n00bs Gonna Build a Carden

[gareth.ky]

Yea, who would do such a thing, kick a Carden? I mean that must be like 7 years bad luck or something.

No I haven't fixed it you, you can see it in the last pic but its small. Probably have to peel up the whole turtle deck covering to get to that. Not sure if i will have time to do that before the contest.

Tony called from DA and the motor is headed back this way on the big brown truck today. Carden also sent out the replacement wheel pants. She should be back int he air by this weekend for some practice.

[why_fly_high]

That is some fast service man. I am glad you will get some more stick time before we head to Kansas.

Dan

[TrojanMan]

	Quote: Originally Posted by why_fly_high
	That is some fast service man. I am glad you will get some more stick time before we head to Kansas. Dan

Just don't let Dan hold your airplane!

[KEITH RUSH]

Gareth,

Thanks for the reply. When you ironed down your stripes, did you just have to do the edges or did you go over the whole stripe? If you had to go over the whole stripe, were there any bubble introduced? Never used the windex method. I've always just ironed down on really low heat and never had too much problem.

Thanks,

Keith

[gareth.ky]

	Quote: Originally Posted by KEITH RUSH
	Gareth, Thanks for the reply. When you ironed down your stripes, did you just have to do the edges or did you go over the whole stripe? If you had to go over the whole stripe, were there any bubble introduced? Never used the windex method. I've always just ironed down on really low heat and never had too much problem. Thanks, Keith

0 bubbles, I went over the whole thing with the iron set at 190. Its really amazing, when you come back the next day the pieces are kind of stuck together. The don't move and its hard to even tell if its been heated enough. Walt says he goes around the edges with trim solvent just to make sure they are stuck.

After doing this I totally understand how some of those amazing Monokote jobs are done. It's just not as hard as you think. Once the parts are cut out correctly the rest is really easy. Like this:



90% of the work in that is cutting out all the pieces.

[why_fly_high]

	Quote: Originally Posted by TrojanMan
	Just don't let Dan hold your airplane!

Or Jim keep your stab tube.

Dan

[gareth.ky]

Trying to get everything ready for a weekend of trim flights and IMAC practice. Up till now I have just been tooling around and trying to get the motor to run reliably. Play time is over, time for this thing to start performing.

I made up a trim chart to take to the field. All the surfaces will get adjusted for dead center and equal throws with a throw meter before I go flying.

New wheel pants are here from Carden. They look like the same glass/resin that the cowl was made from. Still need major filling & sanding of the seam though. I need on the airplane to work with the CG in its final location and for the drag reduction that can affect trim.

The 'invasion' style stripes are going on the bottom of the wings and elevator. Stripes are going on the fuse tonight. Hinge gaps are all sealed with Blenderm.

I'm adding 1/8" to the spacer block to help the spinner better clear the cowl. It doesn't rub but it is really close. When the motor was loose it did rub a little.

Motor is on time and should be in my hands on Friday. Things are looking good.

[whaturi]

Gareth, love the plane! Yours is the third Carden thread I have read the whole way through and by far the most detailed and comunicative. I am preparing to build a Carden this winter and I am very grateful for your honest documentation.. it really helps to see the problems you had and how you fixed them. Looks like you got a very nice plane out of the deal, not to mention the building skills you will carry with you on your next build. I'll be looking for your name on the IMAC results section.. get that thing trimmed!

[gareth.ky]

Thank You whaturi! I has hoping I would encourage someone to try their hand at building. At some point I want to wrap this thread up with a review of the airplane and the build but its not quite done yet. I still have a lot to learn about paint!

I got the motor back from DA this week (thank you DA for the quick turnaround time!) and went our flying on Saturday. I just worked on trimming the airplane. The C.G. is very good and i got most of the way through the trim chart without having to do a thing. It seems to have no need for aileron differential. The thrust line seems just fine. It was windy, maybe blowing 20mph and gusty at the end of the day and it was still nice to fly.

Right now I'm working on the Yaw -> Pitch coupling (it has a good bit) and Yaw -> Roll coupling (not too bad). It wants to pitch down hard and roll outside when rudder is applied in a flat turn. I started out with a simple linear mix but I couldn't correct it even with 20% up elevator at full deflection. So I started working on a curved mix to add more up earlier in the curve and this was starting to produce results. Its entirely correctable in software I just need a bit more stick time to dial the mix in.

