Amazing FT Simple Soarer

[scottdnc]

I built a Simple Soarer a few days back. My son and I flew it over the weekend. Boy am I impressed! First, let me confess that I have a hard time sticking with stock plans. My Versa Wing was scaled to 133% with the blunt nose mod and flies great. I built the SS with a completely straight wing (no dihedral) and flaperons that run almost the entire length of the wings. I put a 28 mm NTM 1200 Kv motor on it with a 1300 mah 3 cell, 30 amp ESC and 10 X 4.7 prop. It was tail heavy with a standard power pod so I added 2 ounces of lead weight to the firewall. Balance was perfect.

We launched her and couldn't believe the power she had. Not quite unlimited vertical but darned close. A great roll rate with the big ailerons. An easy flier. My son has only flown a couple e-Flites with SAFE technology (Apprentice and Delta Ray) but had no problem in controlling the SS. He did break a prop on landing but after all it is a 10 incher with no landing gear protection. I've got about 50 spares anyway. We're going to build some more of these with varying configurations. Definitely a GREAT design. Thanks Flite Test!!!

 

[Foam Addict]

:applause:
Isn't it great when you get a plane like that?

 

[stay-fun]

Awesome! Would you like to share some pictures with us? I'm interested in how you did the ailerons, did you make the wing chord longer or did you use the existing trailing edge of the wing?

Pics! Pics!

 

[scottdnc]

I'll get some pics

I'll get some pics in the next couple days. In answer to your question, I did not modify the wing chord. If memory serves, I made the ailerons about 1.25" deep (because that didn't interfere with the bottom plate of the wing) and went from the tip of the wing to within about 2" of the fuse. I was able to imbed two metal gear servos behind the wing spar. I measured the length of the aileron and put the control horn in the middle. I'm not too happy with the force it takes to move the aileron so I'm going to separate it from the rest of the wing by cutting the paper/hot glue hinge and inserting small nylon hinges (probably will do that for the tail too).

I'll be building at least a couple more and try doing a wing with polyhedral and dihedral to make it a little gentler for my two sons to fly (they're in their twenties with YEARS of xBox and PlayStation controller experience so they don't need too much dumbing down of the controls... in fact... truth be known... their hand/eye coordination is far beyond mine already).

I'll definitely post some pictures as soon as I can.

 

[scottdnc]

Project Pictures

This shows a reinforcing brace I made by trimming a Popsicle stick and hot gluing where the wing attachment sticks go through the fuse. The force of the rubber bands were deforming the foam board. Put braces in both locations.



A side-by-side of a standard power module vs. my modification for the Simple Soarer. I wanted a box section that would enclose the nose of the main fuse that was 4" longer to help with CG.



The straight wing with no dihedral or poly dihedral. Flaperons run almost the whole length of the wing.



The control horns are mounted in the middle of each flaperon.




The hinges were a little stiff with the hot glue so I added small sections of reinforced tape and cut slits to reduce the effective length of the hinges. I even went back and cut every other reinforced tape to make the hinge bend a little better. Made a big difference in the force required from the servos.




I added access doors on the bottom and top of the new nose to make it easier to install the battery and get to the electronics without removing the power module.




Profile of the new boxed power module. You can see the slight downward angle on the firewall to angle the thrust a bit.



Top and bottom pics of the new SS.




One note about setting up the dual rates and expo on your transmitter. The ailerons and rudder have a lot of authority in controlling the plane. It's okay to add in quite a bit of rate adjustment for those surfaces but be careful of the elevator. You'll probably want to leave it close to ir at a 100% rate with not too much expo. The elevator is not overpowered on this plane.

 

[DDSFlyer]

Looks like a great flyer! I may have to build me one of these, sounds like a good time. Those are HUGE flaperons! No wonder the hinges would be stiff.

 

[Winglet]

Thanks for posting this. I've been soaring my blunt nose Versa Wing and having a super time. Think I will build one of these with your power pod extension and hatch next. Just sounds like it flies so well.

 

[scottdnc]

Let me know if you guys build the plane. It is FUN to fly. The 1200 Kv motor gives it a LOT of power. It's pretty fast. It is best to have some flying experience before handling this one. It's a little twitchy without dihedral... but that's part of the fun. Definitely very controllable but you have to pay attention.

 

[stay-fun]

Awesome man! I'm also working on a modified soarer, so i was curious . I like your hatch design! And for your flaperon servos, are they removable? I figuring out a way to make them removable...

