Stinger Jet Crash

...just when you thought it was safe

After a weekend of torrid weather, this afternoon cleared and calmed enough to get into the air. In fact, on arrival the wind had dropped enough even to get the Phoenix up for a quarter of an hour's entertaining flying.

Almost on cue, as I swapped planes, the breeze got up a little and the sun dropped into a gap in the clouds, so that by the time the Stinger howled into the air, the fields were flooded with a warm glow of afternoon sun, picking up white flashes from the Stinger against dark storm clouds framing the horizon.

I had the Stinger nicely set up and did a few fast flyovers, the jet wobbling a little in the breeze. The conditions, in terms of light, were probably the best I'd flown in and I was enjoying the spectacle of the Stinger in the golden afternoon light against the gorgeous backdrop of the clouds.

I looped the Stinger and then pulled it up for a low sweeping turn, except it didn't pull up, at all. Unfortunately I was standing a little back from the paddock fence, where I usually stand for a good view over the paddock, out of deference to the ducks enjoying return of the ephemeral pond.

As a result, I have no idea why the Stinger didn't pull up. It didn't go into a spin, so I can only surmise that perhaps I hit the elevator too soon and stalled the wings, although I didn't think so.

At any rate, there's no mistaking that the Stinger went straight down at speed, a small flurry of parts and the flight of a couple of birds  marking it's arrival on the ground...

Trainstar Floatplane Assembled

...almost there

I have assembled the seaplane floats to my Trainstar, and this afternoon finished connecting the tail rudder to the float rudder using the supplied cable and sleeve.

The rudder operation is better than I expected, although it will need to be tested in the water to check whether operation with more force involved still works OK.

However, before then, I need to seal all the mounts for the struts, rudder and cable to make sure the floats stay floating.

Then we can take the Trainstar out for some water testing at the local duck pond...

Floater Jet Propellor

...a real pusher prop

The Floater Jet has been out of action for a long time due to minor wing damage, elevator pushrods needing replacement, motor removed and being short of prop adapter.

Finally, all the pieces were in place, literally, with the last piece of the jigsaw, a three-bladed pusher prop. What's special about this prop is that it's actually designed for pushers; if you've ever had one you'll know they're very noisy using standard propellors. I'm not sure why, but I can tell you that's the case.

The pusher prop is a 6x4 which fits the Floater well, and being a three-blade looks pretty cool as well. The one catch is it's spins anti-clockwise, i.e. in the opposite direction to most propellors. However this is easy enough to fix, as you just need to swap two connectors on your ESC. 

So this afternoon, as soon as I'd finished refurbishing the Floater, I headed out to the field to give it a test flight. Having been a while since I'd flown it, and with it having the different-style propellor, I was a little nervous. However, my concerns soon vanished as the Floater climbed into the sky.

The prop is quiet, in fact remarkably so, spinning with just a bit of a whine, and certainly nothing like the droning buzz it makes with the regular prop. It's even pretty quiet on full throttle and producing plenty of thrust as evidenced by the rate at which the Floater climbed.

The flight was actually most enjoyable with the quiet performance, improved elevator response and gorgeous backdrop of dramatically illuminated evening clouds.

A good test flight all round...

Rarebear Best Battery

...finding the sweet spot

I'd bought the Rarebear along with the suggested "ballistic" upgrade battery, the 4S nanotech 45-90C, which promised incredible performance. They were quite right, except the little plane end up being so fast that I can't possibly fly it at that speed, spending most of the time just over half throttle and occasionally bumping it to around two-thirds.

However I have done a battery swap with the Radjet, flying that on the little 4S's and running the Rarebear on the 3S 1300's. This afternoon I flew the Rarebear twice, firstly on a 25-35C and then on a 25-50C. One wouldn't expect much difference, however the 25-50C is, in my opinion, the perfect battery for the Rarebear; it makes the plane significantly fast enough to keep you on your toes but remains controllable enough to make super-low flyby's at full throttle, which is how I like to fly my fast planes.

Anyway, so I think the swap will be permanent, the Rarebear happily swooping around on the 3S and the Radjet screaming around on 4S...

Radjet on 4S Battery

...giving the Radjet a bit of zing

I took the Radjet out this afternoon, having fun surfing a strong northerly breeze. Having depleted both batteries, and thinking the conditions a little extreme for the Phoenix, I pondered what i could do. Mentally reviewing my other spare batteries, one possibility presented itself.

The Radjet has been getting a bit slow lately; I'm not sure why but not being able to access the ESC or motor, I haven't been able to do any checks. My thought now was to try it out with one of the Rarebear's batteries; although diminutive they are four cell, which would give the Radjet a bit of a kick. Or make the ESC explode. Or melt the motor.

The 4S batteries are quite chubby, not unlike the Rarebear itself, so this was the first test. Amazingly enough, the battery fitted in the Radjet's fuselage, just. The next test would be when the power was connected. Actually, plugging in the battery had the ESC giving an extra beep, encouragingly recognising the extra cell in the battery.

Having given the controls a quick check, I flipped on the power somewhat hesitantly, not really knowing what to expect. The motor spun up, a little more energetically, then I cranked it up to two thirds and heaved the little plane skywards.

Hitting full power about halfway through launch, the faster prop speed was immediately obvious, as was the energy with which the Radjet was carving up the skies. While not massively fast, it was still considerably faster, and the return of its crackling propellor note was most welcome.

I think the 4S will be a regular occurrence with the Radjet from now on, turning the radjet back into the hooligan it always was...

DX6i Transmitter Flap Mix

...tail-heavy no more

I took the Phoenix out for a fly this afternoon, not having flown it for a while, and took the opportunity to try the flap mix which was something I'd overlooked when I first got the transmitter.

