Who wants to share a new Flair Baronette build?

[Simon Knight]

A day of fiddling and painting today after a day of worrying yesterday when setting the middle and upper wings. All seems to have gone ok and the useful card template as recommended in the instructions certainly made things a little easier.

Just put her together to see how the incidences look. By eye should be good but we'll find out once taking off.

So painting today, tidying up the cockpit area and hiding the aileron servo leads, blending them into the cabane struts. My pilot has also been kitted out and should be more comfortable with the cockpit padding.

Also added a couple of non scale details that the real aircraft had by way of ground handling points and a useful step up.

[Simon Knight]

Does anyone know where I can get the 3 cylinders that would be showing under the cowl? If not, any recommendations as alternatives. Thanks

[Robert Parker]

Hi Simon,

Williams Bros make / used to them. I had them on my Magnatilla years ago.

Nothing on ebay at present, you could try Real Model Pilots they have some engines available, I would imagine that they could just do the three cylinders that you need.

Regards

Robert

[jeff2wings]

I have some kicking about you can have for gratis,pm me and btw most excellent build !

[Simon Knight]

So today I have connected the push rods for the rudder and elevator, tweaked the ailerons and test fitted the motor and ESC. Additionally, gave it a ground run to check to all worked. Very happy with the pull from the prop and I think it should cruise nicely at third throttle with plenty more to give judging by how much it was pulling when held in one place.

I now need to tweak how the battery is secured and also make a better job of the hatch restraint (there isn't one yet). The aircraft is nose heavy but not ridiculously so may see if some weight a little way behind the CoG makes any difference. A little limited where to attach it that I can access.

I'm happy with the size of prop and how it looks and I think the cylinders fitted will add that extra to its final look. A couple of pics from this evening but I will get some nicer ones outside as usual when she is ready to fly

[jeff2wings]

That looks superb ! cylinders are on there way and when you finish with them ,should look like this..................

full size replica btw

[Simon Knight]

Excellent thank you! Glad you clarified that is a full size replica

[Simon Knight]

A big thanks to Jeff2wings for the radial engine, I think it finishes the model off very nicely. All it needed was a touch of paint and affixing. Hasn't affected the trim too much and she still has a gentle nose down attitude if the plans CoG is correct and I measured it right of course. Only one way to find out now and that's go fly!! More to follow hopefully later this week.

[Simon Knight]

Well, the weather was lovely this morning, I had 90 minutes to myself and the flying site is only 15 away. So I packed the car and took the Baronette for her maiden. I am very pleased to say it went very well, 4 flights of just 3-4 minutes each with the current batteries but all was successful. She handled beautifully, take-offs need some refining but not too bad and the landings are steady as long as there is some power to the ground.

Thanks to all that have contributed and followed my build and I hope it has encouraged some of you with this kit to have a go. Last pictures and a video below:

Edited By Simon Knight on 28/09/2018 14:52:42

[jeff2wings]

Well done Simon ! cracking job and love those low passes .Think it's time for me to clear a space in my workshop and get building again.

[Paul james 8]

Peachy flying there Simon!!! Given me a bit of enthusiasm to get mine finished and flying

Hope you get many more fun filled flights from your model.

[Simon Knight]

Thanks Gents, as you can tell by my face I was very happy with how it all turned out in the end. Thanks again to you Jeff for the rotary, and Paul, when you finish yours, stick a picture for us to see.

[Simon Knight]

So the weather is rubbish and I haven't space to build another model. I know that she flies well having had another 3 good flights on Wednesday so a little fettling with her looks. Having just modded my Sopwith Pup from real wire to elastic cord, decided t do something similar. Decided to add the bracing wires on the undercarriage and just a pair of them on the upper fuselage too. Due to proportions, they don't cross where the real ones do, but I think they add a nice little simple detail. Used metallic elastic and fishing crimps glued into the frame. Holds well and flexes without causing any stress anywhere.

[Simon Knight]

So, a year in and I had the sad experience of a technical failure on my most recent flight with this lovely model. I/we, think it was a failure of the battery connection resulting in the receiver switching off and then arming once AGM after hitting the ground. Basically, we had been flying nice low circuits, done some loops and rolls and then as I went in another circuit after bat 2 minutes of flying the model went silent, and nosed into the field. o response from the control surfaces and just a cry of doom from me. It could have been worse, but she wasn’t going to fly again for a couple of weeks. This was 2 weeks ago and the crash site investigation photos follow. Note that the elevator was locked in the extreme down position, something that under normal movement it wouldn’t get close too.

[Simon Knight]

[Simon Knight]

Never one to miss an opportunity, it’s time for a new colour scheme change and a repair

[Chris Walby]

Sorry to hear of the incident.

So why do you think it pre-impact with full down elevator? If you just lost power (battery connection) then all of the controls would stay put (last position). If you were doing a bunt then yes full down or it moved on impact.

If the elevator servo failed it would have dived, but the motor would still be controllable, where as if the RX lost power you would have no control and hear/see the prop/motor go quite.

