RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
Found a video of me flying my yak a month ago. One of my friends video taped me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngc3qKphmNQ
Posted on: 7/24/2011 5:43 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10636996

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
Went flying today and noticed one of my wheels got cut by the wheel hub so the soft dubro wheels don't last long on these heavy birds. Friend gave me some normal dubro 3" tires and their side walls seem beefier or stronger so hopefully they will last much longer. However they probably are not as shock absorbing as the super soft wheels. There is no problem with mounting the battery on top of the wing tube so far. It doesn't move laterally nor back and forth from the vibrations. I might just leave it there and bring my ignition battery from top of the motor box to the front of the fuel tank where my old rx battery was strapped in in case I want to move the CG back more. I added 100% expo on high rates of 40 degrees on elevator and it seems to be more stable and I think I can now land on high rates. My hovers are better now but I did noticed with the aft CG now the high alpha slow knife edges couple to the gear a lot more. I'll put the rudder to elevator mix back in and see if that cures it. Also, my knife edge loops are tighter which I like. The landings are slower as well and the plane almost comes to a stop upon landing in slight winds. The plane feels light on the wing now. I still have lot of wing rock. I might move the CG back some more but don't want to yet before I get used to flying my knife edges. This is my first giant scale aerobatic plane and I'm still learning about the possibilities of this type of plane and don't want to rush the learning process. I'll keep experimenting and commenting here.
Posted on: 7/24/2011 5:01 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10636925

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
I rechecked my CG and I must have made a measuring mistake because my CG right now is only 1/4" behind the wing tube. I went flying and trying to do some hovering and I just kept adding lead to the tail gear. In the end I ended up adding 2 1/4 oz to the tail. I might still add maybe a half an ounce. That put the CG 1/4" back of wing tube. I took my 12oz rx battery and moved it from the front of the fuel tank and right atop the wing tube. I might move it on the tray behind the wing tube. The CG now shows a hair behind 1/4" back of wing tube. I also redone my elevator throws for a total of 40 degrees both ways. I'm hoping that will be enough to correct the hovers quickly. I had 32 deg. of elev. throw and on full throw I was getting major wing rock. So maybe with 40 deg the air will separate from wing for no wing rock. I also noticed the plane at 32 deg throw was very unstable as far as pulling elevator went. It would yaw every which way with full elevator throw. On top of that I had wing rock. I'm at 142 flights now and my main goal is to make this a 3D plane as well as precision plane. I have 10 deg of elevator throw on low rate and it will not wing rock at full low rate elevator throw and I can fly precise maneuvers with the CG of 1/4" behind wing tube. I do my 3D stuff then switch to low rate for landing. It's too unstable right now to land on high rate and I'm using 70% expo and just changed it to 80% so tomorrow I'll see how these changes work out.
Posted on: 7/23/2011 4:54 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10635409

RE: servos for 30cc
Forgot to say that reason I went with ts-170's on everything except throttle on my gas 50cc plane is because of low wear titanium gears. I think for a 50cc plane, the ts-170's are a bit overkill and you might save battery power by going with less torquey servos. My servos pull around 3.5 to 4 amps max in flight. Other brands you might try are hyperions, seiko, smk, power hd digitals, etc.
Posted on: 7/14/2011 2:01 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10621245

