|
|
|
 |
RCCars |  |
Crack Roll | |
Flying Giants | |
RC Power | |
The E Zone | |
Lift Zone | |
Our Sponsors |  |
|||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Introduction When Dave Lilley put out the call for writers for the LiftZone, I immediately volunteered my services. Since I had previously written for the E-zone, Dave accepted my offer and assigned me to review the Elegant 700 from Hobby-Lobby. While I have had several 2-meter sailplanes and hand-launch gliders, this was my first foray into the 2.7-meter class. I wasn't disappointed as this model impressed me in several ways and made my introduction to this class of model a pleasant one. Kit Contents and Equipment I've purchased several kits in the past from Hobby-Lobby so I wasn't surprised at how well the kit was protected when shipped. The kit box was shipped inside a larger shipping box with plenty of padding. Each of the balsa parts was wrapped in bubble wrap, and the small parts were secured in a separate bag. My first impression of the kit is that the quality was exceptional. The gel coat on the fiberglass fuselage was flawless. The quality of the workmanship on the built up parts was equally good, the covering job was very clean with no sagging, the overlap at color changes was even and the wing markings were attached without any wrinkles or bubbles. After seeing the quality of the kit, I couldn't wait to begin assembly. The accessory package that comes with the kit is quite complete and includes all pushrods, clevises, hatch hold-down, control horns, and servo covers. Several of the parts had part numbers clearly stamped on them, which helped a lot with parts that were similar in size. The servo covers were impressive because they weren't your typical vacuform plastic, but instead, a much higher quality made from 2-ounce fiberglass cloth and resin colored to match the wing. In my kit, one pair of the covers was yellow and the other was blue. Unfortunately the blue wingtip covering didn't extend to the aileron servo location so the blue covers didn't match the covering there. Instead, they were the contrasting color of the wingtip. The only real concern with the kit contents that I had was that my kit seemed to be missing the motor mount for the optional motor, but I'll discuss how I solved that further in the assembly section of this review. I used the recommended equipment of four HS-55 servos, two HS-81 servos, Graupner 12"x6" CAM folding prop, Jeti Phasor 30-3 brushless motor and 40-amp ESC. In addition, I used a trusty Hitec Super-Slim 8 channel receiver and my Hitec Eclipse 7 transmitter. 
Assembly Although this plane is an ARF, assembling a full-house glider of this size with flaps and an optional motor is still a significant task. I'm considered a fast builder in my club, and it took me about 12 hours to complete the assembly and set up my transmitter for the model. I could probably have knocked an hour or two off this time if I had not been taking notes and photographing the assembly process. Let's look at what's involved. Wing The first step is to attach the outer wing panels to the inner wing panels. The mating ribs needed to have a slot cut in them for the hardwood joiner. Inside, the spar cavity is prepared from the factory to receive the joiner with shear webs on each side of the spar, making the joiner a good snug fit. The instructions called for epoxy filled with microbaloons as an adhesive here, but I opted to use polyurethane glue (Elmer's Pro-Bond). I've had great success with this glue in similar applications, and it worked perfectly here as well. I taped the joints with low-tack masking tape to hold them in position and to prevent the polyurethane glue from foaming out of the joint. Once taped, I propped the wings up until the glue cured to insure the correct tip dihedral. 
Once the glue cured, I removed the masking tape and applied a strip of clear tape around the entire joint. With each wing half assembled, the servos could be installed. The instructions recommend lining the servo cutouts with fiberglass cloth so I laid in some 2-ounce fiberglass cloth and epoxy finishing resin. Once the epoxy had cured, I ran the servo extensions through the tubes in the wings. This was somewhat challenging as the tubes are a tight fit. I carefully removed the connector from the extension and used a piece of thin piano wire to pull the extension through the tube. It was necessary to trim a little balsa from the opening in the servo bay on the aileron extensions to get the wires through but this was a simple task. With the extensions pulled, I re-attached the connector to the extension. From here, it was fairly straightforward to attach the control horns to the control surfaces, bend Z-bends in the pushrods, solder on the threaded connectors, and attach the clevises to the pushrods. With the completed pushrods attached to the control surfaces and the servos zeroed in my transmitter, I secured each servo in its bay with epoxy and attached the covers with clear tape. This completed the assembly of the wings. 
