*Unofficial* FT Simple Stick

[Gilwo]

Son of a glitch! Two days ago I was peacefully flying 10 mistakes high doing a simple loop. I suppose this stresses the rubber bands a bit. All four rubber bands broke at once. The wing came fluttering gracefully down while the fuselage, ESC, motor, servos and all dove madly for the ground picking up speed as I was too dim to at least pull up on the elevator and cut the throttle.

Well, I found all the pieces and took the walk of shame back up the hill to the flying field. All the bits still work but I had to move all the fuselage electronics to a new fuselage. Back in the air Monday. I'd gone about 3 weeks with no breakage except an occasional prop.

My landings are greatly improved and sometimes even quite smooth.

How should I judge the fitness of a rubber band to coninue in service. Or should I engineer hold down bolts instead?

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

I have a balsa WOT trainer, it has nylon wing hold down bolts, it may be called a trainer but it can be quite aerobatic. So I fitted dowel through the fuselage and use rubber bands along with the hold down bolts as a backup.
Obviously the WOT is a much bigger, heavier and more powerful plane than the Stik. But there is no reason you can't use a similar more basic setup, with a single nylon M4 securing bolt at the rear, a dowel peg at the front of the wing (which locates into the fuselage) and put rubber bands on as a fall back option

 

[jollyGreenGiant]

Hey folks! I'm new around here and getting back into flying after many years. I've been really enjoying the Simple Stick and have created a bunch of 3D Printed upgrades for it, probably more pending and I keep making revisions as I go but check them out on Thingiverse.... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5384576

Regarding the rubber bands... I crashed the other day when the wing lifted enough for the aileron to tuck behind the skewer in-air... Full left ailerons and the plane was still spinning right on me, went right into the sun and oh well... Going to work on some 3D printed parts to mount the wing without rubber bands and for now, I'm running MORE rubber bands.

 

[Gray Harlequin]

I found that soldering in a set of thin cross wires keeps the gear from squatting on landings.

I wanted to do something similar to this to stop the squatting issue, but lack the soldering skills. I have been using rubber band "suspension" on the gear wires using wheel collars on the struts to hold the rubber bands in place.

 

[jollyGreenGiant]

I just did this to my current setup, thinking about soldering in a spring from the hardware store into the wire on each side now...

 

[jollyGreenGiant]

Going to take it out tomorrow and see how the flight characteristics change but I built up a new wing tonight with some 3D Printed ribs to force more airfoil into the wing from the inside out, a few more cuts and creases in the front section and it looks MUCH better so far... Feels much stiffer and I'm pretty sure there's going to be more lift out of it, we'll see.

The PLA ribs got a little soft from my glue gun at first so I just took my time with setting each into place on the sides first with the foam spar, then the bottom and it worked out fine when I did the top section in one move. Scale tells me 1G per rib so 6G per wing, I'm happy with this.

 

[jollyGreenGiant]

Soldered in some springs to the landing gear because my rough touch and go practice landings were skewing the landing gear.

The wing changes seem all positive, I've since switched to zip-ties for the wing hold-downs instead of rubber bands, greater tensile strength without the constant tension.

Got a Storch kit too, waiting on a few more parts to begin putting that one together... Wanting a plane for lazier flying and teaching the kids how to fly, Simple Stick seems just a bit too fast. I feel like I'm still perfecting where I personally want the CG to be on this one.

Coming from a 20 year hiatus from the balsa world into foam, these don't have as much glide and float on the final like I'm used to. I'm used to running my old PT-40 out of fuel and then dead-stick landing it. This thing really likes having power on at landing.

Always learning! I'm having a bunch of fun!

 

[RossFPV]

Did anyone else notice if you flip the plane over and ignore the vertical stabilizer it looks like a good start for a biplane?

 

[craigleach]

Has anyone built an upsized version of this model? If so, did you beef up the spar or any other parts?

 

[dap35]

Has anyone built an upsized version of this model? If so, did you beef up the spar or any other parts?

I did not scale mine up, but when I built my second one, I put a carbon arrow shaft in the nose of the wing, and 1/64" plywood over the center section where the halves join and the rubber bands hold the wing on.

 

[RossFPV]

Has anyone built an upsized version of this model? If so, did you beef up the spar or any other parts?

Flitetest made a monster simple stick so you could probably just pay close attention to that.

 

[danskis]

The simple stick is a great flyer and you should be able to scale it up no problem. The original Simple sticks came in all sorts of sizes/flavors. Do a search for simple stick plans and you'll probably find one thats close to the size you want. Scaled up or not I always use some BBQ skewers to reinforce the foam spar. Use them full length with an overlap in the middle. Bamboo makes a great reinforcement material.

