Ericm,

Thanks, the fix did go well. Had to replace a bad servo, but was much easier than I expected. Now all I need is for the snow to quit, the ground dry off, and the wind calm down. Fat chance, this time of year! Maybe I should start building some ski's for her! Would like to get the maiden flight out of the way, then I can start working on some trim and detailing, that is if she fly's well.

Happy Flying!

AmpAce

Ooooo, skis would be cool! Just beware, flying on skis is harder on the airframe than anything else (besides crashing, lol). You lose the shock-absorbing action of the tires and every bit of the landing load goes right to the structure. Of course if you're on soft snow, no big deal. But if the snow is hard or icy, it can be an issue. It sure is with the full-size planes! That being said, skis are fun and super-easy to build. Also easy to rig. Just run a string or small cable from the back of the ski to the fuse, then run a rubber band from the front of the ski to the bottom of the cowl. Or just loop the rubber band over the front of the fuse. Set the length of the cable so the ski sits at a good angle, and away you go.

Congrats on the fix,

ericm

Ericm,

Thanks for the tips on rigging ski's. Used some Du-Bro park flyer sik's last winter, but had problems with them breaking. Think I may try to build some for this Super Cub, that is if she flys well enough to warrant it.

She is ready for the maiden flight if the weather will ever cooperate at the same time as I have time to do it. Kind of hectic here at Christmas time.

She is going to have plenty of power. I plugged in a Polyquest 2200 mah 11.1 volt Li-Poly pack and ran up the motor this afternoon. She wanted to launch straight up out of my hand! She weighs in at 30 5/8 ounces, ready to fly. That little 2.14 ounce Nippy Black 1812/100 outrunner is amazing. I have a Master Airscrew 10 X 7 prop on it. This motor is supposed to handle a 14.8 volt pack too! I'm sure it would be prudent to down prop a bit though, because I'm right at the limit for amp draw with this set up. Actually I see absolutely no need to go beyond what I have set up now, and even with this I'm sure full throttle will get used rarely. Probably will even fly well with an 8.4 volt pack.

Here are some photo's.

More later, and Merry Christmas all!!

AmpAce

Amp, The S-Cub looks terrific, and at 30 odd oz. should fly great. Can't waite to hear how she flies.
Merry Christmas to one and all, PAT

Pat,

Thanks! Coming from you, that is a great compliment, though I realize that she is far from your standards! Still want to add some detailing to her, but of course that will add some more weight.

Don't really know where the extra weight came from, over your J-3, but the flaps, with the extra servo and linkage, the 3 1/2" Trexlers, the working door, with required extra wood and bracing, the homemade steerable tailwheel, and the balsa nose are bound to take their toll. Guess that probably accounts for most of it, but the Li-Poly batteries, and lightweight brushless motor should have offset some of it. Also hoping I will be able to get by with a 2-cell Li-Poly, which would save a couple more ounces.

Anyway, like you, I suspect that she will fly well, the flaps should help slow things down for landings, at least I hope to find out soon!

More Later, and Happy New Year to All!

AmpAce

Amp, I'm also flying a 1/4 scale Super Cub, modified from the Sig kit. At 14 lb, with full flaps, it will slow down to the point where the controls quit working! Can be trecherouse in a cross wind
PAT

Pat, Gorgeous Super Cub! Looks very real! I'll bet it takes a pile of batteries to fly that one, or is it a gasser?

I have a Sig 1/5 scale J-3 kit that I haven't started yet. Also thinking of converting it to a Super Cub. Nothing against J-3's, but the Super Cub has always been my favorite light plane. You can extract a little better performance from the model, and still be closer to "scale", too.

A guy at the club I belong to has a big one powered by a gas Genoa G-26, I think it is. Has flaps, vortex generators, stall fences, square wingtips, and working "bush plane" gear. Sure flys well. Love to watch him doing stall turns about 50 feet off the ground, touch and go's, and spot landings with it. He usually only fly's about 6 feet above the ground!

Here are some pic's.

Sorry about the resolution. The originals were real high res. but when I reduced them to fit on here, they came out pretty bad!