RE: servos for 30cc
I think you need only like 90oz/in torque servos for 30cc planes. There are lot of choices out there and most servos fall in the $30 to $40 category for 30cc planes. You might put a hitec 7955 or 5955 on the rudder. I read that there is a problem with the new 7955 servos when using them on straight lithium batts with no regulator. I don't know if the problem manifest itself on 6v overtime. Hitec is looking into it but the old 7955 and 5955 are problem free. Personally, I would go with a ts-170 (old 5955 hitecs) on the rudder and maybe ts-150 or something like that on the other surfaces. A cs64 on the throttle, it's analog with karbonite gears and I had mine for 140 flights on my gas 50cc with no problems. I do run a gray nyrod for the throttle that seems to absorb vibrations. I have ts-170's on everything on my 50cc plane running on 6v nimh. Will definitely go with a123 batts in the future. My friend used the ts-150s on the elevators and ailerons on his 50cc electric plane with no problems with one ts-170 on the rudder. That's $245 bucks minus $35 tower member coupons for $210 total divided by 6 servos that's $40 per servo, not a bad deal plus you can take those servos and put them on the 50cc plane down the road. The ts-150's are futaba servos and ts-170 are hitec and both have ball bearings and have metal gears with ts-170 having titanium gears. You could also do better and or cheaper with other make/model but I'll let others chime in.
Posted on: 7/14/2011 1:55 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10621243

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
I took out the sullivan skylite 3" wheels because they were too hard and made the plane bounce all over and replaced them with $6 dubro low bounce 3" tires which I think are the best tires for this plane. They seem to be durable and will not bounce your plane even during ground loops. They provide very good shock absorbtion and I believe if I had them on earlier, my landing gear damages would be smaller. I did have to drill out the plastic hub slightly but no problems. Also eventhough they are soft tires, there is no problem doing high speed takeoffs and they don't have any tracking problems on the runway or during a crosswind landings, etc. No problems whatsoever. Here's a link: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXD793
Posted on: 7/14/2011 1:27 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10621213

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
The dry weight is 18lb 5oz. Everything is stock hardware and I don't use wheel pants. I use xoar 22x8 laminated wood prop and haven't tried any other prop yet. I might try xoar 23x8 for more 3D flying when I use up my current props. I just put in rudder to elevator and rudder to aileron mix at very low percentages and it helps a bit. My yak has a tendancy to couple to the gear in high alpha knife edge. Just started doing harrier rolls and so far so good. I need to fly more to practice slow high alpha flight to figure out where this plane stands in slow 3D department. I might end up moving the CG forward about half an inch because it's a bit unstable in high alpha rollers and snaps. But I do like the aft CG for a very nice three point landings. I love how the big nose slows down the plane in a steep landing approach. It totally sounds and looks like a real airplane landing.
Posted on: 7/12/2011 6:36 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10618584

RE: GAS VS GLOW
My small 30 member or so club is now mostly electric and 2.4ghz. Few who have glow engines are getting rid of them and going electric. My small planes are electric and big ones are gas. I used to run glow engines exclusively for number of years but the nitro slime is bad for my eyes and cleaning up is too time consuming. Not to mention fuel soaked planes and the cost of the nitro fuel. For me right now, cheapest is gas, followed by nitro then electric. Electric is last because I don't have as many flights on my batteries yet. With the electric power being so great nowdays, I don't see the need for nitro engine. I still like gas over electric in large planes because of the smoke system or sound of the engine as it goes thru aerobatics. Number one reason why people don't switch to electric from nitro is because they don't understand electrics nor want to take time to understand it. But for an educated person, electrics make a lot of sense and so I switched.
Posted on: 6/27/2011 8:28 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Questions and Answers"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10595592

RE: OMG…just weighed my AW planes
This issue with false weight advertising came up recently with the AW extra 300 made for ep, gas or glow. It's advertised weight is like a pound lighter than actual weight. AW doesn't care enough to edit their website to reflect this. My AW 50cc yak with dle stock muffler came out to be 19lb. I have very simple and light setup. But the plane flies very well for that much weight so I don't care.
Posted on: 6/12/2011 5:22 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10570239

