After long long indoor season, finally summer and outdoor flying is here. I plan to visit many local and international F3A, F3K and F6A competition along with Clover Creek in USA and ITOC in Italy. However first one competition is already this weekend, and its first Lithuania F3A cup round in Panevezys, we expecting some guests from Latvia and Belarus. Here is my weapon for this competition;
When i visit 2009 year French F3P championship this spring, Mr. Jerome show me new Aito wooden prototype they were testing, from first time i saw this plane i knew i need to have it! Covering sheme and shape of wing just looks so gorgeous, but the best part is plane super light weight. Donuts models grow and get stronger and now make own wooden ARF's with same idea how they build indoor F3P planes, best and lightest materials are used for these planes! Aito was well known F3P biplane few year ago, when biplanes were still popular. Depron Aito won many international F3P competitions in Belgium and France. And now Donuts bring this plane back for outdoor flying. Here i present you Aito flying in last sunny autumn days in Vilnius.
Special thanks for video shooting to Aleksey and www.myresearch.lt !!!
Aito is good designed ARF, installation of servos and motor is real easy. All surfaces are connected together using CA glues and flexible hinges. Top wing is attached using two SFG'S and small fin on fuselage, total you will need ten 3 mm bolt, each aileron is controlled by one HD 2216MG servo, this small but powerful (3.9kg) and fast (0,09) servo can control two ailerons on each side with no problem. When all ten screws tighten you can fell plane have very solid construction, there is no need for X wires to reinforce wings. Two ailerons can be connected with each other using 2mm carbon rod ore tube.
Top wing is from one piece, and is very solid, bottom wing is from two pieces and is connected between on carbon tube.
Servos: Elevator and rudder Airtronic 94751, ailerons HD2216MG
Propeller: APC 14x7
Receiver: Jeti, Duplex R6.
RX powered from main 4s battery with Castle Creation 10 A Bec.
AXI 2826/12 have solid trust with 4s, and with 2450mah capacity i have about 8 minutes of hard 3 flight.
Standart size rudder servo is located in middle of fuselage and connected with pull pull cables to surface. Battery and RX location can reach by opening small covering plate on bottom of fuselage. Cockpit is glued in factory and there is no need to remove it during flying at field.
Instead of using separate battery for RX with linear BEC i decide to use switching BEC that was connected to main 4S battery. Using castle creation USB link you can program CC bec to give your RX from 4,8 to 9 volts. I set it for 6v, so all servos are used with best spec's they have. For ESC my selection was obvious, i select 45amp ESC from CC Phoenix series, i already use same ESC for 2,5 years is my Vanquish from Extreme Flight RC and had no problems a all.
Aito is designed as biplane, but as you see i flew it as monoplane as well, wings are not only super light 9 thanks to selected balsa and light film) but they are also build with good quality and with wise construction, so this mean they are also very strong. If you like faster rolls and more agile plane, then you can try your Aito as monoplane without much modifications, simply remove top wing and enjoy;)
New generation lypo battery from Flight Power, EONX show very solid trust and no bad signs after 46 flights, power is same from beginning, we will see how it will work in future. However i must say im really happy with flight power packs, i still have some 2500mah 4s packs from 2007 season that is still fly, not good for competition flying, but still enough for fooling around. And i notice some friends that buy cheap packs from China with famous "R" animal sign have good power in first flights but lypo "balloons" after 20 flights..;) So my understanding is better to invest and buy serious brand products.
Light weight tail, controlled by standart servo, however i still plan to make some changes and put this servo in middle of fuselage to reduce tail inertia, such size plane must have lighter tail in my opinion. Plane fly very fun and easy, of course don't expect pattern plane characteristics, its a 3D trainer. Each pilot have own style so i suggest everyone to spend some time and setup plane like he wan't. For knife edge flight you will need some mixes to make it fly perfect, also CH and battery location here is important. This plane make some usual 3d maneuver like harrier, knife edge spin, hovering very easy, and what even better some more advanced maneuvers plane make really impressive, for example popular snap to hover by Schulmann/Bruckmann (ore Snap-a-saurus how people say). Normally in this maneuver most difficult part is to keep same height after snap, because when plane climb up its not so impressive to watch, with Aito you can always exit to hover in same altitude where you start snap, and with some practice with throttle you can exit from this maneuver even lower!!!
