Don Sims

Wattflyer is happy to dedicate a forum to the Superfly fanatics from http://superflyrc.com/

Welcome Tram!

reg3

Good luck with SuperflyRC in 2010, Jeff.

Ed

Tram

Woot...

I guess we're offical, eh?

Thanks Don.. Thanks Ed..

pvtzemerak

Woohoo! Gl in 2010tram. SF's rule
--Pvt

SailingAlong

Cool Beans

Steve

Tram

They are some very sweet beans..

singingperry

Maybe I could put a dash of maple syrup on my Hyperflea, and put a rear facing Bee-Cam on it. I love my Hyperflea! I once bounced it off a steel shed with a loud KAWHAM! and then it bounced off a parked car. I just picked it up and threw it back into the air, didn't even lose trim!

Jack_Hammer

I'm glad this forum is here, though it seems all but dead now, hopefully we can change enthusiasm in the coming months.
I talked with Jeff at Superfly the other day via email.
I've been out of the hobby for a quite a while (against my will) and needed a new Superfly to replace my old moldy one. When I looked at the site, the little bits and optional upgrades where out of stock. Levels never changed. But when I went to place the order, my CC wouldn't take. I knew there were no problems on my end and I wanted my Superfly foam kit. PayPal was an option but I really don't like going that route unless I have to. But I feared the worst that he was out of business (like many others).
So I shot Jeff and email. I was taken back that he responded so quickly, within two hours.
In short I learned that business is dead (like this dedicated forum). So dead that its not economically viable to maintain links with the CC processing company(s), only PayPal was viable. Yes I was able to order my superfly, he has plenty already cut and in stock.

Why is business so dead.... In his own words "Because nobody wants to build anymore"

It's a sad state of affairs when disposable, Pre-made EPO Park flyers from the likes of corporate hobby giants, Hobby Zone, Eflight etc ect etc take a front seat to the rewards of learning to build and the pride that comes with it and replacing it with the luxury of disposable convenience.

Fast food type planes is the result.

Don Sims

It's sad. Jeff has a great product and provides super customer service. My Superfly is the go to plane in wind conditions and no one else is flying.

Jack_Hammer

In the interest of generating more interest in this fabulous flying platform I thought it might help to show my build and what is possible with imaginative mods.

First off whenever I've built Superfly I've gone just a touch beyond recommended design specs in instruction manual (available download from http://superflyrc.com). When I first built one I used a 2s battery and the stock motor. She flew great but as with anyone as yer confidence level with a new plane grows, you find yourself flying the envelope of the current power set up and you find yourself in want of more power!
" Oh yeah godda have more power, oh oh oh oh oh. "

The first hurdle was adding a 3s battery which improved things. But the way the canopy is designed for 2s I had to remove it (thank God for razor blades), take a dremel tool with a router bit and carve a 1/2 inch deep resession to fit the thicker lipo. This also created an issue of changing out lipos as you couldn't slide em in anymore, so adding 4 rare earth magnets in the fuselage and canopy solved that problem. But when it came to the inevitable blunder crash it all flew out. Crashes sometimes cause a crack. Easily solved with hot glue. But I grew tired of having to hot glue electronics back in place so I added velcro srtips in the bottom and on the lipo.

But it still wasn't enough power for me even though the addition of 3s lipo certainly gave things a nice boost. Time for a different motor upgrade. That did the trick. I was doing harriers then going to vertical. Awesome. Setting up the throws and linkages to max and this plane easily did back flips.

But that was 8 years ago when life happened and couldn't fly anymore and those planes warped and rusted in the Florida heat.
Last week Jeff or Tram (let's get this set in stone OK, sent me a foam kit and cut me a 3 inch middle section. I had something special I wanted to to do with an old plane canopy.

This is what it's designed to look like

Jack_Hammer

Now the addition of an extended middle section provides a more graceful and easier to control plane. Great for beginners and adults looking to unwind
You can order various widths of Middle sections when you order a superfly. Since I'm not looking to gracefully unwind, just more space for my project, I ordered a 3 inch section.

Jack_Hammer

A bit of dremel (OK a lot of) work w/a 1/4 inch wide router tip for the main fuselage Bay, then a 1/8 in router bit for the servos and servo wires.

It took a good 1.5hrs to shape sections for the individual spots for the electronic. It's going to be tight fit. You'll see why soon.

Jack_Hammer

I don't care for wires on the surface. Normally if you took a razor knife or such and cut a long slit to where the Rx will be, you can then take a Phillips head screw driver, using one of the 4 channels at the tip and force the wire(s) into the slit. No hot glue required.
But that's pretty hard on my old(ish) and worn out hands, so I took a 1/8th inch router tip and the dremel, then cut a channel for the wires, then a bit of silicone for filler instead of hot glue simply because I find working with hot glue more messy and bothersome.
Let silicone dry over night.

Jack_Hammer

A bit of paint, I didn't go wild for looks, I've got enough unused paint in the garage.
The wing tips and rear of the elevons have green and red florescent paint (right and left).
Electronics installed along with a new micro Mr Fusion power plant. It's capable of producing 100 volts of power, but you can program it to produce specific power requirements. There's no for banana peels or beer in it, but it's really designed to use power pellets made from compressed beer cans. If you flew nonestop everyday for 6 months you'd burn through one pellet.
Winky

Jack_Hammer

OK, well, electronics installed
I also had to do some soldering to shorten all the wires.
Normally with the instructions, you bunch up excess length and hot glue it all to the plane.
There's no room to do that today.

