Topic: DS-UK Speeds...

Graham. The only thing you should be trying to make stiffer is your opus!

Ads, I did that last week.
So a bit of trimming, diving & rolling this week.

Brief report of activities today at Rushup, with 8 souls present.

Wind had quite a bit of west in it & was disappointingly (if typically) rather less than forecast, though the whole backside was reasonably still.
An unforecast period of clag & continuous rain had to be tolerated & the same set in gain mid-affy ending proceedings, but the sustained dryish stint each side of midday allowed everyone to exercise their planes & thumbs

In spite of the modest conditions, a few PBs obtained.
Principally by the ZAG crew, whose thunder I've no intention of taking, so await their reports with interest.

A warm welcome to Tom (Satinet), who lost his DS cherry & celebrated with a DS Bin Bag Award. Great to see you Tom, & don't forget your the man on the ridge with the LEAST bin bag awards.

Hobster Steve, unusually, wasn't fastest of the day as he elected to DS his older & heavier (7+lbs) MCT in insufficient drive.

The other Big Dogs weren't present, but had sloped off to Pen-Y-Fan.
Limited reports indicated a wet period of sitting above the ceiling in 40+ mph winds before a brief flying event (which may have involved an exploding Polecat ) followed by sitting out a bout of.....snow....
Hopefully, their efforts & patience were rewarded by a demon DS session.

Thanks dude. I proudly reached 3 figures and some DS binnage.  Can't say fairer than that!

The m60 crash is a blessing in disguise really. I was alreay thinking of putting a new fuse on (it was looking very dog-eared and was held together with tape!). Now I will apply New stuff to the wing and beef it up a bit which should make the model better.  I don't fly it in light conditions anyway, so the extra weight is all to the good.

Good to see someone got some DSing in today, wind was strong here in Devon but not from a DS friendly direction.

Graham, switch sorted on the Prospeed, although I suspect it will need gluing in to make it a decent fix. Unfortunately I can't set any thresholds so we will just have to accept its limitations in rain until something better comes along (assuming I can afford it).

Doug posted:
[Graham, switch sorted on the Prospeed, although I suspect it will need gluing in to make it a decent fix. Unfortunately I can't set any thresholds so we will just have to accept its limitations in rain until something better comes along (assuming I can afford it).]

Have used 3 Prospeeds (Hobsters' very often) & have wondered why anyone would bother with a Stalker.
Each has been excellent, very accurate & (in contrast to the Stalker) light enough not to induce arm cramp after a sustained period of usage.

But today, given there would be 2 Prospeeds on the ridge, left my Stalker in the van.
Mistake.
They didn't do too well in the rain &, for whatever reason, my session with one within the "dry" period resulted in a significant proportion of missed readings. Just didn't seem to like the damp.

Good days DS.

No BP's for me, quite frustrating in fact. Failed ballistic madden and When I took my blade wing out of the bag it had broken the tip on a previous obviously bad repair.

Mini dragon wend well, but the only session with good drive I was flying with my snap flap on, wich I don't do so the plane was very twitchy.

Win some loose some.

Will

Wow another fantastic day. Lots of DS laps had by all. George, Adam and myself were the first to arrive on top of the hill at 0900. Nice air there to start with for sure. I'll make some comments on the models flown and then list the speeds.

First up was Mike_Y's Tank (waiting for you to rename it Mike - this one's just called The Tank due to Adam's hefty build on this particular one!). Adam flew it really well - this model looks to have LOADS of potential - the airframe best was upped again today.

George spent the whole day getting to know his D40 better and better - he upped his airframe PB on this, although we didn't quite have to conditions to up his overall PB. The D40 really is just an awesome model. The circuits that we are starting to feel comfortable with this little thing now really are pretty BIG, and once you have it into the 90's it really just smooths out and is pretty locked in to fly.

