Here are a few clips from up north.

RP maiden. My very first powered sailplane flight:

ParkZone Radian Pro maiden flight (15 min 47 sec)

Second RP flight (on-board):

Radian Pro - First on-board video (10 min 4 sec)

Third RP flight (on-board):

Radian Pro - second on-board video (7 min 19 sec)

Joel

Originally Posted by turboparker

Here are a few clips from up north.

RP maiden. My very first powered sailplane flight:

Joel

Sorry to be critical but I watched the first six minutes and gave up, After takeoff I could see nothing but grey sky.

Hello Joel

There were a couple of things I really liked about your videos. One was the lack of a radically curved horizon that most on-board cameras give us. Yours must have less of a wide-angle setting and as a result, there is less distortion. It is also obvious that you are a good pilot and can keep the plane steady so as not to make the viewer dizzy.

There was another thing that was missing, that is usually heard but not seen. I didn't hear that annoying whine that usually comes from the digital flap servos. Mine do it, and every time I watch a video of someone's Radian Pro, I think to myself... "Yup, there's that sound again". Yours didn't do it. I wonder if Parkzone has changed the design of the servo on the newer planes? Sailplanes should be silent, and yours is.

Originally Posted by turboparker

Here are a few clips from up north.

RP maiden. My very first powered sailplane flight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0uLgtSdgPo

Second RP flight (on-board):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPHyqL8AYS4

Third RP flight (on-board):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhoOI1I_auw

Joel

I scrolled to near the end of the video and we see the model for the last minute or so.

A beautiful landing.

Zor

Congrats on the maiden Joel!

Originally Posted by Eastcoast78

Congrats on the maiden Joel!

I got my Radian Pro tonight (and UM Spitfire). Need the weather to cooperate soon

Originally Posted by kaptondave

Sorry to be critical but I watched the first six minutes and gave up, After takeoff I could see nothing but grey sky.

Dave,

Of course, nobody expects great close-ups when one is shooting a sailplane with a fixed-lens hatcam. In fact, I am rather surprised that you even brought it up. I suggest checking your display, as the plane is visible during much of the flight when viewed on my 27" monitor in 720p. Incidentally - the fast-forward button on YouTube worked just fine the last time I checked.

Jovanx, Zor, and Eastcoast78,

Thanks! I'm having a lot of fun with the plane. I got the advanced wing configuration set up last evening, but I have yet to try anything but crow. Looking forward to experimenting with camber & reflex. I just need to center the servo arms on the flaps. BTW - are the flap servos glued-in?

Regarding flap servo noise - I didn't notice it on the ground, either. Not sure if it would make any difference, but I am flying with a 10C tx.

Haven't had a chance to catch any serious lift with the plane, but I stumbled upon a bit of lift during a couple flights - enough to gain altitude, anyway. I also managed to catch a bit of ridge-lift off the treeline during a few of the windier flights. But even in dead air, glide-time seems to be pretty good for a BNF foamie.

Joel

My display is a high-res 23" flat panel and works fine. I Difollow your suggestion about fast-forward and watched your nice landing. Congratulations on that. Landing the Radian is the hardest phase of flight because it wants to float so much.

Sorry about the earlier comment but long videos which consists mostly of an unrecognizable dot moving about in the frame are a pet peeve of mine. I have noted before that people's flight videos are like baby pictures, not to be criticized no matter what. Yes it is very hard to get good ground-view video unless you keep the plane close in, which is why I have given up trying to shoot them.

Originally Posted by Jovanx

Hello Joel

There were a couple of things I really liked about your videos. One was the lack of a radically curved horizon that most on-board cameras give us. Yours must have less of a wide-angle setting and as a result, there is less distortion. It is also obvious that you are a good pilot and can keep the plane steady so as not to make the viewer dizzy.

There was another thing that was missing, that is usually heard but not seen. I didn't hear that annoying whine that usually comes from the digital flap servos. Mine do it, and every time I watch a video of someone's Radian Pro, I think to myself... "Yup, there's that sound again". Yours didn't do it. I wonder if Parkzone has changed the design of the servo on the newer planes? Sailplanes should be silent, and yours is.

I agree on the servo noise but digital servos are forever hunting under load... I think we're stuck

Originally Posted by turboparker

I just need to center the servo arms on the flaps. BTW - are the flap servos glued-in?

They are glued in with that soft flexible white stuff, and can be removed easily. If you just want to adjust the servo arm, you don't need to remove them. Just cut out a small wedge of foam and then you can get a screwdriver in there. There has been quite a bit of discussion as to why they are not centered out of the box, and the prevailing theory is that they are deliberately angled to allow the flaps to travel further.

