RE: Comp ARF Valiant
I agree the dihedral is off. I don't know for sure but doubt it is an electric vs glow thing. I also increased the wing incidence a little. Except for the down line mix and rudder aileron mix there is very little other coupling. The vertical and knfe edges in this design are affected fairly obviously by CG changes. I ended up with a CG to give me the best vertical (with a slight increase in wing incidence) and the knife edge flight is real close. The only odd trait I found is the lack for need of much expo on aileron and elevator. I believe the counter balances are causing this. On the other hand the rudder is extremely sensitive and I have my expo dialed way up on it. First flights were interesting with 40% expo on ail and elevator. Stuart
Posted on: 1/22/2012 6:30 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10921045

RE: Convert Millimeters to Degrees
Try this on the NSRCA website. http://nsrca.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106:surface-deflection-utility&catid=58:building&Itemid=95 It is something I made by modifying the one from aero-perfect. It should do what you want. Stuart C.
Posted on: 9/7/2011 3:09 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10705299

RE: Nat's Scores Day 1
All of the results are on the nsrca site. See my post above, Stuart
Posted on: 8/9/2011 2:34 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10663113

RE: Nat's Scores Day 1
[quote]ORIGINAL: GiMsAcE Where can i find all the pilots results in Masters and FAI?. [/quote] PDFs of Masters and FAI are now up on nsrca.us as well. Thank you, Stuart C.
Posted on: 8/9/2011 7:33 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10662459

RE: Nat's Scores Day 1
Back to the Nats results: The contest results for Intermediate and Advanced are now on the NSRCA website Same format as our regular contests. Top menu: Contest Results>2011>Nationals>intermediate or advanced. I found that I had Brian Strachan's name spelled wrong on the front page. Sorry Brian. We are still working on getting Masters and FAI for you as well. Thank you, Stuart C
Posted on: 8/8/2011 8:47 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10662005

RE: Nats Day 1 Site 4 Photos
Yes thank you for posting those. Great record of the days activities.
Posted on: 8/7/2011 6:14 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10659280

RE: Nat's Scores Day 1
Thanks for the update and absolutely, congratulations to Joseph. Stuart C
Posted on: 8/6/2011 12:09 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10658400

RE: Nat's Scores Day 1
"Borrowed" from the Canada WC/Nats blog The FAI standings
Posted on: 8/5/2011 9:44 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10657664

RE: 2nd Annual D1 vs D2 Challenge June 11-12
What happened to all you D1 Jersey guys? You are missing the sweltering heat with little wind. The evening thunderstorm that has those of us at the Days Inn without power. But a well run contest at a nice field with a couple of poorly placed too tall trees :) 4 rounds done by 3:30 today. Thanks to Arch and his crew. Stuart.
Posted on: 6/11/2011 3:07 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10568482

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
I have a replacement wing tube, but I do not remember if it was PBG. I am thinking maybe Graphtech. They sent it to me cut to 680 mm, It is almost an ounce lighter but the Comp arf tube is not very round and on the average slightly larger than 30 mm, At least mine was so I had to wrap some clear tape around the tube to make it fit losing about half of the weight savings. Stuart
Posted on: 5/7/2011 11:58 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10506710

RE: Ultracote midnight blue paint match.
double post
Posted on: 4/27/2011 7:52 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Kit Building"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10488908

RE: Ultracote midnight blue paint match.
Yes they used their color match system and even tried a second time, but really not even close. I had them do ultracote yellow and gray and those were good enough.
Posted on: 4/27/2011 7:47 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Kit Building"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10488897

RE: Ultracote midnight blue paint match.
Gas plane and I was going to clear it. A bunch of club members have had good luck with Minwax water base polycryl, mostly on their scale planes, not sure how high a gloss it can acheive. Never tried it myself but that is what I was going to test. I went to Home depot and they were able to match the yellow and grey that I brought but the blue wasn't even close. The blue needs to be real close as it will be on the cowl and meets the covering. Thanks, Stuart
Posted on: 4/27/2011 6:36 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Kit Building"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10488775

Ultracote midnight blue paint match.
Does anyone have a solution to matching ultracote midnight blue besides finding an auto paint store and having them match it? Any commercial spray cans krylon, duplicolor etc match it? Anyone know of any Hanger 9 matching spray paint still available? I think they stopped selling it a while ago. Thanks, Stuart
Posted on: 4/27/2011 2:41 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Kit Building"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10488411

RE: A different approach
Very cool. You will probably find that you can go much smaller on the reeceiver pack. Most guys (and gals) flying 2 meter pattern planes are using 1 700 to 900 mah lipo or 2 450's on a regulator For a full 8 minute pattern flight a 2 meter electric bird only pulls 50 to 75 mah out of the pack. Stuart
Posted on: 4/22/2011 7:41 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Electric Pattern Aircraft"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10479268

