We got a bit of calm this morning with a 53 degree temp and decided to go for it.
Pictures are louder than words... No damage except the rudder hinges pulled out on the last attempt.
We still don't have a 3 cell lipo big enough for the bigger motor, but may try it out with the 2 cell if it feels any stronger.

Stay tuned for more vids....
Nick

MicroDreamerMaiden (1 min 7 sec)

Originally Posted by taildragger1589

We got a bit of calm this morning with a 53 degree temp and decided to go for it.
Pictures are louder than words... No damage except the rudder hinges pulled out on the last attempt.
We still don't have a 3 cell lipo big enough for the bigger motor, but may try it out with the 2 cell if it feels any stronger.

Stay tuned for more vids....
Nick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwrup...ature=youtu.be

Truly an amazing work of art. The plane looks beautiful! Sorry about your maiden flights, but you will get it.

Thanks! I'm already enlarging the motor hole in the nose for the big motor.
I probably won't be surprised if thrust claims are a little exagerated on it as well.
11 oz. thrust aught to hover it, right?

Looks like a handful. It it possible that it's tail heavy, or just twitchy at low speed (& high speed too ) A heavier motor would help.
It looks like it really wants to roll left, maybe add a few inches to the wingspan?
Looks great though, I've never built something that nice.

I definitly think it's going to be a handfull, but if the balance point is accurate for the half scale at the same percentage as the full size, then she's slightly nose heavy, balancing at the LE of the bottom wing.

Funny thing, after building a few Pat Trittle kits, this ship was super simple. It's like half the parts that are in my ill fated Rapide. And as you can see, it can do multiple cartwheels and come back for more. (I frequently wait to pin my hinges til after the first few flights) The rudder popped right back on with a little superglue.

Now I know why the super light coverings are so popular...3 oz. to cover this ship with coverite fabric! I just wish coverlite didn't need brush on adhesive.

Here's the new motor ready for the next warm day, right now there's no sinker in the nose. It's been replace with the 1200 mah 2 cell lipo. I estimate a 40% thrust increase. If that's not enough I'm sure a 3 cell will fly it. the 460 mah 3 cell will hover it with the big motor, but only for a minute and a half while getting pretty warm.

Nick

Well folks, it's the end of the story.
The little dreamer flew successfully but it was just too small for me to tell what it was doing.
After studying the vid in slo-mo I could see what happened, the ship was flying well, but had rolled inverted. Being a one eyed old geezer, I couldn't tell it was inverted and banked and yanked, which of course pulled her right into the ground.
But I have good news, I've layed out the top wing of the full sized dreamer (38") and will probably post a semi build thread in the gas to electric conversion forum after the holidays.
Meanwhile...
Merry Christmas folks.

Micro dreamer last flt (0 min 53 sec)

Epilogue:

We have come to the conclusion that if you can comfortably fly the Top Flite "Holy Smoke" or an especially fast EDF, then you would probably be happy with a 20" span stunter built to old methods.

But if you're old enough to remember when Phil Kraft released a kit of the original "Ugly Stick". Then you'd be better off keeping the weight to 4 oz. or less on something this small. (Sigh )

Signing off....
Nick

That Micro-dreamer seems like a handful to me. 11 oz is a little bit heavy for such a small plane, which would explain why it likes speed and needed a larger motor. It is a beautiful job though, so please don't take my comments wrong. Pat Tritle always preaches minimizing the weight. The Coverite fabric was really 3 ounces? Wow, that is really a lot.

You'll get it, but it does look like it's going to be hairy to fly.
Good job though!!!

The weight of the coverite was one of the big reasons for this experiment.
I still have trouble convincing myself of the weight of that coverite!

No offense taken.
I'm really quite hard headed, Me and all my modeling buddies had always heard these gems of wisdom concerning heavy little airplanes but never ran into someone with actual experience. Sooooooo... Finally decided to test it when I came across a Dreamer kit on ebay and had the plans copied to preserve the originals. Also had two copies of the plans reduced to 66% and 50%.

Looks like I should have tried the the 66% size which would have been 25" in span
Might have helped.

Anyway, she is permanently retired now.
While I build on the original kit, which should come out on the light side, knock wood. I plan to put the motor out of the Pitts Python by ZeroGravity 42" span and a little over 3 lb.
Might need a little more tho.

I did a similar experiment. I found plans for a rubber powered XP-55 Ascender online, printed them, and blew them up to twice the size. Then I reinforced it and turned it into an RC plane. It was a LOT of work, but I really liked some of the innovations I came up with to make it work. The problem is, it turned out to be very heavy for such a small wingspan and would have a stall speed of something like 24 mph, which is really cooking. It is semi-retired on display in my office right now. I could fly it, but it would have to be dropped from another airplane and would fly like a fast jet with almost no room for error.

What I should have done was to increase it to 4x the original size, not just 2x. But hey, it was an interesting experiment. Right?

Originally Posted by builderdude

What I should have done was to increase it to 4x the original size, not just 2x. But hey, it was an interesting experiment. Right?

Having flown a model of just about every aircraft I wanted to model I find myself turning to the really offbeat experiments.
Did you see the thread on my 90% depron 10% basswood Avro triplane?
That was one that everyone said wouldn't fly since it lacked a vertical stab and had a tiny flying rudder.
But mine flew, it would hardly turn, but neither would the full sized one.

I thought the wing loading of 11 oz per square foot would be ok for the microdreamer, but it looks like 4 to 5 would have been more successful.
The big dreamer had a wing loading of 16 oz per square foot...

Truth is, it was flyable, I just couldn't see it well enough. My reaction time is still very good on the biggies, I can still do 4 point rolls down the runway at 20 feet with my sig 1/4 scale clipped wing cub.
But then, the elevator is twice the size of the wings on the MD.

I guess all of the upcoming grand experiments will have to be bigger or slower!

Here's a shot of the Avro:

Originally Posted by builderdude

I did a similar experiment. I found plans for a rubber powered XP-55 Ascender online,

been thinking about that cause the Assender was one of the few I never got around to building, but really loved the shape of those rudders.
Seems like a natural for depron profile with the Micro brick for spectrum tx.

I did an 18" span Stampe that weighted a couple of ounces that flew very well.
(still does)

Here is my P-55 Ascender. The wingspan is about 2 1/2 ft. I don't remember how much it weighs, sorry. The landing gear is removable, but that idea added a full ounce to the weight, so the maiden flight might be with the landing gear removed, and then belly land it in some tall grass to cushion the blow. On my plane the design has been turned into a canard with an exaggerated horizontal stabilizer.

I'll fly it someday. And if it survives its maiden flight, it'll probably be permanently on display.

Now that is really good looking.
If you maiden fly it by hand launching without gear, you've got more guts than me.
I might have tried a take off. but shudder at the mental image of a 4 foot inverted drop to the ground.

Oh no. with that 7 inch meat cleaver on the back of that thing, this boy won't be hand launching it. That's for sure.