Originally Posted by Moonbeam

Here's an unusual question for ya'll. Has anyone tried a wooden prop?

I think someone mentioned it way back in the thread, but reason I'm asking is (to make a super long story short), I'm currently in possesion of about 60 props by Zinger & Top Flite. All are anything from 7x4.5 to 7x8, and there's a BUNCH of 7x5 & 7x6 props as well.

(The long story): An elderly member of our club passed away, and we're in charge of inventorying & auctioning all his RC stuff to raise money for his wife & our club. She said she want's 40% of the sales and the rest goes to our club.

If these wooden props will work, I'm going to buy them all.

I've been using Xoar props on my warbirds and love them. The funny thing is i picked up an apc prop the other day that was a 7 x 6 and held it in one hand comparing it to a 10 X 8 xoar prop and the xoar was way lighter. That is what i like about the wood props. If i could find a 6.5 x 6.5 wood prop i would run it in a heart beat.

Originally Posted by gpraceman

We only had one flight without the gear, so it would be hard to compare. I really am not worried about the extra drag issue, as I am just trying to get him comfortable flying it. Maybe later, once he has a good handle on it, we'll pull the gear off.

Our attempts at hand launching lead to the nose breaking off on our 2nd flight attempt, so that's when I decided to give landing gear a try.

No real issues on take off or landing. He had a relatively steep take off angle, but the prop did not strike the ground. The landing was a bit on the rough side (need to work on flaring it at the end). The front gear did bend a bit, but it was easy enough to straighten.

The install was pretty easy. The main gear just glued on over the foam, using plywood mounts that I made up. The nose gear went where the belly wheel was. Dug out the foam down to the plastic battery tray.

Thx bro..appreciate the detail. One last thing: I assume you're running the stock prop, right?

I'm running the 7x5 apc, so that means the prop tips would be 1/2" closer to the ground for a given landing gear.

Since HL doesn't say what the dimensions are, would you mind when u get a chance measuring from the bottom of the fuse to the bottom of the main gear wheel?

I'm just trying to get a sense whether these are tall enough for my prop

Thx again, good stuff...

Originally Posted by poiyt

Thx bro..appreciate the detail. One last thing: I assume you're running the stock prop, right?

I'm running the 7x5 apc, so that means the prop tips would be 1/2" closer to the ground for a given landing gear.

Since HL doesn't say what the dimensions are, would you mind when u get a chance measuring from the bottom of the fuse to the bottom of the main gear wheel?

Yes, we are using the stock prop.

Ground clearance is 3-3/4". There is about 7/8" clearance with the stock prop. The nose gear does give it a bit of a nose up attitude.

With your bigger prop, you will likely need some taller gear. The problem that I ran into was that no one seems to provide the dimensions of their landing gear, so I crossed my fingers that these particular ones would work out.

Originally Posted by gpraceman

Yes, we are using the stock prop.

Ground clearance is 3-3/4". There is about 7/8" clearance with the stock prop. The nose gear does give it a bit of a nose up attitude.

With your bigger prop, you will likely need some taller gear. The problem that I ran into was that no one seems to provide the dimensions of their landing gear, so I crossed my fingers that these particular ones would work out.

Thanks & agreed...those gear would make it kinda close...so I'm gonna look around...but great info anyway, thx


Anybody else out there fit LG on the Q??

Originally Posted by poiyt

Thanks & agreed...those gear would make it kinda close...so I'm gonna look around...but great info anyway, thx


Anybody else out there fit LG on the Q??

trust me it is easy to do the gear. but you will have to cut out a small plastic spike conected to the battery tray.

Originally Posted by Armyboy96

trust me it is easy to do the gear. but you will have to cut out a small plastic spike conected to the battery tray.

Thx Army..but I already removed the white plastic battery tray so I could move the lipo back and the cg aft...so no issues there.

Do you have those same LG, or something else?

Here's what I just measured on my Q:

With the 7x5 prop, the distance from the underside of the fuse (where the main gear would be) to the bottom of the wheel would need to be 4".

Therefore, using a 1" wheel, the LG wire would need to be a min 3.5" in length.

Just looking at it, that seems to be tall gear...but necessary to avoid prop strike...?

I can't remember if this has already been discussed, but I just measured out the 140mm CG as shown in the manual and I found that it is significantly further forward. Check out the attached picture.

With my 80 amp Hobbywing ESC (77g) mounted all the way back to the front of the motor mount, AR600 Rx mounted in front of the servo wires junction, and 4s 2650mah 50C (270g) battery pushed back to the leading edge of the turtle deck, my CG is perfect at 140mm.

It would be interesting to see if you guys notice the same thing after taking your own measurement of 140mm for CG. I think a lot of people (including myself) have been complaining about this plane being nose heavy out of the box...but actually I would've realized that mine wasn't actually nose heavy if I would've measured it out for myself.

