speed 400 wing race

I want to enter a race with a wing/400 brushed setup. What would be the best route. Buy a setup (no transmitter/rx/servos) or buy just the unfinished wing and work it over to make it lighter and maybe modify it to make it more manouverable. What mods could I make to increase the rpm and or duration of the motor. Fixed at 48 inches, speed 400, no lithium batteries and use a zagi style prop(?). I dont like to carry dead weight. Should i go for a built up wing. This plane will only hve to last for length of the race. Is it conceivable that I could link the elevator with the ailerons and get away with one servo. Only up elevator. To come down back off the throttle.

thanks Jim

Reply to
jim breeyear
Loading thread data ...

| I want to enter a race with a wing/400 brushed setup. What would be the | best route. Buy a setup (no transmitter/rx/servos) or buy just the | unfinished wing and work it over to make it lighter and maybe modify it | to make it more manouverable.

More maneuverable usually means slower, as you get a thicker airfoil. It's all a matter of tradoffs. Pylon racers are not that maneuverable, but they're fast ...

| What mods could I make to increase the rpm and or duration of the | motor.

Get a better speed 400 motor than the stock $10 one that Zagi sells. Beyond that, more cells in the battery will give you more power.

As for duration, most races don't last long. Do you really care about duration? Any energy left in your battery at the end of the race is energy wasted.

| Fixed at 48 inches, speed 400, no lithium batteries and use a zagi | style prop(?).

Are those the only limitations? Then you probably want 10 cells and the best speed 400 motor you can get, one of the cobalt magnet ones would probably be good. You can get speed 400 sized brushless motors, but I'm guessing they're not allowed.

This sort of motor is what I'm thinking of --

formatting link
though even better brushed speed 400 motors do exist. Perhaps the PMX4011 from
formatting link
?

Sub-C batteries are better than the 5/4 A cells that are often used, but they're bigger, so you'll need to modify the plane a bit for them. But they'll give you a lot more amps for the motor ...

Are you limited to only one motor? :)

There's an old `zagi style' prop that was made of floppy plastic. It worked OK with the stock motor, but when you gave it more power it flopped around too much. But Trick R/C doesn't even seem to sell them anymore (good riddance!) so I guess I don't know what `zagi style' means.

These are what I'm thinking of --

formatting link
and they're not very good. If you're forced to use these, I don't know if using a better motor will even be worth it.

| I dont like to carry dead weight. Should i go for a built up wing.

You could, and it would probably fly a bit better, but it'll be a lot more work to make and a _lot_ more fragile.

The usual charm of the foamie flying wing is it's durability. Do you really want to give that up for a potential tiny edge in a race?

I'd suggest a foam wing, with lots of carbon fiber for rigidity.

Ultimately, you'll want a small wing and the best power plant you can have, so it'll probably be a lead sled unless the course is very short and so you'll need to do lots of tight turns.

| This plane will only hve to last for length of the race.

Really? You'll never test fly it before the race, never practice?

How much money and time do you want to throw at this race? Do you want to have fun, or is winning the most important thing? If you've never done this before, I'd suggest going more for fun, and just take a mostly stock XE2 but with a better motor.

| Is it conceivable that I could link the elevator with the ailerons | and get away with one servo. Only up elevator. To come down back off | the throttle.

You won't do yourself any favors by trying to get by with only one servo. Do you really want a plane that flies like the original Firebird? Pylon racers use the elevator a lot, especially in the turns. Get two servos and use elevon mixing like everybody else.

If you've never done a flying wing before, I'd suggest your standard

48" foam flying wing kit. Cover it with ultracote rather than packing tape. Get servos with metal gears -- HS-81MG servos work nicely.

Get something where the batteries are buried in the wing rather than in a canopy -- something like the Combat Wings XE2. If you really want a racer rather than a fun plane, once you're done you'll probably want to cut the tips of the wing down and make the wingspan smaller once you've gotten the best battery and motor you can get -- making it smaller will make it faster and less maneuverable, but I really don't suggest doing that until you've got more experience with the plane.

It won't speed your plane up much, but it'll look a lot neater if you put the servo rods in the wing rather than on top. To do that, you have the servo arms going down into the wing rather than up out of it, and have the control rod going through the foam rather than above it.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

Jim - The 48 inch span and Speed 400 can motor is the basic Zagi formula. Any approach to going faster than the Zagi would have to start with decreasing the frontal area, hence drag. A thinner wing, with all the electronics and battery buried within it is the way to go. This is the formula behind some of the Zagi competitors, like the Wing Warrior models. The ESlayer is probably the quickest 48" wing in that lineup, when limited to Speed 400 power. The 50" Lightning has been flown much faster, near 140 mph, but that's with a hot 25 mm Mega brushless and 6000 mah worth of LiPo's. You could clip the wing to 48" but with

5 CF spars adding to the weight and the thin airfoil, I have doubts it could even fly with Speed 400 power. Whatever airframe, do use the reverse-timed Zagi motor. It's too cheap for you to consider having to retime the motor yourself. Can't see any good reason to try some scheme with one servo. The weight of a HS 81 or 85 just isn't that significant. You'll need to mess with elevon reflex and balance to maximize speed anyway. The reflexed elevons add drag, and the way to reduce the reflex needed is to move the CG aft. Control gets more sensitive when you do this, so you have to feel out your own limits on how twitchy a model you can deal with vs the speed gained by reducing the drag due to control surface deflection to a minimum. Sounds like a fun fun event!

