100 inch Falcon

[Ian F3F]

  I thought it might be a good time to post something about the my new 100 inch model that arrived last week.  Things are a bit stretched at the moment, the keys to the new house came on the same day as the package from Zhou!

  A couple of pictures out of the box, the molding feels crisp strong and light- I weighed the wings are 580g, with a root cord of 230mm.  This should help to deliver on the fast, agile and fun aims for the model.

  I had the wiring loom and king max servos ready to go in order to save time.  I have been looking at the RDS arms from Flight tech, these are very impressive to fiddle with and when I build my second model I’ll definitely be using these.  This time familiarity and getting on with it took priority.

  The tails have come out really nicely, I’ve kept the section depth a little narrower than the Harrier’s chunky version but it’s proportionally larger than the Harrier tail.  I’ll put some pictures of the fixings up soon.  Some changes to the back of the fuselage feel like they have made it very straight forward to fit together.  Zhou has started to include the brass tubes to make the horns, a really nice touch.

  The joiner is the same as in the Harrier, it looks more than up for the job with this smaller model. 

  I’ve kept the same ballast tube in just about every model, carrying over 1.2kg of lead and nearly 1.9kg of Tungsten is more than enough.

  The servo tray is nicely molded and follows the same principals as the Harrier.  I like that it’s not fixed when it arrives, so I can cut the servo holes outside of the fuselage- There’s just enough room for 2 Kingmax servos side by side in the fuselage.  I fitted the servos into the tray lined them up and then glued the tray in with 30 min epoxy- I’ve messed this up on one Harrier by not checking the tray’s position with the servos in, they fitted but look a bit wonkey.

  Side by side looks to fit and keeps the snakes out of the way of the ballast tube.  It’s a sign than it’s the narrowest fuselage I’ve made that things are getting a little tighter.

[Ian F3F]

Another evening on the Falcon and it's come out at 2.3kg ready to program.

The CG is always an educated estimate until that first flight but it didn't feel that it took a lot of lead in the nose to ballance it at 97mm.

 

The tail end was, pretty straight forward.

 

 

Now for a night or 2 not decorating to get out and maiden her!

[Ian F3F]

  Maiden flight today (is the first flight of the first prototype a golden maiden?)

  Cold, winds probably too light on the whitesheet northerly but I had a pass and I wasn't going to waist it.  The CG needed to be further forward than I was expecting but with a little more lead for the second flight, the nose sat level and she simply cruised about.

  With the Falcon feeling light and buoyant she covered the sky nicely and reacted predictably to the lift that was there.  It took a a good while to gain much height but it doesn't taker much for the Falcon to pick up speed.  It was too light to learn much in terms of set up but she didn't bite or flick when you pull too much elevator and it was just fun to fly.

  I'm going to measure what the CG ended up and work out how the ballast tube will stay balanced- for those days I'm looking forward to with a belly full of ballast.

 

Ian

[Andy_B]

so bit of a leap of faith by Ian today, first flight of the falcon with ballast and he did take some persuading but fair play to him   17m/s on the Crest isnt ideal but the plane handled it better than its owner ....

 

 

[Ian F3F]

Thanks for the vid Andy, I was so glad I took the plunge and flew the Falcon today, even though I only had her as 3.2kg.  She flew smoother when my fingers stopped shaking so much:-)

  An Epic day on the crest today, my first trip to the hill in about 8 years I think.

I think I'll set up the breaks on an easier day to make the landings as easy on the Falcon as the the Harrier but I left with a huge smile on my face.

[Ian F3F]

  Another day flying the Falcon yesterday and meeting up with some mates on Whitesheet.  I'm so tempted to use the Falcon at the next race, it's just so much fun to fly.  if the first days out with the Falcon on the crest were a real test for my nerves and the model's spar, yesterday's thermal hopping and slermalling was so much fun picking up the lift.  The set up is definitely getting there! 

