New picture of the Jeti Transmitter !

I just received from Jeti a new picture of their transmitter, that will be released officially next thursday. The picture shows it on a different angle:

It's square, slim, modern look, lots of switches, a rotary on the right ...

ManorModels D60 building started

I know this is not serious, but after monthes, I finally found the time to start the assembly of the D60. I started with the wing. I first glued the epoxy control horns in place, then prepared and installed the servos wire loom. I used 2 x 6 pins green plugs from MPX for the connection with the fuselage. I decided to use 4 MKS DS6125 mini. I prepared 4 aluminum servos arms with 2 mm flight line ball link from MPJet. The screw is secured on the arms with cyano once mounted.
As the place is limited in the wing and because the servo frame cannot enter well, I finally glued the servos definitively using a Sika 11FC. This is a fast curing polyurethane sealant/adhesive usually used in the construction. It gives a permanent elasticity and cures under the influence of atmospheric moisture to form an elastomeric material with adhesive properties.
Once the servos in place, and after 2 days of curing, the servos doesn't move any more, just to say that the elasticity claimed is relative.
The polyurethane sealant/adhesive is much better than others available similar adhesive on the market. On the wing remains to do the control rod, then install the servos covers.








On the fuselage, I prepare the ballast and radio plate to be installed in the fuselage. the ballast plate has been first glued with rapid epoxy, then strongly secured with fibeglass and 24h epoxy (R&G).

The Radio plate receive the 5 cells eneloop battery, the voltage regulator, the magnetic swith and the 6channel Jeti Duplex Receiver. Both voltage regulator and magnetic switch are coming from Greentronic.

The Regslim provides a 5 Nimh or 2 LiFe/LiPo to 5V6 3A regulated output with a dropout Voltage less than 100mV. I have already 2 of them in my Alliaj HMs and I'm very statisfied with them.

The E-magnet is a magnetic switch providing a secured ON/OFF. I will be able to use it by placing the magnet in front of the switch, from ousite of the fuselage. I will probably do 2 small holes to better see the leds. I made this short video showing the E-magnet in action:








All the components are installed on the radio plate with some shrink tube, or tape. I used coroplast to place correctly the receiver antenna and respect the 90° between them.

I'm waiting for my elevator servo to complete the assembly. Should be somewhere in february.

Stay tuned !

Video: Dingo F3F - VV Models

Yesterday, I finally edited the video sequences filmed last summer with my Dingo F3F at the "col des limouches". This is a slope located near Valence (Drôme - France) where I prepared the Viking Race 2010. The slope is a small cliff on top of a deep slope, facing north. This is an excellent slope to practice F3F, the only problem being the landing zone which is very small and at the edge. Hopefully, in front of the landing zone, the cliff lets the place to a smoother slope, so there are no turbulences. The landing remains challenging as you have to fly over the forest at low altitude. 2 year ago, I landed my Skorpion in the trees during a competition.







You can find the review I did of the Dingo, published in September here.

Planet-Soaring makes again the front cover of RCSD !

February issue of RC Soaring Digest has been released, with a nice picture from Planet-Soaring: Emnanuel Minaire just about to launch the aerobatic monster "Toons", an homemade sailplane designed by Benjamin Clamaron and Jerome Bobin. Jerome is also the co-designer of the Wasabi.

Jeti TX : The revolution is approaching !

I received this picture from Topmodel, the main JETI reseller for France: 

The picture came with the following text:

WORLD PREMIERE

At the same time as the opening of the doors of the Nuremberg show, on Thursday February 3 at 10:00AM (local time), we'll raise up the curtain over first JETI transmitter.

http://www.topmodel.fr/article.php?art_id=601

Stay tuned and be prepared to be completely surprised...

Still 10 days to wait :) !

First win with the Ambrosia F3X

Yesterday was the local winter league contest #3 (second was cancelled because of the snow falls). We managed 6 rounds at 12 pilots in very changing and challenging conditions. The slope is not very high, not sharp at all, with a fence in the middle. We saw some interesting flights where the plane was jumping the fence at each lap !

I flew my Ambrosia F3X sucessfully and won the competition against Vampires, Ascots, Ceres, and some other competitive plane.

