On the Flightline Vol. 5 Issue 9

May 17, 2011 1 Comment by John Reid

	Joe Nall Live coverage Last week, Gerry Yarrish traveled down to Woodruff, SC to Joe Nall in order to bring us live coverage from one of the biggest events around. His coverage began on Wednesday, May 11 and continued through Saturday the 14th. He was on the flightline with video and camera in hand shooting some outstanding coverage from the event. When he got a chance to fly someone else’s plane, Gerry was even able to check off another one from his RC Bucket List. Click here to see all the details on Joe Nall 2011.
	New Demo Team makes first appearance at Joe Nall Horizon Hobby’s “The New Beastie Boys” Show Team at Joe Nall Wow! One of the best parts of the Joe Nall Halftime Show was the formation airshow team “The Beastie Boys” from Horizon Hobby. This quad of 100cc Beast biplanes was flown to perfection and the presentation was awesome. Good going to Quique Somenzini, Seth Arnold, Mike McConville and David Payne. Smoke on, man! Click here
	Kyosho Macchi M33 The summer is just starting to heat up, so what better time to head out to the water with a floatplane? This Macchi from Kyosho makes it easy with this scale 1925 racer. Intended for a .40 to .46 2-stroke or .52 to .56 4-stroke, this full-house model has a 57-inch wingspan and a watertight fuselage. It’s easy to access the servos and linkages via the hatch on top of the nose section, and a submersible rudder makes water taxiing easy. See you at the lake! kyoshoamerica.com
	SNEAK PEEK Hangar 9 Sundowner 36 ARF A new speed pylon racer has moved in on the block By John Reid Whenever there’s a chance to review a Hangar 9 product, I always put my name in the hat, but if that product is a pylon racer, I make it known I want to do that review. This time, I was lucky to get the Hangar 9 Sundowner 36 ARF, the newest release in the Sundowner series. This plane is designed to be powered by either a glow or electric power system; I opted to go with electric power (EP). This lightweight speedster is constructed of lightweight balsa and plywood with carbon-fiber reinforcements, which adds a lot more strength to the overall design of the aircraft. The first part of construction involves stabilizer and rudder installation. This required hinging and epoxying these parts in place and then aligning them up to the wing. To do this, the canopy needs to come off, and this is held in place by a magnet. It is removed by sliding it forward, then pulling up the rear of it so the locking tabs can slide out of the fuselage. This also allows access to the battery compartment when doing the electric setup. The wings slide onto a carbon rod and each has a small tab that inserts into the side of the fuselage allowing a bolt to hold the wing in place. In the air This is where the Sundowner 36 shines and the best part for me, flying. My first flight was on a slightly windy day, which made no difference to the Sundowner. The rollout was almost perfect with a slight veering off to the left. I was immediately pleased by the ground handling of this plane, and within 20 feet, the Sundowner was airborne. Once in the air, it only took a couple of clicks of trim before I had this plane tracking straight and true. After a few laps around the pylons, it was time to bring it in. The plane did not drop off speed, and I allowed it to go out quite a ways before turning on final. But the Sundowner was solid and held on to a nice gentle glide rate before crossing over the end of the runway and touching down, be it with a few small bounces. The wheels are wide enough to allow the Sundowner to roll off concrete, dirt, or short grass. Conclusion I give the Sundowner all high marks across the board. The assembly time was short, and the parts fit was outstanding. Anyone with any experience in model building can put this plane together without any problems. Flying is another story; experience is required, not because the plane is hard to fly—in fact, it is one of the easiest-to-fly pylon racers I have. Experience is needed just because of the speed—this plane is fast!Specifications Name of plane: Sundowner 36 Manufacturer: Hangar 9 (hangar-9.com) Distributor: Horizon Hobby (horizonhobby.com) Type: Pylon racer Length: 44 in. Wingspan: 51.5 in. Wing area: 400 sq. in. Weight: 3 lb., 10 oz. RTF Wing loading: 20.88 oz./sq. ft. Motor req’d: Power 25 Radio req’d: 4-channel Price: $180 Highlights +Very nice-looking +Fast +Quick to assemble +Easy to transport even with the wings on Be sure to check out the complete review in the August issue of Model Airplane News.

FLIGHT TECHINIQUE Flight Technique: The Avalanche By John Glezellis Illustration: FX Models & Chrome City Studios Even if you don’t aspire to be a competition pilot, you can learn from the fundamentals in this exciting competition move. For example, I’m sure a lot of you have performed a basic loop. In fact, the loop is the first aerobatic maneuver that many people perform. The avalanche is a basic loop, but has one addition. At the top of the loop, the pilot performs a snap roll. Without further delay, let’s get the avalanche rolling! First things first When performing a graceful maneuver like the loop, focus your attention on geometry and smoothness. When executing the “loop” portion of this aerobatic maneuver, you want a low-rate setting that has about 12 degrees of elevator deflection, 30 degrees of rudder deflection, 25 degrees or more of aileron deflection and exponential on all surfaces. As a starting place, I recommend you use about 20% of expo and increase it until you are comfortable with how the airplane responds. Keep in mind that adding expo will soften the feel of how your servo reacts around neutral. The snap roll rotation should happen relatively fast, and if you find that your model “barrel rolls” around in rotation, you do not have enough control surface deflection and may need different rates on your radio. Most models will snap with about 15 degrees of elevator, 35 degrees of rudder and 35 degrees of aileron throw, but again, values differ from model to model. This serves as an overview, and fine-tuning your model will be up to you. As I mentioned earlier, use exponential and start with a value of about 35% on all control surfaces and then make any necessary adjustments. Click here to see the rest of this very informational article.
	TECH TIP Soldering Tip By John Reid You can puff the battery by getting the wire too hot from soldering, but if you set it on fire, you might be better off never touching a soldering iron again. Consider buying packs with the plug you need already installed; however, most modelers are very adept at building skills and should have no trouble learning the proper soldering technique for battery packs. The first thing you have to be aware of is that heat is the enemy of your battery, so be sure not to let it get hot. To prevent heat buildup, you must develop good soldering skills. I stick to a regimented soldering technique when installing plugs at the end of the wire leads from a pack. I prefer to use the same plug for all of my electrical connections just to make life easier. On smaller backyard flyers with packs 1500mAh or smaller, I use Deans Micro Plugs. On larger planes, I use Deans Ultra Plugs. Because they have a very small space between the soldering tabs, I install only one wire at a time to prevent the pack from shorting. I always begin by securing the plug in a third-hand-type of device so that it doesn’t move. Before I strip off a little wire covering from the ends of the leads, I slide shrink tubing over both lead wires all the way down to the pack. Starting with the red wire, I strip off about 1/4 inch of covering. Then I secure that in the other alligator clip on my third-hand device. To start the soldering process, first apply a little solder to the tip of the soldering iron and then place the tip at the end of the wire lead. Working quickly, apply the solder from the tip onto the end of the lead and then back over the bare wire. By starting with the melted solder on the tip, you can cover the entire area of bare wire with solder within a matter of seconds. This keeps the temperature from traveling down the wire leads to the battery pack. Next, move the iron tip to the plug lead and add enough solder to form a small bead of solder on the plug’s metal tab. Using a pair of needle-nose pliers, grab the wire-lead covering near the bare wire and push the lead onto the plug tap with the bead of solder on it. Press the tip of the soldering iron onto the wire lead, and keep it there just long enough for the solder to melt on the wire lead and the plug’s metal tab so that a good solder joint forms. This should take only one to two seconds. Hold the wire lead in place with the needle-nose pliers until the solder solidifies. Give it a slight tug just to make sure that you have a good solid joint.