Peter Jenkins

So what are the incidences of the main wings Bert. Be interested to know so I can check mine. I also need a good bit of down elevator indicating the tailplane is set with too much positive incidence.

That was what I suggested in an earlier post to Toto but I just happened to be looking at wing bags from HK and proposed that as an alternative.

Hi Leccyflyer You are right in that they are out of stock but there is no problem with buying stuff from HK. I've just bought a pair of carbon fibre undercarriage legs from them. It took about 15 days to get to me. One leg had a manufacturing defect, so I photographed the damaged and used their system to feedback that the goods were damaged attaching the photo. It took just over 4 hours for a message to come back to say they were sorry about the problem and that they would be sending a replacement set of legs not just one leg at no further cost to me. Those also took 10 days to reach me. I don't know why you say that the wingbags are not being shipped to the UK other than they are out of stock. The usual rules of anything over £135 will draw customs and VAT charges. Toto Hobby King is a Hong Kong based retailer who used to have warehouses in the UK and EU(Holland). They used to avoid paying VAT by some sleight of hand but that caught up with them and they closed their UK warehouse. Their EU warehouse was closed a little later, presumably for the same reason. But they still have an International Warehouse in Hong Kong and a US warehouse. They are, IMHO, entirely safe to deal with. That having been said, sadly as a result of their activities, many UK model shops went out of business. Indeed, the proprietor of Galaxy Models ended up running the HK UK Warehouse which is where I once met him.

I have flown aircraft with separate wings with a wing joiner tube and two pins front and rear to locate the wing correctly. The wings are held to the fuselage with 2 x 3 mm bolts with thumbscrew heads. The wings have never moved despite this being a fully aerobatic aircraft and having flown many snaps, knife edge manoeuvres etc. I would suggest Toto that you don't glue the wings together as there is really no need to do so. The joiner tube takes all the bending loads and the rear peg aligns the wings. The dowels and bolts at the rear secures the wing to the fuselage. I cannot see any reason to glue the wings together. I would glue the rear locating peg into one wing though. As to forgetting to take the wing tube with you (I did that once but was close enough to home to drive back and get it!) you could buy one of the Hobby King wing bags that has provision for the wing tube and will protect your wings during storage and transit. Probably no more expensive than the do it yourself wing bags I suggested some time ago! I also noticed that they have re-listed their control surface throw gauge which is a great way to set up control throws without having to measure the movement of a control surface. Set up 10 deg up and down for aileron and elevator and 25 deg each way for rudder to give you the low rate positions that will work pretty well for most aircraft. If your Tx allows three rates, you could set a middle rate a bit above this before you get to full rates.

You learn to build up a resistance to the pain as time goes by.

I share your pain Toto.

Paul, I really don't know why you have started this thread yet in the one above take a swipe at people you call "committee" jobsworths who probably don't actually fly but sit on their folding chairs etc..... Most of those who have pointed out safety issues are experienced RC model pilots. Some might even have full size aviation experience. I'm sure there are quite a few like me who have been flying model aircraft (free flight, control line and radio control) from our teenage years (or younger) and, in my case, am comfortably into my 70s but still flying regularly and in competition. We try and pass on our hard won experience and yet you, with little or no experience, think you can criticise us for our words of wisdom. The issue of flight safety is paramount. This includes preparation for flight, which might cover a wide range of topics, actually conducting yourself in a manner that shows that you do take all the required safety precautions that hard won experience has shown are essential, and learning from the experience of others to make sure you don't unnecessarily do the wrong thing.

Toto The bend in the elevator pushrod introduces some flexibility in the pushrod run. This leads to the the potential of flutter affecting the elevators. Flutter is aerodynamic term that relates to the interaction of aerodynamic forces and the flexibility of either the wing/tailplane/fin or the control surface. Flutter is very destructive when it occurs. You should rethink the geometry for the pushrods and the elevator horns so that there is no need for a bend in the pushrod. If there is insufficient strength in the elevator at the point you need to position the control horn, just place a piece of plywoood on the other side and use a nut and bolt to hold the elevator horn in place. As stated above, not having the holes in the elevator horn positioned over the elevator/tail plane hinge line when the elevator is in the neutral position will cause unequal elevator movement. These are not minor issues and you should aim to fix them before flying the aircraft. Best regards Peter

Great work Adrian. Getting the motor mount in the correct place is a real PITA.

Finally got out to fly with an old chum today. He was helping to set up my Flight Coach hardware and to get the pilot box and centre line set up in the hardware. Then I went flying for the first time with Flight Coach. The trace of the flight was enough to put me off using the darn thing but at least I now know what I need to work on. Everything! The photo shows our two birds. My chums model is the CA Model Andes and mine is the B J Craft Anthem both with contra drives.

