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Got Planes on the Brains

Posted on February 12, 2008 by Dan

So I’ve been having a lot of fun flying my current set of planes, each one offers something the others don’t, so once I’m tired of flying the one, I swap my only receiver into another plane and fly that for a few days. A couple of weekends ago the weather was so nice I was able to take out the Brio, the 300S and the Stryker for a couple of flights each and had a blast. The Styker is great for just high-speed, high-flying, no-frills, no-worries flying. It’s also the best plane for those extra-windy days when my other planes are better off grounded. It’s definitely the loudest and fastest plane but also the least aerobatic. You can only do so many rolls, spins and loops before you start wanting to do knife edges and inverted harriers. It flies awesome since I got the new TP 2200 V2 battery pack. What a huge improvement over the 8-cell pack I was running as well as the old 8C 2100 PolyQuest pack I have. The motor and pack come down cool every time. I’m thinking about bumping up the prop from 6×4 to 6×5. People say the stock electronics and motor can handle it, just be a little conservative on the throttle. As it is, I never fly around at full throttle anyway, except for a few seconds. I think it’s the battery that limits the max prop with this plane, but with the 55A capability of the TP pack, it definitely is not the limiting factor. The fun thing about that plane is working on it – making it faster, making it better. I finally replaced the stock servos with a pair I pulled out of my old Losi Mini LST truck. I have no idea what the specs are but they are awesome, and work way better than the stock ones. Probably about the same speed but they have lots more torque and holding power. Anyway, so the Stryker is still fun to fly and is actually quite relaxing. I like taking it up about as high as I can still see it and then cut the throttle and just float all the way to ground seeing how long I can keep it up. It’s no 78″ wingspan glider, but manages to do pretty well. But when it gets close to the ground I just throw the throttle all the way and she whines back up into the sky.

I’ve probably been having the most fun with the Great Planes FlatOut Extra. That new KDA motor made a huge difference in performance. Running the 9×3.8 prop is perfect, it’s got plenty of power to pull out of almost any botched maneuver (of which I do a lot of). There’s definitely more coupling when doing knife edges, so much that I couldn’t even do them the first few times I flew it. The weight of the motor is so much higher and more up front than it was with the geared brushed motor. I kinda wish I had bought an inrunner BL instead, just for that. But with a little bit of elevator, I can maintain a pretty decent knife edge and then with some rudder I can pop the front up and get into a high-alpha flight and just hold it there while I go around in circles. It’s probably one of my favorite things to do. I’ve gotten a lot more confident with some maneuvers, like inverted harriers at only 6-8 feet off the ground (hey, that’s low for me). I did crash it the other day doing that though, but it didn’t do much damage, just cracked the foam fuse a bit near the wings. I glued it back together and she’s flying good as new. I like that I can fly the 300S without even leaving my backyard and it’s such a slow, floaty plane, that there isn’t a whole lot to worry about while flying it, probably because I don’t have a whole lot of money into it. And I’ve got a spare one in my garage just waiting to be built if (or, when) I total this one. But it’s just a relaxing plane to fly also and yet still poses a challenge to fly with all the tricks I like to think I can do. I think it’s time to get a simulator. I just can’t get that rolling harrier thing or a good solid hover to save my life. But still what a great return on investment, and just an overall great plane.

Lastly comes the Brio 10. This plane is about to become a hanger queen. I’ve got probably 30 or so flights on it and I am still not comfortable flying it. Either it’s just too much plane for me, or I simply cannot get over its bad tendency to snap on me at almost random times during flight. Every time I go out to fly I fully expect to bring it back in pieces. And almost have every time I’ve flown it. And it’s not for trying to do anything crazy at all. Quite the opposite, I don’t do anything crazy, I just fly it, nice and high and do some rolls, and snap rolls and whatever, because the second that plane starts the drop on me, and I give it some elevator up to pull out, it rolls, and drops, and rolls. The last time I flew it, it went into this dive roll that I nearly didn’t recover from. And the scary thing is that you feel completely out of control. The more you try and pull out, the worse it gets. I honestly don’t know how many more times I can risk throwing that thing in the air knowing full well that all it takes is one snap from too low and it will nose into the ground so hard that I might not salvage anything from the plane. And right now it’s my best-looking plane! Mostly because it’s the only one not made out of foam. I love the way it flies though, the way it handles and responds 90% of the time. It flies infinitely better than any of my other planes, but it’s also so unpredictable in that one regard. I should take it to a local flying field and get some expert advice on it. I don’t want to not fly it ever again, but man, the day it goes down will be a sad day indeed. This is definitely not my Sunday-afternoon-just-chill-out-and-fly plane. It’s more like my holy-crap-holy-crap-don’t-crash-don’t-crash-whoa-that-was-close plane. I did fly it again the the other day and really enjoyed it. It’s got the precision for sure and definitely keeps me on my toes.

