Learned to fly on this Ember 2 back in Summer of 2009. Bought two of these airplanes at the RC Show in Toledo, Ohio that April. Not willing to leave well enough alone I experimented on them to learn some of the characteristics of flight and keep myself entertained. Before I was done personalizing these airplanes I had bought a third Ember 2. Presented here is the third of three summaries of where the Embers are today.

Part 3
Fascinating are the tail first look and stall characteristics of the canard aircraft. Plus, I used to fly a scratch built canard free-flight rubber powered craft when indoor flying meant free-flight models. With the Ember 2 airplane being such a forgiving test bed for ideas, I crafted this canard in February 2012. Research showed that two rudders on the wing tips results in crisp rudder response, yet I wanted to continue using the stock cardboard box and foam insert, so my rudders are under the wing and inboard slightly as shown. Rudders are actuated by a linear servo and an AR6400 Brick. Keeping the look at much Ember 2 as practical I reversed the wing, horizontal stabilizer, and elevator, as shown, and altered the incidence angles. As shown in the pictures, the elevator is not very responsive because it is very close to stalling in normal flight. This leaves very little additional up-elevator control and so far I can not loop this plane. After a shallow dive, I can have it nose almost straight vertically but never over the top for a...Continue Reading

Learned to fly on this Ember 2 back in Summer of 2009. Bought two of these airplanes at the RC Show in Toledo, Ohio that April. Not willing to leave well enough alone I experimented on them to learn some of the characteristics of flight and keep myself entertained. Before I was done personalizing these airplanes I had bought a third Ember 2. Presented here is the second of three summaries of where the Embers are today.

Part 2
Adding ailerons to an Ember 2 plane started February of 2011 by simply taping on ailerons to the training edge of the stock wing. The 3-channel brick was replaced with a 6-channel AR6400, and a small rotary servo from Hobby King with added. Results were encouraging and the plane would roll indoors, using the stock 6mm motor, with the loss of 'only' 6 feet of altitude or thereabouts! Most fun for me were flat turns with rudder defining the direction and opposite aileron to eliminate the wing banking. Overall though, I was a bit under whelmed with my added control. So I changed the stock motor and gearbox with one for the UM P-51 and flew the summer of 2011 this way. Flying faster did wonders for the aileron response, naturally, but the added wing loading lost much of the Ember's floaty quality.

After a while the wing stress-cracked in the center and flexed severely one flight, but was caught in time for music wire reinforcements. I took the opportunity to reduce the dihedral of the stock wing and this increased the sensitivity of the...Continue Reading

Learned to fly on this Ember 2 back in Summer of 2009. Bought two of these airplanes at the RC Show in Toledo, Ohio that April. Not willing to leave well enough alone I experimented on them to learn some of the characteristics of flight and keep myself entertained. Before I was done personalizing these airplanes I had bought a third Ember 2. Presented here is the first of three summaries of where the Embers are today.

Part 1
Ember 2 Biplane was first altered with a higher power 7mm motor and flown with larger LiPo's outside with only one wing. While enjoying the higher flying speeds, it seemed clear that the weight would be detrimental to relaxing indoor RC so I added a second wing to drop the wing loading and resulting stall speed. Supports were cut from foam plate clear-taped in place. The wings were staggered to balance the larger lift vector. Looking to increase the propeller efficiency I installed the gearbox out of a 2-channel helicopter. Ratio was about 7.8 : 1 and the GWS6050SF prop was just a little under sized. Flew fine but the larger prop forced a landing gear length extension and removal of the wing stagger, and the over all weight gain didn't result in the longer flights I was hoping. So these changes were undone and here is where I am today:

• Gearbox is the Hobby King GPS-7 with the metal shaft replaced with 1mm music wire, motor replaced with FlyZone Albatros version, GWJ Universal prop saver installed.
• Propeller is the GWS4530 balanced,

...Continue Reading

Bought the parts to assemble this Flyzone Micro Albatros WW1 in the fall of 2010. Hard to pass up on them at about $20 total; plus I didn't want another transmitter to mess with. Had the mono-wing racer ready to maiden February of 2011 and it flew not-terribly. Took some tweaking and radio mixing to overcome the known asymmetrical rudder response of this Albatros design. Also needed to keep the flying speed up.

