finally settled on, which weighed five ounces. This was for a very conservative CG slightly forward of the recommended setting. With this review and my reputation at the local field on the line, I preferred the more conservative CG placement. I would estimate that approximately three ounces of lead would balance the model on the recommended CG.

At the field, final testing included a range check and a static run up of the power system to insure that the motor draw was within the limits of the motor, battery and ESC. Full-throttle static draw was a comfortable 52.5 amps, which was well within the limits of all power system components. Static draws on the watt meter displayed a little over 1200 watts which equates to more than 120 watts per pound, - luxurious for a scale model of this size. Who says electric planes don't have any power? This one has plenty.

Flying

Before you can fly you need to get to the field. The photo above shows the Hangar 9 Fokker in the back of my wife's Nissan Xterra SUV. The Xterra is probably on the small side of average for SUVs, but you should still measure up your vehicle to see if you can get the Fokker in fully assembled. If not, you can always take advantage of the easy break down feature to transport the Fokker with the wings removed. Assembly at the field only takes 10 minutes thanks to the design of the strut attachment and servo extension placement.

Taking Off and Landing

In the first World War pilots were trained first with "penguins." Penguins were training airplanes with clipped wings that could only hop off the ground. These silly looking aircraft provided invaluable experience to the trainees with taxiing, takeoffs and landings. My first few runs down the runway with the Hangar 9 Fokker were "penguin" runs to allow me to get the hang of the Fokker on the ground. World War I planes are notorious for nosing over on landing, and I wanted some experience on the ground to insure that my first landing wasn't my last. Initially I was having a hard time getting the model to track on the runway, and it seemed that the rudder was either unresponsive or over responsive sometimes within moments switching between the two. What I discovered was that the rudder wasn't at fault, and in fact it was working perfectly. The axle of the landing gear, which is secured by rubber O-rings which simulate the scale Fokker's bungee system, was sliding back and forth causing these problems. The simple fix was to install two of the spare wheel collars from the ARF on the axle to limit its side-to side movement. Reinstalling the O-rings immobilized the axle allowing each wheel to spin independently. Once this modification was made the ground handling improved greatly and taxiing became a routine affair.

With my ground handling problems solved there was nothing left but to get some air under the Fokker, and put it through its paces. As the wattmeter predicted, the E-flite power system provided more power than was needed. Takeoffs resembling a scale Fokker D.VIII can be made at less than half throttle. When taking off at these power levels the Fokker really looks like its 100-year-old original. The tail lifts before the wheels, the pilot's scarf is waving in the wind, and you can almost imagine the sound of the flight leader's Fokker Dr-I's rotary engine burping along in front of you. Climbouts at 20-30 degrees look just like you're working your way up to combat altitude to engage the Allies. Look out Snoopy, here comes Rudolf Berthold!

When the wind gets tricky or field space gets tight, full throttle takeoffs are anything but scale, but get the job done quickly and safely. Pullout climbs of 45 degrees under full throttle are no trouble for the Fokker, and takeoff distance can be as little as 30 yards.

At near-stall speeds the Fokker does suffer from its full-sized counterpart’s faults as well. The smallish rudder of the original is accurately reproduced in the Hanger 9 model, and at slow speeds the tail can drift with crosswinds just like the original. What this means is that crosswind approaches are best made at speeds comfortably above stall speed. This shouldn't be a problem for most model runways of 200 feet or longer. The bungee system on the landing gear does provide for a certain amount of forgiveness on harder landings. When landing, it's best to hold in full up elevator once ground contact is firmly established to prevent nosing over, which is common in almost every scale World War I airplane. On our fairly rough grass runway this technique has been very effective in preventing any "ground looping."

Basics

As a scale RC pilot I want my planes to be accurate in markings, the size, shape and scale of the airframe and in the way the airplane flies. Hangar 9 has struck gold in all three categories. As you can see from the Dusk Patrol video on the photo and video gallery, the Fokker looks the part in the air. My favorite style of flying with the Fokker is at partial throttle allowing the loft of the wing to really show while making treetop passes past the field.

