I had my oldest and my newest planes at the field yesterday for some fun... :)
I am thinking of building another F18 in the coming weeks, so as I was looking through some of my old flight videos on my RCP F18 V3, I realized it was over a year ago that I maidened this reliable plane! It has been a few months since I flew it as I have been busy with the Mig29 V4 in a few different variants, but decided it was time to take the old gal out for a spin and get right of some of the "hangar dust".
This particular plane has been a real turning point in my park jet career as it was one of the first planes where I really concentrated on building light. This is probably one of the reasons it has lasted so long as it has suffered many gonks, hitting the ground, the fence, trees, my leg... :/ and other than a crack in the wing, a new nose and new left elevon, it has survived amazingly well. As I saw how durable it was, it allowed me to push my flying skills harder as I wasn't as worried about writing the plane off completely and as a results, my confidence and skill levels improved exponentially.
It is also one of the first planes that I started using for testing. Not so much control surfaces and setups like I do now in partnership with Stephan, but testing different motors and power setups. It is what got me started with testing different options on park jets and along with Stephan's ideas got me thinking "outside the box" a lot more in my approach to building and flying. This has also opened up a lot of fun interesting building and flying that all started with the F18 V3.
Flying it alongside my latest variation of the Mig29 V4 was also a real testament to how far my building style has improved in the last year as well. I know it is comparing two different planes, but the extra care I took with sanding and shaping the Mig's leading and trailing edges and modifying the control surfaces make a huge difference in how the plane feels in the air. The Mig seems so smooth and fluid in the air where the F18 with limited sanding, shaping and the old "chisel" leading edge on the wing and elevons feels more sluggish and abrupt.
But hey, I had to start somewhere and I owe the F18 V3 a huge amount in what it taught me about building, flying and testing. Besides, I still have a huge smile on my face whenever I fly it, and this hobby is supposed to be fun, right?!
So my next build after I finish up my current FRC Su35 MK2 will be another F18. I was initially thinking of some crazy "morphed" version of the V3 and the V4, but decided after flying this V3 again to keep it a bit simpler. I will essentially build an F18 V4 with a few changes.
I will build a standard wing without the leading edge slat that the stock V4 has and I will use smaller elevons with the horizontal stab and elevon setup similar to the Mig29 V4. I might also move the motor mount back a little bit, and essentially the rest will be stock with a fairly "retro" (at least for my style of building) and simple paint scheme. More to follow in other posts as I get ready for that build, but sometimes simple is the best approach... :)
I shot some flight video to commemorate the 1 yr anniversary of this plane.
Will it still be around for a 2 yr anniversary? Well, only time will tell, I think I will still take her out for a spin on a nice day like you would with an old classic car, it is just so much fun to fly and nice to have a change of pace once in awhile... :)
Cheers,
Scott
Great job and congratulations on so many flights and nice repair jobs hehe. Do you know who is giving you the thumbs down On YouTube? I could only imagine it was due to the quality of video i couldn't get it above 480 so was hard to see the plane. If its not for that then i can only imagine who and if so boy some people need to grow up if so. I enjoyed it either way.
ReplyDeleteGreat job not taking a leg off or wing lol ;)
Hi Rob -
DeleteNot sure about the video, I processed it the same as the others, I need to go back and look at it and see if I can't do something about the quality. I am also looking at getting a new camera since this one does not work that well anymore, at least for the flight portions of my video.
Yes, this has definitely been a very durable and amazing plane for me, it just won't stop flying great and is still so much fun to fly even after all this time and all these flights... :)
Cheers,
Scott
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI need to take your lead and be a little kinder to my planes. They are lucky to see a "one month" anniversary. Good job. My bonks tend to be more like lawn darts. While I'm thinking about shortening the Mig, I have a set of plans printed for the F18. I may have to move it ahead of the Su-30. Then again, I may like the Mig-35v2 so much I start building another one as a backup for the inevitable crash!