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
macboss, after 117 flights, my cowl has no stress cracks so far. I did round cuts on the cowl openings with my dremel's mini sanding wheel. Then I added thin CA all around the cuts and it wicked into the fiberglass. I did that for cowl screw holes as well. The holes did elongate little bit now because of the vibrations but it's ok. I'm not using any engine baffle and I have no problems with the engine cooling so far. Flying in 95F weather now. It probably runs at higher temps than your baffled engine but no problems so I'm going to leave it unbaffled for now. But your suggestions will definitely help others with the same engine, etc. So thank you for making them. Are you using the AW suggested carbon gear for your yak? If it can spread out on impact and absorb the shocks without cracking then I might get it to save some weight. My friend's gold wing 50cc sbach had a little harder landing today and that gear is pretty stiff so it transfered all that impact to the landing gear braces and broke them. I don't like how they're using that cheap lite ply there. Over here in AZ, it dries out and then delaminates on impact. Totally sucks.
Posted on: 6/12/2011 4:45 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10570183

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
macboss, thank you for kind words. This yak has outlived all my aerobatic planes so far. The optimal CG I think is one inch behind the wing tube and the plane does the most beautiful and slow three point landings I've ever seen with no bounce at all. I changed the stiff sullivan skylite wheels for some soft rubber dubro wheels because during high speed takeoffs the sullivan wheels bounced making my plane veer off course. I'm no longer doing any harrier landings with this plane as I broke every bullkhead in the landing gear area and wood is now breaking beyond my repairs. For gusty wind harrier landings I just ordered eflite eratix and will beef up the gear on that plane. My 59" AJ slick sadly did not survived my last grass emergency landing and the gear ripped out and it looked like confetti inside the plane. I did not liked the carbon gear in that plane because it transfered all the shocks into the fuse and into the weak cheap lite ply bullkheads completely delaminating them. It broke my heart as the plane was super strong in the air and after flying it I did some of the same things on the yak discovering that it can do them. If one omits doing harrier landings in gusty winds then this yak as it comes stock is perfect. It is a little heavier than other planes but it is also stronger and that to me is a good tradeoff. I can still high alpha knife edge this like I did my slick plane. Obviously not at that slow a speed but slow enough for me. My knife edge loops are much tighter now about the same as the slick's. Not only does this plane flys as well as the slick but it is also more stable in the air because of the weight and momentum. It is a superb IMAC/pattern plane on low rates. Today I did 20 minutes of nothing but rolling maneuvers, lots of horizontal rolling circles, few in vertical plane, etc. I felt very comfortable flying them in any orientation and about half throttle. One doesn't get this much flying time other than on a simulator. With my slick, I would have gone thru three 4s 4000mah batts in that time. Also, my local ACE hardware store carries the same tail wheel springs except that the ends don't protrude from the coil that far out. So for that I bought some fishing swivels to use as anchor hooks on both ends. My tail wheel springs broke at the bends. I'm using 1" sullivan rubber tailwheel with the alum. hub drilled out for the tailwheel wire size. I fly off rough pavement and the sullivan wheel is lasting a long time. My tailwheel has little slack in it and that helps to absorb any shocks. The EZ mini connectors are holding up great. No problem with the tailwheel setup after my improvements. The canopy and cowl hex screws are wearing out so I bought some stainless steel dubro 4-40 x 5/8" socket head cap screws and they'll work perfect and be much more resilient. They're expensive but worth it. I kept changing the canopy screws for the cowl screws as I don't remove the cowl that often until I ran out of good screws :) The canopy and cowl screws are interchangable. The longer I have the plane the more I notice what needs to be changed or made better and so far I'm noticing that with the few changes I had to make the plane is holding up great and maybe no further improvements need to be made. One of these days I'll make a list of things that I've done to improve the plane so others can do it from the start.
Posted on: 6/12/2011 4:30 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10570159

RE: is it ok to start with electric?
I do not recommend you start with nitro. I did because that's all we had back then. I only wished we had the variety of electric flight as we do now back then. Things would have been much easier. Why not start with a parkzone radian 3-channel glider? I have one and it's perfect for learning. Find a small hill, toss it off it and just learn to glide. Then progress to motored flights. I've flown aerobatics with that glider too. Inverted flying, rolls, loops, etc. The best thing is, you'll still fly it occasionally when you become a good pilot for some thermal fun.
Posted on: 5/29/2011 11:41 AM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Electric General Discussion"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10546686

