Nigel Heather

Thanks for the tips. Yes a bit of an eye opener about foam - but I don’t know why I am surprised. I’m sure the ply would pull out of the foam, but you just can’t get to it. Even if you coul get it out you would not be able to replace it because it is much longer than the mounting plate slot that is the only access. Also the assembly sequence must be, push the mount in, then slide the ply though the fuselage and the mount locking the mount in place. But I can see no way to acheive that with an assembled fuselage so can only imagine that you have to do it part way though assembly.

I’ve just returned to the hobby after many years to find the world has gone electric. To ease myself in I bought an acrowot foam-e. It has been up a few times and I have been largely impressed. But yesterday it suffered a mishap. I flew it even though my brain was telling me ithe conditions were too gusty but my heart was telling me that there wouldn’t be too many more opportunities this year. Anyway, I brought it in for what was goung to be a smooth landing but, just as it was approaching the mown strip a gust caught it and pushed it down short into the 4” grass. But it still went in flat, had it been a few yards on it would have been a lovely landing but it ended up on its nose. No problem, I thought, had a lot worse with my IC planes. But when I reached it I realised that the undercarriage had been ripped off and the prop snapped. Replacement prop already on the way - but how to repair the undercarriage. The plastic mount has been snapped and ripped out on one side, still in on the other. Looking at the design, there is a thin ply plate on each side which is ebedded in the fuselage and goes through the plastic mount. This plate on one side has snapped. I can see no way of removing/replacing the ply plate - I can think it can only be positioned at manufacturing when the fuselage is in pieces - might explain why there are no spares for this area either. So best I can do is as follows CA, epoxy or wood glue on the two halves of the plate and hope they mate up - you can’t see it once assembled so it is just fingers crossed. Uhu Por on the foam and plastic. CA or epoxy to glue the two halve of the plastic mounting plate together. Any other suggestions. I see that some people drill and tap the plate to using M5 nylon bolts to attach the undercarriage to the mounting plate rather than the steel self tappers supplued in the kit. Having seen the plate I can’t see that working for long. The plastic plate is no more than 1mm thick, but is thickened by circular bosses where the self tappers go in. But these bosses are 5mm in diameter so the guys who have drilled out to M5 will have removed all that material and just tapped into 1mm of plastic. You could get away with M3, maybe M4 nylon bolts but would they be man enough, or just shear off on good landings. Cheers, Nigel

Posted by Geoff Sleath on 17/09/2018 00:17:15: I've just watched episode 2 and, on the whole, enjoyed it but I was also surprised at how incompetent a lot of the flying was. I mean there was at least 3 pilots there who had no experience of flying fixed wing models at all and would have failed an 'A' certificate test comprehensively. It also seemed odd how may of the 110s had motor trouble and, as a result of (presumably) asymetric thrust spun in. I wonder if they were properly built and checked before flying. They can't be that bad. I've never had a serious (ie catastrophic) failure of a brushless motor in many, many hours of flying electric models. I was rather sad at the attrition rate of perfectly good models. Still I'll certainly watch the next (last?) episode. Geoff The programmed mentioned this as a deliberate act to simulate new pilots turning up with barely any flying hours. The new pilots had one or more years flying FPV Quadcopters under their wings - so the programme makers were comparing this with green pilots that had dine some flying but barely anything on performance warplanes like the Spitfire and Hurricane. The Bf-110 - I suspect that was a design error - I can’t see what the guys assembling it could have done wrong. In these cits the motors and ESCs are already in place - really just a matter of plugging the servo wire into the receiver. The fact that it was the port motor in each case and the starboard one was fine smells of manufacturing error to me. It did puzzle me that so many aircraft crashed in the final battle once they had been ‘hit’ and the smoke triggered.  I don’t beleive the pilots were that bad, I suspect this was under instruction from the programme makers to make the action more exciting for the viewers.  I know we look at it as a waste but in the big picture of TV production the cost of those kits would be trivial. Cheers, Nigel Edited By Nigel Heather on 17/09/2018 10:21:41 Edited By Nigel Heather on 17/09/2018 10:24:16 Edited By Nigel Heather on 17/09/2018 10:25:02

