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Topics - selleri

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1
Scale / 1/8 DC-4 maiden flight
« on: August 15, 2016, 02:07:57 AM »
DC-4 radio controled model drawn and built by Birgir Sigurðsson in 1/8 scale, decked out in the livery of Geysir, TF-RVC, operated by The Icelandic Airlines Loftleiðir.
This project has been going on for quite some time now and I was lucky enough to play a small part in it. 
Wingspan 450 cm, length 350 cm, height 100 cm, 4x OS 33 engines, 2x Futaba 3ch RX and a Powerbox do all the fun radio stuff(my part).
Brakes on main wheels, nose stearing and retracting of the nose gear is all done with hydraulics, main gear is retracted with air.

Maiden flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P02fmgbemII

Older video with ground runs and pictures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpQY5b4wjGk


















 












2
Slope Soaring / Sloping Denmark F3F Eurotour and World Cup 2016
« on: June 15, 2016, 15:38:01 PM »
Although a bit more competitive than the usual slope soaring we do I decided to post a little about my experience from taking part in a F3F meeting last month. The Sloping Denmark F3F Eurotour & World Cup on the 27. – 29. of May 2016 in Hanstholm, Denmark so here are few pictures and my travel story. I've also submitted a report for the next issue of RCSD (July 2016) that is shorter and focuses on the competition.

Last year I decided I wanted to participate in an F3F competition this year. Both to get the feel for competition on a foreign soil but first and foremost to get much needed competition practice for the WC that will be held at the same location this fall as Iceland will be sending a team for the first time in more than a decade. Guess who's one of the pilots!   :-X

The registration opened 11:00 GMT on Sunday 10th of January and the 45 slots available were gone in just over three minutes with a waiting list forming up. As you can probably guess from the preceding lines I managed to register for one of those 45 slots so now I needed to start preparing for the trip! Building a box for the glider, make a list of things I'd need to bring etc. Luckily I didn't need to re-invent the wheel and could talk to guys who had gone before me to compete abroad and that made things a bit easier for me.

Contestants came from Germany, Denmark, Norway, UK, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland, France and of course Iceland!

Picture: Benthe Nielsen

Wednesday 25th of May I boarded my flight to Copenhagen with a full suitcase and one "coffin" for the glider. After staying one night in the suburbs of Copenhagen I picked up the rental car, brand new X-Trail, costing €74 over four days, must have been an upgrade as I booked an Escort station but I didn't see any reason to complain!   ;)

After an hour on the road, a catamaran ferry crossing, at about triple speed compared to the car ferries back home, and couple more hours on the road I got to Hanstholm on Jutland. Checked in at the camping place, found my cabin and then I drove to the hill that had been announced as Friday's meeting point. There I meet a group of five Dutchmen that were practising for the contest. I took some pictures and then I assembled my glider but as the wind seemed to have gone early to bed I didn't throw it into the wild blue yonder that evening.

The hill as seen from the beach.


Dutchmen flying.


It was quite obvious when I stepped out on Friday morning that a serious lack of wind was progressing but with clear blue skies and the sun shining it was a bit strange to be worried over the weather! The meeting started at 9:00 with registration and handing over of sporting licenses for starting numbers and at 10:00 the first briefing of the day was held. The wind still hadn't as much as shown itself at the hill but the weather office had predicted that we'd have the wind pick up shortly after noon so we were hopeful for some flights later that day. To kill time many pilots brought out lighter planes and had some fun while we waited for the wind to pick up. Just after 12 the wind had picked up sufficiently(4-5 m/s) to start and at 12:30 we had the first start of the day.

Registration


Pilot briefing, Jan Hansen will also be the contest director at the upcoming WC this fall.


Maybe we should consider Alula class for those windless days?


Knud Hebsgaard throwing my plane, he seemed to enjoy it a bit too much if you ask me!   ;D


I cannot deny that the my heart took a few extra beats as I stood on the hills edge and it didn't calm down when I snapped out of one of the turns during my working time. With boat load of talents(ed: sheer luck) I managed to recover it and resume my flight. The aerobatic show had cost me a lot in time and the first round was flown at 99.04s while the fastest time was 58.83s.

Making nice-ish time in 12 m/s on Saturday.


