JWilliams

There DX6s showing up on Ebay but on average the AR6000s are selling for $60-70 shipped.

BatteriesIncluded

Well, took some time to take out the soldering iron to see if all of the electronics are working:

ESky ES20404 TX (no snickering please)
Corona RS410 RX
Blue Arrow 15-Amp ESC BA-PP-15B
800 MAh 2 Cell LiPo
Hitec S55 servos (2)
GWS EPS-300C-2S/BB (2.80:1) Power System

I'm still waiting for the mixer to come in the mail:
Blue Arrow Nano V-Tail Mixer BV01

To my great joy, it actually WORKED! Next step, range test, and on the way back home stop off and buy a foam board.

CHELLIE

your going to have a blast with your delta, Batt Inc. I was flying mine at the RoseBowl today, there were about 8 RC pilots there, I tossed my delta, did some split Sss, rolls, loops, went vertical everyone love it, Ok I was Showing off a little,
i got in about 2 flights, it was a little windy there, and it just cuts right through the wind. I was waiting for my supervisor that said he was going to show up but never did I waited for his Big Behind for about 1 1/2 hrs. The Rascal had his cell phone off too, Oh well I had fun
take care everyone, Chellie

BatteriesIncluded

It must be fate. After getting the time to run out and range test the radio and RX, electronics, etc. I stopped by Michael's Craft Store to pick up some foam board and it was on sale for a dollar a sheet (20"x30"x3/16"). Needless to say, they will need to order more because I have it all.

I plan on laying out and cutting the delta tomorrow and will most likely leave the "skin" on for this one. I'm still waiting on the mixer so I might as well cut and glue so it's ready when the mixer gets here. I'll be skiing Monday ($15.00 lift tickets) so this stuff will wait till after I'm back. See you then .

CHELLIE

I hope that you dont live near me, because that means that I am out of luck with the $1 foam Board just kidding, thats great to hear, if your going to leave the skin on, then you wont need to add any carbon fiber bracing, but it will be a little on the heavy side, but it will still fly,
take care, Chellie

BatteriesIncluded

Planning the delta out on the board I'm suddenly realizing that as I put this together it seems as though the prop won't clear the ground on landing because the craft is not designed with "landing gear" high enough to avoid it. I know hand launching is the only way to go with this but I am concerned about chewing up my props on landing, even with the throttle shut off. Is this right or am I missing something?

JoeBruce

I wondered about prop clearance as well. I cut out my SQD (and a 17" ws AlleyCat) and the parts are soaking in the tub.

CHELLIE

Hi Guys dont worry about the prop, it will move out of the way when landing on grass, I also use a prop saver just incase, Glad to hear that your soaking Foam, that removes half the weight, I have another delta that i cut out, and its 5 oz and a delta with the paper off is 2 1/2 oz Take care , Chellie

BatteriesIncluded

Your kidding, right? I just put one together (pics later) and it weighs 5.5 oz on my postal scale including the 6" basswood stick. Of course, I was impatient so didn't bother removing the paper. My electronics with motor, propeller, battery, etc. weigh in at 5.5 oz so we are talking 11 oz flying weight. This still sounds light to me, but my next delta will be soaking in the tub to eliminate the extra 3oz of weight.

Just a thought, how much does your weigh after adding the CF reinforcements?

CHELLIE

Hi BattInc no not kidding, the paper is half the weight of the foamboard, if you remove it it will be much lighter, the cf rod might add up to 1 oz if that, but dont worry, you have a lot of wing area, if you leave the paper on or take it off, I just like to remove the paper, and make it a not weigh so much, you have 420 sq inches of wing area on this delta, so leaving the paper on or take it off is up to you, if you leave the paper on then you dont need to do the carbon fiber bracing, have fun, Chellie

BatteriesIncluded

Took some time out today to do something i wanted to do so here are some pics of what I did today. Hopefully, I won't have any difficulty uploading these photos.

