This is the greatest hobby ever.

[John_W]

Greeting from Finland!

Long story long, I scratch built a Simple Storch wing (without the dihedral part) from measurements only... got it fairly close I think, eyeballed a fuselage and control surfaces, ordered a FlySky programmable transmitter and 10ch receiver and an 18€ bundle of motor, prop, and 30A esc off amazon (cheapest stuff I could find that still meet the specs), 2200mAh 3S from a local hobby shop, couldn't find anyone on amazon that would ship LiPos internationally.. and the wait was on for a calm day...

First takeoff from ground on ski gear resulted in about 30 second flight, but it had a massive tendency to yaw left (because of motor torque I think) so it got a bit of a rough landing, blowing the prop and tearing the ski gear off..

Not discouraged I added rudder trim tore off the remains of the broken landing gear, new prop, and hand launched, which went surprisingly smooth, aside from having no rudder response, or at least that's what it felt like.. in hindsight it might have been there I was just too impatient expecting the plane to respond immediately.. given the large wing span (1,5 meters) it was probably just a bit sluggish..

Anyhow I gave up on using the rudder control (too quickly probably) and tried flying with ailerons and elevator only, it worked for a while but seeing as I had amassed a grand total of 60 seconds stick time in my life I was bound to make some mistakes that resulted in nose meet ground.

I think what happened is I banked too hard trying to turn without enough airspeed and stalled, my ailreons had hardly any rates programmed in so they were quite touchy.. Had I spent more time adjusting the controls and understanding their strengths & weaknesses, and maybe flown a bit higher I would have been able to recover the stall and extend the flight time, but all in all I'm happy that my first scratch built plane ever actually flew for a while controlled by a newbie who never touched live sticks before.

A few pictures were taken of the glorious event, no video unfortunately.

And the aftermath of the "landing"..

 

[Captain Video]

Great Effort! This is indeed the greatest hobby. I have done the same thing. If at first you don't succeed, well you know the rest. Post video next time perhaps we might see something. Make sure all of your control surfaces are neutral/centered and the trim on your controller as well. Be sure in your pre-flight the surfaces go the proper directions as well. During the check, check that the throws are equal.

 

[John_W]

Be sure in your pre-flight the surfaces go the proper directions as well.

That one almost got me, ailerons were inverted right up until final check. The fact that I had no rates programmed on ailerons was because not having an Y harness for the servos, I just plugged both in the receiver and mixed them as master & slave, but the FlySky wouldn't let me set rates or expo for a channel that is only mixed but not bound to anything, or at least I couldn't figure out how

 

[DamoRC]

Greeting from Finland!

Long story long, I scratch built a Simple Storch wing (without the dihedral part) from measurements only... got it fairly close I think, eyeballed a fuselage and control surfaces, ordered a FlySky programmable transmitter and 10ch receiver and an 18€ bundle of motor, prop, and 30A esc off amazon (cheapest stuff I could find that still meet the specs), 2200mAh 3S from a local hobby shop, couldn't find anyone on amazon that would ship LiPos internationally.. and the wait was on for a calm day...

First takeoff from ground on ski gear resulted in about 30 second flight, but it had a massive tendency to yaw left (because of motor torque I think) so it got a bit of a rough landing, blowing the prop and tearing the ski gear off..

Not discouraged I added rudder trim tore off the remains of the broken landing gear, new prop, and hand launched, which went surprisingly smooth, aside from having no rudder response, or at least that's what it felt like.. in hindsight it might have been there I was just too impatient expecting the plane to respond immediately.. given the large wing span (1,5 meters) it was probably just a bit sluggish..

Anyhow I gave up on using the rudder control (too quickly probably) and tried flying with ailerons and elevator only, it worked for a while but seeing as I had amassed a grand total of 60 seconds stick time in my life I was bound to make some mistakes that resulted in nose meet ground.

I think what happened is I banked too hard trying to turn without enough airspeed and stalled, my ailreons had hardly any rates programmed in so they were quite touchy.. Had I spent more time adjusting the controls and understanding their strengths & weaknesses, and maybe flown a bit higher I would have been able to recover the stall and extend the flight time, but all in all I'm happy that my first scratch built plane ever actually flew for a while controlled by a newbie who never touched live sticks before.

A few pictures were taken of the glorious event, no video unfortunately.
View attachment 124659 View attachment 124660 View attachment 124661


And the aftermath of the "landing"..
View attachment 124662

Nice work and well done.

One tip (based on your pics where the plane is flying low) - when you are learning, although it's hard to get your mind to want to do this, get her as high into the air as you can - three mistakes high. This gives you time to correct if you lose control or make a mistake. Flying near to the ground is hard as you have little room for error.

 

[Bricks]

If at first you don`t succeed ...hot glue we have all been there done that.

 

[John_W]

One tip (based on your pics where the plane is flying low) - when you are learning, although it's hard to get your mind to want to do this, get her as high into the air as you can - three mistakes high.

Thanks yeah I heard this tip on FT videos before but for some reason I didn't follow it, I guess with it being first time flying most of the theory learned went right out the window and I resorted to basic instinct reasoning "closer = more control" which is obviously flawed thinking

If at first you don`t succeed ...hot glue we have all been there done that.

Yes I ordered new motor and servos same day, not because they broke but I want to keep the guts in my first plane and see how many flights I can get out of it before it is too deformed or weighed down with hot glue and duct tape!

 

[evranch]

Weak rudder response is to be expected with a straight wing, your nose was probably bobbing back and forth and you couldn't see it because there was too much else to pay attention to! Rudder only controls yaw, it will make the plane "crab" through the air more than it will turn it. Using the ailerons is the right way to fly.

Especially in the cold with cold thumbs, lots of expo and low rates are your friends when learning to fly or flying a new airplane. Keep your bank angles gentle and give yourself lots of room to turn at first. A standard turn in a full sized plane takes 2 minutes to make a full circle. When in doubt, nose down and level the wings. Spiral dives and tip stalls have taken a lot of RC planes over the years. Congrats on not crunching your first plane up too bad!

 

[John_W]

lots of expo and low rates are your friends when learning to fly or flying a new airplane

I will definitely try more conservative control inputs next flight, seeing as there is still plenty of time to fly out on the ice before it thaws there is no shortage of space! cheers for the tips and I already repaired most of the wing, thanks to the "power pod" basically folding up like an accordion and absorbing all the energy the fuselage sustained little to no damage!

 

[rockyboy]

Welcome to the forums!

One problem I had with rudder response early on was with the control rod flexing. If you can, make sure it's supported well enough with straws or little tubes that it can't move around on you.

Happy flying!

 

[John_W]

One problem I had with rudder response early on was with the control rod flexing. If you can, make sure it's supported well enough with straws or little tubes that it can't move around on you.

This was a problem actually when I first built the plane, I wanted a sleek look so I mounted the tail control servos inside the further front.. But the 1.5mm music wire was flexing way too much and the servo horns I have are not beefy enough to drill out to fit 2mm music wire.. So I ended up gluing the servos outside only about 10cm (4 in) from the control horns, I can't detect any flex in that short wire, probably the cheap nylon servo gear teeth would be at risk of breaking if there was so much force on those wires.