Finally in the air

[Tjhochha]

Hi all, I’m new to the forum and actually being able to keep a plane in the air but I have been watching FT for a few years.
Years ago I bought a cheap rtf 3 channel cub on eBay. On the first flight attempt it crashed and broke the wings and tail off in the first 50 feet. I patched it up again and same results. I gave up on it until 2 weeks ago. I gave it another shot, I bought new power packs and a B power pack, threw them on got it all balanced. It took a ridiculous amount of weight on the nose to get the cg about where it should be. I threw it, it flew about 200’ this time, nose dived and pretty much completely disintegrated.



Alright. It was time to move on. I downloaded the FT Simple Cub plans and scratch built it. It turned out pretty good.
My maiden flight of it went alright. It got a good 5 minutes of flight before I crashed. Luckily it was what would have been a hard crash but was luckily into tall weeds. My C.R.A.P. Checked out. It flew great the rest of the battery. My battery alarm went off and I did a bit of panicking when attempting to land for the first time. I came in a bit hot and broke the prop.
I ran through a few more batteries and figured I was confident enough to try some tricks. The loops were alright. So far the simple cub is awesome and super easy to fly.

Thanks for all the cool videos you guys make.
Teich

 

[Grifflyer]

Congratulations on flying! I'm sure you'll find this hobby very fun and addicting!!

 

[Tjhochha]

Yep. Addicting. I’m up to two FT planes now
I’m having way too much fun building them. This is the mini Corsair scales up 150%. I didn’t see the other one somebody had designed.

 

[buzzbomb]

To the OP: I am also new to this hobby. I'm building my first plane. I've also watched a lot of FT videos and read a lot of stuff on this forum. That being said: Warbird as the second build? The building is awesome, I'm taking my time and getting my first build as right as I can and loving every minute of it.

I think I will likely have planes just hanging around waiting to be flown, just because I wanted to build them.

Warbirds are however, notoriously difficult to fly. I plan on working my way up to one. I want to make a Mustang that SCREAMS as it's going by on a low pass. It's just yelling at me "G-Load, G-Load, Oh my gosh the G-load! Too Fast. Toooo Fast! NOOOOO! Oh, oh YES!

Big dreams, for sure. One day.

From my perspective your Corsair build looks pretty awesome. I think you are in for a RIDE! Enjoy every moment, remember it is just foamboard and then come back and share some more. I can't wait to see how the Maiden went.

 

[Tjhochha]

Warbirds are however, notoriously difficult to fly. I plan on working my way up to one. I want to make a Mustang that SCREAMS as it's going by on a low pass. It's just yelling at me "G-Load, G-Load, Oh my gosh the G-load! Too Fast. Toooo Fast! NOOOOO! Oh, oh YES!

Big dreams, for sure. One day.

From my perspective your Corsair build looks pretty awesome. I think you are in for a RIDE! Enjoy every moment, remember it is just foamboard and then come back and share some more. I can't wait to see how the Maiden went.

I used the front CG point Peter recommended for newer pilots for my first maiden, it took 16 quarters to get the CG that far forward. It made it fly super slow, which actually made it fly fairly similar to the cub. The ailerons were definitely something new though. I asked about correcting CG in another post, they recommended rebuilding it and focus on reducing weight in the rear. I got it rebuilt and the CG was much better.
I tried flying without weight and it was definitely a handful. I lost a little too much altitude on my first big bank, got a little panicky, and piled it into one of the 3 small trees behind my house. Luckily, very little damage, it only broke the left and right portions of the elevator, and a little damage to the wing tip.
I added 6 quarters to the nose and it flew great, but needed more elevator trim than I had, I brought it back in, the rear airfoil wasn’t quite level, I did some careful trimming and re glued it. It flies pretty nice now. It definitely takes way more concentration than the simple cub but with the CG at the front balance point, it actually flies pretty nicely. I might actually paint this one, it seems like it will hold up fairly well and it seems to have a pretty wide range, from where it’s at now, high level beginner, and I could see it screaming with a C pack motor.

 

[Mode 1]

Welcome.. your planes are looking great. The location you're flying isnt' bad either

 

[Tjhochha]

Welcome.. your planes are looking great. The location you're flying isnt' bad either

Thanks, I’m having a lot of fun with it.
John Denver definitely knew what he was talking about. Wild Montana Skies in the Bitterroot Valley.

 

[Mode 1]

ok.. I did a google image search for Bitterroot Valley... Wow.. absolutely gorgeous!