Hoping to keep the blue skies above,
Stephan
Thanks, Stephan... :) I probably fly my planes like a bit of a grannie, so maybe that is why they last me so long... :/
DeleteMy initial plan for my F18 is to build a V4 with the following changes
- normal flat wing, no leading edge slats, that way I can also do KF4. I will measure it out, I think I'll go with about 45% KF, when I build the F18 V3M3e3, I used 50% and it was a bit "draggy", so maybe reducing those a little will still give me good stability and smoothness but a little less drag than 50%;
- I'm going to move the motor on the V4 back about 1/2", that way I hopefully can have the battery a little further forward to help with nose weight and high alpha stability and also have the wing spar ahead of the motor so I have more flexibility in opening up the prop slot behind the motor;
- elevons will be about 85% of stock and I will go with the horizontal stab setup like on the V4 Mig;
- I will measure the stock rudders once I have the plans out and see what sort of surface area we have, then adjust them to be at least as big as the rudders I have on the NAMCV2.
The F18 V4 is a bit long compared to the stock size ratio of the F18 E/F Super Hornet, maybe I will look at shortening it up just a bit in the back end as well, I'll have to see.
Other than that, I'm going to try out the stock ailerons on the F18 since I didn't really get a chance to assess them on my original F18 V4 as I really was hung up on that whole leading edge slat thing.
I understand the build priorities, you can never have too many Migs in the hangar... :)
Good luck and Godspeed to you and the new Mig on the maiden flight... :)
Cheers,
Scott
Scott,
DeleteI like your thinking on the mods. Maybe you can make a silk purse out of sow's ear.
Stephan
Thanks, Stephan, I'll do my best, be a bit of a change of pace. I'm excited to see what I can manage and how it performs. I'm pretty sure just getting rid of the "fronterons" will make it smoother and more stable right off the bat.
DeleteI hope to get started on it later this week, as I mentioned, weather forecast not good here for the next several days, so time to get the Su35 finished off then on to the F18, then maybe another Mig, been thinking a lot about our discussion of "shrinking" the length of the V4 to bring it closer to the Mig35 wingspan to length ratio. I think that will result in some pretty snappy aerobatics, but the proof is in the pudding... :)
Cheers,
Scott
The fronterons are nice when i first made it stock it flew great but after a few lawndart hits my nose was pretty messed up i would think if you put them on it wouldn't be hard to take off and trim leading edges. Look foward to your build.
ReplyDeleteRob
Hi Rob -
DeleteAt first I thought the stock F18 V4 was a good plane, but the more I flew it, the less I liked it. I just felt there was too much going on with that wing with the fronterons and I guess aesthetically I was not a big fan of how they looked either. Just my humble opinion.
I am so used to flying planes with KF4 airfoils that I found the F18 V4 with the fronterons to be more floaty than I like and when I did fly it in any kind of breeze I just felt that they negatively affected the way the plane handled as there were just too many angles going on there. I know that folks have had success getting it set up and flying properly, it just really was not for me.
In hindsight I suppose I could have taken them off, then reattached them to the front of the wing, but it would have been more work to then add what would have then been the missing part of the top KF, make another KF for the bottom to have KF4. With the plane already being built, it would have been a real job to make sure everything was straight and lined up on the leading edge and I would have ended up with a really thick wing using 6mm top and bottom for the KFs, just easier to start over, I already "recycled" that plane for the parts.
I think it will be a great plane with a standard wing making things less complicated with the build, more stable overall and a bit better in the wind. After doing some measuring, they did widen the back plate a bit so the vertical stabs are a bit further apart on the V4 than the V3 and I think they are not angled quite as much on the V4 giving it a little more stability in the back end.
Weather is looking wet and windy this week, so I should get lots of building done I hope, get the FRC Su35 finished off, edit and post my build video of that, then get started on my F18 V4 with NAMC mods.
Cheers,
Scott