Originally Posted by Quick61

Hey Herk, your thinking I have too much nose weight? i was thinking just the opposite. Maybe I should deffer to you. the chord is 9" and the Cg is 1 3/4" back from the LE. Thanks for the construction pointer, will do.

Mark

Like I said - hard to tell what is CG and what is stick twirling.

That should be a pretty good CG location, but a bit more nose weight probably won't hurt. Once you get it sorted out, you might find that you want to move it back to about that same area.

Originally Posted by HerkS

Like I said - hard to tell what is CG and what is stick twirling.

That should be a pretty good CG location, but a bit more nose weight probably won't hurt. Once you get it sorted out, you might find that you want to move it back to about that same area.

Thanks Herk, I am only going on what limited experiences I have with plank wings. I just know that when I was real light and relaxed on the sticks, hardly touching them was the time I had the best flight. Also, I was only launching about 50' - 60 ' height, and in that small area I was a bit on edge. The most of those trees you see in the video have lept to and snatched most every one of my planes from the sky. One even snatched up my little Bug SAL glider and wouldn't fess it up for 2 months! Next time out, I'm going to a bigger field and do what I can to get her up there.

One thing I can say, even if there is not yet any video of it, (cussen-fussen-mussen-russen no aim key chain cam), it does rotate up and out nicely on launch. I was real happy about that.

Mark

Nice job Quick ! Seriously, the little green winch would be perfect for this. A lot safer and easier then a high start. Just a no stress tap,tap,tap and up she'll go! If things go haywire, just stop taping, thats all! A high start keeps pulling until it wants to stop.

Blue Skies........................Tim

Originally Posted by RWCLOUD

Nice job Quick ! Seriously, the little green winch would be perfect for this. A lot safer and easier then a high start. Just a no stress tap,tap,tap and up she'll go! If things go haywire, just stop taping, thats all! A high start keeps pulling until it wants to stop.

Blue Skies........................Tim

This is one of the reasons I was so interested in how you put it all together. I really want to get something like what you did done up. I was thinking about it all day while I was pulling on the line. Thanks again for going into details about that little winch, and thanks for the kind words.

Mark

Originally Posted by Quick61

The weight is about 23 - 24oz balanced.

At 24 oz. that equals about 4.8 oz/s.f......THAT'S LIGHT !

The dual rates were set at 50% and 75%, and I was flying with the 50%

Just to test the control envelope, I'd start testing less and less elevon throw and expo. THAT coupled with an obstruction free flying site should put you in a nice groove.

Yes, that one flight was great and my feelings about the wing went right up there with it.

I judge a plane by it's best flight, not it's worst. (True for people too).

I looks like you have adequate control, at least enough to graduate up to the real flying site where you can get a higher launch, enough airtime to get trimmed and have a bigger landing zone.

As I recall from my only plank, an Alula, you can only get a good hyperstall when the CG is too far forward. The Alula was 5.78 oz./s.f. at 34" wing span and it flew well. The BLEED is going to kick it up a notch.

Kent

Originally Posted by Knoll53

At 24 oz. that equals about 4.8 oz/s.f......THAT'S LIGHT !

Just to test the control envelope, I'd start testing less and less elevon throw and expo. THAT coupled with an obstruction free flying site should put you in a nice groove.

I judge a plane by it's best flight, not it's worst. (True for people too).

Only one small trouble with that - My cheap radio has no expo to set. I am hoping to fix that little set back sooner rather than later and take a small step up to a Turnigy 9X as it will bind with all of my receivers I have now. And for what you get, especially after loading something like the er9x firmware, it's hard to beat the price.

Originally Posted by Knoll53

I looks like you have adequate control, at least enough to graduate up to the real flying site where you can get a higher launch, enough airtime to get trimmed and have a bigger landing zone.

As I recall from my only plank, an Alula, you can only get a good hyperstall when the CG is too far forward. The Alula was 5.78 oz./s.f. at 34" wing span and it flew well. The BLEED is going to kick it up a notch.