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
I almost lost my plane on the first day of flying this year, Saturday. Nice day, one of my flying buddies had cleaned up and I was going to fly one more flight, my 8th. Last flight as I told him, he replied you shouldn't use those words. Just tempts fate or something along those lines Of course half way though my flight in an inverted 450 downline with an outside snap I heard a pop during the snap. The plane felt sensitve and it took me a moment to gain control. I thought I saw something fall so I figured something broke off the plane. I kept the throttle at idle worried it might be a prop blade. When it was obvious that the plane was going to land short I blipped the throttle but nothing, motor was dead. Plane landed in the field "fairly softly". When we reached the plane I saw that the canopy had a few cracks and the back of it was lifted off the fuse. Right away I was pretty sure I knew what happened. Lifted the plane and yup it was much lighter than expected. The battery pack went its seperate way from the fuse. Luckily it decided to use the canopy for an exit and not the side of the fuse. After returning it to the pits and removing the canopy we saw that not only the battery was missing but the whole battery tray. The plane felt twitchy as it was suddenly pretty tail heavy. I am lucky I didn't stall and snap it on landing. I made a new tray and made it a little longer to contact 3 fuse cross braces instead of the original 2. Originally it did not extend to the rear landing gear support. I also added 1/4" balsa to both sides of the fuse cross braces to increase gluing area. Patched the inside of the canopy with glass cloth and flew it 3 flights today. No unexpected projectiles this time. So I either have to match the paint colors and repaint the canopy or order a new one. (or both)
Posted on: 4/10/2011 5:23 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10454975

RE: My new, (old) Brushfire
The flying stab mechanism was made by Giezedanner not the plane. As mentioned earlier S&W now S&W fuels made a fiberglass version. I built one and wrote the Flying Models review on the kit. Stan of S&W definitely built one or more for himself with flying stabs using that mechanism. I actually used the same mechanism to make an adjustable incidence setup for the stab with standard elevators. The S&W kit did not have the raised lettering on the fuse. If you post some pics of the fuse we might be able to tell you if that was the origin of the kit. Stuart C.
Posted on: 4/9/2011 2:57 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10453157

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
I also replaced the wing tube with an aftermarket version. I had to add some clear packing tape to make it fit better as you are right the original is not perfectly round. Half of the weight difference was lost due to this. I realized I can not measure the stab tube as I have the stab glued in to minimize any slop. Stuart
Posted on: 1/19/2011 7:18 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10273796

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
I know the wing tube is 30mm but not the most accurate of tubes. Poor quality compared to other wing tubes, and heavy.
Posted on: 1/18/2011 7:11 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10272997

RE: Ultimate Classic Pattern radio
Gregg do you think you could still fly single stick? Stuart
Posted on: 12/23/2010 1:11 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Classic RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10214316

Ultimate Classic Pattern radio
If you were flying back in the mid to late 70's then this is the radio that you "Lusted" after. I know I did :) Features like servo reversing so you didn't have to open up your servo and switch the outside wires to both the pot and motor. Dual rates and a slow roll button. Retract servo end points. That, and 2 meters, one for battery voltage, one for RF. Yup that was state of the art back then. And for just $749 you could have one too. :) Proline open gimbles, nice, but no ball bearings. Luckily whoever stored this one removed the batteries. I powered it up and it still works. Legal frequency too. Servos certainly seem slugush compared to todays servos. Stuart
Posted on: 12/23/2010 12:11 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Classic RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10214216

RE: Wind S Pro problems
Adjusters are not too difficult to retrtofit into a pattern plane. Just takes a little thought of making it work with what you have. Attached are pictures of adjusters added to Comp Arf Valiant. A little positive incidence was wanted. Adjusters are in the rear, the front pin was replaced with an additional bolt that goes through a slotted donut in the fuse.
Posted on: 12/17/2010 4:09 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "Electric Pattern Aircraft"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10203379

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
There were lots of leftover parts in my bag. Meant to be used as alignment pins somewhere. I think I was told that they were a holdover from the Impact kit. Same basic bag of accessories included with all the pattern kits. I think I did use the tube portion when I added adjustable incidence to the wing. Stuart
Posted on: 12/15/2010 1:28 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10199200

RE: Contest results extracts needed from PACSS
Derek has posted all of District 7's 2010 cotest results.
Posted on: 12/5/2010 5:44 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10178838

RE: Contest results extracts needed from PACSS
Or if we can settle on one district championship system it lends itself to that :)
Posted on: 12/2/2010 12:16 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10171661

