Flying for Real..

[tonymadge]

Hi Dave well got up a little while ago to find the world had emptied its skies everywhere, I was on nights last night so slept through the deluge!
C182, No floats sorry

[DaveB]

I didn't think there would be. Yup.. I was stood on the back yard this morning trying to get the dog to do what dogs do when I noticed a completely black sky heading toward me. I stood there for 10mins watching the world get darker and darker until small rain drops started falling. I turned to go back inside and the outside light came on! By the time I'd got inside, you couldn't see your hand in front of you and I looked outside to see the street lights had come on! Never seen that happen before.
I actually took the Champ out after the rain had stopped as the wind dropped with it. Lasted for 3 batts before I came in and down the rain came again. The wife was parked in the drive for 10mins before daring to get out of the car.. a measure of how heavy the rain was falling. Still.. clear blues now. What a great country we live in

I've spent some time looking at Air-Tech 500 class Cessna's on Youtube today. There are a lot of vids showing them crashing There are a number with them flying well too I'm tempted mate despite poverty but a suitable runway nags at me terribly. Even when the common is cut, the grass isn't short enough for a takeoff (I doubt) and it would almost certainly dig-in on landing. One other problem.. where the hell do I put a model with a 51" wingspan?
ATB
DaveB

[tonymadge]

Wings are detachable

[Garry Russell]

You shouldn't laugh...but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17i43MTx4o8

[DaveB]

I'm glad it killed itself because that was painful to watch. I'd give marks to the pilot for persevering but in reality, he should have seen something was terribly wrong after the first attempt and stopped there.. certainly after the second flight. It was a case of the model being in the air (or off the ground.. as you see fit) rather than flying

Rgr on the detachable wings Tony

ATB
DaveB

[tonymadge]

That Rotordyne model was about as stable as a middle eastern government.

[DaveB]

Eddie..

A few questions for you re' the Hawk. It's categorized as a glider but everything I can see shows it going under power. Does it 'glide' and if so, how well? Secondly.. would you consider it to be aerobatic? Finally, did you have problems with the wings coming loose? I've seen this mentioned on a few forums with suggestions to either glue, use magnets or use velcro in the gap to keep them secure. Oh, one more thing, did you ever add a rudder servo?
EDIT: Yet more.. how is it in wind (not gale force of course)?

ATB
DaveB

[VEGAS]

Hi Dave,

Sorry for the delay getting back. Not long since returned from Cornwall. Spent last 24hrs sorting out a mountain of sh!t.

Ok..The EZ Hawk.

A lovely plane to progress to the 'next phase' of RC Flying. I found it a brilliant learner. Although I was rather intimidated by its size at first, as the Champ is so tiny.

In answer to your questions matey;

1. Yes it does glide. Rather nicely, although does'nt seem to float as well as the Radian. I think thats mainly down to wingspan.

2. Yes most certainly it can cope with aerobatics, although limited. I was always conducting outside loops.

3. Yes the wings are a bloody nightmare. I held them in place with extra strong double adhesive clear tape.

4. Never bothered with a rudder servo. Strangely it used ailerons and elevators as opposed to the Radians Rudder and Elevators (same as the Champ)

5. Not best ever in winds. I never flew it in more than a light wind. Occassional gusts caused me some squeaky bum moments on more than a few occassion.

The range of the aircraft concerned me though. Even on 2.4Ghz the bugger failed and I never saw it again when it nose dived to the ground at full throttle, probably into someones prize strawberrys.

Crash site has still never been found.

Christ I'm having flashbacks!

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

Thanks for answering those questions I've found the Hawk available at a couple of sites for around the £80-£90 mark (RTF) which intrigued me so I started looking further. Some of the vids I've looked at show it going at quite some speed.. one shows it flying in 17-20mph winds and it's not doing too badly.. one chap commented that it would start to fall quite rapidly with throttle off (hence my does it glide question) but that could be as much to do with the weather than anything. It's not a 'true' glider even though that's the class it finds itself in so I wouldn't expect 100% glider performance.
I think the Hawk started life as the Hawk Sky.. at least that's where the idea came from and for whatever reason, the rudder servo seemed the logical thing to leave off.. many Hawk Sky users saying they didn't use it (the 'Sky' is 4ch) so a cheaper version was made. The Hawk Sky can be got for around £114 (RTF) with I guess, the same amount of assembly required.

Both are tempting. I'm wondering if the extra for the slightly larger, 4Ch Sky is worth it. I'm looking at other options too and wanted to go beyond 3Ch if possible. The Super Cub popped up (which is also 3Ch) and handles much greater winds than the Champ.. hardly surprising given it's size AND.. there is a float kit for it. Thing is.. I don't really want the HZ Super Cub I think I could get a lot of mileage out of the Hawk and it's hand launch/no gear landing suits the area I use to fly in pretty much perfectly. I'd love Tony's Cessna 500 class 182.. especially for the price but I really don't think the nose gear would take the ground I have either for takeoff or landing. No way could you hand launch something of that size either! That said, I wouldn't want the wings coming off the Hawk either

I'm intrigued to learn how the chap with the Super Cub (who's just appeared) takes off and lands it. I've not caught him doing either yet!

Food for thought mate and much appreciated

ATB
DaveB

[DaveB]

Eddie..

What do you think of this.. http://www.wonderlandmodels.com/product ... er-bl-rtf/

ATB
DaveB