Quite nice number on wing, as far as i know this is first prototype that reach France. Right now Donuts launch production and should have Aito in stock, so if you looking for different looking and flying plane, consider getting new Aito for Christmas!
I'm really happy to make this announcement, Donuts Models (top F3P plane manufacturer from France) release my two most successfully F3P planes, Sultimate V2 and Deluxe V3 as kits. It was really long way since my first electric flight with brushed motors and two channel planes, till today top F3P airframes. In these planes i put 5 years experience i gather in top competitions in Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium and Czech rep, together with Donuts models know how and new technologies in printing and kit cutting, i dare to say this is one of the best (if not the best) F3P kits available today.
Ignas Matulevicius and my models prepared for German F3P championship.
This is what i call mass production!
Sultimate V2:
Sultimate is my aeromusical plane for last 3 seasons, first debut for this plane was well known competition in France Carvin 2007, i won Aeromusicals class competition with this plane. Since then i made some changes and won many more top Europeans competitions, Donuts release version 2, with latest painting scheme and new fancy printing technique. Building Sultimate is real easy and fast, there is not much aerodynamic devices, only one thing i recomend to do for you is to use same amount of carbon that you see in pictures to have really rigid and long living plane. CG i use now is 95mm from leading edge of wing.
Kit content, all parts are cut with water CNC machine, material ussed for Donuts kits is not regular Depron, its is special made lighter and more flat, these two factors are reall important in F3P models!
My Aeromusicals;
New 2010 year routine.
2009 year routine.
2008 year routine.
Elevator instalation, hole in control arm is 8-9mm from reinforcement plate.
Motormount reinforcement, if you are beginner and tend to crash from time to time, use little bigger pieces. My favorite AM motor AXI 2203/RACE.
See how reinforced carbon joins with hardply triangle , this is also real important to have very powerfull and not flexible rudder.
Rudder servo mounted slightly higher than original cut by CCN machine. This allow you to use 45 degree support, that is VERY important to keep this part stronger.
Aileron throws, 10cm from horizontal fuselage.
Elevator throws.
Deluxe V3 F3P:
Deluxe is much more complex plane than Sultimate, it take some time and building skills to build it right. Next step is fine balancing of all aerodynamic devices and CG. At the moment i use two CPLR canard one on top second on bottom of fuselage, only one on top give small coupling in KE and plane tend to roll to landing gear. I suggest you use AXI 2203/52 with GWS 9x4.7 propeller, this is best setup i find for this plane, since nose is quite short and distance from stabilizer to wings is long (to increase stability) you need to move all equipment in front of the plane to have right CG. Right now center of gravity on Deluxe is 260mm from motor mount.
Box for battery, its much better to select battery you want to use, and build depron box for it, instead of using velcro. With light and fragile plane it does not make sense to use battery fixing method that require force for removing it.
CPLR canard, work well on indoor model and improove KE, rolling circles characterystics.
Second one, exacly in same distance from front as top T canard.
Throws of ailerons, 8cm.
Delux radio setup;
I don't think any F3P pilot did this, and share his all setup with customers and oponents, but i want to see happy flying pilots that bought my planes. So here you go little F3P pornography;)
Dual rates and expo for Deluxe. Ailerons are controled by one JR188 servo, two Dymond D47 for tail.
Thro curve.
Rudder to Aileron mix to eliminate tendention to roll out of knife edge flight.
Finally my old dream to fly big planes become reality, couple days ago i tested 110inch Extreme Flight RC ak 54. I plan to use this plane in EXFC and ITOC competitions.
Servos; Hitec 7955 all around except thr. two on each aileron two on rudder, and one for each elevator side.
Acessories; Kavan fuel tanks and main wheel, tower abd ball links from GR modelparts.