 

[Ian F3F]

  It's been a year since I started flying The Falcon models.  My 2 test models are still going strong and giving e so much joy to fly.  I've gone from Epic on the VR98 last weekend to slightly dodgy on Whitesheet yesterday as a pretty daft time to fly the original red fuselage for the first time in a while.

If anyone has a set of timing gear/speed gun to play with I'd love to put them up against the Harrier and 3m wing- just to see.  After taking the plunge and racing the falcon a couple of times, the results seem in line with the Harrier but there are my thumbs involved.

Ian

[thermaldoctor]

54 minutes ago, Ian F3F said:

  It's been a year since I started flying The Falcon models.  My 2 test models are still going strong and giving e so much joy to fly.  I've gone from Epic on the VR98 last weekend to slightly dodgy on Whitesheet yesterday as a pretty daft time to fly the original red fuselage for the first time in a while.

If anyone has a set of timing gear/speed gun to play with I'd love to put them up against the Harrier and 3m wing- just to see.  After taking the plunge and racing the falcon a couple of times, the results seem in line with the Harrier but there are my thumbs involved.

Ian

 

Here's mine. Looking forward to getting this put together and on the slopes. Beautiful looking model!

 

[SoggyBoots]

looking at a falcon or harrier as my next model,  they seem nice and affordable so be nice to have something to play with in conditions or sites i wouldn't risk my more expensive models 

[Ian F3F]

What a glorious day on Mickies today, in preparation for the summer league I thought some light wind/ thermalling was in order. 

  Sorry, no pictures of the 2 red kites sharing the lift but just over a year since that first flight on the crest, these falcons are putting such a smile on my face as I fly. 

  I'd like to say I have 2 models set up the same but I have 1 that turns on the elevator alone and 1 with snap flap and less elevator- love them both. 

  Don't tell the missus but 1 dog and 2 falcons feels a perfect car full!

[Ian F3F]

Come on Neil

  Get on with your Falcon and get on the slopes!  I've had 2 sessions over Christmas where my Falcon has turned into a bit of a storm flying go too model.  It's amaizing how fast you can got when you don't have those beeping noises:-)

 

Ian

[thermaldoctor]

I know! 

But life has very much got in the way of the build.

Here's mine pre-build. Beautiful looking model and the tail end makes all models with a separate tape on tail cone look positively clumsy and old fashioned.

So far all the trickier parts have been done. Quite easy stuff just takes bit of time and thought. The rest will go together very quickly once I pull my finger out of my ****.

Both Ian on his website http://willowracing.blogspot.com/ and John Phillips here on BARCS document an almost identical build.

  So here is how I did things so far...

I chose servorahmen IDS for flaps and ailerons. As long as done correctly it works extremely well. You need to cut into the flap and aileron sub spares to get the horns in and also cut into the flap and aileron wipers. If doing IDS only use the heavy duty IDS - the standard ones are a waste of time for bigger models. Top tip is to align the pin axis with the wiper/control surface joint line to get the geometry right. Another top tip is to slightly relieve the internal diameter of the pushrod so it falls under its own weight on the 1.4mm dia pin. This will help centering and stop any annoying buzz at neutral as IDS is quite tight out of the packet.

 

Servo frame fitting is pretty standard stuff. You can use quite short servo output horns to get the best mechanical advantage yet still have plenty of movement.

I will be bonding in shims to join the top of the frames with the undersides of the bottom skins for additional stiffness but this hasn't been done yet. As it comes I'm pretty sure the stiffness of the carbon top skins and the additional layers of carbon patches make the servo bay stiff enough but it is such an easy job to do it makes better sense.

The tail end might be tricky for a first timer but very logical and easy to do with thought. Plus much easier with all these build documentations.

You need to bend your own torque rods and insert into the elevator. I found it much easier to make a recess into the elevator wipers and gain much easier access to the elevator sub spar. By doing this you can 1) drill it more accurately   2) bond it more accurately   3)  don't have to bend the elevator hinge completely back on itself to gain access and risk compromising the integrity of the hinge.