Posted by Allan Bennett on 12/09/2018 19:56:41: I'm not sure where HK comes into the equation: You said you bought from Amazon, so you can return to Amazon for a full refund if it's not what you expected. I've done that in the past, with no problem even though it was my fault for ordering the wrong thing. Just go to 'Your orders' on their web site, select the transaction in question, and you should see a click-button for 'Return or Replace Items'. I was aware already, but confirmed in a BBC news article this morning - over half the items sold through Amazon are by third party sellers. In those cases Amazon require you to deal with the seller to resolve issues. To protect their reputation, Amazon will step in if the seller has done something wrong and is not playing ball, but in cases like this I’m afraid they will say “contact the seller and arrange a return”. Of course a return to HK is not goung to be realistic. Best the OP could do is see whether the seller would be nice and send on the electrics pack for a reasonable additional charge.

Bit of a set back. Took it down to the field and flew even though I thought the wind conditions were a bit gusty. Sure enough the plane flew okay but was getting blown around a bit. So brought it into the land and on approach a gust pushed it down early into the uncut grass. Thought it had landed okay but had ripped the undercarriage mount out of the foam. Also broke the prop. So needs a bit of gluing but nothing too serious - replace the prop which is no bad thing because the one in the kit flexes a lot. Cheers, Nigel

Checked the actual down trim - although 14 clicks it is only between 1.5mm and 2.0mm deflection in real terms.

Thanks for the replies and apologies for the confusion caused for the way I described the trim applied. So in summary With all surfaces set to neutral, the plane climbs under power, shallow climb with minimal power, gets steeper with more power, but not ballooning. Applied 14 clicks of down trim (now using correct terminology) and that has resolved the climbing and the plane flies very nicely (although not tried inverted or any aerobatics yet). So I could just leave it at that. But as I said in my first post, intrigued to know the cause and resolve it if possible. I will try the dive tests. And fair point about the 14 clicks - is that a lot - depends on the radio I guess - will look at the plane today and report back with the actual deflection of the elevator. Cheers, Nigel

I don’t think CoG is an issue.  It is balanced at 75mm exactly as per the instructions and once the climb is trimmed out it behaves very nicely. A nose heavy plane would resist climbing.  And it doesn’t have any of the nasty vices of a tail heavy plane. Cheers, Nigel Edited By Nigel Heather on 14/09/2018 15:10:33

Posted by PatMc on 14/09/2018 11:52:52: Assuming that, as IanR mentioned, you mean you solved the problem with down trim then it sounds as if it's simply nose heavy. Try moving the cg back in small increments test flying, at each change, to check that elevator doesn't become too sensitive. Or without moving the cg try flying inverted with & see what trim change is required to fly S&L as power is increased. If up (in the normal upright flying sense) then it would confirm that it's nose heavy. It is quite possible that the problem can't be cured by moving the cg far enough back & still remain flyable in which case I'd try the Tx mix of down trim with increased power as suggested by JD8. If your Tx has the facility use a small time delay (about 0.25 - 0.5 second) between throttle opening & trim action or be ready for the down trim to take effect before the power increase does, especially on low passes. Can’t see it being nose heavy, surely that would cause it to dive rather than climb. Think it is a terminology issue - when I said up trim, I meant that I pushed the uppermost trim button, like pushing the stick up. So when I said UP I’m referring to the stick input rather than what happens to the nose. Cheers, Nigel

    Posted by IanR on 14/09/2018 10:49:14: Nigel I had exactly the same problem - it was so bad that I gave up on it. When you say you solved the issue with 14 clicks of up trim, did you really mean down trim? Ian Think just different terminology for the same thing. I’m expressing it as I have to move the stick up to level the flight, so I have to click the upper of the two trim buttons. So I am moving the elevator stick (trim button) up to push the nose down. Will do some more experiments over the weekend weather permitting. Cheers, Nigel Edited By Nigel Heather on 14/09/2018 11:46:45 Edited By Nigel Heather on 14/09/2018 11:47:11 Edited By Nigel Heather on 14/09/2018 11:48:07

