Scott H.

My Feedback: (1)

Mark (AKA Cheech),

Were'd you get those bees for your stinger?

I just finished my US 60. It is now bright pearl yellow, with the bottom of the wing, stab and rudder done in Pearl purple. And the biggest friging triangle-for-a-rudder you've ever seen.

BTW: it's still ugly, but now it's a conversation piece

Those bees would look great on the top of the wing.

Oh yeah, here's the specs (just to get back on topic )

CG at 4 1/8" for first flight, but battery is on Velcro, in a hatch so it will be easy to move around.

4 Hitec 225bb for quad flap
1 Hitec 5925 for the super sized rudder. Mounted at the base of the vertical stab w/Sullivan pull-pull.
1 JR 531 for elevator. Haven't rebuilt that yet. Mounted Right side rear just in front of the stab. with a CF/Ti rod.
1 CS-21 for throttle moved to just in front of the wing mount block.

JR 1400mA 4 cell. (mounted way, way, way back).

ASP 1.08 w/Pitts muffler (cause it was there )

3 1/2" featherlight wheels.

I did a first flight today. Flew nice. That crow had me really laughing. What a perfect "old fart" plank.

If I don't crash and burn tomorrow I'll try to get a shot. You've got to see this rudder, It looks like a huge triangle. In fact that Stinger Bee would probably fit "just" on the rudder!

Scott H.

Scott H.

My Feedback: (1)

Here's a picture of the Tail and the bottom showing it's new colors. The blue is really Pearl Purple (Ultra coat).

Scott H.

My Feedback: (1)

Here's the tail.

We are naming this plane Mt. Foogee (not to disrespect one of the greatest natural wonders...but just for fun).

Cheech

My Feedback: (19)

Were'd you get those bees for your stinger?

Wow, I envy you getting to fly yours today. Temps are barely double digit here and winds are hoooowling at 25+. I am ready for spring.

I thought about peeling the covering on this plane before I got started assembling it. I like decent looking covering schemes and I really dislike transparent material. But it seemed sort of pointless so I just went ahead and assembled it.

Yours looks better Scott H. Much better. And you'r rudder looks like the rudder SHOULD look on this. Tons of surface area, counterbalanced, pull-pull, etc... I'm afraid to just velcro down the battery. I would like to have it further aft but right now it shove up against the rear fuselage former behind the servo tray. It won't move wedged in there. As ugly as the plane is and as light as it is, if it needs more tail weight I'll just stick a hunk of lead on the bottom.

The way weather has looked this winter it will be May before we get outdoors again. Ughh...

The bees came from Lanier many many moons ago

Scott H.

My Feedback: (1)

I copied your pull-pull and elevator linkage (thank you).

We are right between storms. Supposed to rain like heck tomorrow. Hopefully Monday will be better so I can fly again.

A Bud and I flew it hard today. In fact, so hard we pulled the threaded rod out of the clevis on one side of the pull-pull for the rudder. Didn't make much difference, other than the rudder would only turn one way.

After fixing that, we beat on it some more.

The shape of the rudder helps in knife edge as far as pitch is concerned. It still wants to roll pretty hard, but I can mix that out and add some expo to all controls. There is plenty of authority so it should knife edge loop pretty well when I'm done.

I'm going to cut the stab in half, add that to the elevators (built to mimic the Cap 232 tail section), after I finish building my Zero. That should allow it to go flat in a spin. Not to mention "crazy-stupid" in a waterfall.

I was able to use one of the original control rod tubes to run my antenna through. That was a nice benefit of moving the servos back.

Other wise I'm really liking this Ugly... er... Ultra Stick.

I'll have to contact Lanier to see if they still have those bee's.

Hope you get some decent weather your way,

Scott

Cheech

My Feedback: (19)

Well, the temps in Chicago got to the mid thirties today and the wind died down to 9-10+ or so. I got the Stick maidend this afternoon . It's a good plane.

The Saito 100 on heli fuel was turning a 15x6APC at 9600-9700. It roared. The plane took off in no time and needed only a couple of clicks to trim in. With all four control surfaces acting as ailerons this thing rolls like a madman . The butterfly feature dialed in flawlessly and it's pretty cool. On the second flight all the opposite elevator was dialed in accurately and hitting flaps or butterfly slowed the plane without changing pitch. Cool.

