Flight Report: Sukhoi 31

It's been way, way too long since the last blog post. I've got a lot of new stuff backlogged in my mind to post about so I'll throw them up soon.

2 weeks ago I made the maiden flight of my new electric Hyperion Sukhoi 31 25e. I ran it with 3s A123 and an 11x7 prop with a bphobbies motor. In this configuration it only pulled about 240 watts at max throttle, which made it fly, but not well.

I bought another A123 cell and put together a series connector so I can hook my 3s and 1s packs together to make a 4s pack. I also soldered a Castle Creations UBEC to the series connector and cut the red wire on my CC Thunderbird 54 speed controller to disable its onboard BEC.

The result is great. With 4s it's pulling the 350 watts I wanted it to, it's weighted better (was a little tail heavy before), and it flies awesome. It has a tendency to tip-stall so I need to practice my landings. Right now I'm coming in too hot.

Vic shows us the correct way to crash into a tree

Photo of the Cox .15 Engine

It came in today.

Update on Flying Wing

Ron Young has finished rebuilding my engine, and is shipping it back today. From Ron:

Hi Dave, Your engine is fixed and will ship on monday, I replaced the front and rear bearings,rod,upper case I also fixed the crankshaft and set the head clearance. Your engine should be fine and if you have any questions just ask.

A couple questions:
1. Which glow plugs can I use with this engine?
2. What are your recommendations on a startup procedure?
3. How'd it perform on the test stand?
Thanks for the quick turn around on this engine. I'll let you know how the plane performs - turned out to be an Evans Scimitar XV.

Your engine will be sent on monday and any short reach plug should be just fine and dont run anything more than 15 % nitro in this engine. I set the head clearence so you should not have any problems with it.

How much to have the expert on this particular 70's vintage high-performance 1/2A engine rebuilt? $30. Once the engine is back, I will be machining the combo engine mount/muffler to accept screws to hold the engine on fast. We can do a couple of tests on a bench, it can go back into the plane. Photos and video when that occurs.

The A-26 Saga Part 3: Conclusions And Reflections

I finally got the A-26 off the ground last week... For about 3 seconds. When it leaped off the ground it looked like it was at too high an angle and would stall out so I set it back down a little hard, damaging the landing gear. Despite this I was satisfied with the flight. The A-26 has been a bit of a struggle, so I was happy to have some resolution to it. I learned a lot, best summed up by George: "If it's built like scale, it flies like scale."

I started this hobby with an interest in full scale flight, and I used to want to fly more scale-like airplanes without power-to-weight ratios of 10-to-1 that take off with only 2 feet of runway. Since then I've come to understand the differences between full-scale and RC flight. Let's face it, the only full scale airplanes that fly within bounds as scale-small as ours are acrobatic airplanes at the Red Bull air races -- and guess what their power-to-weight ratios are like?

The A-26 is still in one piece and could easily fly again. I think if I do, I'll swap out its .32 size engines with .45s.

Bought a flying wing from Mel over the weekend. It was so nice looking, I had to at least get it, even if just for show.

It is powered by a Cox Conquest 0.15, mounted on a combination muffler/mount. The engine felt loose and rattled when I turned it over with my finger. After some work on the bench, I got the crankshaft out, and found the rear bearing obliterated. I put in a call to Ron Young, a Cox Conquest specialist out in California, and quickly sent the engine to him for rebuilding. He can get these things spinning fast.

Last night I spent my time with some Novus Plastic Polish #2 and lots of rags to take the tarnished look from the upper surfaces. Novus is magical stuff - the plane looks new and freshly waxed. What you don't see in the photo is the covering for the fuse cavity. It is yellow with a canopy bubble and a tiny Snoopy figure. They look silly, so I'm going to take this oppotunity to build myself a new cover and making it plain and smooth - with that, this plane is going to look like a UFO.

I'm not qualified to fly this machine. It is a bit on the heavy side, with a fast engine (turns props >23krpm). Also, no landing gear - just skids applied to the bottom of the body. Do you just kill the engine and land this deadstick? Once this plane is ready for flight, I need to find somebody experienced enough to take it for a spin. Perhaps you?

I'm going to do my part and replace some of the heavy hardware with some lighter components.

I have the most fun on the workbench on a late night.

Up in the sky with some friends

Today ended up being a great day to fly with no wind and some breaks in the clouds. Al P. and I flew our Magics. After he got his fill, Al took 'er down for a nice landing.

I also tried chasing John's helicopter around, but that thing can really move!

And finally the fun had to end and I brought it in.