I do have one question. I belive you said that the CG should be about 51/2" behind the nose. I seem to be having problems moving the CG up that far. I played around with the electronics and tried rearranging their positions but I still am having difficulty getting the CG right. Perhaps a bigger battery or running 2 batteries in parallel would help bring the CG up further to the front of the plane. Any suggestions?

CHELLIE

Its looking very very nice did you leave the paper on or remove it, the paper might be giving you a bad time in trying to get your CG, because there is a lot of paper back there, and it is a little heavy, what size battery are you using, a bigger battery may help, move the battery up as far as possible, also move your servos up as far as possible, same with the receiver, if all else fails you might have to add a little extra weight to the front to get the CG , The CG is measured from the foam nose of the delta, at 7" If your using the 800 mah battery, yes you may need to use two of them, in parallel , I can see that one 800 mah 2cell battery wont be enough weight, take care , Chellie

GA-Flyer

I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth just busy here, I have designed a delta on paper for now and have made several adjustments after reading this thread, lots of gotchas avoided, thanks to all.
I probably will have a hard time getting the finance manager ,aka wife, to approve this project but I do have a birthday coming up in April and it's rumored that she loves me... Right now I am having fun making my CD ROM motors work, only a geek would call that fun...lol
BTW, at PT job (Home Depot) I found some really flexable styrofoam used as packing material has any one else seen this stuff? It looks like the same thing my AHAA jet is made of. For my delta I will use the pink styrofoam from HD, I think its more durable.
Is there a preferable angle (wingwise) for these delta's, what are the breaking points between speeder and glider? And is the a good wing width? I want to add these dimensions to my delta but I need some guidance, anyone care to give a guesstimate? I'm open to any and all.

Doyle

BatteriesIncluded

Well it seems to be completed, only a trial flight will tell. I ran into some interesting problems and hopefully I found the right solutions. The CG seems to be within reason now. I had to move the motor forward and reconstruct the stick mount a bit (pics below).
The main reason I had trouble with the CG was too light a battery and I will be picking up a bigger and better battery.
I am not sure if my cheapo ESky radio will work correctly or not. For some reason I am getting "chatter" from the servos when they are receiving no input. Not sure what that means. I'm also not sure if the servos have enough "throw" or movement but they seem to be ok. From what I have heard here it doesn't take alot of elevon movement to get this plane to move.
Out of curiosity, I have heard that you can test the plane before powered flight by doing an unpowered glide. What can I expect from this? When I try it it seems as though the delta goes nose down. Should it glide in level? If so, maybe my CG is too far forward?

JWilliams

Depending on plane, motor, etc. I don't think a totally flat glide is necessarily ideal but you should be pretty close, at least at first. It should be possible with control surfaces set to neutral for it to fly quite flat without power.

I responded to your servo comments in another thread but I think that you will not need much movement. I was shocked with my first plane how little the control surfaces moved. Granted, you don't have prop wash with this plane running across them and they will only be based on the plane's windspeed (not the much higher wind speed from the prop), but I don't think you need much movement. During your glide test you can confirm that.

As long as the control surfaces aren't going wild, some chatter is ok. With my RTF I get a bit but when I actually start moving the stick around the much stronger signal from my TX appears to override any RF interference from the surrounding environment.

Congrats on the plane. Good luck! I always crash my planes so do not worry if you happen to make this crash and it needs repairs on its maiden. Hate to put that downer on there, but my first scratchbuilt has tons of repairs already on it

GA-Flyer

I wonder, if there are some many crashes if one shouldnt build two to start with. I am seriously considering making my own I think that is what I will do.

Sort of like when I taught my kids to ride a bike I bought a good used one, once they learned they got a new one.

My $.02 worth,
Doyle

JWilliams

Could do but building two will take longer than one and then doing what fixes are needed on it, most likely. Scratchbuilt foamies are good for repairing because it's easy and cheap but they definitely do not take the hits like a pusher RTF will, unfortunately.

