Gerry's Orville le Grand

[Striker]

I went out to see Gerry and Bill do some flying yesterday at Rideau Flyers. It was a bit chilly but oh what a club house those guys have to warm up :D

Gerry's Orville is an awesome plane to see fly, not forgetting the pilot behind it :) Bill Nichols was doing some low pass inverted with his U Can Do 3D 46, flies really precise as well.

[Tom Hastie]

Doh! Had I known they had bare pavement out, I woulda stopped by to do some flying. (Don't have skiis ready at the moment).

I guess that bare pavement is gone now though :)

Tom

[Striker]

Doh! Had I known they had bare pavement out, I woulda stopped by to do some flying. (Don't have skiis ready at the moment).

I guess that bare pavement is gone now though :)

Tom

They had bare pavement and lots of grass too :) What kind of skis you have, ours take 5 minutes to install :p

[Tom Hastie]

What kind of skis you have, ours take 5 minutes to install :p

My skiis are currently embedded inside a couple sheets of birch ply and a bottle of glue. :p

I think it'll take a couple of hours of sawing and glueing to liberate them :D I was going to make sure that's done before the ORCC Winter Funfly.

Tom

[Striker]

My skiis are currently embedded inside a couple sheets of birch ply and a bottle of glue. :p

I think it'll take a couple of hours of sawing and glueing to liberate them :D I was going to make sure that's done before the ORCC Winter Funfly.

Tom

Looks like you will have fun breaking in the new scroll saw to retrieve the skis. You will have some good practice cutting curves by the time you are done :D
What do you fly in winter or should I ask which ones do you fly in winter?

[Tom Hastie]

I was going to throw the skiis on my Funtana 90. It's actually the only large aircraft I have that isn't in "dry-dock" at the moment. It's also electric powered, which means less fiddling around with fuel and engine settings in the cold temperatures.

Other than that, it's my nightflyer, and foamies that have been satisfying the bug for me recently.

[Striker]

Coincidently, I have a brand new Funtana 90 I was going to throw skis onto for winter. I brought this in about 5 years ago, they had just came on the market, built it but never flew it.

Had a YS 91FZ in it which was new for my U Can DO 3d 60 but just brought in a new YS 110FZ for it.

I recommended the Funata to a friend who bought one and now is onto his second :) I have heard stories from many people about wing failure, but still cannot be sure if it's a flimsy wing design or people flying the thing at supersonic speeds. People claimed that there was a redesigned wing, not sure.

I did beef up the servo mounting plates when I got it, they did look flimsy and could have caused flutter. The landing gear block I heard was problematic as well so might look at reinforcing that too.

How did you find yours, any problems?

[Tom Hastie]

I really like my FT90... and now that I've got proper servos in it and the C of G dialed in, it's a really sweet flyer.

I got mine used at NEAT Fair, and have had it for a season now. ~50 flights on it. Not a single problem... Full throttle Knife Edge spins, and big 3D rates. Full throttle level passes are fine, but I never use throttle on the downlines.

Everything is stock on mine, except the builder didn't use the CA hinges. I sealed the aileron gaps myself. The servo mounts are all stock. I'm using Hitec 5955's on mine because at the time they were on sale for $79 at servo city. I concede that this is huge overkill in the servo department though.

Dave R had one a few years back and I really agree with his observations of it. This was one of the early large "3D" ARFs... it was built very light and has huge control surfaces, and if you fly it like a "old school" airplane (Falcon 56, Kaos, etc), the structure is going to fail.

Add to this the fact that it's a 70" ARF for $240, you get alot of people who cheap out and use very weak plastic servos on it. If they expect to tear around at full throttle, something is going to give. This leads to alot of reports of flutter and wings blowing up.

Anyways, that's my $0.02. Great aircraft, when flown within it's envelope.

