Anyone flown the HK Walrus?

StuartPB

Senior Member
The mild but breezy and damp weather we've had here in my area means I've been grounded and I'm dying to get out and get some flight time in. Not getting any flight time in is annoying, especially as I'm not the most patient of people. Since I sold my quadcopter a while ago, I've built a Tiny Trainer, bought a Durafly Retro Junior and a HK Skymaster V2. I had some cash spare so I've also bought a HK Walrus. The idea was that I'm going to start out on the Tiny Trainer, progress to the Retro Junior and then move on to the Skymaster. I saw some videos of the Walrus though and like the gliding ability of this plane so I got it.

I'll probably try the Walrus after the Retro Junior. I built the Walrus up today and it's hanging in my garage. I'm looking forward to trying it at some point. One thing I've found is getting a 2200mah 3s battery in the bay is a squeeze. I had to push one end under the servo arms. The stickers that were applied were done so shockingly. There were bubbles and bad cuts where the stickers went over the control surfaces that needed sorting. I'll probably take them off at some point and might use coloured packing tape instead. I'm looking out for a printer who can do some custom decals for me too, with my website logo.

Have any of you guys flown the Walrus? How did you find it?
 

asitterlee

New member
The Walrus is quite a nice medium size glider to fly. I've had mine for about 6 months now and really do enjoy it. Firstly, before your first flight, check the motor mount screws and !balance! The prop. They are very out of ballance and will vibrate the loose motor mount screws right out! I found this on my second flight and lost a complete motor, mount and prop assembly.

With a 2200mah I found it nose heavy for gentle gliding but great for speeding around at near full throttle. Turns out its a bit of a sport plane as well. I found that for nice gliding a 1300mha works well.

All control surfaces work a little too well so set them low to begin with. Flaps cause quite a bit of ballooning so if you can, program your radio to use them in a "crow" setup. This really helps landing as it can come in a bit fast. Also using the rudder will cause a wing to drop slightly (due to no dihedral) and stalling the plane will result in bad things but it has enough power to pull itself out of a stall.

Handles a bit of wind and you can catch thermals as well. Overall, for the price, it's a great glider.
Hope this helps.
 

StuartPB

Senior Member
Definitely, thank you! When I ordered the Walrus I'd also got 3x 2200mah batteries with the intention of using them for this plane. I have a load of 1300mah Nano Techs so I'll try it with them first. I've dialled in 70/30 on dual rates and expo for rudder/ aileron and elevator I might increase that if needed. :) Not sure if I can program crow on my tx, it's a Flysky ia6?
 

MrClean

Well-known member
Read this threads last week and ordered one of them, they don't cost much and I'm hoping for a little more then my Bixler which I use FPV. Came in couple days ago. WOW what a fat fuse, I love it. But the stickers on the wing were only touching in a couple places and they weren't the right places, no smoothing them down. I'll have to put some color on it before assembly. I did that with the Bixler too and for the same reason. At least they peel easy. I'll try and get the prop balanced tonight and some paint on the bottom surfaces.
 

IFlyRCstuff

Flyer Of Many Things
I love the walrus. I can get 20 minutes on a 1300 mah and gliding! i havent dipped below 40 % on a 2200 and 27 minutes! it can handle wind with some experience. as for the control, i dont find that my rates are very high. at above 3/4 throttle the plane becomes unstable, but manageable, but the odds of you needint o go above 75% are low.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
I finally got a chance to get out and fly my Walrus, and I didn't get much out of it. Not really the Walrus's fault. I launched it, it flew out. No trim, that's weird. Then my Taranis said "RSSI levels low, critical" and "RSSI lost" at a couple points. Those would be the mildly uncomfortable points where I had no control. I circled around and brought it back to me and kept it inside the radius that I evidently had. Well this is no good, I'm not loosing altitude. To slow the plane more I put the flaps on. GREAT, now I'm going real slow AND not loosing much altitude. A couple more 150 foot turns over my yard and then I took it out to where the RSSI was critical again and pointed it back to me. If the plane is too floaty with flaps, try putting the spoilerons on. NOW we're cooking back to the field but I'm a couple feet too high. I set the flap switch back to neutral and bumped it back to full. Now there's a pucker moment. Lets do 30 then point the nose almost straight up. The switch is of course on my throttle side so bump the throttle, kill that stinking switch, point the nose over and kill the throttle. It still stalled a bit on my and bumped the nose from about 2 feet, no damage.
I think it's the receiver, I played range check on it (something I forgot to do and have never had a problem with). I never could get the receiver to do a good check. It's the XR8 that came with my Taranis. I'll have to swap it with my Bixler receiver which I wanted to swap to this flight stabilized Orange receiver anyways. But if I have enough points for a quick review

I've got a plane that refuses to stop in the air and even when it does it doesn't want to come down. If you forget something and you were just about to launch, just let go. It probably won't hit the ground for a couple minutes, don't feel like you have to run. It accelerates smoothly and quickly. I never got the engine to full throttle. I don't know how fast it goes but man, putting those spoilers was like lighting a rocket on it's backside. And the build, regardless of my abilities, ended out if not straight, its crooked in the places that make the plane fly straight and true. I don't remember any trim changes from low speed to stop and I was on the stick with in booster mode so couldn't tell ya.

I'll do the swapping and get back to ya.
 