If you were using flaps as ailerons, you would have to center them. I found that after putting in a stiffer wing spar, the effectiveness of the ailerons increased considerably, and I no longer felt the need for more roll control.

Originally Posted by kaptondave

My display is a high-res 23" flat panel and works fine. I Difollow your suggestion about fast-forward and watched your nice landing. Congratulations on that. Landing the Radian is the hardest phase of flight because it wants to float so much.

Sorry about the earlier comment but long videos which consists mostly of an unrecognizable dot moving about in the frame are a pet peeve of mine. I have noted before that people's flight videos are like baby pictures, not to be criticized no matter what. Yes it is very hard to get good ground-view video unless you keep the plane close in, which is why I have given up trying to shoot them.

Dave,

Thanks! Yeah, the plane really wants to float in ground-effect! Plus, the wind had picked up to 10 MPH w/20 MPH gusts by the time I was ready to land, which made things a bit interesting just before touchdown. I'm looking forward to using crow for spot-landings. Unfortunately, we've had high winds since I set up my 10C for the advanced mixes, so I only got in that one flight with the new setup just as it was getting dark. I had to stay low & close, so I just tried the crow to see how it worked. I had yet to reposition the flap servo arms, so the flap travel was insufficient in crow. It's still too windy to fly today, but tomorrow's looking good. Forecast says 8-14 MPH winds & 40 F. I plan work on the setup today & hopefully I can get in some flights tomorrow. Probably won't be much lift, but I should be able to get the mixes dialed-in reasonably well.

Regarding your previous comments about the hatcam video - no offense taken. I'm also not fond of long videos of conventional aircraft in which the subject is a speck for much of the flight. If you watch some of my other hatcam videos, you will see that I keep the subject close-in most of the time. I welcome constructive criticism, but I thought that your comments were a bit out-of-place - given the subject, and given that my subsequent RP videos were shot from the pilot's perspective. In this case, my intent was to demonstrate the plane's glide capability in poor to non-existent lift conditions for those who may be thinking about getting one, and may not have any experience with sailplanes. Hence, the long, boring video. I figured that experienced sailplane pilots & those who already own an RP will simply FF to the landing. My non-hatcam ground-based videos have been shot by a friend of mine, using my Panasonic 3CCD camcorder w/gyrostabilized Leica 12x zoom lens & full manual controls. I did the RP maiden in my hometown up on the Minnesota/Canadian border, 320 miles north of here. Unfortunately, there was no one around who knew how to shoot aircraft video - or even run my camera, for that matter. Otherwise, I would have had someone shoot the maiden with my Panasonic & the plane would have nearly filled the frame, even at soaring altitude.

I've been toying with the idea of setting the plane up for FPV, but I may go with an airframe that's better in higher winds & is less susceptible to turbulence. A retractable power-pod or pusher configuration would also be nice.

Does anyone on here have experience with using the RP as an FPV platform?

Joel

Originally Posted by Jovanx

They are glued in with that soft flexible white stuff, and can be removed easily. If you just want to adjust the servo arm, you don't need to remove them. Just cut out a small wedge of foam and then you can get a screwdriver in there. There has been quite a bit of discussion as to why they are not centered out of the box, and the prevailing theory is that they are deliberately angled to allow the flaps to travel further.

If you were using flaps as ailerons, you would have to center them. I found that after putting in a stiffer wing spar, the effectiveness of the ailerons increased considerably, and I no longer felt the need for more roll control.

Thanks for the info. I'm not planning to use full-span ailerons, but I found that even with a 100% flap mix, I can't get more than about 10 degrees of flaps in crow, which didn't provide much airbrake effect. I suppose I could just move the flap pushrods a couple of holes further in on the horns & limit the throw only when using them as conventional flaps, rather than re-positioning the servo arms. However, I wouldn't be able to use full-span reflex if I were to go that route.

Joel

Originally Posted by turboparker

Dave,

Regarding your previous comments about the hatcam video - no offense taken.

AhHa. I hadn't realized you were using a hatcam but that explains the instances where the scene jumps abruptly to the ground and back.

I've been toying with the idea of setting the plane up for FPV, but I may go with an airframe that's better in higher winds & is less susceptible to turbulence. A retractable power-pod or pusher configuration would also be nice.
Joel

You might be interested in the new 2.4m Super Sky Surfer from Banana Hobby, or the 1.9m SkyWalker.

http://www.bananahobby.com/super-sky-surfer.html

http://www.lowpricerc.com/product_in...f3dbd4d99f647e

This looks interesting. On Discovery tomorrow night.
Mounted spycams on birds.

Winged Planet | Premiering Saturday, October 6 at 8PM on Discovery (0 min 31 sec)

Dave,

Thanks for the links. The Super Sky Surfer looks very interesting.

Joel