Posted by Josip Vrandecic -Mes on 14/09/2018 10:23:08: Hi Nigel , it's always what looks impossible to change... and it's a thrust line. There must be a way and if you can not, call a colleague from the club ... someone will know how to set the motor to -2 dgrs down and 2 dgrs right ... aprox. All the best and good flight. Note:Of course this is just my opinion. When I say the thrust line cannot be changed - what I mean is that the motor is attached to a metal bracket that is sandwiched between the two halves of the foam fuselage when it is assemble in China. There is no way of getting at it other than cutting the fuselage in half. I guess you could try and put washers between the mount and the motor but that would be pretty trucky to do. I’ve also read that the thrust line wanders over time - so maybe I just have to accept that as a limitation of this type of foam design. Looking at my model there is definite right thrust but no discernable up or down thrust. Is there a way of testing whether it is thustline or CoG?

Firstly, let me say that I have the plane flying nicely, this is just a minor niggle that I would like to understand and sort out if possible. This is an Acrowot Foam-e. Maidened yesterday, extremely well behaved, not as fast as I thought it might me. the one issue, which I have addressed at the moment with 14 clicks of up elevator is that with neutral elevator it would climb under the slightest power - a steady climb not a ballooning. So what might be the cause and what (if anything) can I do about it. My thoughts Tail Heavy - CoG is at 75mm as per instructions. Besides it is very behaved otherwise. Only thing is that there is some online debate as UK (Ripmax) Acrowot specifies 75mm and the US (Flyzone) Acrowot specifies 62mm Incidence - either wing or tailplane, but they are both properly seated. Thrust line - the mount is embedded in the foam so not much I can do about that Feature - maybe all acrowot foam-e models do this. Are there any flight tests that I can do to identify the cause? Cheers, Nigel

Managed to maiden yesterday evening. Decided to leave the throws as they were ELE - 19mm AIL - 16mm RUD - 45mm I arbitrarily set rates to 50% on all so it wouldn't be too wild on the first flights. Flew very nicely and in fact, part way through I realised that I had knocked the rate switch when fitting the battery so was flying on full throws all the time. Very well behaved apart from a tendency to climb up even the slightest power which took 14 clicks of up elevator to sort out Edited By Nigel Heather on 14/09/2018 09:56:53

Posted by Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 11/09/2018 00:07:02: Control throws are not an exact science Nigel! I would interpret what is being said as "set the lower value as low rates and the higher as high rates". Which do you choose for the initial flight? Well how brave/experienced/foolhardy do feel? If your feeling cautious take off with low rates and see how that feels. If you have flown lots of models like this before well bang in the high rates - if its a bit lively just use a bit less stick movement and switch to low rates in the air if you want. It really doesn't make that much difference for this type of model, just chill and fly! Now if it was very heavily wing loaded, nervous and twitchy, warbird,...my advice might be very different! But it isn't, so enjoy! BEB Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 11/09/2018 00:07:48 Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 11/09/2018 00:09:34 Yes that is what I would normally do. But that isn’t my question. The instructions say initial value for elevator of 9 to 15mm. So does that mean that 15mm is for initial flights and you would increase larger than 15mm when confident or are they saying that 15mm is the maximum throw you will ever need. The reason I’m after the maxium throw ever needed is so I can set the linkages to match that.

Posted by Bob Cotsford on 10/09/2018 11:44:34: Nigel, with a foamy such as this I wouldn't worry about losing a degree of control precision through the use of end points. Set the lower figure as your low rate and higher as high rate. Start off on low rates and increase movements as you become accustomed to it. The Acrowot is very forgiving, you will be ok with those settings. If you are really concerned, add in 10% or so of expo to slow things up around neutral but you really won't need it. Will do. Take elevator as an example - what I was really asking was that the instructions say for initial flights set throw to 9-15mm. Seems a strange instruction - are they saying set it to 9mm or anywhere between 9mm and 15mm. And if 15mm is okay for initial flights do they mean that it should be set to some undeclared number more than 15mm afterwards. I think they mean set it to 9mm for initial flights and 15mm for more aerobatic flights but that isn't what the words say.

