The Second Part of my Journey - The Diary

mayan

Legendary member
@mayan - maybe put some signs up?

Covid19 is destroying 2020, so we will have to play the long game - on a brighter note have you seen my latest build ? :)
I actually checked it out yesterday man I am really impressed time and again by your building and designing skills. FYI today I already crashed 3 planes all repairable but not something to do at the field. Now taking up the KFM Wing hoping to get air to air footage of a small plane that is trying circuit through the field.
 

mayan

Legendary member
Today’s flying was intense 4 planes up the Mini Mustang, Simple Scout, Edge 540 and KFM Wing all came back with some damage. All the damage is repairable and happened because I was pushing my skills. Flying low inverted, trying to hover inverted, shooting gaps, basically did my best to break something :). Anyhow I am happy with the outcomes regardless the damage, because trying to push your limits is funner than just flying leveled circuits. Pictures later...
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
@mayan good to hear from you, buddy. Sorry about your current living situation. It's never fun to have a construction site as a home. We recently went through something similar, we were having our floors replaced and work stopped halfway through because of Covid. For months we had no floors- very annoying. Thankfully they finally came to finish the job last week.

As for your motor, it looks like a short on the coil. Usually if it's an ESC problem, you will short out three adjacent coils at once. Since only one coil is cooked, my best guess would be that your motor suffered either vibration or crash damage and ruined that coil. Luckily motors aren't too expensive.

Love the scout! Looks great. After doing the whole FT thing for three years now, I can say that the scout tops my list of favorite FT designs, followed closely by the versa and the Storch. For practicing takeoffs and landings, I'd say there is no better trainer than the scout.

Flying field looks good brother. Not sure if they are available in Israel, but here you can get a collapsible awning for camping that's about 6 square meters fairly cheap. It folds easily and fits in the car for transportation.

Looking forward to seeing a video of that scout flying. I'm working on turning a Storch into a float plane right now, I'll make a post when I get it finished
 

mayan

Legendary member
Thanks for the information @Arcfyre. I totally agree with you on take offs and landings with the Scout which is why I rebuilt it. I personally think the Storch just takes longer to build, which is a down side when you break a lot. The landing gear there is better but I just had problems with the lengths of the wires which made mine not stable.
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
Thanks for the information @Arcfyre. I totally agree with you on take offs and landings with the Scout which is why I rebuilt it. I personally think the Storch just takes longer to build, which is a down side when you break a lot. The landing gear there is better but I just had problems with the lengths of the wires which made mine not stable.

Agree 100% on the Storch landing gear. I went and just got a store bought landing gear for mine and it eliminated the complicated 4 wire stock system, even if it doesn't look as scale anymore.
 

mayan

Legendary member
@Arcfyre I have some videos my son shoot of the Scout taking off and landing, I’ll edit it soon and post it. Mean while look what arrived in the mail today, my first ever RTF plane. It’s smaller than what I thought it would be but this makes it even better considering I bought it to folly in doors when we were under lock down at the beginning of COVID19. More about the plane when I get around to flying it like very soon :).
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Arcfyre

Elite member
@Arcfyre I have some videos my son shoot of the Scout taking off and landing, I’ll edit it soon and post it. Mean while look what arrived in the mail today, my first ever RTF plane. It’s smaller than what I thought it would be but this makes it even better considering I bought it to folly in doors when we were under lock down at the beginning of COVID19. More about the plane when I get around to flying it like very soon :).
View attachment 175761

Waiting for the video!

That little RTF job looks like fun. I've never flown indoors, I imagine it would be cool if I had the space for it somewhere.
 

mayan

Legendary member
Alright so this is going to be one of those longer update posts heads up in advance :).
First thing first I owe @Arcfyre a video of me practicing take offs and landings with the FT Simple Scout, as filmed in short film episodes by my son, so here it is.


