FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

[Hippie 64]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

This may sound stupid to you but let me give you a thought. Patch ,glue , tape or do whatever it takes to put it back in the air . The reason being is you are at the very beginning of learning to fly . This will happen again, sorry but it's true . Most of us start with a trainer us this as your trainer. 
After some time then invest in more planes . Replace this one so you still have what she got you . By that time experience will benefit you as your reactions will be smoother and automatic. 
Just an idea for you to think about . 



Bryan 

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Bryan! I agree, I'm gonna fix this this one over and over until it looks like a flying ghetto hooptie!

The gluing has already started! Found a small crack by the tail, with surgical application of glue and some weight it's already starting to come back together, will wait for that one to set completely until I fix the main crack near the wings.

Thinking over the front end of the aircraft, would balsa would be an option instead of ply? It would save some weight on the front end, and If I'm going to screw in the middle of a sheet would there still be enough strength to withstand the force of the motor pulling on it?

[Hippie 64]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

I think balsa is the way to go . Here's a little tip . Make your screw holes, take out your screws . Add some thin CA and allow it to soak in and dry . This will reinforce the screw holes and help with stripping .

Bryan

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Thanks for the tip, much appreciated!

[Loneflier]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Another thought would be to use some slightly longer bolts, and glue in some blind nuts behind the balsa. That way you won't have to worry about the pull from the motor stripping out the threads.

[Grossman56]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

I have to agree with the guys, your in for a penny now, but you'll learn the other side of the hobby, REPAIRS!
I've been right where you are when Pandora 2 lawn darted on me.  Cruising along, then suddenly nosed over and pranged.  I have to attribute it to pilot error because I couldn't find anything else.   She shed a wing and did a little nose reconfiguring, but that was about it, I was really surprised!
Gorilla Glue put her back together again and she flies fine.  Not quite as pretty as she once was, but hey, thats what a trainer is for!

Grossman56 

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Repairs are no issue, certainly learning about bout these as I go. And It very well could have been me that caused the problem in the first place, I'll say my last flight probably shouldn't have happened it was starting to get windy with a few good gusts so at this stage in the game I probably should have called it quits, the more I play it over in my mind I think I got nailed by a good gust of wind and perhaps over corrected and that was it.

But hey it's water under the bridge at this point, lessons learned and on-wards and up-wards!

[Pheonix]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Beautiful day out for flying today, only wish I had more than two batteries right now.

Went up flew a lap or two and would come back in just to practice landing, certainly a learning curve finding where the throttle drop enough thrust out and she drops, few landings harder than I would have like, but it stayed upright on the gear today with no problem! But took the advice of getting lined up much farther out and it certainly is alot easier and less stress!

My best landing thus far

http://youtu.be/9LoVx5kHCuU

Few laps bit hard on the landing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT-6aIzF3WY

Smooth landing and does not get much better then that :D

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Alright here we go, more photos and some video.

Made the repairs to the plane, started by cutting the top of the engine area off the plane.



Carved a slot into the area where the motor board would have sat glued into the foam, purchased some balsa wood and cut it to size, gorilla glued the motor board to the balsa wood and put a fire extinguisher on it for 3hrs for some good pressure. Before I went to bed last night I stuck the motorboard/balsa into the slot with a copious amount of Gorilla glue. When I woke this morning everything was in there nice and tight.





Certainly not the cleanest glue job but its doing the trick. Wen't down to the hardware store this morning and got some longer screws than what comes with the motor mount/board and screwed the motor through the motor-board into the balsa wood, thing has no movement what so ever.

Put the prop on and ran it up to see how the motor was holding and seemed to do fine afterwards the motor was solid as a rock.

http://youtu.be/QDzM7-RRVxo

Glued the cowling area back together and she was looking ready to fly.


To the field we go!
Fairly smooth take off though for whatever reason the plane seemed to want to climb on me especially after bringing the gear in or so it seemed, now I don't know if this is correct in perception, keep in mind that I'm still under 10 flights total here, so not sure if that's the way she wants to climb or given the fact that my last flight was before Christmas that I'm relearning again. I plan on going out again tomorrow with a friend and can try adding some slight nose down trim to it, if anything she will have a little more weight in the front the balsa wood weighed in at .8oz (also even though the field was relatively calm there certainly appeared to be some wind above the top of the tree's as it was drifting off from me, which got a little wiggly on me at 2:05)

Takeoff and a few laps:

http://youtu.be/Hi80MYaNBXI

Landing sounds worse in the video, but even still a little rougher than I wanted:

http://youtu.be/SXmdmeCKukI

Also I am flying it on the regular high rate, I set up the low rate at 100% for ailerons and 75% for elevator when I was up at altitude I turned to low rate but it seemed really sluggish, I'm using a Dx6, anyone have recommendations to set for low rates for this type of plane.

