Ahhhhh! Thanks! It warmed my soul.

It's like 20 degrees F outside right now (12 below freezing), and ice on the cars. Nothing is green anymore unless it's frozen solid before the leaves fell off.

But it won't keep me from flying! (when it isn't windy that is).

Thanks again and stay out of all those tall trees!

Fred

Hi Steve
Makes me yearn for even our English summer
I keep trying to work out from your vids where on the island you live. Give us a clue so I can look you up on Google Earth
Head

Originally Posted by headlessagain

Hi Steve
Makes me yearn for even our English summer
I keep trying to work out from your vids where on the island you live. Give us a clue so I can look you up on Google Earth
Head

Me:
geo:lat=9.90153810985349 geo:lon=123.81567120552063 geo:alt=4'

My flying field:
geo:lat=9.904803922929062 geo:lon=123.81260812282562 geo:alt=4

I have a new Taube like bird under way also. See picture.

Off to Punta Cruiz, tomorrow, to visit my friend Norbert who got in from Germany yesterday. We have a lot of catching up to do so not sure when the new bird will have more work done on it. Probably not till Sunday.

Everyone have a good weekend and Happy Thanks Giving to all you "Yanks".

By the way, Head, I was born in Stockport but haven't been to the UK since 1960. You can have the Brit weather, In a 3 month vacaton there I seem to remember a few hours of sunshine. I like it here better, though it does get cold on occasion. Yesterday I had to put on a Tee-Shirt.


Steve.

The Google Earth image of your house is a bit fuzzy, Steve. But looking over the island I can see you don't have a lot of open space in which to fly. Maybe you should be looking into some pontoons...?

From my house (41° 52.488'N, 88° 7.964'W) I walk outside and fly in the "open" area bounded by my own front yard trees, the neighbor's front yard trees to the north, and the neighbor's front yard trees across the street to the west. Lots of my YouTube and Vimeo video captures show all the trees I get to contend with on a daily basis flying outside. Heh. Tons of phun.

Steve
Nice looking plane. Should give the local bird population a fright
If Google Earth is correct, I reckon you live near Madangog seashore,Calape on Pangangan Island, Bohol. Right? Looks a beautiful place.
No rain today, just light snow showers! Time to copy Viking and make some ply ski's for my Little Stick
Head
p.s how's the humidity?

Whilst we're trading lats & long, here are mine 51.451.698N,-2.532.2019W
I'm lucky that I've a nice big park just behind my house. I don't fly any big,fast or noisy models as I don't want to upset the dog walkers. Ideal for a quickie before work.
Head

Originally Posted by headlessagain

Steve
Nice looking plane. Should give the local bird population a fright
If Google Earth is correct, I reckon you live near Madangog seashore,Calape on Pangangan Island, Bohol. Right? Looks a beautiful place.
No rain today, just light snow showers! Time to copy Viking and make some ply ski's for my Little Stick
Head
p.s how's the humidity?

Humidity is 50%+ but not so bad. I am on the beach so it's a bit more than if we were up in the mountains. We like it here and the heat and humidity is probably good for the arthritis. Not sure I could handle the cold too well any more. I spent 2 winters in Great Falls, Montana back in the early '60s but I was a bit younger then. I was in Houston for about 18 years from '66 to the early '80s and the humidity here seems lighter than on the Gulf Coast. I think Fred has it pretty cold there in Nebraska about this time of year.

Do any of you currently have a Taube or any WWI birds flying?

Steve.



Edit: 11/28/10 6pm
The "Taubenator" is ready for maiden. Monday morning if weather permits. Somehow I manged to burn out an ESC testing the motor but I have more. BP21 on 3s with a 7x6 SF prop. Same as the other but no LG for this one. The landing area is too small for comfort. Under 18oz and about 6.5oz/sq ft.
We'll see how it works with a Vee-Tail!

lets see if this link works..to me
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&...05236&t=h&z=18
excellent, you should do your locations like that, with a direct link...my flat is in the block at the end of Baileys field...now you can see how far I have to walk to get flying...I usually fly between the two goal posts you can just make out..

What's wrong with that area of the same park to the east? It appears to be much larger and wide open.

I think Dave enjoys the challenge of flying in the vicinity of the goals. In fact, he has used one of the goal posts for testing the durability of his builds on at least one occasion.

Jack

On more than one occcasion, but thats what happens when you get too clever.. The area I use is plenty big enough so I dont walk further down unless the footballers are on that pitch..

I have a quick question for you KF airfoil experts...

I am kit bashing a Herr Cloud Ranger and want to change it to a low wing setup. I am developing a prototype out of 5mm foam board to work out the bugs before I construct the more permanent balsa build.

