Fun With the FT Viggen.

...fast and fun

The Viggen has proved to be a great addition to the fleet, being fast stable and distinctive in the air. And, all this despite it being my first Flitetest build.

Most amazingly is how easily, and stably, it launches; being flat underneath you have to launch it underhand and yet it climbs stably without threat of stall or spin.

It's benign characteristics are a combination of it being a delta, but also certainly due to the calming effect of the canards, keeping the nose up and reducing the load on the wings.

You can turn the Viggen as sharply as you like and it won't do anything nasty. In fact, so effectively will it turn that it's almost like it has vectored thrust, being able to keep on looping almost about its own length.

And it's quite quick too; my version runs a common-or-garden ebay fan with a 50A ESC and is good for about 100kph. You could load it up with a 12 blade fan although I'm not sure how much aero load you'd want to put on a foam board plane...

Flitetest Viggen. First Flight.

...no bites from the vegan

Preparing for the first flight of the FT Viggen I was both excited and nervous; it looked to be a great flying plane made a little more forgiving with the canards. However, having a completely flat underside, it was also the first plane that I’d ever have to launch underhand.

So, as I’ve done several times before, I headed into the depths of the paddocks to a launch spot with long grass, just in case I needed an arrestor bed. As it turns out not really but it didn’t hurt since, at my first attempt, the trajectory was too flat, and the Viggen simply disappeared gently into the foliage.

The second attempt was good, the Viggen holding an upward attitude till I could bump up the throttle and then it was on its way.

Flitetest Nutball. First Flight.

...a well rounded plane


Whilst waiting for parts to arrive for the completion of the Viggen, my first Flitetest project, I decided to do a Nutball from a spare sheet of foam and a scrap motor.

It's a very easy plane to make, much simpler than the relatively complex Viggen, so didn't take long to make at all.

However, I didn't like the front-mounted motor or externally attached battery, which I thought looked ugly, so I mounted the motor internally and made access to the power pod through the top of the plane.

The result was a much neater-looking plane however required a much bigger battery (a 1300 3S) in order to compensate for the relocated motor.

With a big wing area I didn't think this would be a problem, however it turned what should be a slow floater into an absolute handful of a plane. Additionally, the elevator/rudder setup seemed highly ineffective with the Nutball not wanting to turn much at all. In fact, overall, flying the Nutball it recalled my first flights with the nose-heavy Radjet. 

By the end of the second flight, which ended with the Nutball spiralling into the paddock, I'd decided to reduce weight with a smaller battery mounted on top, and to change to elevon mix layout to improve flight response...