Poiyt,
That battery tray was tough to rip out, huh??
At least mine was. I got a big woodworking chisel wedged under the end and pulled up with all my might. The glue and anchors finally gave way and it was loose with no damage.

Now I'm free to dig to my heart's content to jam huge batteries in there

Originally Posted by poiyt

Do you have those same LG, or something else?

Here's what I just measured on my Q:

With the 7x5 prop, the distance from the underside of the fuse (where the main gear would be) to the bottom of the wheel would need to be 4".

Therefore, using a 1" wheel, the LG wire would need to be a min 3.5" in length.

Just looking at it, that seems to be tall gear...but necessary to avoid prop strike...?

ArmyBoy96 is actually my son jumping into the discussion, so we are talking about the same plane.

The wheels on the main gear are 1-3/4" diameter. You could gain a bit of height by taking some of the bend out of the wire. They bend towards the rear.

I guess that it is also possible to get some wire and bend up your own gear to gain some ground clearance.

Sickwitit,
140mm from the firewall comes to the same spot on my plane.

With it balanced at this point, the plane does extremely well in a power off dive CG test. The plane should hold a straight line during this power off high speed dive without tendency to pull up or tuck under.
The Q with CG at 140mm holds a dead straight line until I pull it out of the dive.

That means 140mm is the ideal CG for normal flight conditions.

We should note, though, that other CG positions may be used for different types of flying. Aggressive aerobatics, stalls, and spins all do better with an aft CG.
Smoother, more stable flying will come from a more forward CG.

I'm amazed that 4S 2650mah 50C still allows for a good CG without resorting to drastic measures to get the battery further back. Good news!!

Just tested mine with the 3s 2200mah battery at that same point and it seems tail heavy. That is with the battery pushed back to where it meets the rx. Now if i push the battery as far forward as i can. I can almost get it to balance at the 140mm mark. I guess when i throw my camera on there it may balance out, but with a bigger battery and the soon to me mega motor it may change.. WE SHALL SEE

Originally Posted by murdnunoc

Poiyt,
That battery tray was tough to rip out, huh??
At least mine was. I got a big woodworking chisel wedged under the end and pulled up with all my might. The glue and anchors finally gave way and it was loose with no damage.

Now I'm free to dig to my heart's content to jam huge batteries in there

Ya it was fun getting that thing out. Once it got started though it came out clean. From the force i had to put on it to get it out i would have thought it would have taken a bunch of foam with it, but nope came out clean.

[QUOTE=gpraceman;19044961]We were having trouble with hand launching, so we wanted to give a try at putting some landing gear on my son's F-27Q Stryker. I hadn't seen any photos of people giving this a try on the newer Stryker, so I wasn't sure what gear to try. I ended up getting the gear for a Hobby Lobby F-9F Panther for $14. Popped out the belly wheel and dug out the foam for the nose wheel assembly. Made plywood mounts for the rears and glued them to the foam.

We tried it out this morning and the landing gear worked great. Though, a rough landing did bend the wire on the nose wheel a bit.[/QUOT

Pretty much all the guys at our field bungee launch off Jetapult clones using bungee from a 7.99 untied cargo net from Harbor Freight. I also tore up a nose cone hand launching.

After about 25 flights with my F-27Q, I've found a kinda neat trick for when it gets out of control. It's saved my ass a bunch of times already.

When I lose orientation of the plane, I do these three things in quick or simultaneous succession.

1) Cut throttle
2) Flip to highest rates (I run 3 rates, low for t/o and landing, mid for general flying, and high (max throws) for farting around)
3) Pull the elevator all the way back.

Assuming I have about 5-10 feet of altitude, I get into a parachute position quickly and easily. It's saved me from losing my plane at least twice in the past few days. Once I lost orientation in the sun, and when I could see it again, I was behind a bunch of trees and heading to the ground at nearly full throttle, about 40' up. I only popped the nose off and had some minor airframe damage (hit a bit hard on the bottom of the fuselage, and put a minor bend in at the fiberflass) which I *easily* fixed up with some hot glue and strapping tape - and it even looks intentional.

Today, I did the same dumbass move, and instead of panicing and making things worse, I pulled in to parachute, and got the plane oriented properly, and was able to pull out from behind the same trees, and get the bird back to the field.

Maybe this is amatuer or rookie, but I've only been flying for about 3 months, and this is my second plane - and it's a total blast! I successfully pulled blenders today, and they were amazing fun!

BTW - I moved from the stock 6x6 prop to an APC 7x6 sport, and this thing doesn't even need a hand launch - I hold it by the wingtip in my right hand, and push the throttle with my left, and it just launches out of my hand, nearly straight up. PROTIP - remember to get back to low rates after your last flight... :-)

Would you share how to do a blender. How do you start into it and what are the stick positions and movements. THANKS,HUNKUS