RE: Nitro Planes Disappointment
I haven't bought a plane from nitro planes yet so I can't comment. But I did two battery/charger orders, shipped very fast and everything works as advertised. Will do more business with them.
Posted on: 5/29/2011 11:35 AM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Electric General Discussion"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10546677

RE: Why no switch?
On an esc like the one from castle creations, it has auto motor cutoff so if the rx looses signal the motor will shut down. On those esc's it's safe to plug in your lipo with you tx off. You might be also able to program your rx failsafe to shut the motor off. But, here is the thing. If you get an esc that doesn't do that or your failsafe is not set then with other esc's you might get into trouble. It's better imo to learn the safe system ie. tx on first then rx so that you can use any other esc and not get into trouble.
Posted on: 5/29/2011 11:31 AM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Electric General Discussion"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10546670

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
Update: so after 100 flights and two crashes, these are my observations. The plane is holding up great. The only problem is the excessive wear on the canopy's front edge that goes under the engine's cowl. I tried to put spacers under the engine cowl's two top bolts to relieve some pressure but it was worse, so no spacers. On the issue of CG. The CG per manual is right behind the wing tube and that will result in a nose heavy plane, perfectly flyable. I had it balanced there plus on my remaiden I added 14oz of weight in the nose. The CG then came up to the middle of wing tube. The plane was nose heavy, flew imac moves very straight, nose was difficult to veer off course. Landings were done on the mains and I experienced loss of tail authority after touchdown. It was impossible to taxi the plane in light winds, tail was not stuck to the ground as well because of the nose heavyness. The wings rocked hard in slow flight and on landing it would stall with wings with low angle of attack. I started moving the CG back, one ounce at a time. When I went from 14oz to 8oz, I noticed very little wing rock at near stall speeds, landings were three pointer and the plane stalled without wings dropping off that much. I removed all the weight, the CG is now 1 1/4" behind the wing tube, using 7 degrees of elevator throw for a 20 foot diameter loop at cruising speeds. Takeoffs and landings are very slow, at jogging pace, stalls are straight ahead and rather mushy and no wing drop on landings. Can taxi in 20mph gusts and takeoffs under two feet and can hover land the plane in 10mph wind. I feel that the CG can further go back another half inch. I'm going to keep it here as I fly imac and I eliminated wing drops and wing rocks. The rudder is more sensitive especially on the pulling maneuvers but doable. The plane is a lot of fun to fly. The main gear is wearing out so I bought some sullivan skylite wheels. I bought new sullivan 24oz tank that is a perfect replacement for the stock one, I use t-fitting now and it works great. The plane is bone stock nothing carbon and flies great. I fly knife edge loops with snaps at the bottom, lomcevaks, knife edge spins, unlimited verticals, basically I push the airframe and it withstands all the punishment so far. I feel that the airframe is going to last at least me thousand flights if not more. Forgot to say, some of the dowels are coming lose and I just CA'ed them in again. I don't use the cotter pins for anti-rotation pins since they're hard to put in and I was damaging fuse sides. I put zip ties on them so I can pull them off. So although my building impression of this plane was not super great I feel that the flying quantities and the structure robustness made up for it. Also, the landing gear area with the lighting holes cut is sufficient strength for normal landings including harrier landings providing the CG is setup according to the manual or even more aft. With nose heavy doing a crosswind landing the main gear can rip the fuse side out, that's how I found out. This plane became my favorite to fly, very smooth, consistent speed, and strong. Would definitely buy another one if I crashed this one. I forgot about all the other planes when flying this one.
Posted on: 4/22/2011 7:43 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10479271