I gotta tell you folks that the time I've spent flying the FT Simple Scout recently made me realize just how much I like this plane. It's just such an all around fun flyer with aerobatic capabilities that I think makes a great next plane for anyone who mastered the FT Tiny Trainer and wants to fly something similar to it but bigger :). I think I'll make a video review for this model sometime, what do you all think?

Next up is my new RTF plane that I just recently received in the mail. Here is a little about it, it's a 2 channel plane managed only by throttle management, for altitude and left right direction. This setup is something I've never done before and requires getting used too, which is why I don't want to tell you all what I think of it just yet. I originally bought the plane looking for something that I can fly indoors, at work :), but have already seen some issues with that being an option with the space that I have available. I want to make a video review for the plane but first feel like I need to get some more flying done with it at different places and conditions before, so stay tuned for that. Here are two short videos of the plane in the meantime, one of it actually flying at work and one of the course I want to fly it through :).



Those of you who are following my diary (this thread) know that I recently had 0 success with the MS Spitfire and eventually after a bunch of attempts to get it to fly, a dozen repairs and a broken motor shaft have pulled the plug on it for now. I decided to take it apart and use the working electronics in a different project. I put a lot of thought into what I want to build now taking into consideration that I wanted a somewhat different flying experience than what I am used to. I wanted something around the lines of the Sky King which is a model my friend has and I got to fly for a bit and just loved the way it flew, so I decided to build the FT Explorer. I built it with both wing sets both re-enforced with popsicle sticks because I read somewhere on the forum that the wings tend to fold. One night even my son who couldn’t sleep helped out. Anyhoe the other day I took it out for a maiden, the experience was short and ended with a bang and not because the wing folded. I actually don’t really know what happened when I crashed. I just know that the crash, broke the fuselage and nose, smashed all 3 cells of my 2200mah battery, and ripped a plug solder from the motor :(. All good though I will repair what I can and rebuild what I can’t. What I can say from my short flight experience with this model is that it had a tendency to pitch the nose of the plane down when I throttled up. I know Josh mentioned it on the video and explained that this is why the motor is angled slightly upwards, to help push the tail down. Building with a C pack motor you need to move the marked motor location up but still stay angled according to the markings on the plan. I probably did something wrong here, although it seemed to me like I had the angle just right. Any suggestions? Here are some pictures of the plane with both wing sets before the maiden, I originally maidened with the glider wings but it felt hard to control so I switched over to the sports wing.

D2F331EB-9AAF-4039-86D5-87FE881568F6.jpg IMG_2194.JPEG IMG_2197.JPEG IMG_2199.JPEG IMG_2200.JPEG

Sorry there are no videos of the FT Explorer I just didn’t have anyone to film me and the videos off a stand camera just isn’t good enough for me, and I find that editing them is just a pain for the little bit of good footage that I get. Anyhow the FT Explorer has been repaired for the most part of it, I built a new fuselage and used the rudder and elevator from the old fuselage because they were in perfect shape, I built a new nose but am still missing the fix on the motor.

IMG_2308.JPEG

On another sad note a few days ago I was flying my KFM Wing in an area which I have never flown in and lost it never to be found again. It was one of those days that it was best to stay in bed. The day started off with disappointment when I asked my wife and kids to come with me to the field for 30 mins to get her to film my take offs and landings, and they didn’t want to. Continued to a huge fight later on at her parents house when the kids were miss behaving, and ended with me going to fly for an hour after lunch and losing the KFM wing. Funny enough when I came back to pick up the family and go home they all came back with me to the field to help me search for it, I guess that at this point my mood from the day was all over my face. The KFM Wing was loaded with an on board FPV camera, an F pack motor 2x9g servos, a 30A ESC, an Rx, a battery alarm buzzer and a 1000mah 3S battery when it went down. We searched for the plane for an hour that day hoping for the battery alarm buzzer to go off but it didn’t and we just couldn’t find it so we went home. The next day I was after a night shift with no option to go to rest because my wife was at work on a morning shift so I was afraid to drive there with two kids. My wife, who knew I was disappointed, kindly asked her father to go to the field for me to try and see if he could hear the battery alarm buzzer. It probably started beeping sometime during the night but was out by the time he got there, cause he couldn’t hear anything. Meanwhile I asked a friend with a drone if he was around by chance instead of being at work and could help me search. By luck he was around and said he’d pop his drone up and look for it, but he too came short handed but decided to meet up later to look for it together. So later at around 18:30 with only but an hour and a half of sleep I drove off to the crash site with my wife, her father, my friend and his drone to keep searching. We searched until the sun went down, when we officially called it quits and I accepted the fact that I for the first time lost a plane :(. My wife even went on Facebook and posted about it asking people to let her know in case they happen to find it but still nothing came up. Here are some pictures from the crash search party team :).

