Reno Air Racer

[19000rpm]

Last year I built a Super Corsair as a tribute to the Thompson Trophy Air Races held shortly after WWII. I had lots of fun with it until it buried itself in a hill for reasons still undetermined.

This season I decide to do a "fantasy" plane of Reno Air Race origins. Not a replica, but something I wouldn't mind having in a full sized race.

I had a bunch of spare parts so I decided to do a P-51.

Airframe: PKZ "Gungfighter".

Power System: Exceed Monster 10, Proton 40A ESC, Tenergy 2200 3S 30C, PKZ 9x7.5 Prop.

Servos: Ailerons, PKZ SV80s, Rudder, PKZ DVS130, Elevator, PKZ 1060.

Paint scheme: Krylon Fuysion reda and light gold and lots of Scotch colored tape.

This is a hand launch plane. It rips itself out of my hand at about half throttle. It looks every bit the Air Racer role in the tight banks. Lots of fun.

[akent]

Looks awesome!
Man, you sure do have the ability to do up these foam jobs nicely!
Kent

[19000rpm]

Thanks, Kent. I was lucky enough to born with a visual sense and then developed it in design school. I hadn't put it to work in a long while until I got in to these planes. It's sure is fun.

[Gabe]

Kent's right. These are some of the best looking foam planes I've seen. You've really figured out how to shine them up.

[19000rpm]

Thanks Gabe. Foam planes have made the process pretty quick and relatively easy.

[19000rpm]

I've been flying this one a while now and it's a fun and reliable hand toss plane.

Much to my surprise I got a glitch the other day. I was a few minutes into the flight and the plane lost power and control. Believing it might be a brown out, I reset the throttle, got power and control back and brought it around and then it happened again. Reset the power and was headed on final and it happened again. This time when I reset the power the motor stayed dead but I seemed to have control over the servos.

After the plane was on the ground the motor and controls were working. Of course!

Bench testing revealed: what I first thought was a brown out and a faulty ESC; was really the blue Rx from Target Hobbies that failed. First one to fail for me. If you have any of these Rx's keep an eye on them.

[Gabe]

Wow- I was actually thinking about buying some of those since no one has had any problems yet. Toss that idea out the window.

[19000rpm]

I've got a couple of these still flying and I wouldn't stop unless I had another failure. I've had spektrum Rx's fail also.

[akent]

I actually am flying three of the Hobby King orange 6 channel receivers now. They seem to work great!
I am running a remote with each.
These with the remote run somewhere around 15 bucks...

I trust these enough to put one in a Great Planes 60" Revolver running 2,000 watts. It's about a 100mph plane and does aerobatics beautifully.

I never tried the Targer Hobby blue ones...I did buy 10 of their AR6100's (clones?). They all work fine.

The ONLY receivers I have had fail have been Spektrums!! On AR6110 and two AR6200's. Both AR6200's were in crashes though. You can't blame one of these though as I could only find the label after a Funjet hit concrete at about 150 mph!
The AR6110 just died one day for no apparent reason.
Kent

[19000rpm]

I haven't tried the orange ones yet. Good to hear they're performing so well.

You know, when it comes right down to it, it's really a matter of luck these days; spending more money doesn't guarantee you anything. QC sucks everywhere these things are made. The clones are as good, or better, than the real thing and they're so much cheaper why not use them? Some might fail, but then so do the other "real ones". I had 2 AR500's and an AR6100 go bad.

If a clone goes bad you're out 5-10 bucks. If a $60-80-100 Rx goes bad then "maybe" Horizon will replace it. Either way you might be out a plane, or in for some extensive repairs, if you didn't catch the problem when the plane wasn't airborn. Not a tough choice for me.

Anyway, I put a clone AR6110 in the Reno Racer and she's back in the air. I dropped a 45A ESC in it so now it's time to prop it up. A 10X10 ought to get it to 85 +, a piker on the fast plane circuit, but at least I'll be able to admire it on a low pass for up 3 seconds at a time before it goes out of sight. LOL

[akent]

Exactly!!

What's funny is I'm now running about a dozen Spektrum receivers and about 20 clones. The clones have never failed.

I actually had an AR600 go bad in my F-27Q. It just didn't turn on one day.
I took it home and opened it up. There was a cold solder joint on one of the surface mount components! I touched it up and it still works.
There is no excuse for that.

Plus, I don't really trust the new DSM-X receivers yet from Spektrum in DSM-2 mode. They have had some serious bugs in the new transmitters at least.
Kent

[Gabe]

The only receiver I trusted to put in my Darkside Stryker was the AR7000. I've had a brown out or two with the parkflyer receivers from spectrum. Lost a Stryker and a FunJet that way.

[19000rpm]

Yeah, I'd wait awhile on the DSMX stuff. BTW Target is going to have AR6200 and 6300 with satelites soon.

[akent]

Sept 13, 2011 12:11:15 GMT -6 19000rpm said:

Yeah, I'd wait awhile on the DSMX stuff. BTW Target is going to have AR6200 and 6300 with satelites soon.

That will be nice!

The range of these orange receivers (with remote) is less than the Spektrum.

My testing in 'range check' mode:
AR7000 and AR6200 were close to the same, with remote: 60-70 paces
Orange with remote: 40-50 paces

I seem to remember that 30 paces is supposed to be the minimum. I also did not test the Orange without the remote.

When I range checked the AR6110 and AR6100's before, I seem to remember them going about 10-15 paces. I didn't write it down, but I remember being surprised at the short distances. Man was I stupid to fly those in 'real' airplanes.

I did fly the Orange to a dot in the sky and out a LONG way with the Revolver.
It seems to work just fine, but I sure would like the extra range of the AR6200.
Kent

[akent]

Sept 13, 2011 6:22:10 GMT -6 Gabe said:

The only receiver I trusted to put in my Darkside Stryker was the AR7000. I've had a brown out or two with the parkflyer receivers from spectrum. Lost a Stryker and a FunJet that way.

Yeah Gabe, I lost a Funjet and a Great Planes Evader jet and another plane from flying the parkflyer receivers!
Those things are awesome for 3d foamies, but that's all, as you well know. What irritates me is they don't have warnings all over them about that.
Kent