Which brings me to the start of this blog, what’s next on the agenda for Dan? Right now I’ve got my eye on the E-Flite Tribute FX 3D. It’s got a vacuum-formed fuselage, so it’s intended to be the best of both worlds – light and floaty like a foamy, but rigid and precise like a balsa plane. It’s not too expensive either at about $65. All I would need to pick up is a motor, the rest of the parts I can steal from my other planes. Though I may buy a full set of HS-55’s anyway, swapping servos is much harder than swapping an ESC, a battery pack or a receiver. It looks like a really fun plane to fly and should be a step up from the FlatOut but not quite as much as the Brio. Also I should be able to fly it in my backyard instead of walking around the block to the undeveloped neighborhood nearby. I’d probably power it with a MicroDan 2510 “3D 970kv” BL motor that just about everyone who owns this plane just raves about how great it is. It’s a good-looking motor with some great specs and a price tag that makes it exactly the same cost as the plane itself. Which I think is fair. A $10 plane deserves ad $10 motor (i.e., FlatOut + UnitedHobby motor) and likewise a more expensive plane a more expensive motor. So we’ll see. I’ve been reading up about it over at RCGroups.com and though it’s not the most popular plane, those who have one love it. And it seems on par with my skill level. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, now to drop a hint or two to the wife – if only I could just get her to read this blog….

Now as far as my ultimate wish list, or possibly what I might be looking at for a 6th plane later this year, would definitely be something from either the 3DHobbyShop.com guys or the Ausie team Precision Aerobatics. They are about to release a 48″ wingspan 955g Extra 260 that looks absolutely amazing. By far the best-looking, most feature-packed plane I have seen from any of the major manufacturers. I know it’s too much plane for me, but it’s just soooo good looking. I want to get one just to hang in my garage, even if I can’t afford to buy all the parts to her up in the air right away. The pics I see of it, the more I think I must have it. I must fight off the initial impulse urge to buy (fortunately it’s not on sale, yet) so maybe in a couple of weeks I won’t be as excited about it, or if I can somehow satisfy that urge with the Tribute 3D (not likely) I may just make it with my wallet intact. It’s those stinking tax returns that will be hard to hang on to in the next month or two.

Anyway, that’s what I’m been thinking about lately. On another note, I need to post some pictures of the 15″ TC Sounds 1,000W subwoofer I’ve been building for Joe, a colleague from work. This thing is an absolute beast and is going to knock his socks off and his walls down. It’s funny how different building a 200 lb. subwoofer compares to building a super-light balsa wood plane. They are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. At least I know the sub can’t be destroyed in the blink of an eye from dumb-thumbing the controls. It’s more likely to stay in one piece throughout its life. Which is nice to know, since the time and money that goes into designing and building a sub far exceeds the time and money put into any plane I’ve ever built.

Posted in R/C Planes | Leave a comment

Brushless KDA Motor – Enjoy in RC Model!

