Originally Posted by G_T

Any more recent flight impressions / reports?

Gerald

I had a wing servo failure where the output shaft sheared off inside the gearbox. It took a while to get a new servo, then we had an extended period of rather bad weather with lots of wind and rain so I have not been able to fly anything for a few weeks.

However, I do have more time on the airframe than in my original report. I continue to be impressed with the handling. It is certainly better than my 2m carbon Taser. Once established in a turn, it can be circled with RE only with very little input from ailerons.

I had a 3.7m Nan Shadow for a while and did not like it. Maybe it was because I was trying to fly it like a DLG. However, this plane suits my flying style a lot better. It is very nimble and I am not continually tip stalling it as I did with the Shadow.

I would estimate that the still air sink rate is pretty close to my DLG's. It is somewhat faster than a DLG and so allows one to fly in a greater range of conditions. It is currently my favourite plane and I have not flown my DLG's for a while now.

The power plant is working well and gets me to 200m in a little over 20 secs. The motor is on a 3 position switch with settings of off/half/full settings. The half setting is adequate for a leasurely climb and I often use it. I imagine it would be a good setting when planning a low launch height for F5J as it allow one to sense the air you are flying through. Sensing the air is not possible on full setting.

In a couple of weeks I will be able to get feedback from a few pilots who are a lot more experienced with F3J type planes.

Graham

Just wanted to extend a big thanks to Gerald for releasing this design. I built a 3.4m span version for ALES and flew it to 3rd at Polecat last weekend. Ready-to-fly it weighs just over 53 oz with bagged 39 g/m^2 carbon skins over Spyder foam and 0.060" rod spars, 4 at the root tapering to 1 at the tip. At this span the area is around 1070 sq in I think, which gives me around 7 oz/sq ft wing loading.

I put it on an Art Hobby pod with a boom from CLM Pro, and went with a V-tail.

My impressions are similar to others in that the sink rate is very low, and the handling being very nimble yet confident. My particular version ended up with very little dihedral (about 2.5 deg per tip, partly by accident) but it still handles well and carves nicely through thermal turns, just requires left and right stick coordination. In the calm conditions last weekend I spent about 20% of my time in cruise, and 80% in float. I'm hoping for a chance to try it in windier weather soon, but when it had to cover ground to the next thermal, it did well.

I still don't have much flight time on it yet since Polecat was my first contest with it, but all indications point to a really nice ship. Anyway, thanks again!

This plane looks REAL nice! Looks similar to my Electra 2
V tail. I wish I had the space, skills, and tools to build one of these. I think for F5J and or ALES I'd go even slightly bigger span and higher aspect ratio , maybe 3.7M and
18-18.5 Aspect ratio,, nothing like the glide, visibility or landing control of the bigger ships ;-)
GTs wing looks GREAT, think I'd also increase tip dihedral
Just a tad as well.

Marciki : in your pic it looks like your ruddervators have plenty of chord width,, I'd imagine you have good rudder authority??
I LOVE my V tails ;-)

Thanks! I Googled "Electra 2" and they do look alike!

I would have liked to go bigger as well, but my building table and car could only fit this size of center section.

The ruddervators are about 45% of the chord on average so rudder authority is very good. It helps coordinate thermal turns with the minimal dihedral. I used the HT14 - HT12 progression for the airfoils.

Jim Marcicki

Hallo
My version of the 2.5m-Wing is the "MIA".

Wing and tails are bagged with 30gr-Carboweave / glas,

Fuse-Pod is from the 2m-HOREJSI Q12X.
the extra-long boom is from hyperflight (thanks to Neil)

Motor: ART1200
Accu: 3s-1000mAh-LiPo
ESC: Castle Talon25 (very small, strong BEC)

I wanna try a short nose and a long boom....

Maiden it last week. MIA is very simple to fly, superb thermal abilitys (2.5m-DLG). I'm looking forward to the further flight-tests----

Thank you Gerald for publishing the ALES-Wing....

kind regards from austria / europe
David

That's a very clean and beautiful model. And a clean shop too.

I'm glad some people are getting use of the design. Nice planes!

Gerald

Gerald, thanks for making this available! We will be making a 2.5m SynerJ e-glider, molded with solid core. I think we'll start work on it once we finish our 1m DLG so hopefully ready for flying sometime in the fall. Looking forward to playing with it!

Thomas

Will be watching for it, if it becomes commercial.
Ben

Hi Ben, we will be making it available commercially once the airframes are looking good. I'll make a separate thread once we get going so as not to hijack Gerald's thread here.

Can anyone give a few recommended power systems (prop - motor - battery) we can try out? I'm unfamiliar with e-power (or any power for that matter!). 2.5m wingspan, aiming for ~700g AUW (lighter if possible).

Thanks!
Thomas

Originally Posted by ThomasLee

Gerald, thanks for making this available! We will be making a 2.5m SynerJ e-glider, molded with solid core. I think we'll start work on it once we finish our 1m DLG so hopefully ready for flying sometime in the fall. Looking forward to playing with it!

Thomas

Why not a slightly bigger model like 3 or 3.5m?
IMHO , and from personal experience 2-2.5m is just a little tooooo small,, to hard to see at a distance. In Electric comps one often needs to range out quite far to find lift. I would say minimum size 3.1m for visability.

Actually the goal is a 4m ultra light 5J plane like the Ultima, but we wanted to take it one step at a time since we only have 3K experience at the moment. However i think 3m is possible, we can look into it.

If you want to get benefit of information for a F5J plane, go and see the Genoma2 F5J post. All is free.
We do not explore yet the "ultra light version based on Rohacel drilled plank plus carbon fiber.

But there is enough knowledge in the team to define the spares and layers wth good result probability.

And if you compare the Synergy and the Genoma profiles, you will se that they are very closed. The main difference is in the intrados where the Synergy provide a bit more speed and the Genoma a bit more lift. Both will do very well with molded wings.

And please, for a F5J plane do not go lower than 3.5m span. If not, your plane will be far behind the others.

So join the group and share things!

Originally Posted by ThomasLee

Actually the goal is a 4m ultra light 5J plane like the Ultima, but we wanted to take it one step at a time since we only have 3K experience at the moment. However i think 3m is possible, we can look into it.

My humble suggestion would b 3m ,, THEN 4M.
The ultima appears to be setting a new standard.

Quote from Marc :

And please, for a F5J plane do not go lower than 3.5m span. If not, your plane will be far behind the others.

I think most experienced E comp soarers would agree with this

I'm faaaaaaar from an expert,, but,, based on my limited experience I like a plane with a WIDE speed range, which from my amateurs understanding would favor a higher aspect ratio??

Ps edit : I noticed the Ultima has a 19.9AR , quite high huh?? ;-)