Hobbyking Fox 2.32 Glider (FMS, Airfield etc)

[Cupid Stunt]

Well it arrived this afternoon after being given false tracking numbers by Hobbyking (a common trick of theirs)

It's not exactly as described but I'm not worried as the parts that are different I intended to change anyway

They have done away with the concealed control surface stuff in favour of traditional horns, rods, clevis' etc, this is without minor issues for example having to cut out the channel in the tail slight deeper as the horn fouls on it
Oddly they have as standard moved the tail rudder servo onto the tail end but still fitted the elevator servo in the fuselage, weird ?

The EPO control surface hinges are very very stiff and I'd reckon if you didn't work the manually to ease them off you'd end up with knackered servos in no time, they would also severely hamper control

As a bonus the pilot in mine is different, a rather handsome looking chap (a bit like myself) unlike the goggley eyed one in the pics online (very much not like me)

I'm gonna chop his frikin head off anyways cos that's where I'm gonna stick the camera

CoG
God only knows how anyone managed to balance it with a 2200 3s lipo especially with both servos in the fuse, it's far too nose heavy, I had read one other account of the same issue going right back to 2010, you'd think they'd have sorted that out by now wouldn't you, oh well no bother, I will move the elevator servo back to the tail and also mount my video tx far back on the tail boom so that I can have at least a 3000mah 3s up front and maybe for performance have a 2200 4s there when required

Moving the servos out to the rear end is great as it leaves a very large spare area under the centre of the wings for OSD etc, alternatively you could adopt the cavernous area actually inside the cockpit, but of course that will mean hacking into it

Also arrived today
My 5.8ghz helical antenna and a 5.8ghz 400mw tx/rx set which gives me 2 x receivers in all allowing me to use them both on my antenna tracker with diversity

I was hoping for a maiden this afternoon but it's pouring down here and with the extra work to get the CoG sorted I don't think it's going to happen
I usually prefer to fly a plane as standard before fitting FPV kit but in this case as I have to make mods to get the CoG right in the first place then I might as well fit it all beforehand

Pics to follow

[Cupid Stunt]

Pics

My dashing debonaire pilot


The googley eyed original pilot


Groove in the tail boom for the elevator horn


Horizontal Stab screws foul on the rudder


Cavernous fuse with Stanley knife to show scale, though you'd need to put some weight on the rear end if you filled that up with FPV gear I reckon


New type rudder servos instead of concealed, the same goes for both aileron servos

[Dusty]

watching with interest. I don't think I'll FPV the Vega now, I think my next fixed wing FPV craft will be a pre-built plane like one of these or perhaps a bixler again. I don't like T tails though, so that's some gliders out of the running.

[Cupid Stunt]

Build update

Like I suspected there was no way to get the recommended CoG on this bird without making some mods
You could either cut into the foam behind the battery so it could be moved back or move the elevator servo back to the tail.
I chose the hard way which turned out OK in the end but was more involved than I'd expected, I also had to use a different servo as the original wouldn't fit where I wanted it

Now with a 2200mah 3s put as far back as it can go gets the CoG right

At some point I will add a camera etc and those will be balanced by the video transmitter on the tail boom and I'll do it so that it allows a 3000mah battery too

Checking after the maiden showed that 4 minutes of powered flight used 770mah of battery, not too bad but not as "floaty" as my other gliders but then it is supposed to be an aerobatic glider

Having said that on a 2200 battery that means 10 minutes of safe power which in turn should mean a minimum of 30 minutes flight time in winds of around 6mph

Piccies from this morning's maiden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuCt-cs5U8w
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[Balders]

congrats on the maiden...looked fairly trouble free.

[Cupid Stunt]

Cheers Balders
The jury is out on whether it's what I wanted or not
Just didn't seem very "floaty" and was quite twitchy, maybe that's due to the fact it's designed as an aerobatic glider, I'm thinking I might have done better to ignore the fact HK opened up and bought the Art Tech Diamond 2500 like I first intended to

[MrBen]

looks good to me, gliders aren't my thing but if I did get one this would be up my street with it being scale and aerobatic 

[Cupid Stunt]

Well the jury is back in.......

I went back up the mountain for another flight and to get a little more used to the bird

She's a great aerobatic glider but she's no slope soarer or sailplane, she takes constant input and a focussed mind to keep her in the lift and she most definitely takes a lot of focus in the turns requiring lots of use of the rudder and coordinated turns, sometimes almost flat turns, trying to just bank and yank will see things get out of control fairly quickly and would force excessive use of the elevator and loss of altitude

All that is OK, it can all be learned flying line of sight but I'd reckon it would take a very skilled FPV pilot to get the best from her flying FPV, you just can't see what's happening quick enough in the goggles, for example a downwind throttle on will cause her to pitch up into an almost immediate stall unless you feed in down elevator at the same time, upwind isn't quite so bad but she still pitches up, an autopilot is going to struggle to cope with that especially when banking round (downwind) for the final approach, it could well be literally the final approach

Still for line of sight aerobatic gliding she's great but I'm not brave enough to stick all my gear on this one as I can see how it's likely to end, it really does take some focussed skill just to do a low(ish) level final turn into the wind

So
Anyone want to buy a Fox, all set up properly, test flown only no damage and a rather handsome pilot ?

[Dusty]

you serious? you're selling it? I lol at you

[Cupid Stunt]

you serious? you're selling it? I lol at you

Well yeah, it's not what I want from a glider, too focussed
I wanted something that I could fly FPV power off gliding

[Cupid Stunt]

2nd flight video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJSV0IJs8ew
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[Balders]

in the first video it certainly lost a stack of altitude in the turns.  Totally get what you mean re fpv'ing it. 

[Cupid Stunt]

in the first video it certainly lost a stack of altitude in the turns.

Yes, it requires coordinated turns using rudder and aileron, mainly rudder but aileron to roll it a touch then to keep it reasonably level

[Cupid Stunt]

Some thoughts on this plane...

It's a not a fly straight out of the box plane as it needs some mods done to get it right.....

CoG as mentioned above, servos need to be moved back to the tail
EPO hinges were very very stiff and although I had worked mine to loosen them one of them has begun to split already so I'm going to have to cut the ailerons off and use proper hinges then tape over them

[Dusty]

seems a shame that an ARF plane is no where near almost ready to fly....