Doh! I just got one from them a month ago. I should have thought of it.

Originally Posted by Brutus

Now that is really impressive.

I mean I have been watching, but that photo of everything folded up!

You are the Q of the rcgroups. Who cares if it can fly. A great accomplishment in it's own right.

Thanks I really really really hope it flys though

I was at the grocery store, and saw these in the toy aisle...

Does it fly well?

Dont know yet, I am hoping the winds calm down enough to maiden it today, possibly tomorrow. Of course the day before I finished it was absolutely perfect, 50deg, 4-5mph breeze. Today its 15+mph winds with lots of random gusting. Not what I would like for a maiden.

Looks good, I like the guided rockets (they are guided, right?
Its is definitely a strange looking bird!

One of the nicest AP plane I've seen so far.

Hovertime: Not guided just yet, I dont have anymore open channels on my tx

Gwelan: Thanks!


The wind today is even worse than it was yesterday, but, if it follows the same pattern, I will have about 20 minutes of low/no wind right before the sun goes down, so I might try to squeeze in a quick maiden hop.

Nihil,
good luck for the maiden.
Your project is one of the most interesting I follow ( don't know why the crowd getting so exited over a Magpie or Zagi style AP's?)

Your Model seems quite innovative.

Cheers
Thomas

Thanks to all for the well wishes on the maiden, and it went beautifully. I am editing video and stuff now. Stay tuned


(im still giddy )

Congrats nihil !

I never had any doubt about your success. I'm realy impatient to see your video.

Did you drop any bombs?

The maiden flight went better than expected, even barring a stall and hit to the nose (more on this later). First, some assembly pictures at the field:









Yes, thats a 5oz pair of needlenose pliers on the nose. AUW for the maiden was somewhere around 38oz. Here is the video, I went a bit overboard in "production", but it works:
http://nihil.rchomepage.com/ap1/maiden/ap1maiden.avi

It flys a lot better than I expected, only needing a bit of up elevator to keep it level. The control throws were set at maximum throw, and it was a little on the touchy side, but still handled great. I was anticipating struggling with the CG for several hops, but at a rough 25% it was pretty well balanced. On a subsequent flight, I was playing around with the flaps (my first flaps by the way) and checking its low speed handling, and since the throws were maxed out, extending full flaps left me with slightly less aileron control than previously, and it nosed in from a few feet off the deck. During assembly, I knelt a bit too hard on the CF hook and cracked it a bit, but not too much to be worried about. After it nosed in, the hook snapped right where I had weakened it earlier. No other damage was sustained.

I have to hand it to that little axi, its recommended model weight is 300-700g, and it handled this 1000+gram plane just fine with a little bit to spare. I still think I would like something more powerful though, I could see it being capable of loaded 60deg climbouts after a 10ft roll with a bit more thrust and the flaps extended. Other modifications will include longer tail skids to keep the tail linkages up higher out of the grass, moving the main landing gear forward to help with rough surface landings, and a revised pod/landing gear frame setup.

All in all I feel it was a success, not to mention a great learning experience. I look forward to many more flights with this plane, and hope to have the camera strapped to it soon.

Hmmm, all I heard was bagpipes and did not get any picture

Might be a codec issue, is anyone else having this problem?