Tony
Staff member
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I go to the field and when I get home, I have some repairs to do. That is exactly my case today...
I got a call about 10:00am from rdsok that him and TJ were going to go to the field. After seeing the weather, I was like "there's no way" lol. But, I looked outside, and the wind was only blowing about as bad as it was the last time I went out last Thursday. So I started charging batteries. I only charged one of the 4s packs since the other one takes almost an hour to charge. I just said forget it. Charged up 4 3s 2200's and loaded the big Edge, little Edge and my beloved Bipe into my Camaro. All with wings on them lol. It was a tight fit, but they fit.
On the way to the field, I had my windows all the way down. 90º at 60% humidity will take it out of ya when you have no AC in your car lmao. I look in the mirror just in time to see the small Edge slap a wing into my back window hard. I thought either the glass was going to bust, or the wing was broke, cause I heard a crack lol. The Bipe was in the passenger seat with it's butt hanging out the window mooning everyone that I drove by (I own a Camaro, no one is passing me lmao). And the wind is pushing the tail all around. It actually looked like the bipe was wagging it's butt at people lmao. It was funny to me anyway lmao.
So I was the first one at the field just shortly before TJ and Randy. I unloaded all of my planes and my box with my camera gear. The first plane I tossed into the air was the Mini Edge. As usual, it flew great like it was on rails. The CoG is perfect on this plane right at the neutral point. Flip inverted and you don't hardly have to hold any elevator for level flight. Well as you guys know, I really need to work on my landings so I decided to do some touch and goes. On the first one I guess I hit one of the chunks of the runway because the camera I had on the nose showed a massive vibration after the first one. I didn't notice anything while flying but the camera doesn't lie. It ended up breaking off about 1/2" of one of the blades on the prop. I tried to fly it later in the day for my last flight just to run the batteries down, but that is when I noticed it. Pics of the prop below.
At this point Randy had to go solder some bullets on a new motor for his foamie since the other motor burnt up on him. I decided to hold off on flying the bipe until he got back. Well there was another guy that unloaded a FBL Trex 500 then he unloaded a trainer (foam) and asked to have some help setting it up. He has never flown it before, and in fact never flown a plane. He has only been flying heli's since January lol. We all know how that goes, right? Okay, maybe it's just me lmao. well, we set the throws up on his plane and got them correct then it was time to take it to the runway. While he was putting his strap on, he hit the throttle and the plane shot down the walk way lmao. Luckily I was right there and caught the plane before it hit anything.
We did some taxi testing and noticed that it was not turning like I thought it should so we took it back to the bench and adjusted the tail linkage and just left the rudder on high rates. He had me take off and land and needless to say, I was a little nervous lol. I taxied it out to the runway and it was able to turn around on the pavement just like we wanted. It was now go time. I throttled up and the plane was the smoothest plane I have ever flown on the maiden flight. It went right into the air and needed very little trimming to get set correctly. I trimmed it out, then handed off the Tx to him. Being a heli pilot, once in the air, it was very easy. Once he flew for a while, he handed the Tx back to me and it was the moment of truth. My landings suck, we all know that, and now I have someone elses plane in my hands. I just thought to myself, "it's a trainer, you can chop the throttle and coast this thing in". I did just that and had one of the best landings I have ever had. This thing was great. Almost makes me want to get one... Almost...
So I needed a little more calming of the nerves so I tossed the big Edge into the air. This is the go-to plane for just wanting to fly. Lee, I did put the camera on the wing facing the fuse, but the video sucks. You can't see anything but a lot of wing and fuse and no ground. I will upload it just because I have it because you wanted it. The landing, small bounce but in one piece.
Okay, now it's time for the Bipe. If you remember I didn't maiden it on Thursday because the CoG stated 15-30mm back from the leading edge of the top wing. Well thanks to Randy reminding me of an article on this plane, that was wrong. In the article, and later I found out it's stated very subtly in the manual should be 15-30mm farther back than that. So a total of 30-60mm back. I had my CoG set right at 3.75" back from the leading edge of the top wing. The guy in the article stated that he had started out at 3.5" back from the leading edge, but later found it to lock into harriers and hovers at 4" back. Either way, I'm at 3.75" and I'm going to fly it there. Stuffed a battery in, mounted the camera and set her on the ground.
