Recommend a plane

backboiler

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

Well you did the right thing keeping her up high as altitude is your friend while learning the ropes. It gives you time to correct your mistakes before the ground corrects them for you:D.

What do you think of the Rad Pro? Its a much different beast to the Rad Mark 1 and trickier to get the hang of I'd say. Do you know that you can set the Pro up for crow braking which, combined with the flaps will greatly slow your landing speed and give you plenty of time to set her down in one piece.

Finally, if you have any doubts that an approach is going wrong, then do a go round and try again. Always try to land into the wind which will help to avoid stalls and try to pick a flying site away from buildings, trees and powerlines, although thats easier said than done in this country:rolleyes:

Just back from a wee break so didn't reply earlier...

Hard to say about the Pro vs. old radian seeing as this is my first plane. Robbie's had a go of it and while it's no Cularis (much lighter) I'd imagine there's more scope to learn with the extra controls. Makes getting into it that bit harder too, I suppose.

My first crash (the destructive one that snapped the fuselage, not the one described in detail above) probably had something to do with having flaps on at launch (thinking I'd be able to fly slower and hence have more time to react).
It's a while since the end of Feb. but I think Robbie set up the crow at that time but TBH at this stage I'm not sure.

Will definitely go a field or two further from the road next time.

That said, immediately after smacking into the window reveal I sent it up after checking that there was no control surface damage. As before plenty of altitude (relatively speaking, probably only 30-40 m or so) flew around a bit and tried another landing and this time I got it! Reasonably elegant, with no wings or noses digging in and no too much of a feeling of blind luck.

Happy enough so up again and this time stuck it in the trees at the side of the road but sooner that than the road itself. These were small ash trees, no more than saplings and there didn't seem to be damage so off I went again for the fourth attempt of the day.

It quickly became clear that there had been some damage to one of the controls because I could no longer turn left at all. Some very spirally manoeuvres including a few "go-arounds" and I got it low enough and level enough to try landing but the inability to turn meant that it started tilting over, sinking and even though I got the nose mostly up with elevator, the ground was too close and the wing caught fairly heavily in the grass and pulled it to the ground on the nose. The wing stayed on though and no main fuselage damage either. The previously square ends of the wings that sit into the body are now slightly rounded from compression and there's a crack running almost the full depth of the wing.

One of the servos seems to be struggling and that's the cause of the inability to turn. I haven't had a minute since to examine the reason for the noise. It could be actual internal damage to the servo or maybe just that the wing has been bent enough to be causing friction on the edge of the control surface.

poteen

So I have made the stab at repairing the fusleage. You all saw the pictures I Poster a few days ago. The joints have glued together well and the unit seems strong. BUT.

When I went to place the canopy back on it wouldnt fit because its about 3/4 inch too long ! How has the fuselafe shrunk that much? There is a slight kink in shape on either side of the canopy (more so the left) where the fuselage curves in towards the prop. Also, the foam on the LHS seems more blistery and bubble like- Each bead seems more individual if that makes any logic.

Im thinking that I might try and fly it anyway and see how it goes. Ill tape down the canopy and see what happens . What do ye think? Either way prob looks like anew fus will be needed at some stage

Bruthal

I have seen the radian get slightly shorter alright, causing the canopy not to fit great.

What you can do is remove the rear magnet from the fuselage, and fit canopy so its front magnet is holding canopy. Then mark the outline of the back of canopy and carefully cut away a mm or 2 of the foam back as far as your mark, the same way a mm or 2 is aready removed (during moulding)for the original fitting of canopy. Then refit rear magnet in the suitable position at the back.

If you are going to just get a new fuselage anyway, then just continue taping this one on for now. It should fly just the same as it did before, once the wings are ok and not twisted etc. Just make sure the motor mount firewall is well fixed to the front still, and motor shaft is not bent. Run motor with glider in hand and once its smooth its fine.