Complaints? The plane couldn't knife edge its way out of a paper bag . Not without alot of mixing to correct pitch and roll coupling anyway. And if it needs all of that I'm not going to bother. And the rudder seems small less effective than I had hoped. ScottH's rudder mod seems like the way to go.

Changes? The low rate elevator throw recommended in the book is unflyably too low . Don't even bother with that low of a throw. It's useless. I didn't have enough ele on that rate to flare the plane on a low slow landing. The highest rate that my setup would allow was completely flyable.

My cg ended up about 1/8" ahead of the books recommendation. My battery is shoved back as far as i can do without making an opening in the fuselage underside. The cg I flew today was pretty conservative . So... I'll probably stick a hunk of lead under the tail before I flyit again.

-Cheech-

Scott H.

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Cheech,

Pretty amazed it started in that cold of weather. Man you guys are a heck of a lot tougher than me. I whine when it's less than 60*!

You're right about the elevator. I've got all my throws as far as I can go. didn't even bother with expo. It's totally flyable that way.
In fact I had so much rudder, that the rudder caught the elevator and broke the vertical fin! Which is just very light balsa BTW .

I'm going to seal all the hinge lines. Then later I'll "maximize" my elevators like the rudder is.

To get a good knife edge I need to add some mix, and some expo on rudder and aileron, but "Mount Fuji" definitely gives it plenty of authority! I've been able to do "wavy" knife edge (better known as "serated knife edge" ) for a good 300-400 yards as is.

I'm repairing and sheeting the fin this week. All in all though it's a heck of a lot of fun. I laugh with every flight. In fact I keep running it out of fuel and having to land dead stick!

We had a good breeze last weekend, and I was able to get it to fly backwards (well barely, but it was totally stopped at one point). I only had about 10* up attitude.

There are two planes now in my fleet I won't do without again. The stick and my Ultimate. The factor is huge.

I'm going to throw floats on the Stick this summer and go trolling. I figure the crow lets it fly so slow, I should be able to catch the fish, fly over to the B-B-Q and release for dinner.

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the term "catch and release" eh?

at 4 1/8" CG it is very close to neutral, and rolls very well. I don't remember adding any trim to elevator like that either. Might move mine back a little more just to get it really neutral, and help with the knife edge.

Hope you get more good days to fly!

Scott

Pugsley-RCU

My Feedback: (15)

Nice graphics on that US tail....

LOL

Pug

Cheech

My Feedback: (19)

Thanks Pugsley. Those are the blue ones you sent. I never knew where they'd go until I grabbed this ARF at a sale a couple weeks ago. Checkout the pic of the front of the fuse.

Sooo... I thought about this planes crappy knife edge characteristics and decided to do something about it. With all the programming for the butterfly, flaps, elevator to flaps, flaps to aileron, an engine kill switch (had to use a PMIX when setting up in glider mode), etc... I still had a few programmable mixes left.

Yesterday was beautiful here in Chicago . Today the winds are 25+ and the temps are back in the low 20's. but yesterday was great. I digress.

I used three mixes to make this thing knife edge like a scale aerobat . It took one to slave a little down elevator to each rudder direction . It took two PMIX's , the two five point curve mixes on my 9C, to counter to roll. It was one PMIX per outboard aileron.

I am sure everyone's plane behave about the same. If anyone wants my vales used in these mixes on a Futaba 9C, just email me.

Now the thing will settle in to an unwavering KE from one end of the field to ythe other.

-Cheech

Cheech

My Feedback: (19)

I used to fly 8U so I found the 9C pretty easy. I followed the programming guide in the Stick instruction manual. I too am set up in a 2 flap glider mode . All worked fine, except it sounds like my butterfly is tied to a switch instead of the throttle stick. It's unassignable and on switch A. I can turn it on and off at will. My complaint is that I like switch A for elevator rates but this feature is stuck to A. My travels of down flaps and up ailerons are pretty extreme now, but the plane flies great even way crowed out.

The aileron to flap mixing is set, and it's on a switch. So my inboard flaps are slaved to the outboard ailerons for full span aileron performance, used most of the time. I also set up elevator to flap mixing , and put it on a switch. It's kind of useless but it does really tighten up the loops. In elevator to flap mode I do NOT use aileron to flap mixing. The outboards work as ailerons and the inboards work as flaps slaved to elevator.