I taxied it out to the runway and the takeoff was effortless even though it did go to the left as it did on the touch and go's. Now that I think about it, even the Edge Mini did this thanks to the wind. Once in the air, a little trimming and she was golden. I did notice in the turns that the tail wanted to fall away and the plane requires some rudder to keep the tail pointed straight. First plane I have ever flown that does this. Okay, this led me to believe it was very tail heavy so I flipped it inverted. Wow, nose almost straight to the ground, it's pretty nose heavy, okay really nose heavy. This is good though as I had slid my battery as far forward as I could in the cowl. Now, I can grind off the screws and push that battery back where I want it. Good deal.
Like with the Edge Mini, I decided to do some touch N goes just to get a feel for how it lands. I come in the first time and this plane floats in for a perfect landing. No wing rock at all. Good deal. 3/4 power and I take off. What do I hear from behind me... "Should have stayed on the ground, that was a perfect landing...".
I fly some more, more rolls and light flying (nothing heavy, not sure about this plane yet lol) and it's time to bring her in. I line it up to the runway and she just floats in like she should. I come in for an almost picture perfect landing (I'm getting better lol) and I go to give some power to turn around and I hear the prop hitting the ground. Then the nose of the plane just faceplants into the runway. The friggin landing gear folded on me! I couldn't believe it. But the Edge Mini almost did the exact same thing and I had braced the crap out of it last night with some balsa and epoxy. Now the same thing on the Bipe. Why is the bipe so bad? Because you have to remove wood to get to the landing gear mount. Lots of work that I"m not wanting to do lmao. OH well.
That was my last flight since I was either out of batteries or out of planes that were not broke lmao. The guy with the heli takes his up for the second time (first time was great. Great heli pilot). Unfortunately he had left it in rate mode on the gyro and the tail spun around on him and he ended up crashing. Not a lot of damage, but you all know how it feels. After that, the flying was pretty much over. Randy flew his 3DHS Edge a few times since the poor foamie had a crack somewhere. After all of that, it was time to go home.
So after quite a few good flight sessions, I finally have to fix something. I'm very impressed that I have went this long and both repairs are not my fault lol. One was a chunk of the crappy runway we have, and the other was bad manufacturing on Fliton's part.
Be sure to check out the pics below. I did get video of all 3 planes in flight, but because I couldn't wrap the tape around the camera on the Bipe, it's pretty crappy with waves in the video. The Edge Mini video has waves in it after I lose part of the prop and the big Edge is nothing but fuse. I guess you can't win them all lmao. Enjoy and let us know what you did on your holiday.
I got a call about 10:00am from rdsok that him and TJ were going to go to the field. After seeing the weather, I was like "there's no way" lol. But, I looked outside, and the wind was only blowing about as bad as it was the last time I went out last Thursday. So I started charging batteries. I only charged one of the 4s packs since the other one takes almost an hour to charge. I just said forget it. Charged up 4 3s 2200's and loaded the big Edge, little Edge and my beloved Bipe into my Camaro. All with wings on them lol. It was a tight fit, but they fit.
On the way to the field, I had my windows all the way down. 90º at 60% humidity will take it out of ya when you have no AC in your car lmao. I look in the mirror just in time to see the small Edge slap a wing into my back window hard. I thought either the glass was going to bust, or the wing was broke, cause I heard a crack lol. The Bipe was in the passenger seat with it's butt hanging out the window mooning everyone that I drove by (I own a Camaro, no one is passing me lmao). And the wind is pushing the tail all around. It actually looked like the bipe was wagging it's butt at people lmao. It was funny to me anyway lmao.
So I was the first one at the field just shortly before TJ and Randy. I unloaded all of my planes and my box with my camera gear. The first plane I tossed into the air was the Mini Edge. As usual, it flew great like it was on rails. The CoG is perfect on this plane right at the neutral point. Flip inverted and you don't hardly have to hold any elevator for level flight. Well as you guys know, I really need to work on my landings so I decided to do some touch and goes. On the first one I guess I hit one of the chunks of the runway because the camera I had on the nose showed a massive vibration after the first one. I didn't notice anything while flying but the camera doesn't lie. It ended up breaking off about 1/2" of one of the blades on the prop. I tried to fly it later in the day for my last flight just to run the batteries down, but that is when I noticed it. Pics of the prop below.
At this point Randy had to go solder some bullets on a new motor for his foamie since the other motor burnt up on him. I decided to hold off on flying the bipe until he got back. Well there was another guy that unloaded a FBL Trex 500 then he unloaded a trainer (foam) and asked to have some help setting it up. He has never flown it before, and in fact never flown a plane. He has only been flying heli's since January lol. We all know how that goes, right? Okay, maybe it's just me lmao. well, we set the throws up on his plane and got them correct then it was time to take it to the runway. While he was putting his strap on, he hit the throttle and the plane shot down the walk way lmao. Luckily I was right there and caught the plane before it hit anything.
