Hobbico NexStar

Hi All,

My son (age 8) and I have been flying a NexStar since the spring. We have a great club in the area with multiple AMA instructors.

The NexStar is configured with all the add-ons (speed brakes and wing tip extensions). We never used the AFS - my son and I had been flying the RealFlight Lite simulator for a while, and didn't like feel of AFS on the NexStar simulator. I was also a bit paranoid about varying light conditions at our field. We mostly fly in the evenings.

Although the NexStar was close to flight ready after assembly, the club instructors helped make a number of control throw changes (the elevator needed much more throw) and balance the plane. We also quickly discarded the fuel mix limiter knob, and had help adjusting the low end mix. These "tweaks" took place over a few weeks of flying and breaking in. As far as our instructors were concerned, these were all completely typical adjustments and to be expected of any airplane.

All the instructors believe the NexStar is a great first trainer. It has all the desireable flight characteristics of a trainer - slow stable flight, good lift, a little "mushy" to dampen out overcorrections, etc. If you want to learn on a plane with aerobatic performance, this isn't for you.

As others have mentioned, there are a few issues to watch out for:

1. Check tightness of ALL pre-installed hardware. We've had two other NexStars show up at our field with different parts loose out of the box.

1. The snap-in gear is fussy, check it all the time. You might need to file off some of the paint around the holes (as per the instructions). Poking the spring mechanisms from the top with a long screwdriver also helps (as per newsgroup/website comments).

2. Install an exhaust deflector. We had fuel wick into the landing gear slot (right side). A rough bounce broke up the ply plate under the gear, and while repairing the damage I found plenty of fuel soaked ply and balsa. I can't pin the blame on the fuel, but it certainly couldn't have helped.

1. Another hard landing caused damage to the gear assembly again (no fuel soaking this time). IMHO (*NOT AN EXPERT*) the ply plate doesn't have enough give before reaching the breaking point. It also is weakened by the two access holes drilled to release the gear. I've replaced the ply with a same sized plate cut from a nylon sheet (approximately the same thickness). The nylon has plenty of flex and is probably stronger. We've had a number of landings on it so far - and so far so good. My biggest concern is that the nylon will flex to the point where the gear isn't held in against the spring mechanism. We still check the gear all the time.

Finally, the bottom line is that the NexStar is a great beginner's plane. Read the instructions. Browse the newsgroups and web discussion boards. Get experienced help inspecting, trimming, adjusting and flying the plane. It is going to be a slow, stable, floater - just like a trainer should be.

--Jay

Well put response. After all, these planes, no matter which brand or model all are TRAINERS. Their mission is to help you learn...about flying, about setting up, about saftey, about fixing , about tuning, about trimming, about repairing and recovering, about protecting the structure from fuel leaks and stresss of landings and about the things you are going to want in your next plane and the one after that and the two after that one and the ones after those two... Enjoy it all and the thrills and frustrations of a great hobby. Andy

We can make a box of wood.....FLY!!

Mr. Robinson, The manual doesn't really say anything that I wouldn't expect. It say it was 'optimized' to fly with them on. Sorry, no airplane i 'optimized' to fly with the flaps down. It may be 'trimmed' to fl with them on, but you probably should be trimming the airplane throug the whole flight anyway. I mean, that -is- what the trim is for.

And, as I said, in the simulation, I don't like the way the airplan descends to the ground. It's just way too fast for my taste. I woul prefer to fly the 'longer' approach.

My two cents. We'll see what happens when I put the airplane in th air.

Gar

-- GaryMC

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Hi Gary,

RTV was going to be my next solution if the deflector didn't do a good enough job. I was told by some folks that deflectors don't work well and that they never stay on. I found the simple DuBro deflector to be a major improvent over no deflector, and have fastened it to to muffler with CA and tie wraps (after cleaning the muffler with rubbing alcohol first).

I still clean the gear between flights, just to be sure.

I fly off of a fairly small grass field. Flying a standard pattern, crosswind, downwind and base legs are all above trees.

I had to ask for repair advice the first time I broke the gear assembly. The very helpful instructor pulled out a knife and did some "surgery" right at the field to give me an idea of what needed to be done.

Best of luck!

--Jay

I used a small hose clamp to hold mine on, and so far so good

David

I found the simple DuBro deflector to be a major improvent over

The deflector has a couple of ribs on the area that goes over the muffler outlet. I use a small piece of copper wire and loop it around between 2 of the ribs and then loosen the muffler lock nut and continue the end of the copper wire around the muffler bolt. Then retighten the lock nut clamping the wire in place. . Arne, USA . .