 

[Gilwo]

I was breaking propellors frequently. I bent the landing gear forward about 1 inch. I have not broken a propellor in several weeks because the plane hasn't been nosing over on landing. Very simple modification and saves significant money. I've also added popsicle sticks just in front and just behind the landing gear inside the fuselage. Protects the fuselage and the landing gear.

The plane tends to ground loop. particularly if there is a crosswind. I replaced the tail skid with a simple non-steerable tail wheel. Far fewer ground loops. Trying to make the tail wheel steerable would have taken valuable time away from just flying.

 

[Gilwo]

We are having a windy spring (when it is not raining or icy outside). With the designed tail skid, it is impossible to turn the plane back downwind to return to the pilot (me) if the landing took the plane upwind of where I'm standing.

As a result, I have installed steerable tail wheels on all three of my FliteTest models. Two Simple Sticks and one Tutor. All three planes now perform much nicer ground handling, taxiing, returning to where I want them to. I don't have to shout "On the field" so often. I can very nicely taxi back to where I'm standing like the big boys do.

I picked up two of the tail wheel assemblies from a friend. I fabricated one myself. Interestingly, one of the shafts is plastic, one is steel, one is wood(dowel). All three turn easily.

 

[dap35]

We are having a windy spring (when it is not raining or icy outside). With the designed tail skid, it is impossible to turn the plane back downwind to return to the pilot (me) if the landing took the plane upwind of where I'm standing.

As a result, I have installed steerable tail wheels on all three of my FliteTest models. Two Simple Sticks and one Tutor. All three planes now perform much nicer ground handling, taxiing, returning to where I want them to. I don't have to shout "On the field" so often. I can very nicely taxi back to where I'm standing like the big boys do.

I picked up two of the tail wheel assemblies from a friend. I fabricated one myself. Interestingly, one of the shafts is plastic, one is steel, one is wood(dowel). All three turn easily.

Agreed. I really despise tail skids and any plane with landing gear gets a tail wheel.

 

[Foamforce]

We are having a windy spring (when it is not raining or icy outside). With the designed tail skid, it is impossible to turn the plane back downwind to return to the pilot (me) if the landing took the plane upwind of where I'm standing.

As a result, I have installed steerable tail wheels on all three of my FliteTest models. Two Simple Sticks and one Tutor. All three planes now perform much nicer ground handling, taxiing, returning to where I want them to. I don't have to shout "On the field" so often. I can very nicely taxi back to where I'm standing like the big boys do.

I picked up two of the tail wheel assemblies from a friend. I fabricated one myself. Interestingly, one of the shafts is plastic, one is steel, one is wood(dowel). All three turn easily.

Oh lovely! I like the shock absorption built into that to protect the rudder hinge and servo.

 

[MrClean]

I have a balsa WOT trainer, it has nylon wing hold down bolts, it may be called a trainer but it can be quite aerobatic. So I fitted dowel through the fuselage and use rubber bands along with the hold down bolts as a backup.
Obviously the WOT is a much bigger, heavier and more powerful plane than the Stik. But there is no reason you can't use a similar more basic setup, with a single nylon M4 securing bolt at the rear, a dowel peg at the front of the wing (which locates into the fuselage) and put rubber bands on as a fall back option

Belts AND Suspenders, prudent man. Glue a bamboo skewer to each side of the fuse from behind the wing bay to in front of the wing bay (a good inch or two each way) before glueing on the top. After closing up the fuse cut a piece of ply that will fit through the fuse, thickness will depend on your bolt hold down method. Do you have a piece of 3/16ths 3 ply or 1/8 inch 5? You could try tapping, ca, then tap again the 5 ply OR just drill a hole through the trailing edge of the wing through the back plate to pass the bolt, remove the wing and epoxy a nut on the bottom side of the plate, Put a mounting plate on top of the wing to keep the bolt from boring through, you could sand a scrap of foam to make it sit flat on the wing, keep the bolt on axis but a little lean won't hurt. You can put a piece of ply or popsickle sticks between the leading edge and doubler stick INSIDE the wing, then cut a hole through the top skin and drill through the stick and into a piece of ply for the front section, bolt it the same. One otta do for this light plane. Do pretty much the same on my SPAD planes. Some folks will bend a metal piece to mount in the front of the wing, kinda a fuse wide S hook that they bolt to the fuse then slide the wing into and bolt the trailing edge. So many ways to do the front side and just bolt the back.