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A few days after I lost my KFM Wing I was feeling kinda depressed from the hobby, like I was just doing the same thing just flying different planes but mostly doing it alone. Which is not the reason I got into the hobby, the reason was to bond with my son and maybe have something for the entire family to enjoy and that’s just not happening. I haven’t given up but have to find a way for the entire family to be part of it otherwise I’ll have to cut off a lot of time off the hobby and spend more time with the family doing other stuff. If any one has any ideas I’d be glad to hear them! Meanwhile, to try stay positive I took the time to build a
Tiny Trainer for a friend from work who wanted into the hobby, it’s missing the electronics because I didn’t have any spares but once he gets the stuff he ordered I’ll help him add that to the plane. I am actually super happy with the way his Tiny Trainer came out probably one of the best ones I’ve built to date :).

ABA75A49-3A6E-4946-8823-7BEF4C73F248.jpg
54357D71-FEF4-4B4D-B523-423A29D0164A.jpg
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Alright so this is going to be one of those longer update posts heads up in advance :).
First thing first I owe @Arcfyre a video of me practicing take offs and landings with the FT Simple Scout, as filmed in short film episodes by my son, so here it is.


I gotta tell you folks that the time I've spent flying the FT Simple Scout recently made me realize just how much I like this plane. It's just such an all around fun flyer with aerobatic capabilities that I think makes a great next plane for anyone who mastered the FT Tiny Trainer and wants to fly something similar to it but bigger :). I think I'll make a video review for this model sometime, what do you all think?

Next up is my new RTF plane that I just recently received in the mail. Here is a little about it, it's a 2 channel plane managed only by throttle management, for altitude and left right direction. This setup is something I've never done before and requires getting used too, which is why I don't want to tell you all what I think of it just yet. I originally bought the plane looking for something that I can fly indoors, at work :), but have already seen some issues with that being an option with the space that I have available. I want to make a video review for the plane but first feel like I need to get some more flying done with it at different places and conditions before, so stay tuned for that. Here are two short videos of the plane in the meantime, one of it actually flying at work and one of the course I want to fly it through :).



Those of you who are following my diary (this thread) know that I recently had 0 success with the MS Spitfire and eventually after a bunch of attempts to get it to fly, a dozen repairs and a broken motor shaft have pulled the plug on it for now. I decided to take it apart and use the working electronics in a different project. I put a lot of thought into what I want to build now taking into consideration that I wanted a somewhat different flying experience than what I am used to. I wanted something around the lines of the Sky King which is a model my friend has and I got to fly for a bit and just loved the way it flew, so I decided to build the FT Explorer. I built it with both wing sets both re-enforced with popsicle sticks because I read somewhere on the forum that the wings tend to fold. One night even my son who couldn’t sleep helped out. Anyhoe the other day I took it out for a maiden, the experience was short and ended with a bang and not because the wing folded. I actually don’t really know what happened when I crashed. I just know that the crash, broke the fuselage and nose, smashed all 3 cells of my 2200mah battery, and ripped a plug solder from the motor :(. All good though I will repair what I can and rebuild what I can’t. What I can say from my short flight experience with this model is that it had a tendency to pitch the nose of the plane down when I throttled up. I know Josh mentioned it on the video and explained that this is why the motor is angled slightly upwards, to help push the tail down. Building with a C pack motor you need to move the marked motor location up but still stay angled according to the markings on the plan. I probably did something wrong here, although it seemed to me like I had the angle just right. Any suggestions? Here are some pictures of the plane with both wing sets before the maiden, I originally maidened with the glider wings but it felt hard to control so I switched over to the sports wing.


