Tail Heavy Simple Soarer

[Brendan-ATL]

I recently bought an FT Simple Soarer speed build kit. I also ordered a Lazertoyz blue wonder powerpack. The glider got here quick and was simple to put together. However the power pack was on back order so i used some old servos from a Honey Bee King 3 RC helicopter i had laying around. this was my first mistake. the gears wear striped so they slipped a lot. i put the glider nose on and used the Tx and Rx for the Honey bee. mistake number two. the throws were minimal and it had permanent channel mixing. so my rudder is on the left with the throttle and the elevator is on the right because with the rudder on the left it gives elevator input due to channel mixing. i flew it multiple times just hand launching and landing 40ft away. i crashed quite a few times and damaged the wing tips and stalled it cracking the tail and dove it into the street a lot. i destroyed this thing then patched and prayed it back together. but i finally got the power pack and now the glider is crazy tail heavy. i put 3inch plastic with rubber off-road RC car wheels on a 1/8in. X 4in. steel rod and added a steel rod frame to lift the nose high enough for the prop to clear the ground. with all this mounted in-front of the wing on the bottom of the power pod it is still crazy tail heavy. ive put new servos in but the elevator push rod broke when trying to bend it back into a modified z bend. so its limited how far it can move and the channel mixing only makes it worse. trim does nothing on the elevator. if anybody can help level me out it would be great.the battery is as far forward as it can possibly get. i plan on adjusting the trust angle when the weather clears up. thanks for any help.

 

[trackskid]

Brendan,
I hear you about the tail heavy issue...and when you do get enough weight in the nose it kills the loft/glide slope
what I did was make a whole new "E-PowerPod"! Just traced out the plans for the powerpod but made it about 20" long with no tabs for mounting on any other plane...then I mounted it with the BBQ stick and trimmed on the front it so that the motor mount was 1/2" shy of where the front of the glider front was.right? when the motor mount was finished you need to have foam to mount on the BBQ sticks on the front- I measured and put a top on the "E-PowerPod" and fitted the two sticks with holes into the pod. If you are fancy like me you can think about making some of the new top a hatch!
The big point of this is simple- the same weight further in front of C/G will be more effective at balance
so you can put a tiny motor and an 850mAh battery in front, have a light balanced bird, and it's now custom!
I did give a ton of down thrust- the "E-PowerPod" is 1/2" shorter on the bottom of the front so the motor points down a bit...
hope this helps
mine was way better after this
good luck!
Eric

 

[Brendan-ATL]

thanks Eric,
i ended up putting two AAA batteries right behind the motor and that balanced it. but it was too heavy to fly after that. so i will try your suggestion and see how it goes.
Brendan