Next time -- and I'm not necessarily HOPING there would be a next time -- I suggest you put the camera on a tripod and aim it at yourself ..... Action packed clips do better on YouTube.....Not sure if it'll pay enough for the medical bills ..... but that's not our problem, is it?.

I will do my very best Matin. Of course if I aim for myself, it will guarantee I miss.

Tonight I am making some improvements that we discussed at Greg's on the weekend. We decided that the cams up front on the servos needed to be easier to achieve the correct tune the tension in the wires when rigging and then be adjustable in the field assuming a period of 'settling'. I also noticed th athe design had a small section where the wires feed into the clamps that was prone to being cut by the wire. This wasn't something that would likely propagate along an interlayer bond of the print causing the cam to fail, but it was good to see and sort now. So revision # 728 is printing right now.

The new and improved cam geometry also pulls the slack out of the wire on the 'loose side' which becomes visible as the cam approaches 90 deg. The geometry of the cams relative to each other mean that the 'outer' wire (LHS wire on the rudder servo when doing an LHS turn for example) goes a little bit slack as the cams approach 90 deg. This doesn't really seem likely to be an issue except that it's like having a bit of backlash built into the mechanical system when going from full 90 deg, back toward neutral. Realistically I don't think you'd notice this flying but you notice it on the bench and if you look closely enough at the video a few posts back, you'll see it there too. Unacceptable!!

With that solved, I also changed the way I was making the bushes that the tail cams are fixed to. I had laminated carbon to aluminium tube with about 0.2mm clearance fit inside the shafts in which they rotate. Once I had my plane rigged and tuned, this slop, which I thought would be preferable to having the bushes bind, allowed just enough undesirable movement when the E and R surfaces were on to be a bit of a bummer. Again, probably not a deal breaker in the air but well worth the extra effort to improve. l So I turned up some new bushes out of acetal which is only about 0.05mm under the ID of the shafts. With the surfaces on, it feels so much more solid now.

All in all, almost no backlash when returning from 90 toward neutral, no slack in the 'outer' wire and field adjustable wire tension, I'm pretty happy.

Final cam print just finished, so enough of this for now...

Originally Posted by Knoll53

That plane was really moving!
There was no jumping out of the way with that approach.
Great video.

@Knoll53 you've got to bleed for your art!

I love acetal.....It has solved a lot of problems for me.

A few days past finished and I'm yet to maiden. Stoopid westerly pattern!! So far I've bench flown, floor flown, couch flown and back of car flown. I've travelled to and from work with it, hit refresh on the wind direction app at least 1000 times and still no maiden.

The upside....actually there is no upside, but here are some pictures. In the video you can see how this cam design eliminates the backlash I was waffling on about a few posts back. Compare this to the similar video further back. The surfaces now feel solid. It's still easy to remove the elevator and rudder surfaces as well as the carbon square drives to keep things nice when transporting it.

Back to refreshing the app

Final cam design (0 min 37 sec)

Originally Posted by MATIN

I love acetal.....It has solved a lot of problems for me.

Agreed. I use it a lot at work. It's my go to polymer for moulded and for machined parts.

One for you Matin
Makin' tail cam bushes...

Fluid tail bushes (0 min 14 sec)

YESSSS!!!.....
I wish I had a lathe.

BTW ....I love the new logo.

Your work is amazing!
I like how clean and well thought out everything is on top of the craftsmanship!
Just beautiful!!
Thank you for sharing!
I wish I had one or get a chance to fly one someday.
Keep up the great work!
Cheers!! Mike

Wow Mike, thanks very much! I’m a total fan of the Jester and your work and most certainly hope to have one one day too. In fact when Greg asked if I’d be interested collaborating on this project it was your thread and enthusiasm for your work that inspired me to jump at the chance. Not only am I super proud of my input, Greg and I have built a great friendship despite living very different lives on different parts of the country- linked by RC planes!

It saddens me to say that I need to be content with this being the maiden. I had visions of launching into wonderfully springy lift bouncing from move to move for hours in the sun. What I got though was barely enough breeze to keep an Alula aloft. In fact at this site it only takes the breeze to shift a few degrees to the left and lift turns to suck in an instant and try as you like, you are coming down. And this was precisely how my flight ended about 5 minutes after launch - straight into a rock solid stump hidden in the grass The good news, it was one hell of a torque test of the wing mount and servo tray!

In the moments when there was a bit of a puff it was a hoot. I can't wait for another flight although I'll be patient this time and wait for better conditions.

I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel to get anything worth watching, but a maiden's a maiden...

Fluid 1.4 Maiden (1 min 11 sec)

Well happy to say I got to maiden my 1.4 fluid. A few days ago I caught the last of the days light in less than ideal wind to fly it. Everything went well and I had 3 separate flights taking weight off the nose every time.
My CG started out at the recommended 84mm from LE , and I removed around 16 grams I had taped to the nose.

Then yesterday , wind looked ok but was coming from similar dirrection SSE. Not ideal as we really need SE or even better ESE. I made the gamble to try again but wasn’t rewarded with lovely lift. The video will tell the story.
Although the wind was off dirrection ( way to south) I was able to have a few more flights and take another 16grams off the nose. It has really started to come alive and feel nimble and turn on a dime.
I’m going to keep pushing it back in till I get to the point it’s starts to be unhappy and tuck. Where I am now it is still very happy and fluid with NO behavioural issues…. So I’ll keep pushing it back.

I just checked and I’m around 90 to 90.5mm CG. Won’t be long and I’ll get it into some nice clean air and a really neutral CG.

This video was only going to be a private video , it was about 10mins mins of me talking to Greg and Ross about the plane and CG and set up etc. I thought it might be to boring for the public … But cool to help each other though the tuning of these new machines as we all live about 1000kms apart.

I thought I’d just cut it down for public viewing , I promise to make a better video once we get some air.

1400mm fluid VTPR rc glider (4 min 8 sec)

Nice Tim you make want to get my Fluid going again, needs new servos in the wings which I have just need to install them but them other projects get in the way, you know house, garden, sail boats, 1:1 gliders and that work thing.

Very cool vid there Tim!

Can't wait for mine to emerge from the build hanger .. the only question, for me, is whether to start from the 84mm .. or the 90mm CoG(?)

Maybe I'll split the difference and start from about 87mm then work backwards(?)

Cheers, Craig

Stoked Tim! Some great insights. Such a shame neither planes have been flown in good conditions yet. That will come! Can’t wait to see a vid when you get a good day with it. That rudder will be working overtime I’m sure.

Not too much more to do on yours Craig. Start with the CG at least 88 and expect to move it back further. I reckon having a rearward cg and very low rates to burn the nerves off on the first flight will be way better than fighting nose weight with elevator. Tim’s observations were that it became easier to fly as he moved the cg back, not harder and that he reckons he still has a good few mm to go before tail heavy handling issues begin.