New NAMC blog location

Hi everyone -

Just wanted to make sure everyone knew that we have been continuing our NAMC blog on our new website here http://www.migsrus.com/blog

We will continue to regularly monitor this old blog and you can access this blog from the link above, simply click on the button "old blog".

We already have several posts about our newly released NAMC Mig-35.  It is easier for you to comment or ask questions on the new Blog, you don't require a Google account, any e-mail address will work, so we hope that folks will participate even more in our learning process.

We urge you to check it out and browse around the new website http://www.migsrus.com/ , we are very proud of how it is shaping up... :)

Cheers,

Scott

New NAMC Mig35 now available through our new website!

Hi everyone -

We are very excited to announce that the NAMC Mig35 is available for sale now, we encourage you to check it out http://www.migsrus.com/planes.html.  You can also download a free PDF file that gives you a detailed background on how we got to this amazing plane over a 9 month journey of research and testing.  This background document will give you a great foundation of the effort that went into this great plane as you build and fly it.

Here is a bit of intro video I shot yesterday.

This will be one of the lasts posts on this old blog, although it will be kept active and can be linked to from our new website http://www.migsrus.com/  We have a blog feature on the new website where we will be posting all our future blog articles http://www.migsrus.com/blog  It should be easier for you to leave comments on the new blog as it does not require a google account to post comments.

The website is still under construction, but we are filling in the blanks almost as fast as our new Mig35 is on 4S... :)

For all those folks who have participated and followed us faithfully, we hope that you will continue to follow us through the new website and give the amazing new NAMC Mig35 a try.  If you are looking for a high performance sports car among park jets, we are supremely confident the NAMC Mig35 will not only meet but exceed those expectations.

Cheers,

Scott

NAMC Mig35 coming to skies near you very soon!

Hi everyone -

For those who have been following our blog as of late, Stephan and I have been leaving a few "Easter eggs" or hints about a prototype plane that we have been working on in consultation with RCPowers.  We have been given approval to release this plane for sale and will be doing so in the very near future as we finalize details with RCPowers.

We are very proud and excited to announce that in the coming weeks we will have this amazing new plane, the NAMC Mig35 available for purchase.  Here are a few "teaser" pics of some of our finished planes.

The Mig35 has been the culmination of 9 months of work between Stephan and I starting with modifying the RCPowers Mig29V3/V4 until we reached this stage.  Along the way, between us we have built approximately a dozen different prototypes and logged 1000+ test flights.

We like to think of this plane as the "Ferrari of park jets".  Every inch of this plane has been analyzed and designed to make it the quickest, most nimble plane we could design for those pilots like us who just want to push the limits and rip up the skies with the ultimate scale, aerobatic park jet.  We are fully confident that we have achieved that goal and hope that others will find the same when we release it for sale within the next few weeks.

It will be $12.95 USD, available on our website www.migsrus.com (which will be under construction shortly).  If you have built and flown any of the RCPowers V3/V4 planes, the construction is very much the same and you can get in the air quickly and really start pushing your limits and the plane's.

Dave Powers has flown this plane and agrees with us there is nothing else out there like it for guys really wanting to push the limits of speed, agility and aerobatics with detailed scale looks and serious attention to detail of the science behind making this plane perform the way it does.

So please stay tuned to this blog in coming days as we release some more info, pictures and video of this amazing Mig35.  For a little light reading while you wait for the NAMC Mig35 to be available for sale, here is a background document that will give you in depth information on the development of this incredible park jet.

Cheers,

Stephan and Scott

stephan@migsrus.com

scott@migsrus.com

Building with Foam Cure - more lessons learned

Hi everyone -

I have just completed another build of a prototype plane that Stephan and I have been working on, this time using Foam Cure in all the places I used to use Foam Tac.  I had written another article previously here about some lessons learned with a build where I used both Foam Cure and Foam Tac http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2015/02/building-with-foam-cure-lessons-learned.html  In this link, you can also find a link to purchase Foam Cure from Hobby King and I also found it available in North America from Heads Up RC in the event that Hobby King is sold out http://www.headsuphobby.com/Flexible-Foam-Glue_c276.htm  At this link, you can compare the vast difference in cost between Foam Cure and Foam Tac as well, pretty significant.

