Flying High and Large

Well we finally had good weather this weekend for a change. No wind and upper 80's made flying a joy. Only down side was fighting off the mosquitoes at dusk. Been a while since so many people showed up for flying.

Jonnie brought out and maiden his giant SR-71. It has a 36" wingspan and is 60" nose to tail. The only casualty after several successful flights was a puffed up battery. He was pulling too many amps for the 2200mah 4S Nano-Tech battery. With an 8X6 prop he was pulling close to 1,000 watts at WOT. Several changes are in the works to get the full 1500 watts that the motor is capable of handling.

Hopefully the dark days are just about over for me. I have been without a good transmitter for over 3 weeks. My Spektrum DX6I is due back this week so I can launch my MegaJet F-22 with Jonnie's Giant SR-71. Should be fun seeing these two monster foamies this up coming weekend.

Speaking of dark days there are not too many days left for flying after 6 pm without lights. Everyone is or needs to be ramping up with leds to extend our night flying.

Everyone was up!

Finally had some good flying weather this weekend except for the mosquitoes. We are trying to figure out a way to mount a receiver on one of them to see how well they fly. We will need 6 channels receiver to have functioning blood sucker and retractable landing gear.

Everyone was flying Sunday night. Jonnie launched his new improved SR-71. This monster is approximately 60" in length with a 38" wingspan. He completed several successful flights with no problems other than a puffed 4S nano-tech lipo battery. It needs a higher capacity battery to handle extended high speed runs. Should have video soon.

I crumpled a couple of older foamies this week using the cheap radio that came with an EDF jet. Can't wait for my DX6I to arrive back this week from the repair shop. You can fly with those cheap radios but you can't get too attached to the planes your flying on them. The receivers seem to have a problem with emf off the motors. Had to be careful when coming off throttle because elevons would jump then reset. Not a problem when at 50 feet but deadly

Slow and Painful week

Weather has not been good for flying the last couple of weeks. Wind and rain has limited my flying time. Then I went and dropped my DX6I radio this week and put it out of commission.

Still doing a limited amount of flying using a 2.4 GHz radio that came with a EDF jet purchased recently. Limited in the fact that this radio seems to have a mind of its own every now and then. It was responsible for the demise of the JeTiger and has tried to eliminate my scratch built foamies a couple of times. They were better handling so I was able to save them before hitting the ground. I'll take a prop pusher over an EDF jet everytime when it comes to using thrust to overcome gravity.

On a more positive note, I have completed all the changes to the MegaJet II. When I get my DX6I repaired I will take it out. I was able to put a 9X6 prop on it and still have over a 1 to 1 thrust ratio. It also dropped the watts down to around 450 which is good. Motor sounds like it is producing higher rpms so I should be able to get a little more speed. Hope the airframe can handle it since I used a limited amount of carbon fiber on the wings.

Slow Week

Not much happening the last week. Only flew a couple times with temperatures well over 100 at 8:00 in the evening. Built a couple new jets this week. One looks similar to the F-15 and another has it own look. Both were rigged with Turnigy 2836 motor w/2350kv (6X4 prop). Matched with a 60 amp Vocano ESC and 4S30C 2200mah BlueLipo battery. Maiden flights were trouble free.

On another note, I have ordered new larger metal gear servos for the MegaJet II. Had insufficient torque on previous servos to perform any stunts other than a few slow rolls. Also going to go to a smaller prop(9x6) with more pitch to increase speed. Hoping to get something near 60 mph in the future.

MegaJet II a Success

Well I finally completed and maiden the MegaJet II this past weekend. It was rigged out just like the original MegaJet. I used a HobbyPartz Monster 15 motor (950KV), 60 amp Volcano ESC, 2200 mah 4S BlueLipo with a 10X3.8 prop. While it had enough thrust for verticle take offs, it could use some additional speed. Planning on dropping down to a 9 inch prop with a 5 or 6 pitch for the next launch. It currently pulls just short of 40 amps on the 10" prop giving it an output of 550 watts. That is just 2 amps short of the rated maximum for this motor.

Kept the first 5 flights mainly level with the occasional roll. Jet has plenty of up and down using the current elevon configuration but lacks a little in the roll department. Next build I will either seperate the functions or possibly add ailerons onto the existing servos.

Bad weather on Sunday left it and it's smaller counterparts in the hangar. You can see maiden in the attached 5 minute video.

MegaJet Flies and Dies

Well I finally flew the MegaJet F-22 last weekend. It was a F-22 that I enlarged by 40% which gave it a 38" wingspan and total length of 50". I outfitted it with a HobbyPartz Monster 15 motor, 60 amp ESC, 4S2200mah battery and a 10X4 prop. Full throttle produced approximately 550 watts. I hand launched and flew it several times before an elevon pushrod failure (Note to Bruce, use Z-bends on big jets). The attached video is of that short final flight. Not to worry, I have already built the MegaJet II and it now max's out at 40" wingspan and a total length of 58".

Hotter than 40amp motor pulling 60amp

Well not much flying going on with 100 degree heat. We have been trying out the newer Helicopter Turnigy 450 size H2218 series motor lately. So far the motor seems to be a winner. Motor comes with nothing but an x-mount but at less tham $11 that leaves you with $6 to put on connectors and a prop adapter and cost the same as the 2836-2350KV motors. Not that you can get any of them for the last month. The 1860-2900KV motors are well suited for parkjet foamies. The only hold back is the shaft cannot be reversed which limits your mounting options. Using 11.1v batteries the prop maximum diameter seem to fall as follows: 1860=8", 2100=7", 2500=6", and 2900=5" not to exceed a 5 blade pitch. Bump it up to 14.8v and you might have to come down an inch in diameter but it really screams and you fall right at the rated 500 watt maximum.