Second round was slightly better and I managed a 80.81s while the slowest time was 90.93s. In the third round I repeated my aerobatic show but ran out of luck and talent at the same time so I made an unannounced stop on the hill and broke the tail boom behind the wing. I had lot of offers for help and materials from a long removed(1000 years or so) Norwegian cousin, Espen Torp, but luckily I had come prepared. As I didn't see me making the repairs on the hill before the day was over I headed back to the cabin to start the repairs. My German neighbours returned around 20 and told me I had missed rounds 3 and 4 and we'd be moving to a different hill the next day.

No wonder some had two or three planes ready to fly!


Early on Saturday morning it was obvious that lack of wind would not be the concern for us as it was already blowing 6 m/s at 7:00 in the morning with the forecast predicting more wind as the day progressed. While driving to the new meeting point I got a call from Espen telling me the meeting point had been moved back to the previous days hill so a quick 180° and I soon was back at the hill. Pilot briefing was held at 9:00 and we were told that the next contestant would be sent off as soon as the previous contestant had finished his lap and not after landing in order to speed things up a bit and squeeze in a few extra rounds.

Kaj Henning Nielsen with a run of 42.96 seconds.


Fifth round was okay and I managed to fly a 67.62s while the fastest was 44.94s. On the approach I found a violent rotor and made less than an optimal arrival to terra firma breaking the plane near the previous repair. With the whole day ahead of me I drove quickly back to the cabin, no worries it was only 2 km so the speed limit was observed, and set to glue the fuselage back together with the addition of braces for further support. Things progressed rather quickly, maybe the practice from last nights gluing session, and when I returned I had only lost one round of flying. I decided to drop the next round too so the epoxy could have more time to cure properly. It wasn't as I was expecting to compete for a place in the top three anyway!   ;)

The braces raised quite a few eyebrows.


Rounds 8, 9 & 10 resulted in 69.22s, 68.24s and 63.21s while the fastest times were around 41s. At that point I was starting to feel the effect of having close to 1.5 kg less ballast available in my glider when the wind was blowing 12-14 m/s and 30-40° on to the slope so I couldn't keep my speed up. It didn't help that due to my lack experiences I wasn't comfortable with flying to close to the hill in the optimal lift. That night the contestants went to Vorupør and dined at Vesterhavscaféen and had a good time, not too good though as we still had some competition left to fly!

Norwegians getting ready to start.


Same hill was used on Sunday as the days before and after a 9:00 briefing we started again in calmer conditions but the wind soon picked up as we got closer to noon. Rounds 11, 12, 13 & 14 were flown with these times, best time in brackets: 68,54s(48,53s), 65,15s(46,15s), 59,64s(41,87s) og 60,27s(39,28s fastest time at the competition). We didn't see many accidents and only one glider suffered badly enough to not be repairable during the meeting but a spare plane kept that contestant flying. Two pilots suffered a penalty for missing a gate, additionally one of them also went behind the safety line and the third one "attacked" the anemometer(see video below).

After the event I'm left with new experience, good advice from world class pilots and lot of new gliding friends.

You can see more pictures here.

Common sight during the meeting.


Lars Pedersen on the bbq!


Heading into the gate.


Larger version of the panorama.


Few action shoots. Lars Pedersen.


Simon Thornton.


Leszek Durczak.


Fred we need to get the YouTube tag up and running, I've been using "Yet_Another_YouTube_BBCode_v3.9" with good results on my end. 


Timelapse of a flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9KthqcwcdI

Starting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moU_3ZVI7kI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iccXfDO8CpY

The anemometer lost this fight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmTACa0AlPk

Few clips of flights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So8L4bOSb5A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnNJfhZUtYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LlOQr8h1l0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1YzKOL1Z3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnfwob5kGDs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6NmtmpRTvo

3
Went on a road trip today to check out viable flying spots along a part of the old highway #1 that got redunant when we made a small hole under the ocean.
Lot of nice places there that will be flown at a later date when the wind is blowing at them but as luck would have it we managed to check out a place we've
had our eyes on for some time now and the wind was blowing in the right direction for that site!

Suffice to say the conditions there are terrific with a nice large farmland for landing.

We'll undoubtedly be back with something larger!   :?:









 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/icckmi0C8Tw[/youtube]

4
Finally got the right wind to test out a mountain about an 90 minutes drive from home.
It actually has grass on the top side and a drivable path up the side.
So who knows maybe a certain Ka3 or a Straton might end up flying there in a not too distant future!

