I guess I haven't posted here in a while. Here is a short video of my EvoW, kit by traian, flying on a calm evening last fall. Have patience and get through all the launches to see it flying.

Woodie 1 (3 min 9 sec)

I made a file for simple DLG setup on the Walkera Devo 10 running deviation. You can get the file here as well as a short instruction sheet. I had to compress the model file because RCGroups doesn't like the file type.

Alula, March 2015 (2 min 45 sec)

So I bought an Alula off eBay a few months ago and got it flying again to try out a little DLG flying while I walk the dogs. The craft is small enough to carry pretty easily, although about as big as I'd want it to be. Anyway, I put a LemonRX receiver and PowerHD DSM-44 servos in it and got rid of the NiMH battery, which was pooped out. I filled the battery cavity with used airgun pellets and gorilla glue, which made a nice block of ballast and toughened up the nose in the process, I think. I power the radio with a 150ma E-Flite battery, which seems to work fine, powering the rig for an hour no problem.

The receiver was a kind of odd install. I wanted to keep the pair of opposed antennae; it seemed like a good idea at the time. That arrangement, with the antennae opposite and perpendicular to the servo plugs, just doesn't fit into a skinny little fuselage easily. What I did was cut slits in the foam of the bottom of the fuselage at the front of the wing. I was able to pry everything open enough to fit the antennae into the slits, running out toward each wing, and the body of it forward of that and firmly wedged in place. I glued the slits closed again.

That reminds me of an odd feature of the foam which the alula is made of. The instructions say to use CA and apparently that's the only glue which sticks to it. Gorilla glue and some foam model glue which I got from the LHS just peel off.

The servos dropped in place with...Continue Reading

After flying the Champ with the 808 camera a few times, I was inspired to try an experiment and strap it to my LiddleGee. I didn't have high hopes because it has a smaller wing than the Champ but it really does fly great, so why not. Well, success. It works great. Well, great for a tiny plane carrying more than it should ever be expected to. It flies faster than normal, naturally, but slower than the Champ with a camera, and clearly outclimbs it. Plus, it is just much more controllable with less tossing and wing flipping than the Champ, which makes for smoother video. Mind you, its still a tiny plane and easily tossed by the wind. Here are a few photos of the rig.

It was super easy to mount, thanks to a couple of aspects of the LiddleGee. I slid a short piece of carbon rod through two holes in the fuselage intended for wing struts which I left off. I might change my mind on that soon, but more on that later. Then I just used a rubber band to hold the camera on. My daughter's hair ties work great. The shape of the fuselage naturally aims the camera down, although you can still see the prop. Not much to do about that without using a totally different style of plane. The camera fell at about the C of G and didn't cause any issues. I think it actually improved the glide.

StevensAero LiddleGee over Delta Park with a crash or two (2 min 3 sec)

I took it on my dog walk the other day and pieced together this little video. It shows some flying over the Vanport wetland,...Continue Reading

I finally got an 808 camera. Actually I got two: an 808 #16 with the D lens and something similar but lower resolution. Both came with completely exhausted batteries; they were used from ebay, after all. Well, after messing around with them and trying to charge them and figuring out that they seemed to work otherwise, I had the brilliant realization that the batteries are similar to the UM batteries. I cut the lead off the #16 battery, it has a plug, and spliced it with the lead cut off a dead champ board, carved a little hole in the case, and, voila, a swappable external battery. Now, doing this has one problem: the internal battery has a low voltage cutoff circuit on it, not the board, so I could could overdischarge my batteries. I estimate that they should run the camera for at least 30 minutes, so I'll swap them sooner. I have enough batteries. Also, the date and time reset every time the battery is unplugged. Anyway, it seems to work the way it should.



I glued a little plate of dollar tree foam on the bottom of the champ just behind the landing gear and used a piece of double sided foam tape to stick the camera down. I pointed it back and to the side a bit, figuring it might look good. These cameras have a remarkably wide angle of view. It's almost fisheye.

...Continue Reading

I suppose I'm going from last to first here; this is my latest build.

Polaris 1 (0 min 51 sec)

It's a Polaris shrunk down to a 13.5 inch wingspan for the guts from a Parkzone Pole Cat. It's built from dollar tree foam and a little balsa. I pretty much stuck to the plan except for the nacelle, which is just flat, hoping to save weight. Of course, then I had to sandwich it with balsa to stiffen it, so I don't know how much I saved. I stiffened the vertical stabilizer and wing with a bit of carbon tow glued to each side. It is the black stripe on the wing. This seems to stiffen the foam up significantly, adds hardly any weight, and lays completely flat. I tape it down at each end and work glue into it with a squeegee. I bought a package at the LHS, six or ten feet and many, many more fibers than these planes need. I will probably never need to buy more unless I start building much larger.

The servos on the brick control the rudder and the ailerons using the bellcrank from the polecat. There is a bit more slop in that linkage than I'd like, but I couldn't see how else to do it. If I'd had another servo, I'd have run one on each side. The elevator servo is up behind the motor and I spliced extensions onto both the motor and it, as the brick is way up in the nose. I'm a little bothered by the resistance losses with long motor wires, but I don't know how much it matters and I have no wattmeter to test with. I had to muddle around a bit to get the sticks linked to...Continue Reading

I've been lurking here for a little while now and thought I'd try being more active on the forum. So hello, forumland.

I hope to post some of the planes I build and the modifications I do, if they work well. I know that I have found some great information here and sometimes failed to find what I am looking for.

Here are my aircraft:
Hobbyzone Champ
Parkzone Pole Cat
Parkzone Mini Vapor
StevensAero LiddleGee
Micro Stingray
Dumas walnut scale Tiger Moth
E-flite MSRx

All of these are flown with a Walkera DEVO 7e running Deviation. Perhaps I will start with my radio. This has to be the best deal in modern transmitters. It is a fully programmable computer radio with powerful mixing abilities for only about $60. It has perhaps a few flaws: one, you have to install the Deviation firmware, which isn't hard but makes some people nervous, two, the instructions for the firmware are a bit sparse, and three, it is crippled for range so as not to compete with their more expensive radios. This hasn't been a problem for me as my fleet is all micro and I like to fly close in so I can see what I'm doing. I'm aiming to help fix the second with this blog

Here are a few things which make this radio so cool:

• Every plane gets a throttle kill switch
  
• I have programmed a mix in for the Champ and LiddleGee to add some down elevator as the throttle is advanced. I can turn this off if I want but never do. It really makes flying these guys easier than holding down

...Continue Reading