RE: Yak 55cc busted fuse side
Did four more flights on the repaired fuse and no problems during normal landings. I also did couple of lomcevaks and no problems. The plane does beautiful lomcevaks. The heavy duty plastic control horns seem to hold well. So I'm happy with the plane.
Posted on: 11/18/2010 6:16 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10143948

RE: CG on centerline of aircraft
I usually put lead in the underside of the wing and it's not visible from farther away. I pound a lead fishing weight into a pancake and drill a hole in the center and mount it to the underside of the wing into a spar or any other wood point with an epoxy and a long screw. I remove the covering where the weight goes. If you have a large lateral off balance then your heavy wing will drop first in the high stall maneuvers with wings level on entry.
Posted on: 11/18/2010 6:11 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10143935

RE: Yak 55cc busted fuse side
Thinking back on the bad landing event, what happened was that the non-local airport runway was narrow and short and I was flying in a crosswind with varying winds. As I was landing two feet off the ground, the wind lessened and I dropped the plane on the ground. The left wheel hit the soft sandy like dirt which stopped the plane and bent the landing gear backwards. I used some scrap wood to fill out the lightening holes in the left side plywood load member and that made the left side much stronger. I left the right side as it is as I don't plan on making hard landings like that again. Interestingly, I could not bend the gear back into shape so it's bent backwards a little bit. That must have been some incredible force to bend that gear back like that. I really feel that there shouldn't have been any lighting holes in the load members above the main gear block for strength reasons. I'm going to go fly the plane tomorrow and hopefully the repairs will hold up. That left side now seems much stronger that the right side eventhough I laminated the left side only from one side and not both, like in a sandwitch. Notice the two vertical pieces of wood (laminates) above the gear block. No way that the gear is going to compress that left load member again. Basically, the way I see it is like this. For normal landings the current arf is good enough. Only when making harder than usual landings do we need stronger wood or a laminate above the gear block. Knowing this, I will be extra careful from now on when landing. Trying not to come in too slow and stall and drop the plane the last foot or two above the ground. I took the wheel pants off, it's better that way as I don't scape the front of them off when tilt carrying(nose down, tail up) the plane to the pits. Here's a pic of the repairs:
Posted on: 11/14/2010 2:23 AM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10134049

RE: Question on DLE 55cc
My did the same thing until it was broken in, then it was much smoother.
Posted on: 11/8/2010 2:11 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Gas Engines"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10122815

RE: New .90 gas engine (15cc)
You need to use non-synthetic air cooled two stroke oil and vary the rpms so the engine cycles thru all heat ranges so parts expand properly at temps and mate. Synthetic oil only prolongs the process. If one worries about the con rod breaking then use more oil content in the fuel say 20:1. Again, using more oil will remove heat from the engine so break-in will take longer but will protect the con rod. Years ago they did a study on pennzoil being used in Rotaxes and it was the best oil at that time. Interestingly, I used Lawn Boy oil and also got some ACE oil which looks to me like Lawn Boy so it could be Lawn Boy only cheaper as it's Ace's brand.
Posted on: 11/8/2010 1:23 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Gas Engines"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10122760

RE: Choosing the right engine
I bought the DLE 55cc from Tower Hobbies for $410 - $60 member's coupon for total of $350. I ran close to three gallons of fuel 32:1 mix thru the engine so far and no deadsticks. I recommend to choke on first start with ignition on then choke off and then real start. Otherwise with choke on and ignition off like in the manual, the engine can become flooded. I'm very happy with the engine, had it run with suboptimal needles setting and it just chugged along. Vertical on 21lb plane is unlimited but not ballistic. I don't have the other engines so I can't compare but I'm 100% happy with the dle 55cc engine.
Posted on: 11/8/2010 12:01 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Gas Engines"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10122633