AmpAce

Amp, your Cub looks great! Will be even better with some trim, got colors in mind?

Neat Cub pics all around... love 'dem Cubs!

ericm

She flies!!

Got up my nerve after Christmas and took the new Super Cub out back to my little airstrip. Was going to maiden her at the club field where there is more room, but decided that the solitude here was worth more than unlimited space! Good thing too, the first flight was quite a handful! Apparently I had erred in setting the C.G., and had it too far back. I thought it was right the recommended 3 inches back of the leading edge, but at any rate it was very squirrely. Luckily I eventually got it tamed down a little and back on the ground in one piece. Moved the battery forward about 3/4 inch and tried it again the next day. Takeoff and initial climb were definitely better, but when I throttled back, she went into an ever-tightening right hand spiral, which I was unable to correct until just before hitting the ground. Fortunately, she was just coming out of the spiral, (I won't call it a spin, it wasn't that tight), when the ground caught up with her. I was even able to flair a bit and slow down the inpact, but the right wing hit first doing some damage to the tip, and also the top stringer broke about 3 inches back of the wing saddle. Got her all repaired and recovered last night.

Today was very foggy and icy most all day, but this afternoon the fog lifted enough to try flying again. This time the takeoff was great. I'm amazed at how slow she is going when she gently floats off the ground. Takeoff run is only about 20 feet, and this without flaps! I kept her climbing until she reached more altitude this time. She still needed some down elevator and both aileron and rudder trim adjustments to fly straight and level. Got her trimmed pretty well, and tried the flaps. With anything like cruise power on, she wants to climb when flaps are deployed. With little or no power she goes into a very nice, slow glide. The flaps seem to really slow her down, the only problem I had was maintaining the desired direction on final approach to a landing. Seemed to want to go everywhere but straight. I think this may be due to the lack of airspeed, with the control surfaces becoming ineffective, but I also suspect that I should move the battery forward some more. Even without the flaps, she seemed to lack a bit of directional stability, not to any great degree, but just seemed like she was still a little tail heavy, and squirelly. If I don't really slow her down on final, she just floats on past the runway when I try to flair for the landing.

Anyway she flew much better today, so I am greatly encouraged. In retrospect, I think the second-flight crash was due to pilot error. I think I should have been a little more aggresive on the controls to correct the spiral. I think I kind of "froze up" or was afraid to make very large corrections, and that let the spiral tighten until it was too late. I also throttled back at too low and altitude too, so when things went wrong, I didn't have enough room to recover.

Soo---for any of you about to maiden one of these, I recommend making sure that the C.G. is far enough forward, I would say around 2.75 inches back of the leading edge of the wing at the fuse sides. Make sure that the plane sits level or even slightly nose-down when balanced at this point. It is sure better to be a little nose heavy than even a tiny bit tail heavy with one of these Cubs!

Didn't get any in-flight pic's, but maybe I can get my wife out to take some next time.

Happy Flying!

AmpAce

Ericm,

Thanks for the kind words!

I think if I add trim it will be in red Solite. I have some of that, plus I think it would be best to stick with Solite on Solite, rather than use something with a different shrink rate. I tried painting Solite once, and didn't like the results or the lack of durability.

Thinking of something like the following pic's for a pattern.

AmpAce

Sorry about the huge pic in the last post! Something went wrong between the size and pixel count for the web. Guess you can tell what the color scheme is though--?