Being a scale model the Hanger-9 Fokker shares many of the flight characteristics of its full-sized original. The two wings and generous flight surfaces on the ailerons, elevator and rudder all give it great handling at "fighting speed" of half or more throttle. Gliding in a dive also provides positive response from all surfaces. There's a reason the Fokker D-VII was specifically mentioned in the Treaty of Versailles, and the Hangar-9 Fokker provides all the thrills of a fighter plane from any war.

Aerobatics/Special Flight Performance

What aerobatics did a World War I fighter perform? Well the Immelman turn was named after Max Immelman, who invented it flying a Fokker E-I fighter in World War I. Loops and more commonly barrel rolls were also favorites of the World War I pilot. Can the Hangar-9 Fokker do them? Of course!

Loops can be done from level flight easily, with plenty of extra power when necessary. Rolls will lose some altitude even with down elevator applied while inverted due to the drag of the struts and wings, but are quite comfortable when done at a reasonable altitude. Combining these two elements allows the Hangar-9 Fokker to do an Immelman turn that even Max himself would be proud of.

As far as nonscale acrobatics, those are probably left to more appropriately designed aircraft. While the Fokker does have generous side-area, knife edge flight is a struggle at best as are other rudder-driven acrobatics. The Fokker D-VII was designed before most of these maneuvers were conceived, and it's hard to blame Anthony Fokker for designing a plane unable to do them or Hangar 9 for accurately reproducing that plane.

Is This For a Beginner?

As most scale aficionados know, the more accurate the model, the more of the original aircraft's flying characteristics come through. Hangar 9 has done such a great job of maintaining scale accuracy that the flight characteristics of the original Fokker definitely shine through. The Hangar 9 Fokker D.VII's responsiveness and its tendency to behave very much like a full-sized Fokker D-VII on approach and on the ground means that it's a plane best suited to experienced RC pilots.

Flight Video/Photo Gallery

This flight video requires the DIVX codec, which can be downloaded for free on the DIVX website here.

Downloads
Type Name
Size
Dusk patrol with the Fokker D.VII
14.06 MB

I'd like to thank my good friend Merchon "Chon" Cotterell for expertly filming and editing the video footage for this review. Without his help a video of this quality would be impossible for me to produce. I'd also like to thank fellow reviewer Michael Heer for providing me in-air photos from the Waldo Pepper event. My flying times with a photographer are evenings and the low-light conditions have prevented me from getting my own in-air photographs in time for this review.

Conclusion

The Hangar 9 Fokker D-VII 60 ARF is a high-quality model that provides a scale World War I flying experience in every aspect: static looks, takeoffs and landings, scale flight and aerobatics. Being a purpose-designed multi-power model means that it's light enough to be flown on electric power without compromise and strong enough to be flown with fuel motors.

Pluses:

  • Accurate scale looks
  • Accurate scale flight performance
  • High-quality scale details included in the ARF
  • High level of pre-assembly makes building fast and easy
  • Designed to be powered by both fuel and electric power systems

Minuses:

  • Landing gear axle slides side to side without recommended fix (easily corrected with supplied parts)
  • Scale-sized rudder limits acrobatics to those of the original plane
  • Scale-sized rudder requires pilot to maintain proper airspeed on landing during crosswind situations

Last edited by Angela H; Dec 04, 2008 at 08:23 PM..
 
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 07:28 AM   #2
piro-maniac........
 
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Ahh...I"ve been eyeing this one. Nice write up. Wonder how it would perform with some glow power.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 09:00 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnyGlow
Ahh...I"ve been eyeing this one. Nice write up. Wonder how it would perform with some glow power.
I'm sure it would be great. Glow would probably make it 4-8 ounces lighter. Possibly more depending on how much less nose weight is needed. Motor mount and fuel tanks are provided for those wishing to go 'wet'.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 09:49 AM   #4
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What video player do I need to view this one (mpeg)? My Windows Media Player only plays the audio.


EDIT: Thanks for the codec link. I do things backwards perhaps. I skim the article and view the video first. If I like what I see, I read the details.