RE: Yak 55cc busted fuse side
The left side of the landing gear hit the ground and bent backwards. I'm not sure I can bend it back. Couldn't believe that the thick alum. gear can even bend like that. I'm in the process of reinforcing both sides of those load members with wood. I'm taking two pieces of wood and gluing them together as a sandwitch then using it to reinforce the load members. I recommend everyone does this on their kit. I was also thinking that AW could instead of making the load members of solid carbon they could make a carbon/plywood sandwitch. Despite the hardware problems, fuel tank leaking, weak landing gear blocks, etc. I do like the plane a lot otherwise I wouldn't bother to fix it. Forgot to tell you guys that during the hard landing the left main wheel almost busted thru the wheel pant. So I'm taking the pants off and keeping them off. The bottom of the pants was also scraping off on our asphalt runway. So yeah, the plane will be a bit heavier. I imagine the way technology is going nowdays, soon there will be carbon/balsa sandwitch 50cc planes on the market if not already. Some of those smaller electrics are already using that carbon fusion tech. I would like AW to include all carbon stuff in their next run of their Yak like all the others are doing. They're doing it and for less money. AW is doing it for new kits, I wish they go back and do it for their older kits. Plus, I wish they throw away that metal tail gear and replace it with carbon and include the carbon tailwheel horn as well. Can't wait to get back into the air.
Posted on: 11/7/2010 10:22 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10121717

Yak 55cc busted fuse side
During a crosswind landing, one side of the wing dropped and the plane hit the ground quite hard and busted the left load member inside the fuse. I wish those two vertical side load members that carry the engine and wing were made out of solid carbon fiber. The bottom wood gear block would then attach to the carbon vertical sides with those aluminium L brackets. The wooden engine firewall could also attach to the carbon load members with L brackets. AW could do this on all of their planes to make them super strong and light. I think I'm going to use some wooden sticks (I'm out of plywood) to laminate the entire left load member so on landing there is no compression. Oh yeah, the whole front left side of the fuse that attaches to the load member is busted as well. But since it's for decoration only I'll patch it up with epoxy.
Posted on: 11/6/2010 10:51 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10119650

RE: AW Yak 50cc Split fueltank
Thank you guys for suggestions and thoughts. I replaced the 24oz stock AW tank with their stock 16oz smoke tank and this time I did not screwed the stopper tightly, just enough not to leak fuel thru it. I put the tank inside a plastic bag so in case it splits again fuel won't dump inside the plane. I made five flights and the tank is fine so far. I'm getting about 10min flights with 1/4 tank remaining so I think I'll keep the tank for now and if it goes bad I'll replace it with dubro tank. I replaced the foam tail wheel with a rubber tail wheel for now. In the future, I'll buy some kind of light carbon tail wheel setup. I just wanted to fly on the weekend and so I patched up the plane. I know this is probably old news for some but for novices to gas engines, the DLE 55cc manual suggests the pilot primes the engine with ignition off. I don't recommend that because it leads to over priming and flooding the carb. Had to take the spark plug off and vent the gas. I suggest the pilot turns on ignition, closes choke, set engine to idle, flips the engine until firing is heard, turn off choke and flip the engine again. It should then start on first or second flip. No more flooding as when the ignition is on, the engine lets you know when enough of the gas is getting in the carb for starting. Have 12 flights on the Yak and it's great. Three point landings with full up elevator upon touchdown makes the best landings. Also, a higher idle might be required when landing to keep air over surfaces and get the plane in proper three point landing config. with right airspeed. Having the engine idle at its slowest does not result in good landings, steady higher idle is best. So coming from .40 size plane this was something new to me. Anyone else experienced this?
Posted on: 11/3/2010 8:48 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10113915

AW Yak 50cc Split fueltank
Well, I didn't think it would happen to me since the 24oz fuel tank looked pretty heavy duty to me but after seven flights on my Yak, it cracked at the edge of fuel stopper. Got fuel all over batteries and inside the plane. Also, the foam tailwheel has grinded away on our paved runway. Any suggestions as to what fuel tank or tail/main wheels I should buy? I'm thinking about putting together a clear bottle tank. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.
Posted on: 10/29/2010 10:07 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10103461