Took me ages to get past 3/4 of a circuit and ghen crashing! Happy memories of youth spent on Mitcham Common. I remember vividly the first time I flew for a full tankful and the relief when the aircraft landed in one piece! I still have a Phantom with PAW 149 I built in the mid 80s to get my son's interested. No joy unfortunately.

Hi Adrian, I use a 3rd party telemetry device that will talk to most RC brands. It's called a UnisensE and is made by SM Modelbau in Germany. They make 2 versions - 1 rated to 140 A (Euro 65.90) and one to 280 A (Euro 86.90). The difference seems to be just the size of wiring with which it is supplied. You can specify what type of connector or just bare wires. It just plugs between the pack and ESC and you plug into the Rx telemetry port. There is also a useful MAX/ACTUAL/MIN feature that allows you to look at MAX values and that needs another channel. There is also a lead to connect to one of the 3 phase wires to the motor that gives RPM. (Link) A customer of SM Modelbau has translated the manual into English but with the proviso that it is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate! I have to say that it's served me well enough. (Link) The device is very small and weighs between 15 - 20 g so really in your aircraft you can ignore that additional weight. This gives you a read out onto your Tx screen of a wide range of parameters: A, V, W, RPM, height, rate of climb etc. If your Tx supports it, you can also set pack capacity in the Tx and this will decrement based on the UnisensE current flow x time. One thing to note is that as soon as you switch off the Rx the information is lost! If you want to keep all the information then they sell the UniLog which has a micro SD card to record all the data. That is a bit more expensive at Euro 99. I have never used this system but I might be tempted to do so in the future. The English manual is here. Make sure you buy the USB cable with the item as that allows you to: firstly, set it up and, secondly, to take firmware updates. It really is very simple to set up and is an absolute boon when it comes to checking out the current draw for your installation. Obviously it can be used on the ground dispensing with external Wattmeters. In my opinion, they are worth their weight in gold as you can be sure of what is happening when the aircraft is airborne. I found that the airborne current/power can be reduced by up to 25% compared with figures derived when the aircraft is tied to the ground as the load on the prop then becomes much more than when the aircraft is free to fly and that means for electric motors that they just keep demanding more current till the white smoke appears!

Interesting to read the prop size Adrian. Do you know what sort of power/current that pulls in your other installations? I was expecting a higher pitch. I'm running a 23x20 front and rear on my 2 outrunners in my Anthem with the motors rated at 3,600 W and 99 A with a kv of 165. In the air the telemetry rarely shows more than 3,000 W and around 80 A.

Thanks Leccyflier. What a strange way to describe a power set up. It would have been better to put a power figure for the motor. If you take the flying weight at 4 Kg or 8.8 lb using 100 W/lb gives you 880 W as the motor power needed.

Slightly confused Toto. The photo of the Tiger box in your first post shows it as a .91 or 15 cc motor. You have called it a Tiger 60 throughout. So, which version is it? 91 or 60?

Frank, I use Maxlock or Ashlock connectors. You can get them from a single to a 4 plug setup. They have autolocking as well. I use a 4 way connector for my wing and that just needs one connection to be made. See link.

Harry I've found that taking current draw readings with the aircraft tethered gives an artificially high current draw as the motors are kept stationary. If you have on-board telemetry, that will be the best way to find out what is being drawn while airborne. As an example, my set up has a 10S power pack and a Hacker Q80 motor rated at 2,800 watts. I use a 3rd party on-board telemetry module (Link) that can be set up to talk to almost any radio, and this gives me my data. When I did a ground power check, I briefly saw 3,600 watts and 99 amps at full throttle. Needless to say, I closed the throttle pronto! However, in the air, the maximum power I have seen, and then only once after slowing the aircraft down to almost stalling speed then applying full throttle and flying a vertical upline, was 2850 watts and 80 amps. The normal maximum I see is 2750 watts. I conclude therefore that using on-board telemetry will be far more useful than trying to check current draw/ power with the model tethered. The UnisensE is very light (10-20 g) and small and well worth the money. You can move it from model to model to check all your other models as well. Whilst you can test on the ground and reduce the power draw to not exceed 10 amps, once in the air, your power train will be up to 25% below what it is rated at. If the performance you get is fine then that's OK. If power is less than expected the best way forward is to check the power/current with airborne telemetry. Peter

All true Ron, but the rules allow the use of rates and mixes and stick position switches. The rules do not allow the use of gyros. That's the point. Like I said, it's fine to use gyros to help to control the aircraft when landing in gusty conditions when training but you have then to remove them for competition. My point is that you might not be used to dealing with landing in gusty conditions in a competition if you used the gyro when practicing. Yes, the carnage in props and u/c as a result of less than perfect arrivals is an issue!