Last edited by Bombay; Dec 10, 2008 at 11:04 AM.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 09:58 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Bombay
What video player do I need to view this one (mpeg)? My Windows Media Player only plays the audio.
It's TOP SECRET!!

You are asked to install all kinds of other stuff...but..eh...it happens.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 10:08 AM   #6
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You need the DIVX codec (which is mentioned in the article). There is a link to where to get it for free in the sentence above the video in the article. If if you don't mind a lower-quality video, I just uploaded it to YouTube here:

Fokker.mpg (1 min 44 sec)


It's much nicer if you watch the video you can download here though - YouTube compresses the hell out of stuff. The original is larger and crystal clear.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnyGlow
It's TOP SECRET!!

You are asked to install all kinds of other stuff...but..eh...it happens.
You can opt out of installing the player, converter, etc. Just tell it you only want the codec in the installer.

Last edited by Allan Wright; Dec 10, 2008 at 10:19 AM.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 10:59 AM   #7
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Nice-what about using A123 batteries?
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:03 AM   #8
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What was your AUW?? The stats at the top of the page list 9 lbs 10oz. Is that the projected weight...or your actual?
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:03 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by Sisyphus
Nice-what about using A123 batteries?
That's next on my list, but I plumb ran out of flying weather this year. I'm probably going to start with a 5s2p 2300 pack. I'll have to increase the prop size a little bit, but there's PLENTY of pitch and thrust now so I doubt losing a few volts will matter much. Plus the 2s5p pack is what I have (DeWalt 36 volt pack cells).

Haven't tried it yet though, other than to check that there's enough room in the fuselage for the cells (there is). I should run the watt meter on a static run just to check the numbers with the prop I have.

Last edited by Allan Wright; Dec 14, 2008 at 02:23 PM.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:04 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnyGlow
What was your AUW?? The stats at the top of the page list 9 lbs 10oz. Is that the projected weight...or your actual?
That is my actual weight with battery and extra lead to balance. I hung the whole thing on my digital fish scale (accurate to 1 oz.). I ended up just under the instruction's recommended weight range maximum. At a comfortable cruise speed the plane was still nimble and seemed to have scale-like 'float' in the air. The video shows this fairly well. The last pass across the field of view before the landing was a power-off glide.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:06 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by Allan Wright
My actual weight with battery and extra lead to balance. I hung the whole thing on my digital fish scale (accurate to 1 oz.).
very good!! Thank you sir!

Can I blame you when my wife asks why I have another airplane!?
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:07 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by GunnyGlow
very good!! Thank you sir!

Can I blame you when my wife asks why I have another airplane!?
I've been called worse by people's wives!
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 11:09 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Allan Wright
That's next on my list, but I plumb ran out of flying weather this year. I'm probably going to start with a 5s2p 2300 pack. I'll have to increase the prop size a little bit, but there's PLENTY of pitch and thrust now so I doubt losing a few volts will matter much. Plus the 2s5p pack is what I have (DeWalt 36 volt pack cells).

Haven't tried it yet though, other than to check that there's enough room in the fuselage for the cells (there is). I should run the watt meter on a static run just to check the numbers with the prop I have.
It should be an almost perfect match!
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 12:02 PM   #14
out of the western sky...
 
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Harbor City, CA
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Great Review!

This airplane is crying out for Dullcoat! I use the Rustoleum clear flat spray paint that I get at Home Depot for $2.99 a can. It should take you just less than a can to do this plane. I don't do any surface prep other than a good cleaning and rub down with a tack cloth (also from Home Depot) and have found that it can be removed with Windex and a cloth and reapplied if it starts looking ratty!





The Black Falcon has been Dullcoated as in above text, the Red Baron has not.. Yet!

Here is what it looks like before dullcoating (like a cheap toy!)


Here is a video!

ScottB

Last edited by Skyking213; Dec 10, 2008 at 12:56 PM.
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Old Dec 10, 2008, 02:52 PM   #15
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Nice review Allan, the video makes me wish it was warmer and not raining around here........Impact
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