RE: Balsa USA Citabria Pro Build Countdown
I use the 42% (I think, or 40%) company's remote kill switch. It's the one for $32 and I got it from ValleyViewRc.com and they also pre drilled the holes in the prop. for me. Not sure about 20cc and if it needs extra holes in the prop. to hold it to the shaft. I also got my first gasser plane recently, Airworks 55cc Yak 54 and I love it. You going to love the gas engine. I got rid of all my nitro engines and converted planes to electric. So I have electrics and gas planes. I flew nitro for 20 years, don't see a reason for it when we have higher performing electric motors. My .46 rimfire electric motor has 30% more power than my OS .55 two stroke. Anyways, during the gas engine break-in your plane will shake a lot and it could cause lose wires to be cut by vibrating fuse parts. I isolated all my wires from touching aircraft parts after noticing some were cut to the wire. My only regret is that I wish we had today's gas technology years back so I would start on gas planes sooner. Gas engine + scale plane = win :) Nitro four-strokes are second best. Actually, I just saw an ad for a gas four stroke motor in AMA magazine. That would be interesting. It was a single cylinder engine. The other day, I saw a friend fly tri-cylinder nitro four-stroke engine powered biplane. Pretty cool sounding engine. So the only nitro engine I would do again would be a four stroke, otherwise it's gas or electric. I think gas comes out cheaper because lipos need lots of cycles to break even. Good luck on your build, you will love gas plane flying.
Posted on: 10/25/2010 4:30 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Kit Building"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10093548

RE: 50cc Break In Questions-
1) Fly with the cowl on but make sure you have good airflow over the cylinders. Also, leaving the cowl on doesn't mess up your CG. 2) About 10% ethanol, it varies by state, is in gas. From what I read, most gas engines now days have diaphrams in the pump made of rubber that resists ethanol. 3) I use 87 octane, 10% ethanol gas mixture and a 8oz of Lawn Boy oil at 32:1 for two gallons for break-in. I will switch to a generic two stroke weed eater oil I got from Ace, should be ok. Reason you want to use two stroke oil is because it has additives that help the engine. Outboard boat motor oil doesn't have those additives (that air cooled two strokes need) because boat engines don't need them as they run steady rpm and temperature. Also, during break-in, the engine parts are going to be wearing in, ie. mating. That will create extra heat. You need non-synthetic oil so those parts can mate in properly. Synth. oil is too slippery and parts will take forever to mate. You need to run either more oil rich mixture or richer fuel mixture so that the oil can take away the extra heat in the engine during break-in process. After break-in (I think 5 gal. of gas) you can use synthetic oil. Some can be mixed at 50:1 or 100:1. Periodically check your spark plug because that's the best way to tell whether you're running the engine too rich in oil or not enough oil thus heating it up. If engine has too much oil the spark plug will be black and wet. The spark plug will be white if engine is running too hot and not receiving much oil. Oil removes heat and not having it makes engine run hotter. You could theoretically have a rich oil/gas mixture yet run the engine too lean causing lots of heat. Basically the result is that not enough oil is getting into the engine because either the needles are too lean or there is not enough oil in the gas. Just because you run synthetic oil doesn't mean your engine runs cool. Remember that oil absorbs heat and it takes it away thru exhaust. It's not about reducing friction between metal parts but about having a medium such as oil that absorbs heat and removes it from the engine. It's the same reason why heli pilots switched to 30% nitro. The gallon of that stuff has higher oil content that removed lots of extra heat from the heli engine thus helping it run cooler because all that nitro made for a hotter combustion. But that high nitro content help create more power in the engine. It was because of the extra oil in the fuel that made running 30% nitro possible, otherwise the engine would melt. Same with gas engines. You need oil that removes heat from the engine, plus you need oil for lubrication. Personally, I'm going to be removing oil from my gas and observe the spark plug to see if I'm running too hot. Right now at 32:1, the spark plug is way too black and wet. Next is 40:1 mixture, but after break-in and tweaking the needles.
Posted on: 10/25/2010 4:10 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Gas Engines"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10093503

