Mini Wot 4 or something else?

[Tony Cook]

techzone excalibur110 great parkfly foamy glider with wide flight envelope.

[Ben B]

Lots of expo and a forward CoG helps. But then I always like forward CoG and a neutral throttle response. As per the manual it's like riding a bucking bronco!!!! I wrote to ripmax about the u/c, they asked if I had been landing on rough ground - truth is it was freshly cut park and was flat as the preverbial pancake. Cheeky beggers.....

[Darren Stephenson]

mine fly's like a pig ,better without the u/c

[buster prop]

I flew my mini Wot 4 today and it will cruise about with plenty of down trim and small control movements with lots of expo. I use a 900 2S and have stuck weights under the cowl so the CG is well forward. My early flights with it were hair raising, all the faults mentioned above. OK, it sort of flies ok now but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just wish I’d put the money towards something a bit more forgiving (and with a decent u/c).

[Denis Watkins]

Take the Expo out altogether Buster, it is like flying it with an on/off switch on the controls with expo

Go do keep the small movements on the surfaces

And try flying on rudder/elevator for a few circuits, it is much calmer.

This flatwing small model exhibits all the textbook traits of this size, twitchy

Edited By Denis Watkins on 22/09/2017 20:18:40

[buster prop]

Ok, small control movements need small expo or none at all. A clubmate flies a 3D model with 60% and swears that it helps. He watched me maiden the MW4 and recommended more expo to make it less twitchy. Next time out I will try flying it with just rudder and elevator although the Mini Wot 4 has no dihedral. Some downthrust would really help and is worth trying.

[Darren Stephenson]

I’m going to play with some foam and tape on the lower leading edge ,anything under half throttle and it try’s to fall out off the sky because it’s not cutting the air .Then I’m going to put a bigger motor and prop in so when it does at least I can power up and catch it

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Denis Watkins]

Can we start again, on the mini Wot 4. The model does not feel expo. Expo just helps your thumbs.

Set the C of G correctly, battery up front, no weight up front required?

Do not overcook the forward C of G.

Small movements. Leave out full throttle until you tame it.

You can hand launch on half throttle and fly until it is trimmed.

This is not a trainer, but fly's beautifully when set up and needs no increase in motor size

[Denis Watkins]

That should read, no extra weight up front required, apologies.

To elaborate, a small amount of expo could be used to soften right stick crossover of control

But if you can do without it, this model, and most others, need elevator response at low speed, especially landing.

Better on these small models are low movement on the surface settings.

[Anthony Pattison 1]

I have now reduced throws on elevator and ailerons to what I consider to be 'sensible' levels. As I am using a simple DX4 Tx with very basic functions I drilled new holes in horns and servo arms to get reduced throws. I don't have any Tx with expo and have never felt the need to be honest. I will do next tests without u/c and rebalance as needed. Clearly there is no reason why this model will not fly well as it's a very simple plane but to my mind 'out of the box' it's pretty poor and not really what I expected from Ripmax and certainly doesn't do Chris Foss' design justice...

[ken anderson.]

two things I would be thinking of if it was my model/maiden flight....small movements and not a lot of speed.......until I was happy it was trimmed correctly.a lot of movement and a fast (small model) is a recipe for disaster...more so if the C of G is out....

ken Anderson....ne..1...... fast and small dept

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Anthony Pattison 1]

Whilst awaiting decent weather, when I'm free to fly, I thought I would check motor thrustline as I didn't like the look of it.

Right thrust of 'a couple of degrees' looked pretty good to my eyeball but it really seemed that the motor had 'up' thrust...

To check, I took some mobile phone pics carefully aligned to see wingtip and fus.

When printed at A3 I drew lines on print representing wing chord and motor axis and sure enough I had 2 degrees upthrust which is NOT what I want on a high wing model.

Packing motor mount with suitable washers gives me about 2 degrees of downthrust which is more 'standard' so it will be interesting to see how it fares on next test flight - it now looks far more sensible so expect it to be vastly improved....

On the other hand, as SWMBO says - What do I know?

[Anthony Pattison 1]

Finally tested the plane with reduced throws and corrected thrustline and it flies as expected.

Really this model to my mind has ailerons that are too large - with the current reduced throws any slop in linkages has too much effect and a smaller area with sensible deflections and throw geometries would make more sense to me. Exponential would help but would really be technology correcting poor design - it's not a 3D model and to use big ailerons and big throws it needs more power.....

Model now flies well although it really isn't a slow floater and does benefit by flying at a reasonable speed and doing a bit of aerobatics (just like a Wot 4 really). If you want a slow and easy small model then this isn't it...

Next job is to replace the rubbish undercarriage with a piano wire jobbie and perhaps increase the power to see what it can do (will need 15 or 20A ESC)....

All-in-all not a bad little plane but not that great for Ripmax and, if my example is representative, there could be a lot of them bite-the-dust on early sorties.....

Tony

[Denis Watkins]

That is a fair review Tony, and helpful.

The model is the least amount of flying surface that could be attributed to comfortable flight.

It is somewhat a novelty model. Basically, in the small model range, this one is overweight, yet fragile.

I agree with your findings.

Positives are that it can be left built up, with an easy access battery compartment too.