You can also trim back the wiper for the same effect. But I think this is neater and I get a bit OCD about these things. Please note in the pic you also have to make a slot in the fuselage side to take the torque rod.

 

You need to take time to match up the angles and locations of the L and R torque rods to make as symmetrical as possible. Of course modern radio makes this of negligible benefit but better to be correct. I found bending at 5-6mm measured out from the end face of the elevator gave the best configuration to avoid contact between the two torque rods touching yet avoiding contact with the sides of the fuselage and cover. But you will still have to thin down the sidewalls of the fuselage with a dremel to get it to work freely. Once fettled and done, I found I had about +/- 5-10mm of perfectly free movement which is ideal. Certainly around neutral it is very free. 

 

Excuse the one horn it is not glued on yet so is twisted!!  As they come, the rear end linkage comprises the the straight piano wires we talked about that have to be bent accordingly. They also come with a brass tube that has to be compressed at one end and drilled for a 1.5mm clevis and then bonded on to the torque rod.

 

So far very pleased. Bit more work to do than some others but this is reflected in the price making them a bargain. And only basic modelling skills and experience needed. Nothing more.

And.........I will be fitting some new Kingmax servo prototypes to it for testing. So far on the bench after hours and hours of cycling they are amazing. The same 10mm 0911W / KST X10 size but 23 kg of torque. Yes 23kg of torque. Yet still very fast. Quite incredible thanks to a new Mitsubishi amp and new motor exclusively developed by Kingmax.

 

No CNC machined heatsinks yet or kingmax branding on these samples but they feel really good. Cant wait to try. Yes 23kg from standard size 10mm servo!

 

[wookman]

39 minutes ago, thermaldoctor said:

Yes 23kg from standard size 10mm servo!

Wow that’s a lot of torque. 

[Ian F3F]

I maiden'd my new falcon on new year's day, just the usual torque but flew so nicely. Feels lighter than my first examples, but took 900g of ballast on an average whitesheet day very nicely. 

  Where were you Neil?

  Ian

[wookman]

Neil was busy installing his 23kg servos. 

[thermaldoctor]

Finally got this ready to fly now. Too many other more pressing life things to get sorted before doing modelling stuff.

Well..the servos are really good and offer immense power.  You can feel and hear the difference.  And resolution great as always. Did a full IDS set up that works very well. 

Fuselage used one of the neat and shorter li-ion 16500 batteries we sell that are popular. Given the shape I had the idea to use a carbon tube (thanks for sourcing Lou) set into the nose right up to the front to house the  battery as far forward as possible  and surrounded by chopped up lead for nose weight. Worked very well and is a clean and tidy solution. 

For anchoring pushrods to the fuselage sides I used 4mm square balsa longeron  spacers to set at the correct spacing . I bound them into place (no glue yet) over the snake outers in the open canopy area with a snug wrapped cotton thread and then slid them up into position and tack cyanoed into place. Then used epoxy for final finish and fitment. It just means the snakes can't pull away from the fuselage sides which is always a problem. One of the pics shows this through the wing joiner hole.

Used one of Jon Wells practical RC Pico switches we sell which are excellent. The Falcon does have a canopy notch nose cone, but it can be fiddly to fit so a mag switch seemed the better option.

[wookman]

Nice work. Can't wait to see you on course with it.

[Ian F3F]

Such a neat job, lets get you out on a hill!

 

Ian

[Tuckman]

Hi guys 

Received my Falcon and looking at starting tomorrow.

Looking over and trying to research on the net I'm struggling to understand how the v-tail assembles to the push rods?

i can see on here the pictures but still struggling to see how 

any help appreciated 

tom

 

[MikeE]

There is a thread on here that Ian did, shows how he does them.

I found it by a Google search "100 falcon glider"