Yes that is how I solved the servo issues, keeps the wires from yanking out, granted I never replaced the servo, just re soldered the wires on >.< PITA but got me flying in minutes vs days.
That 350 should be able to go back more keeping you from adding weight, almost all the way back to the board. This little ship hates weight, wondering how my brushless mod is going to fly but I just have not had much time to work on it lately and I do not want to rush it.

Originally Posted by skydvejam

Yes that is how I solved the servo issues, keeps the wires from yanking out, granted I never replaced the servo, just re soldered the wires on >.< PITA but got me flying in minutes vs days.
That 350 should be able to go back more keeping you from adding weight, almost all the way back to the board. This little ship hates weight, wondering how my brushless mod is going to fly but I just have not had much time to work on it lately and I do not want to rush it.

Ok, thanks about the 350mAh, I'll stuff the little battery all the way back and re-balance without small bolt. The wires must run out front on the bottom.

Originally Posted by skydvejam

OK for those who want to know, and yes this one is wrecked I am working on a new fuse and thinking of something like the one above, but might use an old gift card for the servo mount, not 100% sure yet though.
Anyways here is how you fit the Zippy 350 in it without CG issues.
Battery and glider.


And how to fit it so you can also use the standard battery as well. I also brace the front with some small CF rods for stability.


Key points to take away from this though, ensure your servo's do not have anything leaning on them, that will cause issues.

Originally Posted by studioRS

Ok, thanks about the 350mAh, I'll stuff the little battery all the way back and re-balance without small bolt. The wires must run out front on the bottom.

Yup look at the bottom pic, only way it fits easy

Took the Surfer up for a maiden flight in the late evening. Had a buddy with his new Radian up there too, fun stuff. The earlier comment is totally correct, this little sailplane is on rails. Loved the 250mAh battery and glides well right out of the box.

Cheers, Thompson

Originally Posted by studioRS

Took the Surfer up for a maiden flight in the late evening. Had a buddy with his new Radian up there too, fun stuff. The earlier comment is totally correct, this little sailplane is on rails. Loved the 250mAh battery and glides well right out of the box.

Cheers, Thompson

fits in the trunk/boot of your car good as well

Originally Posted by skydvejam

fits in the trunk/boot of your car good as well

Indeed it does! I had my Radian with me also, both fit nicely in my MINI with rear seats folded down. MoF, I can stuff over 6 meters of sailplanes stuffed into the boot. Need to upgrade to a longer rear storage area car that I don't need to fold down the rear seats.

My maiden flight was amazing, never ever had a maiden go off so smoothly. I was blown away how well this little sailplane flew and for how long. Required no trimming out at all. Ok, that went well, bring it down and swap to a 350mAh pack.

Launched and required full throttle with the 350mAh pack and the first large sweeping turn nosed in 20 ft up. Ruhro, it wasn't responding to any elevator input. Amazing that with this little weight addition you could feel the change taking off, it was struggling. Not sure if it was pilot error (most likely) or one of the wires touching the servo, but I had zero elevator control. Wing popped off and slightly bent fuselage nose, bruised ego, not much damage. I packed it up and flew the Radian.

Note: When I purchased the Surfer through HK USA warehouse they don't show the replacement Nine Eagles 250mAh battery available and I ordered two of the heavier 350mAh. They are relatively inexpensive under $3 ea, no big deal will use for upgrade to brushless. Even searching through the HK international warehouse for 250mHa the replacement battery doesn't show up. So, I did a search for, "Nine Eagles" instead and viola!

Nine Eagles 250mAh 2S replacement battery, listed at $17.10ea
https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=12746

This is in the international warehouse, and qty 2 will fit under the weight shipping charge of $2.99. As previously mentioned, load the page and let it sit open in your browser until the message pops up offering at a one time lower price. Ordered qty 2 at $7.98 ea. or so.

I can see the desire and need to want to upgrade this sailplane to DSM2 or DMSX (or other programmable system Rx) and micro servos as it flys so well. I might have to buy a BNF just for spares. So the upgrade story goes, bigger and brushless motor, better electronics, smoother servos, German Graupner prop. All the time trying to stay lighter and stronger.

Cheers, Thompson

After my maiden flight I looked in my flight box and must have left the black canopy in the grass at the field, drats!

Time to make a scale version

Grabbed a 1L Polar Grape soda bottle and went to town. Fits like a glove. I even fabbed up some replacement magnets and CA'd into balsa with some graphic tape over. Looks like a 6 x 2 in the cockpit but is light and works. The uses you can get out of lexan trash is amazing. I knew that bottle of grape soda was good but never thought this good!

Took a photo I shot of my ASW-28 Hobby King pilot last year and made him smaller, printed out on paper, taped him in for some flight time.

Cheers, Thompson

Something wasn't sitting right with me and my new design.

I didn't need to have the gargantuan sized piece of balsa lumber in there with all that CA glue - he's not Paul Bunyan, he is a sailplane pilot Segelflieger!

So, removed the balsa and just taped the magnets in, viola!
Lighter, stronger, faster!

Ok, since I pulled a bonehead manouver and lost my canopy, could someone weight the original and report back? I want to see how much weight savings I've got with a my new clear scale canopy and pilot

Cheers, Thompson

Nice I like it :-) working on my BL and servo upgrade still, sort of got side tracked right now doing my scratch build aerobat

Originally Posted by studioRS

Something wasn't sitting right with me and my new design.

