Good / Funny/ windy day for flying at GSW modellers

[coolgabsi]

I came out of the house with the weather forecast at field to be 3-7mph winds. happy, I jumped in my car and drove straight to the field. Well, no one was there at the field, and as i was not an official member yet, I didnt have the keys. I was like this is it, I was gonna buy the membership this weekend anywaz, why not now. I bought it, got the keys, drove back, and by the time I got there, the winds picked up again. ~12-17mph winds.. I was like heck it, I am taking out my fleet, and waiting till the winds die down. Well..

Some one else showed up too... just to test their plane. I chatted, made a good buddy. Well.. I started off with my nexstar.. Its too light and I wasnt expecting uch out of it, but It went up in the air in a matter of couple of feet in to the wind, and the wind was throwing it up and down all over about 6ft-8ft lift and drop. I got worried, just one lap and I made a successful and stressful land..


Got my P-51 ready. I knew that thats heavier and has much more power than the sissy nexstar. I powered that up, got up , did some laps with it, did some inverted pass... not turning inverted yet, but straight inverted passes... it was awesome, this plane was cutting through wind like no one's business... I did a couple of touch and goes, very sucessful. I was happy. Brought it down slow to see how much battery power I got left. I had enough, so I decided to do 2-3 minutes more of flight.. The plane takes off... and as soon as its about 100 feet high, I see something fall from it.. I was starteled... I thought it was just the spinner.. I was like whatever... I'll recover it. NO biggie.. Until I turned it looking into me.. AND THERE WAS NO PROP... I saw the prop and the spinner assembly basically spin and dive down.. I was LIKE WHA!!!!!! I was really dead stick....

Well.. after fighting the wind for a while I found a patch of tall gras where I could even stall it and it wont hurt.. I got it to the patch, and landed it safely.. WAS very proud but confused... I went over, plane looks perfectly fine, motor is fine, shaft lookin ok.. just no prop / adapter. I found it about 100 feet away in the same grass.. but WHY DID IT JUST SLIDE OUT????

ANY suggestions on how to make it stay on there tighter? ?? I would really appreciate that..

Also, then I took the 450 out. I have been getting more and more confident on it, and can do some pretty fast manuevers on it. it love the blade thumps... bring it about 6-8 feet inverted.. I love this heli... So I go one full battery flying around doing acrobats.. it was fun, second battery I was again having a ton of fun flying it, and all of a sudden, it goes into a DEATH PYRO.. No rudder authority at all .. like at all... I flipped idle up off and throttle hold on!

tried to auto it, but it was too hard and I had never done it. I thought my gyro gave up on me.. I was mad at the gyro at first. BUT then I figured out, my inside TT gears stripped flat.. The ones inside the frame... how.. ?? Well. I had a little gar slip yesterday while flying around in an empty land. I saw one or two gears a little stripped, bt i thought it would be fine. it will fly.. AS it happened, those gears took 3 flights, two hard ones and one just flying around, and it finally gave in..

DAmage.. ? just the gears, and the flybar paddle that broke off from the flybar. No worries, I got both these.. I'll check my shafts, but i am sure its fine.. just flybar, paddle, gear

Anywaz.. It was a lot of fun.. And I am officially a member of GSW aeromodellers

Suggestions and comments are always welcome!

And these are the pics of my P-51 from two weeks. Someone apparently took pics of it flying and put it up on the website... check them out..

http://flygsw.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=19645

http://flygsw.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=19647

 

[RandyDSok]

There are three ways that brushless outrunners attach a prop... the small ones often use what is called a prop saver which is basically just a way to rubber band on the prop, then there is a collet adapter which clamps onto the shaft coming off of a motor, and finally there is a prop adapter that bolts to the rotating can of the motor opposite of the shaft.

The best one, IMO, is the prop adapter. If you lost a prop with one of these then it can only be caused by not tightening the nut enough or by not balancing your prop causing the nut to loosen because of vibration.

The collet adapter type just clamps down on a smooth shaft so you must tighten the down properly or what you mentioned could happen easily. Of course an out of balance prop can also lead to the same issue even if clamped tight enough.

I know you didn't use a prop saver type... so we can ignore it in this case.


BTW... what brand is that P-51?... it looks sweet.

 

[Tony]

If this is the collet type, I would take some 80 grit sandpaper to the smooth shaft, then hit it with some green thread lock. The thread lock that I'm talking about is made to hold the pinion onto the 250 heli motor. That is what it's made for. Between the scuffing of the shaft, and the thread locker, it won't come off again.

 

[Tony]

I had to work some magic on those photos. I think they look better lmao.

 

[coolgabsi]

They definAtely look better tony! Thanks a lot!!

Randy this is the foamy p51 from tower hobbies... 119 rx ready. And with discounts and free shipping barely 100 bucks for it all. It's beautiful..

Only backdrop is that the landing hear needs work. It's kinda flimsy.. Prone to break off.. But, has space enough for retracts... I am debating if i should do that or not..

But I love this plane..

 

[RandyDSok]

Ug... another darn foamy.... I've got one that I retired right after getting back into the hobby last year. Mine also needs the LG fixed but I just don't care for how foam on this size plane flies...

I'm looking for which P-51 I'm going to get some time later... but it will be a balsa/ply or maybe a fiberglass... FG is unlikely since most are out of my price range.