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

And actually found that my elevators were in a bit of an up attitude at neutral, could explain why it wanted to climb on me, fixed that with the servo arms and a bit of trim looks dead on now.

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Afternoon fellahs,
Took the plane out today, unlimited ceiling brisk in the 30's and 10-15mph winds today, but she flew like a dream. Coincidentally where the balsa wood ended up the battery sits a little further back. So not sure how that affected the CG but man once I'd take off get up above the tree line the plane would catch the wind and glide I'd be about 1/2 throttle. Coming back into the wind made some gorgeous low passes at about 3/4 throttle and she looked magnificent, these scale warbirds really look the balls.

Landings were a breeze about quarter throttle the whole way down, with the head wind didn't need any flaps, eased back onto the mains and gently brought the throttle down and dropped onto the tail wheel, buddy of mine who was flying a little 3D foamie who has been flying for a while was really impressed. Last landing of the day was a bit long and off center on the field, decided to take off again and come around again and land closer....well wouldn't ya know it. When I made the next take off and turned around being already off center put me alot close to the pine's.....how bout some perfectly controlled flight into terrain? anyone I'm serving it up free of charge today!







Hit the pine oh I dunno about 70 feet up with the tail wind and half throttle, I guess it illustrates the difficulty of gauging ones distance from the plane. So as you all can see its pretty friggin' trashed. I'm not even really mad because of the fact it was flying so smooth and right where I wanted it even with a moderate breeze going. I guess I'm a smidge frustrated in the fact that I spent a day making repairs to get it back in the air. For what its worth the repairs I made with the gorilla glue held fast, and didn't budge an inch, so at-least I learned that I can trust gorilla glue for any future repair work. The motor is fine but the balsa wood snapped towards the bottom, didn't come out just fractured, so my repairs in the front end help up also. If I wanted to repair the motor I think with the gorilla glue that was in place there would be too much foam coming out with it to give anything new going in to hold on to.

[Hippie 64]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Wow !! Sorry to seen hear that . Before you totally trash it , not sure what your plans are , think if n what your going to replace it with . I can tell your hooked n won't be long til you have another. 
My point is if you get another of the same just set this one aside . You now have spare parts . If not n get something different be sure to remove things , servos,linkages, etc.. You'll be surprised how much you can reuse things . 


Bryan 

[SOB8604]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Bryan,
Believe it or not even after staring at it up on the stand at home I'm still not pissed..well maybe just a tad. I was looking at the MRC website when I got home and was like oooh and ahh I'll get this and that (my next plane I do plan on getting is most likely the FMS Stuka) but I'm gonna just order up another FW 190. I had already got some spare parts for the now broken one, so now I'll have even more spare parts and between the two can keep one in the air hopefully for a long time. Plus I've got the handling down on this plane fairly well and would rather stick to learning to fly and new maneuvers with one air-frame before moving on to another.

The wings and everything inside them are intact, the rest I'll cannibalize for parts all the servos and work and most of the linkages are present. The current spinner assembly I have now w/o the little fan blades is fine and will be going right into the new one. Meanwhile the rest of the fuse and everything else I'm going to epoxy back together anyways and is going to be a test bed for new paint schemes as I got a nifty new airbrush for Christmas., if nothing else it'll look good hanging from the ceiling.

[Hippie 64]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

Lol your a Junkie !!! 



Welcome to our world 


Bryan 

[Grossman56]

RE: FMS FW 190 Maiden (first ever RC flight!)

You might consider getting the kit version as you already have the electronics, a little cheaper.
That bird has served you well, and my friend, for a guy that bucked the odds, you did well, probably learned more in the few short flights you've had than most of us did in twice as many flights.
Like Hippie said, sounds like your an airplane junkie like the rest of us, welcome to the Club!

Grossman56