The 'What did you do in your workshop tonight?' thread

[BalsaDust]

Best DLG advice I have for someone if you want a nice plane is to start with a 1.5M composite bird. You can find many team pilots birds from the previous year on RCG classifieds for $600 and less most times for a plane that is either RTF or just needs your RX dropped in it. I suggest 1.5M birds as they are much easier to fly. 1M DLG's also fly great but require a lot more work to get them to perform well. Pretty much all of the 1.5 birds these days perform great but certain ones I feel are better suited to newer DLG pilots. The Flitz 1 or Flitz 2 are both great birds. I have the Flitz 1 and literally on a day with no lift and no wind if I get a good launch I can basically trim it for a 3 minute flight that will be hands off after the launch. Literally launch it, get it flying level, bump left or right rudder a couple times to start a turn, then let go of the sticks and it will continue in the turn with a very nice very slow sink rate. The Vortex series of planes are also to me beginner friendly birds. BAMF are good and I have never flown a snipe but heard good things. I would steer clear of the NXT Stream or any of the CX series planes (Mainly see CX5's). They do fly amazing but are very performance driven planes and will require you to be an active pilot the entire time your flying it.

 

[AKNick]

Best DLG advice I have for someone if you want a nice plane is to start with a 1.5M composite bird. You can find many team pilots birds from the previous year on RCG classifieds for $600 and less most times for a plane that is either RTF or just needs your RX dropped in it. I suggest 1.5M birds as they are much easier to fly. 1M DLG's also fly great but require a lot more work to get them to perform well. Pretty much all of the 1.5 birds these days perform great but certain ones I feel are better suited to newer DLG pilots. The Flitz 1 or Flitz 2 are both great birds. I have the Flitz 1 and literally on a day with no lift and no wind if I get a good launch I can basically trim it for a 3 minute flight that will be hands off after the launch. Literally launch it, get it flying level, bump left or right rudder a couple times to start a turn, then let go of the sticks and it will continue in the turn with a very nice very slow sink rate. The Vortex series of planes are also to me beginner friendly birds. BAMF are good and I have never flown a snipe but heard good things. I would steer clear of the NXT Stream or any of the CX series planes (Mainly see CX5's). They do fly amazing but are very performance driven planes and will require you to be an active pilot the entire time your flying it.

One thing I'm learning is that the 1m composite DLGs have about ZERO pod room to work with. Tiny Servos, tiny battery, tiny receiver.... There is a lot of different types of DLG gliders out there and you need one that fits your flying conditions. I am sold on the Dream-Flight Libelle 1.2m for cheap, efficient, and durable. Can hunt rising air in limited lift, yet can slope with the airfoil it has. It'll teach good flying habits and is a 4ch. Plus it has an excellent reputation at a buck twenty.
1.5-2m birds will be stable/more efficient gliders no doubt. To find a decent one on the used market would be ideal.

 

[pawnshopmike]

Major milestone on the refurbishment of the Python 100 - parts being reassembled - finally!

Most of the fuselage is now recovered, just have a few pieces of trim remaining. Then, I’ll move on to the tail feathers.

View attachment 114937

Beautiful. I love orange.

 

[BalsaDust]

One thing I'm learning is that the 1m composite DLGs have about ZERO pod room to work with. Tiny Servos, tiny battery, tiny receiver.... There is a lot of different types of DLG gliders out there and you need one that fits your flying conditions. I am sold on the Dream-Flight Libelle 1.2m for cheap, efficient, and durable. Can hunt rising air in limited lift, yet can slope with the airfoil it has. It'll teach good flying habits and is a 4ch. Plus it has an excellent reputation at a buck twenty.
1.5-2m birds will be stable/more efficient gliders no doubt. To find a decent one on the used market would be ideal.

I have never flown the libelle but I have heard good things about it and it is a good price point. They are a little heavy for there size though (my Flitz will signal lift off of a cow fart LOL) and being foam they can't handle hard launches (Mind you I probably can't throw hard enough to break it). Would agree in your area though being able to land on rougher terrain it will be better.

 

[AKNick]

(my Flitz will signal lift off of a cow fart LOL)

Thank you for that image I desperately want to experience that kind of lift.

 

[BalsaDust]

Your welcome. LOL It is lots of fun when you can hit very small lift and turn it into something major.

 

[AKNick]

It is lots of fun when you can hit very small lift and turn it into something major.

That’s the drug! The itch I keep scratching

 

[Wild man]

I finally got tired of the spring actuated tail wheel assembly and modified it with solid linkage. WOW what a difference. I also finished installing the strobe light on top of the canopy and used a Y harness to connect it with the existing lighting. The main gear modification I made also works great and got rid of the weak springy action also changed the axles with Klett 1/8 axles. The original wheels fit just right on the 1/8 inch axles

 

[Wild man]

I have just changed out the Aileron Y harness and installed two new 30" extensions, so I can set up the F-35 with spoilerons as a few others have done to make the landings just a little bit slower. Running the two new servo extensions was a little bit tedious and took more time than I thought it would, but I believe it will be well worth they effort. Now to get it back together reprogram and get it ready to fly with spoilerons

 

[BalsaDust]

So kind of but not really in my workshop. I was giving this little drone like 3'ish years ago. Flew some and it flew decent but was a pain with some of the setup quirks like needing compass calibration every single flight. Well anyways I got a DJI Mavic Pro from a club member about 8 months ago and had no care any more about this one. A coworker mentioned being interested in a drone but didn't know what to get so I hooked him up and gave it to him. Explained some of the quirks and gave him a quick lesson and he has fallen in love with it already. He plans to fly it with his kids once he gets better with it and probably upgrade to a nice DJI Mavic at some point as well once he feels confident he wont crash something high dollar.

Anyways just wanted to share getting someone else into the hobby even if it is on the drone side of things. I will work with him and maybe each him to fly a plane once I feel he can handle it.