Call me superstitious, I still used 5 minute epoxy on the control horns and motor mount, it has never let me down in those critical areas, and I didn't want to tempt fate.  I used Foam Cure to make the drywall tape hinges, reinforce the back of score lines (with the drywall tape as the hinge material), install the carbon fiber reinforcements and all other areas of the plane.  The difference in finished weight of the airframe (before installation of electronics and paint) is again 3 gr/0.1 oz heavier than a Foam Tac only build, but the construction overall is much stronger and cleaner, so I am OK with an extra 3 grams.

I pick my planes up by the nose quite a bit when moving them around and the first thing I noticed with this plane after the Foam Cure had fully set over night was that there was no flex in any of the joints/score lines.  With Foam Tac, I always found the nose joints to be flexible, almost like the nose was going to flex apart or break in my hand.

All the glue joints just feel stronger and more solid, leading me to believe there will be much less overall flex in the air frame when flying.  Too much flex in an air frame is energy for speed and maneuvers being wasted in the plane and not in the maneuver in my experience.  If you think of it in the extreme, a lot of EPP planes flex so much that in a tight roll for example, the tail can flex greatly in rolls, looking like it is playing "catch up" with the rest of the plane.  For this plane I just built which is a high performance, aerobatic park jet, I want the energy going into the maneuver, not the flexing of the plane.

Another nice thing I noticed this time and with the last build I did where I used Foam Cure for hinging is that once the glue spread over large areas is cured, it is not sticky.  Foam Tac remains somewhat sticky even after it is cured, meaning often on hinge areas it will pick up bits of dust and other work bench debris and as I mentioned in a comment to the link above, Foam Tac does not take paint as well as Foam Cure.

More on the point I made in the link above about hinging for areas other than control surface hinges.  As you can see in this picture looking from the back of the nacelle, I used a 1" wide strip of the fiberglass drywall tape attached with Foam Cure to strengthen the back of the score line on this 90 degree joint.

After spreading the glue evenly on the drywall tape, I let it set up for about a half hour, then cracked the score lines and it worked like a charm, there was no resistance or problems with the drywall tape lifting off as I mentioned in the link above.

Again, I am very impressed with how strong this glue sets up, it doesn't melt the foam, dries essentially the same weight as the same amount of Foam Tac, does not remain sticky after curing, can be cut, shaved, sanded to remove excess and allow me to finish my plane the way I like.  Of course it is also much, much cheaper and more readily available around the world than Foam Tac, so Foam Cure is definitely my main glue of choice from this point forward.

Cheers,

Scott

Polar Moment of Inertia (PMI), Center of Mass (COM), Vertical Cg & Wing Loading

This weekend I got caught up on making videos.  With the "ultimate" Mig completed I've turned my intellectual curiosity over to my Mig-FA project.  In designing version 3 (Mig-FAv3) I worked on maximizing PMI, COM, and vertical Cg.  Additionally our newest member Dave is embarking on a lab setup to test wing loading and carbon reinforcement.  I took some on board video to document wing flex.

If you're bored and want to hear a "TED" style lecture check out the videos.  If you are a foamie park jet enthusiast and you are curious about the "ultimate" Mig, there are some "Easter Egg" clues in the video on PMI.

stephan@migsrus.com

YouTube Videos

Polar Moment of Inertia

Center of Mass (Vertical Cg) Video

Wing Loading

On EBay I selling some prototype airplanes and left over glue

Prototype Planes for Sale

Foam Tac Glue for sale

Building with Foam Cure - lessons learned

Hi everyone -

For those that have read other articles here, you know that I have been using Foam Tac glue by Beacon adhesives http://www.beaconadhesives.com/all/hardware/foam-tac/ for over a year now. It is a good product, but quite expensive. The Beacon website lists it at $11.99 USD, although most vendors sell it for around $9.99 for a 2 oz bottle. I have found this allows me to build 2-2.5 planes depending on my usage.

Recently Stephan wrote an article on our blog about a product available at Hobby King called Foam Cure http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=40936

After reading about Stephan's experiences and the low cost, $1 an oz versus $5 an oz, I had to give it a try on my most recent build. I did build this plane with some Foam Tac, but the main usage was Foam Cure. So I just wanted to pass along some lessons learned and feedback from using Foam Cure on this build.

