Originally Posted by Jimmitude

Okay, okay, I have to admit to a completely selfish stealth fourth reason, some of the guys at the field have really nice, shiny expensive airplanes, and it was fun last year to be able to stay with them with a big nosed foamy that squeaks in the air.

If you want to stop the squeaking and shave off half an ounce while you are at it...replace the composite wing rod with a real CF rod. No more squeaking, and no more wing-flapping either. This is the best mod you could possibly make to this plane. More control too..........

Thanks! I guess since I'm already modding it, I have no excuse (except to tell my wife Jovanx made me buy it.... really! )

Hi guys

I ordered my Radian pro yesterday, now I just have to wait for it to arrive

Just have a quick question, I ordered the PNP version so have ordered a couple of Zippy 3s batteries to go with the one Zippy I already have. This will give me 2 x 1300mah to use as a stock setup and 1 x 1600mah. However, I am concerned that they may not fit the battery plug on the pro's ESC. Is this true? If so would it be likely that my LHS would have adaptors or is this something I can only order from HobbyKing? I really don't want to wait 3-4 weeks for one to come in from HK.

The batteries are stocked in the Australia warehouse so only take a few days but the plugs/leads (if required) are stocked in the Hong Kong warehouse which takes foooreeevvver.

Cheers guys, and thanks for the great and informative thread. There is so much to read through!!!

Originally Posted by Jimmitude

Sonny, yeah, I decided to try reducing decalage for two reasons, one to help the powered climb out and two, the opportunity to explore the trade off between pitch stability and thermal signalling. My RP pitches up more than I'd like with the power on, and one of the guys at the field guessed it might be a decalage issue. Until I read that article, I wasn't really sure I wanted to mess with it, but then I thought, what the heck. Also, I want to explore closer to the edges of the stability envelope (including the speed envelope), not for aerobatics, etc. but more to see how well that works for thermal task type flying, especially if I can sense those little, low bubbles. After all, contest guys fly with their airplanes on the knife edge of pitch stability, I'm assuming it's not for their health.

Re: fly like a sailplane. I got this to learn how to 'fly the wing' on a full house ship. (I'm a pretty decent RES pilot.) That has been a complete success so far. While I'm still tweaking (and probably won't ever stop), I have pretty nice cruise, thermal, get home now, and landing settings programmed in. I have crow, but rarely use it except for fun, and haven't turned off flaps follow aileron in a long time.

However, I'm taking suggestions on any wing tuning that might help powered climbing portion of the flight. So far I've decided that plain wing (no flaps at all) is about the best compromise between controllability and climb, but part of that is having to throw a good bit of down stick in to keep it from going vertical, with any flap at all, I'm mostly trying to just keep it from stalling too often.

I guess, there's a third reason too, I want to see what happens. That's where crash test dummy part comes in. If it's the crash test, I'm the dummy!

Okay, okay, I have to admit to a completely selfish stealth fourth reason, some of the guys at the field have really nice, shiny expensive airplanes, and it was fun last year to be able to stay with them with a big nosed foamy that squeaks in the air. If this improves it's capabilities so I can out fly them occasionally, you'll need a power sander to get the grin off my face.

K2, I'd vote for the Pro also. It's easy to fly but has a lot to offer. My biggest complaint with it is that putting the wings on requires some patience and dexerity, but there are plenty of folks on this forum who've come up with remedies for that issue. Let us know which one you get, and what you think of it.

Well, even though the RP is full-house, it isn't a speed demon, even under reflex. Personally I would like more speed on reflex, and I don't use it a lot as I normally just lose altitude I don't want to lose; it moves fast enough without it, (though it will never fly as fast as an F3b plane, or a composite of any kind for that matter). As thermal indicators go, I've found the RP to be a little harder to read than say my Bob Martin Pussycat because it flies faster in normal straight/level flight than the PCat, but usually it pitches up noticeably when it encounters lift, or sometimes lifts a wingtip. Your comment about competition pilots pushing stability to get performance is true, all the good ones do, but that's one of the more difficult aspects of soaring to master; knowing when and where to push that edge.....and how to get to that edge without falling out of the sky!!! As a trainer for full-house soaring I think the RP really excels, and it flies in a fashion more similar to composite planes than other foamies available, (such as Cularis, Phoenix, etc, etc). However, the RP is definitely not a floater, which has been a disappointment to some, mainly because there is a lot of basic misunderstanding about sailplanes in general. Many who bought an RP expected them to fly like the regular Radian, and since it definitely does not fly the same they were disappointed. That's just basic misunderstanding of sailplane designs, and some expected something different than what they got. It is, then, going to be somewhat different than the typical RES plane, and you'll need to get used to keeping the speed up in turns more than with a typical RES ship. The function you'll learn to appreciate the most will most likely be camber, I have mine set at about 1/8" deflection, any more than that and it wants to slow too much and just sinks. You'll need more aileron deflection than seems proper in order to get those long wings to respond, but if you have ADIF that helps keep turns smooth. I also programmed an aileron/rudder mix, using about 60% rudder deflection with lots of expo on the rudder, which helps bring the tail around and keeps turns flat, (as with ADIF it helps negate adverse yaw). Another thing that I found helpful is allowing it to be a little tail-heavy in calm conditions, I can add down trim to keep it flying straight, yet it slows the plane down nicely. I had some pitch issues on launch also, and had to fly it up keeping some down elevator applied, but my radio has a "launch" setting and switch, so I programmed a little down elevator and it launches perfectly at about 45 degrees now, (though I sometimes add even more down in order to range further upwind during a 30 second ALES launch).
Of all the foam sailplanes, few can keep up with those "shiny expensive" sailplanes, but of those the Pro is the most capable of embarrassing a composite wonder occasionally, so you're on the right track there. In fact, those guys with the expensive toys will be envious that yours costs under $200, and for the most part can keep up with them.