Posted on January 26, 2008 by Dan

I bought a new brushless motor for my FlatOut Extra 300S a couple of weeks ago from www.unitedhobbies.com (aka, Hobby City) and got a chance to install it last night. The motor is the KDA20-28M as manufactured by KDA in China. It is suppose to be a knockoff of the more expensive, more popular Hacker A20 M series BL motors. I won’t go into whether or not I believe the German-branded-China-made Hacker is any better than the China-branded-China-made KDA motor, but in just doing a visual comparison of the two motors, they are virtually identical, with the exception of the signature purple anodized housing on the Hacker vs. the blue housing on the KDA motor. For only $16, I thought it was worth taking on a shot, especially for my cheap $20 FlatOut. The Hacker A20-26M motor by comparison is almost 4x the cost, selling for $55 at my local hobby shop. Note that Hacker doesn’t make a 28-turn wind of this motor, they have the 26M which produces a kV of 1150 and the 30M which produces a kV of 980. The KDA20-28M from KDA (also called the KA20-28M) sits nicely in the middle with a kV of 1050, just perfect for the 300S I weighed it and it weighs just about 43 grams +/- 1 gram based on my scale. It’s recommended for planes from 7 – 12 oz. and draws about 12A continuous current (15A max) for a rated power output of about 120-150W with a 3S lipo. After getting it installed in my FlatOut, the plane now weighs about 9 oz. which gives me about 213W per pound. For 3D planes its recommended that you have 150-200W/lb. in order to perform all the necessary crazy maneuvers one might desire. So this new motor should be awesome. I also bought a TowerPro n18A ESC for $10.

The KDA20-28M comes with all the needed hardware to get it installed. I bought a sheet of 3/32″ plywood and fabricated a simple firewall after the firewall that came with my 300S. I traced it with a pen and cut it out with my Dremel. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. I glued it to the plane with 6-minute Epoxy and let it sit for a half hour. Installing the motor is a breeze at this point. I put some Loctite on the threads of the M3 screws that hold the metal adapter to the motor and then screwed it into my newly-fashioned firewall with some 4-40 x 1/2″ wood screws. These screws were a little longer than I needed and they stick out the back of the firewall, but I couldn’t find any 1/4″ long screws, so that’s what I got. I bought an APC 9×3.8 prop to go along with the new motor, which is the prop that Great Planes recommends for use with their recommended BL setup. Though I didn’t get the RimFire motor they recommend, the specs on the KDA motor are about the same, so I figured that the 9×3.8 prop would be a good place to start. HobbyCity says the motor can be used with a 9×4.7 prop without any issues, but I wanted to try out the 3.8 pitch prop first. APC provides 2 hubs with this prop for a total of 3 hub diameter mounting options. The KDA motor comes with 2 adapters to mount 3 possible hub diameters as well. Of course none of them match up perfectly, but I did manage to get the largest adapter to fit straight into the precision hole in the prop with just a tap with a hammer and after slightly reaming out the hole with an Exacto blade. It actually fits quite nicely and after getting the motor fired up and running, there is zero vibration, so it’s mounted nice and true. That’s more than I can say for trying to get a different APC prop to mount to my E-Flite Park 480 motor on my Brio 10 which still wobbles and vibrates at half throttle. These guys need to come to some sort of consensus on what size hub/adapter to use and just stick with it. But the biggest adapter fits nicely into the precision hole of the APC prop, and if/when I need to remove it, I can just pop it back out with a hammer.

After doing some static tests last night, it feels like it’s got a lot of thrust and moves quite a bit of air. The TowerPro ESC is a pain to program, I have no idea what it thinks it’s doing, but I can’t seem to figure out how to program it and the beeps and honks are so stinking loud. Most people complain about the sensitivity of these ESC’s and without adjusting anything on your radio, I can see that as being a common complaint. The ESC seems to have only three speeds, slow, medium and fast, and it only uses about 3 clicks of the available 20 clicks of range in the throttle stick. After messing around with the EPA and trim on the throttle (something I usually never mess with) I have managed to get much more usable range out of the ESC and can run it nice and slow with only a few clicks up on the stick, and then full throttle is all the way at the top. I need to mess with it a bit more to fine tune it though. Otherwise I think the ESC should work fine. Other than the impossible-to-understand manual written entirely in broken English, hence the title of this blog: Brushless Motor – Enjoy in RC Model. This is printed on the packaging for the motor. Though it sort of makes sense, I hope I do enjoy this motor in my RC model, it just sounds a bit funny and is pretty typical of products sourced straight from China without a major brand name attached to it.

