Hey Mark! Thanks for the Twister. Uh, Flight Streak

[Tim Wescott]

Tim, it would be really advantageous to spend some time really watching and studying the track made by the airplane when other people fly. I know myself, I was trying to obtain a corner that is neither obtainable, nor is it advantageous. I had envisioned a super tight corner and worked towards that goal. however a nice reasonable corner followed by a locked in flat is far prettier and will score far higher than a lightening bolt super sharp corner with wiggles after,,

Yes, I should, and yes, I may be trying to turn too tight.  But I'm not kidding when I said that before the weight in the tail this thing would literally have barely any time to show a straight line in the 'square' maneuvers.  So whereever it should be, it was turning way too sluggishly before I added tail weight.  I know you need to be over the rulebook five foot radius, but this was much worse than that.

I'll tweak, and tune, and watch folks fly...

[john e. holliday]

I see he talked about 45+/- elevator travel.   Ringmasters used have almost 90 degree elevator travel.  But, with properly balanced plane and handle only a small part of the elevator travel is needed.  On my Thunerbolt on the ground I can't get but maybe 10-15 degree elevator movement.   The plane is balanced and is very quick with a Hot Rock EZ-Just type handle.   With the Fancher or even the Morris hard point handles I have the spacing narrowed down to where the plane flies like it should.    I even had a Ruffy that was way to quick with 30 degree movement.   

Do like the experts have told you and balance the plane on the CG.  Adjust leadout accordingly.   Then narrow the line spacing a little until the plane flies like it is supposed to.   Dick Byron got my Dragon to where I could fly it using one of his handles.   I think my line spacing is now around 3 1/4 inches on most planes now.   Now the combat wings and sport planes(Bi-Slob) are another story.  Wide handle spacing and a little on the tail heavy side.

[dirty dan]

Tim,

While I don't want to nag, something is clearly wrong with this model and/or the control system. My suggested balance point of 2 5/8" is not assumed to be perfect for everybody and every Flite Streak but it is spot-on for use as a baseline. Fine tuning from this balance point would be normal but only after running through a few other trimming operations and adjustments.

Your elevator travel is more than will ever be needed but methinks this is being checked in the shop with the model static. All you have really told me is with the bellcrank at full travel to both extremes there is quite a lot of elevator travel. What happens when the lines are strung out and you are at the handle simulating the flying experience? Uh, using natural and comfortable hand motions, nothing extreme at all.

Personally I think the model needs to be gone over from one end to the other, just as if it were fresh off the building board. Kinda pre-bench trimming...

Thrust settings.

Fuselage/wing/stabilizer alignment.

Funky bellcrank alignment at neutral?

Are you setting balance point with a butt-load of fuel in the tank?!

Control surface sealed?

Undue flex in the fuselage?

Ditto in stab and elevator.

Dan

[Tim Wescott]

Most of those are accounted for (and I am looking at elevator deflection with the plane on the ground and me at the handle, 60 feet away).

But the hinge line isn't sealed (d'oh) -- I'll fix that, and we'll see what we can see.

[dirty dan]

Mark Scarborough is wrong, wrong, WRONG!!!!

I don't know squat about Flite Streak setup...

How it happened is a total mystery, and although I do have an excuse it is nearly as stupid as original mistake.

To wit: Proper balance point for model under discussion is suggested as being 1 5/8" from leading edge of wing.

NOT the 2 5/8" dimension given earlier.

Ah, but at least I take this stuff seriously enough that just about 30 minutes ago I pulled a known-to-be-good model off the rack (my Cheater Streaker for those in the NW). The idea was to look at an actual model, concocting a scheme whereby it could be converted into a turd which would plow through corners instead of, you know, carving a crisp 'n quick 90-degree change of direction.

Setting it on the bench I made to do a quick why-bother check of the balance point. Gasp! I generally mark the bottoms of the wings on my models for estimated balance point and then when happy with them replace this mark with final, final, I'm-not-kidding-this-time balance point. In a moment of clarity not experienced all day (evidently) I knew immediately that mark was not even close to 2 5/8"! Yep, 1 5/8" just clear as day.

My apologies to anyone with the level of patience required to endure multiple pages of dicussions centered on a second-hand ARF Flite Streak. You know who you are and you need to get a life while I work to improve what has always been somewhat sketchy credibility.

Dan

[Tim Wescott]

Mark Scarborough is wrong, wrong, WRONG!!!!

I don't know squat about Flite Streak setup...

How it happened is a total mystery, and although I do have an excuse it is nearly as stupid as original mistake.

To wit: Proper balance point for model under discussion is suggested as being 1 5/8" from leading edge of wing.

NOT the 2 5/8" dimension given earlier.

Model looks to come out tail-heavy. What ya want is a balance point 1 5/8" behind LE.

At least not when you get it balanced at my suggested 1 5/8" setting.

Well, you had been getting it right, and I'd been going with the 1 5/8" number.

By my calculations, stretching the fuselage by one inch should have moved the "just right" center of gravity back by a whopping 1/8" or so.  So I don't know why I'm liking it at 2-3/16".  We'll see what happens with a sealed hinge line -- hopefully it won't turn so fast that I dork it, because I'll almost certainly be flying over pavement on the next flight.

Said next flight will be at the Fireballs club meeting, so I'll be taking Mark's suggestion and looking at other people's corners, and maybe I'll even be able to put someone in the club up to looking at mine.

My apologies to anyone with the level of patience required to endure multiple pages of dicussions centered on a second-hand ARF Flite Streak. You know who you are and you need to get a life while I work to improve what has always been somewhat sketchy credibility.

They can ignore this thread.  I appreciate the effort you're putting into this, and I suspect that other newbies are, too.

[Mark Scarborough]

My bet is that the bellcrank/handle spacing/control horn geomotry is causing the super quick flighty feel on the flighty streak,,,,

Dan,, credibility? oh,, uh ok,, LOL

[Tim Wescott]

I wanted to put this in Dan's thread about measuring up his Flight Streak, but it's locked for whatever reason.

At any rate, I finally got the CG all the way back as far as Dan told me to, only with the lines way out on the handle (like Howard told me).

It seems to be good.  The achievable turn radius seems to be less than what I see people doing at contests, but I'm going to fly it like it is for a while and see how the top dawgs fly their corners before I change anything.  It certainly flies the straight lines nice and easy.

So -- thank you Dan, for going to the trouble to convince me to put the CG back, and thank you, Howard, for pointing out that maybe my lines were too close together on the handle.  I may try flying the thing with the control rod put in on the elevator horn one notch, but maybe I'll just fly it like it is for now and see how I do.

[Tim Wescott]

Update:  It's still alive, and now it's getting busted up training my wife to fly.  That outboard wing is more repair than original.

It's almost ready to launch again: I'm just short a prop and a weight box (the old one came back from the field, but I cannot find it, @#$%).  The wing really is covered -- the LE has SLC on it; it just doesn't show in the picture.  I wanted to try the stuff, and it shows off all the spliced up wing ribs to perfection.

[Steve Helmick]

Gosh, Tim...that Bansheet you let me try to fly flew more like a trainer than any Flite Streak I've ever seen. You know, the Bansheet with the tongue muffler that beats the snot out of the nose when it falls apart.    Steve

[Tim Wescott]

Gosh, Tim...that Bansheet you let me try to fly flew more like a trainer than any Flite Streak I've ever seen. You know, the Bansheet with the tongue muffler that beats the snot out of the nose when it falls apart.    Steve

Yup.  Too bad the workmanship on that muffler couldn't stand up to a guest pilot bouncing it off the pavement at the bottom of a loop.