Willy Nillies Eaglet 250 Build

Turbojoe

Elite member
Those wheel pants and struts look awesome on the Eaglet! I hope you find a way to make them more permanent. I like your graphics cutting method too and will have to try it. I've tried doing it using glass with minor success. I just plain suck at anything with graphics so I'm sure it'll work better for someone else.

On the OSMW Comet: Make sure you buy the latest kit directly from them and not from a for sale section somewhere. You want to avoid an early production kit. I got one of the first batch back in August of 2018 and parts cut and fit left so much to be desired. I built most of the fuse but the wing needed so much extra attention that I just put it on the shelf and started another project. Among other fitment issues all of the slots were cut to .125" or .250" instead of the dimensions of the lite ply parts that were supposed to fit there. Most lite ply is actually .100-.110 and that left really poor fitting parts. I e-mailed Mark about it and never heard back from him. I'm sure they have it all ironed out by now but just make sure you get a "fresh" kit. It's a fantastic looking plane and I'll get back to mine someday. I'm just having fun with the smaller birds right now.

Joe
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
I hope you find a way to make them more permanent.

I have an idea. My original idea was to epoxy the bare wood on the wheel pants to the bent section of the landing gear wire (the whole reason I bent it was to give the epoxy more area to adhere the two surfaces) Unfortunately this ended up being a failure because the pants were not well held on (as I half expected... I don't even know why I bothered trying this) I have an idea for a solution though: I'm going to take some very thin sheet aluminum or steel and bend it to form a "tab" which one end glues onto the pant and the other gets screwed into the fairing with a nut and bolt, or possibly two to prevent unintended rotation. The fairings are actually really sturdy since I epoxied them to the landing gear wire and covered them which adds a lot of stiffness! I think I'll still be hitting the wood with some CA where I want to place the screws.

In other news, George inspected my wiring:

Screenshot_20200329-025554.jpg


I'm really surprised I even managed to shove everything in here. I'm using every channel on the receiver aside from the bind port! You can see the capacitor sitting on top of the ESC: normally it kind of hangs off to the side but I had to relocate it to the top of the ESC so it would... fit. The ESC gets pretty bored handling this motor on a 5x3 prop... I think I'm going to bump it to a 5x4 and maybe add blades to get more power. 3S with this thing is blatant overkill.

AUW for this came out at 7.6 ounces. It's probably the heaviest Eaglet but it's the lightest airplane I've ever built (excluding rubber powered and paper ones) and in terms of the kit, by far also the easiest and least fussiest (though the fuss that was encountered was caused by my decision to add all sorts of weird modifications and was no fault of the kit) I badly want to build another! But I have to crash this one first :ROFLMAO:
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Quick update today: Maiden flight! Though it wasn't nearly as exciting as you think hence why no pictures or video. I also hadn't called my cameraman out :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: The wind and rain actually decided to go away at the same time for once (lately it's been one or the other) but due to the ongoing coronavirus sh... poopshow I decided it would probably be a better idea if I didn't go to the flying field. Which posed no actual problem as I just flew it in my backyard!

First impressions were pretty much exactly what I expected - it's underpowered on 2s and a 5x3 propeller, and I got the CG wrong. A few fishing weights solved the CG problem and let me actually test the flight characteristics, and despite the fact that it's not exactly happy on the amount of power it had, honestly it flew really nicely! The flaps do a hell of a lot - with one notch it kind of just floats around but with two it just stops. I couldn't actually really use the second notch of flaps with the amount of battery and propeller I had - sadly the low KV of the motor and smaller propeller meant it rapidly became very unhappy when asked to fly on said setting. I found a 6x3 prop but to my dismay it had a 5mm hub and my oddball motor shaft is 3.8mm. Landing on my back deck was very easy. I can't say I've ever had an airplane I could do that with that I built! Anyway, I only got maybe two or so minutes of flight time with it. When I pulled the battery back out, it still read 92%, and this was a 460 2s. I'm calling it a pre-maiden :p

However though - there's a problem concerning the battery situation. I have 3s batteries that will fit in the upper tray - however, they won't fit with the hatch on! I think I'm going to have to reconfigure my ESC/reciever placement so that they get moved back to their more traditional location in the upper bay. It shouldn't really be too hard now that I think about it - I ended up having to modify both components to make them smaller anyway. I'm also thinking about scratchbuilding another top hatch with a mount for an FPV camera :unsure:
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Woke up and winds were at a solid 0 mph. Now: A "real" maiden!