Winglet

Well-known member
Yes, I bought a flew my Walrus through most of last summer. Great airplane. Mine is trimmed in packing tape. I upgraded the motor a little due the the original motor being really noisy and out of balance. It did fly the airplane fine however. The motor is just exceptionally cheap.

Wind doesn't effect this thing. Good soarer too!
 

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MrClean

Well-known member
The tape looks good but you can use the testors spray paint that they sell in Hobby shops. It is safe on the foam. As always use light coats and build the color.
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
MrClean, sounds like quite the experience with your sailplane. You might be able to service the X8R with the range issues. On the few I have, the antennas are connected to the board with those tiny ufl connectors and I've found that sometimes the silicon adhesive they use isn't enough to secure them. You might open the case up and check the antenna connections. I've used hotglue to secure them better.

On the setup for your HK Walrus, in addition to flaps and spoiler setup, you might consider setting up for crow to get you down easier. I have a flyzone calypso I've setup for that and it does work wonders for getting down from altitude quickly without too much speed that you'd have to bleed off for landing.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
I'd considered the crow mixing but at the time I figured to just set it up and fly it first so the ailerons are on the same channel. I will need the 8 channel rx for crow mixing OR I could just rig it so that when I put the flaps on it drops an anchor. The flight wasn't long enough, I have the spoilerons limited to about right but everything is on a switch, should have mixed a knob to the flaps so I can dial up or down the throw. I'll check and make sure the range issue isn't in the TX (I flew last week on a Frsky receiver so I don't think so. The spektrum unit is working well as also. And I'll look inside the RX tonight, I had no time for anything yesterday not even enough to go grab a different airplane. Oh well., days are getting longer.
 

Winglet

Well-known member
I'd stay away from the spray paint. You could test it, but a good chance it will eat right through the foam. The tape route is easy.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
Wow, opening the case and mine are not the micro snap on connectors I'm familiar with, it's direct solder on covered in some kind of stuff that reminds me of Poly U glue with minimal expansion. It's just a mess to look at, took a picture of it Lets see if I can show you all.
X8Rantenae.jpg
Ya, there it is in all it's horrifying glory. The RX in my Bixler is only a 6 channel so I'll need to find an 8 channel to work with on this thing though I'll try cleaning this up and resoldering it. Again, this is an OLD rx. My Taranis that this came with is serial number 185. there are a bunch of zeros in front of that but it was I think in the first shipment from Aloft, October of 13.
This cover glue is junk, I'm going to try a brass brush from my dremel set but even then I need a jewelers loop to work on it.

But at least I know my Taranis is fine.
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
Ah, wow, they must have changed it since then. The ones I have use the U.FL connectors for the antennas... in fact, I have a set of different antennas (long ones, etc to replace the paddle / PC board ones).
 

MrClean

Well-known member
Yup, just read it on the Aloft board. Well I order a new one with the whiskers for longer range tomorrow and I'm going to desolder, clean, strip a bit off of these and resolder. The key here is that they are coax antenaes, anything inside the shield is not radiating so it doesn't matter how long that is. Nip just enough core to get soldered, roll up the shield and solder that to the grnd and away we go again. New one should take care of any other problems.

A Range chk is mandatory of course. Wish I would have thought of that before I launched it last time.

OH, and looking out my bedroom window here on the second floor I just watched a spam can go buy at just over rooftop level. That would be under 400 feet and in my flight zone. The nearest private strip is 5 miles away so somebody is breaking the law. Didn't get his N number.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
First off, I've used the paint on all of these, it's the Testors little cans in the hobby shop and depending on if it's new or old stock you'll see it listed as foam safe. I have stripes on the bottom of my walrus, the top of my Bixler looks like this guys walrus and the bottom has barber poll stripes on it (I can see the stripes well so I started using that) ALWAYS test paint on a new project in an area where you can cut it out, this foam has no troubles with it.

I cleaned off the old antennae mounts, cleaned up the antennae and mounted them. No change, 20 feet tops in range check. Something else is just wrong with the receiver I'll trash it and get a new one. Didn't cost me anything but time. Here's a picture of it halfway replaced. half replaced.jpg
 

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MrClean

Well-known member
What were I thinking I only need 6 channels for Crow so I put a x6R in it Saturday and wired it up for Crow, which finally explained having inputs and mixes again. If you program it hard in the mixes it over-rides your inputs. So it's good now, except then my gbabys came over and I babysat till sundown yesterday.
Winds and temps look favorable for tonight. I will do a ground test though I had to hold the transmitter away from the plane yesterday because it would overblow the receiver and doesn't die like the other one did when I walk across the room. so thats looking good.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
Awesome. I'm back in though I've got quite a bit of battery in. I've got the flaps, the spoilers the Crow all dialed in for neutral effects. I should add the delay function to that, hmmmmm, not enough time for today. Nothing nicer than hitting the switch and watching things slow down without ballooning, do that on the plane on my avatar. I'm debating using a switch to throw in some down elevator for high speed flight, just something to take it midway through the trim setting as I have digital trims so waiting for it to add 6-8 clicks is a pain. I could look into enabling that on a switch and then coupling it straight to the throttle. Hit the switch, throttle up, with delay the down elevator mixes in slowly while the acceleration builds speed up? In the end it's just like any flat bottom airplane, dial the elevator trim for the speed you want to fly. It does fly semi sporty and glide real nice. No lift today so there wasn't any problem getting in. With the Crow adjusted it really slows down quick making it easy to position for landing.

Fun plane, lots of mix tweaking to do.