Oh man gerrit that is really a bummer. Look to my avatar ... Always check the direction of all controls before flight... Every time , all the controls.

Originally Posted by alpea 41

Oh man gerrit that is really a bummer. Look to my avatar ... Always check the direction of all controls before flight... Every time , all the controls.

Yeah Alpea, I learn that lesson the hard way. But ........ She is almost back together again. Not as beautiful as ever, but as good as she was.
I want to paint her before she flies again, but she could fly right now. The nose is much stronger than it was. If it breaks again, then it will break at another point.

I might bring in some pictures tonight but first I need to do the last things.

Bye and thanks for your support!

Gerrit

Unfortunately, I think that goes for most pilots .
One of my hard lessons was to fly the craft before I made it look pretty. The first one I've spent way too much time on cosmetics, only to see it crash after 30 seconds air-time.


On another note, I found out that my DX6i has issues on the Europe power setting.
The range check drops the link at about 3 meters, but on US setting (twice as much power) it reaches 30 meters like it should be able to.
I'll be a radio pirate from now on! Rather risk the RC police than another brown-out.

First coat of paint has been applied, tomorrow the next one. I'll make sure I'm ready for the weekend

Perhaps some day I'll feel brave enough to put as much work into it as Gerrit, but not yet. It's given me lots of inspiration though

Keep up the good work, guys!

Hi folks,

Thanks for the support.

I'm almost finished with the repair. Tomorrow I will start painting the lady. I want her to be (almost) as pretty as she was. At least she is stonger (and heavier) now.
Here are some pictures of the repair.

With a little bit of luck, and good wether, she'll fly next thursday. With the ailerons working correct this time!


Bye !!!

Gerrit.

Excellent repair work sir! A little paint and you'll never know it had a nose job lol

Originally Posted by stughagen78

Excellent repair work sir! A little paint and you'll never know it had a nose job lol

Thanks stughaven78.

I was worried a bit before I started, but after some hard labour, the rsult is nice.

Bye

Gerrit

Originally Posted by Jeez

Unfortunately, I think that goes for most pilots .

On another note, I found out that my DX6i has issues on the Europe power setting.
The range check drops the link at about 3 meters, but on US setting (twice as much power) it reaches 30 meters like it should be able to.
I'll be a radio pirate from now on! Rather risk the RC police than another brown-out.

First coat of paint has been applied, tomorrow the next one. I'll make sure I'm ready for the weekend

Perhaps some day I'll feel brave enough to put as much work into it as Gerrit, but not yet. It's given me lots of inspiration though

Keep up the good work, guys!

Hello to you Jeez,

I was thinking: What happened with the airballoon?

I also want to know what you did with your radio. Can you easely change those settings. Does it work with a DX7?

And about the paint job on the Raptor: I just like doing that. My brother told me many times: Go fly the damned thing, but I just want it to look good. Actualy it should have had a glas cockpit with a pilot in it, but I didn't find a pilot and the canopy I made out of a bottle wasn't that pretty at all. So I decided to go for a gray canopy and in a way I like it.

Bye Jeez and keep on painting!


Gerrit.

Originally Posted by gatorlynch

While we're waiting to hear how Gerrit's maiden went ....

Here's a pair of Coroplast F-22's from yesterday.

Note the side launch method we prefer (at the very beginning of the video), over the underhand toss method. Keeps your fingers & arms well away from that 6X4 meat grinder. Too many horror stories & nasty pictures out there .......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBhdh-CMSBU

Well Gatorlynch, you know what happened with my Raptor. Looking at your video: you were asking for trouble out there. Combat with a couple of depron F22's. But it was nice to see and nothing serious happened.

Bye and keep up the good work!

Gerrit

Originally Posted by chtipanda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbJLG6mxLsA
slow or fast it is really fun
c is a good airplane even study for a beginner
aerobatics it is going well in pleasant flight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqyKkf349cg

Hello to you chtipanda!

Like your red plane. Good visible. Flies beautiful.

Nice flying!

Gerrit

Originally Posted by gerritkuhne

Hello to you Jeez,

I was thinking: Waht happened with the airballoon?

I also want to know what you did with your radio. Can you easely change those settings. Does it work with a DX7?

And about the paint job on the Raptor: I just like doing that. My brother told me many times: Go fly the damed thing, but I just want it to look good. Actualy it should have had a glas cockpit with a pilot in it, but I didn't find a pilot and the canopy I made out of a bottle wasn't that pretty at all. So I decided to go for a gray canopy and in a way I like it.

Bye Jeez and keep on painting!


Gerrit.

Gerrit, the hot air balloon was quite an adventure! On the first flight, the builder forgot to anchor it and before he realized it was too late it was up in the air! And after the trouble we went through to find a farmer willing to let us play on their field I was getting a bit warm as well, when I saw it heading towards the farm.
Wouldn't be very friendly of us to put a 400 liter bag on their roof
This is the video (unfortunately I forgot I tilted the camera in picture mode, it all happened so fast!)

home made hot air balloon running wild! (0 min 52 sec)

First (and unintentional) free flight with this model.
The guy has been in the papers before, when another model of his went up without being anchored. This was within city limits, and as it went down it started spinning. From a far it looked very realistic, so the police received many calls about a balloon crashing!
Luckily he recovered the balloon before the authorities arrived.

