Simon Chaddock

Edgeflyer The EPO that the FX707 is moulded from is pretty flexible but it does have a particularly smooth and almost shiny skin. I have not tried a laminating film but this shows the effect on the EPD using the sort of heat level required for shrink wrap. The LE 2204 motor I used is not that easy to come by in the UK as AliExpress won't deliver it to the UK. I got mine through Amazon but is now showing "out of stock". It is available though Ebay but in the £25+ range. In other words more than the FX707 itself! Most motors of this size are intended for multi copters that use a large diameter threaded prop mount rather than a 3 mm shaft needed for a folding prop.to be Flew the flapped FX707 again today in not ideal conditions but managed to use the flaps. The stage 1 flap (20% flap down, 20% elevator down) seems just about right with no trim change it just flies a bit slower. The stage 2 setting (40% flap down and elevator 40% down) also has little trim change. it flies even slower. It will need better conditions (and a much dryer field!) to experiment with different flap/elevator settings up to 100% flap (75 degrees).

Repeats? You mean you didn't watch the Great Escape (yet again) along with Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu and Die Hard? That was actually on twice on different channels. You don't know what you are missing but then again perhaps you do. 😉

I did try to fly the Flapped FX707 with the 2.4 gig radio but for some reason it did not like working with the Hobby King TX6i transmitter. The very short flight ended with no control or power but only slight damage as the field is really soft and muddy. The replacement Lemon 6ch has been installed but this time in the cockpit. It does make it rather congested but the Lemon has a long shielded part of the aerial which is led back to under the wings so the important bit is as far away as possible from everything. Almost impossible to see against the white EPO but the true aerial is between the red marks. I managed a reasonable flight yesterday but the wind was rather too strong for it so I had no opportunity to try the flap/elevator mix. As I expected the Lemon Rx had no range issues with the HK TX6i. Roll on some better and dryer weather!

Depends what you means by sub micro but I use many 3.7g servos on my out door models including some light weight EDFs! I don't have any power issues using small servos but with plastic gears they are rather susceptible to "handling" damage. At 585g (20.6oz) bit heavy for indoors but it still uses 3.7g servos.

Futura57 My flying field is far too rough for retracts so it has to be a belly land. If I can get the weight low enough it will hand launch too rather than a catapult. I do have one plane, a Depron Ballerina, that has retracts but it has to be hand launched wheels down as the wheel wells become hand holds then retracted for flight but kept retracted for a belly landing! All rather bizarre!

I have to think carefully on what to build next as I am seriously out of space. Removable wing glider is acceptable but make an generous area EDF with a removable swept wing is much harder and even then the wing takes up quite a bit space on its own. I do like building something scale where a super light weight foam build has a distinct advantage for it to actually fly well in my rough(ish) grass field. My current thoughts are a Douglas X-3 Stiletto. 😣 The full size was a bit of a disaster performance wise so it makes an "interesting" candidate. I can find plenty of 3 views but so far I have yet to find any fuselage cross sections. The wings are easy, small and thin but with such relative proportions the fuselage is what the X-3 is all about so I want to get it right. Will have to keep looking.

Only this rather poor quality "hat cam video of the F6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRo3ptaeeuA&t=1s You can tell by the sound much of the flight was at reduced power. It is the glide approach and landing that really shows how gently it flies.

This was the first plane, a Depron EDF, where I had to seriously consider the length of the motor wires. To get the battery well forward to clear the duct inlets I placed the EDF right at the back, literally. This meat the distance between the motor and battery to achieve the correct CofG was about 32". Aware of the battery to ESC distance limitations I placed the ESC right behind the battery compartment with its cooling fingers out in the air steam. The length of the wires lead me to use lacquered solid copper wire (magnet wire) as for a given amp capacity it is only half the weight of the flexible silicone insulated wire normally used. Of course the fact that it is also a great deal cheaper has nothing to do with me using it.😉 I now tend to use magnet wire on all my multi engine planes but then they are all foam lightweights.

After seeing pictures of the TN 'mini series' Hunter I built one (actually two!) out of 5mm foam as a comparison. Decorated as the prototype Hunter. It uses the same 11 blade 50mm EDF as the TN version. It uses a 1500mm 40C LiPo. Having run the EDF on the bench I decided it had too much power for a 'light weight' mini Hunter so mine is rather bigger overall with a 33.5" span as compared to 25", With the benefit of a foam construction it is also lighter at 568g as compared to 623g. The effect of all this is it virtually halves the wing loading from 21 oz/sqft to 10.7. The result is it not only flies a good deal slower but makes for an easy hand launch. A further benefit of its larger size but with the same EDF means its scale inlets need no cheat holes. My second hunter is an all black F6 of 111 squadron "Black Arrows" display team. Identical except for the 'saw tooth' leading edge, underwing pylons and "Sabrina" cartridge case bins under the fuselage. They make good skids for the belly landing!