A couple of plastic wire ties cinched up tight has always worked for me. Of course, I don't use deflectors much since the extra back pressure may make the engine run hot. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

Isn't that just a matter of readjusting the mixture control to make i run a little richer? And, on top of that, with such a short piece o tubing, is it really going to make that much of a difference in th first place?

Gar

-- GaryM

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Well, the wings finally arrived today...or, at least parts of them! :

When I contacted Hobbico tech support, I was told to remove the cente core rib, and ship the wings and the metal spar. I did. When I go the wings back today, the forward attachments for the stall control an the connections for the ailerons weren't included. :(

So, I guess I'm going to have to wait for those, too! That may b another week.

Well, actually, it won't be. I'm going to the hobby store in a fe minutes to buy the aileron attachments and then I'll just wait unti the stall devices arrive and if I've been flying and don't feel I nee them, I probably won't put them on.

Maybe, -MAYBE- by this weekend, I'll actually be in the air!

Gar

-- GaryMC

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What a disaster!

So, the wings come back, thankfully. The aileron horns aren't attached, as I said previously, but I went and bought some, and attached them.

Now, this wing has a 'center core rib', a piece of plastic in the center of the wing that both wing sections screw into, and a metal spar for support. When I sent the wing back, I was told to remove the Center Core rib, which I did. When the new wings arrived today, they had another center core rib on them, so now I have two. Not a big deal, I'll just transfer the servo from one to the other.

Now the Center Core Rib doesn't match up with the airplane! Take the new rib off, put the old one back on, shove, push, and grunt, and finally get the wings into that one, and finally, after what should have been a five minute process, hours later, I have the wing where it will finally connect to the airplane. An hour or so after that, I have the ailerons lined up and trimmed (boy, were they out!) and surprisingly, the airplane balances!

HOORAY!!!

Now, all I need is for the club training supervisor to call me/e-mail me/mail me and let me know who my trainer is going to be, and I can GO FLYING!

Gary

Hi All,

An update on my previous post about landing gear:

My son is now learning how to land. Last night he had a somewhat bouncy landing and wouldn't you know, the gear assembly broke *again*. This time my nylon plate flexed enough to cause balsa damage. If it had been the original ply plate, it certainly would have split.

I've now replaced the factory gear with gear from Klett Plastics. It has better flex than the aluminum gear, and is one piece. I can give more details on the modification if anyone is interested - but you might want to wait until its been tested a bit more...

I "bounce tested" the gear in my basement, taxiied the plane around our bumpy grass field w/o wings, and did a number of take-offs and gentle landings. The real test will be when either my son or myself put the plane down hard!

A side note: Remember to double check all hardware on brand new NexStars before flying. We had one show up at the field with a loose engine mount and an unglued elevator.

--Jay

Jay, For future reference, if I have the same sort of issues, I wouldn't mind seeing what you're working on for the replacement landing gear.

Pictures, drawings, etc., all would be useful to me. I've purchased the exhaust deflector, and covered over the two holes on the bottom of the plane with Monokote, but I haven't done anything around where the gear extends from inside.

Thanks in advance,

Gary

The plane wasn't designed to SPLAT into the ground that hard. What you shouldn't be doing is reinforcing the beejeezus out of everything. All you're going to do is cause the next weakest part to break, as you've already found out.

If something is unreasonably weak, then reinforce it reasonably. Don't make it bulletproof, or you'll be sorry on the next hard landing. Eventually the plane will be bulletproof, but it'll be too heavy to fly.

Good advice for ANY airplane.

Hi Mathew,

You're exactly right! However, I would think a trainer would be designed to withstand a few tough landings.

I really think the NexStar's aluminum gear doesn't have enough spring to it. Combined with its two piece design, each gear arm acts as a lever and transfers almost all the forces to the plywood plate.

For example, if you compare the NexStar's gear (aluminum stock) with an Avistar (wire), you'll see the NexStar's gear has very little give, and as such, transfers the forces to the next piece of the plane (the plywood plate). The Avistar gear has plenty of give, and people will complain that over time the wire doesn't hold the plane up high enough ;-)

When I replaced the plywood plate with a nylon one, it wasn't meant to be stronger but to be able to provide little more flex than the plywood. It was held in by the same size triangle stock as the plywood, and it was the triangle stock that broke on our last landing. So, yes, in this case, the next weakest part broke.

Great advice - thanks! One of the guys at our field told me the same thing when I was talking over different fixes.

