This is the "Smart" sold by Hobby Lobby. It's a completely
hollow molded kit designed for 7-10 cells. I have mine powered with an
Aveox F7LMR 10-1250SCR's. The only assembly that needs to be done
is installing the motor and radio. It comes with 2 servos already in place
in the wing. All the control surface hinges are also part of the wing skin.
I've never before had this kind of performance and it is definitely addicting,
to say the least. It will climb straight up at I'd estimate around 60-70
MPH doing rolls! The glide down can get anywhere from 40-100 MPH and it
doesn't hurt it to roll upside down from 600 ft. and do a complete loop
with the energy buildup. I flew it for the 1st time Thursday morning, 7/20/00.
It practically pulled right out of my hand. I did a slight climb until
it picked up speed (2 sec. max.!) and then kept pulling on the elevator
until it was climbing 90 deg . I figured what the heck I started rolling
it as it went up! The entire 1st climb out to I'd say 600-800 ft lasted
all of 10 seconds! I then leveled it out and it needed only 2 clicks
of up trim to maintain somewhat level fast flight. By this time all the
glow guys at DVRC
were totally blown away. It really moves out and sounds pretty quiet.
I then did a complete Cuban 8 with a horizontal roll afterward with
the energy buildup before I had to throttle back up and do another 90 deg.
climb to altitude. Man I love power, this is the fastest , most powerful
plane I've flown. I've gotten 8 minutes flight time with it and none
of the time was spent just "puttering around"! I want to try a plane that
uses 16-20 cells next, "I feel the need for Speed"! It must be really clean
as my Race Rat makes more noise going though the air than this. It
does take a long approach to land, even with the air brake setup. I guess
I'll have to get used to that. I'll add some personal pictures of the plane
as soon as they get back from the developer.
Well, we had a great time up at the Nor Cal Pylon races
last Sunday, April 8, 2001. Red from Hanger
One Hobbies put on this one and provided all the BBQ,
Thanks Red! To top it all off, he brought his
radar gun to check out some of the speeds of the planes
there. He caught my Smart in straight and
level flight without any diving for speed at 85 MPH.
He asked me to try another pass at the gun,
this time I did a dive and pulled to level just before
he timed it. She registered 115 MPH on that pass!
Wingspan: | 55" |
Wing area: | ~300 sq. in. |
Length: | 34" |
Weight: | 48 oz. |
Wing Loading: | 23.04 |
Motor: | Aveox Brushless F7LMR |
Gear Ratio: | integral 3.71/1 |
Prop: | RFM 12.8 X 13 Carbon Fiber folder |
Batteries: | 10-CP1700 matched and zapped |
Speed Control: | Aveox F5MV |
Amps: | 85 amps static |
Watts: | ~820 watts |
Watt Loading: | ~273 watts/lb.! |
Airfoil: | MH-30 |
First flight low flybys. This is the most predictable plane I have
ever flown. I wouldn't normally
do this on the 1st flight!
Aveox F7LMR and L260 controller
This is how the Ailerons were hooked up. I soldered a threaded rod
end
to a small wire Z-bend. The control horn is fiberglass cut from
printed
circuit board and epoxied into a slot I ground in the aileron.
I now fly
it with the Z-bend in the outside hole.
I've tried two different setups for the V-tail. The single HS-81
servo uses
a carbon fiber tube with a 2-56 sized Z-bend epoxied into the forward
end
and couple of threaded 2-56 rod ends soldered together epoxied at
the aft
end. The dual CS-21bb servo setup uses threaded rod ends epoxied
onto
.080" carbon fiber rods at both ends. The aft end of both versions
uses
ball joints. I'm currently using the two servos to experiment with
rudder,
it seems to straighten out the climbs and the V-tail actually works
well
as a rudder. The glow fliers are astounded by it's arrow straight,
rolling
climbs. I've raced a .60 powered sport ship to altitude and smoked
him!
The elevator linkage is a simple set of 4-40 wire bent like an aileron
torque rod. The
ball joints were ground down to fit the cramped space and everything
was epoxied
together. All the space is very tight!!!