*Unofficial* FT Simple Stick

The simple stick is sort of a throwback to the early days when FT designed planes to be easy to build and easy to repair. Most of them were also great fliers. Recently their planes have been complicated to build and mostly appealing to modelers who want fidelity to some actual plane. Some of them were almost impossible to repair. I have an FT Edge with a busted motor mount that I can't figure out how to repair without cutting the whole fuselage open. There is nothing wrong with that, but I do this mostly to fly, not to spend all my time building and doing difficult repairs. How well I like a plane is based totally on how it flies, not the way it looks. The last FT plane that I really liked was the Bushwhacker, and I flew the crap out of it for almost two years. I rebuilt the wing twice, tailfeathers once, landing gear three times, and finally scrapped it when the fuselage totally lost its stiffness. Each time I made the wings a little larger and the wheels bigger too.

So, the bottom line is, I want to start building my FT Simple Stick right now. I have half a box of brown waterproof foam left just waiting to fly. I assume the plans will be posted here when they are available? And its coming soon, right?
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
The simple stick is sort of a throwback to the early days when FT designed planes to be easy to build and easy to repair. Most of them were also great fliers. Recently their planes have been complicated to build and mostly appealing to modelers who want fidelity to some actual plane. Some of them were almost impossible to repair. I have an FT Edge with a busted motor mount that I can't figure out how to repair without cutting the whole fuselage open. There is nothing wrong with that, but I do this mostly to fly, not to spend all my time building and doing difficult repairs. How well I like a plane is based totally on how it flies, not the way it looks. The last FT plane that I really liked was the Bushwhacker, and I flew the crap out of it for almost two years. I rebuilt the wing twice, tailfeathers once, landing gear three times, and finally scrapped it when the fuselage totally lost its stiffness. Each time I made the wings a little larger and the wheels bigger too.

So, the bottom line is, I want to start building my FT Simple Stick right now. I have half a box of brown waterproof foam left just waiting to fly. I assume the plans will be posted here when they are available? And its coming soon, right?
What motor system do you plane to use on it?
 

SP0NZ

FT CAD Gremlin
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
Mentor
The simple stick is sort of a throwback to the early days when FT designed planes to be easy to build and easy to repair. Most of them were also great fliers. Recently their planes have been complicated to build and mostly appealing to modelers who want fidelity to some actual plane. Some of them were almost impossible to repair. I have an FT Edge with a busted motor mount that I can't figure out how to repair without cutting the whole fuselage open. There is nothing wrong with that, but I do this mostly to fly, not to spend all my time building and doing difficult repairs. How well I like a plane is based totally on how it flies, not the way it looks. The last FT plane that I really liked was the Bushwhacker, and I flew the crap out of it for almost two years. I rebuilt the wing twice, tailfeathers once, landing gear three times, and finally scrapped it when the fuselage totally lost its stiffness. Each time I made the wings a little larger and the wheels bigger too.

So, the bottom line is, I want to start building my FT Simple Stick right now. I have half a box of brown waterproof foam left just waiting to fly. I assume the plans will be posted here when they are available? And its coming soon, right?
Correct. Plans will be available soon. Waiting on FT for the green light. Should be any day now.
 
Battleaxe, I will probably use the same motor I used in my Edge and previously in my Bushwhacker. It's a sk3 2836 1040kv, about 370 watts. It gave me plenty of vertical in both planes with an 11 x 5.5 prop. I got about six minutes of flying on a 1300, or more if I was just doing touch-and-gos. I will probably use the landing gear from the Bushwhacker as well. I think 6" bushwheels would work fine on the simple stick.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Battleaxe, I will probably use the same motor I used in my Edge and previously in my Bushwhacker. It's a sk3 2836 1040kv, about 370 watts. It gave me plenty of vertical in both planes with an 11 x 5.5 prop. I got about six minutes of flying on a 1300, or more if I was just doing touch-and-gos. I will probably use the landing gear from the Bushwhacker as well. I think 6" bushwheels would work fine on the simple stick.
Holy crap that will be a lot of torque, like you said vertical for days. I used a 2212 1400kv on 3s with a 9x6 and got 7 mins of medium flying for an average, which means i was anywhere from calm almost stall flight to WOT and varying degrees in between. It had vert and I parked it in the wind. The motor and prop will be more then what you need for that plane...