RE: Contest results extracts needed from PACSS
Nationals intermediate and advanced scores are up on the nsrca web site. Now you can really see how well you did compared to your peers and of course where you really screwed up :) Masters and FAI will be next. District 7 contests should also be up shortly. I wanted to say that although people keep mentioning my name, and yes I probably started this, it was not a simple project. Scott Smith got the ball rolling by creating a program to convert the PACCS export output into those nicely formatted web pages that you see. Gordon Anderson has produced a different scoring program used mainly in D7 and 8 and has adapted his output to use the same style sheets that Scott developed. His prgram is an alternative to PACCS. Buff Miller, our website calendar expert, helped immensly with the code to get those contest lists up as you see them. He exchanged enough emails with me that he probably regrets volunterring to help :) Stuart
Posted on: 12/2/2010 7:00 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10171396

RE: Contest results extracts needed from PACSS
All of District 8 and District 2 contests for 2010 have been loaded. Scattered other contests are now up as well. You can now see and compare your maneuver scores with others in your class :) If you want to see your contests up there please send the PACCS output to me as outlined in Derek's posting. You can get to them from the Contest Results tab at nsrca.us Thanks, Stuart
Posted on: 11/30/2010 9:43 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10167366

RE: Comp ARF Valiant
[quote]ORIGINAL: Tangy Tom Does anyone have the spinner size of the Valiant? It was mentioned in one of these threads that the diameter was 3 1/4'' but CARF are telling me it is 3 1/2''? Thanks. [/quote] Post number 39 this thread 3 1/4" Fits pretty well. Stuart
Posted on: 11/12/2010 3:34 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10131440

RE: USA: Masters Pilots not moving to F3A??
[quote]ORIGINAL: Mastertech Right Stuart, Just because you win at the local contest trail doesn't mean you're ready for the jump. Using the amount of people you beat as the basis for advancement is silly. What if all the people in a given class are less than stellar fliers? How about flying in a district that has a ton of great fliers in a class. You could be in the top 3-4 fliers in the nation and not point out if the top two guys in the country show up at every contest with you. I advocate the average scoring across the nation, If you are in the top 10-15% of the national average in scoring over a season of flying, then you need to move up the next year. Raw scoring is a far better method IMHO. Gathering the Intel wouldn't be a huge problem, maintaining it might be. Someone would have to do it. Perhaps the CD would forward the info to the district VP (NSRCA) and they tabulate and send to the national database. I'd think this could all be done inside the scoring systems we have in use now and a simple email. Simple to me anyway, I don't have to figure out how to do it. [;)] Tim [/quote] Not agreeing or disagreeing that we should use national raw scores for advancement, although it does seem to warrent discussion. How to do it would take some work but might not be as difficult as you think. It would have to start with what is done in IMAC. Everyone has to use the same scoring program, it is not optional. (Mospt pattern contests use PAACS but they do not have to.) The IMAC scoring program at the end of the contest spits out HTML files that include everyones individual scores. These files are uploaded to the web with a new link made on the contest list webpage. After a contest once they are uploaded to the web you can look at all of your maneuver scores and compare them to others in your class. If you had a similar system where the output of data could be uploaded through a database system (would take some coding by web smart people which NSRCA has on the website group) then you could do anything that you wanted with the data including comparing a single persons raw scores to the national average. Stuart C.
Posted on: 10/5/2010 8:14 AM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10048574

RE: USA: Masters Pilots not moving to F3A??
I have always been against pointing out with a forced move up in class. Forces many pilots to move up well before their skills are ready. Too much depends on local competition. If the local advanced pilots are average to weak in general then the person pointing out may be as well, and not ready to move to masters. If you want to force the winner of the Nats in the lower classes to move up, be my guest. They have obvviously proven that they have mastered the skills needed. IMAC has the same issues. Locally one of the "kids" will win the Northeast region in Intermediate, but he didn't do too well at the Nats. Perhaps if he tried again next year he might have a real shot at winning that class, but he can't IMAC rules force him to move up because he has beaten the local competition. If FAI was the AMA class above Masters then I would feel the same way, but it is not. Masters is the top AMA class even though the difficulty is not as high as it could be for the top class. Basically FAI is still considered the top class where the most difficult sequences are flown. Initially my gut reaction was to say someone like Tony who has won the Nats in Masters should move up to FAi again, but after giving it some thought, I don't think he or anyone else should unless they really want to. If the other top competitiors in Masters, Arch, George, and so on want to win the class then they should fly against the best to do so. If I was at that level I would. As to why I wouldn't move to FAI, I haven't mastered masters. I also no longer have the time or drive to fly more that once a week. I love the competition in Masters, I like the large class to fly against. Oh and who is this Dean Pappas guy anyway :) Stuart C.
Posted on: 10/4/2010 10:29 PM by Author "sc204" in the forum "RC Pattern Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=10047996