AmpAce

Amp, It sounds like you are experiencing the same problem with your "little" Cub that I have with my big one, and that is that with the flaps down it will fly so slow that the controls basically stop working. My 60" p-type weighs in at around 25 oz with NiCDs, and even without flaps will slow to the point where the ailerons are just about useless.
Another thing about the Cub is that unless the rudder is used in conjunction with the ailerons, particularly at low speeds, the adverse yaw will send the airplane off into things that one would never expect to see. As a result, on the landing aproach, the rudder is the primary tool, with the ailerons used as back-up.
Even in normal flight, the rudder and ailerons are always used together to varying degrees depending on wind conditions and variouse other factors. Bottom line, the Cub is a rudder airplane. The ailerons work great when used with the rudder, but on their own will cause more headaches then they will solve.
Now here's the good news, once you learn the ballance between rudder and aileron, then you can jump out and start playing with side slips, one wheel landings, flat turns, and all kinds of other fun stuff that the Cub does so well.
Over the years I've had 2, 1/4 scale Cubs (a J-3 and a Super Cub), a 1/4 scale Taylorcraft, 2, 1/4 scale Luscombe 8A's, the 60" J-3 and the 48" 3 ch Super cub, and have logged just over 2000 flights between them. With the exception of the 3 ch Super Cub, they all fly pretty much alike. The Cub, generally speaking, is a great airplane, but it's the hardest airplane I've ever had to fly "right", no matter what size it is. But once you learn it's ways, it'll be the best airplane you ever had.
PAT

Nice scheme! And Pat is right on with the comments about the rudder. Full-size airplane is the same way. Fly with just ailerons and the nose will be all over the place. And if there's a turn and bank indicator, the little ball will just about shoot out the end of its little tube! But once you get the hang of it, the dang things are just so fun to fly...

Happy landings,

ericm

Ace,
I am really happy to hear about your flights and saves. Looks like when you loose it, you are saved from serious damage because it flies (drops) so darn slow.
I like the red & white, colors. It sounds like a bit of elevator mix with the flaps will help with the climb issue. That way you can keep the power up a bit and still slow her down and not loose total control.
How was the power situation? Climb rate? Which battery did you use (2s or 3s)? What was the final prop and other numbers? Final AUW? Give us the scoop!

I'm really glad everything worked out in the end and she's flying. Keep us informed and get some in flight shots!

Tony

Hey, Guys, Thanks so much for the advice and support! I'm sure you are all right about the rudder. Flew again this morning and tried to break old habits and use the rudder as the primary turning control, with just enough aileron thrown in to keep things reasonably balanced. Works a lot better when I can do it right! Maybe more practice will see some improvement. Had to shovel about 3" of new snow off the runway before I could fly. On the second takeoff, I got sloppy and let her drift over into one of the snowbanks, just before liftoff. The prop blew so much snow in through the cowl openings that it blew the skylight window right out of the top of the cabin!

The real surprise was that when I flew it without that top window in place, (bad idea), it was nearly uncontrollable! Wanted to dive like crazy, and the more throtle I gave her, the harder she tried to dive! Finally got the power down, flaps down, and some semblence of control, and managed to make a very good landing. Now I'm waiting for the glue to dry on the window again. I was amazed that having the skylight out would have that much effect! I built fairly large nose openings, and everything is wide open back into the cabin, so there is apparently enough pressure in there, that when there is an escape route such as the missing skylight, it really affects flight attitude.

Guess I could put in a servo controlled "lift door" somewhere in the bottom of the cabin and give the lift a real boost when needed, just by opening the "door"!

Here are some spec's:

All up weight: 30 5/8 oz.
Motor: Nippy Black 1210/100 (weighs 2.13 oz.)
Battery: Polyquest Li-Po 3s, 11.1 v. nom., 2200mah, (5 1/4 oz. w/connectors, etc.)
Prop: Master Airscrew electric, 10 X 7
Amp draw @ WOT: 18.1 amps, static
Wheels: Trexler 3 1/2", (weight about 2 oz. / pair
Covering: Solite, and Coverite Microlite, (same thing)

Power and climb are great, probably somewhat more than scale for a "hot" 180 Super Cub. The climb appears kind of funny too. Rather than pointing the nose straight up when the throttle is opened, she just noses up moderately, (well really pretty steep), but not nearly as much as many models, and begins to lift and gain altitude very rapidly. Almost looks like it's climbing steeper than the direction it's pointing, if you understand what I mean.

Tony, yes, I think I will try to mix in enough down elevator to balance the flaps, it will make for much easier handling, especially on climbs at high power settings. The trick will be to get the right amount for balance.

Happy Flying!

AmpAce