Archive for April, 2013
Ok. I think this is turning into a "How Not To" series for IMAC.
So, basically I took a great flying airplane and wrecked it and have taken 3 weeks to get it back to where it was - is that smart?? Hopefully it is, becuase it still needs more trimming and it is flying as good if not a little better than it was before. Hopefully as I continue the "tweaking" over the next few weeks it will be much better than it was before I started messing with it.
At this point, the major change was moving to a new radio (DX18QQ), moving the CG back quite a bit, changing the engine right thrust and re-configuring the control throw (neutral/travel/etc). Seems to fly smoother than before, but still has a little flat turn coupling I need to do to get it perfect. I still think I need to move the CG back some more and re-trim. On a 45 upline it starts to fall off after about 1/2 second, but very gently... but when flying across the box inverted - to maintain level/inverted flight I am having to hold constant down elevator of about 1/2 stick. Seems a bit much.
So, to continue the "how not to" - At this point - all convential wisdom and advice from those doing this for many many years tells you to start BURNING GAS and PRACTICE and learn the plane. So, what do I plan to do... just the opposite
Seems everytime I get a plane just where i want it and it's time to really start getting good with it - I sell it. Well, I am not selling this plane, but I did buy a new plane. So, I picked up Wayne Geffon's old Extra 300 126" "Dean built" (FixedWing). Although my current plane is flying well and holding together - it is over 5 years old and was wrung out pretty good by the master Frank Noll. No signs of failure anywhere, but I'd rather take it easy on her as much as I can. She will become my freestyle/backup plane. My freestyle is soo lame it will get stressed less than it does doing a Sportsman Known sequence 
I think with this new plane, and getting it setup - I will be ready to roll for some time. Will have 2 super nice planes to make sure I can make it through all the contests with a well flying plane. I am anxious to see what this new plane (39-40lbs w/ da-200) can do.
Oh yeah, and to make sure I really "do the wrong thing" I am planning the jump to Futaba RX/TX combo.
So - to sum this all up... I took 2nd place (very close 2nd place) in the last contest and within 3 months of that I will have a 2 new radios and 1 new plane from what was obviously working well. HOWEVER - What I am hoping - is that by the Strausberg (CO) event the new plane/radio will be trimmed and doing great and by the Tucson Shootout I will be proficient at flying it and flying well above where I was at the Cactus where I placed 2nd. Only time will tell....
Stay Tuned!!
So, basically I took a great flying airplane and wrecked it and have taken 3 weeks to get it back to where it was - is that smart?? Hopefully it is, becuase it still needs more trimming and it is flying as good if not a little better than it was before. Hopefully as I continue the "tweaking" over the next few weeks it will be much better than it was before I started messing with it.
At this point, the major change was moving to a new radio (DX18QQ), moving the CG back quite a bit, changing the engine right thrust and re-configuring the control throw (neutral/travel/etc). Seems to fly smoother than before, but still has a little flat turn coupling I need to do to get it perfect. I still think I need to move the CG back some more and re-trim. On a 45 upline it starts to fall off after about 1/2 second, but very gently... but when flying across the box inverted - to maintain level/inverted flight I am having to hold constant down elevator of about 1/2 stick. Seems a bit much.
So, to continue the "how not to" - At this point - all convential wisdom and advice from those doing this for many many years tells you to start BURNING GAS and PRACTICE and learn the plane. So, what do I plan to do... just the opposite
Seems everytime I get a plane just where i want it and it's time to really start getting good with it - I sell it. Well, I am not selling this plane, but I did buy a new plane. So, I picked up Wayne Geffon's old Extra 300 126" "Dean built" (FixedWing). Although my current plane is flying well and holding together - it is over 5 years old and was wrung out pretty good by the master Frank Noll. No signs of failure anywhere, but I'd rather take it easy on her as much as I can. She will become my freestyle/backup plane. My freestyle is soo lame it will get stressed less than it does doing a Sportsman Known sequence I think with this new plane, and getting it setup - I will be ready to roll for some time. Will have 2 super nice planes to make sure I can make it through all the contests with a well flying plane. I am anxious to see what this new plane (39-40lbs w/ da-200) can do.
