what aircraft under 250g would do better when there is a breeze?

[Marzipan]

where I live there is almost always a breeze of some sort...usually 2 to 5 miles an hour. are there any Mighty MIni that would perform well with a breeze like that? the FT Freighter was caught by a gust and carried away...fortunately we were able to crash it in a tree bordering someones backyard before it was blown over a forested area it would have been lost in.

 

[Mr NCT]

where I live there is almost always a breeze of some sort...usually 2 to 5 miles an hour. are there any Mighty MIni that would perform well with a breeze like that? the FT Freighter was caught by a gust and carried away...fortunately we were able to crash it in a tree bordering someones backyard before it was blown over a forested area it would have been lost in.

The mini DR1, SE5 and Corsair will all handle 2 to 5 just fine.

 

[Marzipan]

The mini DR1, SE5 and Corsair will all handle 2 to 5 just fine.

alas, they are all over 250g with battery, so that's a no-go for us. a basic pilots license is required for anything 250g to 25KG, but if you fly in an exclusion zone, which our MAAC airfield is, you need to have an advanced pilots license.

what characteristics should we be looking for in a plane that would be wind friendly?

edit - how would the FT Nutball, Delta and Flyer do in these breezes?

 

[Foamforce]

alas, they are all over 250g with battery, so that's a no-go for us. a basic pilots license is required for anything 250g to 25KG, but if you fly in an exclusion zone, which our MAAC airfield is, you need to have an advanced pilots license.

what characteristics should we be looking for in a plane that would be wind friendly?

edit - how would the FT Nutball, Delta and Flyer do in these breezes?

2-5mph is nothing. That’s a great flying day. Basically any plane can handle that. The EZ series is the one exception where almost dead still is very helpful. Since the other ones have elevators, they can easily handle 5mph.

The Nutball and Delta both do well. The Nutball is actually a hoot in higher winds because you can wildly flip it around in the air, as in 10+ consecutive tight loops. It has a lot of control though and might be twitchy for a newer flyer. On the other hand, it doesn’t get damaged much and is extremely easy to build. The Delta has a bad reputation for being hard to fly, although I built a light weight version that was a nice flyer.

I have a Mini Scout that flies decently well. That’s well under 250g. I’m guessing that a Tiny Tutor, which was made for the 250g rule, and has an actual air foil, would be better though.

 

[Marzipan]

thanks Ff! one more question...do you know if the tiled plans for the FT Nutball scratch build are letter paper size? If they are something else, what would that be?

 

[Foamforce]

thanks Ff! one more question...do you know if the tiled plans for the FT Nutball scratch build are letter paper size? If they are something else, what would that be?

All of the plans usually come in A, B, and Full. A is normal letter sized tiling. B is for 11x17 (office printers). Full is the full 20x30 sheet. The file name will indicate which it is.

You can also use full and use the options in Acrobat to tile it.

Whatever you do, when you print, make sure that you don’t have it set to “fit to page”. The scaling should be 100%.

 

[Mehvish99]

Gliders or slow flyers might handle a breeze better. Less weight means less wind resistance. 🪁💨 Anyone tried a paper plane experiment?

 

[quorneng]

Unless the wind speed is greater than the planes flying speed it is not the major problem but the turbulence created by ground objects (buildings and trees) is the killer particularly for light weight (sub 250g) planes. The situation is made more complex by gusts created by the effect s of the sun's heating creating thermals. It follows that the direction of gusts is variable when compared to the basic wind.

A planes speed is not the only factor to flying in wind but also its "controllability" along with the pilot's level of skill and experience in flying in the conditions.
As others have indicated much of the answer to flying in windy conditions is understanding what is likely to happen and developing the skills to handle the conditions.
Like most thing related to flying its a case of practise, practise and yet more practise.

A quote from a "Dirty Harry" film springs to mind "A man has got to know his limitations".

 

[LitterBug]

I built and flew the FT Dart a while back. It ended up just less than 250G and had decent all around flyability. Make sure you keep the throws down to recommendations because it is super agile.

 

[Mr NCT]

alas, they are all over 250g with battery, so that's a no-go for us. a basic pilots license is required for anything 250g to 25KG, but if you fly in an exclusion zone, which our MAAC airfield is, you need to have an advanced pilots license.

what characteristics should we be looking for in a plane that would be wind friendly?

edit - how would the FT Nutball, Delta and Flyer do in these breezes?

Don't count them out. If you strip the inside paper on the fuselage, are careful with glue, forgo landing gear and use an A power pack with an 800mah 2s you can get really close or under 250g.
For instance here's my current DR1 WITH landing gear, WITH 3D printed parts, WITH inside paper, not much effort made at light weight and an A pack with a 800 2s battery and it's 309g.