Of course the foamies do look all right from a distance still... lol

 

[Tony]

They look great until you get up close to them. I will say this, the P-51 Gold Edition on Tower has caught my eye and I have thought about it. And if what I think is going to happen does happen, I may be able to get it. I may not have the time to fly it, but I will be able to get it. lol.

 

[coolgabsi]

How about the hobbyzone's p-51 that is rtf for 400 with everything. And if u sell the dx6i that comes with it, comes to around 250 for all setup and is very upgradable , people have fitted os55 engines in it and it screams.. It's not perfectly scale though, but looks and flys awesome..

 

[RandyDSok]

HobbyZone doesn't make any planes... but they do carry several by other companies... Like the Hanger 9 P-51 PTS that you were actually referring too... If I were going H9, I'd probably skip the one with the radio and just get the ARF version instead... then convert it to electric.

I also like the Top Flight's... only issue for me is that they are larger than I can conveniently carry in my car.

I will likely have to build and or design one to get exactly something I want... The foamy I have ( retired ) is a 57" ( 1450mm ) FMS P-51D and it was always tight to transport even disassembled.

So I'll look for something in the 45-55" range ( 49" is about perfect size for me ) and designed for electric ( read light but strongly built ). I like the P-51D style but I'm not against the B version either. If I build it and it's a D model, I'll probably go with a Gunfighter or Velma paint scheme ( both are almost the same ). I'll use electric retracts since these have come a long way and are easier than pneumatics.

 

[Tony]

What do you plan on doing with that P-51? If I get this job, I'm going to be looking for a war fighter. And I could beat the crap out of that one before I got a real one lmao.

 

[coolgabsi]

While I like the idea of arf, but I wanna weigh the cost of putting it together.

If I am going a plane now , I am going nitro... I like the sound. I have all the equipment now (as I had to get fr my 50 nitro heli)
I love the noise.. And that's how a warbird is supposed to sound like.. Lol

How much is a 50-55 size 4stroke?

I am hoping to find someone in the club to sell me theirs.. There are people who sold theirs for CHEAP just a couple of days ago..

Someone sold a rxr hobbico 40 size trainer (2minths old) almost unused for 50 bucks the other day.. (crud!!! ) only if I had known hahahaahha.... Anywaz..

Randy, I know the feeling of not having enough space.. I have a dodge neon two door, or a Mitsubishi mirage.. I will have to rethink things before I go for something bigger... Lol

 

[RandyDSok]

What do you plan on doing with that P-51? If I get this job, I'm going to be looking for a war fighter. And I could beat the crap out of that one before I got a real one lmao.

We'll have to talk about that one later... when you know if you are staying in the hobby or not. I've even got a good Turnigy SK 4250-650 for it and possibly a couple of MG servo's ( not high dollar ones but ok )..

 

[RandyDSok]

I select ARF's because when I read a thread about a PNP or RTF... there are a lot of reported failures with the included electronics... They tend to include the minimum required quality instead of using what I'll call recommended components. I don't see a reason to buy twice the servo's, ESC's and motors to get a quality product....

I have nothing technical against engines of any type... I just don't want the hassle of always needing to tune for the weather conditions and then the cleanup afterword. The obvious advantage is the amount of flight time that they provide.

 

[Lee]

Going back to the OP. You said Gaba, when you lost the tail on the 450, you switched off idle 1 and throttle hold. Why did you switch off idle 1? To do autos you need to have full pitch control that means going about 4/6 degrees negative to bring it down then progressive positive pitch to flare it out to land. If you are in normal mode, you cant give enough neg pitch to keep the blade speed up.

 

[coolgabsi]

Hey lee... My throttle hold pitch curve is linear full negative to full positive regardless of the mode I am in. So when I land in normal mode and flip the throttle hold on, the blades do a full negative pitch and slow down really fast... I do realize I need more practice in that area.. I honesty panicked a little. I tried to get it down safe, but it all happened to dang fast... Lol and somehow it felt like I didn't have good cyclic control either. Last couple feet it was tail down steep. I wanted to get it leveled, but couldnt .

That could also be because my blades had stalled too slow and I had minimum authority anywaz...

I'll practice autos more. No biggie.. Trying to auto from couple feet now a days, heard that that's the best way to learn. Do it from 3ft off the ground where no negative is required. And keep increasing height.. but thanks for reminding me about the pitch. how is mexico? Are you there yet?

 

[coolgabsi]

And randy. I do think that you are right about substandard electronics in pnp, rtf's.. They are not the best.. My planes have very plastic looking servos... They work fine for the load they have, but any bigger I would go with better stuff...

 

[Lee]

Thats right Gaba, so there was no need to flip the idle up switch first. That would have given you a nano second more time As for autos with the 450, its a very tricky thing. With the 500 and 600 its quite easy, but the lower swing weight in the blades of the 450 makes things more difficult.

 

[coolgabsi]

Ok.. So I have heard, that it's difficult to auto the nitro helis. Is that true? Interesting that autos are easier with bigger helis... Hope this big one gets ready for some flights soon.

 

[Lee]

Not sure why nitro helis would be hard to auto. Once you cut the throttle they are basically the same electric and nitro. The reason its easier is all to do with the inertia of the bigger blades allowing you more time to get things right before they slow down too much. 450 blades slow down quickly so not much room for errors.