11'-10" Wingspan H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose)

Horseman3381

Well-known member
Stuff happens. Was spotting at the time, he had to shoot a long approach to blow off energy. Bird like that, with good weight, no flaps, and a narrow wing turns into a glider. Watch the videos above, in his approaches at his home field, he's a good distance from the landing track of the aircraft and can gauge speed quite well. Not to mention the field is wide, so he has the option to land the plane 50' out in the grass. At FFE you are a few feet from the flight line, or you are landing in the soy/on flags, and while it doesn't matter as much for small RCs, for big birds you have a much harder time gauging speed. In his case, the aircraft was at a long distance, nearly head-on with him, and got slow because speed was unjudgeable. Probably under pressure with video crew standing there.

I'm glad this didn't get hangar queened for the rest of the season! @Horseman3381 put some videos up when you re-maiden please!
Thanks for the post b-29er, I appreciate your analysis of the situation. In retrospect I should have landed it in the beans.

It almost did turn into a hanger queen. After FFO I put in in the corner of my garage and didn't relay have a desire to do anything with it. Just before labor day there were a number of people at my flying field asking if I was going to bring it out to our clubs big bird fly in. I hadn't originally planned on it, but they ended up talking me into it, and I am glad they did.

I am planing to get some new video footage of it, however it has been 20+mph winds most weekends up here, so as soon as we get some good flying weather I will try. A club buddy of mine has a drone he has been practicing chasing plane. I'm hoping I can get him to get some footage.
 

b-29er

Well-known member
Thanks for the post b-29er, I appreciate your analysis of the situation. In retrospect I should have landed it in the beans.

It almost did turn into a hanger queen. After FFO I put in in the corner of my garage and didn't relay have a desire to do anything with it. Just before labor day there were a number of people at my flying field asking if I was going to bring it out to our clubs big bird fly in. I hadn't originally planned on it, but they ended up talking me into it, and I am glad they did.

I am planing to get some new video footage of it, however it has been 20+mph winds most weekends up here, so as soon as we get some good flying weather I will try. A club buddy of mine has a drone he has been practicing chasing plane. I'm hoping I can get him to get some footage.

Don't kid yourself, hindsight is always 20/20. You put 100 pilots in your shoes, at the sticks of a 12' spruce goose on a goaround from a hot approach, cameras on you and a crowd of 1000 pilots watching you fly, no one does anything different from what you did. No one lands a perfectly good aircraft in the soy intentionally. You almost need a stall warning hooked up to a headset on larger stuff, at least the way the runway was this year.
 
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FoamyDM

Building Fool-Flying Noob
Moderator
Thanks for the post b-29er, I appreciate your analysis of the situation. In retrospect I should have landed it in the beans.

It almost did turn into a hanger queen. After FFO I put in in the corner of my garage and didn't really have a desire to do anything with it. Just before labor day there were a number of people at my flying field asking if I was going to bring it out to our clubs big bird fly in. I hadn't originally planned on it, but they ended up talking me into it, and I am glad they did.

I am planing to get some new video footage of it, however it has been 20+mph winds most weekends up here, so as soon as we get some good flying weather I will try. A club buddy of mine has a drone he has been practicing chasing plane. I'm hoping I can get him to get some footage.

I was at FFO this year and missed this, DANG! B-29er is dead right... The flight line, runway setup at FFE makes approaches harder to read. I only fly small things so far so I can't comment on the way larger craft fly (yet). You put together a truly beautiful project. Congratulations on success. This project here (and the few others like it) are inspiring...

...enough to try this:
I found this because I am infatuated with the WWII Bloody Baron thread. I noticed it dwindling. Maybe because it's older, or they're running low on planes. but I will be coming up with a Bloody Goose Design using Goblin Motors I think. I will design it, but I have to get the funds and parts before I go whole hog building... (although I have two Goblins quads that have an issue. I might "test" the motors with the project.)

I have watch this and look forward to seeing this aloft again. Good Luck!
 

CatholicFlyer

Active member
I was at FFO this year and missed this, DANG! B-29er is dead right... The flight line, runway setup at FFE makes approaches harder to read. I only fly small things so far so I can't comment on the way larger craft fly (yet). You put together a truly beautiful project. Congratulations on success. This project here (and the few others like it) are inspiring...

...enough to try this:
I found this because I am infatuated with the WWII Bloody Baron thread. I noticed it dwindling. Maybe because it's older, or they're running low on planes. but I will be coming up with a Bloody Goose Design using Goblin Motors I think. I will design it, but I have to get the funds and parts before I go whole hog building... (although I have two Goblins quads that have an issue. I might "test" the motors with the project.)

I have watch this and look forward to seeing this aloft again. Good Luck!

My B-52 design should be a bit larger than this Goose, wondering about landing gears or how to launch it. So yeah, I haven't been to a Fest, but seeing the photos of the short and narrow run ways, geeze, I don't think my builds could take off from there.
 

FoamyDM

Building Fool-Flying Noob
Moderator
The hard runway was short. The "hard" part for me was that there were dozens of people to see past for a long approach. Wereas a typical field is just 2-3.

@CatholicFlyer , good luck on the b-52 build.
 

CatholicFlyer

Active member
The hard runway was short. The "hard" part for me was that there were dozens of people to see past for a long approach. Wereas a typical field is just 2-3.

@CatholicFlyer , good luck on the b-52 build.

Thanks. got to say, it is massive, the fuselage, picked it up to balance it, we still have some Christmas decorations up, had to move it around that, it balances around 36 inches from the front of a 10 foot fuselage. adding plywood to act as wing connectors, like the huge duster disney plane shown in the flite test video, plus removeable engine pods too. also have to use is the pink foam installation board, so my dad and I plan on making the wings out of that.
 

d8veh

Elite member
I'm wondering whether a stabilisation module/receiver would work on one of these big birds for better control over landings. They look after the pitch and roll while you can concentrate on the rudder and throttle to get a very precise landing.
 

Horseman3381

Well-known member
I have tossed around the idea of buying a Spectrum receiver with AS3X, or looking for one that has Safe as well, though i'm not sure that they make an 8 channel airplane with safe in it. Several people at my flying field who fly bigger planes (mostly 3D plans like the edge 540) have been telling me I should get a Gyro for it. They use the Aura 8 which looks like it does a really good job. Also with that they tell me I don't need a receiver, just 2 satellite modules.
 

Bricks

Master member
With the Spektrum satellites you have to hook them to a receiver then bind and they are good to go.