 

[L Edge]

alas, they are all over 250g with battery, so that's a no-go for us. a basic pilots license is required for anything 250g to 25KG, but if you fly in an exclusion zone, which our MAAC airfield is, you need to have an advanced pilots license.

what characteristics should we be looking for in a plane that would be wind friendly?

edit - how would the FT Nutball, Delta and Flyer do in these breezes?

Actually, in the EZ group (under 60 grams), there are at least 2 planes that will fly in a breeze from 2 -5 mph. I designed these and 2 are top performers (reason being a 13 degree dihedral for the wedge and 21 degree dihedral for the circle) and make these trainers. If you want video flying in the wind, let me know.
Look at thread #17

Help please!!! EZ motor wires have been cut

Looking for some help! While teaching my daughter LS to fly an EZ plane the wires on one of the motors became frayed. I separated them completely and attempted to wire them back together. I attempted to wire red to red and blue to blue, but when I did the motor started spinning in its own, using...

forum.flitetest.com

I can give you a sketch on how to make these two. In fact, it is real simple, if you look closely, there is only one cut and the rest is partial where you fill with glue after shaping. Need to build a jig with the 13 and 21 degree dihedral. That is how is stays upright in the wind.
I was hoping to present these designs to FT as a gift to help them along.

Here's the flying wing with no rudder or vertical using the EZ kit flying in wind. Nice thing with this system is you can design any plane under 60 grams yourself and it should fly. The stabilizer is the key.

.

 

[Marzipan]

thanks for all the follow up thoughts and suggestions. I think I'm going to go with the Nutball and the Flyer for now and work out ways to get a lift across town to the authorized MAAC airfield as it's got a lot more space.

I know one reason why the Freighter drifted away was due to lack of pilot experience, but I'm happy to say I just got tracking info for my RealFlight Evolution, so the two of us will start to be able to train without the loss of more resources. the grandbrat also really wants to get into helicopters, so this will be good training to help him start on that path too!

 

[JasonK]

@Marzipan

I was able to get the Tiny Trainer under 250g with some careful paper removal and application of glue. (but this gets into scrapping every possible gram off the build - the 3 channel wing is fairly easy to do this with, the 4 channel wing is very challenging to pull off)

FT MM f-22 Raptor is also sub 250g with A-pack motor and reasonable sized battery and has a nice flight characteristic.

Beyond that, the plan from my PFP (I created it as a resource) flies really well and is easy to get sub-250g.

Where I live, a good day is 5mph winds, so I understand your wind pain - all the above do well in my mind with them.

 

[LitterBug]

I found a fairly new channel on YouTube (Useful Aircraft) recently of a guy who is designing/building sub 250g planes. His construction techniques are not quite as refined as FT, but he has a few cool designs. He goes into some interesting theory in some of his videos too. I wish FT would build more sub 250 "nano" planes/kits. The EZ planes are ok, but there is still a big void in the fully controllable (servos/motor) area. They no longer sell the FT Dart flying wing which was super easy to get below 250g.

 

[JasonK]

the FT Dart is __amazing__ - the plans are still available - I think it failed on the "easy to build" category with the need to do soldering to put the plane together. (however I would recommend one of the 3D printed motor mount options that gets the props higher, so your not dragging the props on the ground every landing)

 

[JasonK]

XJet's outlaw is a good sub250g design - have only flow it in Wing simulator, there it flies like it is on rails - so if IRL is even close to as good as there, it should fly good.

 

[JasonK]

this is probably sub 250g (at least with appropriate electronics, as it is a single sheet of foam board, which would leave ~125g for electronics)

EZ-Pelican - Durable, Easy to Build and Fly Radio Control Plane

EZ-Pelican - Durable, Easy to Build and Fly Radio Control Plane : In this guide I will be showing you how to build the EZ-Pelican! It is a radio controlled airplane I designed. It's main features are: Super Durable - Able to handle many crashes Easy to Build Easy to Fly Cheap...

www.instructables.com

 

[JasonK]

I know of a few more designs, but if your just starting out, those should be some good options (the other designs are all some sort of flying wing setup, so they are more picky on CG placement, trim, flight-speed/etc to get stable/clean flights).

 

[LitterBug]

We need a Nano Trainer... 1406 motor, 2.5g servos....

I do have the Dart plans and recently built another one during Builduary. Still need to maiden it, and did 3D print motor pods.

So they need some 20A escs and 1406 motors with pins already soldered on.... Should not be hard so get those with all the CinaWhoops and othe sub 250 quads.....

 

[Marzipan]

the FT Dart is __amazing__ - the plans are still available - I think it failed on the "easy to build" category with the need to do soldering to put the plane together. (however I would recommend one of the 3D printed motor mount options that gets the props higher, so your not dragging the props on the ground every landing)

wonder how replacing the prop with an EDF or two would go. 🤔