We did some taxi testing and noticed that it was not turning like I thought it should so we took it back to the bench and adjusted the tail linkage and just left the rudder on high rates. He had me take off and land and needless to say, I was a little nervous lol. I taxied it out to the runway and it was able to turn around on the pavement just like we wanted. It was now go time. I throttled up and the plane was the smoothest plane I have ever flown on the maiden flight. It went right into the air and needed very little trimming to get set correctly. I trimmed it out, then handed off the Tx to him. Being a heli pilot, once in the air, it was very easy. Once he flew for a while, he handed the Tx back to me and it was the moment of truth. My landings suck, we all know that, and now I have someone elses plane in my hands. I just thought to myself, "it's a trainer, you can chop the throttle and coast this thing in". I did just that and had one of the best landings I have ever had. This thing was great. Almost makes me want to get one... Almost...
So I needed a little more calming of the nerves so I tossed the big Edge into the air. This is the go-to plane for just wanting to fly. Lee, I did put the camera on the wing facing the fuse, but the video sucks. You can't see anything but a lot of wing and fuse and no ground. I will upload it just because I have it because you wanted it. The landing, small bounce but in one piece.
Okay, now it's time for the Bipe. If you remember I didn't maiden it on Thursday because the CoG stated 15-30mm back from the leading edge of the top wing. Well thanks to Randy reminding me of an article on this plane, that was wrong. In the article, and later I found out it's stated very subtly in the manual should be 15-30mm farther back than that. So a total of 30-60mm back. I had my CoG set right at 3.75" back from the leading edge of the top wing. The guy in the article stated that he had started out at 3.5" back from the leading edge, but later found it to lock into harriers and hovers at 4" back. Either way, I'm at 3.75" and I'm going to fly it there. Stuffed a battery in, mounted the camera and set her on the ground.
I taxied it out to the runway and the takeoff was effortless even though it did go to the left as it did on the touch and go's. Now that I think about it, even the Edge Mini did this thanks to the wind. Once in the air, a little trimming and she was golden. I did notice in the turns that the tail wanted to fall away and the plane requires some rudder to keep the tail pointed straight. First plane I have ever flown that does this. Okay, this led me to believe it was very tail heavy so I flipped it inverted. Wow, nose almost straight to the ground, it's pretty nose heavy, okay really nose heavy. This is good though as I had slid my battery as far forward as I could in the cowl. Now, I can grind off the screws and push that battery back where I want it. Good deal.
Like with the Edge Mini, I decided to do some touch N goes just to get a feel for how it lands. I come in the first time and this plane floats in for a perfect landing. No wing rock at all. Good deal. 3/4 power and I take off. What do I hear from behind me... "Should have stayed on the ground, that was a perfect landing...".
I fly some more, more rolls and light flying (nothing heavy, not sure about this plane yet lol) and it's time to bring her in. I line it up to the runway and she just floats in like she should. I come in for an almost picture perfect landing (I'm getting better lol) and I go to give some power to turn around and I hear the prop hitting the ground. Then the nose of the plane just faceplants into the runway. The friggin landing gear folded on me! I couldn't believe it. But the Edge Mini almost did the exact same thing and I had braced the crap out of it last night with some balsa and epoxy. Now the same thing on the Bipe. Why is the bipe so bad? Because you have to remove wood to get to the landing gear mount. Lots of work that I"m not wanting to do lmao. OH well.
That was my last flight since I was either out of batteries or out of planes that were not broke lmao. The guy with the heli takes his up for the second time (first time was great. Great heli pilot). Unfortunately he had left it in rate mode on the gyro and the tail spun around on him and he ended up crashing. Not a lot of damage, but you all know how it feels. After that, the flying was pretty much over. Randy flew his 3DHS Edge a few times since the poor foamie had a crack somewhere. After all of that, it was time to go home.
So after quite a few good flight sessions, I finally have to fix something. I'm very impressed that I have went this long and both repairs are not my fault lol. One was a chunk of the crappy runway we have, and the other was bad manufacturing on Fliton's part.
Be sure to check out the pics below. I did get video of all 3 planes in flight, but because I couldn't wrap the tape around the camera on the Bipe, it's pretty crappy with waves in the video. The Edge Mini video has waves in it after I lose part of the prop and the big Edge is nothing but fuse. I guess you can't win them all lmao. Enjoy and let us know what you did on your holiday.
