First DTFB build.

Wsc70

Junior Member
I'm scratch building the Baby Blender for my first build. My questions are related to the power pod and it's mounting. The 4 ears or tabs are designed to fit the four slots in the fuselage, right? And the fire wall has 2 holes to engage 2 skewer sticks in the glued in pod stop?

My front tabs don't engage the front slots giving my motor pod a slight downward cant, is this correct or did I make a mistake somewhere?
 

AkimboGlueGuns

Biplane Guy
Mentor
Yes, the powerpod will be facing slightly downwards (we call this down thrust, just for future reference's sake.) The down thrust helps reduce the aircraft's natural tendency to climb when power is added and airflow over the wings is increased, therefore increasing lift. By having the motor pitched down the aircraft gains some negative lift as the motor RPM increases which counteracts the positive lift generated by the higher speed.

As far as the front tabs on the powerpod not engaging, that is also normal. I built one over three years ago that's still with and I've never had a problem with the powerpod shifting around or anything.

The BB is a nice flying airplane one it's trimmed and balanced properly. Just keep your rates down (especially on the tail) and with some experience you'll find that it does everything you would want a sport bipe to do.
 

TeckRC

New member
You will wanna double check your CG is correct, I thought i had mine good but was a little tail heavy and it was sure a handful.
 

Wsc70

Junior Member
I finished the Baby Blender. Just a few problems; 1. I PAINTED IT! The foam board from Dollar Tree seemed to warp, grrrr! 2. I made landing gear from wire marking flags, stiff but too flimsy to taxi without slaying out causing loss of directional control. 3. CG is perfect with 800 mh 3s battery but not my 2200 mh which makes getting CG correct impossible. 20160910_122411.jpg 20160910_122411.jpg

I don't know if there is a photo there or not, I have trouble with these technical tablet gadgets.
 

AkimboGlueGuns

Biplane Guy
Mentor
That's a darn good looking Baby Blender! The flag wire will be a bit flimsy like that, but I don't have any other suggestions besides replacing those eventually.
 

Wsc70

Junior Member
Flag wire gear.

Thanks, I had some unused orange latex paint so I tried the tiger stripe scheme. The foam warped even though I layered down seven very light coats from 12 inches away.

I soldered a cross member to the legs of my flag wire gear and now it taxis straight without splaying.

I now need to flight test it when the winds permit. We usually have 10 to 25 mph winds this close to the ocean, so one calm morning I'll try to video the first flight.
 

desert wings

Foam Fan
I had to mount the battery back on the wing of the blender to get CG correct. The only problem with this is you have to remove the wing to change the battery. One thing that helped me on flying was not to gun it too much on take-off (my baby blender wanted to torque roll), and it took off fine at half throttle. Your plane looks great, good luck.
 

Wsc70

Junior Member
It flew, sort of!

Thanks everyone for all of the great input.

The winds were calmer today at 5 mph to 15mph gusts. I live on the coast so we have a lot of nasty cross winds coming through the valleys and cliffs. The BB taxied well and lifted off easily but suddenly a gust caught me and I was out of control. I was able to right the BB and managed a kind of controlled crash with minor damage. I need to beef up the landing gear which broke at a solder joint and remount one wheel.

I am going to need more power, my 2212 15T 930kw was not able to make forward progress against the wind gust.