On the second flight with the balloon, one of the strings snapped. Quickly followed by the other three, that now had to carry the extra weight. The bucket came down quick, but the balloon itself drifted off and landed in a tree, 5 meters up.
We had to go to the hardware store to make something to get it down again.
Explaining the people there what we intended to do with the stuff we needed was a lot of fun!

All in all, quite the day!


About the radio:
The DX6i has a menu setting you can reach as follows:
Menu (wheel press) > Scroll down to Setup List > Scroll down to Power Setting > Choose one of the following:
- B-US 247 (200mW transmitter power)
- C-FRANCE (don't know the power, but the weakest of the three)
- A-EU 328 (100mW)

I assume the DX7 isn't much different. I guess it will be next to range setting.
Edit:
After some Googling, it seems the Dx7 has no power setting, but different versions for Europe and US. However, the range difference should be far less than what I'm experiencing:
http://rc.runryder.com/helicopter/t380350p1/

Originally Posted by Jeez

About the radio:
The DX6i has a menu setting you can reach as follows:
Menu (wheel press) > Scroll down to Setup List > Scroll down to Power Setting > Choose one of the following:
- B-US 247 (200mW transmitter power)
- C-FRANCE (don't know the power, but the weakest of the three)
- A-EU 328 (100mW)

I assume the DX7 isn't much different. I guess it will be next to range setting.
Edit:
After some Googling, it seems the Dx7 has no power setting, but different versions for Europe and US. However, the range difference should be far less than what I'm experiencing:
http://rc.runryder.com/helicopter/t380350p1/

Thanks for the info .
Just changed mine and the range test was awesome ,with a orange 6ch rx fitted with a satellite it got to 60 paces no problem (I am 6ft 3in so have long paces) That is a minimum 50% improvement .
I learnt another thing about the DX6i that relates to this model , the elevon mixing limits servo travel to about 50% .
To get full travel out of the servos you need to set up mix 1 as aileron mixed with aileron and set up mix 2 as elevator mixed with elevator .
Set the right /left for aileron at 100% and for elev set up /down at 100% and see the difference it makes .
I always wanted to know why I could not get the fast roll rates that I have seen others get , now I know .
This is the vid that explains it all

Elevon mixing on dx6i, instructions, GET FULL SERVO THROWS!!! (6 min 12 sec)

Last week I added rudders to mine and its a blast , awesome spiral dives and makes flying this great model even better .
I am using this as my airobatic trainer model and its taught me heaps
Being on an angle the rudders do act as elevators as well but its still good fun.
I also added the ailerons and will test them tomorrow , combined with the extra throws I have on the servos it should roll real fast now

Glad it works out so well for you as well!
I just found that video on the throws yesterday, as I was suspicious as well.
Only flew for ten seconds to do a system and range check but felt good.
I'll do rudders in the next couple of weeks

Hi folks,

Things go faster than I can edit on video.

The Raptor has flown 4 times now.

The first flight it crashed. I repaired the lady. I made some changes on the CG because the nose gained weight. Then I went back to the field for flight #2 en #3 (I've got two batteries)

Here is the scary video of flight #2

TomHe Red Bull F22 Raptor - flight #2 - Maiden part 2 (3 min 36 sec)

That turned out to be OK although the Raptor was very hard to handle. She was all over the place. I couldn't get the elevator trim right so I took her down for a landing which turned out rather well.

For flight #3 I did some changes with the setup of the radio. Changed the 'subtrim' for aileron and elevator so the basic trim was back to zero.

Flight #3 was much smoother. Take off was good, I could fly straight lines now and the landing was fine. Although the flight seemed OK, I had to trim a lot elevator down and the Raptor wasn't easy to fly. I went home happy.
At home I charged the two batteries, changed the CG 1 cm foreward and went back to the field. I wish I didn't.

Flight #4 ende up into a crash again. grrrrrrr. She was uncontrollable. It took 50 seconds to break it into two pieces again. grrrrr.

And the worst of it all: I just don't understand what I am doing wrong !!!!


That was Yesterday. This morning, the 10th of may, I glued the two pieces together and I won't give up. The Raptor will fly!!!

I consider to use some glasfiber for the top and the bottum now, but it's getting heavier and heavier.

to be continued ......


Gerrit

With all the sub-trimming you are doing, have you check that EPA or ATV for the same elevator travel up/down when you pull on the elevator? Same thing for the linked ailerons. Seems the plane is rolling whenever you pull/push on the elevator. This would happen if your elevator travel is uneven for both sides.

Also, in some radios, changing the subtrims too much will result in unequal travel or end-points, for dual elevators controlled via 2 channels. This would be even worse for elevon models.

chewy

Originally Posted by chewytm

With all the sub-trimming you are doing, have you check that EPA or ATV for the same elevator travel up/down when you pull on the elevator? Same thing for the linked ailerons. Seems the plane is rolling whenever you pull/push on the elevator. This would happen if your elevator travel is uneven for both sides.

Also, in some radios, changing the subtrims too much will result in unequal travel or end-points, for dual elevators controlled via 2 channels. This would be even worse for elevon models.

chewy

Hello Chewy,

Thanks for your support. I don't know the terms EPA and ATV, but the travel of ailerons and elevator were equal on both sides, but I will check it again after all those changes I made. Thank you very much. I will get back with the answer.

Gerrit