Now that I have six flights I really like the Hobby King F14. I added the air to air missiles so it looks even better now. The missiles did not seem to effect the flight characteristics at all. It also looks fantastic in the photos. The last thing I am going to add is a scale looking nose wheel strut which I just recieved from Hobbypartz.com.

I had to solve a problem where both motors wouldn't run at full power at the same time. It turns out that since I added a 7 inch extension (8 gauge) between the battery pack and the speed controls I was getting some sort of feedback pulse that was causing a motor to slow down. I didn't realise that I really needed to add extra capacitors back by the speed controls to stabilize the voltage. I added a total of 660uf at each speed control and that solved the power problem. If I put a power meter inline one of the motors still pulses so i guess I added just enough capacitance to fix the problem.

I aborted the first test flight because I didn't think I was getting enough speed to takeoff. To solve the problem I added two cheater holes just in front of each fan. The intakes are relatively small and long. I could actually hear it sucking air through the in takes just running static. Now the fans create about double the thrust and no sucking sounds.

The test flight today was remarkable. The plane accelerated quickly and rotated with just a touch of up and then it tookoff without a problem and quickly climbed to 300 feet before I finished the first circuit around the field. I did not retract the gear or sweep the wings but made several photo passes for pictures. I set the timer for 3 minutes and set up for landing before the timer went off. The F14 actually slowed down remarkably for a jet and made a perfect landing on the main gear and I held the nose gear off the ground for about 20 feet. It was a really great flight. I am going to order a couple of extra battery packs for it now. After recharging the pack I could have extended the flight to about 4 1/2 minutes without a problem.

I will post some flight photos after I get a copy from the photographer.

I bought the F14 Tomcat, VF-84 Jolly Roger, from Hobby City last month. The price is certainly right. Over all impression is that it is a great looking kit. It is about 46 inches long and 46 inch span with wings open. It included two 60mm fans that look like Alfa clones. It had fan shaft adapters for 2.3mm and 3mm motors. It also had 3 and 5 blade fans. It includes fixed gear and parts to add pnuematic retracts. I am planning to use Turnigy 26-10 5000kv motors and a single 3S1P Nanotech LiPo along with the 5 blade fans. This setup has shown almost 900 watts in my SR-71 with 64mm fans with 6 blades. It is not going to be a simple ARF to assemble. Wimps should not apply. It was also missing the spinners to cover the front of the impellors. Fortunately the Alfa impellors were a perfect replacements. I am going to use an Aurora with a 9 channel receiver. I was already able to program the radio to allow flaperons and tailerons. The flaperons turn off when the wing sweeps and the elevators turn into tailerons. I am installing Imax micro pneumatic retracts. The including landing gear looks like garbage so I am going to use some old struts for the main gear and machine a fitting to install the double nose wheel to the front strut wire. Surprisingly it came with a rather large instruction manual. There are a things that are left out but show up installed in later drawings. I need to be very careful not to glue things together before it is ready.

Starting with...Continue Reading

I got this HK-500GT helicopter kit a couple of weeks ago. I used Tornigy TGY-930 servos on cyclic and Blue Arrow D26010 on the tail. The gyro is an Inertia 860 and the speed control is a Turnigy Plush 80. I was using the BEC in the speed control but was getting missed frames at the reciever so I added an Align RCE-B6X voltage regulator with step down regulator for the tail servo along with a 1500 2S LiPo for power. The first attempted flights were with the Hobby King recomended 1800KV motor but with a 6S battery the head speed was around 4200 rpm and I was probably lucky nothing exploded. Have you ever heard a tail rotor break the sound barrier? It would probably work with a 10 tooth pinion but I the smallest I could find was a 12 tooth one. I switched to 4 cells and got it to fly but have since switched to the Hobby King 1600kv motor and 6S 2650 LiPo. This combination works extremely well. I am only a beginner and this helicopter is very stable. It will even hover hands off for a short period. It was actually too stable so I switched to lighter Trex 500 paddles and now it is just right. It costs about the same as an HK 450 helicopter but flies a whole lot better. I added a series battery plug so I can use some of my existing 3S 2650 LiPo batteries in sets of two. I might even master nose in hover with this helicopter.

I did get a good idea from Robert Taylor down at the JaxRC field about a canopy hold down system. It only takes a few minutes to modify a Pull-Apart Key Ring available from WallMart for $1.56 into a niffty canopy connector that will not come off in flight. You remove both key rings and then insert a screw through the hole in the bottom to replace the existing canopy mount. I sawed off the extra material on the outside, smoothed it with a file and glued it to an enlarged hole in the canopy with "Shoe Goo". Now you can press the buttons install or remove the canopy.

I just recieved the Escale P47 Plug-and-Play from Hobby Lobby on Tuesday evening. It is sure a good lookiing kit. It has a 41 inch wingspan and weighs 36 ounces ready to fly. It came with installed mechanical retracts and provisions for adding flaps. The retract linkage was a little fussy to get it adjusted properly. I had to start with one side only and get it to lock in the up a nd down position. The installed servo is a regular servo instead of a 180 degree retract servo. I had to set the end point adjustments to about 120 each way to get sufficient movement to lock both ends. Once I attached the second linkage it was adjusted to lock at both ends mechanically. The landing gear now cycles smoothly and locks well. The flaps have a molded cutting line that forces you to hinge the flaps on the upper surface instead of the bottom. I hinged mine with 3M Blenderm tape. I epoxied the control horns in with the servos in full up position with "Z" bends on both ends of the pushrod. They will stay adjusted forever. It was such a high level of completion that it was ready to fly on Thursday morning.

The included propeller is a nice scale four blade with an 11 inch diameter and 10 pitch. The included motor looks small and is rated at 1350 kv. (Note that the motor does not seem to turn at 15k rpm so the rating must be well off) I ran it with the included 3S1P 1600 mah LiPo and it registered 321 watts static on the ground. I modified the battery area by...Continue Reading