Vimana89
Legendary member
I've built and designed few successful RET planes, and flew them a bunch, but I really want to expand to ailerons and elevons and then to the occasional 4ch build. I have built one somewhat successful plane with ailerons in the past, but it had issues similar to the plane I will present here. This design is for the FTFC20, it was an old balsa control line model.
I built a sloppy prototype with a weak two piece motor mount and electronics taped along the top. Good enough to test the handling qualities and if it will even fly. It flies pretty well, but certain times it just stalls and its difficult or impossible to recover. I noticed it is mostly when banking too drastically without enough speed. Is this normal for a double delta with ailerons or elevons? Is this bad piloting habits from flying very forgiving dihedral RET planes, and a normal limitation of this design, or is this something I can and should address with the build perhaps by adding winglets or some other small change?
Here is the footage. First vid is the issues, second is flying good.
I am in the process of building a cleaner version with a box nose and dimensions more perfectly resembling the original balsa plane. I want to get the build right and not smack it up on maiden. I've come a long way very fast, but I'm still really green when it comes to flying with ailerons. I'm self-taught, and have no real life club or anything that exposes me to new ideas or pushes me to try the next hurdle or trouble shoots my issues, so it's all my choice to push myself to the next step, and whatever inspiration and help I get here and ideas I'm exposed to on this forum. Any help, advice, and constructive criticism is much appreciated.
I'll reiterate my main question and make it clear: Is there a problem with the build or design that can be addressed to decrease or eliminate these stall characteristics, or is this just normal limitations combined with my bad piloting, and I should learn to fly this plane the way it likes, give enough throttle in banks, and not do the stuff that makes it stall?
I built a sloppy prototype with a weak two piece motor mount and electronics taped along the top. Good enough to test the handling qualities and if it will even fly. It flies pretty well, but certain times it just stalls and its difficult or impossible to recover. I noticed it is mostly when banking too drastically without enough speed. Is this normal for a double delta with ailerons or elevons? Is this bad piloting habits from flying very forgiving dihedral RET planes, and a normal limitation of this design, or is this something I can and should address with the build perhaps by adding winglets or some other small change?
Here is the footage. First vid is the issues, second is flying good.
I am in the process of building a cleaner version with a box nose and dimensions more perfectly resembling the original balsa plane. I want to get the build right and not smack it up on maiden. I've come a long way very fast, but I'm still really green when it comes to flying with ailerons. I'm self-taught, and have no real life club or anything that exposes me to new ideas or pushes me to try the next hurdle or trouble shoots my issues, so it's all my choice to push myself to the next step, and whatever inspiration and help I get here and ideas I'm exposed to on this forum. Any help, advice, and constructive criticism is much appreciated.
I'll reiterate my main question and make it clear: Is there a problem with the build or design that can be addressed to decrease or eliminate these stall characteristics, or is this just normal limitations combined with my bad piloting, and I should learn to fly this plane the way it likes, give enough throttle in banks, and not do the stuff that makes it stall?