As a result of a Parenting Saga* I now have a nifty Dumas kit for a Tiger Moth, with a 17-1/2" wingspan.
The kit is intended for rubber power, so everything is light. I haven't decided whether I want to build it as a rubber powered free flight and be happy with 45 second flights, if I want to put my old Telco CO2 motor in it (assuming it still works) and be happy with a slightly underpowered plane, or if I want to go mini-RC.
I'm assuming that if I go RC I want to use one of the actuator-based radios, but I know from experience that the oh-so-disappointing "Piloto" isn't going to be a good donor plane. for a system, so I'll actually have to (horrors!) -- spend money.
I know that there are radios out there that'll work with this, but I don't know what's the best combination to use.
So has anyone here done this? What's the cool combination? Does one go with servos, or actuators, for this size plane? Any gotchas that I should know? What weight should I be aiming for, when I'm converting a
Geez, I haven't heard of anyone contemplating the use of actuators in many a year.
I would think that with all of the super micro R/C servos in abundance, that that would be the logical way to go. I'm not up to date on electric propulsion and micro servos, but I could swear that I saw Hobby King selling some 3 gram servos for about $3.00 a piece on their site just this week. Try
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They should be right there on the front page.
The problem with a model that small is its susceptibility to the wind, I would imagine.
#2 son, 11, lives and breaths video games. I don't. Playing a video game (or, for that matter, watching TV), generally makes me think of things I could be building with the time that I'm wasting. I can generally stand playing one for a few minutes, then it gets to be less enjoyable than digging ditches (lots less: when you dig a ditch, you can look back and see progress; with video games...).
So two years ago the kid bought me a game for the Nintendo DS, which I never touched. This year I find out that he's headed for Game Crazy to get me a gift. He had already tried to get a pedometer accessory for the DS for my wife, so I knew what was coming. I headed that one off, and he was reasonably cheerful about it in a "grownups are weird" sort of way.
I ask my wife to intervene (Please no video games. Please no DS games. Please no DS-based gizmos. Please no video game accessories, etc.) She has the discussion with him (how often does dad play video games? Compare and contrast this with how often dad is in his shop building planes! Note that Dad mentioned that he'd never bring himself to buy one of these nifty laser-cut kits, but he drools over them regularly, etc.)
I don't know how high the general tone of the conversation was, but I do know that I ended up with a model kit, and not some bit of electronic kit that I'll never use. And I made sure that knows that I like it. So hopefully he's one step closer to understanding that you don't get a gift for someone so you can use it (which he was doing at 8), you don't get a gift for someone because once you force them to use it they'll like it (which is probably payback for all the broccoli), no, you get a gift for someone because you've observed they're behavior and you know _they'll_ like it.
I suppose I should make a point to build it soon, come to think of it, so he can see it done and I can thank him again. Hmm. There's a slot coming up that was going to get filled with a Martian Invader from Mechanix Illustrated, but I guess parenting comes first...
So, that's the story. Not much amazement, just the homey avoidance of getting a game that I'd chew glass to avoid playing.
#1 son got me a very nice set of slippers, which I'm known to like, as my last set was just about disintegrating on my feet. Not to say that at 11 he wouldn't have thought it perfectly reasonable to get me video games, too, then insist that I play them.
On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:49:10 -0600, Tim Wescott wrote in :
Thanks for filling in the blanks!
I've spent hours and hours this last week playing a Wii fishing game with my best RC friend.
It's keeping him away from building. Me, I keep myself away from that by force of habit nowadays (one of my New Year's wishes is to clean up my workshop and reverse course on that score).
But I hope to go "fishing" over at Dan's tomorrow anyway. :-O
That's WAY bigger than anything that uses actuators. (I'm sure there are exceptions, but they're mostly used for micro RC these days, under 10" profile planes) Considering both wings, you'll have a decent total wing area. You'll probably want something in the range of 5-7G servos and a
10-15G brushless outrunner, or an equivalent geared inrunner. Do a search on the RCGroups forums. Most of the Dumas kits have been converted to RC
Thanks -- the actuator-based stuff did look too small.
I'm still trying to decide if I want to put RC in it at all -- I'd have an easier time of it except that my one CO2 motor is a bit small for the plane.
It is funny how the meaning of common words drift over time. Anyone remember the Ace Hobbies pulse proportional actuators? That's what I was talking about.
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