I'd set the Phoenix up for flaps when I'd first got it, but have never particularly liked flying with flaps as it makes the Phoenix fly tail-heavy, dampening what are generally immaculate flying manners.

This is because the wings are in a high-lift configuration but the tail is not, causing it to dip at low speeds associated with flaps. The other day, flipping through the menu's when setting up the Stinger, I came across the flap mix menu and suddenly it made sense.

The mix is very simple, allowing you to dial in a dose of elevator with the flaps. Now the trick is, to cure tail-heaviness as in the case of the Phoenix, you don't want positive elevator, as this would just push the tail down more and increase the angle of incidence of the wings.

What resolves the issue remarkable well is negative elevator, effectively working as a flap for the tail. On the Phoenix I set negative elevator at 20 for a flap setting of 10, which I tried out this afternoon and which works brilliantly well.

Highly recommended on the Phoenix...

Trainstar Battery ESC & Receiver Packaging

...there's lots of room

The Trainstar has a very roomy fuselage, so there's bags of room for your equipment. The battery is housed under the nose, held in place with velcro and a velcro strap. The supplied ESC also gets mounted to this tray, alongside the battery.

Under the wing is a huge cavity for locating your, um, receiver and satellite reciever, if you want. The picture is taken from the underside as I have the wings attached. 

As I said there's lots of space...

More of the Stinger 64

...and still haven't crashed!

I have successfully flown the Stinger 64 twice more since it's first flight, although I'm still getting used to how it flies. I have reduced the aileron travel by ten percent which has helped, although it's still touchy so have subsequently turned it down by another five. 

I've also set the ailerons down by a turn of the clevis; the ailerons have been warped, apparently when the decals were applied, so the edges are lower than the centre. As a result, setting the edges flush with the wing effectively reflexes the aileron, which I think is why I had to fly it with a bit of elevator.

On one occasion, however, it did come agonisingly close to crashing. I can't actually recall the lead-up to the incident, but the Stinger ended up low to the ground, heading straight for the raised field and surrounding trees. I cut power and hit full elevator, hoping at best this might mitigate the impact.

Miraculously, the Stinger swooped up silently, having managed somehow to find a clear passage between the trees. Seeing it flying free and unharmed, I turned on the power and carried on flying, feeling extremely grateful to whomever had provided assisted in skirting disaster...

Stinger 64 First Flight

...and no crashes!

Today I had the first flight of my Stinger 64 EDF, running in on a Zippy Flightmax 1800mAh battery, although I believe some people fly it with a 2200mAh power pack.

The first launch wasn't good; I'd watched some launch videos and concluded that it needed full power as well as some correction for roll on launch. Well, it does need full power but the roll correction's a another story.

I'd launched it in a similar fashion to the Radjet, with about two-thirds right aileron. I'd also read that the Stinger was quite sensitive to control input, so I'd set it on low rates with expo. It turned out that the torque reaction wasn't nearly as severe as I'd expected and my low rates were still much too high for aileron.

The result was that, on the first launch, the Stinger was inverted at about four metres above the ground. Fortunately, with experience in this regard with the Radjet, I was able to correct it and then bring it in for a landing. I launched it again, without dialled-in aileron, which was OK, needing just a dab of correction.

The ailerons continued to be extremely sensitive, flying on full power, leading to a few harrowing moments, although fortunately I managed to keep it in the air. My first impressions of the Stinger, aside from the over-sensitive controls, were that it was fast but not super-powerful.

Having said that, its climb rate and general pace were quite impressive, and the EDF sounds really good. The landing wasn't great - I over-flared it on approach, but still got it down OK.

So, for the next flight, I am setting both ailerons a tiny bit down to give a bit of extra lift, and I'm going to add a little up elevator. I've also set my rates down by ten percent. In combination, that should make the Stinger a little easier to control and more fun to fly...

Flying the Trainstar

...in the mist

This morning, as I've done regularly for the past while, I packed the Trainstar and Radjet for my regular morning fly.

The latter has become a regular, now that I can launch it almost faultlessly, and the former because it's such an engaging plane with a lot of personality. Also, having undercarriage large enough to enable grass field takeoffs and landings is another endearing feature.

Being a Cessna-type craft, however, does mean the Trainstar has a lot of drag. In fact, considering the size of the motor, and using the same battery, the Phoenix would literally fly circles around it's vintage-styled cousin, despite it having a bigger wingspan. The appalling aerodynamic efficiency of the Cessna design (even without the wing braces in this case) is audible - cut the power and you can immediately hear the amount of noise it makes trying to push all that air out of the way!

Nevertheless, as I said before, it is a very endearing model and has a lot of character, and certainly wasn't chosen as a high-performance upstart!

Returning to this morning, the flying was somewhat unremarkable as it is some days, probably much to do with the pilot's frame of mind, but still pleasant enough. It was a misty morning and, as happens quite often, the mist thickened as the day dawned. I wasn't concerned, however, as I was flying in a clear pocket sheltered by the trees, 

Flying the Trainstar over the dividing fence, I turned the plane for a run back before it strayed too far. For those familiar, the Trainstar drops like a brick in turns so, as it turned, it sank into the thick mist settled on the field, and completely disappeared.

Now trying to fly a plane you can't see is tricky. If fact near-impossible; I didn't know whether to put on power to get it climbing out so I could see it, or whether just to leave it and let it's naturally stable nature take care of things. I decided on the latter, and kept staring into the mist where I thought it should appear and, lo and behold, a second or two later, the Trainstar came sweeping into view, its ample dihedral having dampened any wayward behaviour.

Overjoyed at it's reappearance, I floated it down for a lovely smooth landing before packing it in. I certainly wasn't going to be trying my luck twice in the same morning...