Sonny

Sonny, Great info, thanks, more stuff to try! Yeah, the RP definitely took some getting used to, but I flew it all last season and learned a lot. One thing the sailplane book taught me was if you're looking for performance, you should probably fly faster than seems right.

Yeah, I need to put the reflex/camber function back into the mix, I took it out to experiment with some other functions (limited mixes on my radio) and then winter happened.

We'll see if reducing the decalage gives me more speed range, but that was one thing I thought could use improving and with the stiffer tail assy, maybe it won't suffer from high speed elevator control issues. It should, but as they say, theory works best in theory. So we shall see.

Hopefully the rains will end before this coming weekend does, and I can get it out and provide a flight test report.

Originally Posted by LWMP

Hi guys
Just have a quick question, I ordered the PNP version so have ordered a couple of Zippy 3s batteries to go with the one Zippy I already have. This will give me 2 x 1300mah to use as a stock setup and 1 x 1600mah. However, I am concerned that they may not fit the battery plug on the pro's ESC. Is this true? If so would it be likely that my LHS would have adaptors or is this something I can only order from HobbyKing? I really don't want to wait 3-4 weeks for one to come in from HK.

I use the Hobby King batteries exclusively and like the XT60 connectors they use so I modify the ESCs with mating connector that HK calls the "male". I buy them from HK but they sell them in matched pairs only. I have seen them advertised by vendors in the US but I doubt you would find them at your LHS. I don't know any other solution short of changing everything to a more common connector such as Deans.

Originally Posted by kaptondave

I use the Hobby King batteries exclusively and like the XT60 connectors they use so I modify the ESCs with mating connector that HK calls the "male". I buy them from HK but they sell them in matched pairs only. I have seen them advertised by vendors in the US but I doubt you would find them at your LHS. I don't know any other solution short of changing everything to a more common connector such as Deans.

+1. I have tried to standardize on the yellow XT60's wherever possible. Great connectors.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned on this forum that it should be possible to have the aileron servo arms going up into the wing instead of sticking out the bottom. A guy just did that to his Parkzone Mustang, and it would be the same to do it on the Radian Pro. It's a little different than I would have (could have, should have) done, but the concept is basically the same.

I'm not sure how to make a link to a single post, but here's a link to the page anyway...
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...70619&page=716

Originally Posted by Jovanx

I'm not sure how to make a link to a single post, but here's a link to the page anyway...
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...70619&page=716

Here's the link to the single post with the photos: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ostcount=10734

To copy a single post go to the right side of the post and click the post number, which gives you the " View Single Post".

Having the control rods come out the top of the wing would reduce servo stripping on a hard landing for sure, but I wonder what it would do to the structural strength of the wing.

Sonny

Originally Posted by sonny1

Having the control rods come out the top of the wing would reduce servo stripping on a hard landing for sure, but I wonder what it would do to the structural strength of the wing.
Sonny

Thanks for the info on the link. A guy could always embed some small carbon rods into a weak area, but I bet those useless plastic wing mount things would break before the wing would. The way I was thinking of doing it would be to have the control rod inside the wing, and pop out of the underside just ahead of the hinge. The "horn" would be extremely short and the other end of the rod would be on one of the inner holes of the servo arm.

Hope you enjoy

Radian Pro Air Vid (too close for comfort) (6 min 35 sec)

It's never too close for us on-lookers who are sitting comfortably in our chairs. I haven't heard that tune for a long time and really enjoyed it. Right now I'm working on a camera-mount for my RP and hope to try out my first on-board video later today.

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Hey, right on EZCanuck!! The last I heard from you on this was "I think I might have just talked myself into another mod for the next snow storm." but then I never heard that you actually did it. Excellent. Things are moving forward and this plane is getting better.

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