In the sim I fly this model of a Carden 330 that Jason Noll flew. I really like the way that model handles so I looked in on how it was set up and mixed. I was kind of shocked. Its got no more than 30% expo on low rates. There is barely any elevator throw and its got a massive roll rate. So i throw out my entire setup and tried to emulate that on my model. I got pretty close and I really liked the feel of the airplane like that.

At first there was too much aileron throw and the snaps were so fast the airplane whistled! I'm down to just 25% of the elevator throw, really its probably less than 15 degrees. I think I want even less. I might make a mechanical change but its nice to have lots of elevator available for taxing and landings. the rudder has much more feel now. I realized I had something like 65% expo in the rudder, no wonder it felt weak! On regular linkages you need about 30% expo to get to linear throws. On that rudder the linkage is linear so I set it back to 0. By the end of the day I had bumped it up a bit but I could probably just reduce the throw instead. Its got more than enough to do a stall turn on low rates.

And now the bad news, the canister is a piece or . I had problems starting the motor all day. Twice I had to ask Greg to break out the electric starter to get it going. We played with the settings all day and it did not help. I left the field with a flooded engine that wouldn't start. The KS-95 and the DA-85 do not get along. I will put the canister up for sale but I cannot in good conscience give it to someone for an 85.

I'm looking at the MTW-110. Greg had a Slimline pits but I checked the fit and I would have to chop the bottom edge of the motor box. The box is already lightened and I don't want to weaken it further. I'll be calling DA in the morning for their advice.

[gareth.ky]

Here is a link to the model I was was talking about for anyone that has Real Flight G3. And here is a pic:

[whaturi]

Yeah Gareth, I fly in the intermediate class, and I have settled on my IMAC setup having lots of aileron and just enough rudder and elevator to do a nice pitch deviation and auto rotation for snaps. You should be looking at 25-28 degrees aileron, 11-13 degrees elevator, and 30-35 degrees rudder. I had an invitational class pilot fly my plane last year and he setup the rates by doing snaps as he lowered each function. So he lowered the elevator until the nose pitched up just a small amount at the beginning of the snap. Then the rudder was turned down to the point that the plane would give a moderate, but not extreme auto rotation. I use these settings to fly everything but hammers and rollers. Those two need a switch to activate a bit more rudder. Now when I talk about setting the plane up in this way, it is assumed that you will be doing snap rolls the "IMAC" way, which is to pop the elevator, completely release the elevator, and go right to rudder and aileron until you want to stop the rotation. This is pretty difficult to learn, and takes a good while, but you will end up with snaps that are scoreable and maintain thier energy even after a double upline snap. Try to get the technique down on G3. Record it and go back and watch the recording at 25% sim speed. Open up the little transmitter box so you can watch your inputs. Make sure that the elevator is pulled to the stop and back up to nuetral before ANY rudder or aileron is started. I still have trouble leaving in a touch of elevator, and it takes a real applied effort to do it this way.

didn't mean to take so much space on this, but I think it is so much easier to learn fresh instead of doing it the other way for a few years and trying to switch when you realize your snaps are throwing you off your lines.

[tommy321]

	Quote: Originally Posted by whaturi
	...snap rolls the "IMAC" way, ...

I'm no expert, but everything I've been taught would score that snap as a zero. If you unload the snap before it's finished (i.e. let go of the elevator), the judge can deduct 1 point for every 10 degrees of roll that you unload.

Not to hijack the thread or anything?

Tom

[why_fly_high]

	Quote: Originally Posted by tommy321
	I'm no expert, but everything I've been taught would score that snap as a zero. If you unload the snap before it's finished (i.e. let go of the elevator), the judge can deduct 1 point for every 10 degrees of roll that you unload. Not to hijack the thread or anything? Tom

OK to completely hijack this thread, that is wrong. It is acceptable to unload a snap and is pretty much required for most snaps, particularly vertical. What can nail you is getting out of the rudder and "rolling out" the last part of a snap. Some fullscale planes will push down after starting the positive snap to really unload it.

Dan

[gareth.ky]

I find that when I don't "unload" the snap, particularly on downlines, I end up exiting the snap with the nose high. I can do a pretty decent snap in the sim and once I get it all dialed in I'm sure I can transfer that to the real thing. I was laying a few down on Saturday and they didn't look that bad. I was seriously over rotating though, the roll rate is just a hair too fast.

[mflander]

Too much rudder is a common cause of over rotation also.