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...