Stinger 64 EDF. Repair Flight.

...back in the air!

It was months ago when, having too much fun with the Stinger, I inadvertently sent it speeding into the swampy paddock grass, where it half its nose and my near-new nanotech battery disappeared into the mud.

Since then I have agonised over how I was to replicate the tapering form of the nose, which also accommodates the canopy magnet and terminates into the join with the nosecone.

Eventually I used rear sections of the original fuselage (funny how you never crash backwards), although this wasn't quite right and had to be cut, and then added onto, and then filled, and sanded, and painted.

However, after this unnecessarily protracted affair, the Stinger was again airworthy and looking pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding if in how well it flies.

Fortunately, in this case, it flew as well as ever, and I was gifted with a good launch as well. So back to enjoying a few run-filled, adrenalin rushing minutes screeching the Stinger around the paddocks...

Floater Jet. Lake & Country.

...scenic flight and more

A trip to the country was an opportunity to take the Floater Jet to see whether there might be an opportunity for lift off the adjoining hillside.

Also, an opportunity for a gentle scenic flight the next day, with a tranquil morning and the lake mirror-calm.

Not that it was an uneventful flight, with a flock of corellas passing through and a very close call with a radio tower.

And to end it, probably the worst judged approach I've made in a long time, with the docile Floater Jet over-flying and floating straight into the garage door...

Stinger 64 EDF. High Speed Crash.

...best of times, worst of times

 A beautiful sunny afternoon with a gentle southerly blowing set the scene for some great flying with the Stinger.

Now, with its third iteration of decals, it sported much improved visibility which boosted confidence in flying at speed. Picking its orientation, primarily roll, had always been a bugbear with me, but now I was able to fly it with much greater authority.

For once the launch was good and the Stinger was soon howling round the paddocks, executing thrilling low passes and high turns.

This was the best I'd ever flown it, by a long way, and the enjoyment of flying the speedy little jet and the beautiful setting was quite intoxicating.

Unfortunately this wasn't to last, with one low pass having me turn into the sun where, like previously, I mistook the orientation and the Stinger skewed into the marshy grass at speed.

Worse still, half of the nose had been blasted into the mud by the battery, with both embedded to the degree that they were lost despite my best efforts to find them...

Floater Jet Hill Flying

..chilled-out cruising

The journey into the hills to slope soar the Floater Jet on the strong westerly wind had turned out disappointing; the slope-facing breeze sliding away to the north with the Floater Jet barely for a few minutes. 

Soaring out of the question, I lay on the hilltop watching the clouds changing until the breeze had abated. With the sky clearing as well, I loaded a fresh battery into the Floater for a pleasant cruise around the slopes.

The sky cleared as I flew, with the sun coming through increasingly to bathe the ridge in golden rays and give some warm texture to the clouds. 

No lift of course, but nevertheless a leisurely twenty minutes flying, turning in to the ridge-top only when the battery was depleted…

Stinger Inverted Crash

...and clouds

Of the times I've flown the Stinger I've had a number of bad launches, primarily due to it rolling, and several times where it's ended up inverted half a second after launch. Every time I have managed to successfully extricate it from such precarious positions and gone onto enjoy the flight.

This time, unfortunately, was different. With the Stinger inverted I panicked and killed the power, so that it nosed towards the turn in an inverted swan dive.

Fortunately the damage was very minor to the degree that I was able to straighten the nose sufficiently to give it another go. The second launch was perfect with a lovely flight to follow, against a backdrop of fresh clouds and beautiful blue sky...

AXN Floater-Jet Glider EPO 1127mm. Winter Sunset

...beautiful winter sunset

This beautiful sunset on a still evening had me heading off to the field in a hurry with the trusty Floater Jet and mobius camera to try and capture some of it. It’s always compelling to try and do this to make the most of what is otherwise obscured and diminished by the lack of a clear view.