I didn't need to have the gargantuan sized piece of balsa lumber in there with all that CA glue - he's not Paul Bunyan, he is a sailplane pilot Segelflieger!

So, removed the balsa and just taped the magnets in, viola!
Lighter, stronger, faster!

Ok, since I pulled a bonehead manouver and lost my canopy, could someone weight the original and report back? I want to see how much weight savings I've got with a my new clear scale canopy and pilot

Cheers, Thompson

Anyone willing to weight the canopy? TIA

Cheers, Thompson

Well I lucked out. Drove back to the field and looked for 15 min, just about gave up and there was my canopy, needle in a haystack.

So I can weight it myself!

I guess I could post this in the "beginner's" forum, but as you will see there are some reasons for me to post it in a forum dealing with the Sky Surfer. My apologies, this is bound to be a longish post.

Well, I finally got to maiden the Sky Surfer I recently bought. Besides maidening it, this was my first real RC flight ever. It went well considering the conditions, but it went to prove acouple of things:

- first, except for actually flying, nothing beats literally hundreds of hours on the sim for about one year (well, I had no plane, so...), with much more difficult planes and under different simulated wind conditions. Granted it does not approach real life, but it certainly puts your reactions and reflexes in good shape. It helped me get out of some tricky situations.

- second, a smallish plane weighing 110 grams (under 4 oz.) is no match for a severely jumpy (between N and NW according to the wind vane on a nearby building), gusty wind, with gusts going rather over 10 mph. I should have known that (I actally did, but I didn't care, I wanted badly to fly that plane...)

I had to quit for the wind, after crashing twice (relatively nice crashes, anyway, rather more like hard landings). The area is fine as far as space was concerned, and close to home besides, but it is by the sea and you know how the wind can be in these places.

Now, some questions concerning specifically the Sky Surfer.
- The COG out of the box, with the plane fully loaded, was just about 22 mm back of the wing leading edge, even with the battery placed as far back as possible. I had to insert a 2g self-tapping screw at the very rear (it fitted nicely) to get the COG to 27mm. Even then, the test glides showed the plane to still be slightly nose-heavy. This concurs with the experiences of others.

- The trims were badly out of - well, trim - never mind the manual says it comes trimmed from the factory. Ailerons as turning left, rudder as turning to the right, eleveator going up...you name it.

- The propeller seems to become loose a bit too easily. Did anyone experience this?


- Batteries and charger - this one is a bit puzzling. If possible I would like to have factual experiences from Sky Surfer owners.

The kit came with one pack, 2S, 250 mAh, labeled Nine Eagles, in a sealed plastic bag. At the same time I bought a back-up exactly similar, also labeled Nine Eagles, also in a sealed plastic bag. So, both supposed to be new from the factory.
When I checked them back home, one pack read 7.62 V - about correct storing charge - the other one was at 8.25 V - full charge, which is not the right way for shipping or storing. I don't know which one came inside the box, as I had already mixed them and the packs and packing were exactly similar. Did anyone have this experience or checked their packs when received?

Needless to say, I didn't feel the need to charge the one at 8.25V.
But I tried to charge the one which was at 7.62V before going out to fly. When I put it in the charger, the green light went immediatly on and stayed so. Now, the Nine Eagles manual states this means the charge is complete, but as the pack showed only 7.62V - about 65% charge - and as there had been some talk in the forum about the NE manual being wrong and the Cox manual being right - I decided to let it saty so for about 15-20 minutes and then re-checked the battery. To my surprise, it read 1.09 V and there was nothing I could do to make it budge from there.

So, I must assume I have a busted battery. And I have a couple of questions.

- Did anyone follow exacly the Nine Eagles manual instructions for charging - the green light blinking when charging, stays on when charging is complete? How went the charging and what was the end result?
- Did anyone follow the procedure stated in the COX manual, as mentioned in some posts in this thread - the green light stays on while charging, goes out when the charge is complete? Again, how went the charging and what was the end result?
- Did anyone take any measurements (Volts, mAh...) begore, during or after these procedures?

Because now, you see, I don't know exactly what to do.

- If the Nine Eagles manual is right, a pack at 7.62V (about 60-70 % full charge), when placed in the charger, should have the green light blinking until it got a full charge, the the green light should stay on to indicate full charge. But the green light stayed on from the start! Was the battery charging, as per the COX manual, or was it actually given as fully charged according to the NE manual? (in which case, of course, I overcharged it, wich is a good reason for busting it, but then why did it show full charge at 7.62V???)

- If the COX manual applies to the NE charger, then when I placed the 7.62V pack in the charger the green light went correvtly on and stayed on to show charging was under way. But why then was the pack at 1.09 V after 15-20minutes, ant why then did it not go off at full charge? And why did it stay that way even after a one hour "charge", when the pack was already visibly bulged and busted?

Any feedback with hard facts from Sky Surfer owners will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks

G.

Glad your flights went well, this is a really nice flying sailplane!

The three times I've charged my 250mAh the green light was on solid and goes off when finished. Red light is on the entire time. Charge registers 8.38v.

I've ordered two additional Nine Eagle 250mAh packs and will report back on these.

Sounds like the one pack you have is kaput.