Wingspan; 2.75cm
Fuselage; 2.56cm
there is already ALLO of building reviews about this nice plane, so i since time pushing me i will not go to all small details of building. Besides here is not much building at all, its very similar to 50cc Yak. Here is very informative and interesting ak building thread by Mr Rober Vess. Here you can see comparison of different engines ;
Simply and soft Powerbox champion installation on rubber rings. Huge fuselage allow to place equipment where you want. As you can see i use quite big 1 liter Kavan fuel tank, to be safe and have good flying time, after 10 minutes flight i still have 1/3 fuel left.
8 powerful servos have impressive torque (24kg on 6V). However i use 7V from PB champion, it give very good felling of model and also speed increase, i know some pilots using these servos connected directly to 2s lypos, but to have constant performance during all flights i prefer to use 7v from powerbox unit. In any case we need to have in mind that these servos use about 4 amps on max loading! So if you use cheaper option, regulators on your plane be sure they can handle amps these servos need. From my experience i see i can make five 10min secure flights, using double 2500mah packs. After 5 flights i use about 1600mah from each battery pack.
To control such huge rudder i decide to use two powerful servos from Hitec, for 3D/Freestyle flying rudder is really important and to make new impressive maneuvers you need allot of deflection. To protect rudder servos from pull pull cables tension and get more deflection i decide to use really nice product call Tower from GR modelaprts. This detail is much lighter than full servo tray.
Such towers and more cool acessories are available from GR modelparts company from Brasil.
Jersey modeler 2.5gal fueling system work perfect for me already second season.
Ready steady go;)
Most of us heard that bigger planes fly better, well this is 100 percent true. Yak fly easier than my simulator and indoor planes. Plane is very stable and predictable in all rolling maneuvers, so far i made only 10 flights, and i see with some CG adjustments and small changes Yak will be 3D beast and perfect machine for freestyle competitions!
This project would not be possible without help and support of these companies;
I present you Sultimate V2, my 2008/2009 indoor season Aeromusical plane. Last year plane was very successful design and bring me many victories in international competitions!
Questions; what can be updated on already good plane?
Answers;
1.Increase control surface area is not a bad idea;) 2.Making plane slightly bigger for better appearance in air. 3.Searching for better equipment.
And here we have Sultimate V2;
New scheme.
Technical info;
Fuselage lenght: 90cm
Wings lenght: 83cm
RTF weight: 140-160g, (depending on equipment), plane in picture weight is 149g rtf.
Radio: Jr 9V2 Gold, RX: AR6300 (~2g).
Servos: Hitec 65hb on elevator, D47 rudder D47S on ailerons both Dymonds connected to 2s lypo. Best place to buy these servos at Aerobertics.be
Bottom of plane, you can see two D47S servos on ailerons.
Bigger plane need more powerfull engine, Axi2203/Race handle job really well.
In last 4 years i flew with Vytas CD-R motors, unfortunately we lost stator suplier, and further motor production is under big question. Other stators we test don't give even close results that we expect. So i had to find more powerfull silent motor ASAP, since first serious F3P competitions waiting for me already in next month. Some of my RC friends, like Benoit Dierickx, Gernot Bruckmann, fly with Axi motors with great success, so i decide to try it as well. New Axi 2203/Race was beyond my expectations, very well build, motor have really good trust and at same time don't make to much noise, that is very important for Aeromusical. In video bellow you can see what i have in mind, actually i set only 85 percents thr curve on my TX, since i don't need so much power for my Aeromusical routines!
Motor Specification
No. of cells
2 Li-Poly
RPM/V
2300 RMP/V
Max. efficiency
74%
Max. efficiency current
3 - 7,5 A (>69%)
No load current / 8 V
0,55 A
Current capacity
9 A/20 s
Internal Resistance
220 mohm
Dimensions (diameter. x lenght)
27,7x21 mm
Shaft diameter
carbon 3 mm
Weight with cables
18,5 g
So im happy to announce that affter possitive testing Model motors aka AXI , become my sponsors, im really happy to start work with them. In any case i will use Axi motor for Aeromusical planes, and for pattern planes i still be ussing good light and reliable Vytas bruschless.
Best and most powerfull indoor lypo packs from Flight power.
Better than 1000 words is one video, so enjoy;
This time we test something different , video was captured with fish eye lense, special thanks for Aleksei from MyResearch.