To that end, I have the foam fuse thrown together and I am working on the wing. Is there a KF wing that I can build out of foam that will work for this? I realize the KF wing and the standard built up wing will have different characteristics but at this point, Im not too worried about that. I could always mock up a foam built up wing too if need be.

The Cloud Ranger is a "typical" high wing, 4 channel, sport style plane. I do want to include ailerons on my test bed so that is a consideration here. These are the balsa kit specs:

Wingspan=42in (1067mm)
4 Channel Area= 324 inē (20.9dmē)
Weight=22.2oz

Any advice is appreciated and welcomed.

Dan

This page has the plans for the Blu Baby 42 KFm3 wing:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=107

That is a easily built and wonderful flying wing, eminently suitable for building with ailerons or without. In that width building it flat and with ailerons will produce a wonderful wing for a flyer that is beyond the basics.

Built flat, it is not at all hard to fly, twitchy, or erratic but it does not have the inherent stability of a wing with dihedral and will not normally return itself to level flight or self recover from turns and maneuvers, the pilot has to do that for himself.

Here is a How To on building a 32" KFm3 wing I did recently, your 42" wing would be best built with a better spar in it (like 1/4" x 3/8" basswood):

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1335888

That would give you an idea as to how to build it, that is basically the same wing as the 42" wing other than the size of the parts.

Jack

Jack,

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate the advice and will do exactly as you suggested. I want to replicate the performance of the original wing (Clark Y foil) or at the very least, I dont want the performance of the wing to be the sole reason my test will fail. Does that make sense?

Essentially the test is simply "If I move the wing from top to bottom, how will it fly?". With the ease and speed of building these KF wings, it sure makes it hard NOT to implement them for testing. Then again, I could make a built up wing AND KF wing to contrast and compare but perhaps Im getting a little ahead of myself.

For a variety of reasons, the original, high wing Cloud Ranger was my everyday flyer this year and the more I flew it, the more I enjoyed it. I really like the Herr line of kits and plan on building the Pitts this winter.

For now I will produce your suggested KF wing and go from there.

Again, Thank you very much for the feedback. It reinforces my notion that RCGroups is the best source of information available for RC. Thanks to you and all who take the time to share the info, it is appreciated.

Dan

Dan,

It does make sense. And I don't think there will be remarkable differences in the way that plane would fly with either the Clark Y or the KFm3. My impression after having had and flown a couple of Clark Y wings is that the KFm3 might have better slow flight performance and a more gentle stall.

If you want the best aileron performance, I recommend building flat or with very low dihedral. The combination of dihedral and ailerons can work together OK, it may need the use of some differential control on the ailerons to satisfy some of us. So all thing considered if I want to fly with good aileron action/roll rates I will surrender the inherent stability of the dihedral to get it.

The Clark Y's I had were bigger heavier high winged planes (64-72" wings and 6-7 pounds in weight) and both wonderful fliers but had characters that were very different than the foamies.

Essentially the test is simply "If I move the wing from top to bottom, how will it fly?". With the ease and speed of building these KF wings, it sure makes it hard NOT to implement them for testing. Then again, I could make a built up wing AND KF wing to contrast and compare but perhaps Im getting a little ahead of myself.

If there is a danger in this is might be that you'll find yourself losing interest in Clark Y wings and become a "foamaholic" or "KFm addict." I love the building but also like it to be simple and go pretty quickly. And the FFF foam and KFm wings have certainly fed that process.

There are a number of KFm variations with the steps varying in number and location. There is a figure at the start of the thread that shows some of the step configurations.

If the goal is to build a low winged plane it would typically be a higher performance and more aerobatic plane. That has been done KFm wings too and the KFm4 variation, with steps top and bottom at 50% of the chord has proven itself to be the best performing KF wing in that configuration. A foamie called the Piranha is a good example of a low winged KFm4 foamie. Again there is a link to that plane in the list of planes at the start of this thread.

The KF foils have given rise to a number of great flying wings too (Zagnutz, SpaFFFnutz, Divinity, The Nifty, KESL, etc., etc.) and nearly all of those were built as KFm4 wings. The KFm4 seems to a natural choice for flying wings because the KFm4 really adapts itself well to the maneuverability and speed many expect from flying wings.

But the interesting thing is that if you compare a KFm4 flying wing to a Clark Y or flat bottomed Clark type airfoil on a flying wing you'll find that the KFm4 flying wing will be much easier to fly, it will be able to slow down to a crawl in most cases, doesn't seem to know how to stall and fall out of the air, and it easily built and flown by relatively new fliers. If you have mastered a high wing RET trainer and are making most of the stick movements in your subconscious, you are rprobably eady for one of these gentle KFm flying wings.

Jack