It was too windy this morning to take the 300S out for a spin, but by the afternoon the wind had settled down to just a slight breeze so I got a chance to try out the new motor. I also got my wife to tape the flight so I got some video to share. I’ve stated it before and I’ll say it again, I am totally new to the whole 3D flying thing, so there isn’t a whole lot of fancy flying in the video, and I usually keep it nice and high in the sky, but it’s not too bad and shows a little bit what this plane can do with the new motor. So far I really like the new KDA motor, it pulls nice and strong and doesn’t drain the batter as fast as the stock brushed motor did. The plane flies quiet and smooth and the motor, ESC and battery are not even warm the touch after almost 10 minutes of flying. Which means I could probably go up notch on the prop and get a bit more power, which I think I might do. It still feels like it needs just a bit more umph or more punch-out from vertical, though most of my flying around is easily done at half or less throttle. Otherwise I think it’s going to work out as a great (not to mention extremely affordable) power option for any of the FlatOut planes.

Anyway, check out the pictures below and you can either watch the YouTube video below or click on the following link for a higher resolution version that will open separately in Windows Media Player.

Great Planes Extra 300S with KA20-28M BL Motor Video (640×480, 26.8MB, 4:47)

Posted in General | 8 Comments

E-Flite Brio 10 Flying Experience after Six Flights

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Dan

I just wanted add a few more pictures and write up a quick blurb about the most recent flights of my Brio 10. I found a new place to fly, even better than where I maidened it. There’s a new subdivision going in right next to mine that is a little more than a football’s field away from my house. They’ve already paved the roads but there’s only a couple of half-finished houses going up, and development is slow, thanks to the suffering housing market right now. Aside from that though, this makes for a great place to fly my Brio 10. There’s tons of open space, and pretty much nothing else around, yet there’s a perfectly smooth paved road that’s more than long enough and wide enough to be my runway. I’ve flown out there 5 times now it’s just great. I’ve had two landings that were almost perfect, the others not so much. This plane needs some speed to land, but once you get the speed right, all you have to do is line it up with the runway, begin to throttle down and she floats on in for a touchdown. It’s so nice to have a good open flat area to land, I’m used to behind my house where theres bushes, rocks, dirt and cactus all around and very little room to land. Check out some of the pics below. Obviously this place won’t be around forever, but while it is, I’m definitely going to take advantage of it.

So the Brio is still flying really good. I have noticed the plane has a tendency to snap when given too much elevator input. Apparently this is pretty typical for these types of planes, so it’s just something I’m going to have to live with. It can be pretty scary though, the plane seems out of control for a split second. At least it only does it on heavy elevator input, which this plane does not need a lot of to begin with to fly well. So I toned down the elevator dual rates for about half what the manual suggests, and so far it’s been flying great. This plane does snap rolls like nobody’s business. I can do some pretty sweet high-alpha knife edge flight too. But that’s about the only 3D-esque maneuvers can I do. But that’s fine, I picked this plane knowing it was a pattern plane, that’s what I liked about it. My thumbs aren’t quite experienced enough to really make the plane do much of anything else, but rolls and dives and loops, but so far I’ve been having a lot fun just doing that and just in general trying to get better at flying and building my confidence up. Although I can’t help but start dreaming about my next plane. I’m always getting ahead of myself. Sometimes half the fun is picking out a plane, reading all about it (I read all 112 pages over on RCGroups.com for the Brio 10, there is a colossal amount of info over there on that plane and all planes for that matter) then buying all the parts for it and of course, building it, is probably the most fun. Of course flying ranks up there pretty high too. So for now, I’m just having fun flying my new Brio 10. And one of these days I will get some video, until then here’s some more pics of it on the ground, just looking pretty.

1-22-2008 update: I’ve got twenty flights on my Brio 10 and am really loving this plane. Still no video of it, but I have been learning some pretty cool tricks. This plane can do just about anything, and it looks so good in the air. It is a joy to fly. I’ve had a couple of really close calls though, doing stupid stuff, but so far have managed to keep it in one piece. Only the landing gear has been bent and re-bent over and over but otherwise flies just as good as day one.