Kent

I think it has more than enough control. I had to be very light on the sticks or it would react more than I wanted. That 'best' flight, the stick movement was maybe no more than 1/3 or so any way from center. So slight movements made the plane dance. I do need more air time to get it dialed in. it's close, but I need more room to get those last few clicks in.

Started in on the new tail fin. I'll get a few pics up of what I did with it once I get it in my high tech press. (book / board with 5 gal. water for weight)

Mark

Here goes my attempt to build a better tail fin. First off, took Herk's advice and ran a strip of wood,(1"), cross grain on top and bottom. Then printed out a set of patterns of the fin to set up the CF disser on. Stripped off ~1k CF from my spool of 12K tow and ran it around on both patterns. Then spread out a very light coat of GG on one side of the fin and laid it on the disser. Pulled the pins, spread a layer on the other side, trimmed the wax paper and placed the fin on the other CF layout. Trimmed that side up, laid it into a standard fair "wax paper bagging" setup and added the weight. Will know in a bit how it turned out.

Mark

Alright, tail fin done. Came out nice, and a bit over 10g lighter and that's always a plus. All that is left to do is get it back on and get it square. In a perfict world, I would of used regular GG but I either lost what I had or used it all up on some other project. The white came out well enough though so I'll run with it.

Mark

Got the new tail feather all mounted up square and even took a few minuets to cut out some letters and squirt a little paint. Hoping to get out tomorrow to a bigger area and give it another go.

Mark

Looking good Mark -- will be looking forward to a report - maybe even a video

Originally Posted by HerkS

Looking good Mark -- will be looking forward to a report - maybe even a video

Speaking of video - That's my project for this evening. Cobble up a mount to hook the little cam up to my sunglasses so it will be pointing more in the direction I'm looking rather than trying to guess if the hat is on at the right angle to get the shot. So far, I'v not been doing well with the guessing.

Mark

It has been a few days sense i last typed into this thread. I've ended up being busy with stuff like hanging new screen on the back porch, and that should be done tomorrow, then it will be back to flying. To give a short update, I took the wing out to the big yard and set up to fly... and it looked like the wind was up enough to try the little slope. That slope has been the death of more than a couple of my planes and this one was no exception! Seemed like it was flying a bit nose heavy first time off and with full up, got it down to the bottom in almost one piece. Ground looped it and broke off the rear skid. OK, no problem, a quick fix and she was good to go. Took some nose weight off and gave it another toss of the edge and she went out, I turned and went right, but when I turned back around to come back up the ridge, she went nose up, then nose down, straight into the ground. Split the nose, top and bottom of the fuse. So my next entry will be the building of a new fuse. There are a few things I will do differently with this one so there is some good that will come out of it. So I'll be back in a couple of days.

In other good news, it looks like the cam mount for the sunglasses is going to work well. Got video of the short flight, but I'm not going to put that up. To much editing in the audio to be worth while, and I'm just to embarrassed to show it...

Mark

I trust that the new fuse will have added reinforcement. Will be interested in your new flying weight. Most of my thermal ships are at around 9 oz/s.f., but I'm sure you'll remain much lighter.

Originally Posted by Knoll53

I trust that the new fuse will have added reinforcement. Will be interested in your new flying weight. Most of my thermal ships are at around 9 oz/s.f., but I'm sure you'll remain much lighter.

I'm almost sure it will. I am going to use a light ply sub fuse and move the CF tow lament to the layer in between. I've ended up sidetracked with parts finding / CAD work trying (in vane) to get a small (16"x16") CNC 3D router / mill put together for under $200. Under $300, easy - under $200, not so much. I haven't built any CNC machines sense ~'87 or so.

I do need to get it back in the air, just been procrastinating a bit on it. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I'm punishing it for smacking up the way it did, even though it was my fault.

Thanks for posting Kent, and putting this to the forefront. I really should let it out of it's corner now. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.

Mark

Originally Posted by Quick61

I've ended up sidetracked with parts finding / CAD work
Mark

Oh nooooooooooo....... Not CAD work!

You may never build and fly again.

I tried my hand at CAD a while back (1982). You might as well just throw out your to-do list because "just toying around" with CAD will burn several decades.

With that said....enjoy !

Kent