Hey everyone!! just wanted to share some fun ive been having with cheap RTF gear.......

high altitude onboard camera...... (6 min 12 sec)

webster lake flying.... (4 min 54 sec)

the bird is the Aerobird3, wich is great to keep in the car (esp. for 109.99 )...... the cameara is the GoPro Hero 3.... wich i cant recomend enough for great onboard video and pics.....

the following pics describe how i mounted the camera for the initial videos....and also how i modified the Aerobird3's body to accomodate some different views..... the first time i tried an "under wing" view i had very poor results, and almost crashed this thing for the first time in 50 flights or sooo..... these new mounting positions should work perfectly, as they will not increase drag, and are right on the CG.....

i will post vids of the new mounts once i get the time (and weather.... )

well either this is old news, or nobody cares about good clean fun with cheap planes... i fly ALOT more knowing that...

A) i can fly almost anywhere, anytime....

B) i can fly much more aggresively...

C) its not going to bring me to tears when i crash (or submerge ) it.....


anyway.....

a quick question for anyone out there who has flown the Aerobird Challenger, or the Aerobird3.....

i was comparing pics today and noticed that the Challenger's tail was much flatter, I.E. was a much greater angle than 90%..... looks like 110-120%.......

my Aerobird3 is almost exaclty at 90%......

just curious as to the difference in performance/controll......

way cool man! I have the original aerobird challenger and some pics of it are in my blog. I too love flying it because you figure for what its worth, you might as well experiment and have fun with it. I have gotten a 20min flight with it, when I kinda caught a semi thermal, and once the power cut off for a second i knew it was time to land.

I have dropped all kinds of things from it.

I have brought it camping and everywere.

belly lands on the dirt or not so soft ground is fine.

overall a fun plane.

When you say the tail feathers are at a greater angle, are you referring to were the boom is attached to the main fuse, or the actual tail is angled differently from the boom

angle between the 2 v-tail segments.....

a greater angle between the two tail fins would be used to give greater elevator control and less rudder, its usually used for begginer planes so the pilot doesn't over correct themselves too much. And becuase the challenger is a 2ch plane, it used only rudder, so it has a big angle for the purpose of wide turns and not over controlling the plane.

and a small angle like your A3 for tight turns since its more vertical, yet you still have a lot of elevator control

finished up some lose ends.... decided to use a simple rubber band mounting system.... and created access holes for easier button pressing....

i cant wait to fly it with the camera mounted here... last night i finally got the Aerobird3 to roll cant wait to get that on camera.....

I tried attaching a digital camera to my aerobird 3 today but its crash!

did you make sure the CG was still exactly the way it was before the camera was attached?

what do you mean?

meaning that attaching the camera is going to put more weight on the plane. And you must balance the plane to make sure that with the added camera, the Center of Gravity is still the same.

CG means Center of Gravity

heres a vid with the new internal mount.... it was a bit windy so its kinda choppy, but it was fun!

on a side note, i tried flying with this setup the day before, hoping to show off my newfound ability to roll the AB3, but the extra weight of the camera combined with high wind was somewhat of a problem....I.E. i folded the wing over!!!! it dropped pretty hard from about 100' with the camera onboard, and because of the sudden impact, i lost the video......

i fixed the wing with bamboo skewers, gorilla glue, and packing tape for todays flight, and picked up a spare for future aggresive flying

Aerobird3 with Hero3 mounted under wing.... (4 min 30 sec)

i had a really good crash last week.... with the camera on board (didnt finsh recording, man that would have been cool), and have since repaired all the damage.....

however, im having serious setup problems with the V-tail mixing.... i started a thread in the beginner training forum.... link to the thread is here...

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=867669

anyone who can help me with this please dont hesitate!!! pics of the stock setup would be ideal......

anyway, since the only mode that would function normally was the T-tail mode, i decided to build a modular T-tail, that could be swapped back to V-tail easily if/when i ever get my servo mounts figured out....

heres some pics and descriptions.... feel free to chime in!!!

i did a bit more work, still have some issues......

for example.... how to connect the 2 elevator areas..... setting up the rudder hinge.... yadda-yadda..... ive got some ideas, ill have to see what works best.....

You are way ahead of me. Looks good.

more setup today..... looks almost ready to fly.....

i just made a simple tape hinge for the rudder.... but im still not sure how to connect the 2 new elevators while still keeping the tail modular, so i can swap it back to a v-tail......

id also like to incorporate a steerable tail wheel eventually....