Originally Posted by David Hipperson

My own electric foamie sailplanes.

Do you have balsa tail surfaces on your easy glider pro? If so, whats the deal with that?

Sorry to lose you Obake hope it was nothing I said.

Dear John the balsa tail items were my fault and purely down to being dumb. I was assembling another Easy Glider Pro and Elapor has, for me, withstood all of the paints I've sprayed on in some twenty odd Multiplex foamies. Not this time around, when these paints warped the tail, elevator and rudder - rats!

I tried to purchase spares but these were either unavailable or too expensive when including the airmail costs. After some thought I reasoned "go back to balsa" so I did with the covering being translucent Profilm. Whole job done in an afternoon and when flown the model was spot on with not a click of trim required. The muttering finished I was both lucky and happy.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

Sorry to lose you Obake hope it was nothing I said.

Dear John the balsa tail items were my fault and purely down to being dumb. I was assembling another Easy Glider Pro and Elapor has, for me, withstood all of the paints I've sprayed on in some twenty odd Multiplex foamies. Not this time around, when these paints warped the tail, elevator and rudder - rats!

I tried to purchase spares but these were either unavailable or too expensive when including the airmail costs. After some thought I reasoned "go back to balsa" so I did with the covering being translucent Profilm. Whole job done in an afternoon and when flown the model was spot on with not a click of trim required. The muttering finished I was both lucky and happy.

That is really interesting! I never would have thought of scratch building my own tail surfaces in lieu of replacement foam parts.

I'll have to keep in mind what you said about the paint. I'm thinking of painting my blaze for better visability. Thinking an orange top and black bottom with a sunburst pattern in the contrasting colors on each side (obviously on the bottom, more black than orange)

Elapor is definitely different to most other foams I've encountered. Most of my Multiplex aircraft have quite happily handled aerosol enamel paints from our local "$2.00" shop providing the colour is sprayed on in several light coats. You can see this in the picture showing the Cularis with the red tips and tail.

I used a different fluorescent paint and although it went on well with no physical damage to the surface during the drying process it changed into a foam pretzel - I gave the can to a friend who wasn't going to use it on a model!

Originally Posted by Obake

Nor will I, SH seems to take umbrage when his posts are challenged, regardless of accuracy or not and feels a need to write a page of rebuttal. So be it, I have no problem with that.

You, having 5 gliders, really should not have too many questions about the Blaze.

My gliders are trimmed correctly, fly and thermal correctly. I posted a few tidbits of knowledge for those that will recognise them.

I will bow out of this thread now. Best wishes to all.

If you have no problem with it, why the snarky comments?

Mr. Obake, I'm one with an open enough mind to regard that being hostile isn't a requisite for an argument. An argument is merely an exchange of opposing views.

All I did was offer a full explanation of the information you (rather abruptly, I might add) challenged, along with the information and experience supporting my reasoning, and how it addressed the problem David had expressed. You called me "wrong" and my comments "inaccurate", then tied them to something that I hadn't inferred!

My statements addressed the facts as I saw them. May I politely ask how you knew David was idling his motor for velocity reduction? I know of the practice, have used it myself, and I know you don't intentionally fly a belly-flopper to earth with the motor running! But you want to take that point out of context in your claiming I'm "wrong". You're not talking to some idiot here.

And "humbrage"? What - am I supposed to just 'lay there and take it' and not defend myself? All I can say is, when I did, who ran? And couldn't resist that little 'parting shot'? Smacks a bit of the pot calling the kettle, ya think? If that's the way you play, your little drama of 'thread suicide' is well placed.

I'll apologize to the rest of the board if what I've said upsets the decorum and tranquility, but I was raised to stand up for myself, and I don't cotton to no one calling me out when I feel I've not said or done anything wrong. I gave rhyme and reason for my statements - I still stand behind them in context and belief - and I feel those who try to make you the 'bad guy' and run when you stand up to their claims.....well, there's a word for them.

Good day - I'm goin' flying!

Oh, and David? I don't think there should be any misunderstanding, but just in case....
Please know I wasn't trying to 'drag you into it' one way or the other by calling out your name in my remarks. That was only because it was your concerns that were being addressed in my original submission about your landing situation. You of course have any & every call to accept or reject my observations, as that, or advice. I have not one whit of problem with that. As I've said, it was just for the discussion.
Peace, Out!

I tried my spoilerons yesterday... and am pleased to say the trick worked beautifully. It still needed encouragement to come down (some steady down elevator pressure, minimal throttle-to-none), but the "sink rate" when leveling off near ground level was far more comfortable and it slid into the grass right where I wanted it. A subtle effect, but just what I needed.

With this experience, I'm going to ditch my flaperons.

--

I did have one problem yesterday: I ran two batteries too low... and found myself having to come in dead-stick... voltages of about 3.1v/cell when I measured them afterward. Oops. My previous planes would progressively lower their RPM when approaching low battery... if this one *is* doing that, it is too quiet to notice amongst other park noises, and nearby planes. (This is a really quiet plane -- I like that!) I'll have to tinker with my throttle timer, or pick up a low voltage beeper for the plane.