Abel

Reply to
Abel Pranger

Jim,

Before entering the race grab a note pad and pen and go to a few races and find out who the consistent winners are. Take some notes on the type airframe and motor setup they are running. If you find that brand "A" or maybe brand "A" or "B" are consistent, then consider those choices. You could get "chummy" with them and I am sure....like most serious racers are....they will help you out, BUT they will not tell you there "little secrets" that put them in front. That you will have to learn on your own. Also Jim, if you are serious about winning then you need to have your mind focused when you race. Weather the event is for fun or if it is serious, your "fun meter" must be set to near zero and your " competition meter" set at 125% if you want to win. Its about thinking mathotical and having mental disipline. And whats very important you must learn to be a good loser in order to be a good winner later on.

Good luck Mike

Reply to
Mike

Well Doug, alot of "tiny edges" add up to "one big edge" which seperates the winners from losers. Weather you race full scale or model, car, boat ,plane...having an edge.....no matter how small.... or edges over the competition can give you what you need to get first to the checkered.

Mike

Reply to
Mike

| Doug McLaren wrote: | > In article , | > jim breeyear wrote: | >

| > | I dont like to carry dead weight. Should i go for a built up wing. | >

| > You could, and it would probably fly a bit better, but it'll be a lot | > more work to make and a _lot_ more fragile. | >

| > The usual charm of the foamie flying wing is it's durability. Do you | > really want to give that up for a potential tiny edge in a race? | >

| Well Doug, alot of "tiny edges" add up to "one big edge" which | seperates the winners from losers. Weather you race full scale or | model, car, boat ,plane...having an edge.....no matter how | small.... or edges over the competition can give you what you need | to get first to the checkered.

Yes, but I've never heard of a really `serious' flying wing race. It sounds like it's basically a fun-fly, limited to mostly entry level equipment so that everybody can afford to compete, probably with planes that most of the participants already own.

It also doesn't sound like Jim has flown flying wings much. If so, lots of practice before the race will give him a much bigger edge than anything that having a built up wing vs. a foamie will -- and it's not even clear that a built up wing will be better than a foamie wing with an appropriate amount of carbon fiber. And to eek out the best possible times will mean turning very close to the pylons (I assume that it's a pylon race, though that's just a guess) and accidents will happen while you're practicing. A foamie will probably just bounce off the pylons with little or no damage done. A built up plane, on the other hand ...

But practicing is best done with the actual plane you intend to fly, so it would be nice if it could survive those crashes.

Of course, I'm guessing about a lot of things.

Of course, even with a fun fly it's easy to get caught up in the moment and push your plane too hard. A few weeks ago our local club had a fun fly and the even was `Musical planes', where the last plane to land and take off was removed when the music stopped. Repeat until there's only one plane left ...

Well, it's normally the event that tears planes up, and I knew that, but I entered telling myself it's mostly luck anyways and I'd be careful and wouldn't break my plane. But it was down to just two people, me and another guy, and the music stopped and I tried a downwind landing in the grass. Bad idea -- I must have hit a hole or something because even though I didn't really hit hard, my landing gear broke off, then the firewall and engine broke off, and between the two they tore up the wing and horizontal stabilizer. Pretty amazing how much damage it did, actually. All repairable, but I should have known better :)

(On the bright side, I did win the limbo contest, so I got a $25 gift certificate which should pay for the bits needed to make the repairs.)

Two years ago, I entered my Zagi into that contest. No landing gear, but I put a foam block on the bottom of the plane. Rather than land, I'd smack it into the ground at a 30-40 degree angle and `bounce' it back into the air. It was funny as hell, and I'd have won if I hadn't accidently done it at an angle and not flipped. The next year, they stopped allowing electrics. I thought about replacing the electric motor with an 0.061 or 0.10 engine so I could do the same thing again, but decided it wasn't worth it just to win (and possibly make people mad for taking advantage of the rules.)

Fun flys are supposed to be fun. I guess making a plane _designed_ to win the contest may be fun for some, but I'm not sure it's really fair to the others. But that's up to you ...

Reply to
Doug McLaren

Many many thanks to the responders of my post. This is a local club "FUN" event. Probably turn out to be very funny. It could end up being a weekend thing ,. I dont know. It is my first time at racing anything in the air. Getting into the event for the first time should be fun and maybe i will like it. I dont know if it will be a level playing field as far as motors go. It said speed 400 catagory. I dont think it said anything about battery count , but it probably should. It did exclude lipo. I should practice with foam wing first for sure. I have been flying conventional airplanes(rc) for 25 years.

jim

Reply to
jim breeyear

IF you are allowed gears, you can probably get a bit more out of the 400 by picking modest gearing and going up in volts, or using a hotter 400.

OTOH something like a race 400 on 7 cells and a 4x4 prop? Or is that not 'zagi style'

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

FYI, the slinger is $49.99 from Tower and fits the bill (speed 400, 48"ws). Order a couple extra props along with anything else you might need (battery pack, speed controller, mixer?). My HS81 servos have survived a replacement wing sets with only one set of gear changes, and you don't need a micro reciever.

I would assume an 8 cell limit on the battery.

Reply to
Steve Banks

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.