hidaven,

You know my weight... 51 oz with telemetry.

... and yes, it stays up in dead air,,, particularly when I advance the throttle!

Hope you are still having as much fun with yours as I am with mine. It is a sweet flying bird. Congrats to NAN on this one.

Dick

Ok
Finally got mine built and maidened at a mates place.
AUW is 1650grams with 3cell 2250mah pack.

Same setup as Bobs and it climbs almost Vertical on them cell
can't wait to see how it goes on the 4cell.
Spent a little time sering up differential and elevator offsets with crow
seemed to indicate thermals quite well. Prefers to fly relatively fast.
Even had a light ds with it behind a shrub line in no air.

Yet to see how it goes on a flat field in dead air. I can't see it being as
good as my exploder. But it has another 1m and a half on the Orion.

Defiantly a keeper.

Cheers Asto

Thanks for the report Asto.
Sounds like a good multi-purpose ship.
FYI for those not yet working in metric 1650g = 58.2 oz

which xplorer do you have? is it electric? does it thermal better than the orion? i was thinking of getting the 4M Xplorer with the spread toe lite.....

Originally Posted by airtimeasto

Ok
Finally got mine built and maidened at a mates place.
AUW is 1650grams with 3cell 2250mah pack.

Same setup as Bobs and it climbs almost Vertical on them cell
can't wait to see how it goes on the 4cell.
Spent a little time sering up differential and elevator offsets with crow
seemed to indicate thermals quite well. Prefers to fly relatively fast.
Even had a light ds with it behind a shrub line in no air.

Yet to see how it goes on a flat field in dead air. I can't see it being as
good as my exploder. But it has another 1m and a half on the Orion.

Defiantly a keeper.

Cheers Asto

Originally Posted by hidaven

which xplorer do you have? is it electric? does it thermal better than the orion? i was thinking of getting the 4M Xplorer with the spread toe lite.....

I have a carbon 4m Exploder and go in a few local comps but have missed a few this year.
No it's not Electric we winch them up. But I do bungee it too for practice.
Yes it does Thermal better but that is because the wing is huge. Better wing loading.
The spread tow will be great but in our conditions here we get a lot of wind and mine does penetrate better so I can travel further distance away for thermals.
You won't be disappointed. They are both great performers. i will get a Electro fuse for the Explorer down the track.

Asto

Which color shows up the best in the sky?

Originally Posted by airtimeasto

I have a carbon 4m Exploder and go in a few local comps but have missed a few this year.
No it's not Electric we winch them up. But I do bungee it too for practice.
Yes it does Thermal better but that is because the wing is huge. Better wing loading.
The spread tow will be great but in our conditions here we get a lot of wind and mine does penetrate better so I can travel further distance away for thermals.
You won't be disappointed. They are both great performers. i will get a Electro fuse for the Explorer down the track.

Asto

Originally Posted by Lenny970

I'm just finishing up an Orion build. It's a very nice model but there were a few glitches along the way to watch out for.

The stock aileron and flap horns sit much higher above the wing than I'd like. Flap horn (measuring to the center of the clevis hole) was 5mm above the wing skin, aileron horn about 7mm above the wing skin. It looks like it may be difficult to get adequate flap travel with these horns. My preference is to have the flap clevis pin located very slightly above the wing skin and slightly forward of the hinge line. The aileron horn is less critical, but I prefer the clevis pin to be slightly above the wing skin and right over the hinge line.

I decided to modify the brass horns to bring the linkage closer to my preferred setup. In the picture below, you can see the metamorphosis of the horns -- I ground away the shoulder portion, redrilled a new clevis hole, and cut off the top of the horn. The resulting flap linkage is not quite what I'd like, but it's pretty close. As the pictures below show, I can get plenty of down flap travel and up travel (for mixing with ailerons) reaches the airframe's limits. The resulting location for the aileron clevis pin is a bit further back then I'd like, but that's not too critical. It just give a little "built in" differential.

The new MKS 6125 wing servos were installed for flaps and ailerons. The aileron servo wells are VERY shallow, but with the servos slid up against the spar the covers do fit. You'll need to use a very short aileron servo arm and be careful aligning the servo covers to make it all fit. If Hyperion DS-09's were used instead, the fit would be less critical.

Also, these servos are really nice -- strong, fast, smooth, slop-free, but be aware that they have less range of travel than other servos. This could be an issue for flaps, where you really need lots of servo travel. I was able to overcome this with some transmitter trickery, and was able to get just over 90 degrees of servo travel.

I did have a small issue with stab alignment. Sighting from in front of the model, it was apparent that the wing and stab were not quite parallel. It wasn't off by much, and would likely make no difference in flight, but it still bothered me. I spent about an hour massaging it back to straight, with the application of a tiny bit of CA and some careful filing.

Power setup is a NEU 1110/1Y/6.7, ICE Lite 100, and TP 4S-2250 battery.
Ready to fly weight is 61 ounces.
I've flown similar models that were over a pound heavier than this that thermalled great, so this one should be an awesome flier!

Lenny

Nice build summary.
How did you do the plug & play servo connections at wing root, is there a special (bulkhead style?) connector that can be purchased ?
Thanks
KF

No, just regular Dean's connectors.
I make up a template to accurately mark the wing root and fuselage side, and the connectors are epoxied in.