Fuselage The instructions cautioned that adhesives wouldn't adhere to the fiberglass unless the mold release was cleaned off. I used CA debonder applied with a clean rag to the areas I expected to use glue. I also roughed up all surfaces to be glued with a small needle file and sandpaper to give the epoxy more to cling to, with the wing roots the first areas to receive this attention. The wing joiner runs through a brass channel, and there are pins at each wing root's tip and trailing edge that locate the wings when they are attached to the fuselage. All three of these pieces are epoxied into the fuselage. The fuselage was marked nicely from the factory so there was no guesswork or measuring here - just drill or cut where the indentations were and then secure the pins and channel with slow setting epoxy. In addition to attaching the pins and channel, I also had to make cutouts for the servo leads to run through. The photo below shows the completed wing root with the wing joiner inserted into the brass channel. 
The next step was installing the motor. Since this model can be flown as a pure sailplane, or with an optional motor, the nosecone of the model comes from the factory complete ready to use as a sailplane. To install the motor, you need to cut the nose off and install a plywood firewall to mount the motor. My kit did not come with the plywood firewall so I needed to make one myself - actually quite simple once I figured out a way to take the guesswork out of it. The first step was to remove the correct amount off the nose of the model. Cutting the fiberglass with a knife was out of the question, so I set up my bench top vertical sander with the feed table set to a 93-degree angle so that when I rested the model on the feed table, the sander would cut a nice 3-degree down thrust angle. I carefully fed the nose of the model into the sander removing the fiberglass slowly, frequently checking the nose of the model with the spinner I was going to use. Using the sander to make this cut produced a wonderfully clean cut and was quite controllable. Once I was happy with the fit, I traced the outline of the opening on some 3/16" birch plywood I had handy, and cut out a firewall custom fit to the opening. After some fine tuning by sanding the firewall and a couple of dry-fittings, I epoxied the firewall in place and fit the spinner. I used some more low-tack masking tape to keep any epoxy that squeezed out from getting on the fuselage. 
I chose 3-degrees of down thrust based on my experience with other powered sailplanes. I've found that anything less and the planes tend to balloon up at high throttle settings. When I test fit the canopy I found mounting the motor with this amount of down thrust put the motor in a position that prevented the canopy from fitting properly. Since the canopy was hollow, it was a simple matter to make a cutout in the underside to allow the canopy to fit over the motor. I wanted the canopy latch to be mounted on the rear of the canopy so it wouldn't interfere with the folding prop. To facilitate this I mounted a 1/16-inch plywood tab on the front of the canopy and drilled a hole in the rear of the canopy to accept the pin from the latch. Being a cautious type, I reinforced both of these areas with 2-ounce fiberglass cloth and thin CA. After cutting a slot in the fuselage top for the latch pull I epoxied it in place. 
Tail Feathers Mounting the tail feathers was fairly straightforward. Threaded couplers and a hardwood support were epoxied into the inside of the tail to allow the stabilizer assembly to be mounted or removed for traveling. Corresponding collars were also glued into the stabilizer. The rudder support is a pre-shaped piece of balsa that is glued into the opening in the back of the tail section with epoxy. I chose to cover this bare balsa with yellow covering that matched the color of the fiberglass. Before mounting the rudder with CA hinges, the elevator pushrod sleeve was glued in place on the top of the rudder support. The instructions call for cutting a slot in the tail section to allow the rudder pushrod to exit the fuselage. It would be quite acceptable to simply epoxy the pushrod sleeve in place in this slot, but I chose to dress up the hole with an exit cover I had on hand. Again installation of the provided control horns and clevises was straightforward. 
