Simple Scout Maiden Flight video

[Hoomi]

Edited nearly six minutes of flight into a 3 minute video, with music from Eric Matyas' Soundimage page. I can see what everyone meant when they said the Simple Scout is a sweet-flying bird. She practically leaped off the runway, and flew great without any further trimming in flight. For the first flight, I kept it rather mundane, with no loops or rolls, but I think next weekend, I'll see what she can do when I'm not flying quite so conservatively.

 

[Arcfyre]

Congrats on a great first flight!

 

[buzzbomb]

Congrats, indeed! That was a wonderful maiden flight!

 

[mayan]

Congrats. Beautiful flying, so calming .

 

[Hoomi]

The Scout's design made beautiful flying much easier. I wish I could make that smooth a landing on every plane I fly!

 

[slembcke]

We just got hit by a late blizzard here in Minnesota. I got impatient and maidened mine off the snow using floats.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1117222919053115392

(Sadly that's the best video I could get without having three hands. :-\)

Make sure you put some really durable on the bottom of your floats to fly off snow though. It's much more abrasive that I thought it would be. After ten minutes of touch and goes it rubbed all the film from the tape off, and the glass fibers underneath were half gone too!

 

[CarolineTyler]

Edited nearly six minutes of flight into a 3 minute video, with music from Eric Matyas' Soundimage page. I can see what everyone meant when they said the Simple Scout is a sweet-flying bird. She practically leaped off the runway, and flew great without any further trimming in flight. For the first flight, I kept it rather mundane, with no loops or rolls, but I think next weekend, I'll see what she can do when I'm not flying quite so conservatively.

Very nice indeed! What camera did you use to record the flight? It's picture was excellent!

 

[Hoomi]

We rarely have to worry about snow down here in Baja Arizona. Cactus, mesquite, rocks, and blistering heat, but rarely snow. We get enough snow to actually stick on the ground for more than a few minutes maybe once every five to ten years.

Which is just fine with me. I'll take the heat, any day. I've never had to shovel sunshine out of my driveway to make it to work in the morning.

 

[Hoomi]

Very nice indeed! What camera did you use to record the flight? It's picture was excellent!

The camera is a Matecam 808 keychain camera. You can find them on Amazon for under $30. They're lightweight, with a small frontal profile, and record to a micro SD card. The only two drawbacks I've found to them, is that they record in 2 minute segments, and the control buttons are sometimes finicky.

I have a GoPro, but I like using the Matecam, as it's less load on the plane, and if something happens to it, I'm not out the couple of hundred dollars that the GoPro costs. I put Velcro on the bottom of the Matecam, and on the airplane, and after over a year of flying this way, I've never had the camera come loose in flight.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

It's a beautiful plane and even better maiden, excellent work

 

[Hoomi]

You can see in the video what I mean by that hard bank to the left on take-off. The latest video posted of it, I take off at about half-throttle, and you can see a big difference in the stability. It takes a longer roll before lift-off, but the lack of left-torque is worth it.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

You can see in the video what I mean by that hard bank to the left on take-off. The latest video posted of it, I take off at about half-throttle, and you can see a big difference in the stability. It takes a longer roll before lift-off, but the lack of left-torque is worth it.

It's a 4 channel correct? Really like the tubing you put on the skewers... form and function. Great Idea

 

[Hoomi]

Yeah, I have it set up with 4 channel. Several people, when I was building it, suggested setting it up with flaperons, but after flying it, I don't see the need. She'll fly slow enough as-is, that take-offs and landings are about as simple as it gets for an RC plane.

The tubing on the skewers is heat-shrink from an electronics store. I shrank it down over the ends of the skewers, and while it was still warm and pliable, bent it around to glue between the tops of the faux cylinders. Since I wasn't planning on keeping the power pod swappable, I liked the look of "plug wires" on the engine.

The wheels are from a Dynam Waco. The landing gear on Air Hooterville got bent pretty bad in a crash, and when I repaired the plane, I ordered a new set of landing gear. I'm running an Axi 2212/20 Goldline brushless motor that I got in a box of random parts from an estate sale ($20 for a BIG lot of parts - score!), and the plane itself is a speed-build kit that I picked up from a Hobbytown in Provo, Utah, while we were up there for my mother-in-law's surgery back in March. I like supporting local shops when I can, and grabbed the Simple Scout from the shop more on a whim than on any informed, planned buying decision. It's turned into a pretty good whim.

My coworker, who has never flown RC yet, is seriously considering building a Simple Scout as well, though he's leaning towards adding an FPV rig. I'm going to loan him my Realflight 7.5 in the meantime, so he can get some practice on RC basics.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Yeah, I have it set up with 4 channel. Several people, when I was building it, suggested setting it up with flaperons, but after flying it, I don't see the need. She'll fly slow enough as-is, that take-offs and landings are about as simple as it gets for an RC plane.

The tubing on the skewers is heat-shrink from an electronics store. I shrank it down over the ends of the skewers, and while it was still warm and pliable, bent it around to glue between the tops of the faux cylinders. Since I wasn't planning on keeping the power pod swappable, I liked the look of "plug wires" on the engine.

The wheels are from a Dynam Waco. The landing gear on Air Hooterville got bent pretty bad in a crash, and when I repaired the plane, I ordered a new set of landing gear. I'm running an Axi 2212/20 Goldline brushless motor that I got in a box of random parts from an estate sale ($20 for a BIG lot of parts - score!), and the plane itself is a speed-build kit that I picked up from a Hobbytown in Provo, Utah, while we were up there for my mother-in-law's surgery back in March. I like supporting local shops when I can, and grabbed the Simple Scout from the shop more on a whim than on any informed, planned buying decision. It's turned into a pretty good whim.

My coworker, who has never flown RC yet, is seriously considering building a Simple Scout as well, though he's leaning towards adding an FPV rig. I'm going to loan him my Realflight 7.5 in the meantime, so he can get some practice on RC basics.

I imagine you have been flying for awhile, how did you get into the hobby?

 

[Hoomi]

I've actually only been flying RC planes for under 2 years. Back in August 2017, I went to Nebraska for the eclipse, spending the weekend at "Toadstock," a local music festival just outside of Alliance. Toadstock's schedule had been moved to coincide with the eclipse, and spending the weekend there was only $50. One of the other attendees had a powered glider, and watching him fly it, I thought it looked like fun. When I got home, I played around with one on Realflight, and then ordered the Flyzone Calypso from Tower Hobbies. That was followed by the Flyzone Sensei, and a few more planes after that.

Realflight made a big difference in my learning curve. I'd originally picked it up, thinking of getting into RC helicopters, and played with it off and on for a while. The closest I'd come to really getting into helis was the Helimax Axe EZ coaxial heli, which was about as simple to fly as a helicopter could get. Trying to fly more conventional helis on Realflight made me realize that being even marginally competent on a heli takes a LOT of practice, and crashes tend to be catastrophic. As cool as the helicopters are, the planes are much more relaxing to fly.