I installed the replacement gear using four #5 x 3/4" wood screws, screwing into the NexStar's original plastic landing gear plate. I did not replace the balsa sheeting under the gear. Instead, I covered any exposed wood with monokote (to keep any fuel out). What I hope is:

1. The replacement gear has much more give, and should absorb mild bounces better than the original aluminum gear.
2. If we have a nasty landing, the #5 screws are small enough that they will pull out of the plastic plate before any real damage occurs to the plane.
3. Without the balsa sheeting to hide the gear hardware, I can keep an eye on how things are holding up.

Any constructive criticism on these assumptions is more than welcome! - especially from anyone with more airplane experience and has seen the NexStar's gear set-up. I certainly could be out-to-lunch here...

Thanks, Jay

It certainly should! The Nextstar is a poor design in several areas, IMO.

Another fix for the gear is this. Replace the wire gear with aluminum gear of the proper size. Drill 4 holes in it at the corners to accomodate 10-32 screws. Install a 1/4" plywood plate in the bottom of the fuselage, the size of the sheet aluminum gear. Drill and tap it for 10-32 bolts. Use thin CA to soak the tapped holes. Clean them out with another run of the tap. Use nylon bolts to attach the landing gear. Now, on a hard landing, the bolts will shear and won't tear up anything, 'cept maybe bend the gear a little. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

FIRST FLIGHT!!!

IT WORKS!

Okay, here are the details. The airplane, because of the wings not fitting, is not equipped wit the leading edge devices. So, no extra lift there in case of a stall The Speed Flaps aren't installed, and the AFS is turned OFF.

The OS .46FXi started right up, and runs nicely. We're using a riche mixture for the first gallon of fuel to go through it, but I gues that's normal for breakin periods. I was surprised how quiet the engin was at a little over half throttle. It has an 11x5 prop on it. Due t the concern of the landing gear, I've been checking it, and after tw flights, while cleaning the airplane, I found one of the gear legs n longer properly seated. I played with it and finally got it seated Since the instructor did both of the landings and takeoffs, thi concerns me greatly. I too, think that the gear in this airplane i going to have to be rebuilt. I was thinking something along the line of what DR1 said, build a plate into the bottom of the plane, and bol the landing gear to it with nylon bolts. I probably will, later on cut out the bottom of the airplane around the gear, and form a ne landing gear support box, and bolt the gear into place. Then, I'l screw the 'cover' over the gear box and bolts.

My instructor didn't have the correct trainer cord, so we only had m radio to use. Not too much of an issue, he did the take offs an landings, and I flew in rectangles, right and left, back and forth ove the field. Ya wanna know something? That was just fine by me! I wasn' too sure I was ready for anything else. Maybe next time we'll have cord we can use, and I can do the T/Os and landings.

My instructor feels there is a warp in the wing, because it won't tri out correctly. He's also very disappointed in the roll rate, and sai the control arm that's on the aileron servo doesn't provide enough rol rate to get you out of trouble in you get into a situation. Therefore he recommended that I install a straight control arm, which I di tonight. I may need to run new control linkages and brass clevises i place of what's on there. However, it is a very sweet flyer, in m opinion. What it'll be like this weekend with the new control arm, don't know. If need be, I'll put the old arm back on, and reset th linkages.

I do have an exhaust diverter on the airplane, but there is still a lo of fuel around the right side landing gear, but we'll deal with that Maybe a little RTV to close the hole up some. I agree that the landin gear is a simple design, but I'm thinking a poor one, too. I'l probably write Hobbico a letter, and tell them what I think. This ma be the 'Ulimate Trainer' but it needs to get some of the bugs worke out of it first.

As to loose screws and stuff, I found enough while I was assembling th airplane, and tightened all of the. We found that the elevator didn' give near enough throw, so the instructor suggested moving th connection on the servo arm out one spot, and moving the connection o the elevator down to the bottom hole. This seems to give us bette control authority in pitch. The throttle control was binding at ful power, so he asked me to change the control location on the carb, an use the bottom hole, and I set up the servo connection so there is n more binding.

Other than that, I think I'm going to be happy with the airplane, but for $100 less I could have gotten the Hobbico SuperStar or Hanger Extra Easy, both which also would have fulfilled my needs, and then could have bought the Lite version of Real Flight with the differenc in cost.

Gar

-- GaryMC

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Well, I wrote Hobbico a nice long 'product improvement' letter. We'll see if it does any good, although honestly, I doubt it. Do hobby companies actually listen to their customers?

Gary