Equipment and Radio Setup The instructions recommended installing the battery mount under the wing and the servos in a provided tray under the canopy. I test-balanced the model with the equipment in this configuration and found it to be too tail heavy with the battery that far back. Instead I opted to cover the servos in shrink-wrap and epoxy them to the fuselage side, allowing me to put Velcro on the fuselage bottom to mount the battery. This setup allowed me to adjust the center of gravity to suit the conditions: more forward for gusty days, rearward for calm days where I want to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the airframe. The ESC was mounted with Velcro to the fuselage side directly behind the motor, and the receiver was put under the wing, close to where the leads enter from the wing and far from the servos and ESC to reduce the chance of interference. To prevent the tail section pushrods from flexing, the instructions call for applying glue at intervals inside the boom. Since I found this nearly impossible, I chose another solution. I cut some spheres out of some scrap EPP foam I had and pushed them into the boom using a dowel as a ramrod. With these firmly pushed into the boom at intervals the pushrods were secured nicely. 
When it came time to set up my radio, I had a big decision to make. The Eclipse 7 transmitter has a glider and an acro mode, and I had to decide which to use. In glider mode there are many more options to control the flaps and ailerons including crow or butterfly mode for landing. The disadvantage of glider mode is that throttle control is available only as an on/off switch using the landing gear toggle on the transmitter, because the throttle stick is used for the flaps/crow functions. In acro mode there is normal throttle function, but crow and flap features are more limited. Since I wanted more control of the model for the first flights, I elected for acro mode with full throttle control, and I set the flaps up on a toggle switch using a 'Y' harness connected to channel 5. I may use a second model memory to set the plane up in glider mode later once I get more comfortable with it's tendencies. This will allow me to use the advanced glider functions when flying in LMR and duration events, while still having throttle control available on days when I'm flying casually. One of the nice features of the model is that each wing half comes off for transportation to the field. This allows the model to break down into a size smaller than my 2-meter gliders that have one piece wings. Set up at the field only takes a few minutes. Each wing panel needs to be installed and the servo leads need to be hitched up to the receiver. I secure each wing panel to the fuselage with one layer of 3-M Blenderm tape on the top surface of the wing. This tape removes easily without residue but holds firmly in flight. 
Flying After feverishly working to complete the build, I was forced to exert a rare amount of patience for me. The weather here in New England in the fall is well, unpredictable at best. The day I completed the Elegant 700 a fall Nor'easter hit us with gale force winds and a weather pattern that lasted for nearly two weeks of rain or 15+ mph winds. Since I didn't want this to be one of those reviews that documented the first crash of a new model, I patiently waited for the weather to improve. When things cleared up I enlisted the help of my friend and flying partner Robert Anderson to take digital photographs and movies of the plane in flight. With a firm toss the model climbed away smartly at half throttle. The plane trimmed out with only a click or two of aileron trim and no elevator or rudder trim. Once trimmed out I tried a climb and found that the Jeti motor performed as advertised and climbed out at better than 45 degrees. The glide path of the model is quite impressive and even on the cold fall afternoons that I've had to fly the plane in it seems to find thermals that shouldn't exist. Landing the model is quite easy if the flaps are deployed to slow the model down then released for the final 5-feet or so of your descent. What is most impressive for me is how maneuverable the Elegant 700 is for such a large model. I spent most of my first session with the model trying to get some good video and photographs for this review. This required me to fly the plane like an oversized parkflyer, making multiple passes past the camera at heights from 5 to 25 feet. The Elegant did this without trouble and even on my first flying session flew predictably enough for me to feel comfortable flying several low passes. The tight turning ability of the plane will be a boon when trying to stay in small thermals and when making approaches on smaller landing areas. The 1200 SCR NiCad pack, which has been regularly accepting 1400 mAh charges, provides enough juice for four or five climbs to speck height. I'm sure that a 7-cell pack would also be quite adequate for use in 7-cell LMR events. 
Conclusion The Elegant 700 is very high quality and well-built glider kit that continues to impress me each time I fly it. The reccomended motor, ESC and servos all performed excellently and I would second Hobby-Lobby's reccomendation of this configuration. The surprisingly good maneuverability and predictability of this model in the air has made for a great introduction for me to this class of sailplane. I would recommend it for people considering taking the next step up in performance from 2-meter class of sailplanes. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools |
|
|
Aug 09, 2005, 02:18 PM
|
#2 |
|
All times are GMT
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Springfield Oregon,.United States
Posts: 1,007
|
Elegant
I have had mine for over 2 years now. Its a sweet flying ship. Im using a Gp 3300Mah nimh bat
|
|
|
|
|