At round 5 et 6, I discovered that moving the CG bakward (by placing the ballast intentionally in the rear compartiment), the Ambrosia was more performant in the right turn with cross wind. With this new CG, the plane had no bad habits which indicates that I have still some margin.

I will measure the new CG and will try to move it backward again, to detect the limit.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the Ambrosia F3X. The crosstail makes it easy to pilot, and very stable. The section works very well and makes the Ambrosia a very competitive plane in addition to be a nice looking plane.

Next step will be to try it on a cliff, with some vertical lift and perform some aggressive EM turns. It should be interresting !

New flights with the Radian PRO

I have flown the Radian PRO again yesterday. Up to now, I had the throttle on a slider that was unsual. Yesterday, I moved the throttle on the stick and lett also the crows on the same stick but activable via a switch. It was much confortable to fly.

With the 3S 1300 mAh battery, I was able to fly 40 to 45 minutes. The air was great and I was able to circle and climb often, just a pleasure. The rudder is a pure joy: smooth and efficient at the same time. I did again some test with the flaps in the thermal position and again didn't notice much improvement. The plane slow done, but the climb rate is not much better.

Thanks to Olvier Bordes, I have shooted new pictures:





and also a video:

Parkzone Radian PRO from Pierre Rondel on Vimeo.

The video shows very well how short can be the landing thanks to the crows. This is a real plus compared to the competition.

MKS DS-6125 Mini and H servormances test results

Few weeks ago, I sent a DS6125-H and a DS6125-Mini to Olivier Segouin, member of the servormances team. Here are the test results of Servormances. A big thanks to Olivier for his hard work.

Servormances can be downloaded on Aero@glide website

Few comments. As expected and announced on the specifications, The H and the Mini have a lower max torque than the DS6125 glider, but the H and the Mini are faster at the max torque (servormance torque), especailly the Mini. that said, they have a positionning time a little bit lower than the DS6125 glider. On the consumption side, they are in the same range. The Mini has a higher consumption than the 2 others.

Bending under max load is still pretty good. The precision of the neutral position is even better with the H.

Overall, the 3 DS6125 are excellent servos. Well built, very tight, extremely precise, and still powerfull.

For the moment, my return of experience with 4 DS6125-Glider and 2 DS6125-H on my Ambrosia F3X are very good. The H is working very well despite a full moving tailplane. It is too soon to conclude about durability, but to be honest, when I see how they are built, I'm not too worried.

To facilitate the reading for non french reader, here are the translation of the terms

• Couple Max = Max usable torque (see my previous post on this)
• Vitess au coupe max = speed at max torque
• Tps de positionmt = positionning time
• Courant au cpl max = current under max (usable) torque
• Courant Maximal = max current measured
• Fleche au cpl max = Bending at max torque
• Precision du neutre = neutral precision

New flying session with the Ambrosia F3X

I flew the Ambrosia last Saturday, and focused on the reflex camber setting and the snap flaps. Adding 1 or 2 mm of reflex works well. The plane is faster in the wind, and behaves better in cross wind. For the turn with reflex, I found that it needs some snapflap to keep the grip. I have 4 mm down measured at the root, trailing edge aligned, of snap flap.

I also fixed my problem of elevator compensation with the T12FG. I needed an offset setting on the elevator in order to have the compensation linear and starting as soon as I move the stick, and not starting when the stick reach the middle of the course. What is funny is that I didn’t feel the problem on my other sailplanes, probably because they have a V-tail. The Ambrosia F3X being crosstail and full moving tail, it is possibly more sensitive to the compensation. Now, it is fixed, and the landing is much comfortable with no side effect !

Next week will be the first competition for the Ambrosia F3X. I hope we will have nice weather and some wind !