P_20200424_171147.jpg


Firstly, as if it wasn't already extremely obvious: for something this small, this plane flies great! I was able to get some real envelope testing in today now that I've got some 3S batteries that will fit in it. It doesn't quite have unlimited vertical, but even on a small 5x4 prop the power and speed are both perfectly adequate. Cruising around at half to 1/3 throttle is perfectly doable. Today actually had some cloud cover resulting in strong thermals and there were times that I was able to use even less throttle to maintain altitude - the wing area isn't massive, but it just weighs nothing. Even with a 450 3S in the nose, it tips the scales at 8 ounces exactly. Off of that size battery, with careful throttle management and some helpful thermals, I kept it up for as-near-as-makes-no-difference 20 minutes!! Though on a day with less perfect conditions and being more aggressive on the sticks I would say 10-12 minutes is probably a more realistic number.

Speaking of throwing it around honestly I didn't really expect much, it being a high winger with a very asymmetric airfoil. It will never do 3D but I'm not saying that like it's really a problem ;) However more basic stuff it will do with surprisingly little fuss. Rolls are easy to keep axial (though you can't go too slow or really do hesitation rolls because the rudder isn't very big - but maybe this is because I had it dialed in with lower rates just to get used to the way the plane handles) and it's easy to keep inverted (while requiring a lot of elevator, not really surprising for the airfoil it has) though I think these characteristics are due to my choice to build the 0 degree dihedral option.

I also got some more experience with the flaps in - and yes they do help quite a lot! The settings I had dialied in originally I ended up changing completely - the maximum setting originally produced so much extra lift that it was impossible to counteract it with the elevator, so it would just cause an instant stall :ROFLMAO: Notches 1 and 2 are now about 15 and 30 degrees respectively, and are easily countered with an elevator mix. They still help slow the thing down a hell of a lot though!

Due to the fact that I don't foresee quarantine being over for a long, long time, I might as well start up another Willy Nillies build (skylark? or could you guys please make like a 30% scale Bird of Time or something? pls pls pls pls pls pls) I promise I'll do it by the book this time :p
 

TooJung2Die

Master member
Excellent flight report. I think you nailed it. That's exactly how my Eaglet flies though I use flaperons with the same effect. It can be disconcerting to watch it get buffeted by wind because it's so small and light but you learn to ignore it because it keeps flying where you point it.
 

chris398mx

Master member
Woke up and winds were at a solid 0 mph. Now: A "real" maiden!

View attachment 167141

Firstly, as if it wasn't already extremely obvious: for something this small, this plane flies great! I was able to get some real envelope testing in today now that I've got some 3S batteries that will fit in it. It doesn't quite have unlimited vertical, but even on a small 5x4 prop the power and speed are both perfectly adequate. Cruising around at half to 1/3 throttle is perfectly doable. Today actually had some cloud cover resulting in strong thermals and there were times that I was able to use even less throttle to maintain altitude - the wing area isn't massive, but it just weighs nothing. Even with a 450 3S in the nose, it tips the scales at 8 ounces exactly. Off of that size battery, with careful throttle management and some helpful thermals, I kept it up for as-near-as-makes-no-difference 20 minutes!! Though on a day with less perfect conditions and being more aggressive on the sticks I would say 10-12 minutes is probably a more realistic number.

