Flight Times and/or Videos

[fifty_missions]

About 60's feet to the girders but this model ended up only going to 32' in the competition! The team used a balloon to gauge the height that it flew and measured the string. After the competition was over they went back out and used a larger motor and did a 4:05 flight up around the girders.
Tom

[doublelift]

Do you know why one side of the wing is a single panel while the other has multiple?

[fifty_missions]

Yes, there is more than one rib on the port wing. It appeared as an optical allusion (delusion?) in the initial photo. I have attached a couple of additional pictures.The port wing is also longer so the model is technically asymmetric. The port wing does not have as many ribs to allow the film to "balloon" slightly more for lift on the port side. BTW, the port wing was constructed with wash-in of 3/32" at the tip as another aerodynamic means of keeping the airplane level under high torque launches. This means the leading edge is higher when compared to the starboard wing's leading edge. Note that the bonus for a colored strip (in black) is on the wing as well as the stabilizer and narrow. This was achieved by placing two ribs close together and the tissue applied right onto the film surface using 3M 77 spray adhesive.

Tom Sanders

[watermydoing14]

At Washington State Tournament this weekend, my plane got 6th place with a 1:54 time in a ~50 ft ceiling with either 1000 or 1200 winds. No wing bonus since our first set of wings broke in our first official flight, so we had a backup set that we didn't get a chance to spray paint. I used a Freedom Flight kit. The plane climbed pretty much the entire height of the ceiling (it hit the lights once) and ran out of winds before it hit the ground, so theoretically it could have gone longer with more winds. Maybe with thinner rubber, though. My first official flight was with .094" rubber and ~1300 or 1400 winds I think, and as soon as I let go the plane veered left and hit the ground, wiggling across the ground as the motor unwound (which resulted in our wings breaking lol). Decided to back off on winds because of that incident and it seemed to help since the plane didn't crash that time...

[bernard]

My first official flight was with .094" rubber and ~1300 or 1400 winds I think, and as soon as I let go the plane veered left and hit the ground, wiggling across the ground as the motor unwound (which resulted in our wings breaking lol). Decided to back off on winds because of that incident and it seemed to help since the plane didn't crash that time...

Possibly the motor stick bowing, decreasing wing incidence for the first part of the flight as turns unwind. Last season I put at most ~1500 winds in 0.094" motor that was 2.00 grams and had significant bowing issues, which you can see in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAei1fgTwE8), but my motor stick was sanded down so it was thinner than yours.

[dcrxcode]

My first official flight was with .094" rubber and ~1300 or 1400 winds I think, and as soon as I let go the plane veered left and hit the ground, wiggling across the ground as the motor unwound (which resulted in our wings breaking lol). Decided to back off on winds because of that incident and it seemed to help since the plane didn't crash that time...

Possibly the motor stick bowing, decreasing wing incidence for the first part of the flight as turns unwind. Last season I put at most ~1500 winds in 0.094" motor that was 2.00 grams and had significant bowing issues, which you can see in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAei1fgTwE8), but my motor stick was sanded down so it was thinner than yours.

That's incredible! Did you use some sort of torque burner or VP to get the descent action at the beginning of your flight?

[DoctaDave]

My first official flight was with .094" rubber and ~1300 or 1400 winds I think, and as soon as I let go the plane veered left and hit the ground, wiggling across the ground as the motor unwound (which resulted in our wings breaking lol). Decided to back off on winds because of that incident and it seemed to help since the plane didn't crash that time...

Possibly the motor stick bowing, decreasing wing incidence for the first part of the flight as turns unwind. Last season I put at most ~1500 winds in 0.094" motor that was 2.00 grams and had significant bowing issues, which you can see in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAei1fgTwE8), but my motor stick was sanded down so it was thinner than yours.

That's incredible! Did you use some sort of torque burner or VP to get the descent action at the beginning of your flight?

The bending of the motorstick at the beginning of the flight is due to the natural high tension of a fully wound motor. The bending motorstick adds downthrust, and it seems he was able to suppress the climb in the beginning of the flight with a combination of the downthrust produced by the bowing of the motorstick and a bit of torque rolling.

This method can probably get you another 10ish seconds depending on how aggressive you are with the amount you suppress the climb in the beginning of the flight, but it is also a little risky as the same can happen to you as what happened to watermydoing. If the model hits some rough turbulence at the very beginning it could go straight into the ground.

The best method of suppressing the climb would be to use a flaring prop. This way you can conserve some turns (using downthrust and torque rolling to slow the climb is extremely inefficient as you're basically using those super high energy turns to fight the lifting force of the plane).

[bernard]

My first official flight was with .094" rubber and ~1300 or 1400 winds I think, and as soon as I let go the plane veered left and hit the ground, wiggling across the ground as the motor unwound (which resulted in our wings breaking lol). Decided to back off on winds because of that incident and it seemed to help since the plane didn't crash that time...

Possibly the motor stick bowing, decreasing wing incidence for the first part of the flight as turns unwind. Last season I put at most ~1500 winds in 0.094" motor that was 2.00 grams and had significant bowing issues, which you can see in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAei1fgTwE8), but my motor stick was sanded down so it was thinner than yours.

That's incredible! Did you use some sort of torque burner or VP to get the descent action at the beginning of your flight?

This initial descent was not intentional and scared me until it started climbing, right before it was about to touch the ground. Had it not happened, it probably could have used the entire height of the ceiling. I had maybe 10 feet of unused ceiling height.

DoctaDave's post describes exactly how it's done, and I'd say it's easier to perfect than a torque burner if you're looking for ways make your ceiling a little "taller."

[fifty_missions]

The site in that video seem fairly short, 30'? Nice flight The model experienced two issues. The next time you wind to max, look at the model from a head-on perspective. I suspect that you have a twisting motor stick under torque load as well as the bending that increases downthrust as well as positive incidence with the stab (you want neutral or negative to climb). In addition, when you look from head-on, my bet is that the left wing's leading edge is slightly lower and there is a slight more stab tilt then when the rubber is run-out. This is due to the motor stick twisting as well. Both will also induce that nose-down tight spiral. If it scares you then I agree, a flaring prop might help a little. Keep in mind, unless you have designed more lift on the port wing, that flaring prop may add more torque roll to the port side causing a similar issue.

Tom Sanders

[RJohnson]

I went an route that wasn't terribly popular and I braced my motor stick with Kevlar thread similarly to how it was done with helicopters. I was able to launch at over an inch-ounce of torque with this. It was very handy for higher ceilings. Before bracing we had very similar behaviors at high torque launches.