Hawkeye Glider to sub 250 FPV RC

Hondo76251

Legendary member
I wanted to do a little fixed wing FPV proximity flying and the HiTec Hawkeye's are some of the toughest airframes I've used.

I wanted to keep the prop small, and in the least likely spot to get damaged so I went with a center overhead pusher configuration. I (hopefully) pointed the motor downwards enough that the angle of thrust is just a bit forward of the CG.

The hawkeye's can fly quite well on 3 channel if you give them enough rudder area but I prefer 4, especially for FPV flying...

 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
In the glider I'm working on in that last video I was trying to use the built in ESC on the spektrum board but it is only rated for 5 amps and I may have smoked it while testing the other day... :oops:

In the mean time I've got another conversion I've been working on that is similar except I went with a twin engine setup instead of a pusher.

I really like the way this one flies and with the AS3x giving the relatively small plane a very smooth flight I think the FPV from this one will be nice...

 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
@Hondo76251 - you seem to like the twin props?
Twin motors and 2 blade props all the way!

I dont do any 3d flying, the occasional low inverted pass is about as fancy as I get so I dont find that i need the "grip" of 3 or 4 blades.

I like longer flight times so I also prefer bi-blades for the efficiency. I seem to get by with longer props too, just like in that video. I'm running a large 3" prop on a tiny 1103 10000kv motor. That would never work if I were doing full throttle maneuvers all the time but most of those flights were at about 1/3 to 1/2 throttle.

All that aside, probably the #1 reason I fly twin blades is the need to belly land most of my planes. Even on planes like my DH Comet with low slung nacelles, I rarely break a prop.
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Well... Turns out I did kill the ESC in the board.

Oh well... I needed to put an external esc on anyway to run the motor I wanted. HOWEVER, in the process of troubleahooting I wanted to change the power lead to make it longer and go to a different plug. Apparently some of the little pig tails i got have the red/black wires switched. Its happened to me before so I should've known to check that but I wasn't paying attention. I smoked the board good... :cautious:

I have a lot of receivers I could use but I really wanted the AS3x on it so I ordered another Spektrum micro, this time without the esc (and not 50% off like before :cry:)

Hurry up and wait...
 

mayan

Legendary member
Well... Turns out I did kill the ESC in the board.

Oh well... I needed to put an external esc on anyway to run the motor I wanted. HOWEVER, in the process of troubleahooting I wanted to change the power lead to make it longer and go to a different plug. Apparently some of the little pig tails i got have the red/black wires switched. Its happened to me before so I should've known to check that but I wasn't paying attention. I smoked the board good... :cautious:

I have a lot of receivers I could use but I really wanted the AS3x on it so I ordered another Spektrum micro, this time without the esc (and not 50% off like before :cry:)

Hurry up and wait...
That sucks, sorry to hear that.
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Got side tracked by other projects, haven't finished the pusher FPV Hawkeye I started in the first video, but I did manage to get some footage of my twin motor version doing some fun FPV Flights in the nice weather the last few days...

 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Its been a while, thought I'd update this little thread.

I did some flying and tweaking on this glider over the summer. In the process I've given it pretty much all new electronics. Now its got an 1108 motor, 12 amp esc, and a lemon RX receiver. After quite a bit of flying i decided to move the motor back a bit farther and re-balance it a bit to accommodate a heavier battery. I decided to try some lithium ion cells I built for another project a while back... the results proved promising. this will make a fun little endurance Sub 250 FPV platform for sure!


Got another video of the FPV setup on it that I'm working on at the moment, should have it up this week...
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Well, that didn't go as planned! :ROFLMAO:

Hawk Crash.png


Good thing these little EPO Gliders are tough! No real damage to the plane, just popped the tail off at the seam where I split the fuselage when I built it. There is no carbon fiber or reinforcements of any kind other than a strip of packing tape under the wing to stiffen it up a bit. A little bit of glue and she's good as new!

The camera is probably toast, looks like a little mosfet got knocked loose from the board but, hey, that's what cheap cameras are for!
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Finally got the video put together...


I was able to easily get over 16 minutes of flight time. I still had power to spare. I think I may go ahead and use full sized 18650's in the next incarnation. This version is easily able to handle the weight. I'll should still be well under 250 with 2 batteries and a good camera and transmitter...
 
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Hondo76251

Legendary member
My build room being still under construction (again) I've been tinkering with small simple things so time for an update to this adventure.

The "Hawkeye" gliders ive been using, though i still have a few spares, are impossible to find anymore. I prefer them to the "Lidl" gliders for this stuff as they are smaller at only 24" inches. (But still bigger and more rigid than the very common BG or wish chuck gliders you see everywhere. )

Well, I'm in luck! I found THESE on Amazon lately and after a little testing they might even be better than the Hawkeye!

20220330_110648.jpg


Percect size at 26" and very rigid. Very durable so far.
Build pics to come.

(Also found this little 14"er, not sure what to do with him yet but it has potential!)
20220330_110729.jpg

EZ pack perhaps? *hmm*
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
And since I'm on a rabbit trail, i also found this interesting little plane on ebay for 16 bucks:
s-l400.jpg

Looks like a full replacement body for some cheap 2 channel I've never seen. Ordered a couple, we'll see if they're any good for anything.

Should probably start a new thread for the potential chuck glider conversions I find 🤔