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Friday, February 14, 2014

FRC FOAMIES SU37 AND SU35 MK2 FLYOFF

Hi everyone -

About a month ago, I did a flyoff between these two planes.  They are essentially the same plane, the Su35 is a mod of the original Su37 plans without canards, modified intake and slightly angled on the top of the horizontal stabilizers.

I built these two planes pretty much identical from a standpoint of servos, power plant, etc, both have Kf4 airfoils.  I did not activate the canards on the Su37, rather I left them static to give me a little lower wing loading and for the aesthetic value.

For this test, both planes weighed the same, I went as far as setting the throws and expos in all three axes the same as well and did my best to fly all maneuvers with the same amount of stick movement so that I could evaluate the differences in handling and aerobatic response.


I tried to fly maneuvers as scale as possible, in other words not wild aggressive tumbles, drill rolls, etc.

If I had one word to describe the Su37, it would be smooth, I think the extra lift of the canards helped make it a bit more smooth and stable in turns and the pitch.  Loops were very smooth and round with only about half deflection.  

The Su35 could be described as aggressive.  It turned just a little sharper and in the pitch with the same amount of stick deflection, it really "dug in it's heels" in loops, making them more elliptical than round compared to the Su37.

A few days later, I tested them both again (no video this time) in fairly windy conditions, winds were between 12-15 mph 20-25 km/h.  I found the roles almost to be reversed in the wind.  I increased the weight on both by using a 2200 Mah battery, but I found that the Su37 was more of a handful in the wind perhaps due to the canards, it got bounced around a lot more and was more susceptible to being caught by the wind in turns.

The Su35 was surprisingly stable in the wind, it did get bounced around a bit, but I found it more predictable than the Su37.

Both are amazing planes and fun to fly, but since I am not really a canard kind of guy, I will probably stick with building the Su35 in the future.  I also prefer it's more classic look as it looks more like it's predecessor the Su27/Su30.  I will continue to fly the Su37 on a regular basis, but not so much on windy days.  

Great little planes to fly!

Cheers,

Scott

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