Oh yeah, and to make sure I really "do the wrong thing" I am planning the jump to Futaba RX/TX combo.
So - to sum this all up... I took 2nd place (very close 2nd place) in the last contest and within 3 months of that I will have a 2 new radios and 1 new plane from what was obviously working well. HOWEVER - What I am hoping - is that by the Strausberg (CO) event the new plane/radio will be trimmed and doing great and by the Tucson Shootout I will be proficient at flying it and flying well above where I was at the Cactus where I placed 2nd. Only time will tell....
Stay Tuned!!
Comments (7)
Add Comment
Ok. So I removed both shims that were adding left thrust and buttoned her back up. Now the backplate of the prop rubs ever-so-slightly on the cowl - but not bad. I may have to push it our with a shim on both sides just a hair.
Before I flew it, I really wanted to nail the CG. It was fine before, but after I replaced the 60oz dubro with 64oz Fortitudes it felt a little more nose heavy. So, I filled it with gas and checked the CG. Mr Wegs told me Dennis told him that Kurt was flying his 126" at 4"-4 1/8" back measured from the wingtip. Lucky for me, there was already a nice little black mark right at 4". When lifting at this mark, the back came up and the gear stayed on the ground =\ I anticipated this, and already had a plate glued in and extension leads for my batteries to move them back. Moved them about 8" back - and it hardly changed it =\ Finally got them back to the rear of the canopy and it balanced at 4" nicely. I was surprised how far I had to move the batts to get the CG right.
Test flight time. Flew nice. Now on an inverted 45 it stayed right there for about 1 3/4- 2 seconds before it started to fall off. Inverted flight needs just a slight pressure or a very slight "bump" every second or so. Felt like I was much more "hands off" flying it than before. Flew about 12 minutes and I think the CG is right where most say to put it, and it felt good to me.
Next flight its time to check thrust angle. It was pretty windy - 12-15 gusting 20-25. It did settle to wind calm a few times so I was able to check the thrust pretty well. It seemed to fly pretty straight once I got it online vertical. Most times it went straight up and a few times it headed to the right just a little bit. Could be wind, could be a little too much right thrust. Flew about 5 minutes pulling verticals and then flew the sequence once.
Noticed the stall had a better drop and feel to it. It used to just mush into a stall and I had to force it a lot. Doesn't see any more touchy in pitch, but the rudder seems to have a little more authority than before. May dial the Dual Rate down a little for precision setting.
Lined up nice, floated in just like the "cream puff" my coach says she is
So, I think I am going to add 2 shims to the right and 1 shim to the left. I think this will make it perfect for thrust and move the spinner out a little (1/64th). Beyond that, if it has a little bit either way, I can null it out with the radio.
Next step is to get the rest of the mixes dialed in. Hopefully next week I can do that on 1 day and get some practice in the other. We will see. But I am happy with the progress and am confident that it will be trimed out better than before and be able to get some practice in with it in time for the next contest (Prado).
Before I flew it, I really wanted to nail the CG. It was fine before, but after I replaced the 60oz dubro with 64oz Fortitudes it felt a little more nose heavy. So, I filled it with gas and checked the CG. Mr Wegs told me Dennis told him that Kurt was flying his 126" at 4"-4 1/8" back measured from the wingtip. Lucky for me, there was already a nice little black mark right at 4". When lifting at this mark, the back came up and the gear stayed on the ground =\ I anticipated this, and already had a plate glued in and extension leads for my batteries to move them back. Moved them about 8" back - and it hardly changed it =\ Finally got them back to the rear of the canopy and it balanced at 4" nicely. I was surprised how far I had to move the batts to get the CG right.
