A day for maidens

Had a good day at the club today. Maidened three of my new 3D printed planes.

First off the rank was the Caracara.

The first flight wasn’t perfect, as it seemed tail heavy, and/or wanted to pitch up quite a bit. Over the next few flights I got the plane dialled in nicely. This involved putting the battery in the forward section of the plane, rather than at the rear, and tweaking the angle of attack of the wings (the initial battery position was guided by the CG described on the Thingiverse entry). Once balanced properly, this is a really nice small glider to fly. Hand launches are very easy, as are the landings. Upper air flying is excellent, although the rolls seem a bit different to what I’m used to with the full moving wings. It flies really well fast and slow, and is very agile.

I found the recommended throws to be a bit small, so increased these to improve the agility of the plane.

Here’s a summary of the set up I have for the Caracara:

• Park 250 2200KV motor
• 5.7X3 APC prop
• 12A Turnigh Plush ESC
• GH-S37A (3.7g) servos
• 370 or 460mAh 3S Nanotech battery (both worked well)
• AUW 255g
• CG 30mm from LE (this is quite a bit forward of the CG recommended on the Thingiverse entry), but worked well for me

It is a quick plane to print, so will definitely be printing another soon.

Next was the Eclipson Graywing.

The first flight went well, other than the launch. The plane dipped quite a bit before climbing, but thankfully I managed to keep it flying. Once up, it was quite nice to fly, and looks awesome in the air. I had the elevon reflex set at about 4mm.

Power-off gliding was excellent, and landing was quite easy.

The second launch was not so great. A similar thing happened with the dip in height, but this time it clipped the grass and broke off one of the winglets. It should be easy to print another and replace the broken one. For this launch, I had increased the elevon reflex a little. Not sure, but this may have contributed to the problem with the launch.

Next time I’ll try bungee launching. I’m very hopeful this will make launching a breeze (as I’ve found with other planes when comparing hand launching to bungee lauching).

Here’s a summary of the set up I have for the Graywing:

• 2205 2300KV motor
• 6×4 prop
• 30A ESC
• TowerPro SG90 (9g) servos
• 1300mAh 3S Nanotech battery
• AUW 625g
• CG on printed mark

I’ll hopefully have this plane repaired soon, as I’m really looking forward to flying it again.

Last to go was the Hyperhawk

What an awesome flier!

Launched with a bungee launcher, and right from the start I knew this was a keeper. Fast flight is excellent, and it also flies well slow. It’s agile and very stable. Tried to stall the plane, and it showed no evidence of tip stalling. It glides a long way, and was very easy to land.

The only problem I had was breaking the motor mount on landing. The prop clipped the ground which broke the motor mount and pulled the motor clean out of the plane. An easy fix. Next time I’ll use a folding prop.

Here’s a summary of the set up I have for the Hyperhawk:

• Sunnysky 2212- 6/2450KV (II) motor
• 6x4APC prop
• 50A HobbyKing ESC
• TowerPro SG90 (9g) servo for elevator
• Turnigy TGY-1601A (6g) servos for ailerons
• 1500mAh 3S Nanotech battery
• AUW 870g
• CG a few mm forward of the printed mark

Can’t wait to fly this plane again. And the best thing of all…..being able to print another one!