Originally Posted by pdiddyg40

You think that really makes a difference? I'm inclined to think he would have drank any one's anyway

There fixed it for ya

Originally Posted by Eagle202

OK. I like the idea of a net to save it from a hard hit.

I still say that a chute on the tail would work. If you are only a few feet above the ground when deployed there is not much height to fall from.

The chute would not be used for all landings. Only the ones that are fast or too hot to land in the remaining safe zone.

Vince

Vince,

You'll have to watch where you mount the 'chute on the tail due to the effect that its weight will have on the CG. I think you will also need to pay attention to the attachment point for the chute lines. It needs to be located at a strong point on the fuse, as the force of the plane's forward thrust will be focused on that point. You don't want the chute to pull a chunk of foam out of the fuse when you pop it.

If I remember correctly, teccer1234 successfully did a landing parachute last year and posted some really cool videos of it being deployed from a pretty good ways up. That system worked perfectly, as he posted video of many successful landings with it. He popped the chute and it just glided down to a soft landing (no throttle, of course). But that system was for a vertical landing. It was not set up to be a drogue chute, to slow the horizontal speed, as I believe you are considering.

2 cents, please!

Bob

edit: I thought it was Jeff, but it was Teccer1234.

here's the link. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=7401

Originally Posted by Chairwolf

Vince,

You'll have to watch where you mount the 'chute on the tail due to the effect that its weight will have on the CG. I think you will also need to pay attention to the attachment point for the chute lines. It needs to be located at a strong point on the fuse, as the force of the plane's forward thrust will be focused on that point. You don't want the chute to pull a chunk of foam out of the fuse when you pop it.

If I remember correctly, teccer1234 successfully did a landing parachute last year and posted some really cool videos of it being deployed from a pretty good ways up. That system worked perfectly, as he posted video of many successful landings with it. He popped the chute and it just glided down to a soft landing (no throttle, of course). But that system was for a vertical landing. It was not set up to be a drogue chute, to slow the horizontal speed, as I believe you are considering.

2 cents, please!

Bob

edit: I thought it was Jeff, but it was Teccer1234.

here's the link. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=7401

Bob

Thanks for the input. I guess my interest about parachutes got out of hand.

This all started when RC Novice requested info about a Reverse Thrust option to slow a plane down. He posted a day after a video of eckace1 was shown hitting his backyard fence due to lack of landing space.

I threw in a suggestion about using a chute of some kind to slow a plane down. That's when I started to get a lot of good feedback from a few people on parachutes and what has been done with them.

I do want to thank you and everyone else with providing me the info on parachutes. I don't plan on using one right now but the idea of having options to stop a plane safely due to short landing areas interested me.

Vince

If you want to land a plane in a confined space keep it light give it large controls including flapperons and plenty of power. That pretty much excludes any Easy star.

Terry

Originally Posted by Terry Rigden

If you want to land a plane in a confined space keep it light give it large controls including flapperons and plenty of power. That pretty much excludes any Easy star.

Terry

My parkzone Vapor only meets one of that criteria?

Originally Posted by Terry Rigden

If you want to land a plane in a confined space keep it light give it large controls including flapperons and plenty of power. That pretty much excludes any Easy star.

Terry

With all due respect, Terry, I don't understand that comment. Even the heaviest cargo planes use flaps to land on shorter runways than they could without. Sure, they have plenty of power, but it's not difficult to have sufficient power and flaps on an EasyStar to do the same.

I have flaperons on mine and load it down with a heavy GoPro camera - the confined landing spaces are much easier to negotiate.

Roger

Originally Posted by Zaurak3

OK, all this talk about reverse thrust - who's going to be the first to enable his EasyStar to do this?

Greetings guys. Long time no talk, no visit, no nothing. I wanna get back in the RC Groups and particularly EZ thread community. So I hope to be here more often!

Anyhow, I did the reverse thrust thing. It's possible. It works. I used a relay from Dimension Engineering.

CIMG4692.MOV (0 min 28 sec)

Note: It "works" well (for me at least) only for the purpose of slowing the plane down during the last moments of approaching the ground. That was the extent of my playing around with it. I did try it at about 300 ft, and it certainly stalled and dropped dramatically.

For the sake of argument...lets say you normally used 40 to 50 yards to comfortably land your EZ. With the reverse thrust, and at the right height, right speed, right frame of mind, you could shave off 10 maybe 15 yards. (In fact that's why I was interested in doing this project. I wanted to be able to land in a small baseball filed surrounded by buildings and trees.)

