Ding's first flight, and first R/C plane, and first scratch build and first post!

[dingmike]

Hello everybody! I finally entered the world of R/C flight! I have been into surface R/C for 20 years now. I started racing my RC10T when I was 13. But I have always wanted to fly. I stumbled across flitetest on youtube and was instantly hooked. About a year later flitetest started this forum and I have been casually lurking on and off. That's when I found Experimental Airlines videos on here. His techniques and designs fit my style of building perfectly. This last summer I built an R/C car out of a cookie sheet from the dollar tree and all of my spare parts in my tool box,lol. That gave me the confidence to build pretty much any thing my mind could think up. But...my wallet couldn't,lol. So I decided to save up for a good radio system for a plane. I got a Tactic TTX650. It came with two free rX's.

Anyway, on to the video and the plane in it. It is made from 2 and some bits of dollar tree foam board, gift cards, packing tape, coat hanger(landing gear), and other stuff I can't think of now. The first cut is my first landing/crash, it was unplanned, but nothing broke, the wing just got a little askew, I drove it back to me and checked my C.R.A.P. and took off again. The plane flew very strait and smooth but I was using all my concentration not to fly out of the field! I got overconfident and did a loop, I lost my orientation and crashed pretty hard, but hooray! nothing was broken. I Checked my C.R.A.P. again and took off. It started out well enough until I was heading toward myself and my Nephew who was filming the action, and panicked and crashed. This time I broke the motor mount, which was just a single gift card. By this time it was getting so cold my Nephew and I was shivering. We practically ran back to the car, witch I left running to keep it warm. Well if you are still reading, thanks, I usually don't write this long. Here is the video.

If you have ANYquestions, or comments. Just ask away! Anything!

-ding

 

[pgerts]

You had some really nice starts. It is rare to see so smooth takeoffs. Keep on. Get a "transmitter bag" to keep your fingers warm and trottle down a little. A little slower flight makes it a lot more easy to direct the plane into the wind for straight smooth landings.

 

[dingmike]

Thanks for the tips pgerts! Funny story about the throttle, the flights in the video where at half stick! But I found it weird that the motor didn't start up until quarter stick. I have since adjusted the transmitter so that I only have about 2 notches of dead stick and have much more throttle control. I was so afraid if I slowed the plane down it would fall out of the sky,lol. My planes flying weight is only 503grams with a 40inch wingspan and a 6inch cord, it should have enough lift to fly much slower, I think.

 

[pgerts]

500 grams and 40" span is good for a plane like that.
I have what was called "the first parkflyer". A Kyosho Ferias. A good model after replacing the original brushed motor with a 50 gram outrunner and LiPo to get the weigh down 200 grams. The style is much like your plane but in beautiful balsa.

It was good on landing on the power lines - (isolated).

 

[zev]

awesome videography, and flying! fantastic plane too! throttle not starting till 1/4 stick sounds like you may not have calibrated the ESC?

 

[dingmike]

Thanks zev! It was my 14 year old Nephew's first time filming too. I'll pass along the compliment. I don't know exactly what it is called on an airplane, but on my R/C cars it is called endpoints. After that flight I adjusted the transmitter so that the the throttle works properly. I'm running a 20amp Hobbywing Skywalker. I haven't even read the manual yet. But I did read the default cutoff settings for the lipo, I worry about lipos a lot. I can't remember if I calibrated the ESC to the throttle, I was so excited when powering it up for the first time,lol.

 

[pgerts]

On some controllers you have to power on with the throttle stick on 100% to calibrate.
The controller will not arm until you pull the throttle stick back to zero.
Be sure to have the trims on your transmitter zeroed first.

 

[dingmike]

I will get the instructions eventually. I got 5 sheets of foam board 2 rolls of packing tape for Christmas from my Nephews, and a Flyzone micro Fokker Dr.1 from my Dad! I have been thinking of doing a build of an Antonov An-2. So look for that thread in the scratch build topic next month! I going to practice flying my simple stick before I fly my new Fokker. Thanks for all the tips!

 

[dingmike]

Here is a video of my second flight. I put on a different wing that has ailerons. This is the final flight for this plane, as the fuselage got destroyed by the crash in the video. I'm almost done with it's replacement, just landing gear left to do. I am going to put the wing with dihedral on it to practice flying. The Antonov an-2 build is underway as well in the Mad(sratch)builders section.

 

[NewZee]

Here is a video of my second flight. I put on a different wing that has ailerons. This is the final flight for this plane, as the fuselage got destroyed by the crash in the video. I'm almost done with it's replacement, just landing gear left to do. I am going to put the wing with dihedral on it to practice flying. The Antonov an-2 build is underway as well in the Mad(sratch)builders section.

Ding, Nice flight and video, too bad you lost the plane, try a little more altitude on your next flight! when your crash happened you were not "two mistakes high" You were a lot higher earlier in the flight. I'm speaking from experience as my early crashes looked much the same.