Mike downs 1 Just a point that can occur with electric multi motor designs. Where is the battery in relation to the motor ESCs? If the wire length between the battery and any ESC is over the provided wire length of the ESC and battery (about 10") then you are going to be putting an additional strain on the ESC's input capacitors due to inductance spikes. The longer the wires and the closer to the ESC's amps limit the worse the effect is. Failure tends to be time related so it can work well enough but it can also fail at any point and always when under load i.e. most likely when in flight! If the wires are really long it is possible to add additional capacitors but they have to be of the right type. There is no such limitation on wire length ESC to motor. I try to make sure the ESC(s) are as close to the battery as practical in both single and multi motor arrangements with appropriately long motor wires. In one rather extreme case they are no less than 45" long!

I do have concerns at that engine mounting. A printed material is very strong and stiff along the line of the laid down filament but it many times weaker across the filaments. It would appear the whole of the engine mounts consist of filaments laid down on top of each other. This means the strength of the mount will rely entirely on how well the layer sticks to the already set previous layer. It would be possible to print the engine mount so the filament line was along the line of the bearers but to be practical it would have to be in two parts like this glued together. The glue line would be primarily in shear which glue is good at resisting. It would allow each part to be printed like this. The thickness of the part that fixes to the bulkhead would make up for the fact it is built up in layers. It would need some trials to determine the strongest proportions. Of course working in CAD there is no reason why the back of the motor mount couldn't be shaped so it IS the bulkhead.

Erfolg As you surmise the HE162 may have a reasonable aerodynamic layout but the fuselage + duct has a considerable cross section and a substantial surface area when compared to its modest wing span. This suggest that you may have to squeeze in a pretty powerful EDF to overcome the form and skin drag with the result it may end up as a "fast flyer" unless it is remarkably light overall.

"Perfectly within the rules now if you are a member of one of the associations that has Article 16 authorisation from the CAA." Yes but as you stated it could only take place within a location specific CAA granted "height rule" exemption. There was no over arching model plane height rule when that flight took place, only the talk of one.

Whilst "debating an opinion" may be satisfying I do wonder if it will make any difference to the CAA's final decision.😉 It is perfectly possible to see a 6ft span plane like this above 1000' On a clear December day 10 years ago I flew it to 1565 ft with a recording altimeter on board. Note several minutes were spent above 1000'. Not much of that particular flight was below 400' either! Questionably within the rules then definitely not now. Like it or not times are changing.

Basil Note that videos straight from modern cameras, unless they are really short, are likely to be well over the 48.83 MB limit. If you down load your video to a "hosting" site like YouTube, where there is no practical size limit, then you can add a link to that video in your post. For many sites similar to this it is the only way a video can be added to an individual post.

In some respects I have to agree with AH's point. The CAA is responding to the risk (perceived or otherwise) that RC or free flight model flying poses. It follows that the greater the number of UAVs, the bigger the area they operate in and their size and weight then the risk to others is increased. It was after all the huge popularity cheap readily available drones that peaked the interest of the CAA in the first place. Prior to that the CAA had taken a rather "hands off approach" to conventional model flying. Unfortunately the addition of FPV to aerial vehicles has greatly increased both amateur, commercial and military interest with a physical area coverage that would have been unthinkable 30 years ago combined with a dramatic increase in commercial flying. Whether a "consultation" is just a procedural necessity is open to debate but there no doubt that "risk reducing rules" for UAV flying will have to be put in place. What we used to be able to do quite freely is no longer an option.

After reading through much of the CAA's consultation document I was surprised to see how much concentration there was on control line and RTP flying. On the face of it a tethered plane can have little or no impact on the altitude and distance concerns compared to free RC flying. Obviously there are safety issues due to the speed and the relative closeness of the plane to the ground but the danger area is relatively small & well defined. I got the feeling the CAA have a concern about such tethered flying that is not that obvious to me at least.

If the motor runs OK on another ESC you really have to consider that there is something wrong with the ESC. Do you know if the "other" ESC have any special parameters set? Unless it did you would have to consider the 100A ESC faulty. 100A ESC's are serious bits of kit. I would suggest contacting the seller for a refund/replacement.

With the 2.4 installed an flap/elevator mix could be used. In fact the Hobby King TX6i has such a mix preinstalled in the menu so you only have to add the elevator and flap positions for each position of the selected 3 way switch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae4A2i_EROA These settings are just an educated guess. It will take some flight testing to determine the appropriate flap/elevator deflections. With such a large flap deflection available (0 to 75 degrees) it would be useful to have say a 5 position switch. Better still would be a flap slider and an the ability to create an elevator deflection "profile" to go with it. 😉 All I need now is a period of calm dry weather. Maybe next year some time!