Radian PRO maiden flight

I maidened my Radian PRO yesterday during a short dry weather window, so what to say about this new kid on the block ?
First of all, when I launched the plane for a first glide, I immediately though: “what a floater !”. The sink rate is absolutely excellent. The Radian seems to be taped in the sky. The section camber is obviously the reason. Compared to other foam sailplanes I had (EZglider, Arcus, Elektro-Junior S) the Radian is much better. The climbing rate with the motor is about 30°, and the motor is pretty silent. With the single 1300mAh battery provided I managed a 30 minutes flight easily, in calm air.
Circling is a pleasure, the rudder works like a charm. You can even turn only with the rudder. Ailerons and flaps, used in quadroflap mode, are precise and smooth. In calm air, adding more camber didn’t bring much more lift. At the opposite, using the reflex position give a better penetration and allow to cover long distances.
When landing the butterfly configuration slowdown the plane very well, which allow short distance landing.
Overall first impression is very good. The Radian PRO is well born !
More to come with the next flying sessions !

Color Contrasts

Recently, some questions regarding the color contrast for our gliders have been asked on different forums. I retrieved a 10 years old table on my website given the anwser so I translated it in English.

Here it is:

Conclusion is that the Orange color is in most of the case the best color for plane visibility.

A new incredible video from Jean Claude Gonnin !

Just imagine launching your electro sailplane from an hot-air balloon at 500m of altitude ...
The video is just amazing with very beautiful sequences !

Enjoy !

50 m/s climb rate and more !!!!!

I received a mail from Martin Pilny about his friend Dalibor's Electro Viking. Dalibor achieved a climb rate of 50 m/s with peak at 58 m/s ! Just unbelievable !!

The setup is the following:

• Plane: Viking, 3m wingspan, AUW: 2.9 Kg
• Motor: S-Neu 1509/2D/6.7,
• Propeller: RFM 17x13,
• ESC: CC Ice Lite 100A,
• Battery: 6S-2200mAh Turnigy Nanotech 45/90C

For information the battery died after ten charges/discharges ...

If you have no idea about such climb rate, just watch this superb and incredible onboard video:

F3X Viking-E Race - 4kW - On board video from Rakovnik from PiNa.CZ on Vimeo.


You will find more information, couple of pictures about the build and maiden flight here

Parkzone Radian PRO overview

I got my Parkzone Radian PRO last friday. This new Radian comes with a new wing equiped with ailerons and flaps. The kit exists in 2 versions: Plug and Play, where you will need a receiver, a battery, the charger and the DSM2 transmitter, and the Bind and Fly version which comes with a a Spektrum 2.4GHz DSM2 AR600 receiver already installed, a 3S 11.1V 1300mAh Li-Po battery, and a charger.

Specs:

• Wingspan: 2000 mm
• Length: 1140 mm
• Weight: 980 g
• Motor Size: 480 Outrunner Brushless Motor 960kV
• Prop Size: 9.75 x 7.5 Inch Folding Prop
• Speed Control : E-Flite 30Amp Pro Switch-Mode Brushless ESC

The version I have is the BNF (Bind & Fly) version.

Key Features:

• 5-channel control - throttle, aileron, elevator, rudder and flaps
• Powerful 480-size 960Kv brushless outrunner motor installed
• E-flite® Pro 30A brushless ESC installed
• Ready to fly in minutes
• Durable, lightweight and repairable Z-Foam™ construction
• Spektrum 2.4GHz DSM2 AR600 receiver installed
• 3S 11.1V 1300mAh Li-Po battery pack included
• 2- to 3-cell DC LiPo balancing charger included

Some modifications have been done compared to the 2 axis version of the Radian. The Fuselage and the wings have been strenghtened with fiberglass rods. The joiner has the same diameter but is thicker. The wing section is thinner but have more camber.

The possibility to use reflex and camber should extend the flying domain of the plane, so this is very interesting !

As the plane is ready to fly, I'm just waiting for a correct weather window to try it. Stay tuned !

To wait, you can watch this video from Horizon Hobby GB:

Webra in bankruptcy and cease

Webra (in Austria) announced the 23th of December that they are in bankruptcy and cease, due to the competition and low cost production in china. Webra was still producing receivers, but in the past, they also were doing some transmitter. I had one of them. Very sturdy transmitter but pretty good quality.

You can see the official announce here

FPV video: It's not sailplane, but it's just superb !!!

This is an amazing piece of work from FPV_Leif: A compilation a FPV flights during summer 2010. The music from Tor Talle is absolutely wonderfull and what to say about some slow motion !!! wowww !
A real invitation to visit Norway !

The Summer Of 2010 from FPV-Leif on Vimeo.