No sound of wind this time, just for you Keith!  :wink:









[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/7mzAqj58cx4[/youtube]

5
Thermal / Flat field / Straton from Staufenbiel
« on: July 30, 2015, 16:27:24 PM »
Being part of a small community of modellers and even smaller one gliding wise I've spent some time thinking how I can best satisfy the need for some large scale gliding/thermaling from the ground up so when I saw Staufenbiel introduce the Straton earler this year my interest was peeked.

Granted there wasn't much information available at first, no inflight video and only the unboxing video from Staufenbiel at first. Then they announced 10% discount off it during a modelling show in Germany early in March so here was the chance to get a 5 meter powered glider with everything bar the ESC and Rx for €719 delivered free to Denmark where I could pick it up and bring it home as an extra suitcase next time I flew over. Did I mention that the fuselage is in two parts and the wing breaks down to four parts, making the box much more maneuverable and cost effective in shipping!

Just under a week later the first flying video appeared on YouTube and I knew I had not made a bad call. Guess I wasn't the only one that got excited at that video as the PNP version sold out in few days after the release of it. When the Straton got back in stock the price had gone up by €60 but still a great value for what you get. You can also get an ARF version for €599 vs the €859 for the PNP version.

Wingspan: 500 cm
Length: 225 cm
Weight: 8,4 kg
Engine: 310 kV
Wingarea: 165 dm2
Profile: HQ/W-2,5/12 + HQ/W-2,5/11 + HQ/W-3/10,5

The Straton comes double boxed and had survived the transport Germany - Denmark - Iceland without damage. Only thing wrong was a small patch of paint had chipped off one of the wing tips but it was glued back in and is hardly noticeable. The wings are Styrofoam core skinned with abachi and covered with Oracover. MPX multilocks keep the wing secured during flight and a MPX connector gets the wires from the wing to the fuselage, the ailerons use a locking servo plug. The six included Dymond D7550 metal geared servos seem up to the job and feel pretty solid. A solid steel joiner runs through the fuselage with solid carbon tubes connecting the outer halfs. The fuselage molding is clean and neatly done and with sanding of the gelcoat the fuselage halfs join up neatly. Check the tail-boom/tail for stiffness and make some arrangements if you feel it is too soft. There was some flex around my servo box so I added some spacers around it to box up the inside if the vertical tail and adding some strength to it.

Well packaged and boxed.






Dolly for the assembly of the fuselage.


Add some glue to the joint.


And make sure it's straight!


The first kits were supplied with a Aeronaut Cam prop that isn't up to the RPM's and were replaced by Staufenbiels own product.


Impressive size for an electric motor when you are used to the 13" and 14" sizes.


22x10 prop.


The wing comes in four parts, divided at the aileron/flaps and flaps/fuselage.


The flaps could have a nice career as barn doors!


Here the fuselage is seen with 33% DG800 and Ka3.


Staufenbiel wants you to use Z bends with the included linkage but I found some of the to be too brittle and besides I like my links to be solid above certain sizes.


So I replaced the included rods for 3mm threaded rods with clevis on both ends adding a carbon tube over the elevator linkage due to its length.


I made a small shelf for the Rx mostly to get it above the carbon strengthening that is around the mid of the fuselage.


No work needed on the motor besides securing the wires.


I'll be using separate batteries for the Rx as I like to have a bit of redundancy in my larger planes. Two LiFe packs will power the Rx through a Powerbox switch and the 85A Dymond ESC with XT90 connector can be seen under the cockpit floor.


As the battery I'm using(6S 5800 mah) is lighter than the recommended 7000 mah one I needed to make a ballast for the nose. Film put in the bottom of the nose with some steel sand and epoxy pored in and left to dry. Later fastened with silicone so it can be removed if I acquire a heavier battery at a later date.


I needed to make a dolly for the takeoff so IKEA came to the rescue with the EKORRE children walking aid supplying the majority of components. Staufenbiel later introduced their own dolly.


Due to the large size of the prop we need some serious ground clearance.



6
Slope Soaring / RcRCM Strega and eStrega
« on: July 17, 2015, 14:28:53 PM »
Decided to purchase an F3F plane from RcRCM last fall with extra fuselage for electric motor.
The build quality is nice though it's not as good as from the major European F3F makers but then again you pay almost double the money for those birds.

F3F fuselage and the eStrega electric fuselage.


Guess one likes her pies more.