Posted in R/C Planes | Tagged 480, brio 10, brushless, e-flite, fly, flying, lipo, motor, plane, rc, review, runway, thunder power | Leave a comment

TP eXtreme V2 2200mAh 3S Li-Po Pack Stats

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Dan

I’m going to keep a running tally of the new Thunder Power eXtreme 2200mAh 3S lipo battery pack I just bought for my Brio 10/Stryker/Super Cub planes and figured here would be as good a place as any to keep record. The charger I have is the Duratrax IntelliPeak Digital Ice. The pack is not discharged in every case before being recharged. Sometimes the pack still has several hundred mAh’s remaining. If time permits, I will run a discharge at 4.40A until the pack reaches 9.00V. Additionally, if time permits I will run a slow charge at 1/2C or 1.1A. Every charge peaks at 12.601V and ends at 0.10A. I have noticed that charging at a rate of <1C does tend to squeak a few more mAh into the pack, however charging at less than 1C has not been proven to prolong battery life (as it does with NiMH/NiCAD cells). The key to long battery life is never discharging at a rate higher than recommended, balancing the pack periodically and never allowing the pack to drop below a specific voltage. In this case, that voltage is 3.00V per cell. Though the actual voltage varies with supplier and user, 3.00V is the safest recommended voltage in my opinion. So that's what I use. I also made a simple, yet safe, connector adapter to monitor each individual cell voltage with a DMM to check for proper balance. After 10 charge/discharge cycles through the ESC leads, the pack is still perfectly matched within 1mV. Here's some quick stats on the pack: Thunder Power eXtreme (V2) 2200mAh 25C/50C lithium-polymer 3S 11.1V battery pack Current capability: 55A continuous/110 peak Weight: 170g (6.0 0z.) Size: 107 x 37 x 25mm (4.21 x 1.46 x 0.98in.) Purchased from: www.CheapBatteryPacks.com on 12-23-2007
Purchase price: $79
Wire gauge: 13AWG (this is some beefy, high-strand count and yet very flexible wire)
Connector used: Deans Ultras
Pack arrived on 12-28-2007
Pack voltage right out of the box = 11.442V (3.814V per cell). The recommended long-term storage of lipos is around 3.85V per cell (see Backyard Flyer, November 2007 issue, pg. 87) or between 3.80V and 3.90V according to TP, so this pack is right in the ball park and obviously hasn’t been sitting around for very long.

Here’s the running data:

Charge #1: Charged at 1.00A for 5013 seconds. Added 1163mAh. 12-28-2007.
Charge #2: Charged at 2.20A for 4903 seconds. Added 1824mAh. 12-29-2007.
Charge #3: Charged at 2.20A for 4582 seconds. Added 2152mAh. 12-29-2007.
Charge #4: Charged at 2.20A for 3330 seconds. Added 1507mAh. 12-29-2007.
Discharged at 4.40A to 3.00V per cell.
Charge #5: Charged at 1.10A for 7906 seconds. Added 2211mAh. 12-30-2007.
Charge #6: Charged at 2.20A for 4343 seconds. Added 2100mAh. 12-30-2007.
Charge #7: Charged at 2.20A for 2670 seconds. Added 1120mAh. 12-30-2007.
Discharged at 4.40A to 3.00V per cell.
Charge #8: Charged at 2.20A for 4688 seconds. Added 2172mAh. 12-31-2007.
Discharged at 4.40A to 3.00V per cell.
Charge #9: Charged at 2.20A for 4871 seconds. Added 2178mAh. 12-31-2007.
Discharged at 4.40A to 3.00V per cell.
Charge #10: Charged at 1.00A for 8599 seconds. Added 2197mAh. 12-31-2007.
Cells monitored for balance: all cells within 0.001V +/- 0.001V accuracy. 1-4-2008.
Charge #11: Charged at 0.50A for 6834 seconds. Added ?mAh. 1-7-2008.
Charge #12: Charged at 2.20A for 2944 seconds. Added 1281mAh. 1-12-2008.
Charge #13: Charged at 2.20A for 3341 seconds. Added 1437mAh. 1-12-2008.
Charge #14: ???
Charge #15: ???
Charge #16: ???

After the novelty of the new pack wore off, I stopped keeping track of every single charge. I guess I just didn’t care that much. Now I just charge and fly. I’ve got about 30 cycles on it so far and it still feels like it’s just as strong as the day I got it. It stays surprisingly balanced too. It is an expensive pack, but I think it’s definitely worth every penny. Though now I’m trying to figure out just which new plane this thing will drop into perfectly.