 

[Doom]

Hey! Aewsome build. Just recently I also thought about the Simple Soarer with an aileron update. What I actually did not like about the design was hte polydihedral and the look of the fuselage. I always wanted to have something like a Radian Pro. Right now I am building somehow a mixture of the Simple Soarer and a Radian, or at least I try Why not use a folding Prop? Or is that not possible?

Again, very nice build!

 

[scottdnc]

Removable?

The removable servos sound interesting. Mine are hot glued into the wing so if you leave the plane in a hot car on one of our NC hot summer days, they're removable.

 

[scottdnc]

SS and Radian Pro

I've also got a Radian Pro and love it. Although I've got to warn about placing a GoPro too far forward on the fuse. It takes off, goes up for a while and then nose dives into the ground. I've got a new fuse, prop and canopy that I'll be building up soon

The SS with the straight wing performs a lot like my HK Dynamic-S. The wingspan is similar and the SS has pretty much the same get-up-and-go performance.

I didn't put a folding prop on her because I was worried about how the prop would interact with the corners on a square fuse. It seems to me that the prop could get hung up. May be worth a try. I've got some folding props on the shelf.

My modified SS does fly well but yesterday it was a little difficult to handle. I think she was a bit tail heavy. I'm going to build another fuse and power module for her. I didn't crash but had one heck of a ride for a little bit. I'm rebuilding the fuse to put on a bigger horizontal stab for a little more control. I'm also going to add an inch to the front of the power module for a better CG and re-position the bottom hatch to allow for more options on battery placement. I'm going to make sure I can fit in a 3 cell 2200 mah battery for a little more powered flight time.

I'll post the pics of those mods when I get them finished. I've got a BUNCH of projects going on now. Radian Pro rebuild, 133% blunt nose Versa Wing landing gear redesign, repairing a Super Kinetic 815 that found the ground at a high rate of speed, EZ Master rebuild after it found a low hanging wire on landing, a couple of quad copter repairs after some fat thumbed maneuvers. (did I mention that I'm pretty new to this hobby and sometimes exceed my abilities?) Fortunately I've got quite a few others that are in fine flying condition so I can keep on tempting fate.

 

[Doom]

It is good to hear that I am not the only one crashing a lot Right now I have to do some repairs on my FT Racer and also I need to modify my Versa Blunt nose (larger Winglets!). Let me know if the folding prop works.

 

[TEAJR66]

When I saw the simple soarer, I immediately thought of the Butterfly, with its huge wing and polyhedral. That was the first plane that I had "successful" RC flights with. After several disastrous attempts at RC flight with "trainer" planes, my father and I were ready to quit. An experienced RC Pilot told us to relax and try a different approach. He recommended the Butterfly. We did and VIOLA!!! We can fly!

I discovered the SS just after reentering the hobby through foam. I built the wing and put it on an experimental fuselage that was meeting with moderate success. The combination was just what I needed to reignite the passion. Here is a vid of that plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV1b75wrwro

The SS is a great bird. Particularly that wing design. Brilliant!!!

Be safe and have fun,
Tommy

 

[scottdnc]

Thanks for the vid teajr66. You've convinced me to build the polyhedral wing. Looks like a nice relaxing flyer. I don't know why I didn't build that one first, always trying to "improve" things I guess. I don't know what it is about the straight wing that makes the plane into a "warm" liner, but it changes the characteristics a lot. The nice thing about the SS is that you can build a few different wings and fuses to experiment. I do want to do a non-powered version for towing. I've got an e-flite Apprentice S15 that should pull it up with no problem. The SS is part of the whole swappable line but I prefer just to build the planes like non-swappables (except maybe for the wings in this case) and dedicate them to their configuration. Although I admit that my fleet of planes is growing and taking up more and more space. My wife is not a swappable design, so maybe it's better for me to start taking advantage of the interchangeable parts to keep the clutter down and her happy.

 

[TEAJR66]

Happy wife, happy life! Do what ever it takes.

At the same time I built that wing, I tried my hand at an Armin Wing at 48" (same chord) made from MPF. The wing had more dihedral and no poly. It flew just as nice, but faster. Not like faster to stay afloat, but faster as in a more slippery wing used less throttle and slipped along. Both were very nice and each had its uses. Both wings quickly retired once I got the hang of flying again. I started making sportier planes and left the three channel wings to collect dust.

Be safe and have fun,
Tommy