Originally Posted by PeterVRC

Now the test pieces made up and in place.....
All very straight-forward and very simple to do.
...

Impressive design, Peter.
One question - why did you make it so long? I thought the purpose is to fix battery and front retract together...
Extending it beyond will certainly make the nose very solid so in case of the most common bad_landing=good_crash=30 degrees into the ground it will end up with the "Terminator-looking" nose (broken plywood sticking out of the foam everywhere) rather than broken nose cone and a fixable fracture at wing root line.

Another thing I was thinking of is a "battery ejector" - make the plywood wall between battery and retract at 30-40 degrees so in case of light crash it opens the hatch instead of smashing itself into a wooden box.

I think what every foamie needs is not detachable wings but a detachable at wing root nose connected to fuselage with plastic bolts and a couple of spare noses in the kit...

That video shows me (reminds me) why I always wanted the Desert Camo version! Booo. But it would have cost me almost $50 more to get it.
If it was 'easy' enough I would have just repainted mine. At least now I have SOME amount of reason to do that, seeing it needs nose end painting, but it is still a big task to do the whole plane - and also then needs all the decals..... sigh.
So it will have to stay grey for a while longer at least.....

At $176 maybe I will just buy a DC airframe eventually.... the painting effort is probably that cost in time and materials anyway!

lol! Nope not water proof just wrap saran wrap around it.

I did move the battery all the way forward to compensate for the added weight from the cam on the vert stab, but wasn't enough as we saw. So maybe some added weight would help, but im not gonna try it again. Either way the best view is from the wing.

PETE,

painting the underbelly of my plane was not really hard, but done in a day and then sealed with WBP the next. I could imagine that desert camo would be very time consuming to get all those offsets taped off on top. If I was to get another SU in desert camo i would definitely take on the task of adding camo to the belly as it would definitely be easier than doing the top.

Yes Sockrat.... after cleaning up, and 'winding down' from the brain activity of it all (LOL), I was thinking exactly those things about 'IF it crashes".
The pros and cons of going even further rearwards, OR stopping at the rear of the battery.

None of the scenarios looked that pleasing!! LOL

You have to allocate an AIM first.
"I want to be able to go flying and be assured it can fly numerous flights on the day - and even week to week - without fractures, or issues causing a grounding". eg some rough landing, emergency belly landing etc. to not bother it much, if at all.

If the whole nose - battery and nose gear especially of course - are catered for, then that aim will be achieved. That pretty well means the framework must go more rearwards. And..... a more serious damage scenario in a BIG crash.

After humming and harring, I was deciding on going FURTHER rearwards. Like another 150mm!
This is because although ply seems very strong - and it is strong, compared to foam(!!) and even balsa - it is not 'super strong'. I have still had ply things snap - of course depending on the forces directions and design etc.
At 30mm height, these rails CAN still snap. Especially due to the length of the 'ahead of wing' the Su has the rails running for.
To assure it snaps ahead of the wing, you need rearwards to be more rigid... supported.

If it stops at the ESC bay area, it can snap, break the back, of the plane right after the ply stops. Like you were alluding to - spearing upwards from that point. But the more you go rearwards - and it must be enough rearwards to pass a point of "cant snap or break the back from that far in" - the more you will make the break occur more forwards. At the battery area for eg.
That is not defeating the whole frames purpose.... its aim of making the whole snap possibility to be way more up the energy scale, is achieved. You are just designing it to STILL snap in the least problematic area - which is up the front battery sort of area - you are just raising the energy level required before that occurs..

If you really wanted, you could purposely weaken a spot up front there....and that is what the interlock join will effectively do too. Do the interlock the "right way up" and it will allow the nose to snap in the desired direction..... in a BIG crash. Not just from repeated normal use, and 'normal small incident' levels.

So I didn't decide on a specific point, but very likely to be quite a way further rearwards than just the ESC bay. Plus, no interlock joint overlap plate - and decide on its orientation for the desired 'snap direction'.

V8, why would you camo the belly?
Isn't the real plane grey underneath for both schemes?

One of my Meteors is painted in "Israeli Camo" (as per their F-16's/F-15's) and the colours are somewhat like the Su DC.... and that looks awesome in the air, due to the fact it has colour!! Not boring grey... or white... etc (The grey Su looks somewhat all-grey in the air most of the time). And the Su DC is even a bit more vibrant too - just the top side, LOL.
The Meteor all-grey underneath too.

Masking/Painting is not the harder part - to me the decals are the worst to arrange. But the whole job in total is the big grand total of effort it would require. Many days (due to drying times) but also a fair amount of real time hours in each of those days too.
That is where an $176 airframe could make doing it that way (buying one) a more viable choice.

Most viable to me would be when I SMASH UP the grey one and truly need another airframe!! LOL

Actually it's the whole underside of the plane.

You mean the camo on the real ones?
That would be a very weird thing to do. (Handy if you are flying inverted I guess)

Real SU35

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/th...272-162239.jpg

Mine

http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/at...-WP_000839.jpg

Oh ok, that's great! I will do that then! Seeing I will be painting anyway!
Thanks

Originally Posted by v8truckin

Real SU35

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/th...272-162239.jpg

Mine

http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/at...-WP_000839.jpg

That certainly looks better but careful with orientation. My A10 is full camo like that and despite very easy shape it's a hell to understand what position it is in if I let it a bit further.

The all grey bottom.... and as good as all grey top when at a distance..... probably no difference having camo bottom or not in this Su case.

I lost orientation of my 'all silver' Shagri-LA P-51 last weekend, but regained it.... you generally do it via 'motion assessment', which I guess experience (hopefully) leads you down the quickest path of inputs to determine that. Luckily in that last case, the very first move was enough to get it back on track. Generally start with mid-up elevator....

It has been quite grey most of the time lately (winter here), so all colours end up grey at not a great distance. I have had a ton of cases of "No true idea of the attitude via sight" for sections of flight, but you are using the motions (what is was doing prior, what inputs do have done) as the major reference anyway. But that can be 'scarey' the times you lose that bit of motion reference too! A quick wing move, or pitch change, can get you re-locked on. Phew!

Soc,

I never had a problem with my orientation on this plane due to the camo causing confusion. I have lost orientation do to distance and like Peter said rely on radio inputs, sight, and movement of plane. I very rarely fly more than the length of my runway/road which is about 300yrds so as to not lose orientation, which has happened with my euro and it wasn't fun although I did save her, Phew! Is right Pete!

Great vids there JK! The sunset scenes were breath taking!
To me it just seems you fly always WOT or at least very hot, this jet glides amazingly try slow a bit down to get a more comfortable feel of it and to be able to fly safer in a larger flight envelope, start doing it at high altitude if you are not sure.

Now you see, and there is enough video proof, that TV control is a great aircraft saving device and very inteligent to leave it always on (And learn to fly that way) in order to get out of desperate situations!

Originally Posted by v8truckin

Nice save looks like St. Jandro the guardian angel was watching over you.

Thanks V8, you can not imagine how hard I laughed at this

So sorry your Su has crashed, looked so nice... You land very hot too!

Cheers!
Jandro.

Jandro,

lol! St. Jandro is only there for the hard, knee shaking, eye popping saves. St. Jandro doesnt help on landings I guess! Shes almost all done with repair and 90% like new. The hot landing was on purpose to prevent the stall tendency I encountered in my 1st approach. I do land hot sometimes while not meaning to, but this time it was purposely and I paid.