Tom

[Striker]

Thanks for the feed back Tom, much appreciated. Wow, at $79 a piece for the HS-5955TG servos, I would have bought 12 :D I just bought 5 of them for my EF Yak 88

Better to have an over kill than suffer a flutter, besides that, you can use these servos on a bigger airplane should the need arise, wise investment.

I do not believe in CA hinges especially for a 3D aerobat, I toss them out the moment I open them. Like you I seal every hinge gap on every airplane I have ever owned, learned the hard way on my first trainer.

I have 5 almost brand new HS-5475HB servos, the first series with the karbonite gear train. I was a bit skeptical about using them for the FT90, wanted to go with some HS-5985MG servos instead but Great Hobbies and all LHS were all out. The 5475's do meet and exceed the torque requirement for the FT90 but I prefer a bit more in the torque department. I might give them a try still.

Completely agree with you about 3D airplanes being flown by some pilots like bats on steroids :eek:

Thanks again for your input.

[Striker]

Forgot to ask Tom, did you have to pay any additional local "fees" on the servos when Servo City mailed them to you?

Thanks.

[Tom Hastie]

I don't remember exactly. I know they shipped by US Postal Service, so it wasn't outrageous like UPS can be. I think it was the normal equivalent of the GST. So $25-30ish dollars on the $400 of servos.

Tom

[Striker]

Thanks Tom.

[Ken Park]

As Always - Way to go Gerry! - Almost everyone who see's this puppy fly wants one! - you won't be sorry!

:D Hey a couple years ago Gerry was very generous to let me use his basic desgin layout for my own SMALL sized .25 sized CAD style Orville. I hade "We Laser Cut company make them. - Sorry company gone bust! - I think there was at least 3-4 flying around the ORCC back then! - The Orville has also been popular with the Stetsons too!

Funny thing is Iam in the middle of drawing up a new normal sized CAD .46-.55 size one - Going with a trik gear - the model is such a great overall intermediate trainer guys. The tail dragger version gear locations will be on the plans Iam drawing too. - I hope to soon be sending the Autocad file out to MR-Aerodesign laser cutter for the prototype. Being all CAD with parts using interlocking tabs/slots it should be a quick build. - I really enjoy trying to incorporate parts that build a true/straight automatically - Example the fuse should simply snap together so it don't look like a banana made by a first time builder.

[Tom Hastie]

And if you haven't already had too much of the Orville. Here's the build thread I did on mine... the red one... it was Beaker's second aircraft.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=456577

Tom

[Dave Rees]

Striker............. PM sent

[cgroves]

Funny thing is Iam in the middle of drawing up a new normal sized CAD .46-.55 size one - Going with a trik gear - the model is such a great overall intermediate trainer guys. The tail dragger version gear locations will be on the plans Iam drawing too. - I hope to soon be sending the Autocad file out to MR-Aerodesign laser cutter for the prototype. Being all CAD with parts using interlocking tabs/slots it should be a quick build. - I really enjoy trying to incorporate parts that build a true/straight automatically - Example the fuse should simply snap together so it don't look like a banana made by a first time builder.
Hey Ken:
Who are you having do the CAM work on this model? Any local computer cutters around? I was disappointed to see your previous supplier go under.

[Ken Park]

Hey Ken:
Who are you having do the CAM work on this model? Any local computer cutters around? I was disappointed to see your previous supplier go under.

Hi Corry

I've not found any stuff Ottawa local!:eek:

I've switched to Martin Rousseau of MR Aerodesign for all my laser cutting now! - I do my own Autocad files and email them in and get the wood about 5-7 working days later most times. Martin is located way up in Northern Quebec!

http://www.mraerodesign.com

If you intend to build an light electric plane with your own autocad file tell Martin to select lighter ply - His normal ply stock is heavy for his own Giant scale designs.

I've sold a bunch of SHARK-E kits with him since last year and a bundle of Glue box's as of late. Ontario Adhedsives has pick up the glue box design to help sell its product and is now a sponsor of the Dynamic Hobbies SMALL event.

[Striker]

Striker............. PM sent

Replied Dave