Test flight time. Flew nice. Now on an inverted 45 it stayed right there for about 1 3/4- 2 seconds before it started to fall off. Inverted flight needs just a slight pressure or a very slight "bump" every second or so. Felt like I was much more "hands off" flying it than before. Flew about 12 minutes and I think the CG is right where most say to put it, and it felt good to me.
Next flight its time to check thrust angle. It was pretty windy - 12-15 gusting 20-25. It did settle to wind calm a few times so I was able to check the thrust pretty well. It seemed to fly pretty straight once I got it online vertical. Most times it went straight up and a few times it headed to the right just a little bit. Could be wind, could be a little too much right thrust. Flew about 5 minutes pulling verticals and then flew the sequence once.
Noticed the stall had a better drop and feel to it. It used to just mush into a stall and I had to force it a lot. Doesn't see any more touchy in pitch, but the rudder seems to have a little more authority than before. May dial the Dual Rate down a little for precision setting.
Lined up nice, floated in just like the "cream puff" my coach says she is
So, I think I am going to add 2 shims to the right and 1 shim to the left. I think this will make it perfect for thrust and move the spinner out a little (1/64th). Beyond that, if it has a little bit either way, I can null it out with the radio.
Next step is to get the rest of the mixes dialed in. Hopefully next week I can do that on 1 day and get some practice in the other. We will see. But I am happy with the progress and am confident that it will be trimed out better than before and be able to get some practice in with it in time for the next contest (Prado).
I have not flown since the Cactus Classic until Saturday. 1st this I had to do was destroy my almost perfect flying plane 
When I started to trim out the Carden at the beginning of the year, I had a couple radio mixes that were added and were causing me some issues.
1) When I started to trim the plane out, when I got to the vertical upline test it was pulling pretty hard to the left. The DA-200 was mounted on a SWB mount with right thrust. I am guessing the previous owner (or the one before him or Frank Noll, well probably not Frank had it setup (CG/Prop?) where the SWB mount had too much right thrust so it had a shim on the right side (from the cockpit) to reduce the right thrust a little. In my setup (CG/Prop/etc) there was not enough right thrust so it was pulling to the left. To fix this, I added a high throttle to right rudder mix. Most times this worked great, but sometimes I would not fly at high throttle on uplines (da-200 has lots o power) and in those cases it would veer to the left.
2) To get the plane to track perfectly straight down, I had to put 6% low throttle to down (push) elevator. What this caused is when killing the throttle from a high throttle/high speed condition the plane would nose down noticeably.
So, on Saturday, I removed the radio mixes for Throttle (high to rudd and low to elev) and test flew. Unfortunately about 4 minutes into the flight the TX battery warning alarm goes off - but it was enough time to verify it needed more right thrust.
So, land, and start the tear-down. Canopy, top cowl, bottom cowl removed - spinner, prop, baffle, etc. There were 2 shims on the right side so I removed 1 thinking that would be enough. While I was in there, I decided to replace the tanks. The tank/lines/etc were still from the original owner (16months old) so were due. I replaced the 60oz Dubro with dual 32oz fortitude tanks. Re-tighten motor bolts/nuts, install new fuel lines to carbs, install new tanks.
Oh yeah, since the above isn't enough of a change (remember - it was flying perfect before I started this) I decide to switch Transmitters. Moving up from a 12X to a DX18QQ. So... after the tanks are installed, it's out to the flight line to test run and setup the throttle end-points / idle. After about 4 or 5 minutes the setup looks good and running great.
Back to the pits, put the baffle back on (after some CA to a crack) then the bottom and top cowl's. Tidy up the fuel lines with some zip-ties.
Now, need to setup the rest of the plane on the new radio. I am running a PowerBox Royal so it should not be too bad. All the balancing functions are done in the PB so a TX change has no effect. Had to move AUX 6 and AUX 7 (2nd Elev and 2nd Rudd) to Aux 4 and Aux 5 since the DX18 is really only 10 channels. Done in 5 seconds with the 18QQ - love it. Now, to setup the control surfaces. I started at 12:30 and it's now 3:30 pm so I am now in a hurry. I wanted to get the work done and put in 2 or 3 test flights. Looks like I will only get one, and I have to hurry to get that one.
