Hey Guys,
I'm just so in love with the FT Sparrow. However my own experience with it wasn't as straightforward as some. My maiden with the standard v-tail mix didn't go so well. Basically it seemed to have this tendency to violently spin in either direction which ended up with a poor beaten up sparrow in fairly short order. I am the first to confess I am not the most experienced flyer.
Anyway I decided to modify things a bit to suit a less experienced pilot and the result was just fantastic. My mods were.
Increasing the nose lenght by 1 inch. I found I had to add a lot of noseweight with the standard nose lenght. With this extended nose and a 3S 1000mAh battery it balances perfectly.
That leads to the other question where should the COG be. In the build vid Josh puts his fingers right at the front of the wingspars, but in the original plans the COG is marked more forward than that. I noted SPONZ comments in another thread. MY experience is that where Josh balances in the video is just right
The next thing I did was add ailerons. I felt ailerons were much better suited to a less experienced pilot like me. After I placed them, I noticed that in the original FT Sparrow trailer video some of the guys are using ailerons. Look closely and you'll see. So in my modified plans I marked two locations for ailerons, where mine is and where the guys in the triler have theirs. I'm sure both would work fine.
Lastly I built mine from 3mm foamboard. That's what I have available freely. So in my modified plans the score cuts are marked for both 3mm and 5mm board.
For electronics, I used a Turnigy Park 250 2050kv, 6x4 prop, 9g servos, 1000mAh 3S. I did have a bit of a proplem getting the two installed servos to work as a single elevator. I ended up doing a mix on my DX8 mixing the elevator channel with the gear channel and then reversing one (think it was the elevator channel) to get both moving the elevators up and down together,
I'm so sorry I dont have a video of the maiden of this thing because it was awesome. I launched at just over half throttle and it just flew out of my hand (btw use a wing throw type launch to avoid the pusher prop stripping skin!). It was simple to fly agile, turns on a sixpence. Most of the time I was at 1/3 throttle and it just rips along. At one point I hit full throttle and it went vertical like the space shuttle! At another point some birds took grave offence at this noisy bird entering their airspace so a game of chase ensued. I was worried that one might catch up with the pusher prop and injure itself, however this thing could turn an awful lot faster than they could. It was no contest!! They gave up!
After spending an afternoon flying this baby and brought it home with no more than a grass stain on the nose, i'd definitely recommend this variant to less skilled flyers like myself.
Here's a pic of the extended nose and modified plans attached too.
View attachment FT Mini Sparrow_modified.pdf
I'm just so in love with the FT Sparrow. However my own experience with it wasn't as straightforward as some. My maiden with the standard v-tail mix didn't go so well. Basically it seemed to have this tendency to violently spin in either direction which ended up with a poor beaten up sparrow in fairly short order. I am the first to confess I am not the most experienced flyer.
Anyway I decided to modify things a bit to suit a less experienced pilot and the result was just fantastic. My mods were.
Increasing the nose lenght by 1 inch. I found I had to add a lot of noseweight with the standard nose lenght. With this extended nose and a 3S 1000mAh battery it balances perfectly.
That leads to the other question where should the COG be. In the build vid Josh puts his fingers right at the front of the wingspars, but in the original plans the COG is marked more forward than that. I noted SPONZ comments in another thread. MY experience is that where Josh balances in the video is just right
The next thing I did was add ailerons. I felt ailerons were much better suited to a less experienced pilot like me. After I placed them, I noticed that in the original FT Sparrow trailer video some of the guys are using ailerons. Look closely and you'll see. So in my modified plans I marked two locations for ailerons, where mine is and where the guys in the triler have theirs. I'm sure both would work fine.
Lastly I built mine from 3mm foamboard. That's what I have available freely. So in my modified plans the score cuts are marked for both 3mm and 5mm board.
For electronics, I used a Turnigy Park 250 2050kv, 6x4 prop, 9g servos, 1000mAh 3S. I did have a bit of a proplem getting the two installed servos to work as a single elevator. I ended up doing a mix on my DX8 mixing the elevator channel with the gear channel and then reversing one (think it was the elevator channel) to get both moving the elevators up and down together,
I'm so sorry I dont have a video of the maiden of this thing because it was awesome. I launched at just over half throttle and it just flew out of my hand (btw use a wing throw type launch to avoid the pusher prop stripping skin!). It was simple to fly agile, turns on a sixpence. Most of the time I was at 1/3 throttle and it just rips along. At one point I hit full throttle and it went vertical like the space shuttle! At another point some birds took grave offence at this noisy bird entering their airspace so a game of chase ensued. I was worried that one might catch up with the pusher prop and injure itself, however this thing could turn an awful lot faster than they could. It was no contest!! They gave up!
After spending an afternoon flying this baby and brought it home with no more than a grass stain on the nose, i'd definitely recommend this variant to less skilled flyers like myself.
Here's a pic of the extended nose and modified plans attached too.

View attachment FT Mini Sparrow_modified.pdf