First post on the FliteTest forums so I'll start off saying hello to everyone here. Like a lot of others it seems that I was inspired to try RC flying by watching videos of the FliteTest guys. A big thanks to them from me.
To get the point of this post after building and crashing a nutball and FT flyer, a lot, I decided to try and build a high wing trainer with a pusher prop setup. The photos are what I came up with. It has a wing like the FT Old Fogey but a bit smaller on the chord, only 8 inches with a 43 inch span and a carbon arrow shaft for the tail boom. It's like the smash drone that CStence wrote the articles about on the main FT site. I actually had the idea for it from looking at the Blu Beagle on RC Groups. But it is basically the same thing. Three channel rudder, elevator and throttle using the same Blue Wonder that I was using in the FT Flyer.
I've flown it several times and three of those times didn't end in a crash. I was able to fly it and land it unlike the flyer and nutball which seemed to go up then come back to meet the earth violently I am still having a problem though. It doesn't want to glide. So long as it has some throttle it seems alright aside from really wanting to climb like crazy, I think some down thrust will help that. But back to the not gliding thing. If the throttle is cut it starts to porpoise really quickly. Is this a COG problem or is there something else I need to be looking at? Angle of the wing etc.. I've been playing with COG some, it is set right now just forward of the fold in the wing thats about 30% of the chord.
Aside from the whole woop woop up and down thing with no power it seems to fly good. Nice and slow and floaty but sort of sensitive to the wind of course. Waiting for the wind to calm back down so I can give it another try.
To get the point of this post after building and crashing a nutball and FT flyer, a lot, I decided to try and build a high wing trainer with a pusher prop setup. The photos are what I came up with. It has a wing like the FT Old Fogey but a bit smaller on the chord, only 8 inches with a 43 inch span and a carbon arrow shaft for the tail boom. It's like the smash drone that CStence wrote the articles about on the main FT site. I actually had the idea for it from looking at the Blu Beagle on RC Groups. But it is basically the same thing. Three channel rudder, elevator and throttle using the same Blue Wonder that I was using in the FT Flyer.
I've flown it several times and three of those times didn't end in a crash. I was able to fly it and land it unlike the flyer and nutball which seemed to go up then come back to meet the earth violently I am still having a problem though. It doesn't want to glide. So long as it has some throttle it seems alright aside from really wanting to climb like crazy, I think some down thrust will help that. But back to the not gliding thing. If the throttle is cut it starts to porpoise really quickly. Is this a COG problem or is there something else I need to be looking at? Angle of the wing etc.. I've been playing with COG some, it is set right now just forward of the fold in the wing thats about 30% of the chord.
Aside from the whole woop woop up and down thing with no power it seems to fly good. Nice and slow and floaty but sort of sensitive to the wind of course. Waiting for the wind to calm back down so I can give it another try.