Who am i to say though, I used a 3536 1200kv on the Scout so take it for what it is :ROFLMAO:

Not sure if a 1300 will help with balance much though, how does it work out for your build, All good?
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Battleaxe, I will probably use the same motor I used in my Edge and previously in my Bushwhacker. It's a sk3 2836 1040kv, about 370 watts. It gave me plenty of vertical in both planes with an 11 x 5.5 prop. I got about six minutes of flying on a 1300, or more if I was just doing touch-and-gos. I will probably use the landing gear from the Bushwhacker as well. I think 6" bushwheels would work fine on the simple stick.
You could upscale the plans by 130%. It’ll make it floater and fly better in general.
 
OK, I could upscale the plans or downsize the motor, but I won't, and here is why. First, just because you have a large motor doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. It's there when you need it, but mostly you don't. It seems from some of the comments that getting the CG forward enough is causing some to use a larger battery. An extra 20 grams out in front of the firewall is probably equal to 70 or more extra grams in the battery compartment (I haven't done the math since I don't have the plans), so the weight of the motor really doesn't hurt anything, in fact the plane might be lighter overall without the need for a heavy battery. Second, I will probably add a few inches to the wingspan to add a little float. I'm not going to add so much that I have to extend the fuselage or add area to the tail feathers. Thirdly, how could a plane have too much power?;)

Finally, if I upscale the plane to 130% I would have to make some eight inch wheels just to make it look right, and I already have the sixers. ;)
 

Timmy

Legendary member
My bushwhacker flew great until I crashed it. It was allready beat up so I'm just gonna rebuild it next time i have time.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
OK, I could upscale the plans or downsize the motor, but I won't, and here is why. First, just because you have a large motor doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. It's there when you need it, but mostly you don't. It seems from some of the comments that getting the CG forward enough is causing some to use a larger battery. An extra 20 grams out in front of the firewall is probably equal to 70 or more extra grams in the battery compartment (I haven't done the math since I don't have the plans), so the weight of the motor really doesn't hurt anything, in fact the plane might be lighter overall without the need for a heavy battery. Second, I will probably add a few inches to the wingspan to add a little float. I'm not going to add so much that I have to extend the fuselage or add area to the tail feathers. Thirdly, how could a plane have too much power?;)

Finally, if I upscale the plane to 130% I would have to make some eight inch wheels just to make it look right, and I already have the sixers. ;)
I am a big fan of more power, cant argue with that. And yes it is nice to have the power when you need it as opposed to needing it and not having it. When I first seen the Stick from FT i was thinking it would be way to big for the B pack. I was pleasantly surprised at how slippery the Stick is with the 2212 I am using on it when I maidened it yesterday.

I do know that less battery means less airtime, and if i have to add weight I would rather do it with more battery then to add a handful of pennies. The weight of your motor should definitely help with the balance for sure being it is out at the end of the nose. I am sure you will be good with what you have going on, I did it all last year with one motor on all my planes. Had to swap it out from plane to plane to have some diversity in the hangar.
 
Timmy, I loved my bushwhacker. I think I have over a hundred hours on my Bushwhacker, and having a fondness for STOL stuff, I probably did thousands of landings with it.

Battleaxe, I'm with you. I will rebuild a motor mount to move a motor forward before I will add a single penny. Ballast just seems wrong on an airplane. Airtime has never been that important to me since I do multiple landings per battery anyway. I see using a light battery as the best way to enhance performance without compromising the strength of the structure, and of course, the lighter it is, the less robust the airframe can be without folding up. But I draw the line at the powerplant. That's just wrong.
 

Timmy

Legendary member
I am a big fan of more power
the one.png

heh :p
 
I just reread this whole thread to see what I could learn. One of the things I learned is that Sponz said on July 29 that the plans would be out soon, perhaps within the week. I also learned that The Hanger has plans for a perfectly good Stick. I like that the FT Stick is a little larger but I think I might be able to upsize the Hanger version to maybe 110% or 115%. I have never tried to upsize plans before, but it doesn"t seem to hard. In the worst case I would just add four inches to the wingspan and maybe stretch out the fuselage a few inches without doing a "scale" enlargement. In any case it looks like the FT plans aren't much closer to being published than they were in July.

If anybody has tips for upsizing plans I'm all ears. If anybody can provide more clarity on the release date of the
FT Stick plans, I probably won't pass the point of no return for a day or two. I am certainly grateful for the effort Sponz puts in to this, but I have time to build right now.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
I just reread this whole thread to see what I could learn. One of the things I learned is that Sponz said on July 29 that the plans would be out soon, perhaps within the week. I also learned that The Hanger has plans for a perfectly good Stick. I like that the FT Stick is a little larger but I think I might be able to upsize the Hanger version to maybe 110% or 115%. I have never tried to upsize plans before, but it doesn"t seem to hard. In the worst case I would just add four inches to the wingspan and maybe stretch out the fuselage a few inches without doing a "scale" enlargement. In any case it looks like the FT plans aren't much closer to being published than they were in July.

