50% size FT Versa Wings, short but successful maiden, before ended on a tree

[MachineCat]

After miserably crash and destroy my FT flyer, my son and I decided to go with a pusher. We chose to build the Blunt nose FT versa wings, 50% scaled down. We wanted it to be significantly lighter than 250g so we would be more comfortable flying it in a park.

The maiden flight went kind of success. My son was able to get it to take off and made turns on both sides, before it got caught by a tree. I had to do some tree climbing to save it.

Then we had several more flights, all went OK. Did crash several times, but this plane is a lot more tougher than our previous FT flyer. It survived all the crashes without any visible damage to the plane at all.

One thing we were struggling was that the "runway" was too bumpy. My son was lucky enough to get it take off several times but all my tries failed. I cannot see anything we did differently. When I tried to start, the plane just taxi a little bit of distance and flip over. We can see that it was jumping around before really take off, in the maiden video as well. Not sure what we can do about this. Maybe we need bigger wheels for this? The plane does taxi pretty smoothly and straight on concrete.

I was thinking maybe we should make it bigger, so the weight/wing ratio can be lower thus it can take off at a lower speed. This may make our "runway" issue less annoying?

As a 50% sized Versa Wings, the battery was not able to be fit into the wing itself. So I added a cover on top of the wings.

 

[Michael9865]

Do you have a side view? What about lengthening the nose gear To be more like the Ho229?

 

[MachineCat]

Do you have a side view? What about lengthening the nose gear To be more like the Ho229?

Here is a side view. Don't worry about the left rear wheel touching the wing, it was not the problem we saw. The last crash got that gear bent a little bit (but that was another issue, looks like the 1.2mm rod too soft for the landing gear).

But I am not sure if I understood you clearly. Do you mean getting the front landing gear longer so the plane would be more nose up on the ground?

 

[Ratcheeroo]

Here is a side view. Don't worry about the left rear wheel touching the wing, it was not the problem we saw. The last crash got that gear bent a little bit (but that was another issue, looks like the 1.2mm rod too soft for the landing gear).

But I am not sure if I understood you clearly. Do you mean getting the front landing gear longer so the plane would be more nose up on the ground?
View attachment 205895

I would say yes

 

[Michael9865]

Here is a side view. Don't worry about the left rear wheel touching the wing, it was not the problem we saw. The last crash got that gear bent a little bit (but that was another issue, looks like the 1.2mm rod too soft for the landing gear).

But I am not sure if I understood you clearly. Do you mean getting the front landing gear longer so the plane would be more nose up on the ground?
View attachment 205895

Yes, make the front landing gear longer so that it has a increased angle of attack. That should help the takeoffs. The landings may become a little tricky.

 

[MachineCat]

Yes, make the front landing gear longer so that it has a increased angle of attack. That should help the takeoffs. The landings may become a little tricky.

Thanks! @Michael763 @Ratcheeroo
I will definitely try that!

 

[MachineCat]

Well, tried a long front gear, but it did not really helped on the bumpy ground.

Then we tried to take off from some concrete and it went perfectly, until soon the plane got caught by the tree again. This time the tree is too tall, no coming back.

Now need to start another build.

I guess we need a slower flying pusher for us to get better at flying, without getting on to the tree that often.