Gordon Bushell

I must be a bit light on undercarriage fixings on my Acrowot (balsa artf electrified) as it only has 2 off M4 nylon bolts. It still takes a fairly poor landing to remove the undercarriage, and to date the only fuselage damage has been dings from the undercarriage striking the bottom of the plane.

I think that sometimes pain is required to reinforce the lessons. I have always been very careful to remove the prop when working on my planes. I have been repairing my electric conversion acrowot, and had almost finished, so put the prop and spinner back on to check the cg. After that I realised I hadn't checked the rudder servo, but foolishly thought that I'd leave the prop on for the brief check. I powered the fuselage up on the living room table, and as I moved the rudder, almost knocked the tx off the table. Now, the motor only got to tick over, and yet I gained over a dozen parallel cuts, about 2.5" long, and about 0.25" apart. I hate to think what would have happened if the motor reached flat out, and I'd dropped the tx. I think I might just spend the moment or two it takes to remove the prop again.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but I was browsing online earlier, and noticed that the model had updated graphics. On closer inspection, the blurb indicates that it is stabilised, and the pilot can choose by how much in flight. If that's not enough, there is a panic button which, given enough height "aggressively" returns the model to straight and level flight. It certainly looks to have potential. I think it will probably increase a beginners first model's lifetime, and save some from becoming disillusioned. Any drawbacks?

I used to practice archery quite seriously, and at one tournament a group of spectators ducked under the ropes, and walked between the archers and their targets.

Not much spring flying for me, work has been in the way. I was overjoyed to get to the field on Saturday, on a nice warm calm day. After some difficulty shaking the rust out of my landings on previous visits this year, I decided to do some circuits and bumps. After a mammoth session with the trainer, the Acrowot had two packs of circuits and bumps, and I thought I had it cracked. I was just about to pack up when another member turned up, so I thought I would use up another pack in the acrowot. Shortly after take off, the gentle easterly breeze was cancelled out by a good southwesterly sea breeze, so the final approach was from the other end of the strip. As I approached, I let the plane slow too much, and almost stalled. I opened the throttle, thought I'd still be able to get in, and shut down again. The plane fell like a shot pheasant, and I was left looking at a gap in the sky where it used to be. Drat. I'll have to get some engine mounts, and glue the fuselage back together, but it looks like it could have been worse. Still, at least I won't be too upset if im stuck at work all weekend...

I nearly lost my kiel kraft nomad on Baildon Moor when I lived nearby. I cast it off the hill into wind, and for once it tracked straight and true, and didn't descend as fast as the ground by some margin. The twelve year old me had to run some way through the heather and bracken to retrieve it.

Looking at my log, the lowest I have taken the remaining capacity on landing is 14% by my handy battery checker. Obviously, by the time the batteries have got home, they have recovered slightly, but I'm not sure by how much. With 14% remaining, on three occasions I have recharged only 60% to 65% of the alleged capacity. It is interesting to note that the difference between 30% remaining and 14% remaining is about 150-200mAh from a 4500mAh pack. I reckon peak loads are around 20-22C discharge (static), and the average for the flight around 5C. Hope this helps.

Depending on how deeply you want to get into it, you might like to look up the peukert effect for light bedtime reading. Basically, battery capacity is not constant, but decreases as the discharge rate increases. Or just fly to the timer, and don't worry too much!

One thing to bear in mind is that the charger may be a half amp charger, but you can only put a half amp into the battery until the voltage reaches fully charged. At this point I believe most chargers cut the charge rate to keep the voltage constant. I know my charger only says the battery is full after a period of oscillating between 0.1A and 0.0A charge rate, although the bulk of the charging may be at 3A or more. Things can take even longer if you are balance charging. My charger, and I think most except the most basic chargers have a counter that measures the mAh put into the battery. Personally I tend to keep my battery packs above 30% full immediately after landing, but this may be over cautious. I have started to notice with the older packs and low temperature at present that the performance has dropped off, despite plenty of remaining capacity.

Just as a footnote to what I said earlier, I have just received an email from our club committee. In view of the article in BMFA News, they have decided to remove the ban on lone flying, as an experiment until the next AGM. Whilst not recommended, lone flying is now possible. At least now if I'm the only bloke there I'll be able to fly now, with all due care, of course.

Our club has a no flying alone rule. Personally I don't agree with the rule, but it has been there since I started flying, and I abide by it. The reason given is for safety reasons. I have to say, I find it very frustrating, I have often been alone at the field. The club is very small, with only 5 or 6 regular fliers, I think I am the only one working, and the retired often make use of the better weather through the week. I am often tempted to break the rule when alone, I ride bicycles, sail, and windsurf alone. I often work alone on boats and my old cars. To my mind flying models is by some distance not the most risky thing I do, and I like to think that I know and accept the risks that I do take. I don't know how some people have the nerve to get into bed-most people die in one.

Good grief! I'm almost halfway down that list! Surely some mistake?

I've no experience of the black horse zlin, but do have their chipmunk and mosquito. I also have the artf acrowot. I've not flown the mosquito yet, but it is very light in the fuselage formers. The chipmunk also looks more fragile than the acrowot. I'd be interested to see what the zlin was like. I thoroughly enjoy flying the acrowot, and so far it has proven resilient enough for me. Happily, so far it's the only one in the club here, everyone else haswot4s. The construction of the black horse models doesn't really give me any great concern, except that I wouldn't want to give one a hard thump.Edited By Gordon Bushell on 16/03/2013 08:43:12

Richard, I guess that means longer flights, and fewer chances to mess up the landings! No buddy box here, but a couple of swift hand-overs, especially with a glitchy radio in the first few days... I can expand; 36 flights on the Eflite Apprentice, one new motor and prop due to flat tx batteries Average current draw around 8A on 3s. I don't fly this one much now, in fact, just the once to prove the new motor. 8 flights on the BH Chipmunk, slight undercarriage repairs suggested something tougher would be better for a learner, after flight no. 4 last May. I've just restarted flying this, I'm still a little nervous landing this one, and have just moved the cg forward a fraction, hopefully it'll be a little smoother on the elevator now, or maybe I need to calm myself down a bit. Average current draw around 22A on 4s. 53 flights on the Acrowot ARTF, 4 sets of nylon undercarriage bolts, and one rudder servo stripped stalling on a too slow approach. Average current draw around 17A on 4s. On a slightly different subject, what do you chaps log? Mine is date, model, duration, battery pack, start %, end %, capacity used to recharge, average current during flight, any damage.

Hello Oliver, My acrowot mk2 artf is electric. It uses a KMS Quantum 4120/05 motor, a 75A or 80A esc, and a 4s 4500mAh pack. The prop is an APC-E 13x8. The battery lives on a tray where the tank would go. The only bug bear is that I have to remove the wing to change batteries. I didn't want to cut a hatch in my lovely new model though. Performance is plenty good enough for me, and a 7 minute flight of loops, rolls, stall turns and the like leave me with about 30% battery life left. Performance is much better at 10?C than 2 or 3. There are a few pictures of it in my album. Hope this helps. You have flown before, right?Edited By Gordon Bushell on 10/03/2013 14:09:39