If anybody has tips for upsizing plans I'm all ears. If anybody can provide more clarity on the release date of the
FT Stick plans, I probably won't pass the point of no return for a day or two. I am certainly grateful for the effort Sponz puts in to this, but I have time to build right now.
I feel ya man I tried to hold out as well. I don't think you need to upsize anything with the Stick @The Hangar designed. It is already larger then most of the planes designed for the B pack and a C pack will be even better on it. If anything you will want to shorten the fuse or reduce the size of the tail feathers. For some it was tough to balance with a 2200mah 3s battery if you don't, check out his thread on his Stick, there is a bunch of good info there too.

Good Luck
 

randyrls

Randy
I like that the FT Stick is a little larger but I think I might be able to upsize the Hanger version to maybe 110% or 115%. I have never tried to upsize plans before, but it doesn"t seem to hard. In the worst case I would just add four inches to the wingspan and maybe stretch out the fuselage a few inches without doing a "scale" enlargement. In any case it looks like the FT plans aren't much closer to being published than they were in July.

If anybody has tips for upsizing plans I'm all ears.

Easy Peazy Larry; Adobe Reader DC can scale plans both UP AND DOWN. Print in poster mode, Change the Percentage of print size. from 100% to whatever you want. Be cautious about up-sizing.... Make sure the resulting parts can fit on a sheet of Foam Board. The new Maker foam has a score cut on it so I believe it is twice the size of the old foam board.
Scale_img001.png

AND THIS IS A SUPER EXPLORER!! 200% size. Note the change in the pages needed. Scale_img001.png Scale_img002.png

Scale_img002.png
 

AIRFORGE

Make It Fly!
Moderator
Easy Peazy Larry; Adobe Reader DC can scale plans both UP AND DOWN. Print in poster mode, Change the Percentage of print size. from 100% to whatever you want. Be cautious about up-sizing.... Make sure the resulting parts can fit on a sheet of Foam Board. The new Maker foam has a score cut on it so I believe it is twice the size of the old foam board.
AND THIS IS A SUPER EXPLORER!! 200% size. Note the change in the pages needed. View attachment 179429 View attachment 179430
When you scale up like that, you need to remember you're also increasing the width of the cavities, which allow for a specific foam thickness, but your foam is still the same thickness, so you'll need to adjust for that.
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
I just reread this whole thread to see what I could learn. One of the things I learned is that Sponz said on July 29 that the plans would be out soon, perhaps within the week. I also learned that The Hanger has plans for a perfectly good Stick. I like that the FT Stick is a little larger but I think I might be able to upsize the Hanger version to maybe 110% or 115%. I have never tried to upsize plans before, but it doesn"t seem to hard. In the worst case I would just add four inches to the wingspan and maybe stretch out the fuselage a few inches without doing a "scale" enlargement. In any case it looks like the FT plans aren't much closer to being published than they were in July.

If anybody has tips for upsizing plans I'm all ears. If anybody can provide more clarity on the release date of the
FT Stick plans, I probably won't pass the point of no return for a day or two. I am certainly grateful for the effort Sponz puts in to this, but I have time to build right now.
Awesome! When upscaling, like @Addicted said, you have to change the width of the cuts. For an A fold, adjust the outside cut of the cavity. For a b fold, you’ll have to adjust the inside cut of the cavity.
 

randyrls

Randy
When you scale up like that, you need to remember you're also increasing the width of the cavities, which allow for a specific foam thickness, but your foam is still the same thickness, so you'll need to adjust for that.

BIG OOPS!!!! Yes, you are correct. I wonder if there are any threads about scaling plans up or down. I want to make a LongEZ but with a wider fuselage and a bit taller fuselage on top.
 
I started construction today. Thanks to Randyris blowing up the plans was a piece of cake. I settled on 115%. The wing spar is a little long for a 30" foam sheet but I can make it if I go diagonal. I had to splice some foam for the fuselage, but I put it in the front to avoid extra weight in the tail. At 115% the cavity cuts were only slightly off, like maybe a knife blade thickness which is less than my usual cutting error anyway. Thanks to all for the tips.