Posted in R/C Planes | Tagged 11.1V, 2200, 3S, airplane, charge, charger, discharge, extreme, lipo, lithium, mAh, plane, polymer, rc, thunder power | Leave a comment

Maiden Flight of the Brio 10 in a Word…Awesome.

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Dan

I did the maiden flight of my new E-flite Brio 10 this evening. I wasn’t planning on flying it today, since I just barely finished it this afternoon, but the weather was all too perfect to pass up, the winds were almost non-existent, and the packs were charged and ready to go. I talked the wife and kids to come along too, just in case I crashed the thing, I didn’t want it to be all for an audience of one. Besides, they’ve had to put up with me being away in the garage for the past 2 days, so I figure the least I could do is share in the joy that is the maiden flight of a new plane. So we all piled in the Tahoe and drove off to a previously determined area I scouted out during the week where I hadn’t flown before. This was going to be exciting. New scenery, a new plane and loved ones cheering me on.

I checked everything out before flying, just like you’re suppose to. Aside from simply being completely meticulous about the entire assembly of the plane, I went through all the other check lists in my head before taking to flight. I threw together a rudimentary CG checker with some glasses and a couple of triangle blocks from the kids toy bin (later that night I built a much nicer one). It looked to be about 105mm from the leading edge, dead center from the recommended 100-110mm. My Brio 10 came in around 30 oz. +/- 1 oz. due to my crappy scale. Which actually isn’t bad at all considering the massive TP eXtreme battery pack sitting in there. All the control surfaces checked out, up and down, left and right as they should. I set up the throws, the low and high rates, and made sure everything inside the canopy was nice and secure – receiver was Velcro’d down as well as the battery. I put a small piece of tape on the canopy just in case it flew off, although I got the updated version with the two neodymium magnets and it’s on there super tight, I don’t see how it could fly off mid-flight, but just in case, I threw on a piece of tape to be sure. Everything was set, I felt pretty sure I was ready for flight.

We drove out to an undeveloped area near my house, where that same huge wash runs through for miles and miles. Except out here there was a nice paved road at least a 1/4 mile long that makes a sudden and abrupt end in a pile of dirt right at the edge of the wash. A perfect runway, though not as wide as I would like, it was smooth and would do the job nicely. I’d just have to line up perfectly on the landing. I set the plane down, facing into what little breeze there was, flipped on my radio and attached the battery. I threw the sticks around a bit and gave the throttle a little nudge. This was it. The moment of truth. Would she fly or would she crash and burn?

Happily I can say that she most definitely flew and she flew like a dream. I often have read people say, “It’s a great plane, it goes where you point it.” And that’s exactly how I felt flying the Brio 10. It quite literally goes where you point it. I did nothing fancy on this first flight but a few rolls, one of the hugest, widest, longest loops I’ve done, a little bit of inverted flight, some climbing rolls, and a couple of low flybys so the kids could see it cruise by super fast. And oh boy is this thing fast. It’s definitely a sport plane as apposed to being a 3D-only plane. Just the sound of the prop and the way the wind hustles over the airframe was amazing to say the least. I managed to remain calm throughout most of the flight, though it was cold and I was super nervous that I was going to do something wrong, or a linkage or servo was just going to break, and then down she would go. I flew around for about 5 minutes or so and then decided to bring her down. Though I was anxious to keep flying, I really just wanted to get the maiden flight out of the way. Tomorrow I’ll take it to the park and really see what she can do. I never even hit the high-rates either. I stayed on low-rates the whole time and she flew like an absolute dream. It only took a click or two on the ailerons and three clicks on the elevator to fly perfectly level and straight. Before I took off the elevator was already a couple clicks up just in case. After landing it, all the control surfaces appeared to be completely flush with their respective stabilizer/wing surfaces, so thankfully I can presume I at least put the thing together correctly, at least the parts I had control over anyway. After all this is an ARF, almost the entire plane comes pre-built. But what an amazing plane. Just a joy to fly. My landing was garbage though, I think the left wing actually scraped the ground and then I rolled into the curb. Funny thing about planes you forget when you’re still pretty new to the hobby; planes don’t have brakes and the ailerons don’t turn the plane on the ground. Fortunately it was just a light bump and the wing and plane are fine.

