Yep another noob wanting a AXN floater

[rocketnz]

wow. just wow.

So I went up there with my girlfriend. glided it, yep glides well. launched it, gets about 20 metres up, i bank left and cut throttle, idiot. ailerons are reversed and it stalls and dives HARD into the ground. AXN is demolished. the nose is broken in the middle on top, and broken right and left hand side of cockpit, back stem is broken and nearly severed right off.

I collect it and walk home across the road, a bit in shock. what the hell happened? didnt think these were so dam brittle. I try to remain positive, i get our the fibre tape and the glue gun, and get to work fixing it. 20 minutes later glue has not set properly, but i head back to the park stubborn to get this thing going. I work out how to reverse the channel on the 9xr. do another check...

put throttle to 70% throw it high, hit the elevator, give it more boost toe 90% and we are OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. vhrooom up she goes 100 feet at least, the park is right on a 100 foot cliff face so she is climbing HIGH. i lower the throttle and adrenalin is rushing, have I got control of this thing or am I fluke it, i make a few turns, she comes flying towards me, I'm confident with the control since alll the simulator work I have been doing on the way to work..

But then she goes rushing past me down wind and i give her more elevator and.... SUN , can't see shit! I lose my bearings while turning her, is she coming towards me or away, must be towards, oh no no she is sailing off shes not turning, no control, its then i realise my body has not turned and im facing away from the plane. I quickly spin around and vhroom, she banks, and climbs into the wind and past me again.

amazing. I fly her for ten straight minutes, another 10 minutes later I have landed her three times into the wind and taken off again. Playing in the wind with zero throttle while 2-3 dog walkers look on, amazing fun.

I forgot to re tape the ailerons servo cable hiders, so they fell out onto the park but I found them. my elevator is also broken but nothing some hot glue cannot fixed. So all and all a few lessons and a bit of a ruffed up AXN but I think she will fly again!

lessons learnt.

Check all controls! and check again!

back to sun , do not fly near it.

stay high. only fly low attitude INTO the wind on landing approach.

Stoked!

It should be an amazing view from up there, its a little park 100x100 above bondi golf course. and will look over sea, bondi, and back to the city. Have a 720p keychain coming this week and will give it a crack next weekend.

thanks all.

[rocketnz]

had to go for another flight. marvellous really. sunset over sydney and gliding away, problem free. i'm actually now a bit gutted I did so much damage to it in the first instance, because now it seems its happy flying.

[cynr100]

Well done Rocketnz, you're bitten now there is NO turning back

A couple of valuable lessons learnt in one flight, even the "old" hands check all control surface movements and orientation before each flight.
Never fly behind you, keep the sun at your back and always land into the wind, unless you are good anything else will end in tears.

[rocketnz]

I am amazed the beating the AXN took, and it went back together in under 20 mins and back like new in the air. definitely a great learner flyer for anyone looking to get into the game.

And thanks to Bruce's youtube videos on the axn or I wouldn't be enjoying this new hobby so quickly.

[rocketnz]

another 2 batterys worth of flight this evening nice and calm lovely. Im finding landing a bit tricky because the axn is quite a fast glider, and hard to land in a 80m field with no wind to head into, i think i see now why there are many posts about flaprons, could deploy these to slow the glider right down, is that the trick? Wish i had of not used the y adapter now.

I'm fine to land it just might be a bit softer on the elevator and other small bits skidding on grass a little faster then is required.

Loving the axn though such a easy plane to fly, I was flying high today, had to come down and move out of the way of a few heli's that were buzzing the coast line.

Have been looking at FPV equipment. Really need to plunge in there i guess with the largest purchase it seems, the goggles.

does anyone know if higher res is really that effective when viewing FPV? is it worth the extra money? what kinda of res do he onboard camera's project wirelessly on the 5.8ghz range?

[rocketnz]

Hmm just noticed.

The screws that hold in the prop axel have vanished, they must have rattled out? does anyone know the size of these?

[cynr100]

I have flaperons dialled in for my AXN but have never used in anger, I did have a play at height and came to the realisation that it was just something else that could go wrong on landing and I had to dial in some up elevator to keep control.
Once I have decided I am going to land I cut the throttle completely and only give it a spurt if I am falling short of my field, I cross my "apron" at about 3m and am down and stopped by before 50m. The AXN can get caught in ground effect and you will sometimes need to give it some down elevator. Try some touch and goes using a banking short final, once you are confident playing closer to the ground it becomes second nature and a lot of fun.
Grub screws are 3mm dia, you really need to use locktite on any metal to metal connections good thing it didn't come to grief in the air. See............ there is so much to this hobby, never even thought to mention this to you earlier.

[rocketnz]

Yeh had i built it myself i would have used the lock tite, but you tent to trust the people that make it! I ordered some grubs and popped into jaycar and got some 3mm screws for the mean time, flew it again last night, really enjoying it.

this time with a cold beer in hand, view of Sydney CBD and Bondi, did a few fast glide dives from about 300 feet to the DECK then pull ups with a bit of steam. Glides so well this axn, amazing the noise of the wind coming off those wings as they flex under the dive. I only take 2 battery's with me and that gives me more then i need for the hour and land just before dusk.

God its such a easy plane flying up there that i forgot it was there for about a minute while i enjoyed the view with a beer then i panicked looked up could find it, and there it was just gently gliding circles. A brilliant model.