A few months ago I took a leap of faith and ordered an MXC from Skip Miller Models. I've always wanted to try cross-country flying, and since I heard that the wait time could be very long, I went ahead and pulled the trigger. Skip was very helpful with the ordering process and indicated about a 3 month wait to fill the order, which is almost exactly the time for delivery was.

My understanding was that the MXC would not have quite the level of finish and perfection as would a modern F3J mouldie, but I was wrong. The ship is everything I could hope for: mirror like surfaces, sharp and straight trailing edges, and it fits together like a glove. The flaps have at least 45 degrees of travel, and they are not overly tight. The wing hinge system is slick, there is no visible line on the top surface of the wing, and the bottom has a mylar seal that keeps everything airtight. The fin even has a pre-cut bay for the elevator.

Many thanks to Dean Gradwell for his building and setup notes, I'll make more posts if I come across something useful on the build to share. These ships are not exactly cheap, but for anyone interested in cross-country, consider going in with a few flying buddies to buy a ship - that would keep the cost reasonable, and besides you can't fly this event alone anyway.

My thanks to RnR for their continued commitment to this aspect of R/C soaring, and to Skip, Cody, and Matthew at Skip Miller Models for carrying the MXC and for their well known great service and help along the way.


Nathan Miller

That is a very looking nice color scheme. And yes indeed thank you RnR and Skip Miller Models.

Regards Dean

So is it done yet????

I just spoke to Nathan earlier today. He had a few questions about the radio install in the MXC. Hopefully I provided a helpful "from my experience" point of view (XC racing has always been my favorite ever since the Great Race days).

It sounded like he is on the home stretch of completion of his racer with a test flight scheduled in about a week.

I think the most interesting point came from me remembering and reporting that in US Nationals record flight, which was 5 1/2 hours long, was completed with the STOCK battery pack that comes with the Airtroincs SD 10G...and never changed the pack!!!!!That still surprises me!

I asked him to post some pics of his builds, so hopefully we can all see it soon.

Happy New Year

Sklp

Well, the MXC flew this weekend (flight report to follow).

For the build I took a cue from Dean Gradwell's thread and used similar equipment. Servos are JR 368 for rudder, 9411 for flaps, and 3421 for ailerons and elevator. For the wing servos I made 1/8 lite ply false ribs and glued them in on either side of each servo bay to shore up the structure and prevent any skin flex. I used 1/2 by 1/2 aluminum l stock from Home Depot to make mounting tabs for the wing servos (see photo). I used a simple jig to raise the servo off of the "floor" to make room for top drive linkage. If there was ever a time to upgrade to 4-40 hardware, this is it. Wing servos are wired directly to the battery, and receiver has 2 separate power leads right off the battery.
I'm using 2 3800 mah Life pack in parallel, and a separate Nimh pack for GPS power. Flight report and more photos to follow...

Originally Posted by DEAN GRADWELL

That is a very looking nice color scheme. And yes indeed thank you RnR and Skip Miller Models.

Regards Dean

Glad to see the quality has WAY improved.

Test flew the ship last weekend! I set up the programming as I would any TD ship, except that I put the towhook about 1/2" in front of the CG for stability reasons. I ended up balancing the model at 39% chord, which was about 5.5" behind the LE.
This is perhaps the only model that I did not test glide before winching. I felt like it would not serve any purpose to do so, and might in fact be a bad idea. I used a standard "LSF" style winch, and built up a little extra tension before I gave it a heave. It was somewhat difficult to hold the model still above my head, but once the line starts to pull it got easier. My only apprehension was a low-level line break or pop-off where I would be left with too little altitude to recover from the ensuing stall sequence. My fears were unfounded, the ship rotated beautifully and flew straight up the line with no input from me. This thing goes up the line like a 747 on autopilot
After release, a click or two of aileron trim and a small adjustment to the flap/elevator mixing had it dialed in. After 2 or 3 short flights I launched again for a 1 hour and 10 min flight, and had to come down on purpose.
My impression is that it flies very much like a TD ship (in my case Xplorer), it just feels a little heavier on the controls. Thermal turns were very stable with no tendency to steepen the bank. I was impressed with the speed range - I had a couple of low saves from treetop height to specked out, with some camber dialed in it slows way down, feels buoyant, and you can really horse it around trying to make the save. Of course when you put the nose down it really moves out and carries it's energy (all 10.5 lbs worth)
I really like the Skymelody variometer. It's just like the vario I used to use in full size gliders, the total energy compensation is key. When you're fairly close range, of course you'll notice the usual visual cues of lift, and the vario will work to confirm and complement this. Once you're way up high or downrange though, the vario becomes crucial as those visual cues are just not there. At any range, I found the vario to be a great tool for centering lift, I was more willing to "hunt around" for the best part of the core since I had a continuous feedback stream to work with.
Landings were a non-event. I was able to get about 40-45 degrees of flap travel, and some crow to go along with it. This proved to be plenty to get it down pretty quickly, I wouldn't want to try a spot landing, but landing in a random field or highway median won't be any problem.
As far as CG goes, I will be moving it back a little bit, as the ship is still a little on the positive side for my taste.
I am extremely satisfied with everything about the MXC - now it's game on to start flying some tasks...

OK so does this mean you're going to make the road trip to Shasta aka Montague????
Have plane will travel - and crew we can hook up something. Talk to Dean Gradwell if you're interested.

jack ~

Jack,

It would be a dream come true to make it to Montague - I haven't ruled it out yet...

Nathan

Nice Job Nathan!

The model and color scheme is beautiful. From your report it soars like it looks and as noted in an earlier post the quality is excellent. Thanks for the photos as well as your install tips..it all looks just right.

I hope you get to enjoy the performance on an XX route some where....it's fun to fly these around a field.....but the open course is where it's at.

Keep us posted,,, we appreciate it!

skip

Originally Posted by maxer

Nice Job Nathan!

I hope you get to enjoy the performance on an XX route some where....it's fun to fly these around a field.....but the open course is where it's at.

Keep us posted,,, we appreciate it!

skip

I think he might go for the whole XXX route. They say Las Vegas is a good place to start : )

Nathan,

What is the AUW on your build?
Skip you should sponsor him to Montague Cody would be a great team mate on course.

jack ~

I have a very basic scale, but I estimate that it's at about 1/2 pound underweight rtf.
I'll post something more accurate later, but it's comfortably under the limit.

Nathan