Between the very wet days I have managed to fly it twice in calm weather. With the flaps up it flies exactly like the one without flaps. No real surprise there but although the effect of the flaps is impressive the pitch up when they are applied is even more so! 😲 In fact far more that the down trim available to overcome. For the second flight I altered the servo arm position so it gave a mechanical differential favouring the down travel and I set the full up trim to give a neutral elevator position. This gave a full down trim effect that was not far from the previous full down elevator. Even so this was still not quite enough to fully compensate for the full flap pitch up but the landing speed with 3/4 flap. about 45 degrees, was suitably slow. The fight was terminated when the motor started playing up. Later traced to a poor soldered connection than was relying on the shrink wrap for contact!. Not that surprising as space to run the motor wire is very limited. The next solution is to move over to 2.4 so I can use a flap/elevator mix and still have a normal trim range. Flying a plane with no up trim at all is not very comfortable. If a mix proves inadequate, the elevator is really quite small, then the obvious solution will be to enlarge it to the full tail plane span.

Erfplg All the skin (wing, fuselage and tail) is 3mm Depron or rather the modern equivalent. To save weight the body formers (actually half formers) are all 3mm Depron so the body could be built over the plan as a half shell. Apart from the cockpit which are PLA to give the maximum possible internal volume. The LiPo is right up in the nose. The windscreen is removable to get at it rather than the cockpit canopy! The wing section follows that drawn on the 3view I used. The ribs are PLA structures No idea how scale it is. There elevators have individual servos buried in the tail plane so no mechanical link required. The duct is permanently built onto the fuselage. The wing slides into the aperture between the nacelle and the fuselage and is retained by 4 nylon bolts. Not the easiest arrangement to rig but I felt a 'fixed' nacelle was essential. As the battery is in the nose it is easy to arm as the last action. Since the picture I have incorporated rudders. The servo is in the fuselage just ahead of the duct with external pull/pull lines back to a bell crank at the centre of the tail plane with thin carbon rods to each slightly over size fin & rudder. It works well but it has not yet flown with the rudders. Despite all the effort my He 162 has so far proved to be my most disappointing scale plane. Maybe I was just lucky with the others. The downturned wings tips to reduce the Dutch roll effect of the 4 degree dihedral were credited to Lippisch and were known as Lippisch-Ohren or Lippisch Ears, according to Wikipedia.

Webbies have a stock of 3 and 6 mm foam sheet. It has the word Depron printed all over it. Given that Depron is a trade mark it is reasonable to assume it is made by them. It is not as stiff as the original Depron but it is better than most of the others and a bit more expensive. I live not too far from Frodsham so I have used a few of the new "Depron" 3 mm 1250x800 sheets. They do sell 30"x40"FliteTest 8.5mm bifold maker foam board.

Erfolg I still have a bit of "true" 6mm white Depron now 7 years old and it is amazing just how rigid it is. I have built quite a large He162 (56" span) out of primarily 3mm 'modern' Depron. Strictly not a true EDF but a 3 blade 3x4 ducted prop using a Emax 2205 'drone' motor on an 850mAh 5s. The prop is near the back of the nacelle. It has not flown nearly as well as it should given its reasonable aerodynamic proportions, light weight and wing area. Maybe I was too frightened of the limited thrust so set the CoG too far aft. In addition I flew it bank and yank which was probably a mistake as the side area ahead of the CoG is nearly as big as that aft. It just did not turn until it achieved a considerable angle of bank, about 45 degrees, which then resulted is a rapid nose drop. I am sure it should fly well enough. Perhaps in calmer summer weather I will try again. As far as washout goes I believe a swept wing has natural aerodynamic washout and any flexing tends to add to it. Certainly my airliner swept wing planes tend have very forgiving characteristics despite having no washout built in. My 162 has no washout and the wing is pretty rigid. If you include the fact the wing is aerodynamically slightly swept forward maybe that is part of the reason it flies poorly. I am conscious that until Lippisch added the down turned tips and t he "ears" at the trailing edge of the wing roots the characteristics of the full size were "unacceptable".

The 'flapped' FX707 is now finished. It has its intended 5.3x 3.3 prop and spinner. I even found a bit of sun to take the picture. 😀 I was going to fly it this morning but when I got to the field it was 1/3 under water! Heaven only knows how muddy the rest was and there was a pretty firm breeze. Not really the conditions for a test flight so it was a case of turn round and back into the warm. The weather will get better a some point, won't it?

Erfolg There is nothing wrong about building an HE162. But I shall have to have a good think about the viability of a Douglas X3.😉