Will do. I was asking about the ranges specified - are they initial through to full - because mine are currently a lot bigger than the upper number and I try to limit the use of computer end points as much as possible

Hi, Didn't get to fly my new Acrowot this weekend - other things got in the way - but hoping to fly during the week. One question I have is about control throws - to be honest this is nothing that I can't sort out myself by just taking down to the field and trying but would appreciate any advice all the same. The manual says For initial flights, we recommend the following control throws - each measured at the widest point of the surface: Elevator: 9~15mm up, 9~15mm down Rudder: 45mm left, 45mm right Ailerons: 6~9mm up 6~9mm down Seems odd to recommend quite a big range for initial flights. Is it badly worded, does it mean use 9mm for the elevator for initial flights and then 15mm once you are comfortable Out of the box setup up exactly per instructions I get Elevator - 19mm Rudder - 45mm Ailerons - 16mm The rudder is fine, but are my elevator and aileron end points too big according to the instructions. If so, then I would normally adjust the linkages, rather than use endpoints on my radio, but not sure I can with this model. The servo arms have a collet type affair where you tighten a screw down onto the linkage wire. The collet is secured to the servo arm with a plastic disk underneath but not clear whether this is screwed on (I don't think so), a push fit or glued on. If I need to move to an inner hole on the servo arm I'm not sure how to remove the collet - I don't want to force the plastic disk off and break it. Cheers, Nigel

All right I'm over it. Stickers all applied, starting to apply a varnish coat and will fly Sunday. I feel I must comment on the 'you get what you pay for' comments. Agree it is cheaper - but not cheap. More expensive than a kindle or some Ikea furniture. If you opened your Ikea bookcase and one of the shelves was a different shade to the rest. Sounds like everyone here would say 2oh it was cheap, what should I expect" and put up with it. Or if they had ordered the black kindle, opened it and it was the white one. Guess everyone here would say "it's just a colour, makes no difference to how it works" and put up with it. Personally, I don't think foamies are particularly cheap - I suspect the manufacturer makes a very tidy profit on them, more perhaps than they do on their more expensive conventional ARTFs. Being cheap is not an excuse for a sloppy job.

Posted by Ikura on 06/09/2018 19:15:42: That's a lot of writing for a reversed coloured sticker. Maybe best to build it, fly it and enjoy it. You just have to accept that very little in this world is perfect, especially model aeroplanes made from foam. I am building it and hope to fly it at the weekend. As I said it'd not the sticker so much, that is the last of a string of things. Should already be finished but delayed because I have had to fix things that were wrong out of the box. The sticker is minor, what irked me is the way Ripmax dealt with my enquiry (on top of the way they had dealt with the previous ones). Anyway, Ripmax have now confirmed that it is wrong and there are no correct ones so I can move on - it is all I needed to hear rather than the BS. Cheers, Nigel

  I would have been fine if he had said "Yes we are aware of this issue, sorry there's not much that can be done until they are reprinted" or "Oh yes you are correct, never noticed that before, I'll feed that back. But I'm sorry, not much more that can be done until they are reprinted" All I wanted to know was whether it was a known problem and whether there are replacement stickers or there are going to be replacement stickers. Instead I am ignored, and told BS that can't possibly be right, stuff that no sane person would believe. And this is off the back of other problems that I haven't described here, like the fuselage halves at the front not glued together and a big dent in the wing from the undercarriage that just rattles around in the box. Ripmax were absolutely useless and unhelpful - fortunately, the retailer, Inwood, were excellent and sorted those problems out at their cost. As you say, the colour of the stickers is not that important, does not affect the flying but it is irritating, because the fuselage sticker and tail stick are meant to combine to form a flowing graphic and latest batch does not do that. Cheers, Nigel Edited By Nigel Heather on 06/09/2018 19:13:52

Ripmax customer service - good grief. So he didn’t return my telephone message or my email, so I called them toward the end of the day. When I spoke to him, he was very coherent, claimed that he had never heard or seen such a thing and suggested that my example was a one off printing glitch. I tried to reason that it seems impossible that a printing print run of stickers would suddenly use a different graphics source for just one sheet in the middle of the run. But he was impervious to reason and insisted that was exactly what had happened. Eventually, I convinced him to go and have a look what they have in their spares and kits. He seemed confident that they would all be correct and woukd send me some replacements. I asked that whatever he found, to let me know by email. He did send me an email confirming that all the spares and kits have the incorrect tail stickers like mine - no s**t sherlock. Still find it very hard to believe that I am the only one to notice. Cheers, Nigel