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Trying to buy a Durafly Tundra


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Ha!

As if...

Far more likely is I have my last brain cell plugged into the wrong channel.

The ignition side of this engine has been a real nightmare, dealing with the Americans involved has 'missed my expectations' by a light year.

All the UK people involved have exceeded my expectations, which is the good bit.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Got to the local Club's flying field today, gusts up to 10 mph but generally calm, sunny and dry, so perfect.

 

Buddied up with my tutor (he volunteers to help souls like me) and he took the plane off and around a few laps and handed over to me. I took it round and was surprisingly smooth (ish) but went round for 4 mins and he landed the plane. 

Second battery and I took off, got up and did a fair few laps, much smoother and even LANDED the plane almost smoothly!

 

After coffee and shortbread all round (5 of us there) went up again, and over-thought everything, got disoriented twice and landed a bit abruptly.

Decided my level of concentration was done for (8 minutes...) so after my tutor's 2 planes failed to run, we all seemed to have had enough over the 2 hours there, and left.  Great to get back to it, plane worked great, in one piece so all good. Hoping for a good week next week, busy this week!

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  • 1 month later...

I find myself 'stuck-in-a-rut' with gaining experience before I can reasonably go flying solo.

My so helpful buddy instructor at the local club is a busy man so I have to hope his and mine calanders line-up for me to fly safely, so this restricts the ammount of flying time i can get, thus slowing down the process of 'independence'.

 

I can take off and fly round fine, he even compliments me, but landing is a bit of a lottery.

 

The plane is fitted with a stabilizing module, Beginner, intermediate, switched off.

I have never used this (it also gets in the way of the buddy connection), but at my stage my thoughts are to select Intermediate (minimal flight correction) to allow me to build confidence  landing the plane, then when feeling good to switch it off and simply get on with it.

 

Any thoughts to this approach please?

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The field I use has an electric fence around it to keep the sheep off when not in use. It is about 3 feet high around the perimeter and is black so quite invisible at a distance against the green of the surrounding fields of the farm.

 

Thus on approach you have to be sure you are going to miss it.

Secondly, my approach is too high and not very level or steady, but not too fast either.

 

I have been snagged by the fence a few times, have poor placement to the center of the field landing area and a nasty habit of parking the plane on the ground rather than gliding down to a natural halt. The strip is plenty long enough.

 

I've landed like a pro a few times as i have fluked it, bit have equally snapped the U/C off on abrupt landing.

 

All in all a bit raggesd and clumbsy....

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One of our members spends a good percentage of each flight 'landing' at 10ft. They are essentially doing touch and goes without touching, but as a conscious activity. It's a great way to understand model placement, speed, height and throttle management without continually ripping out the undercarriage. It will also take the fence out of the equation. 

 

It may help you build up your confidence and some repeatability before committing the fragile bit to the hard and unforgiving bit!

 

Graham

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I would agree with Graham.

 

If I get a student who is having similar issues, I make sure we just concentrate on repetitive circuits and approaches, gradually getting lower. 

 

Generally the whole flight is taken up with this procedure.

 

Making sure you are lined up with the runway, and on a good glide slope. The model is usually much further away than you appreciate,  try and hold it off the runway by six inches until it gradually settles down.

 

Good luck and keep practicing those circuits!.

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The 'invisible' fence I can confirm is a right royal pain - we had it at one of the fields I fly from.

Luckily the fence was 'ours' to maintain, etc. so a length of white plastic tubing split along it's length was slotted over the top wire at each end of the strip. This tells us:

1.  The height of the fence and

2.  Your position in relation to the centre line of the strip.

It's a very useful aid, although it didn't stop me from tripping over the wire with my Wot4 a while ago!!!

Maybe something you could consider (as a club).

Kim

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I like the idea of repeated passes and will talk this through with my buddy pilot tomorrow where winds are at 3mph to 7 apparently.

 

The few landings I've done are all power off when at about 15 feet up. If looking bad my buddy will take the plane up and away for us to live another moment later, my last crash was bought about by clipping the invisible end of the fence which he missed too!

He was convinced all was well and saw me coming in well. The crunch was as much a surprise to him as me.

 

If tomorrow goes badly I'll ask the Club if they will allow a white split tube along the one end of the fencing, it's a good idea.

 

Brown Gorilla glue sure is good....

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I probably kill the throttle (electric) when the plane is at about 10/15 feet, but my difficulty is that the plane is in the wrong place to the center of the strip, I am struggling with the co-ordination of the height and the position.

I generally land from right to left, feels better than left to right being left handed etc.

 

As an aside from the realities of this game, went to Weston Park yesterday and bagged a great bruised Junior 60 that had a glow in in once, no crash damage and with a bit of tlc today looks great, esp for the cost of £20.

It will be electric.

 

Even more reason to get to a solo position.

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911, Ron is right. Try to get into the habit of coming in with power on and control the speed with elevator. The elevator will slow the model very effectively and you can then safely fly across you until you are comfortable with the position and decrease power. The model will loose height in a nice controlled way. You'll have a lot more control this way as you always have good airflow over the tail. This will help you no end if the wind gets up, or swings when you're on finals. You will also be able to steepen the approach and avoid that fence!

 

As suggested earlier, you can practice this as a slow flypast, and see what happens when you decrease the throttle. And similarly, when you increase it. This will prevent you from panicking and make going around again a totally un-traumatic event.

 

Graham

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911, the best advice I have ever received regarding landing was to establish the model's Minimum Flying Speed (MSF) when all of the forces acting upon the aircraft are in balance. Having established MSF so that the model is neither climbing nor diving, throttle back a click or two. The model will start to descend. At this stage hold in a little up elevatorThis will lower the tail and present the wing at a higher angle of attack enabling the model to fly more slowly than MSF. Don't use too much up elevator or the model will stall. Try practising circuits at a safe altitude at this slower speed. I have only an amateur's knowedge of aeronautics but I'm going to call this speed Landing Speed.

 

Fly a rectangular circuit starting into wind at Landing Speed, i.e, holding in a little up elevator to give a higher angle of attack to the mainplane. There are five elements to a landing circuit: into wind; cross wind; down wind; base leg and finals.  I try to get my trainee pilots to level the wings after every turn, indeed my nickname in my club is "Aile Plat!" This means "Level your wings." On finals, level the wings and keep a few revs on give better control response over the tail surfaces.

 

As others have said, use your throttle to control height and your elevator to control speed on finals. 

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Just completed the re-gluing of the plane, a regular ritual.

 

Crashed quite hard trying to land on the first flight, has been doing circuits etc well up to the point of coming down, gave my buddy no chance of a save.

 

Glued the carbon spar back together and some other patches and left in the baking sun to cure. Buddy loaned me a flight of his 50" 4 stoker which was very nice to fly, more responsive, accurate etc, 2 x the weight I suppose.

Took my plane back up and went round and round well and my buddy bought it in like a pro.

 

I could clearly see the fence!

Seriously thinking of setting the plane to stability 100% and going on from there, but this is bugging me yet again.

Always something to fight, and trick to learn a new trick at 70!

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