From a vantage of a couple of hundred feet up, however, this is not an issue although there are others; the Floater is not the easiest thing to fly smoothly and steadily, especially when you’re trying to climb. Also, judging orientation from the ground is a bit hit and miss, compelling arguments for getting a drone with FPV capability.

The video from the flight was understandably then a little scrambled, with lovely glimpses here and there of the sun gradually sinking beyond the horizon. However, gradually sifting through the footage and stringing clips together I think I’ve managed to compile something that’s tranquil and a little bit special, in conjunction with a lovely acoustic guitar soundtrack.

Of course it’s nowhere as smooth or professional looking as something off a drone, but still not bad from a Floater Jet...

Hobbyking Stinger 64 EDF. Sunny Clouds.

...beautiful sunny clouds

Some days flying is really good, especially when the sky is doing something special. This was one of those days, with bright sun, brilliant blue sky and more kinds of interesting clouds than you could wish for.

It was pretty breezy; a moderate southerly which quickly developed, but nothing too much to bother the Stinger. With its augmented stripes I’m more confident with the turns, and having it screeching across the fields and soaring into the sky is always a lovely thing.

Watching the video again, with the beautiful sky and the Stinger having fun, was certainly a tonic for the rather miserable weather of late...

Hobbyking Stinger 64 Mk2. 2200 Nano First Flight

...the big day!

Since the ultimate smash I'd reconstructed the Stinger with a new fuselage and new larger and higher-spec powerpack, all of which I was eager to try out so, with a break in the rather poor run of weather, I headed to the field.

As ever, not having flown the Stinger for a while made me nervous. Additionally, I wasn't sure what the effect would be of the substantially-larger 2200 battery compared to the 1800 I'd previously flown with.

Eager to get the Stinger into the air before the sun disappeared behind clouds, I gave it a quick check before getting it ready to launch. Running the motor up for launch, the reaction felt a little odd. Blipping the throttle again revealed the reason - it was blowing air out of the intakes. I'd wired the motor in reverse.

Dashing back to the car for my toolkit, quite a way as I was flying in the paddocks, I headed back to the plane to remove wings and swap the plugs. Eventually the Stinger was back together, now developing positive thrust, but the sun had unfortunately taken a break behind a small patch of clouds.

Despite the disappointment of losing the beautiful afternoon glow, I hot full throttle and threw the Stinger up. Despite high expectations, this continued the run of miserable launches I've had, the Stinger knife-edging a few metres up. Correcting this and easing off the elevator revealed the next crisis; I hadn't done a good check on the trims and the Stinger was nosediving alarmingly.

Bringing it round I heaved on the elevator; going vertically fifty metres up is a nice safe place to make control adjustments.

After that things got a lot better; the augmented stripes made visibility so much better I was immediately more confident, and soon I had the Stinger making nicely-controlled low passes at speed, howling past at full throttle...

Known Value

...sometimes underestimated

Today was grey and cold with the odd shower, a fairly miserable day hinting at the approaching winter. However, towards late afternoon, the grey sky began fragmenting into picturesque patches of cloud and the sun began to filter through from the clean blueness beyond.

A few hours later, a gorgeous evening had developed with the sun sinking towards the horizon warmly illuminating patches of clouds hovering tranquilly in the motionless air. On evenings like these the best thing to do is take a glider and pop down to the field; having a plane leisurely savouring the moment takes you from being a spectator to being part of nature's spectacle.

Unfortunately two of my gliders are out of action, the Fox having crashed from a spin, and the Raptor lacking a motor due to an unfortunate failure of the unit I'd installed. I have, on several occasions taken the Floater, however it just doesn't have the grace and beauty that make flying the other gliders on these majestic occasions so special.

So I had to enjoy the sunset while earthbound, leading me to ponder on the value of well established planes, the ones you fly dozens of times without issue and don't really appreciate the value they are providing...

Floater Jet Trying to Thermal

...not the right sort of plane

I recently took the Floater Jet to the local field to try it out at thermalling, it being a lovely clear day with things warming up.