I got my HP60 up and it immediately felt fantastic. I had the model whipped up to a new airframe PB for me before I experienced a major flutter episode which resulted in the twin 4mm carbon booms holding the fin on to completely break. The fin departed, but the wing remained perfectly controllable and luckily I was able to bring it in for a decent backside landing  . After trudging all the way to the bottom and all the way up again looking for the fin, I finally found it about 50 yards from where I landed the sodding model! It's a stock build so maybe it's time to think about upping the ante on this one with a little NS soon. I just love this model.

Tom Satinet turned up next with his M60 and, yes folks, his double carbon 3m Tragi! For a first shot at DS his initial laps with the M60 were superb - got the whole thing figured out pretty fast, lapping consistently in the 70's. Some time later the Tragi went up and Tom belted it round. Rushup then decided to teach him about how the shear can sometimes flip the model over a bit near the edge, and he made a recovery just back of the edge at around 90mph with this 3m beast which resulted in audible grass clipping! Awesome save!!

Will Deighton, Hobster, Brian and Graham "Deckit" turned up and started giving it the berries in various forms. Will's clean Balistik refurb ran into a bit of trouble trying to get the CG nailed, and after not quite getting a good setting after several trimming flights, Will reverted to flying his homebrew mouldie. A really great flying model - super smooth and very comfortable through turbulence etc - not bad for a first attempt at hollow moulding  

Graham got his WR HP60 up again and got it turning really nicely again, and Hobster posted up an early FTD with 174 using his MCT.

Then the D40 war started between Adam, George and myself, with us trading flights and gradually upping the speeds on this excellent little model. I tried DSing mine with a little snap-flap for the first time and liked it. It's barely a millimetres worth, but it just seems to make the elevator response a little crisper at times. Adam felt that the conditions warranted a bit of Splinterage and rigged up his English Oak beastie. We're getting these models really sorted now in terms of set-up, with Adam's getting away on its first launch attempt. He turned some really classy laps in the 150's, and then after admitting defeat to my 162   came in to land. Unfortunately a little too slow on the final turn, it flicked in, but that simply resulted in a small split at the rear of the fuse which is an easy cyano fix and two broken nylon wing bolts. No marks elsewhere.

Adam's MCT went up last of all his models, and he capped it off with FTD - well done mate.

So here's the speeds and so on - sorry I don't have speeds for Hobster and Graham.

George "420" Pilkington: D40 120mph (airframe PB) witness Adam Richardson.

Adam "Lambretta" Richardson: D40  143mph (airframe PB) witness Graham Bridge.
Adam "Lambretta" Richardson: Splinter DS Oak  155mph (airframe PB) witness George Pilkington.
Adam "Lambretta" Richardson: The Tank  130mph (airframe best) witness Warrick Smith.
Adam "Lambretta" Richardson: Opus MCT 183mph (PB) witness George Pilkington.

Warrick "Zim" Smith: HP60 122mph (airframe PB) witness Adam Richardson.
Warrick "Zim" Smith: D40 131mph (airframe PB) witness George Pilkington.

Will Deighton: MDSM1: 118mph witness George Pilkington.

Tom Satinet: M60 90mph (airframe PB) witness Warrick Smith.
Tom Satinet: Tragi 704X 101mph (PB) witness Adam Richardson and the grass on the edge.

Thanks for a super day lads.

Zim

yeah good day lads. I enjoyed the new challenge.

Nice speeds gents, good to see the D40 is getting quicker with each outing. What were the wind speeds up there today? Its been blowing a gale here in North Devon. Also been raining, but no suprises there.

Graham , re the Prospeed, ours is exactly the same, I guess you get what you pay for.

Windspeed was around 25 or so I think. Maybe a bit more just before the rain and less after.

Z

Adam felt that the conditions warranted a bit of Splinterage and rigged up his English Oak beastie. We're getting these models really sorted now in terms of set-up, with Adam's getting away on its first launch attempt. He turned some really classy laps in the 150's, and then after admitting defeat to my 162   came in to land. Unfortunately a little too slow on the final turn, it flicked in,

Zim

Defeat   I was just warming up!! as for too slow, she was still honking along but got turned over by that nasty rotor

You dont burry them up past the battery flying too slow

 Well planted Adam. Looks like that's taking root nicely! 