RE: Advice for a gas Airplane
I have the 50cc Yak. From what I'm reading, the extra needs to be flown a bit hotter on landings because of the wing. Yak can be flown slower. My yak will fly really slowly without falling off. My suggestion to you is to stay away from AW planes unless you have the know how to fix some of their problems in hardware or design. They have a selection of planes that have been redesigned many times and those are the ones you should buy although you still need to replace some of their hardware even after so many redesigns. That's been my personal experience and also reflected in this forum by many.
Posted on: 10/25/2010 3:16 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10093392

RE: New 30cc Extra 300
If AW can do the following I will buy their plane. 1) Standardize on dle 30cc and muffler 2) Pre-cut cowl now that we standardized on muffler and engine 3) Pre-drill firewall for standoff bolts now that we standardized on engine 4) Pre-drill holes for switches, standardize on switches 5) Make wire channels for the radio/ignition wires 6) Include nyrod pushrod wire and glue it in, now that we standardized on engine's carburator 7) Standardizing on engine and muffler we get perfect CG balance 8) Could standardize on servo weight as well, most are 2oz., to keep CG in check 9) Remember, arf buyers don't have dremel skills nor do they want them. They want to buy a whole package and go flying as evidenced by the influx of chinese foam arfs that are zillion at my flying field and all around the country. 10) Include metal or carbon tail wheel horn so spring wires don't cut thru the plastic horn 11) Include rubber wheels because foam wheels develop flat spots and my tailwheel barely turns because foam compressed and it's interfering with mounting bracket sides. So skip the heavy pitts muffler (not powerful anyways) or tune pipe (costly) and go with standard dle muffler. Works great on my AW 50cc Yak. I don't understand why AW doesn't hire a competent engineer that would spot these problems right away. I'm not a trained engineer but I can tell you these things don't work after one flight. I'm tired of buying after market parts to fix AW arfs. Come on guys, become what you say in your adds you are, not who you wish you could be.
Posted on: 10/25/2010 2:25 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10093301

RE: Aeroworks Yak54 50cc build issues
Something else I wanted to say. Recently I bought the 2.4ghz radio module and receivers from Frsky. Got the 4ch. single antenna and two 8ch. dual antenna receivers. Module and 8ch. receiver costs something like $55 with $11 to ship from china's Himodel.com website. My total was like $120. Installed the 4ch. into my radian 2m glider and one 8ch. into my .40 size GP big stick converted to electric and also into this Yak gasser plane. I have no problems flying with frsky. It hops on like 20 channels and has dual antenna redundancy, if one loses signal it switches to the other one. Went with 2.4ghz over 72mhz as on our field we have lots of newcomers and didn't want to take the risk of being shot down, plus the pain of radio freq. flags, etc. Also, now frsky has the high voltage and telemetry receivers so no regulators needed if using lithium batts. I use nimh so I got the low voltage ones. I think rx can drop down to 3 volts before it resets, and reset is instantenous. It also has failsafe, you just hold sticks where you want them then hit a button on the rx. On the back of module it has button for binding that also acts like range check, puts module into low range ie. 30 paces. I'm very happy with the system and just wanted to share it with you in case you have older module based radio and need to switch to 2.4ghz cheaply. The entire plane minus the futaba 8U transmitter cost me US $2000. Everything is new and I saved about $200 using the $60 tower hobbies discounts on stuff ordered worth more than $300. Got the DLE 55cc for like $350. No discount on the plane which was $700 drop shipped from AW. Ok then :)
Posted on: 8/4/2010 3:31 PM by Author "FlyStraight" in the forum "Aero-Works Support"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9910862