I pulled out the digital throw meter and did a quick setup on the Ailerons and Elevators. Left the rudder as it was - which I am not sure of since I didn't look at it at all =/ Set them up to be equal at neutral and at full deflection.
Range check looked good - time to try her out. Fire it up and put the coals to her. Didn't want to lift off and after about 3/4 up stick on the elev it slowly lifted up. Mr. Mike Smith was then utilized to put in about 22 clicks of up elevator (elev trim set at 5) which is a TON. Anyway, about 6 clicks of right aileron and it seemed to be pretty trimmed out. Once I move those initial trim's to physical changes or subtrims, I can set the trim setting back to 1 and have more control over fine tuning the trim.
CG looks a little more nose heavy than before. May not be too bad based on what I have been seeing - seems a little nose heavy is better for precision. Upline seemed to be better, but still pilled to the left slightly. I need to remove that 2nd shim. Up thrust looks ok also, but it did originally until I had to put a big downline/low throttle mix in. Hopefully with a little more nose heavy setup the downline mix will be less 
Although not ready for that part yet, I tried an 45 line roll and it had some noticeable "walking" going on. "snap" and "hammer" mixes worked great. Throttle curved seemed nice, high/low idle worked (switch activated correctly).
Anyway, landing goes well and time to pack up. Got about 1/2 what I wanted to get done - done Flew ok, on new radio and tanks didn't leak and no dead-stick. Below are some things I need to do still....
1) Low idle still too high (had to kill engine on short final)
2) Need to remove last shim on right side to add more right thrust
3) Need to continue mixing it out...
....... Maybe a little high throttle to right rudder may still be needed - but should be very small if so
....... May need to move the CG back a little
....... Will need to re-setup the throws to be more accurate and dead-on
....... May need some differential mix
....... Will need to do rudder (flat turn) mix
....... Will need to do downline (low throt-Elev) mix
Dual Rates are not right. Ailerons were a little hot, but by the end of the flight I got used to it and might even like it ??
Elevator is too low and needs to be bumped up.
Love the DX18QQ. I can't say why (11ms speed maybe) but the control surfaces seem to be much faster and crisper on the DX18QQ. I know it doesn't make sense, but that was my observation!? Feels good in my hands, gimbals are smooth (need to increase tension) and it looks damn good!
So, I took a perfect flying plane by all accounts and made it fly like crap. However, I know that by 3-6 more flights I will have it dialed in and will be better than before. Look out Prado - I will be ready to throw another 2nd, 3rd, maybe 5th at ya
I'll write another updated after the next mixing session.
When I started to trim out the Carden at the beginning of the year, I had a couple radio mixes that were added and were causing me some issues.
1) When I started to trim the plane out, when I got to the vertical upline test it was pulling pretty hard to the left. The DA-200 was mounted on a SWB mount with right thrust. I am guessing the previous owner (or the one before him or Frank Noll, well probably not Frank
had it setup (CG/Prop?) where the SWB mount had too much right thrust so it had a shim on the right side (from the cockpit) to reduce the right thrust a little. In my setup (CG/Prop/etc) there was not enough right thrust so it was pulling to the left. To fix this, I added a high throttle to right rudder mix. Most times this worked great, but sometimes I would not fly at high throttle on uplines (da-200 has lots o power) and in those cases it would veer to the left. 2) To get the plane to track perfectly straight down, I had to put 6% low throttle to down (push) elevator. What this caused is when killing the throttle from a high throttle/high speed condition the plane would nose down noticeably.
So, on Saturday, I removed the radio mixes for Throttle (high to rudd and low to elev) and test flew. Unfortunately about 4 minutes into the flight the TX battery warning alarm goes off - but it was enough time to verify it needed more right thrust.