I didn't become proficient at it. There was a learning curve - knowing when to throttle down, hit switch to reverse, throttle up, then back down, then hit the switch to quickly go BACK to forward (because oops, I inputted too much reverse thrust), throttle back up, carefully land.

In the end, I took the relay off. But it was a fun project.

Congrats, gp!

Of course, just reversing the motor is the easy part - the hard part is to work it into a flying technique that is useful and repeatable. Now, if you tied the relay to a sensor that would return it to forward thrust just before hitting stall speed, then it may be more than a `stall inducer'. Although the EasyStar doesn't have a huge speed range for this to work well.

But, if it was a fun project for you, then it was a success, since fun is what it's all about. Next time get a video of the flying part...

Reverse thrust is common through out full scale aviation. However, except for the space shuttle simulator which reversed thrust to start an outrageous rate of descent:

Space Shuttle Training Aircraft STA Landing Video (1 min 11 sec)

Reverse thrust is never engaged until the wheels touch the ground. Here's why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...3lfAx1Q#t=123s

C-130 YMC-130H Lockheed Hercules flight test accident crash (2 min 56 sec)

Bottom line, doesn't matter how fast you are when you touch down. What matters is that you put it where you want to touch down, in one piece and only then engage the reversers.

[雨の羽田] Japan Airlines (JAL) Boeing 777-200 JA771J "Oneworld" @ Haneda [20111119_1005] (1 min 16 sec)

There's a little aerial reverse-thrust action in this video:

Harrier (Jump Jet) Performance Leuchars 2010 (4 min 39 sec)

(Along with an enormous amount of up-thrust, gyro/computer action, as well... )

I needed the parachute option on sunday- but it all was too low- too fast to matter- I forgot i was on crutches and flew my plane overhead- couldn't turn my handicapped butt around to follow the plane- lost sight of it and -well you willl see

and right after my impact- Eckace loses a servo - Bad day for the EZ^'s

so we chunked 'em in the truck and flew the Radians- which had nice uneventful flights

2 RC easystars fly and 2 crash- with onboard cameras (5 min 16 sec)

Hmmm..

the EZII has fairly large servo covers just by the CoG for rudder/elevator. If they were replaced by something a little more robust than foam and hinged, they could act as single-servo activated airbrakes..

Probably rip the servo out though, unless it was extremely well bedded in.

Sqrl,

Great videos, watching a C130 touchdown in a soccer field would have been pretty impressive!! But yea rough landing there when you lose lift.

Originally Posted by scrtsqrl

Reverse thrust is common through out full scale aviation. However, except for the space shuttle simulator which reversed thrust to start an outrageous rate of descent:

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

Reverse thrust is never engaged until the wheels touch the ground. Here's why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...3lfAx1Q#t=123s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCl3lfAx1Q
Bottom line, doesn't matter how fast you are when you touch down. What matters is that you put it where you want to touch down, in one piece and only then engage the reversers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11uZIi1wf90

Originally Posted by Zaurak3

With all due respect, Terry, I don't understand that comment. Even the heaviest cargo planes use flaps to land on shorter runways than they could without. Sure, they have plenty of power, but it's not difficult to have sufficient power and flaps on an EasyStar to do the same.

I have flaperons on mine and load it down with a heavy GoPro camera - the confined landing spaces are much easier to negotiate.

Roger

You will be able to land a given aeroplane in a smaller place if you fit it with flaps and spoilers but my point is that the Easy star isnt designed for STOL operation. It's too heavy , the prop is in the wrong place and the controls are not powerful enough for really slow speed flight.
To get something in and out of half a soccer pitch with obstructions round it you will need something with half the wing loading of a standard easy star (4oz /sqft) a power/weight ratio better than 1.2 :1 and the fan up the front to blow air over the wing. A high lift wing section , big flapprons so you can harrier it in at high alpha

So yes you can modfiy an ES to land in a smaller space than a standard one but it wont be as good as a model designed for that task.

The ES is a good trainer or camera carrier but thats about it.

Terry

Originally Posted by scottdearinger

I needed the parachute option on sunday- but it all was too low- too fast to matter- I forgot i was on crutches and flew my plane overhead- couldn't turn my handicapped butt around to follow the plane- lost sight of it and -well you willl see

and right after my impact- Eckace loses a servo - Bad day for the EZ^'s

so we chunked 'em in the truck and flew the Radians- which had nice uneventful flights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWYOmvj-mqc

Scott

Why don't you get one of those swivel chairs that they have on a fishing boat. Just strap in and pivot. It would be easy on your back and allow quick direction changes.

Of course you could get real dizzy spinning back and forth.

Vince