There was certainly lift around, with the Floater staying up several minutes at a go. However I can't say the experience was sublime; the Floater is a little small for good visuals as it get higher and, an indication that it wasn't meant for this sort of thing, it has no under-wing markings whatsoever.

Additionally, when gliding, it doesn't have very good penetration either, mainly as it's designed as a benign flyer rather than a sleek performance soarer. This attempt also highlighted, again, how good it would be to have a vario setup. Unfortunately. as far as I am aware, this means having a telemetry-capable radio for which a variometer accessory is available.

Unfortunately this seems only to be the case for the FrSky unit, requiring a couple hundred dollar investment. Perhaps it might appear in my chrissy stocking...

Flocking with Corellas.

...going to the birds

About halfway through a lovely evening flight, a massive flock of Corellas took to the sky, deciding to change roosting places en mass.

I turned the Floater Jet to follow them, with the Mobius camera mounted on board. Despite the difficulty of flying chase in a Floater Jet, its high-mounted prop meaning it's always changing orientation with throttle adjustments, I managed to get close to them a few times.

By a stroke of luck, with the flock swiftly changing direction, the Floater Jet was suddenly in the midst of dozens of Corellas on the wing, their brilliant white plumage reflecting the golden sunset against a beautiful backdrop of distant clouds...

Sensational Sunset

...a gorgeous spectacle

Today was grey almost from start to finish, overcast with scattered showers. However, late in the day, the wind shifted to a warm northerly, clearing the west and developing the western clouds into a lovely assortment of types and altitudes.

The field was mostly empty so I quickly had the Floater Jet packaged with a camera and launched into the lovely afternoon sky to get some video of the sky show.

I'm a fan of mist and clouds; as regards the latter, particularly those interesting collections you get in the early morning or late evening, when shapes have developed in relative stillness.

This evening was a charmer, a clear west showing the gradually sinking sun and a collection of clouds on the opposite horizon,  an aerial canvas for the low angle of the sun to render in beautiful shades...

Floater Jet Ground Take-Off

...unlikely but groovy

Some while ago, while trying the throttle with the Floater Jet on the ground, it occurred to me that, since the Floater has a high-mounted prop, it would be feasible to take it off from the ground. Theoretically anyway.

Without undercarriage, however, and just a smooth-bottomed fuselage, control on the ground wouldn't be very good. Also, as my first attempts showed, the Floater can tend to skid around, especially if the controls aren't all centred, as I sometime have them in order to keep it trimmed straight for power flight.

Nevertheless, as you can see from the Floater's take-off run, ground launch is possible and a novel change to the usual hand-launch. And its pretty cool as well...

Floater Jet Reconnaissance Mission

...for a bird's eye view

The search and rescue mission for the flown by the Phoenix to try and locate the Stinger EDF unfortunately drew a blank; a few maybe's but nothing definitive, with a subsequent foray through the paddocks on foot found nothing either.

Therefore a second reconnaissance mission was required, this time using the Floater Jet with the Mobius mounted on its nose. The sloping mounting provided look-down capability, something missing from the Phoenix's wing-top placement, and additionally provided an obscured field of view.

The weather was, unfortunately, not conducive to the structured coverage of the field I had hoped for, with the warm and gusty weather making flying the Floater hazardous and doing low passes even more so. As a result the flying was haphazard, battling to keep the Floater flying level while maintaining an even altitude, although desirable, was out of the question. In fact, from the video, it's clearly apparent that the Floater was skimming over fences and brushing the grass tops at stages.

About halfway through it's search, a pale speck showed on the extreme edge of the the video image. Having checked numerous specks already without success I was doubtful this would amount to anything, particularly being out of the search zone. Zooming in on the speck it took some form and appeared to have a vertical black stripe. Looking closer it also seemed to have faint hints of something horizontal on either side.