CHELLIE

Hi Everyone Hi Batt Inc you delta looks very nice, good job, on the servo chatter, make sure that the transmitter is turned on first, before hooking up you planes battery, and turn off the transmitter last, after you disconnect the planes battery, the transmitter is the first to go on, and the last to go off, also range check your radio with the radio antenne down and walk away from the plane, you should have no chatter for up to 25 to 50 feet from the plane, when you lanch the delta, give it a couple of clicks of up trim,
toss the delta with a little up throw, maybe 15 degrees up from flat, just about all radios , if you have the transmitter off and the servos and electronics on, will chatter the servos, not a good thing, and it could cause the ESC to want to reprogram its self, always make sure the transmitter is on , and the throttle is completely off on the transmitter, or you will reprogram the ESC, not a good thing to happen, when flying this delta, make wide turns, you may need to give a little more up during a turn than a regular plane but not much more, untill you get the hang of the deltas, not that much differant, hope that helps, take care and have fun, Chellie

JWilliams

Oh, of course this is not a pusher, ignore what I said about prop wash.

skiman762

Chellie
I ran your mearsurements on my plotting board twice and came up with a CG of 8 3/8'' are you sure on your CG
Reason I'm asking is I made one of these this weekend and set the CG at 5.5 and it was a handfull very unstable so I came home and plotted the CG from the Delta wing drawing in the website posted
http://adamone.rchomepage.com/index5.htm
and came up with 8 3/8'' from the nose of the wing
I had very poor glide and roll control all the plane wanted to do was turn on it's back and dive . In turns it would roll into it and point the nose to the ground
It was a hairy flight to say the least
How did you come up with the 5.5'' number maybe I'm doing something wrong but I'm pretty good with numbers and geometry so I think my figures are right
Any way I really like the disign and followed your build and decided to put one together took 6 hours from first cut to maiden
she is fast I'll say that but I know the CG must be wrong to be having so many bad habits in the air
I think I'll start moving it back towards 8 3/8 and let her fly
It's only foam

skiman762

Here's another cg calc I ran the numbers in here and it confirmed my figures if you look at the delta picture on website 2 it's says to put the cg 10% ahead of the AC which they calc as 25%of MAC so that would make 15% of MAC I used
root chord 21''
tip chord 8''
sweep dis. 13''
halfspan 10''
%of mac 15
and it came up with a cg of 8.11''

1. http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/cg_calc.htm#cg
2. http://adamone.rchomepage.com/index5.htm

Can someone look it over and see if they come up with the same numbers before I launch this thing into the twilight zone
thanks

CHELLIE

Hi at first I had the CG at 6" from the foam nose of the front, it did not have a very good glide there, I was flying in high wind too, a CG of 6 1/2" to 9 1/2" seems to work best, other people have been having good luck at 9 1/2" its a learning experiance on getting the right CG, but when you find your sweet spot, leave it there, Chellie

skiman762

I got the lateral ok
Mine just drops like a rock nose first if I don't stay WOT
it has the glide slope of a brick and 9.6 oz AUW it should float like a feather after the first flight trimming the elevater it was up a 1/4 inch from level and that was at WOT
not sure whats different on mine
I have over an inch of throw and still don't have enough to keep the nose up at anything less then full throttle that from my years of flying says nose heavy
I think I'll just start moving the CG back to where the calc says it should be and hold my breath
Hope to fly it one day this week I'll post a flight report or pictures of the wreakage
Thanks Chellie
I'll get her flying yet

BatteriesIncluded

OK I thought I was crazy but now I know that my gut feeling was right. I ran the same calc and came up with the same answer. I ran through this calculation just because my intuition was telling me this thing is really nose heavy. Even on an unpowered glide, all it wants to do is smash nose first into the ground. No amount of control will keep it in level flight. I'm going to do some experimenting today. Starting at 5 1/2" I'll start moving the CG back and see what happens.

CHELLIE

Hi Again thats what you have to do sometimes, experiment with the CG for any given plane untill its right for you, you may want to start at 7" and move it 1/2" back at a time, a 1/4" makes a lot of differance on a delta, good luck to you, Chellie

Update, people are having good luck with a 7" to 9 " CG try it , you might like it