Servos going into the wings, cling wrap keeps the glue from making them a permanent fixture of the wing.


Material removed from the clevis to get full movement.


All set up.


Securing the plug with a bit of heat shrink.

7
Slope Soaring / Busy week
« on: June 28, 2015, 01:20:25 AM »
:D

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/b6IdN-WV0O8[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/S9bMOiYnGtw[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/TPJ_1fhMFL4[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/daycsRbCjrY[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/Pe3n4pRN3N0[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/wZxsE0tpJ58[/youtube]

8
Scale / Pilot-RC 33% Bergfalke II/55
« on: June 16, 2015, 02:46:56 AM »
Good mate of mine recently bought the Pilot-RC 33% Bergfalke II/55 and after a short time spent installing the servos and Powerbox it was ready for its maiden flight.
Nice design as usual from Tony, great flier and looks good in the air.




















[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/EZPysIfuaPg[/youtube]

9
Slope Soaring / Stapinn
« on: April 01, 2015, 02:54:25 AM »
Finally everything clicked, good weather, plenty of daylight, work done for the day.
Lot of other slope-worthy chaps seemed to be working late but I didn't let that stop me from getting few shots on the camera. Enjoy!   :)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/e1VOnCeKh8A[/youtube]

 





Nr.1 on the map, about 10 minutes from the international airport.

10
Slope Soaring / Stargazer, RC Model Flyer, issue 100, March 2008
« on: February 24, 2015, 03:21:41 AM »
I was hoping someone might have the 100 issue of RC Model Flyer, March 2008,
and if so there is an article about the Stargazer 2 I'm trying to find electronic copy off for a friend.


11
Slope Soaring / 1973 F3F/F3B Nordic Championship in Denmark
« on: February 16, 2015, 20:10:52 PM »
Video taken at the combined 1973 F3F/F3B Nordic Championship held in Hanstholm, Denmark.

Ottar Stensbøl from Norway won the F3F and Knut Lund from Norway won the F3B.
This is before the days of electric winches so we have highstart runners bringing the gliders up in the air.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/c-rhN0z_oIE[/youtube]

12
Slope Soaring / 1979 F3F Nordic Championship in Iceland
« on: February 05, 2015, 01:21:07 AM »
I recently got my hands on some older slope videos and thought you'd like to have a look at one.
It's been 35 years, well 36 this summer, and there you can also see the first electric model that flew in Iceland, at 1:13, owned by a Norwegian competitor.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/6vIn6z0-MKI[/youtube]

13
Scale / New 4.7m ASW20 from Hangar 9
« on: January 09, 2015, 04:41:47 AM »
Had a soft spot for ASW's since my travels last spring!  :wink:
Not sure about the t-tail though...  

http://www.horizonhobby.de/hangar9-asw20.html
http://www.horizonhobby.com/asw-20-47m-arf-%282-boxes%29-p-han4955


14
Slope Soaring / Mini Graphite from Vladimir Models
« on: November 23, 2014, 02:08:51 AM »
Before going on my "Euro-tour" this spring I made arrangements to aquire a Mini Graphite from Vladimir Models via FVK in Germany. Couple of the flying mates over here have them and talk highly about them and as I like to "cheat" getting an electric version was a plus.  :wink:

Although designed and put on the market ~10 years ago neither the design or material layup is outdated. Carbon and kevlar in the right places and minimal amount of paint giving a very light airframe. The wing uses the well tested MH32 profile and has flaps for some added fun. As it was designed as a pure glider space is a bit tight with the electric setup. The battery takes up much of the space in the narrow fuselage though it wouldn't be bad on its own but I'm using a seperate Rx pack so that takes up some room that would otherwise be free.

The maiden went well and no surprises, it's very agile and a pleasure to fly. It can move and move fast it does but with full butterfly it slows right down and descends vertically. Bring on a good slope day!

Strange as it may be there isn't much online about the MG, build or fly, for a plane that handles this well I'm a bit puzzled about that!









One of my mates flying his MG on these videos

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/6YqIURnUTZA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/el-b_Ydvtc4[/youtube]

15
Scale / 1960-1964 gliding
« on: October 22, 2014, 19:34:22 PM »
Few Icelandic moments from gliding back in the 1960-1964 timeframe. No Minimoa(it was rotting away :cry:  ) but some Ka 4.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/afRkjXmjiqk[/youtube]

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