Originally Posted by Sculptor

It's just me your fine. Is there a junction box for servo wires? If you know of one please let me know.

Thanks,DJ

When I say "junction box" perhaps I am making it sound bigger than I mean. Here are the links to So_bad's build that shows what I mean. Just a little area cut out with a connection.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...ONES/th_14.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...ONES/th_14.jpg

I think that I am going to go with a Bixler-1 for now. If I destroy or loose it, my loses are less. If it survives , I might upgrade to a Bixler-2 in 6 months.

Shimmy

Originally Posted by 1987tc

How sensitive is the plane to cg? I went to do a test flight yesterday. With the plane balance nose heavy. Gave it full throttle and launched with the nose slighty up. Plane promptly nosed into the soft ground and tall grass. I gave it a good toss so it had plenty of speed. Prop is on correctly and puts out plenty of breeze.

Should I not use full throttle? Or did having the cg more forward cause the motor to push the nose down?
Been flying a long time. But first time with a plane with this lay out.


I also tried a rog take off first. While it would slide along the ground at a decent speed. Would not lift off.
Wes

I found that the down angle on the thrust line of the motor will drive the thing into the dirt quite easily if you give it too much power. Launch with mid to low power and be prepared to give it a bit of UP elevator. If you can, program a mix so that when you give it full throttle, it also gives it about 20% - 25% UP elevator. You'll also learn to program some down elevator when you use flaps.

Originally Posted by 1987tc

How sensitive is the plane to cg? I went to do a test flight yesterday. With the plane balance nose heavy. Gave it full throttle and launched with the nose slighty up. Plane promptly nosed into the soft ground and tall grass. I gave it a good toss so it had plenty of speed. Prop is on correctly and puts out plenty of breeze.

Should I not use full throttle? Or did having the cg more forward cause the motor to push the nose down?
Been flying a long time. But first time with a plane with this lay out.


I also tried a rog take off first. While it would slide along the ground at a decent speed. Would not lift off.
Wes

I agree with xviper about throttle and up elevator, definitely needs elevator to gain any altitude from a hand launch.
I use my flaps for all hand launching and it really shortens the takeoff on taking off from grass

I too intend to take off from grass when this sucker is fully FPV'd up, I want to be sitting in my camping chair and not have to do the usual hand launch wearing the goggles then blindly walk backwards to my chair lol. gave up on finding the chair a few times and just sat on the ground with my legs crossed... only a few feet from the chair. looked stupid to say the least.

small child @ field: "mister mister, why you sit on floor, when good chair just next to you"
me: "go away I'm flying a plane"
small child @ field: "what plane"

for this reason I will definitely be installing the flaps immediately, to help with my take-offs

Originally Posted by CorporalB

I too intend to take off from grass when this sucker is fully FPV'd up, I want to be sitting in my camping chair and not have to do the usual hand launch wearing the goggles then blindly walk backwards to my chair lol. gave up on finding the chair a few times and just sat on the ground with my legs crossed... only a few feet from the chair. looked stupid to say the least.

small child @ field: "mister mister, why you sit on floor, when good chair just next to you"
me: "go away I'm flying a plane"
small child @ field: "what plane"

for this reason I will definitely be installing the flaps immediately, to help with my take-offs

Oh my I cannot stop laughing
Can't u just launch it standing up in front of the chair and then sit down? or use an elastic so you chair is attached to your body?
Jokes a part... I think
If you fly fpv I strongly suggest the flaps as the plane does kind of stabilize and fly slower with them and glides well.

Originally Posted by CorporalB

I too intend to take off from grass when this sucker is fully FPV'd up, I want to be sitting in my camping chair and not have to do the usual hand launch wearing the goggles then blindly walk backwards to my chair lol. gave up on finding the chair a few times and just sat on the ground with my legs crossed... only a few feet from the chair. looked stupid to say the least.

small child @ field: "mister mister, why you sit on floor, when good chair just next to you"
me: "go away I'm flying a plane"
small child @ field: "what plane"

for this reason I will definitely be installing the flaps immediately, to help with my take-offs

i Havent got into FPV yet ( not long tho). Your right you would look funny just sitting on the grass with the goggles on
I have a Gopro coming so tried a heavy Olympus Tough camera to the Bixler to see how it would take off on the smooth grass with flaps. The Olympus is the same weight as the GoPro with the clear case fitted. With the stock motor it did take off, but wouldn't try it without flaps. I have an upgrade motor in the mail, so this will get it up even quicker.

Well I got the flaps hooked up, had to take one servo apart and reversed the wiring and all is good.

Put a servo speed reducer on the flaps turned to sloooow and it's slow. turned up to 50% and it takes 6 seconds to deploy, that's so cool!

