RCP Mig-29 V1M build and maiden complete

Hi everyone -

I finished up my Mig-29 V1M build late yesterday and managed to get it out to the field today for a good "thrashing" (14 flights in total) ;).  Snapped a few pics of the finished plane before paint.

For some reason, I ended up a little heavier than I forecast, with 2200 battery I am at 510 gr/18 oz.  

You can go back through previous posts to find the details on all the mods, but essentially as a quick recap since it will relate to my flight report findings, here are the mods I made

• added KF4 airfoils made of paperless dollar store foam, 41% of chord at the root, 35% of chord at the tip, leading edge symmetrically shaped and sanded;
• added ailerons;
• scaled down the height of the vertical stabs and added rudders, I also angled the vertical stabs out 3 degrees each to create a "wedge" for greater stability in the back end; and
• scaled down the size of the elevons and created a fixed horizontal stabilizer rather than the elevon balancers on the stock plans.

Power/control setup 

• Gear Best 2212/5T 2700 Kv motor with 6x4 APC prop;
• Turnigy Plush 40A ESC;
• Zippy Flightmax 2200 3S 40C discharge battery;
• two 9 gram RC Timer nylon gear servos for the elevons;
• two 5 gram RC Timer nylon gear servos for the ailerons;
• two 5 gram RC Timer nylon gear servos for the rudders; 
• the elevon and aileron servos each have their own channel, rudder servos connected with a Y harness so that I could use the lighter smaller 6 channel receiver compatible with my Turnigy 9x transmitter (with er9x upgrade).

I started off balanced on the stock CG from the plans, in this picture you can see three blue "+", the furthest on the left is the stock CG, I ended up 1" ahead of that as indicated with the hex driver.

This is where my 2200 battery ended up to give me that neutral balance point.

For some reason I seem to remember my battery being in the same place with my previous Mig-29 V1s, but I was still balanced on the stock CG...or was I?  Long ago and my old brain probably doesn't remember exactly.  Anyway, this is the setup that seems to give me the best neutral balance when I do the arc test and inverted flight.

I put the battery right on the centreline of the plane for best performance, fortunately I only needed about 1 click of right trim to counter torque roll and no trim in the pitch or yaw, sometimes you just get lucky :)

Before I go further into discussing how I felt the mods worked out, here are what I ended up with as final throws to allow me to fly scale and have a bit of "emergency" throw in the pitch for "object avoidance" :)

• elevons 5/8" one way (1 and 1/4" total) in the pitch, 7/8" one way (1 and 3/4" total in the roll;
• ailerons 3/8" one way (3/4" total); and 
• rudders 5/8" one way, (1 and 1/4" total)

I am flying with 15% expo in the pitch and roll and 25% expo in the yaw.

Affects of the mods

KF4

Almost right away I could feel the added stability and "locked in" feeling provided by the KF4 airfoils, everything the plane did just seemed smoother and even more direct in it's tracking, very pleased with that change.

Ailerons

I know this plane would be fine without ailerons, but since I like to fly all my planes with them, I did notice better balance in turns and rolls having the ailerons rather than just all the control surface deflection coming from the rear with the elevons.  Again, perhaps personal preference, but I found them to be a good addition.

Vert stabs/rudders

This is probably a combination of the reduced size of the elevons and vert stabs/rudders, but I did feel less drag as I was flying.  I will admit, I probably went "overkill" on the rudder size, if I was to do it again, I would probably cut them down by almost 50%.  Even with the small amount of throw I have and expo, rudder input has to be very smooth and subtle or it will cause the plane to "snap rudder roll" which looks cool, but not too scale and would be less than ideal if I was low level, so more work to tune those in as I explore slow flight and high alpha.

Reduced elevons/horizontal stabs

I have been a big fan of this setup ever since trying it on the stock RCP Mig-29 V4, I like the extra stability it brings to the back end of the plane.  I had actually forgotten how responsive the Mig-29 V1 was in the pitch.  I initially maidened it with 1" of deflection (2" total) in the pitch and after scaring myself executing a loop when I thought I was just climbing, I toned that down immediately to find more ideal scale response in the pitch.

Overall impressions

I have always been a big fan of the RCP Mig-29 V1, it has been a very important plane in my development as a park jet pilot and right away it brought back fond memories of how much fun it is to fly.  However, since my flying style and skills have changed over time, I look for a plane that is balanced yet responsive and allows me to continue working on my scale flying skills.  

Obviously it still has some profile characteristics as with all those flat surfaces in the "fuselage" it can get bounced kinda funny by the wind sometimes and with the nose being a flat part of the wing plate it does tend to float and not maintain it's momentum like a score and fold park jet.  Having said all that, I found the mods I added helped the plane fly and feel much closer to a score and fold plane than I have ever experienced before with a profile park jet.  It was a lot of fun to see how a few simple changes made such a difference to the flight experience.

Time to put some paint on her and look forward to lots of ripping up the skies with the RCP Mig-29 V1!

Cheers,

Scott