My Bronco's flight

Fat OV-10 Damaged

The single biggest cause of (rc) plane crashes has been the insistence upon flying in too much wind.

July 10, Sunday I was hoping that the wind would die down at dusk yet at 6:30 pm it is still blowing at a mighty 5kph with gust of up to 8-10kph. wind. Well I know my plane would handle such wind but the question is, can I handle such force. About 20-25 minutes in flight I was preparing for a landing when a strong gust of upwind forces my OV-10 into a loop which i didn't recover. The result, my plane went into a nose dive from about 30 ft. right straight to earth. The damage, surprisingly the nose which absorb the impact suffered only a minor dent, however the force travelled through the wings which sustained most of the damage. The left wing was almost ripped off from the fuselage. Both left and right boom wing connection suffered a crack about two to three inches long. Other than that, there are no other damage. Conclusion, I need to make a new pair of wings for my FAT OV-10 and I am going to reinforce it with carbon fiber tubes.

FAT OV-10 maidened

i finally maidened my fat ov-10 yesterday (sunday) at around 6:30 pm in sta.lucia - just beside sm fairview. the reason for a sunset test flight is that the wind is calm during this time of day and with a plane that has a wingspan of 30" and weights only 12 oz., it can easily tossed around by a slight blow of wind.

handlunch was at full throttle but i full back at half when i reached a flying altitude of 75' to 100'. this plane is basically a slow-flyer, perfect for a beginner like me. it glides very well and very stable at half throttle, and i even performed a powerless landing without any trouble at all.

i could have stayed a little bit longer in the air if not for the darkness that is setting in. according to my tx, i posted a flight time of 34 minutes in 3 breaks with plenty of power left on my lipoly.

this plane is definitely a keeper.

(no in-flight photos... my cameraman ...ahhh woman... is not available during the maiden flight)

The Actual Thing

Almost two weeks had past and i manage to finish my fat ov-10. i am starting my c.g. for this plane at about 30% - 33% from the leading edge which is 2" - 2.15". no flight test sked this weekend due to a weather that doesn't want to cooperate. power for my ov-10 will come from my 3s1p at 620mAh lipoly. i hope it can handle the current drawn by this two GWS IPS-A motors each with a GWS9070 as prop.

Another plane on the drawing board

hehehe.... alang kadaladala.

another plane is on the drawing board. this one would be a fun plane, a cute one for a fact - a chubby one. a fat ov-10. this one would be powered by two IPS-A motor and 2S1P lipoly. i am aiming for a wingspan of 30" and a weight not exceeding 12oz. so far my drawings seems okey... so i am gonna cut some foamboards tonight... wish me luck.


my FAT-OV10

my gremlin, wasn't able to fly it well

I should put a dyhedral on each wing, she should have flown a bit stable. And yes, the CG, not balance.

05 - the short cut

finally finished my gremlin!
after charging my batteries for my tx and for the plane's power plant, to the flying field i went.

range... checked
cg... checked
control surfaces... checked
power... checked
wind... checked

clear for take-off!

and walllllah!

disaster!

as soon as it left the ground i realized it was tail heavy! at full power, it darted upward with no absolute direction at all. it went into an inverted flight (unintentional) and looped straight back to the ground from a height of 50ft.

needless to say, i went to check the crash site.... too disturbing... i did not take pictures. (hehehe)

oh well... come to think of it, i went to the flying field with one gremlin... i went home with 3.

flight assessment: other than the cg error, i should have put a dihedral on the wing... sigh.

04

040506
I was able to squeeze in a couple of hour of my time to continue my work on my gremlin. My next step was to build the motor-mount for this plane. No real-plans on this one so basically its a trial and error thing. And after deciding on how to mount my motor I finally went on to cut my scrap foam board to form what i think is a simple motor mount. So far I am much satisfied with the result. At this point I haven't decided yet where my battery compartment will be, the same for my receiver and speed controller. By the way, I used hot-glue and spray adhesive throughout my build.

03

Bottom view of the the tail section with dividing wall installed for rudder support. Elevator re-fitted and control horns attached. You can also see the third HS-55 servo. I did not really followed Hippo on how he built his Gremlin, i have to improvise a bit and at the same time hoping that the integrity of the plane's design wont be lost. Well, so far, I think they still look the same.

02

040106
Front part of the fuselage fused together and firewall for the cockpit installed and elevator removed. (For the mean time.)

01

03--06
I started my build on my Gremlin, an rc plane made from foam board. The design is from Hippo's Gremlin at Foamfly.com.
It has no downloadable plans that is why i made do with what is there in the site which are basically pictures of Hippo's Gremlin while it was being built.

Right now the fuselage is almost complete and the tail control-elevator is on a test-fit, the same with the two HS-55 servos
on each side of the fuselage for aileron controls.

And due to my tight and busy skeds... this one will be a long build... but I am hoping to finish this before the end of April.