After approximately 36 hrs of Valiant flying I have had to replace two tailwheel wires that seperated and fell away on the grass while touching down. I was able to find and recover both pieces and they broke in the same place. They were replaced with factory duplicates and each seperated in the same area. They broke just forward of the loop and from normal taxi, takeoff and landing operations. Each operator has a different type of mission flying and ground operation time will be different for accumulated time and stress. This Valiant has been used primarily as an inflight trainer with about 10 full stop landings for each 15 minute flight. Taxi out and in times can be estimated at 1 minute each or 2 minutes total for each 15 minute “sortie”. The runway has always been club mowed grass with minor bumps that have had no impact on damaging the tailwire.

The way I figured time is as follows:
In the Function List scroll down 11 lines and press Timer. Scroll to highlight Timer 1 then scroll past Timer 2 and stop on Timers Integrated. On the first line Model will show the total time that the named model program has been in operation. This includes non flying such as programming and adjusting. One could estimate that it takes an average of 1 hour initially to program all functions such as rates, mixes, modes, and audio events. If you have a log book you could create a more sophisticated method of tracking times and notes.

For this particular Valiant...Continue Reading

the purpose of this article is to show how to make a top battery door for the Valiant 1,3 m. The advantage of having a top door is that you can load and unload the battery with out having to invert the model. There is more room for larger batteries and there is less chance that the bottom door will open in flight.

Prepare by removing the RX and ESC. The landing gear can be removed. The pics show how I moved the gear forward to minimize nose overs. The gear moves the CG forward but I installed a 12 gm redundant elevator servo aft to compensate.

Using a new box cutter extend the blade a few inches and cut out the door using the dimensions given. Cut the 4 sides at a slight inward angle so that the door cant fall inward. Cut the plywood battery floor out using the plan dimensions. The holes are for ventilation and the velcro is from the stock front battery tray. The 1/4 inch square foam strips help compress the battery against the velcro strip. The counter sunk magnet and tin latch keep the door closed but a simple swivel latch will work....Continue Reading

Tinting the Commander canopy with Tamiya Translucent Purple spray paint

A clubmember friend gave me a spare Commander Canopy to modify. I removed the clear plastic from the foam using an old credit card. The glue is extra grippy and left small holes in the foam but can easily be reglued using a Canopy glue like Formula 560 Canopy Glue. While the canopy was removed another clubmember mounted a $30 video camera on a piece of foam with double sided fiberglass rug tape. A piece of velcro was used to retain the camera. Video came out very nice with just a little nose showing and some prop blur. It would me nice to set the ESC prop brake so no windmilling prop blur would occur.

At home I scraped off the grippy canopy glue and used Frogtape to mask the inside of the canopy. Using two coats of Tamiya Color 10-12” away I got the amount of tint desired. The next canopy I try will be using the Rit clothing dye as I think this gives a more consistent tinting. However it will be difficult to protect the areas where no tinting is desired.
I will be using 20X 3M clear tape to secure the canopy to the foam.