First Flite...Not so good

[Alzey]

Well, today I finally got all the parts need to get my first plane in the air. My plan was to start with a mini speedster. However, with Joe Nall going on, my motors have not shipped yet. So I went with plan B, a full size Old Fogey. I was in a hurry to get in the air, so I went with the 2200 3C instead of soldering up an adapter cable to use the 800 2C.

Well my daughter (22) decided she want to see the crashing. So she helped me by hand launching. Well, 3 props, 2 trees, a house and birdhouse later, I am back in the house with a wrinkled up nose, busted power pod and a broken FT firewall and 92% capacity still in the battery. Had a BLAST!!!!!!

What I learned on my first flites:
- my yard is not big enough for the old fogey with a 3C (may not be big enough for the 2C either. Tomorrow will tell)
- not only do I need to watch the orientation of the plane, but also where it is going (house and bird house strikes)

What I still need to figure out. Maybe you all can help me here:
- when I applied rudder to try and turn, the wings tipped up to about 60 deg, then the tail came around and straight into the ground. I quickly learned to cut throttle to save the prop (on a prop saver).
- my wheels are not big enough to roll over my grass. Need to come up with a new plan there. may just pull the landing gear for now.

My setup is a hobby king HXM2730-1300 motor, 8x4 props, turnigy plush 18amp ESC and a 2200 3C (800 2C tomorrow). Radio is a Turnigy 9X. Still trying to figure out how to program everything on it.

All in All, I had a blast. Had some good laughs. I expected to crash, not quite this much.

Alzey

 

[notreallyme]

sounds like you need more room to fly, at least while learning. big wide turns so the plane does not tilt so much should keep it from stalling and crashing during a turn.

AND welcome to the forum, glad you had fun that's why we do it.

 

[brettp2004]

I never had much success with the old fogey until I learned to fly on something else. It was always very "rocky." Have you given any though into a different plane? Only trainer is great for starting out. Also, for me the turnigy 9x was hard to program, I don't think I ever really figured it out completely. I do agree with not really me, big wide turns with the fogey. Good luck and welcome!

 

[Capt_Beavis]

If the plane is tipping that much you are most likely giving way too much input. What rates are you running? You may need to set your low rate pretty low until you get the hang of it. I have the low rates on my P-51D UM Mustang at around 50% for low and 80% for high.

 

[TEAJR66]

Welcome to the forums.

You will have more fun with the smaller battery. The lighter the better. That 2200mah is a bit much.

Gradual inputs on the rudder. You might find that bumping the rudder works better than holding the stick.

The Old Fogey will rock. Learn to accept that and try not to overcompensate. Then you will find that the rock settles out. Let it fly slow and level in the general direction you intend. Then to turn, bump the rudder and let it make a wide slow turn till it is headed in the desired general direction again.

I found that if you try to fly the Old Fogey, always on the sticks, you will chase it around quite a bit. I like to just let it fly and make course corrections. The one my wife fly's has a very slight left trim to it. If she decides to let it fly, it will make a slow, gradual circle that takes up just about all of the club field.

Keep us posted.

 

[Alzey]

I never had much success with the old fogey until I learned to fly on something else. It was always very "rocky." Have you given any though into a different plane? Only trainer is great for starting out. Also, for me the turnigy 9x was hard to program, I don't think I ever really figured it out completely. I do agree with not really me, big wide turns with the fogey. Good luck and welcome!

I figured the fogey would be a good fit for my back yard and good first full size plane. My back yard is about 50ftx100ft. Any recommendation on planes for that area? The closest AMA field is 30-45 minutes away. Good news is my eMax motors for the minis shipped yesterday. Bad news is my power supply for the charger died last night charging for the 6th time. We'll see how hobby king deals with that.

Going to experiment more with the radio setting up dual rates and expo while watching the FT video on it again.

Thanks for all the replies and info,

Alzey

 

[earthsciteach]

Great advice above. Only thing I can add is that you have the right attitude with which to approach this hobby. Crashes are pretty much impossible to avoid when you are starting out! Laugh it off and go at it again. Oh, crashes will get less as you progress, but if you aren't crashing every once in a while, you aren't having fun!

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Alzey]

Great advice above. Only thing I can add is that you have the right attitude with which to approach this hobby. Crashes are pretty much impossible to avoid when you are starting out! Laugh it off and go at it again. Oh, crashes will get less as you progress, but if you aren't crashing every once in a while, you aren't having fun!

Welcome to the forums!

I have always been an airplane buff growing up in the USAF and serving in the USAF. This is something I always want to do but couldn't bring myself to spend the money to crash it. A few months ago I stumbled on flite test while watching aircraft videos on YouTube. After a few months, I found myself going back to flite test over and over again. So with my b-day coming up I decided to take the leap into this bucket list item. My other hobby is wood working so I love the build and design process. I'd venture to guess at some point I will build most of the FT fleet. Who know, I may even try to come up with a design.

 

[Alzey]

Welcome to the forums.

You will have more fun with the smaller battery. The lighter the better. That 2200mah is a bit much.

Gradual inputs on the rudder. You might find that bumping the rudder works better than holding the stick.

The Old Fogey will rock. Learn to accept that and try not to overcompensate. Then you will find that the rock settles out. Let it fly slow and level in the general direction you intend. Then to turn, bump the rudder and let it make a wide slow turn till it is headed in the desired general direction again.

I found that if you try to fly the Old Fogey, always on the sticks, you will chase it around quite a bit. I like to just let it fly and make course corrections. The one my wife fly's has a very slight left trim to it. If she decides to let it fly, it will make a slow, gradual circle that takes up just about all of the club field.

Keep us posted.

Used your bumping the rudder advice today on a FT Flyer with 800 2C. Wow what a difference.

Thanks for the advice

Alzey

 

[TEAJR66]

You are welcome.

Enjoy.

 

[wrayman]

tried my Bloody Wonder today for the first time it wanted to fly to the right really bad any one out their can give me some pointer on getting this to fly straight .. I have a 32g Grayson motor 1100kv with a 9x4.7 prop and a 3c 500mah battery

 

[Gryf]

@ Wrayman - my first build was a Bloody Wonder, and I never got a good flight out of it. I finally got rid of it and used its electrics in an Old Fogey (see below). But note that it was the first time I'd ever tried to fly an RC plane, and the Bloody Wonder is tricky to get right - meaning, with the short wings it's really quick to respond, and sensitive to motor torque. I may well have been using too much throttle, and this was before I was really familiar with radio setup, expo settings, etc. I plan to build another Bloody Wonder now that I have some experience - maybe before Flite Test this year.

As for the original post, I learned to fly on an Old Fogey, and I really beat the daylights out of it in the process. But I did learn, and always managed to repair the Fogey afterward. I still have the plane, hanging in my den with Flite Test crew autographs (and tape) all over it.

All the advice given above is good. Also, be sure to adjust your Expo settings so that control movements will be nice and gentle with the sticks near center. Fogeys don't like to be over-controlled.

Also note that the Fogey's behavior can be greatly improved by enlarging the vertical fin/rudder. This has been covered here in the forum somewhere. I seem to remember that Flite Test has even modified the kits accordingly. (Didn't they? I may be wrong... the downloadable plans still have the smaller design.)

And set the Fogey's CG so it's slightly more nose-heavy than specified in the build plans. I glued a large hex nut to the back of the firewall, for example.

Cheers,

Gryf

 

[Rc high flyer]

i can tell you that your weels probly are to small for grass mabey if you cut your grass shorter in on spot it could be like a run way great to here your still having fun even though you crashed most people will steer away from the hobby when they crash