So, land, and start the tear-down. Canopy, top cowl, bottom cowl removed - spinner, prop, baffle, etc. There were 2 shims on the right side so I removed 1 thinking that would be enough. While I was in there, I decided to replace the tanks. The tank/lines/etc were still from the original owner (16months old) so were due. I replaced the 60oz Dubro with dual 32oz fortitude tanks. Re-tighten motor bolts/nuts, install new fuel lines to carbs, install new tanks.
Oh yeah, since the above isn't enough of a change (remember - it was flying perfect before I started this) I decide to switch Transmitters. Moving up from a 12X to a DX18QQ. So... after the tanks are installed, it's out to the flight line to test run and setup the throttle end-points / idle. After about 4 or 5 minutes the setup looks good and running great.
Back to the pits, put the baffle back on (after some CA to a crack) then the bottom and top cowl's. Tidy up the fuel lines with some zip-ties.
Now, need to setup the rest of the plane on the new radio. I am running a PowerBox Royal so it should not be too bad. All the balancing functions are done in the PB so a TX change has no effect. Had to move AUX 6 and AUX 7 (2nd Elev and 2nd Rudd) to Aux 4 and Aux 5 since the DX18 is really only 10 channels. Done in 5 seconds with the 18QQ - love it. Now, to setup the control surfaces. I started at 12:30 and it's now 3:30 pm so I am now in a hurry. I wanted to get the work done and put in 2 or 3 test flights. Looks like I will only get one, and I have to hurry to get that one.
I pulled out the digital throw meter and did a quick setup on the Ailerons and Elevators. Left the rudder as it was - which I am not sure of since I didn't look at it at all =/ Set them up to be equal at neutral and at full deflection.
Range check looked good - time to try her out. Fire it up and put the coals to her. Didn't want to lift off and after about 3/4 up stick on the elev it slowly lifted up. Mr. Mike Smith was then utilized to put in about 22 clicks of up elevator (elev trim set at 5) which is a TON. Anyway, about 6 clicks of right aileron and it seemed to be pretty trimmed out. Once I move those initial trim's to physical changes or subtrims, I can set the trim setting back to 1 and have more control over fine tuning the trim.
CG looks a little more nose heavy than before. May not be too bad based on what I have been seeing - seems a little nose heavy is better for precision. Upline seemed to be better, but still pilled to the left slightly. I need to remove that 2nd shim
. Up thrust looks ok also, but it did originally until I had to put a big downline/low throttle mix in. Hopefully with a little more nose heavy setup the downline mix will be less Although not ready for that part yet, I tried an 45 line roll and it had some noticeable "walking" going on. "snap" and "hammer" mixes worked great. Throttle curved seemed nice, high/low idle worked (switch activated correctly).Anyway, landing goes well and time to pack up. Got about 1/2 what I wanted to get done - done
Flew ok, on new radio and tanks didn't leak and no dead-stick. Below are some things I need to do still....1) Low idle still too high (had to kill engine on short final)
2) Need to remove last shim on right side to add more right thrust
3) Need to continue mixing it out...
....... Maybe a little high throttle to right rudder may still be needed - but should be very small if so
....... May need to move the CG back a little
....... Will need to re-setup the throws to be more accurate and dead-on
....... May need some differential mix
....... Will need to do rudder (flat turn) mix
....... Will need to do downline (low throt-Elev) mix
Dual Rates are not right. Ailerons were a little hot, but by the end of the flight I got used to it and might even like it ??
Elevator is too low and needs to be bumped up.Love the DX18QQ. I can't say why (11ms speed maybe) but the control surfaces seem to be much faster and crisper on the DX18QQ. I know it doesn't make sense, but that was my observation!? Feels good in my hands, gimbals are smooth (need to increase tension) and it looks damn good!
So, I took a perfect flying plane by all accounts and made it fly like crap. However, I know that by 3-6 more flights I will have it dialed in and will be better than before. Look out Prado - I will be ready to throw another 2nd, 3rd, maybe 5th at ya
I'll write another updated after the next mixing session.
