Was out blasting around with a couple of my favorite Russian park jets this morning... :)
I hadn't had my modified FRC Foamies Su35 MK2 out in a couple weeks as I have been so busy flying and evaluating my new Mig29 V4M3e3. I now have 150 flights on the Su35 and it has been an amazing plane to fly and was the first plane I modified since I started sharing ideas with Stephan a few months ago. I explain the mods I made from the stock FRC Su35 MK2 in this walkaround and flight video. The flight video part is not the best, the plane tends to wash out quite a bit, but the first part will explain what changes I made from stock. All of these mods I talk about in the video will stay, with a couple minor updates... :)
So today I noticed a couple of things, the vertical rudders work awesome, just like they do on the V4M3e3, so that is staying. Also, it was proof again that the vertical trailing edge on the vert stabs makes for a "quieter" back end on the plane. Overall the Su35 is not quite as stable as even the stock RCP Mig29 V4, but much quieter in the back end in turns for sure.
What I did notice when I did a close fly by test is that there must be quite a bit of turbulent air flowing over this plane as there is quite a "whoosh" just like I described in my last post about the stock Mig29 V4. So some changes need to be made to address that hopefully... :)
So here are a couple more tweaks I think need to go into another Su35 MK2. I was planning on building an F18 V4 with quite a few NAMC mods, but decided to build another Su since I really do enjoy flying it so much.
The only thing structurally I will update is the elevons. I will evaluate their size again to ensure they are still as close to scale as possible, probably extend the "tail boom" a bit for more scale looks, but the biggest change is I will adopt the hinge setup from the RC Powers Mig29 V4 where I will have a traditional horizontal stab portion then the elevons hinging from that. This will result in less moving surface, but I think help make things even just a bit smoother in turns and pitch maneuvers like loops. The real Su is more responsive in the pitch than the real Mig from what I have seen in watching countless You Tube videos, but I would rather be the one putting in that aggressive pitch move than have to compensate for the plane being over aggressive in the pitch. I think this also reduce drag and turbulence in the back end when flying due to the smaller moving surface of the elevons.
To help reduce overall drag and turbulence, I will symmetrically shape all leading and trailing edges as well. The Su35 in the picture above was the last plane I built with "chisel" shaped leading edges on the wing and elevons. I had done this for many, many planes as that is what everyone seemed to be doing when I first joined the RC Powers forum. Fortunately, Stephan was able to shake me of that paradigm and I have definitely bought into the symmetrical leading edge helping with overall "slipperiness" of the plane through the air. The top speed I have ever clocked with this plane is 74 mph, so I think with these changes that speed will be broken easily. Being smaller than the Mig29 V4, there is no reason it should not be up there around 80 mph like the Mig is, I think that by using this old style build technique, I am fighting build induced drag... :/
So, time to dig out some plans and start drawing out the mods in the next few days. Excited to see how these fairly minor changes to a plane I already modified will perform. I think things can only get better... :)
Cheers,
Scott
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