Hi Ron, Phil actually also flies in F3A competitions and is merely pointing out that the rules state you must not have such a function in your model. At International events you would have your model fail validation. It doesn't matter if you say you only use it for take off and landing. Incidentally, Take off and Landing are marked in Clubman and Intermediate so using the gyro there is clearly cheating. This is not the case with Masters and FAI(P)/(F). I guess it comes down to how you read and interpret the rules. A way out is to remove the function physically before competition so you gain from reducing risk on landing (I personally think the take off risk is far smaller and wouldn't bother to use a gyro for that). A recent ruling by the FAI has outlawed the use of Flight Coach in competition. There is no reason you cannot use it in practice but definitely not in competition. I use a small key chain camera to record my flights but that is also now not allowed for competition flying. Folk may think this is all very silly but that's what the rules state and if you want to fly in competition then you have to abide by the rules. I entirely take your point about being able to fly in turbulent conditions for take off and landing during practice. I have several broken u/c legs to my credit for landing accidents in very gusty conditions - most recently during the 2nd of 3 flights at a competition! Arguably, using a pitch/roll levelling gyro would have removed that risk during practice. The alternative view is that unless you are up to speed in handling turbulent landing conditions during a competition then you are increasing the risk of a landing incident/accident. I tend to take the latter view so do not use gyros to help in landing even during practice. Just my view.

Martin, we'll just have to disagree on the use of aids when learning to fly precision aerobatics. I can't comment on learning 3D as I don't fly that discipline.

Martin, please don't twist my words.

Only problem is Martin in having to cope without it! In my opinion, using any form of stabilisation for aerobatics, even or particularly when learning, is counter productive. You either want to fly aerobatics or play at flying aerobatics. Each to their own but where is the satisfaction in flying a geometrically accurate and wind corrected manoeuvre?

With the carbon plate glued in place, Keith had recommended a layer of glass cloth along the plate/fuselage join. I was about to do that when I spotted an offcut from the carbon sandwich and thought gluing a short length of that to the rear of the u/c plate would both spread the load into the already carbon reinforced side fuselage and act to prevent the u/c plate being rotated by the u/c forces. As my Hysol epoxy had nor turned up, I used that to glue these side pieces in place as its thixotropic form meant it wouldn’t dribble away. I also use the opportunity to fill in the gaps caused by the normal epoxy running down inside the fuselage and leaving at glue gap at the top of the plate/fuselage junction. As the Hysol takes 12 hours to set, I left it for 24 hrs and then refitted the motor, ESCs and battery tray and reconnected the ESCs and the telemetry leads to the Rx. I gave the Anthem a quick ground run to check the new ESC’s functioning and all was well. I ran the motors up to an indicated 2,600 watts to check that the ESCs were working. At that power level, I was having difficulty in holding onto the fuselage by the u/c legs – it was restrained but I didn’t want the tail planes holding the aircraft with that amount of power being used! The subsequent air test showed that the only change in trim caused by slightly less downthrust in the motor setting requiring a bit less up elevator trim. Since I had not changed any settings for the wings, the zero aileron trim was spot on and the vertical up and down lines were also spot on. So, I can now re-start getting re-acquainted with my 2023 aerobatic mount. The slight increase in all up weight is a disappointment (I forgot to do a before and after repair weight check on the fuselage but I would guess the weight increase is of the order of 50-80 g. It is surprising how many differences there are between the Element which uses a different motor and ESC and the Anthem.

The Olympus is an excellent choice for the first proper F3A acrobatic aircraft. However,trimming an F3A aircraft takes time and involves making sure the thrust line is correct so that effects of power changes are negated as far as possible. There is slso the task of getting the relationship between the wing and tail incidence. These are difficult to achieve with the Olympus so it is a compromise but nevertheless an excellent choice for improving your precision aerobatics. I cannot comment on how good it is at 3D as I have no interest in flying 3D. One thing to remember is that, like all foamies, it does not hold trim well in comparison with all wood construction. Be prepared to have to re-trim the Olympus every flying session. If you think that is not the case then your flying skills still have some way to go as does your ability to observe what the aircraft is doing - it's just a fact. The Olympus does provide resistance to minor damage that would require a trip to the workshhop for a "crunchie" though! Remember that less control movement is better for precision aerobatics - something that new comers to the discipline find hard to understand until they fly a properly set up F3A airframe.

Exactly the right attitude Toto.