American Eaglet

[Ara Dedekian]

     John

        There is no stiffness to the hinged rudder. It's so loose it falls to one side or the other just by tilting the model. The idea being the rudder moves out of the way to let the not-enough-dihedral do its job. This is accomplished by using old control line style Esaki hinges. They are hardly visible on the closeup of the Eaglet rudder but more visible on the shot of the H-1.

       What's bizarre is that when I remove the rudder from the Hughs, leaving just the vertical stabilizer, it flies like a bird. But I doubt I could claim an official flight with a plane thats missing parts that were there during judging.

     Ara

[MAP]

Well I have not had a chance to try the hinged rudder,  hopefully the weather will cooperate but I have my doubts. 

A friend of mine came across this video https://youtu.be/vuCngs7Fv98 of the Eaglet and this one does the same as mine. 

John

[MAP]

I have finaly won!  It is flying very well,  never thought i would see the day but it came.

After giving up countless times and trying what ever was suggested and what I could find in trimming articals,  there is so much to read and I am sure that it was all good it just took me a long time to wrap my head around all of it.  What I ened up doing was adding a trim tab to the right wing panel, not very big but I did have to bend it down a far bit.  Next I reinstalled my rudder with thin aluinum strips and I bent it right about 1/16", maybe just a touch less.  Flys a big beautfull circle and I can add power to it with no affect to the trim,  I only got it working with about 1/2 hour left in our indoor flying session.  It only took a few flights to get it in a pattern I like and then I worked up the turns and also eneded up taking a lot of down thrust out.  I guess once I add a lot of power for out door flying I may have to put in more down thrust. 

I did have a couple flights in the 44 to 45 secounds and I know the motor will take another 500 turns,  but it will have to wait for the next outting.  So excited it took me a long time to fall asleep that night!

John

[OZPAF]

Congratulations - I hope you have a chance to fly it again soon.

John