Sorry there are no videos of the FT Explorer I just didn’t have anyone to film me and the videos off a stand camera just isn’t good enough for me, and I find that editing them is just a pain for the little bit of good footage that I get. Anyhow the FT Explorer has been repaired for the most part of it, I built a new fuselage and used the rudder and elevator from the old fuselage because they were in perfect shape, I built a new nose but am still missing the fix on the motor.


On another sad note a few days ago I was flying my KFM Wing in an area which I have never flown in and lost it never to be found again. It was one of those days that it was best to stay in bed. The day started off with disappointment when I asked my wife and kids to come with me to the field for 30 mins to get her to film my take offs and landings, and they didn’t want to. Continued to a huge fight later on at her parents house when the kids were miss behaving, and ended with me going to fly for an hour after lunch and losing the KFM wing. Funny enough when I came back to pick up the family and go home they all came back with me to the field to help me search for it, I guess that at this point my mood from the day was all over my face. The KFM Wing was loaded with an on board FPV camera, an F pack motor 2x9g servos, a 30A ESC, an Rx, a battery alarm buzzer and a 1000mah 3S battery when it went down. We searched for the plane for an hour that day hoping for the battery alarm buzzer to go off but it didn’t and we just couldn’t find it so we went home. The next day I was after a night shift with no option to go to rest because my wife was at work on a morning shift so I was afraid to drive there with two kids. My wife, who knew I was disappointed, kindly asked her father to go to the field for me to try and see if he could hear the battery alarm buzzer. It probably started beeping sometime during the night but was out by the time he got there, cause he couldn’t hear anything. Meanwhile I asked a friend with a drone if he was around by chance instead of being at work and could help me search. By luck he was around and said he’d pop his drone up and look for it, but he too came short handed but decided to meet up later to look for it together. So later at around 18:30 with only but an hour and a half of sleep I drove off to the crash site with my wife, her father, my friend and his drone to keep searching. We searched until the sun went down, when we officially called it quits and I accepted the fact that I for the first time lost a plane :(. My wife even went on Facebook and posted about it asking people to let her know in case they happen to find it but still nothing came up. Here are some pictures from the crash search party team :).


A few days after I lost my KFM Wing I was feeling kinda depressed from the hobby, like I was just doing the same thing just flying different planes but mostly doing it alone. Which is not the reason I got into the hobby, the reason was to bond with my son and maybe have something for the entire family to enjoy and that’s just not happening. I haven’t given up but have to find a way for the entire family to be part of it otherwise I’ll have to cut off a lot of time off the hobby and spend more time with the family doing other stuff. If any one has any ideas I’d be glad to hear them! Meanwhile, to try stay positive I took the time to build a
Tiny Trainer for a friend from work who wanted into the hobby, it’s missing the electronics because I didn’t have any spares but once he gets the stuff he ordered I’ll help him add that to the plane. I am actually super happy with the way his Tiny Trainer came out probably one of the best ones I’ve built to date :).

View attachment 177067 View attachment 177068
The third video where you walk around made me realize you have an amazing place you could fly a tiny whoop in! I bet you would have an absolute blast with one!
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
@mayan Great flying with that scout of yours!

I watched both videos, and it really shows how far you've come. That dirt runway of yours is tricky with the tall grass on both sides, but it looks like you're getting your sights dialed in. Excellent job also flying a smooth, consistent pattern each time. A good, controlled approach is the secret to a smooth landing. Kudos also to your kid for doing a great job taking the video!