Good luck,
Lenny

I have an Orion for sale. A handful of flights and built by the peerless Lenny Keer. Loaded with the best electronics including a 1506 2.5d 6.7, a cc ice 125, airtronics and Hyperion servos rated for 6v. Life 850 RX pack, ram 17x13 prop, white / red color not a scratch on it. I also have a jr 9110 RX. I'm thinking 1375.00 with the RX , 1300 without. Cost a fair amt more including the build fee. Plane is 60oz and runs/ thermals great on 3s and a hot warmliner on 4s. Email if you want pics of Lenny's Picasso like work. Have some custom bags for it and would like a local pickup to start but could ship if need be. Again, the plane is in like new condition and in perfect running condition. I could also bring this to the neat festival in sept. Have a few planes that are too close in performance and need the money for another build, besides, I like to keep Lenny constantly building.......Ciao,Dave

Originally Posted by hidaven

I have an Orion for sale. A handful of flights and built by the peerless Lenny Keer. Loaded with the best electronics including a 1506 2.5d 6.7, a cc ice 125, airtronics and Hyperion servos rated for 6v. Life 850 RX pack, ram 17x13 prop, white / red color not a scratch on it. I also have a jr 9110 RX. I'm thinking 1375.00 with the RX , 1300 without. Cost a fair amt more including the build fee. Plane is 60oz and runs/ thermals great on 3s and a hot warmliner on 4s. Email if you want pics of Lenny's Picasso like work. Have some custom bags for it and would like a local pickup to start but could ship if need be. Again, the plane is in like new condition and in perfect running condition. I could also bring this to the neat festival in sept. Have a few planes that are too close in performance and need the money for another build, besides, I like to keep Lenny constantly building.......Ciao,Dave

Interested, Sent you an email,
KF

Originally Posted by Lenny970

Yes, if you're looking for a 2.5M model it would be a fine choice for ALES.
Of course there's no substitute for wingspan, so a 3.5-4M model would be better still.

Lenny

Hi Lenny,

If using this for ALES competition, what would be a reasonable motor/ESC/prop combination? I have no need to fly at Mach 2 and would like something that would get me to 200 meters in 15-20 seconds or range out well in 30 seconds. Thanks in advance for any advice you can lend!

Dave

Originally Posted by dreisinger

Hi Lenny,

If using this for ALES competition, what would be a reasonable motor/ESC/prop combination? I have no need to fly at Mach 2 and would like something that would get me to 200 meters in 15-20 seconds or range out well in 30 seconds. Thanks in advance for any advice you can lend!

Dave

Dave,

If you want to build it mostly for ALES flying, I would be looking at one of the lower power, lighter weight setups. Dick (rofly) listed one earlier in this thread.
I've also installed one of the MVVS cased outrunners in one Orion, and it would probably suit you well too.

Lenny

Hi! I'm the proud flyer of the Orion Lenny built around the MVVS 3.5/960. As long as you are not requiring straight-up performance, the plane is right at home in ALES type flying. When Lenny handed it over, he projected "better than 45 deg." He was right! It is better. More like 60.

Thanks Lenny you did a super job!

Originally Posted by Lenny970

Dave,

If you want to build it mostly for ALES flying, I would be looking at one of the lower power, lighter weight setups. Dick (rofly) listed one earlier in this thread.
I've also installed one of the MVVS cased outrunners in one Orion, and it would probably suit you well too.

Lenny

Thanks for the responses. I know Neu makes nice motors and gearboxes, but if the MVVS would suit my purposes, I would find it hard to justify spending 200+ bucks on the Neu 1105/2.5Y/4.4:1 instead of 100 bucks on the MVVS 25/3.5/960. I would think a motor giving me about 450-500 watts would suffice. 20 second climbs to 200 meters would be the goal.

Dave,

My intent was to build out the Orion as light as possible, thus my choice of a power system. The MVVS 25/3.5/960 http://www.espritmodel.com/mvvs-25-3...ess-motor.aspx at $98 evidently weighs 5.9 oz. The Neu 1105/2.5Y/4.4 http://www.espritmodel.com/neu-1105g-series-motors.aspx at $185 weighs 4.4 oz. The Neu motor per the spec sheet is good for 400 watts for burst use (~20 seconds) and a bit more in practical use.

The key to making the bird balance with this light motor/gearbox setup was the ability to install the ESC side-by-side with the 2200 mAh 3S LiPo battery, thus I used a Jeti Advanced 40A Pro SB ESC http://www.espritmodel.com/jeti-adva...hless-esc.aspx at $80.

Using this “spend a few more bucks to save a few ounces” here and there resulted in the AUW of 51 oz. That included the use of the RFM carbon prop (13x9) and carbon spinner (more bucks, I know). So now I have an Orion with a wing loading of about 10.5 oz/sf that thermals with ease and climbs vertically like a home sick angel.

That said, you will be very happy with the MVVS setup as the Orion can carry a bit more weight for sure. One last thought: For serious ALES competition you may want to look at what is being flown… 3.5 + meters of span, giving better float, better range (L/D) and much easier to see… all at big bucks of course.

In any event, I wish you great lift and lots of fun,

Dick