--

By the way, I also down-propped the plane a bit. When I broke the factory 12x6.5 prop, I ordered a couple of carbon 12x6's (with an aluminum spinner -- nice!). It still performs beautifully, climbs like a monkey, and if it is a tad slower... that's good for my experience level right now.

Originally Posted by OldeMan

...

been too windy to try out my flaperons yet. pretty jazzed to do so though. also need to try my new vtail mixes.

i've had 3 different low volt beepers and none of them have worked worth a darn. one wouldn't detect all 3 cells and they other two were way early or intermittent. maybe i just got crappy ones. all of them look nearly the same to me I guess.

I didn't use the stock esc but I know it has a programmable brake so it makes me wonder if there isn't a setting for soft or hard low voltage cut off. might want to fool with the settings if you can figure out the beep menus. just an idea.

Dear OldeMan, If in your older models you were using 15C, 20C or even 25C packs that progressive fall off in performance that you noticed in flight is quite normal. The change comes about in the ever greater C rate Lipos. Several of my sailplanes use 65C rated packs but these would hold on to near full voltage for almost the whole duration of their capacity with a very steep fall off towards the end if I allowed it to happen.

Obviously I do not run my packs out and am very aware of timing my usage during a flight. I really try to avoid using any more than 60 - 70% of capacity and I advise anyone to use their packs the same way if they want them to last.

Also make sure you really are fully cutting power during the flight. It can be very easy to just have a small amount of throttle still on and this will really drain the pack quickly in a sailplane flight.

To john, Hi. Although I do have a couple of pack detectors I gave up using them. I rely entirely on my chargers which have screens displaying the values of each cell before, during and after charging or even during storage. Yes, I do put my packs into store form all the time when not in use. If storing for a long time pull the packs down to store rate and if you have an old beer refridgerator keep them in that.

Originally Posted by johnwohl

...snip... i've had 3 different low volt beepers and none of them have worked worth a darn. ...snip...

Well, that is disappointing -- I thought one of these little gizmos would be just what I needed. I'm not happy with throttle timers because my style of flying changes with my whims. I can't pick one time that is meaningful on every flight. So I'd prefer to have the battery tell me when it's time to come down.

Originally Posted by johnwohl

...snip... I didn't use the stock esc but I know it has a programmable brake so it makes me wonder if there isn't a setting for soft or hard low voltage cut off. ...snip...

Indeed, my smaller plane's ESC was programmed for a gradual power-down... and the thing made enough noise, in the air, that it was easy to hear. I could search for a similar setting on my Dynamic-S, but it's so quiet in the air that I'm sure I won't be able to hear it.

Originally Posted by OldeMan

I My previous planes would progressively lower their RPM when approaching low battery.

Its all about momentum and this plane carries alot of it.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

...snip... Also make sure you really are fully cutting power during the flight. It can be very easy to just have a small amount of throttle still on and this will really drain the pack quickly in a sailplane flight. ...snip...

You, sir, are psychic. I caught myself committing this little sin a number of times on each flight. The quiet nature of the plane... coupled with my bad habits... made it easy to overlook the fact that it was still running when I was just coasting around. I'll have to work on that.

Make sure you have the 'brake' set to on on the esc. That way you can see when the prop is stopped. Not only better performance but you know for sure the throttle is cut.

I noticed, during initial-build of my Dynamic-S, that the left-side-servo in the V-tail was not quite producing the same "throw" as the right servo. This produced small but noticeably uneven up/down elevator activity... and similarly uneven rudder response. I decided, then, to temporarily ignore this slight flaw... and have now flown with it a number of times. It had, not surprisingly, a small but noticeable effect on large up-elevator maneuvers, like tight loops.

This last weekend, I decided to fix the issue... and discovered two things:

First: I was trying to decide on a "fix"... sitting at my kitchen table, idly tossing the Tx elevator stick up and down... when the left-elevator stopped working completely! After some diagnosis, I discovered the servo extension "plug", at the tail, had a broken solder joint... and wiggles and bumps were enough to activate/deactivate the servo. Certainly an easy fix... but thank goodness it was discovered on my kitchen table. Worth checking, if you are a new D-S owner.

Second: I discovered a nifty way to cure my uneven V-tail servo response using my DX7s. I added two custom "mixes" that, combined, have completely cured the issue: Elev>Rudd (about 10%) and Rudd>Elev (about 10%). Because these two surfaces simultaneously serve as elevator and rudder... mixing them is completely natural... and it allowed me to control up/down and left/right differential. A total "fix" with no surgery. (For you old pro's at mixing... this may be obvious. To me... it felt like a useful "tip" worth sharing.)

I eluded to mixing several posts back. When I first started reading your latest post I was thinking to myself "Does he not know about endpoints and sub trims".

On the subject of mixing I am looking into some throttle to elevator mix. Maybe because my firewall is beat to death but my ST has two serious flaws. First it wants to climb under throttle, sounds begnine at first but it goes nose up and continues up left unchecked will eventually go over the top. Second when the throttle is cut, the nose drops like a rock. I'm thinking a little down elevator to throttle up might work. Done it on other 'gliders'.

Anyhow glad your enjoying the plane. They sure eat up a lot of sky.