Defeat   I was just warming up!! as for too slow, she was still honking along but got turned over by that nasty rotor

You dont burry them up past the battery flying too slow

Adam

have a look in the crack, Not that much grass. Must have gone in pulling the fuzz out.

Will

Was she pine-ing for her natural environment.

Defeat   I was just warming up!! as for too slow, she was still honking along but got turned over by that nasty rotor

You dont burry them up past the battery flying too slow

Well too slow for the rotor I guess - you know what I mean! Looking forward to seeing her fixed and screaming again soon mate 

[Was she pine-ing for her natural environment.]

Puns in poor taste are not tolerated on this thread, Doug.
Oak-eh?

Great day guys!
The Splinter Rocked.
You got to watch that 'stealth rotor' by that stone stream, thats the 3rd model I have seen get taken out by that muther... (My JW fully ballasted lap 1 , Zims Splitz lap one, und now ze Splinter  )

I'm in 3rd place AGAIN!    Nice speeds dudes.

Enjoy it while it lasts boys.

George

Any photos from Abbo from his trip? I know it wasn't successful conditions but I'd love to see some pics of the site.

Cheers

Z

Great day guys!
The Splinter Rocked.
You got to watch that 'stealth rotor' by that stone stream, thats the 3rd model I have seen get taken out by that muther... (My JW fully ballasted lap 1 , Zims Splitz lap one, und now ze Splinter  )

I'm in 3rd place AGAIN!    Nice speeds dudes.

Enjoy it while it lasts boys.

George

You flew well George. The splinter is a rocking model indeed.

You flew well George. The splinter is a rocking model indeed.

Thanks Tom!
Your first forray into the Dark Side was most excellent too Sir!
Lapping a 3m for your first go is demanding of 'Bokkle' and your not short of that mate! 

Great to see you on the back of the hill with us Tom, get that JW built and lets go and have some more eh!
 

Thanks for having me!

I've just dusted off my j-dub kit. it doesn't look like a tricky build.  So 6 months to a year with my motivational levels then!

Must say chaps I was impressed by that d40. tbh I thought it would be too small to be any good, but it does fly really well. 

Any photos from Abbo from his trip? I know it wasn't successful conditions but I'd love to see some pics of the site.

Cheers

Z

just take a picture of any hill superimpose a load of low cloud and snow on it    and youve got penyfan yesterday

LOL fair enough Andy - were you there as well?

Tom - I believe there are some D40 available now...

Z

LOL fair enough Andy - were you there as well?

Tom - I believe there are some D40 available now...

Z

nahhhh id got more sense

LOL fair enough Andy - were you there as well?

Tom - I believe there are some D40 available now...

Z

FLapped D40s available soon for us chicken landers. And the first mention of the D60. Now THAT sounds interesting to me.

Honestly John I can't see how the 4 servo wing is necessary in the UK. I can understand it in the US as some of their sites look like boulder fields and I guess in that kind of place, anything at all that gives you a fighting chance at increasing your landing control and accuracy has got to be good. But with our heather and soggy ground and grass, the 2 servo wing works great. Pretty well controlled all the way in anyway, but perhaps not quite as slow as full crow might be I guess. Still, given the choice at the same money, I think I'd still take the 2 servo in all honesty, just for the simplicity and saving on the install cost.

Z

Plus its something else to go wrong and vibrate a 200MPH. After thinking it through mine will be a 2 servo wing. The idea of that D60 though has me rather excited. I luurve 60s. And a crosstail too!

[Plus its something else to go wrong and vibrate a 200MPH. After thinking it through mine will be a 2 servo wing. The idea of that D60 though has me rather excited. I luurve 60s. And a crosstail too!]

Ed:
No doubt you've noted the new flapped version apparently has a mod or two, inc. a bit of strengthening.
Wonder if the next batch of 2-servo winged specimens will incorporate those too. Could be worth an ask.
Not that I've observed any weakness in any of the ZAG crews' D40s: quite the opposite.