By April of 2011 I was ready to try the biplane Albatros, which flew nicely overall. I adjusted the rudder-->elevator mixing and moved the battery more toward the nose to counter the higher moment of lift.

In anticipation of the Flyzone Triplane introduction I added a third wing to my Albatros in October of 2011. Again tweaked the mixing and CG location. Also reduced the rudder throw as it is now very effective. I continue to fly this triplane with a 120mah just behind the propeller. Since I still haven't added much detail it is nice and light with flight times of 12-13 minutes common.

• Installed a 3-channel Brick from parkzone.
• Uses a GPS-7 gearbox and motor from Hobby King. This required lots of rework to make reliable. The 7mm motor died very early and now has a SS red end bell. Soft metal prop shaft replaced with 1mm music wire. Added a GWJ Universal prop saver from BSDMicroRC.
• Flying with a GWS5030 prop reduced to 4.5" diameter.
• Tires were donated from an Ember 2.
• Wing bracing, landing gear, and pushrods are 0.020" music wire.
• Extra foam from food take-home trays and small foam plates.

Here is my Multiplex Fox free flight glider now converted to powered flight. Bought the Fox at the AMA 75th anniversary open house in 2011 and completed the initial work by that December. Flying as a 1-cell rudder-elevator-throttle model.

Continue to tweak the model with the addition of dihedral in May 2012, and returning to a GWS-6050SF prop now cut down to 5" diameter. The plane likes the higher cruising speed this prop produces and the dihedral all but eliminated the dropping of one wing when stalling. Using a Hyperion 320mah LiPo my longest flight to date is 25 minutes with minimal thermalling. The Fox will loop easily with a little diving first when at half throttle, and will float nicely with the nose a bit down during dead stick landings.

• Fuselage sliced into two halves using sharp knife. Hollowed using Dremel Tool with sanding stone. Tail hollowed out using sharpened brass tubing.
• Motor and gearbox are the GPS-8 from Hobby King. Replaced the soft bushings with ball bearings from an Align helicopter. Added GWJ Universal prop saver from BSDMicroRC. Turning very smoothly.
• UM Brick is the AR6400 mounted toward tail to counter weight of folding prop originally tried. Not happy with folding prop however brick location stayed.
• Flying with a Hyperion 320mah LiPo placed about 1/4" behind the can of the 8.5mm motor. Glides a little nose heavy this way which I like to reduce likelihood of a stall on approach.

Here is a good example of a foam cover added over the stock, and then enlarged, battery compartment. First added to the airplane in the fall of 2010. I have added a cover to most of my micro fleet as a way to extend the flying season into the winter. Coldest temperature flown in so far was 12F!

• foam for cover from the smaller sized disposable plates from Wal-Mart, or similar. The smaller diameter plates use thinner foam so I prefer them to save weight.
• the clear tape used for the hinge also came from Wal-Mart and is there "great value" brand in 1/2 inch wide. I find the tape plenty strong, very sticky, and low weight. Doesn't hurt that it is cheap also.
• the magnet in the fuselage is from a jewelry clasp set from a Michaels craft store. The limit the holding strength I secured a tiny nail into the foam cover. The larger the nail head diameter the greater the holding force, of course.

FWIW, I highly recommend the UM T-28 airplane as a first aileron ship due to its wide flight speed envelope, stable handling, and very predicable manners.

Airhogs X-Twin Stunt Jet converted to Spektrum 3-channel brick in May 2009.

• horizontal stabilizer made full-flying with elevon control.
• stock 6mm motors replaced with 7mm motors from an Airhogs Rolling Fury
• stock full river 130mah battery enlarged up to 300mah using Molex connectors.
• plane will axial roll either direction and fly inverted sustained.
• loops are a bit tear drop shaped.
• weight grew from 20.x grams stock to 31.x grams without battery.
• if I do this conversion again I would change the Brick position about 1 inch closer to the tail to reduce how nose heavy it is. Still a predictable flyer.
• if I do this conversion again I would also install a Brick with long-throw servos and lengthen the control horns on the control surfaces to reduce slop.