Originally Posted by kahloq

No! Thanks, but I dont care for the foam look regarding spinners.

A little lightweight spackle and a coat of poly will only add a few grams and make the foam smooth and shiny as plastic. Best of both worlds, perhaps..

Pat -- I think he's already using the Dubro spinners...

Originally Posted by kensp

If you dont like lightweight foam spinners then how about these TYI lightweight electric spinners

My GWS-38 may not look as pretty but at an All Up Weight of 25 1/2 oz it preformance and handeling is very good.

Ken

Those are the aluminum backplate ones I mentioned earlier. I would use those if the plane doesnt fly well with the 3 blade props. Currently, the props and engines are set up counter-rotating and I'd like to keep it that way.

Originally Posted by dogon1013

Took some measurements with Chucks E-meter before the flight, they are:
10.29 volts
20.1Amps
206 Watts
10,320 RPM

first flight was mainly for tirmming. later, I put on some 8*6 APC props and took some more measurements:
10.36 volts
29.6 Amps
307 Watts
9120 RPM

Toby

Ok...your first set of numbers are less then what my motors are putting out....aka 206watts. Mine is pushing 245-250watts with the 3-blade props. If I put 2 blade APC props on, it bet the watts would go up some. However, the motors Im running are rated at 110 watts each(and at 250 watts combined...they are overrunning by 15 watts each). So, I probably shouldnt try to do that. My amp draw is at 22.3 if I remember right.

Yeah, I got one too......

BP 12s
TP 2100
8x4 Props
2 Lbs AUW
About 350 watts WOT static.

Maiden tomorrow, weather permitting.

-Todd

We were able to maiden a new GWS-38 today. Yes - two GWS -38 on the same field! Wannabe's -38 is beautifully painted with gear. Both are powered with the same motor set-ups (TP 2409-12 with APC 8x4's) but top speed was substantially different. Wannabe's topped out at 51.8 and mine hit 62.8. Still - for foamies, that's cooking with propane! See the video's posted here and here.

Jim

Once these planes hit the stores shelves, I think Im gonna get another one and this time....Im gonna try and add working flaps. If that works well, I may swap out the 3-blades to the new one and put two blades on my current one to make it a little lighter.

Nice videos

Care to share what radar gun you were using? I was told to "not even bother" on those 100$ guns.

Hope you can prove me wrong.

Tommy D

Tommy

I'll ask and send you the info via PM when I get it.

Jim

Jim and Tommy,

I believe Bob was using a former California Hiway Patrol radar gun. I dont know how he got it but he has been using it to clock his race boats for years and that gun is respected as gospel in the boating community.

Jim, Your motors must be the 9 turn ones. Afte a 5 minute flight, I only put 1300mah back into my pack using my (supposedly) 12 turn motors with the same 8x4 props you are using. That has to be why we are getting such differnt numbers for speed, watts, and amps.

-Todd

Tommy, I have one of those $100.00 guns, and after checking it against my gps, and against my new Honda civics speedo, I'd say it was accurate to within +/- 2 mph. I have no problems in believing what it says.
J

Plastic normaly does not reflect radar waves. This is reason why aircraft radars such as that on the nose of the C-130 have a fiberglass reinforced plasic aereodynamic fairing.

This being so I have always had my doubts about claimed radar readings for GWS Foam Plastic Aeroplanes. Now I have the time while waiting for my my Me-262 to arrive to make some investigations.

jamesdr

Could you take a video of your GWS-38s at top speed and post it in this thread. The track of the aeroplanes will need to be from right to left or left to right straight across in front of the camera at a distance of about 50 meters away. Only one pass is needed. I will use my Video Editing software to isolate two frames that are adjasent to each other. If you will tell me what frame rate the camera is set on then the the distance that the images are apart in the succeeding frames will give us the speed that the aeroplane is traveling at.

Ken

Sweet Jim, looks great.And the cool thing is I haven't heard anything negative about this model..GWS hats off again.CG from 60 mm to 90mm in some cases.......

Ken

Rather than eat up additional disk space with a copy of the flyby, you can grab it at http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=595872. The video was done with a Kodak D340 still camera on video mode so the frame rate is less than ideal as well as the audio. I think it is 13fps. The radar gun used was a highway patrol quality gun.

Jim

Originally Posted by Jagzilla

Tommy, I have one of those $100.00 guns, and after checking it against my gps, and against my new Honda civics speedo, I'd say it was accurate to within +/- 2 mph. I have no problems in believing what it says.
J

The guys I fly with have one of those $100 guns too, and we all love it. We've tested it against a speeding 350Z (dangerous), and it was accurate.

Originally Posted by kensp

Plastic normaly does not reflect radar waves. This is reason why aircraft radars such as that on the nose of the C-130 have a fiberglass reinforced plasic aereodynamic fairing.

This being so I have always had my doubts about claimed radar readings for GWS Foam Plastic Aeroplanes. Now I have the time while waiting for my my Me-262 to arrive to make some investigations.

I don't know about YOUR airplanes, but all mine have a big hunk of metal (a motor and gearbox) inside them...

Originally Posted by kensp

Could you take a video of your GWS-38s at top speed and post it in this thread. The track of the aeroplanes will need to be from right to left or left to right straight across in front of the camera at a distance of about 50 meters away. Only one pass is needed. I will use my Video Editing software to isolate two frames that are adjasent to each other. If you will tell me what frame rate the camera is set on then the the distance that the images are apart in the succeeding frames will give us the speed that the aeroplane is traveling at.

Ken

I'll save you the trouble. We clocked a buddy's Alfa MiG at 82 mph with the radar gun. I caught it on video, and someone ran some doppler software on the video, and came up with 84 mph. It's accurate.

Still no GWS-38 for me...