INHO is important to try and find the cause, would not be good to carry out the repair, fix what you think was the problem only to find out it was something else.

Good luck with the rebuild and please keep us posted, all the best.

[Simon Knight]

Morning Chris and thanks for the comments. You are absolutely right re identifying the problem, so I plugged her all together (electrics anyway) yesterday. All servos operate normally with no unusual sounds, they moved as expected and didn’t go beyond the limits I had set. The motor runs fine (without prop fitted) and the current draw was well under the 60C the battery can deliver. The battery connection is good and not loose.

Thinking back to the crash, I did lose all control and the motor did go silent. The model was in a tight left hand turn at the time with rudder applied and probably some up elevator to keep the turn tight. Silence, nose pitch down and thump. The model therefore probably stalled with loss of power and banking left so little lift on the wings. When I got to the model it was still buzzing, the battery whilst out of the model was sill connected so perhaps it was therefore a receiver loss of connection momentarily.

It’s a Spektrum receiver and I have only had connection loss twice in all the years I’ve been using them and never with this actual one fitted. It all works at the moment and at the time, it had flown in the area already that morning that I lost signal so really not sure why it would have done so that time

[cymaz]

It does sound like a tip stall from what you say..... Was it flying up wind?

Edited By cymaz on 29/09/2019 10:36:26

[Paul james 8]

Oh dear, that is bad news

I've finally got mine ready to maiden but the forecast of hurricane winds is sparing it from that for the time being.

Look forward to seeing yours all back together with its new colour scheme!

[Paul james 8]

A few photos of how I got round the winglet fitting, I can remove the axle without having to unsolder it by doing this.

[David Davis]

Posted by Simon Knight on 28/09/2019 20:22:00:

Never one to miss an opportunity, it’s time for a new colour scheme change and a repair

Mine was in the colours of Hans Weiss, one of von Richtofen's flight leaders. It flew well with an OS40 Surpass up front but it was difficult to steer on the ground. I sold it before I moved to France hence the lack of engine.

Lothar von Richtofen,Manfred's brother, had a similarly painted triplane but his was finished in yellow where Weiss's is painted white.

P.S. If Hans Weiss had been English his name would have been John White!

[kc]

Personally I would suspect the ESC ( if it is used to power the Rx too)

I had a similar sort of incident with a new model on first flight and brand new ESC. Everything worked perfectly, then everything failed, hit the long grass with minimal damage ( lucky) Afterwards everything worked! A 'soak' test on the bench revealed a momentary failure of power which suggested ESC faulty. It just glitched once for a moment, wouldn't do it again. Replaced ESC and it's never happened since. I cut the leads off the old ESC so it cannot be used! That was a model with Futaba FAAST radio.

My view is to never trust any of the radio gear unless you find a definite fault and rectify. A very good reason for not buying expensive Tx that could not be scrapped!

Edited By kc on 30/09/2019 12:49:48

[Simon Knight]

Well it looks like I may have solved the mystery and it has added a pre car packing check. So all the electrics work and had a temporary power loss in flight leading to the stall but all working again when in a heap in the field. The comment from kc made me have closer look at all the connections and guess what? The positive wire solder on the EC3 plug was weakened and with a very gentle tug came away! I therefore surmise that somehow in the manoeuvre the lead separated creating a temporary power loss and when the model tipped in the connection was made again. I always pull the plugs when separating the battery so hence not noticing the looser wire

Time for a new plug and some better soldering! Something else to check on the other models before I load them up for the flying site; once the weather significantly improves!

I’ll put some pics up of the fix when I get some more time. Looking so much better already and I think she’ll fly again after some more tweaking.

[Paul james 8]

Posted by Simon Knight on 30/09/2019 16:42:47:

Well it looks like I may have solved the mystery and it has added a pre car packing check. So all the electrics work and had a temporary power loss in flight leading to the stall but all working again when in a heap in the field. The comment from kc made me have closer look at all the connections and guess what? The positive wire solder on the EC3 plug was weakened and with a very gentle tug came away! I therefore surmise that somehow in the manoeuvre the lead separated creating a temporary power loss and when the model tipped in the connection was made again. I always pull the plugs when separating the battery so hence not noticing the looser wire

Time for a new plug and some better soldering! Something else to check on the other models before I load them up for the flying site; once the weather significantly improves!

I’ll put some pics up of the fix when I get some more time. Looking so much better already and I think she’ll fly again after some more tweaking.

Look forward to seeing it ready to take to the air again. I guess these darn glow powered ones have their own potential problems, hopefully mine will just keep chugging along

Many years ago I had a model that was more like Triggers broom than a plane; it crashed every single flight and I couldn't work out what I was doing wrong. In the end I decided to dismantle all the servos; lo and behold one of the wires was just touching the pcb but at a certain frequency obviously vibrated far enough away from the board to cause catastrophe. The blasted thing ran fine on the ground bit it was a good lesson learned.