But now I'm stuck. I want mix in some elev on mix one and I'm not understanding how to do that. Can y'all please point me in the right direction?

Thank you all,
DJ

Originally Posted by Sculptor

Well I got the flaps hooked up, had to take one servo apart and reversed the wiring and all is good.

Put a servo speed reducer on the flaps turned to sloooow and it's slow. turned up to 50% and it takes 6 seconds to deploy, that's so cool!

But now I'm stuck. I want mix in some elev on mix one and I'm not understanding how to do that. Can y'all please point me in the right direction?

Thank you all,
DJ

Hi DJ,

What radio are you using!

Mike.

Originally Posted by miksterr

Hi DJ,

What radio are you using!

Mike.

Thank you Mike. It's a DX6i by Spectrum with a AR6200 W/ satellite 6 Chanel I think.

DJ

Originally Posted by adza

A question and an observation:

Firstly, why do everything without the prop on first? (I'm anewby, but i just put my prop on at the beginning and didn't have any issues). Did i risk something?

Secondly, in relation to the prop direction, mine was spinning the wrong way, but all i did was reconfigure the ESC to change directions as opposed to changing the wires around. Did i do wrong?

This is why: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attac...mentid=4161008


Good friend of mine did this with a foamy he was checking out with the prop on.

Originally Posted by Little-Acorn

Paint it?

That's a pretty good idea -- make a stencil and use rattle can.

To do mixing ..................
Go to your "mix 1" menu (the DX6i only has 2 mixes possible) and UN-INH it. Then you'll see the choices appear. You want FLAP --> ELE. Rotate the wheel and click as needed till you get this to show up. Then you can dial in % down ELE (as flaps will make the plane balloon UP). Start with 15% and go less or more from there as your plane needs it. It becomes a trial and error thing. Remember how much down you need will depend on how much throttle you're using at the time. So decide that when you activate flaps, you will always be at a certain throttle to start with. Generally, I would be power off when activating flaps initially. Test it on the ground before sending it up so you know that the ELE goes down when the flaps are activated. You don't want to find out the hard way when it's 30 feet off the deck and find you plane trying to do a low altitude loop.

AR6200 is a 6 channel RX.

Originally Posted by xviper

To do mixing ..................
Go to your "mix 1" menu (the DX6i only has 2 mixes possible) and UN-INH it. Then you'll see the choices appear. You want FLAP --> ELE. Rotate the wheel and click as needed till you get this to show up. Then you can dial in % down ELE (as flaps will make the plane balloon UP). Start with 15% and go less or more from there as your plane needs it. It becomes a trial and error thing. Remember how much down you need will depend on how much throttle you're using at the time. So decide that when you activate flaps, you will always be at a certain throttle to start with. Generally, I would be power off when activating flaps initially. Test it on the ground before sending it up so you know that the ELE goes down when the flaps are activated. You don't want to find out the hard way when it's 30 feet off the deck and find you plane trying to do a low altitude loop.

AR6200 is a 6 channel RX.

Thank you for this. I think I now know how that mix is done.

Viper, why the hell I have my own thoughts about this has me asking you this; I've installed a servo speed reducer on the flaps. On slow I have to watch to see if there moving. I've set this on 50% and it takes 6 sec. for the flaps to deploy.

Now because of that wide range I should be able to teach myself how much down elevator to use since I can have a lot of time to do it.

It seems the 'flap + elevator mix' is speed and wind dependent. If we set it up on Tuesday W/ 6 -8 MPH wind and we come back on Thursday and it's a 10 -15 mph wind the set up won't work because the mix is specific to speed (air speed).

I'm slowing down the flaps so I can 'fly' the elevator under any conditions.

You can tell I'm on my second glass of wine.

Viper, I hope this doesn't sound unappreciative, but what do you think ?

DJ

Originally Posted by Little-Acorn

Paint it?

I have surely thought about that. Maybe I'm a little clumsy, it would not do...

Originally Posted by 1987tc

How sensitive is the plane to cg? I went to do a test flight yesterday. With the plane balance nose heavy. Gave it full throttle and launched with the nose slighty up. Plane promptly nosed into the soft ground and tall grass. I gave it a good toss so it had plenty of speed. Prop is on correctly and puts out plenty of breeze.

Should I not use full throttle? Or did having the cg more forward cause the motor to push the nose down?
Been flying a long time. But first time with a plane with this lay out.


I also tried a rog take off first. While it would slide along the ground at a decent speed. Would not lift off.
Wes

mine does it too. I have put the battery as close to the wing as possible, but it still goes nose down with throttle on. I did the throttle-elevator mixing with 20% elevator when full throttle. It went better, but still going a little down. I'm currently flying with flaps halfway on (about 20°). It flies smoothly and very stable.