Speaking of throwing it around honestly I didn't really expect much, it being a high winger with a very asymmetric airfoil. It will never do 3D but I'm not saying that like it's really a problem ;) However more basic stuff it will do with surprisingly little fuss. Rolls are easy to keep axial (though you can't go too slow or really do hesitation rolls because the rudder isn't very big - but maybe this is because I had it dialed in with lower rates just to get used to the way the plane handles) and it's easy to keep inverted (while requiring a lot of elevator, not really surprising for the airfoil it has) though I think these characteristics are due to my choice to build the 0 degree dihedral option.

I also got some more experience with the flaps in - and yes they do help quite a lot! The settings I had dialied in originally I ended up changing completely - the maximum setting originally produced so much extra lift that it was impossible to counteract it with the elevator, so it would just cause an instant stall :ROFLMAO: Notches 1 and 2 are now about 15 and 30 degrees respectively, and are easily countered with an elevator mix. They still help slow the thing down a hell of a lot though!

Due to the fact that I don't foresee quarantine being over for a long, long time, I might as well start up another Willy Nillies build (skylark? or could you guys please make like a 30% scale Bird of Time or something? pls pls pls pls pls pls) I promise I'll do it by the book this time :p

Great flight report although I am not sure what verbiage goes with which plane. Did you fly the pusher? I am guessing the first paragraph goes with the yellow eaglet and the second is for the valiant? So is the third for the pusher?
 

Willy Nillies

Elite member
Woke up and winds were at a solid 0 mph. Now: A "real" maiden!

View attachment 167141

Firstly, as if it wasn't already extremely obvious: for something this small, this plane flies great! I was able to get some real envelope testing in today now that I've got some 3S batteries that will fit in it. It doesn't quite have unlimited vertical, but even on a small 5x4 prop the power and speed are both perfectly adequate. Cruising around at half to 1/3 throttle is perfectly doable. Today actually had some cloud cover resulting in strong thermals and there were times that I was able to use even less throttle to maintain altitude - the wing area isn't massive, but it just weighs nothing. Even with a 450 3S in the nose, it tips the scales at 8 ounces exactly. Off of that size battery, with careful throttle management and some helpful thermals, I kept it up for as-near-as-makes-no-difference 20 minutes!! Though on a day with less perfect conditions and being more aggressive on the sticks I would say 10-12 minutes is probably a more realistic number.

Speaking of throwing it around honestly I didn't really expect much, it being a high winger with a very asymmetric airfoil. It will never do 3D but I'm not saying that like it's really a problem ;) However more basic stuff it will do with surprisingly little fuss. Rolls are easy to keep axial (though you can't go too slow or really do hesitation rolls because the rudder isn't very big - but maybe this is because I had it dialed in with lower rates just to get used to the way the plane handles) and it's easy to keep inverted (while requiring a lot of elevator, not really surprising for the airfoil it has) though I think these characteristics are due to my choice to build the 0 degree dihedral option.

I also got some more experience with the flaps in - and yes they do help quite a lot! The settings I had dialied in originally I ended up changing completely - the maximum setting originally produced so much extra lift that it was impossible to counteract it with the elevator, so it would just cause an instant stall :ROFLMAO: Notches 1 and 2 are now about 15 and 30 degrees respectively, and are easily countered with an elevator mix. They still help slow the thing down a hell of a lot though!

Due to the fact that I don't foresee quarantine being over for a long, long time, I might as well start up another Willy Nillies build (skylark? or could you guys please make like a 30% scale Bird of Time or something? pls pls pls pls pls pls) I promise I'll do it by the book this time :p


Great flight report! How could something that pretty not fly good??? We're very happy you like it. :)

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Great flight report although I am not sure what verbiage goes with which plane. Did you fly the pusher? I am guessing the first paragraph goes with the yellow eaglet and the second is for the valiant? So is the third for the pusher?
All the writing is for the Eaglet. The Valiant flew as a valiant does (pretty good!) and the pusher I ended up crashing.