Wonder if the D60 will have a correspondingly strong build.
Carbon Birds & Mini Blades IMHO are far too weak in the wingbed areas.
(My CB & Kiwi Steve's MB are now carbon/Kevlar socked in that area).

Hey Graham

It would appear from the looks of the D80 that the one thing you NEVER have to worry about with a Joe Manor model is whether it will be strong enough!

Z

Ah I presume the great Pen-y-Fan! Fair enough Mike - I guess I'm just referring to Rushup and the Skirrid.

Re servo strain - I have a bulletproof method for keeping the strain off the servos in DS models. Completely reliable and I'm sure it will never let me down. It's called a lack of talent - keeps those servos working in a manageable speed range!!

Z

Plus its something else to go wrong and vibrate a 200MPH. After thinking it through mine will be a 2 servo wing. The idea of that D60 though has me rather excited. I luurve 60s. And a crosstail too!

I don't know how much DSing you have done, but if it's not a lot I would try and learn on foamies before you start worrying about troubling the double ton mark.  

I've just tried DSing for the first time, and while it's not too hard to get the model moving at least fairly fast, it's really quite easy to bin it.  There isn't much margin for error and the higher speeds equal maximum bin baggage.

A standard bird, built reasonably well will probably take you to some pretty high speeds.

True words there Tom! Graham (deckit on here) will tell you lots of info about DSing Bird60s - in fact he had his going round for some time this Sunday just gone.

Cheers

Z

[It would appear from the looks of the D80 that the one thing you NEVER have to worry about with a Joe Manor model is whether it will be strong enough!]


That certainly seems the case & is to be (heavily) applauded.

Given the D60 is to be aimed also at the frontside slope market with a wing section to suit (same as D40?), it'll be interesting to see how heavy the lay-ups are on this model.

Hopefully, Joe has begun a trend which will be adopted by the customary commercial builders in producing carbon versions of their models styled "sport" or "DS".

Apparently the D80 has no discernable flex of any kind at 300mph. That's spectacularly awesome.

Z

[True words there Tom! Graham (deckit on here) will tell you lots of info about DSing Bird60s - in fact he had his going round for some time this Sunday just gone.]

Overly generous, Zim!

In truth, I've only DSed it a few times, hence at the very beginning of the learning curve.

At the moment, it's very twitchy & difficult. Even more so than a MicroflohXL or Destiny.
Nor can I get it going fast or carve a proper top turn, as it decelerates visibly & audibly when encountering the upward leg shear!
In spite of it being fully ballasted.
Very odd. CG is good (aft of recommended), so need to address once more the incidence issue after the recent carbon/kevlar socking of the wingbed.

It's damned hard work after an Opus that effectively carves its own laps, so pilot has near passenger status!

Re servo strain - I have a bulletproof method for keeping the strain off the servos in DS models. Completely reliable and I'm sure it will never let me down. It's called a lack of talent - keeps those servos working in a manageable speed range!!

Z

Ha ha! LOT.

Good points from Tom Too there to Mr Ed. Get a JW Mr Ed. Unballasted they bounce very well, on numerous occasions before you bounce em too hard to fly again without a trip to the workshop. er.... ask me how I know...

So 'Deck It', Opie fly themseleves do they? SOunds like I could do with one of those... 

George

[Apparently the D80 has no discernable flex of any kind at 300mph. That's spectacularly awesome.]

Comforting, for a plane designed to break 400!
Same hefty section as the D160

[So 'Deck It', Opie fly themseleves do they? SOunds like I could do with one of those...  Whistle]

And it's available. Though not yet advertised.
Need to sell it to finance an even better Opus experience.

[So 'Deck It', Opie fly themseleves do they? SOunds like I could do with one of those...  Whistle]

And it's available. Though not yet advertised.
Need to sell it to finance an even better Opus experience.

youll only be pining after Christmas .................be dont go rushing off