taeho98

Junior Member
So, quite some time ago I bought myself a hobbyzone champ. very easy and fun flying micro. But soon enough, you grow out of it.
because my birthday would be soon and I had some money saved up, I wanted to build my own plane.
I started to buy some parts and things. As I wanted to be wise, I bought a 1000kv motor and a 8x6 prop for some "easy"
slow-flight.
When I started looking for some easy builds, I stumbled across the f-22 raptor from the rcgroups forum.
So I got myself some foam and started working. As I live in the Netherlands, it's almost not possible to get dollar tree foam. So I just bought some slim-line foam of 3mm thick and started cutting.
I noticed that the foam was rather weak, but I didn't know this would effect the flight later on...
(it is however perfect for making wings because it folds perfectly)
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when my stuff arrived, I started to put them into the plane. I also noticed that futaba extentioncables don't go into a spektrum RX... But I got those working just fine after some modification.
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As I had finished my first build, I wanted to fly!
the maiden flight was not more than how far I could throw it... Didn't work out.
It just nosed straight into the ground.
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I noticed that the whole plane was bending down and the whole surface of the plane was acting as a elevator.
So the foam was not stiff enough.
I put about 8 scewers on it and it was finally not bending.
I also had huge trouble launching it because I had never wingtip-launched a plane before. So I made some experimental gear out of kneX (just because I can :D) that would stay one the ground and the plane lifted up from it.
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So I went out again to try my plane. The landing gear worked half. The front part were the nose rests on got in the way of the prop. I adjusted the cg and hand-launched it. and it flew! I did notice that it didn't have enough power to stay level in turns and the nose wanted to drop. Also the control surfaces didn''t have enough authority so turning was very hard. After 3 passes I tried to turn it, but it couldn't make the turn because of lack of power and since this plane doesn't have a rudder, I couldn't correct it anymore. The nose dug itself straight into the soggy ground.
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I went home full of joy, because it was capable of flying! I build a new nose, reinforced some parts and made the elevons bigger for the next flight.

as I repaired the whole plane, there was now wind, beautiful skies (and some snow :D) I wanted to fly again!
I knew how to launch and the problems, so I was pretty confident it would fly again.
and it kind of did.
As I throw it up into the air I noticed that I almost had no control. After 10 second of flight it nose-dived straight into the pavement.
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johnmw

propulsion impromptu
ouch..
but hey, you can always improve it on your next project.
keep building and happy flying!
 

taeho98

Junior Member
ouch..
but hey, you can always improve it on your next project.
keep building and happy flying!

yep, right after the crash, I scrapped the plane and started to build a new one. I'm going to test it in about 10 minutes.
Wish me luck!
 

IFlyRCstuff

Flyer Of Many Things
Good luck to you!! I find that running marking flags or similar through the wings can really strengthen it.