I found Foam Cure easier to use than Foam Tac when trying to lay a bead down between two pieces.  It’s viscosity and make up allowed for a much smoother, more uniform bead.  Foam Tac because of it's elasticity does not always form a smooth bead, especially if the glue has been around awhile.

I found Foam Cure stayed relatively flexible during the first 24 hrs after application, then after 48 hrs became quite stiff, almost like epoxy which is good and bad depending on the application, but now that I am armed with a little experience using Foam Cure, it is an easy work around.  What I learned for hinges and where being used to reinforce the back of a score line along with drywall tape is to let it set up for a couple hours, then work the hinges several times just to sort of “crack” that seam along the hinge or the scoreline.  Once I did that, the hinge stayed flexible while the rest of the glue hardened almost like epoxy.  

This is how I learned this lesson. I used Foam Cure and some strips of drywall tape to reinforce the score lines on the inside of my nacelles and didn’t flex the hinge for a few days and when I did, it was difficult to “crack” the hinge and some of the drywall tape lifted up at the ends of the scoreline, so in future as I said, I will let it set up for a couple hours, then work the hinge several times and life should be good.  Because it is so much cheaper than Foam Tac, I wasn’t worried about “scrimping” on the amount of glue I put on my hinges and other applications, so I confident my hinges are well attached.  Of course only some punishment at the field will prove that theory.  

It is interesting that the Hobby King website says this FOAM-CURE™ does not, however, cure flexible enough to act as a hinge for aircraft control surfaces.  If I was using the glue alone to try and make a hinge, then I would have to agree, it would dry too stiff to be used as a good hinge on it's own. I think in this situation because I am using the drywall tape as the hinge and just attaching it with Foam Cure, it will work just fine.  As I said, from my experiences, as long as I crack the seam a couple hours after applying it to a hinge is stays flexible enough to make very good hinges.

I found because it does not melt the foam like Foam Tac does, that if I needed to lay a bit extra in a spot to hold something, or fill a small gap, I wasn't worried about it deteriorating the foam.  What I have found with Foam Tac is if too much gets put in one spot, it will melt and weaken the foam, turning it almost to a crystalline consistency.  

Once dry, I found Foam Cure is essentially the same weight as Foam Tac, as long as I don't apply it too heavily. This plane I just built is identical to another prototype plane Stephan and I are working on that I just completed using all Foam Tac and the difference between the two is only 3 grams (the second plane with Foam Cure being the heavier one). In my view, 3 grams can be attributed to me getting a little "glue happy" more than anything, I think the glues weigh about the same when dry.

When it comes time to finish and sand the plane, it can be carved/sliced easily with a nice sharp razor blade and then sanded whereas Foam Tac cannot be cut cleanly and in fact will grab the knife blade and I have found myself pulling glue out of the seam where I have put it, even a few days after application.  There is a bit of resistance when initially sanding Foam Cure, but with time and patience, it can be sanded down just like filler, so any excess glue can be easily removed when finishing the plane.  With Foam Tac it “pills” up, cannot be sanded and can get ripped out of the seam if sanded too hard.

If you are going to sand Foam Cure, I would recommend letting it dry for the minimum recommended 12 hours or even longer just to ensure you get the finish you want.

I did find the fumes from Foam Cure a little stronger than with Foam Tac, so when applying a lot of it like when making hinges, it helped to have the window open for a little ventilation.

So overall, I am very happy with the Foam Cure thus far, more to follow as it gets put through it’s paces at the field to determine long term durability.  I will still do a couple builds with Foam Tac and Foam Cure together until my supply of Foam Tac is used up. As long as the plane holds up well at the field, I will be switching to Foam Cure exclusively for it’s ease of use, availability from Hobby King and most of all it’s price, approx $1 per oz of Foam Cure compared to $5 per oz of Foam Tac.

More to follow as I put it through it's paces at the field.

EDIT: Since writing this first article, I have written two more articles which you might find useful if you are considering using Foam Cure glue.

http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2015/02/building-with-foam-cure-more-lessons.html

http://www.migsrus.com/blog/initial-foam-cure-durability-results

The durability results post is on our new website, you can post questions and comments there without needing a google account.

Cheers,

Scott