Jack_Hammer

..... and the end result of my labor...... The new improved Superfly XD-3 version 2.0

Yes that's an air scoop with a cooling hole.
Setup:
cheapo brand 2200 kv motor
4 channel Spectrum Air wireless Rx
30 Amp esc
7x4 prop
Gens Ace 3s 1300 45c (like I'll use that) lipo

Funded through the generous donations by the Annenburg CPB Project and viewers like you

Don Sims

Great looking Superfly. Hope it flies as good as it looks. They are my go to planes for super windy days or if I want to putz around and have some flying fun.

Jack_Hammer

Why thanks Don. Personally I think the paint scheme is boorish and a bit ugly. But I like the canopy I took from an Opterra 1.2 meter wing. (I hated that thing). I've still got the motors, servos etc though I have no clue what I'll do with em just yet.

The next SF will definitely have a stock canopy.

Went for a spin this afternoon about an hour after a storm front passed through and the winds dropped to zero. Trimmed it up just a hair and got to know her.

I'm just not impressed with the "El Cheap-O" brand motor. Barely pulls vertical from a harrier, speed is not what was expected either. Other than that it Flys great. For my style though, need more power.

You know what they say, "you get what you pay for ($9)". It certainly holds true. A bargain may say 2200kv but in reality it's more like 1600. I've had 2200kv motors on my SF before. This isn't a 2200kv motor.

A properly set up Micro Dan will exceed my needs just a bit. Pricey but you get what you pay for.

http://www.gobrushless.com/shop/inde...=MD2505-C-2535

I sent Jeff a note, hoping he'll chime in.
I hope he doesn't snort at the build. That would just bring me tears.

Tram

Wattflyer, what a throw back. I’ve personally been out of the hobby in the last few years. I keep threatening to get back into it.

Man, that turned out great! I like what you did with the canopy. Can’t wait to see it fly.

SuperFly is still around and we do sell a handful of kits a month, but nothing like it used to be. Times just change I suppose.

If anyone ever needs anything, [email protected] should always be active and I’ll try and help out.

Jack_Hammer

I triple dog dare you (to get back into it).
Nobody refuses a triple dog dare😜

Jack_Hammer

Well, with addition of the Micro Dan 2505-1845kv motor this thing offered a greater range of throttle, from Uber slow to blistering speed (my guess 45-55mph). Beautiful instant verticals from a crawl. I can't believe the motor itself will turn over at 5% throttle. What a throttle range. So nice.

That being said, I made two errors in the build mods.

1. I used 3M 7M 11 adhesive. It used to be such a great product, but they changed formula and it's much weaker. No the plane didn't come apart at the seams thanks mostly to the carbon spar. I have to scrap the plane, but when I stripped the parts out, I tested the seams and they both separated quite cleanly, too easily. I hate using hot glue on seams (yellows and it's messy). But there are products like goop like products which are meant for EPP and other foams.
2. This was the big Oopsie. If you look at the pics on post 15 you'll see I did a lot of carving with the dremel. I took way too much off around the motor mount. This resulted in too much motor pitch and yaw, the effect was the variable thrust line and effected up and down attitude when raising and lowering throttle.
Sure I beefed it up, especially on the underside of the plane and it worked extremely well. But because I dug too deep in the build it was thin. The beefed up section simply wore down and the motor started pitching again. It flew fine if I didn't raise and lower the throttle and kept a constant speed.

It was a nice idea using the canopy, but making it work took too much from the strength of the EPP foam. I ordered another today. I will do things I normally do, which is recess the 3s battery just halfway and strap it down. Mount all the electronics as per design specs. But I like the canopy idea still. So will try to shape one with scrape from the kit, with heat (from a hot gun or hair dryer) to fit on top of the fuselage instead of in it. There's plenty of scrap EPP left over in the kit to do this with.

When that's done and trimmed out, I'll record a few videos.
​​​

Jack_Hammer

OK, much thanks to Jeff at superfly RC for the new foam kit. I decided to keep the build more simple. I built it the way I always did with the exception of a well for the 3S battery. I've always used 3s even though the plans are designed for a 2S. The original plans call for permanently mounting the canopy and squeezing the battery under it. I busted my first one years ago, the crash was nasty, the battery ripped off the canopy. Next plane I simply attached the canopy with magnets and dremeled out a recess just deep enough for a 3S and strapped the lipo with a velcro strap secured with hot glue.
Her you can see there isn't room for a 3S unless you make a battery well.

Jack_Hammer

Here's a clean looking battery well cut out with a dremel tool a router bit

Jack_Hammer

Base electronics installed. You can also see I'm not using stock tail fins here. I thought it would be interesting to go with a lower profile look using a couple left overs from scraped an opterra 1.2.
But their not made from EPP which means their frail (especially in a worst case crash. You'll see later that I beefed em up real good with some .040 or so carbon fiber. It also looks slick too.
BTW if you haven't read the previous posts, that's a Micro Dan 1845 Kv motor (recommended is 1300kv)
30 Amp ESC
7X5 prop
This thing will scream!

Jack_Hammer

And there it is.
​​​​​​Of course I had to modify the canopy because there just wasn't enough room on the rear for the larger electronics. But it's held down in the back with two rare earth magnets and two upfront.