Zooming again the appearance of a circle in between seemed to cement the realisation that I'd actually managed to locate the Stinger. The next day, after twenty minutes of wandering around the paddock trying to match the video clip orientation, I finally found it...

Taming the Sting

...still a blast to fly

The Stinger got another run today, on a beautifully clear afternoon with a fresh southerly blowing. However, despite having flown it many times, I still feel that flying it is always a risk. 

It's fast, twitchy and relatively small, and I don't think the multi-colour scheme helps, to the degree that I'm contemplating stripping the techno-camouflage off the wings to make it more visible.

The launch is also often a bit of a heart stopper, with the throw usually leaving the Stinger alarming half-inverted, although its jetstream somehow allows it to hang in the air long enough to get it corrected without ever having any problems.

While not being over-powerful it's still pretty fast, with the best view of it being coming in low and fast with its sharp nose pointed straight at you and the swoop of its canopy giving a menacing look.

And, of course, being a jet, it's sleek shape and addictive howl compensate for the edge-of-your-seat experience you have when flying it...

Floater Jet Aerial Lake Tour

...camera at the ready

Having packed the Floater Jet it seemed opportune to load it up with the camera and give it a fly for a scenic tour around the lake.

The brisk northerly, however, made this anything but a simple exercise, having to launch the Floater over the lake without having it ending up, well, floating in the lake. Fortunately the Floater launched OK and soon powered over the lake against the gusty breeze.

I'm always fascinated at the different perspective provided by the aerial camera, obviously the same reason that people want to fly FPV, and the view of the lake and trees spreading out below the Floater as it climbed in the sunny blue skies was both intriguing and lovely.

The approach to landing seemed impossibly high however, as is clear and evidence of the headwind the Floater was experiencing, it worked out ok although it did end up a little close to the rubbish bin...

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...

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...

Stinger Assembled

...but servo centering still a pain

I finished off the assembly of the Stinger 64 EDF today; a very nice quality kit that goes together well. The only piece that doesn't really fit is the pink trim bit that fits between the fuselage spine and the tail.

Something I wasn't sure about was the installation of the EDF, as I suspected the fan, or at least the cowling, would vibrate. So, to be on the safe side, I hot-glued the cowling to the fan housing in a few places, and then glued the cowling into the fuselage before I installed the wing.

The only thing that was a pain, although not unique to the Stinger, was the servo centring. In the past I've had to reinstall the servo arms so that they're centred once the plane has been powered up. I thought I was missing something, but checking a few videos of this subject seemed to confirm this.

The problem is that, in the case of the Stinger and the Walrus, the servos are installed in recesses without access to the servo arm, so I ended having to cut a section of foam out from one tail servo. In the case of the tail there's no option as, like flaps, they both move together and there's no trimming option.

I have read about a servo tester which includes a facility to set your servo to the centre position. I think this lets you set the centre position so as to install servo arms prior to installing the servo on the plane, however it doesn't help with servos already installed on a plane. 

Perhaps the plane manufacturers should use this instead of just randomly installing the servo arms...

Stinger 64. Unofficial Unboxing.

...looks good

The Stinger 64 looks like a very good quality package, nicely moulded and with remarkably thin decals which appear almost as if they're sprayed on. However, they are somewhat garish, and I'm not sure that they will be helpful for orienting the speedy jet as I suspect they may work as camouflage. Anyway, we'll find that out soon enough.

The wings are very small compared to the body, in fact I mistook them for the horizontal stabilisers when I saw them first. Which makes me think you'll have to fly this particular plane pretty fast to keep it in the air. And launch it with lots of power!

I've chosen to go with a Zippy 1800mAh 4S 40C battery, instead of a 2200mAh, as I want to give it the best chance of a good first launch - you can always upgrade to a bigger battery later, but it's much harder to make a crashed plane look like new!

The other good feature of the Stinger is that it features plastic hinges for the control surfaces. This may seem unremarkable until you have control surfaces peeled off at high speed, both startling and time consuming to repair, especially if you can'f find the bits that flew off...