I can’t say enough good things about the maiden flight of the E-flite Brio 10. It was simply awesome. I can’t wait till tomorrow when I can get her in the air again and really begin to see what this plane can do. For someone who has only been flying for about a year (actually, exactly one year ago this week I got my first plane, the Super Cub) this plane works out great as a fourth plane and flies exactly as you would expect it to. It’s stable, it’s predictable, that Park 480 motor has power to pull it straight up and like they say, it goes where you point it. I gotta say, I really love this plane, and I hope to have many more successful flights with it in the coming months. I’ll be sure to post any relative information I discover as well as hopefully get some video soon. I’m no 3D pro by any stretch of the imagination but for doing sport-type aerobatics and high-speed flybys, this plane is the best.

Posted in General | Tagged brio 10, e-flite, esc, flight, flying, how to, landing, maiden, park 480, planes, radio control, rc, S75, servos, speed control | Leave a comment

E-Flite Brio 10 ARF Build-up Review

Posted on December 26, 2007 by Dan

This year for Christmas my wife bought me the E-Flite Brio 10 ARF R/C plane complete with all the accessories needed to get it flying. About two months ago I was browsing through the latest Horizon Hobby catalog when I noticed a great deal on the Brio 10 with a Park 480 BL motor for only $99. So I figured it would make a great Christmas present and put it on my list. I thought I could wait two months for a new plane but during that two months I managed to buy two other planes, the F-27C Stryker and the Extra 300S FlatOut. They kept me entertained until yesterday when I finally got to open up the Brio 10. Here’s my initial thoughts after almost finishing the entire build of this plane.

The build quality of this plane is awesome. The entire assembly process has been almost flawless, nearly painless, and mostly, just a lot of fun. I cleared off my main workbench and added a 4′ x 4′ sheet of 3/4″ MDF to a smaller table and put it next to my bench giving myself 24 sq.ft. of surface area to work. (I also managed to get my old PC running Ubuntu 7.10 hooked up the garage as well. Now I can spend all day and night in this garage). There have only been some minor fit issues, nothing an Exacto blade and drill or Dremel couldn’t fix though. Without going into a lot of detail, here’s just a short list of some of the pieces I had to trim or modify to fit just right.

Wheel pants – I took a Dremel to the small notch and opened up so that the 2mm nut would fit inside. This makes the pants sit better on the landing gear.
Servo pockets – I had to slice off a small portion of the long-side inside edge to get the E-Flite S75 servos to fit in each location.
Servo arms – I had to drill a 1/16″ hole in the servo arms that came with the S75s in order to fit the little brass collar through. This added just a little bit of slop since the collar has an OD of 0.06″ and my drill bit was 1/16″ or 0.0625″. So it’s very small and almost unnoticeable. The S75s themselves have more slop. The OD of the original hole was 1mm, or about 0.039″.
Control arm slot in aileron – One of my ailerons was missing the slot for the control arm, so with an Exacto blade I cut out an opening.
Wings – the two little guide pins on the wings didn’t quite fit into their respective holes in the fuselage so I made the holes look more like slots so the guide pins would fit.
Firewall – I had to shave just a smidge off the sides and the ears of the firewall in order to get it to fit, even then it was still super snug. I epoxied it on there with 5 minute epoxy.
Rudder & elevator servos – both S75 servos in the tail actually end up hitting each other so they don’t sit flush against the fuselage. My fix for this was to to use (4) 2mm nylon washers. I glued two together to provide a single 2mm washer that is 0.067″ thick and stuck it between the tail end of each servo and the fuselage and then screwed in the screws as normal. This is just enough to counter the tapered tail which causes just the rear portion of the servos to touch.
Firewall stick mount – the manual says to cut 3/16″ off the end so that the prop won’t stick out too far from the cowling, however I had to cut off about 3/8″ for the prop to sit closer to the cowling so it looked better. Also, this is easier to do before you install it to the firewall. The manual has you attach it first and then cut it.
Sealing the control surfaces – I bought that Blenderm tape made by 3M to seal all the ailerons, rudder and elevator. I only taped up the bottom portion of each surface except for the rudder where I taped both sides. This should provide a nice seal to keep air flowing over the control surfaces and not sneaking through them.
Landing gear reinforcement – Most people say the landing gear are in the fuselage is week and needs to be beefed up, unless your landings are silky smooth. I am the worst lander, so I went ahead and CA’d in (11) small pieces of balsa in and around the area where the landing gear mounts. It will either work fine, or I just added a bunch of dead weight, only time will tell. The mass of all the balsa was only 1g.
Loctite – I Loctited any metal-on-metal screw. Such as the 2mm wheel nuts, the wheel, firewall stick mount, outrunner motor to motor mount, wings and the micro control connectors on each pushrod. Any screw that went into wood was left bare.
Battery Velcro – I CA’d down the Velcro to the battery location in the fuselage. I was sick of every time I pulled the battery out, the Velcro came with it. Once I glued it down, it hasn’t come off since.