 

[buzzbomb]

I used the front CG point Peter recommended for newer pilots for my first maiden, it took 16 quarters to get the CG that far forward. It made it fly super slow, which actually made it fly fairly similar to the cub. The ailerons were definitely something new though. I asked about correcting CG in another post, they recommended rebuilding it and focus on reducing weight in the rear. I got it rebuilt and the CG was much better.
I tried flying without weight and it was definitely a handful. I lost a little too much altitude on my first big bank, got a little panicky, and piled it into one of the 3 small trees behind my house. Luckily, very little damage, it only broke the left and right portions of the elevator, and a little damage to the wing tip.
I added 6 quarters to the nose and it flew great, but needed more elevator trim than I had, I brought it back in, the rear airfoil wasn’t quite level, I did some careful trimming and re glued it. It flies pretty nice now. It definitely takes way more concentration than the simple cub but with the CG at the front balance point, it actually flies pretty nicely. I might actually paint this one, it seems like it will hold up fairly well and it seems to have a pretty wide range, from where it’s at now, high level beginner, and I could see it screaming with a C pack motor.
View attachment 116141 View attachment 116142 View attachment 116143 View attachment 116144 View attachment 116145

I love it, man. I don't think I'm going warbird on my second build, I've really got to get my skills up. Maybe the third, though....

 

[Tjhochha]

Well, I ran through two batteries this evening. The first was just an easy flight with a few trick attempts thrown in. For the most part it went well, flips work pretty well, barrel rolls are awesome, I’m a little under powered or can’t maintain enough speed for a Cuban 8. I even tried some inverted flight. It works way better on this plane than it did in the cub without ailerons. My wing held up to a full speed dive with a hard yank up on the elevator. I had one close call, I used 2.75 of my three mistakes height in a series of mistakes. I lost orientation, I was trying to add rudder to my barrel roll and got mixed up. I should probably take it a little easier and get better at flying before I get too carried away, but my flying area is pretty clear and it’s just a foam plane and I’m having a blast.
The second battery was a whole bunch of attempted landings. I can’t get the speed and flare down. I should be practicing on my cub, not the Corsair but I only have one receiver and The power pod is different. I need to buy some more props now. The prop ended up an inch shorter than it started.

 

[buzzbomb]

Well, I ran through two batteries this evening. The first was just an easy flight with a few trick attempts thrown in. For the most part it went well, flips work pretty well, barrel rolls are awesome, I’m a little under powered or can’t maintain enough speed for a Cuban 8. I even tried some inverted flight. It works way better on this plane than it did in the cub without ailerons. My wing held up to a full speed dive with a hard yank up on the elevator. I had one close call, I used 2.75 of my three mistakes height in a series of mistakes. I lost orientation, I was trying to add rudder to my barrel roll and got mixed up. I should probably take it a little easier and get better at flying before I get too carried away, but my flying area is pretty clear and it’s just a foam plane and I’m having a blast.
The second battery was a whole bunch of attempted landings. I can’t get the speed and flare down. I should be practicing on my cub, not the Corsair but I only have one receiver and The power pod is different. I need to buy some more props now. The prop ended up an inch shorter than it started.
View attachment 116215

Rock and roll! Sounds like it's going pretty awesome.

Once you black out the canopy and put some stickers on it, that thing is going to look pretty darn cool in the air.

 

[Tjhochha]

I definitely need some contrast on this thing now. The pure dark blue is really tough to keep orientation in the evening. I will have to do some research on what paint scheme I want to do on it.

 

[Keno]

You are looking great, you might try this as you are in the beginning stages of flying, believe it on not pink is a great color or you may choose other light colors. Consider applying dark striping on the bottom of your wings (packing tape is great for this).

 

[Tjhochha]

It looks like I’m going to have to make some skis soon, it’s already started snowing here in Montana. We got 2” yesterday. The time change sucks. It’s dark at 5:30 now, soon it will be 4:30. I may have to figure out some lighting.

 

[jaredstrees]

Build another cub and add some LEDs. Night flying is awesome. And I agree with everyone else, I want to fly where you're at!

 

[PoorManRC]

Congrats and welcome to the Flying!!!
I'm getting there myself. I agree with everyone else.... Those big Montana skies are the BEST!!

 

[Tjhochha]

Build another cub and add some LEDs. Night flying is awesome. And I agree with everyone else, I want to fly where you're at!

I added some blue LED pods to my cub, somehow I managed to not crash it on the first flight, even though it was completely impossible to tell what direction it was going. I put the led's inside the fuse and tried again. It was better this time, but still difficult to see. I think I need some other colors to go with the blue, but I think night flying will be really cool.

 

[jaredstrees]

I put leds on my das little stick. Used white for the fuse, red for the port side and green for the starboard. Easy orientation. If you don't have colored, go to lowes or the depot and get some colored electrical tape to put over them. Works like a charm.

 

[Grifflyer]

In my experience I've found that when you light up planes it's really important that the tail and fuselage are well illuminated, I even have a night flyer where the wings don't get any light just the fuse and tail and as long as I don't get to far away it's very easy to track.

 

[Tjhochha]

I found and added some red LED's to the port wing tip. I haven't flown it at night again but I did fly Sunday afternoon. It looks like I have some work to do on my cub. It flew pretty nice under power but when I cut the throttle, it would take a hard dive down, it needed full elevator up to maintain a nice glide slope. I will need to look it over and see if the CG is too far forward or if my horizontal stab. is level. I didn't seen any noticeable problems when I looked it over before flying.