I flew my floatplane into a tree this morning, so I know how you feel losing your KFM wing. Fortunately i recovered the bits and pieces, but it being a balsa fuselage means that I have a long and tedious repair process ahead of me. Oh well, it comes with the hobby, and that's why its a hobby.
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
Thanks for the kind words about my flying and ouch on wrecking your balsa float plane. You should also check out my touch and go video it’s on a different thread or my channel :).

@mayan , I watched the touch and go video on your YouTube channel. Very nice job flying a consistent pattern! Question: were you landing with a cross or tailwind? It seemed like the plane wanted to float more on the base leg, and then a few times it seemed to almost fall out of the sky just before landing. I only ask because in my experience, the scout is an airplane that is capable of extremely smooth, very slow speed landings. I was unable to see any wind direction cues in your video, even when looking in the background.

I have two suggestions for you which may help:
1. Find a stick or something and tie a piece of light, bright, ribbon or string to it. Place it somewhere where you will fly near it on every landing. It will give you a foolproof wind indication and its essentially free. That way you can always land facing into the wind.
2. Consider programming flaperons into your scout. I have found that the scout handles them very well, and will land at slower than a walking pace with flaperons deployed.

One of my favorite airplanes of all time I call "pathfinder" because its a heavily modified scout. The fuselage is basically the same, except that the wings are mounted low on the fuselage instead of in the middle. I find it makes for a very sweet flying airplane, and additionally, the wings are attached with rubber bands, and are therefore removable for transportation. The other mod is that the wings are each 30" long, or a whole foam sheet. The added wing area increases lift and decreases wing loading, so the airplane flies even slower. I've built a few different pathfinders in the meantime, and they are the workhorses of my fleet.

Perhaps next time you're in a building mood, you can give the pathfinder a chance. I can almost guarantee a great experience. Here are two of mine.

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bracesport

Legendary member
@Arcfyre - your pathfinder floatplane is very nice - is it a Balsa fuse and FB wing?

Regards,
phil


@mayan , I watched the touch and go video on your YouTube channel. Very nice job flying a consistent pattern! Question: were you landing with a cross or tailwind? It seemed like the plane wanted to float more on the base leg, and then a few times it seemed to almost fall out of the sky just before landing. I only ask because in my experience, the scout is an airplane that is capable of extremely smooth, very slow speed landings. I was unable to see any wind direction cues in your video, even when looking in the background.

I have two suggestions for you which may help:
1. Find a stick or something and tie a piece of light, bright, ribbon or string to it. Place it somewhere where you will fly near it on every landing. It will give you a foolproof wind indication and its essentially free. That way you can always land facing into the wind.
2. Consider programming flaperons into your scout. I have found that the scout handles them very well, and will land at slower than a walking pace with flaperons deployed.

One of my favorite airplanes of all time I call "pathfinder" because its a heavily modified scout. The fuselage is basically the same, except that the wings are mounted low on the fuselage instead of in the middle. I find it makes for a very sweet flying airplane, and additionally, the wings are attached with rubber bands, and are therefore removable for transportation. The other mod is that the wings are each 30" long, or a whole foam sheet. The added wing area increases lift and decreases wing loading, so the airplane flies even slower. I've built a few different pathfinders in the meantime, and they are the workhorses of my fleet.

Perhaps next time you're in a building mood, you can give the pathfinder a chance. I can almost guarantee a great experience. Here are two of mine.

View attachment 177613 View attachment 177614
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
How does the pathfinder preform aerobatically?

It will easily perform most basic aerobatics, but it's no 3D plane. The yellow one is set up as a trainer, so wing overs, loops, etc are easy. The roll rate is slower than the stock scout, as the wingspan is larger, but the ailerons are full length so the roll authority is still excellent. The red one has a more powerful motor and swings a 12x6 prop. That one is a blast to fly, fast or slow. Here is a short video of it flying:


@Arcfyre - your pathfinder floatplane is very nice - is it a Balsa fuse and FB wing?

Yessir, that is exactly what it is. The fuse was originally foam, but water spray made for an extremely short service life. After having a motor rip off the firewall mid flight I decided to go with balsa for longevity and durability.