The "flaps only" that I set up uses TWO programmable mixes , one for each surface. It's like this on the radio

MIX: Off
MAS: Ofst
SLV: Flp1 (use a second PMIX for FLP2)
LINK: Off
SW: C
POSI: Down (my preference was to use 3 position sw C in DOWN for this flap feature)
RATE: +72 (this brought the flap WAY down

Use two of those mixes , one for flap 1 and one for flap 2 and it's set. Now use ONE MORE MIX just to offset the elevator down a bit when the inboard flaps are deployed

Offsetting the elevator down looks like
MIX: Off
MAS: Ofst
SLV: Elev
LINK: Off
SW: C
POSI: Down
RATE: -15 (this brought the elevator down about 1/4")


For the knife edge I had to use three mixes . One is to pitch correct the elevator and the other two control each outboard aileron surface. Here is the pitch coupling correction:

MIX: Off
MAS: RUDD
SLV: ELEV
LINK: OFF
TRIM: OFF
SW: H (personal preference, I wanted to be able to turn the knife edge correction mixes on and off)
POSI: UP
RATE: <<+23% -24%>>

That mix above set the pitch mixing for the elevator in knife edge. The last 2 mixes used are to correct for roll coupling . Because I only had two PMIX'es left, I was forced to used the two with the five point curve (on a 9C, not sure if it's the same on an 8U)

MIX: Off
MAS: Rudder
SLV: AILE
LINK: OFF
SW: H (same as the pitch mix, sets up one switch for knife edge flight)
POSI: UP

POS-1 -7%
POS-2 -4%
POS-3 0%
POS-4 +3%
POS-5 +6%

You can sort of see that the coupling was stronger one way over the other. AND, this PMIX could just be a linear mix set up at about -5% one way and +4% the other if you didn't have a 5 point curve mix available.

Here is the last roll coupling mix. It's fixing the left aileorn, which is AUX1 when you plugged in like the programming guide says.

MIX: Off
MAS: Rudder
SLV: AUX1
LINK: OFF
SW: H (same as the pitch mix, sets up one switch for knife edge flight)
POSI: UP

POS-1 -9%
POS-2 -6%
POS-3 0%
POS-4 +4%
POS-5 +6%

I hope that helps and doesn't screw you up.

-Mark-

ICE 32 ICEMAN

My Feedback: (1)

Hi everybody,
Thought I'd put my two cents worth in on the US 60. Everybody is hitting real close to some things that are needing attention on this bird.

The stock gear location is okay if you like nose-overs! I relocated the gear where the trailing edge of the gear is just in front of the #2 former. (Gets rid of that "think I'll just scrape off this finish on the high-dollar muffler of this Saito 100" look.) I put a 3/8" ply piece about 2 1/2" from front to rear just in front of the second former and layered it with glass cloth and epoxy. (Lots of it!)

The tail wheel wire going through a dremeled-out notch in the elevator joiner kept me awake at night wondering which car in the parking lot was going to get beaned when the elevator failed!
I put a 1/4" ply piece flush with the lower surface of the stab. I then drilled two 1/4" dowel holes about one inch apart through the ply and into that massive sheet center section of the stab. Two dowels soaked with epoxy gives a great surface to screw the tail wheel bracket to. A separate servo mounted in the bottom side of the fuse is Y-harnessed to the rudder servo to drive the tiller on the tail wheel assembly. This extra servo also gives you that needed tail weight to counter that Saito 100. (I also put a neet ply hatch cover over this servo so the only thing that sticks out is the servo arm.)

Mine is running a 14-8 wood Master Airscrew (yellow tip series wide blade.) Try this: Flat out, straight and level, 300 feet up, chop throttle, point straight down, hit the crow switch..... This thing slows to a crawl coming straight down! Darndest thing you'll ever see! Looks pretty impressive to scream into the pattern for a sure-fire overshoot, pop the crow and roll out at your feet. Ugly? Yes..... Where do ya think that lineage comes from? DAS UGLY STIK?? Maybe. Fly good? Yup! Enjoy!
ICE 32 ICEMAN