I finally got my bixler
January the 15th - Bit the bullet and ordered a
Bixler RTF from Japan (Hobby King) with the recommended glue and (8) batteries for the radio.
January the 19th - After looking at tons of info for 4 days, I decided to get a
Fly Sky radio (after receiving it I realized it was a Turnigy 9X with a different name) and a
cheap simulator (E Sky). I bought them from
NitroPlanes.com to compare shipping times and customer service.
February 10th - Finally received the plane (felt like forever). First thing I noticed was that the battery charger was not AC, so charging the battery up was not really an option without a 12v battery. Kind of a bummer having to wait to charge the battery.
The plane did go together pretty easily concidering that I had never put one together before. One of my concerns was that the control horns just popped off the plane very easily without much handling. I would have figured that they would be mounted pretty securely. I just glued them on with the glue they recommended. I wasn't sure how well they were gonna hold even with the glue but after they dried, I had no more doubts that they would hold.
The only other issue I came across in the build was that one of the tiny little screws that attached the horns to the push rod had some bad threads. So I had connected the elevator and did not connect the flaps until I could replace the screw.
The Hobby shop was closed by this time, so I made a list of things I needed/wanted from my vast scouring of forums and videos that I had been soaking in for the past month. Saturday morning shopping spree permeated my dreams that night.
After going to the local R/C store, I came back with a 12v sealed battery ($25) and an AC charger for that ($12.99), Extreme Tape, Clear Packing Tape (Duck Tape of course), Foam for cushioning the nose, (2) 3mm carbon fiber rods, rubber bands, and 3M (Control) hooks. Of course I forgot to put the little scew for the control horn on my list (DOHH). I was going to get a 2200 Mah battery but found out that the connects on the HK batteries (known as HT60 connectors) were exclusively used by HK (Thought for a second about getting the battery anyway and getting a bunch of Deans Plugs and changing everything to those, but passed on that idea for a while).
So I got home and started charging the LiPo with the 12v (was happy that the LiPo charger actually worked), layed one of the carbon fiber rods into the groove on the bottom of the fuselage and extreme taped it to try and protect the bottom of the plame from rough landings. Taped the nose, leading wing edges and seams with clear tape to toughen up the plane from my wrath and inexperience. By the time I finished taping and the sort, the battery was charged, WOOHOO, I was ready. Or so I thought. My fly sky radio worked well except for one thing, the throttle was not working (I just figured out what the problem was when I read some of the post right before this one). Lucky for me, I also had the radio that came with the plane, so I switched out receiver in the plane and that did the trick. Cranked up the throttle to make sure it was on correctly and wind was flowing in the right direction from the props. WOOHOO (again).
35 degrees was not gonna stop me from checking this thing out. BUT, inexperience did not stop me from a dumb mistake. WIND, HARD WIND. I threw the plane into the wind like I was supposed to, but forgot all about the sun, lost the plane in the sun for a second and the wind took it straight into a tree. I was very thankful that I had taken the time to do all that taping. The plane survived the tree (or so i thought). I went to inspect it and it received a little character but looked just fine. I decided to try again (my enthusiasm far outweighed my experience and patience), so this time I threw into the wind trying to be mindful of the sun but that is when it happened,
both of the wings folded upand came off the plane. Apparently the first crash broke the cheap rod that came with the plane that goes in the middle of both the wings. I'm guessing that is what happened. I'm sure the huge gust of wind didn't help either. The wings are fine, but the rod is bent in two, and the nose took a wallup and is somewhat out of shape now.
I'm a little distgusted that I didn't wait, but also that the rod was soo cheap. Guess I'll be going to get a good rod, and maybe some more carbon fiber to try an get the nose back in shape.
Til then,
One Gounded Duck