Flight Times

[eta150]

It was pretty scary actually. Before my first flight, I broke the first motor. Then, I'm not sure how, but the horizontal stab practically broke in half, so I glued a small strip of balsa over the top of the leading edge. The venue was a deathtrap too for various reasons, like the limited space, basketball nets, elevated walkway ringing it, and netted curtain that allows a draft through. My first flight crashed into the netting, and my second one nearly did too, but one small bump on the ceiling corrected the flight path. All's well that ends well though.

[jcollier]

Sounds like my son's adventure at States last year. No guts, no glory. Looking forward to seeing your plane on 4/30.

[talicoa]

Our team flew 2:39 for both flights last weekend at the New Trier regional in North Eastern Illinois. It was good enough for third place. The winning time was around 2:52. The Gym was very narrow, and a lot of people made contact with the walls, and backboards.

[eta150]

How tall was the gym?

[Hamtown009]

yes goblue007 is my partner for wirght stuff. We took 3rd with a 1:58 at an invitational. I think that the winning time was around 2:45 or so. The plane tends to climb nicely, turning in a normal fashion, although when the plane is coming down, it does so very quickly. My coach thought that we should use a smaller diameter rubber band and wind it more. (ex. instead of 80 winds with a diameter of .095 on a 1:16 winder, have 90 or more winds on a rubber band with a diameter of .083 on a 1:16 winder) Do you think that this would help with increasing our total time by helping it decrease in elevation slower???

[jcollier]

It might help. How many winds are left when the plane is landing? If you are running out of winds before your plane hits the floor, then using smaller rubber might help. What you are seeing could be prop angle. Check janders posts on the threads here. He explains it better than I can.

[jander14indoor]

Here's where you are getting into the hard work!

I'd certainly try different size motors. When you do, you might also need a little more up elevator to raise the nose.

I know with the lower pitch props I like I use (from memory, may be a little off, but not much) 0.075 inch motors with 110 or so cranks on my 15 to one winder to get 3 minute flights.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[talicoa]

How tall was the gym?

It was between 26' and 28' without too much hanging down. We got lucky and only tapped the beams up top a couple of times.

[Hamtown009]

thanks a bunch jcollier and jander, it sounds like you guys have it exactly right. Jander, where would you recommend buying a rubber band with a diamter of .075??? We would always love and some more time on it to increase times!

[jander14indoor]

You either strip you own rubber to whatever width you need, unfortunately this gets you into the one pricey toy I own for indoor flying, see: http://www.gryffinaero.com/models/ffpag ... arlan.html for an example and plan on spending $150. If you really get into free flight indoor, it will pay for itself, but for WS... maybe get a couple of schools to go in on it?
Alternatively you find a local nut like me as sweet talk them into stripping the rubber for you, depends on where you live on how hard it is.
Finally you can buy pre-stripped rubber at http://www.a2zcorp.us look under model supplies, indoor, rubber. He has any size you want. http://www.freedomflightmodels.com has a couple of custom sizes in the appropriate range for SO. He also has a prop pitch gage. There may be a couple of other sources out there, but I'm not sure who they'd be.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI