RCP Mig29 V4 NAMCV3 Dialed in

Hi everyone -

Another great day of testing and "dialing in" at the field yesterday.

I had my oldest plane, the RCP F18 V3 out to field test another motor, the YUSHOP66 2212/6 2700 Kv motor from a vendor on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/321227178111  You can read more about this motor and the test results both at the field and on the bench here http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2014/11/yushop66-a22126s-2700-kv-park-jet-motor.html

It was a good day to do some final "dialing in" on my RCP Mig29 V4 NAMCV3 (which I will call the V3 for the rest of this post for simplicity's sake).  I had a myriad of conditions from dead calm to the odd bit of swirling wind up to about 10 mph.

This plane handles amazing in the wind.  Of course it is about 15% heavier than the other Migs that I fly which does help, but the wind had almost no impact whatsoever on it's handling and stability.  I was very impressed, no wobbles, tail wagging, just solid and true tracking through the wind, especially in turns.

I managed as well to better assess it's slow speed handling and high alpha performance.  Normally I have had real challenges getting planes with the NTM Prop Drive setup to stay consistently stable in high alpha.  The bigger heavier motor and extra torque roll affect of this setup can make high alpha a bit more of a challenge for me than with lighter setups.  This plane is very stable in high alpha, although it is more susceptible to wanting to pull left due to prop wash and torque roll.  There is some very detailed information in this post http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2014/08/mig29-v4m3e3-hi-alpha-testing.html about prop wash, prop torque and P factor and their impact on a plane's high alpha performance.

Probably due to the volume of air and the aggressive bite inherent with the 6x4 APC prop compared to the 6x3 EMP prop, in order to fly in a straight line with a high AOA (angle of attack), constant right rudder input is required, otherwise the nose will just continue to drift left.

I also found that because the center of mass on this plane is so much closer to the center of gravity and it is a larger quantity of mass (3.2 oz more than most of my Migs), rudder response is much greater, so I softened up the rudder with more expo and also really focussed on keeping rudder input as smooth as possible.

So again, this was very interesting to me as normal rule of thumb from previous experience was that for good high alpha stability on most planes, the largest percentage of mass (the battery) needed to be fairly far forward of CG for good stability in high alpha.  This plane with it's centers of mass, gravity and thrust all being much closer together seems to go against that theory.

Granted, the battery is ahead of the CG, but when I compare it to my F18 V3 with which I have flown considerable high alpha, the battery on this Mig is much closer to the CG than on the F18 and remains very stable.  I won't get into another round of measurements as I have in previous posts, suffice to say that other than the increased effects of prop wash and more sensitive rudder, this plane does high alpha very well even with a heavy, higher torque motor like the NTM Prop Drive.

As I have written in a previous post when I did a fly off between the NAMCV2 and V3 http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2014/10/rcp-mig29-v4-namcv2-and-v3-flyoff.html, the V3 requires less control input to generate the same rate of roll, pitch and yaw.

So now that I have 41 flights on the V3 and have it dialed in where I like it, I got out the ruler and did some comparison.  I will only compare the throws on the ailerons and elevons, I keep the throws at 100% on the rudders on all my planes just because due to phenomena discussed in the link above about high alpha testing, I like to have maximum throws on my rudders.

I will express my settings in inches of travel rather than percentage of throws for the ailerons and elevons as your servos and transmitter are probably different than mine.  I have also posted the travel for my NAMCV2 Mig for comparison purposes.  I should caveat that I prefer to fly my planes a bit more scale, so keep my throws fairly low as I don't need my planes to tumble loop or do rifle bullet type rolls.  I do however like to have a bit of extra "emergency throw" in the elevator to help avoid sudden impact with immovable objects... :/

NAMCV2

Elevator travel -  2.5" in each direction for a total of 5" travel.

 Aileron travel - 5/8" in each direction for a total of 1 and 1/4" travel.

Spoileron deflection for high alpha - 5/8".

NAMCV3

Elevator travel - 2" in each direction for a total of 4" travel.

Aileron travel - 1/2" in each direction for a total of 1" travel.

Spoileron deflection for high alpha - 1/2".

So I am very pleased with these settings and the results when compared to the V2.  By having much better balance with the V3 and the centers of mass, thrust and gravity so much closer together, I get the same handling performance with 25% less control surface travel.  So why is this important to me?  Well as I have said many times throughout all of the experiments that Stephan and I have done in downsizing control surfaces from stock, smaller surfaces travelling less distance make for a much smoother flying and more stable and precise plane.  

With the laws of physics working much harder in our favor, it means the surfaces don't have to work as hard.  Anytime I can have less deflection on a control surface to do the same job I will take it as it means less drag and therefore less turbulence.  This makes the control surfaces perform more efficiently and makes for a smoother and "quieter" flying plane from a standpoint of stability.

So I continue to be very excited by how well this latest NAMC version of the Mig flies.  Stephan hopefully should have his built and flying shortly, so I'm very excited to hear what he thinks and what his findings are.  It is through repeatable results and thorough, consistent testing that we have found the best information and validation of our modifications.

In a previous post I mentioned I was thinking of going back to the lighter Focal Price setup on this plane, but I have decided to "man up" and keep this big motor in this plane as it pushes my skills a little harder than the lighter setup.  Instead I will build another Mig (big surprise there...hello, my name is Scott and I am a Migaholic... :/) with a lighter setup, less reinforcement, etc.  I will probably wait until after Stephan has built and tested his in the event there might be other mods we could test/try, but I have a feeling that although the work is never done, this V3 is the culmination of a lot of great ideas and testing that we have worked towards over the last six months since this plane was released, so I'm not sure what else could be done.

Cheers,

Scott