So as I mentioned, I installed both servos in the tail, instead of doing the pull-pull technique. I bought a Thunder Power eXteme 2200mAh lipo from CheapBatteryPacks.com which weighs in at 170g (6.0 oz.). The battery they recommend for this setup is a puny 1320mAh pack that weighs only 3 oz. Though most people run the Pro-Lite 2100mHa pack which weighs 5 oz., I’ve still read issues where people can’t get the CG right when doing the pull-pull. So I threw the servo in the tail in hopes that it will offset the weight enough to get it so I can balance it. If not, I bought a pack of 7g (1/4 oz.) self-adhesive lead weights that I can add as necessary. Hopefully I don’t need any, or one or two at the most.

Now on to what I screwed up. I actually only messed up one thing during the assembly. I accidentally let the rudder hinges dry on me before I got it fully seated in place. It seriously takes that CA about 3 seconds or less to set. For some reason it got hung up on something, so I was trying to push in the one side, and while messing with it, when I went back to push in the other side it had already set. I was going fast, because I knew it was going to set on me, but I just hesitated one second too long. So I cut them off and went to the hobby shop and picked up a couple more. I was bummed, because I saw it happening as I was doing it and I was thinking don’t set, don’t set, and then it set, and was stuck, with a massive gap. Oh well. At least the slots are about 3x the width of the hinge, so there was room to throw in a new set of hinges. Great Planes makes some CA hinges and sells them in packs of 25. I cut a few to shape and installed them making sure not to let the CA set before it was in place. I didn’t screw up the second time around.

One thing that is kinda dumb, the APC 11x7E prop that is specifically recommended does not come with a centering ring that fits on the prop adapter that comes with the Park 480 motor. The closest insert they have is 0.237″ inches and the prop adapter on the motor is 0.250″. So how is that suppose to fit? I can ream it out, or drill it out, but then whose to say it’s centered any more? And what’s up with the retarded plastic spinner? It doesn’t even fit over the prop and leaves no room for the smaller spinner to screw on and that’s after you’ve drilled out your own 1/4″ hole in it to fit over the prop adapter shaft. I guess that’s why most people don’t even install it, though I bet it would look better with it. I ended up just drilling a 1/4″ hole in the adapter and did a few quick static throttle tests and there doesn’t appear to be excessive vibration, so it looks like it worked.

For the most part though the plane has gone together very smoothly, everything works just as described in the manual. This plane looks absolutely fantastic. Pictures you see on the Internet don’t nearly do it justice for what it looks like in person. I am worried though about the maiden flight. I am afraid something will go wrong or I’ll do something stupid and all that beauty, all the time, all the money, will be wasted in a pile of rubble. As long as I check everything out, and try not to do anything stupid, I think all should go well. Crossing my fingers.

Just for reference, here’s a quick spec sheet on my setup:

E-Flite Brio 10
E-Flite Park 480 1020kV BL motor
E-Flite 40A ESC V2
E-Flite S75 servos all around (I’ve got (2) HS-55s that may go in the tail if the S75s give me issues).
Thunder Power eXtreme 2200mAh lipo battery with Deans Ultra plugs
APC 11x7E prop
Futaba R156F receiver
Futaba 6EXP Radio
Duratrax Digital Ice Charger

Here’s one of the best videos I’ve found of the Brio 10 in the hands of someone who truly knows how to fly. Some day I will be that good…some day. This is not me flying (as if I have to mention that).

And last but not least, here’s a few pics of the build process as well as the completed Brio 10. All I need to do is install the ESC and the battery.