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She was a fine craft once some little while ago. Unfortunately it has suffered a lot of indignities since then.
Looks like we missed lots of flying whilst exploring the hills looking for Hoppy’s downed plane.
Anyway all was good & we got fed & had a few flights upon our return.
Ah well, you only live once & unfortunately none of us are getting any younger so I have decided to sell the planes I rarely (or no longer) use & buy the ones I want to fly.
Not quite sure how I’m going to get it in the wagon yet. Methinks it will need to be dismantled every time for transport.
Yes, it certainly was another day out of the box. Mr Moose did not let us down with his long range weather predictions.
It’s a pity the maiden flight of his Cessna 180 didn’t go as well as the weather. The plane flew flawlessly but unfortunately, as I predicted, on the very first landing the front wheel assembly failed which in turn caused a prop strike on the ground & a broken blade.
Moose will reinforce the front wheel mounting & fit a new prop and she should then be fine to fly again. He may even get to fly it himself next flight as at least all the trims etc are now tested & the radio programming edited to suit.
I first tested the “Li’l Eagle” with its upgraded “Race” motor. No lacking power problems now !!.
Didn’t end up flying the BumbleBee as I still cant get the telemetry working correctly with the new iNav flight control board.
Also tested the Stearman biplane after its recent firewall/engine mount replacement. She flew beautifully but I need to balance the new prop & fit a better camera next flight.
Today’s video;
I also had a nice long flight with my 2.3M Fox glider, wasn’t much thermal activity but she still stayed up for 30 minutes on 9 minutes of battery power so not too bad.
Not sure how the video came out as my RunCam 2 has been a bit flaky of late but I will see how it edits up.
Footnote: I think I’ve found the issue with the RunCam2 camera, I formatted the SD card as Fat32 instead of ExFat. Just changed it and it seems to have fixed all the instability issues but I doubt if there will be any footage from today’s flight.
I just realised that I never updated this build when “Li’l Eagle” was converted from a mono to a biplane so here it is. The conversion was almost as simple as the original build.
An E-sky Eyas wing from a wrecked plane (ex Moose) was used just to see if it would in fact work.
The original landing gear was removed and a very small amount of belly foam removed to allow the extra wing to attach at (what I thought) was the right angle and location for a Stagger Wing Biplane.
Three holes to line up with the original wing mount screws were drilled in the fuselage then after cutting a couple of small holes in the side of the fuse a 3D printed bar, with moulded in fixing nuts was slid into place to pick up the 2 front screws.
The rear screw was in line with the CF tail reinforcing tube so I just drilled that and epoxied a threaded adaptor in for the rear screw. Voila, the bottom wing now attaches the same as the original top wing, nice & simple.
A spare set of landing gear (once again ex Moose’s now extinct Eagle) was pop riveted to a 75mm sq x 1.5mm aluminium plate and this was taped into place on the lower wing.
I originally intended to make the mount larger & secure it with the wing screws but decided it would do too much damage in a crash landing, in a worse case scenario the tape can just tear off but it hasn’t happened yet.
A second Y cable was used to allow the top and bottom wing servos to work in unison so that way no additional linkages were needed & as the wings are both self supporting no bracing was required between the wings.
The “Li’l Eagle” biplane has now been flying for many weeks and apart from being a bit low on power she flies great and its super aerobatic.
Today I upgraded the stock 2250KV motor for a 2700KV Quad race motor and bench testing suggests that the power is now over 300W where before it was under 150W.
Current has naturally gone up but it’s still well under the 30A rating of the ESC.
Tomorrow will tell.
FY-41AP Lite Stabiliser installed & tested today, stickers put on and the new Cessna 182 is ready to take to the skies.
I left the radio antennae off the top of the wing as you need to invert the plane to install the battery. With the recommended 3S 2200 LiPo installed in the battery holder the CG is almost spot on, perhaps just a tad nose heavy but not much. Seems to have plenty of grunt with the 3 blade prop.
Engine cowling repaired & fitted so the Stearman Biplane is ready to take to the skies again.
Could do with a recover & paint but I’m sure it will look fine in the air.
It’s for flying, not looking good on a shelf !!
That’s all right my little green amphibian mate, the whole world knows by now that “Frogs” never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, just the way it should be.
I can just see you flitting around the Field in one of those Ian, with your fluoro socked feet hanging out the bottom !!
New Wing Strut made from 2mm Styrene sheet (should be stronger & lighter than ply) and the wings are now back on.
Only the engine cowling to repair now & she is good to fly again.
Hope all you other pilots out there with damaged planes have been putting this past week of winter weather to good use & getting a few repairs done ready to get back in the air SOON.
Motor & ESC refitted & wired, first cowling mount block installed.
As it turns out the Stearman bipe is running the same Turnigy G-25 870KV motor that I’m running in the Pulse XT25e.
Only difference is the 25e runs a 12 x 8 prop & the bipe runs a 12 x 6 prop.
Several weeks ago Uncle G volunteered his lathe skills to cut the 2 x 3mm ply discs (they were a perfect fit Uncle G – thanks muchly) I needed to rebuild the firewall on the Stearman bipe. They have been sitting on the workbench ever since waiting for some non flying (read crap) weather.
This week the weather was pretty much all crap so first job was to finish installing the iNAV flight controller in the BumbleBee (the jury is still out on that one – no doubt the first flight will be the decider), second was to re-assemble the Islander BN2 with a new receiver & stabiliser ready for a test flight or sale (whichever comes first)
Finally today it was the Stearman’s turn.
First job was to finish tidying up the fuselage where the firewall attached.
Next was to cut all the notches into the inner ply disc so it would attach over the various spars etc then it was time to epoxy the the 2 ply sheets together & drill the various required holes etc, also installed the 4 captive nuts for the motor to mount onto.
Next was to epoxy the new firewall to the fuselage.
It’s definitely looking better already so now just waiting for the epoxy to set and reassembly can start.
Hopefully she will be ready to take to the skies again by the time the weather improves.
Yes, doesn’t take too much imagination to see the Eagle eye & beak, just look at the picture as a whole rather than trying to pick out individual bits and the Eagle head profile is right there.
Interesting.
I should at this stage of the proceedings say that “Ralph” has never approached “BumbleBee” with any thought other that a bit of play on his mind. He has always kept his talons furled and just floated around.
It does however always pay to be prepared just in case he changes his mind or even worse, one day it’s NOT “Ralph”.
