Oh, the places wings can take you...

The Hangar

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I am quite fond of pusher-prop eleven style planes. The ft-22 was one of my first planes, and recently I built V4 with @BATTLEAXE and then a 135% ft bravo for my c pack, but those aren’t technically wings I guess. After seeing what @BATTLEAXE did with his ft spear, it inspired me to go dig into the boneyard and pull out an airplane that was built near the beginning of my aviation interests - the ft Versa. My versa’s journey started a while back when the only planes I had successfully flown were the scout, old speedster, and an Eflite radian. I wanted to build a wing, so I did but didn’t feel ready to fly it, so I got a more experienced pilot to maiden it for me. I was using a Spektrum dx5e and that thing had no expo, so after a twitchy but successful flight, he landed and recommended for me to wait until I got a tx that could do expo. I finally got impatient and flew it on a windy day and I loved it! I took it out on a calm day thinking it would go even better since it was calm... Well upon launch I hit a telephone pole. Try 2 went better, but half a minute into the flight my battery came off and was hanging by the power lead which made it really nose heavy! I brought it in as best I could, but still took a hit in the nose. It survived pretty well, but I tossed it into the boneyard out of frustration. It’s time to revisit this project I think and bring it to a whole new level. I have some cool ideas! I’ll be posting pictures of what I have so far, and then start listing all the mods I plan on doing, so stay tuned! I decided to start a thread on this since I have more ideas for a future project I want to do with (2) arrows! Thanks for reading!
 
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The Hangar

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Mod #1) @BATTLEAXE mentioned that the hatch on the bottom looks like a b-2 which got me thinking... Why not make it “reversible” and paint the bottom like a b-2 and keep my green stripes on top for a typical versa look! That is going to make for some awesome low inverted passes and flying! This is the perfect time to do something I’ve wanted to try for a while now, an ITOL, or inverted take off and landing. I talked to Stefan at Flitefest about it, and he said they were considering it, and thus was the coffee plane! Not trying to take credit for the idea or anything, but was just thinking it would be fun to do as well. That being said, I’ll have tricycle landing gear that will be mounted to the vertical stabilizers and also a nose gear. My goal is to make them removeable if I want to do inverted belly landing🤔 however the bottom b-2 side won’t have anything in it other than the swappable power pod compartment/cockpit. Oh, yeah - did I forget to mention? I made my own custom compartment to fit the swappable power pod as a pusher. Pretty cool, huh? So basically with the landing gear on, I can flip it upside down to land inverted on a hard surface, or land it right side up to belly land. Talk about practical!😂😂
 

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The Hangar

Fly harder!
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Another thing I’m doing with this wing is equipping it with lights for night flying! I mad a simple soarer with lights previously and I turned out great, but the simple soarer is not very durable and flies a little weird, so I popped out the electronics and lights and am putting them in my versa.
 

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The Hangar

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Well I got to “maiden” my versa! When I replay the mishap in slow motion, watch as the the battery ejected - it was like 10-15 feet away! After that I cut to the tuned flight. There was one attempt between the flights when I added a little too much nose weight and ended in a hard landing. I finally ended up added 2 AA batteries on the nose which balanced it out nicely. Those low passes 2 feet off the ground were for you @BATTLEAXE !

 

buzzbomb

I know nothing!
Well I got to “maiden” my versa! When I replay the mishap in slow motion, watch as the the battery ejected - it was like 10-15 feet away! After that I cut to the tuned flight. There was one attempt between the flights when I added a little too much nose weight and ended in a hard landing. I finally ended up added 2 AA batteries on the nose which balanced it out nicely. Those low passes 2 feet off the ground were for you @BATTLEAXE !

Looked like a successful re-maiden to me! Loved the LOW passes. Any lower and you'd have been cutting grass!
 

The Hangar

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@Merv do you ever fly your versa inverted? I tried to do some inverted flying, but it didn’t like it at all it at all. I didn’t really fight it like the cub does, but at full down elevator, it was slowly going down. I did have my throws set to 80% so that might have something to do with it, but I don’t really want to make it more tail heavy...
 

The Hangar

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Oh ya, inverted, out side loops, square loops, rolling circle, flat spin. The Versa is a lot of fun.
Did you have to adjust the cg any? I’ll bump my throws up to 100% and make it a little more tail heavy next time and see how it does...
 

Merv

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Did you have to adjust the cg any?
Yes, mine is highly modified. I use a full 20” width half wing. I slightly toe in the fins, 1/8 inch each side. I move the motor forward about 3 inches, similar to what they did with the Arrow.

The Versa is a lot of fun with the CG @ 30%, beware it will turn into a flying squirrel @ 31%