Something old as something new

At Spadflyer.com we have run a thing called spadlog that was linked to our site for some time. It proved to be just a little clumsy to maintain. After a lot ( well a lot for us) of thought, we decided to try the blogger approach. Now we are able to publish our experiments with Simple Plastic Airplane Design ( or spad) with a bit less trouble and fuss. Hope you enjoy reading this.

Below are all the posts from Spadlog to bring spadblog up to date. Stay tuned.

Ed Sorrels


Spadlog 10-02-05
It has been a long time since having the discipline to post on Spadlog. Time has been spent in keeping life together and building customer orders. So now it is time to get back to the drawing board.
So many customers have inquired about building the SPADflyer as an electric that we decided it needed to be done by us. We spent some time in the shop fooling with weight and balance because it seemed to be a problem for some of our customers. As we worked on this, we noticed that it would be easy to avoid the tail-heavy situation by removing some of the fuselage. A work in progress has been the SPADboy. This is a shortened version of the original SPADflyer. It has all the great lifting qualities of the original with a lot more quickness. So we took the pieces for one of our prototypes, added an AXI 2820/12 and a 2200ma 3s29 lipo battery pack, and an electric SPADboy was born. Amazing! With standard radio gear we are no longer tail heavy. The electric SPADboy balances with a minimum of fuss. Now to the flying field.
At the field we decided that we would launch at our customary rough but convenient flying field. A lot of locals go to Fulbright park in Union Gap, WA to fly electric. We decided that we would want to keep to the tradition of rough and ready that is SPADflyer. We are trying out the newer landing gear design with a little more height and slightly thicker aluminum (.090 instead of .080 ). Our first choice of prop is a 12 x 6 APC electric prop. All up weight is just 4 lbs 5 ounces. Heavy for the electrics we are used to, but pretty light for a SPAD.
First flight is an OK takeoff. The liftoff is as though we are not getting full power out of the setup. We know we have enough battery amps and motor to go well, but it seems we are not pulling the plane around as well as we would like. Duration for the flight is about 12 minutes, but we are flying like a slow-flyer for the most of the flight. Very nice flight characteristics just like all the SPADflyer planes, but no punch.
Analysis: We need a bigger prop. Looking in the flight box we quickly realize that we have nothing larger. Ok so wait until next time! 13 x 10 here we come!
Spadflyer log......2-17-05
Took some time off from the airplane factory today to get out and do the thing that brought us here--fly. We're trying out a new wing design that is wider and can be handled even by the guy that has a tiny car. The new wing is 60" overall, but can be broken down to halves for transport. With a 4-degree dihedral, it should be really easy for almost anyone to fly and still be able to transport in the average hatchback.
We took the #2 fuse and strapped on the new wing with its dual aileron servos. Old Number Two looks like number two, but it has the OS 40 fp so it is a reasonable facsimile of what the new flyer will want to afford. No big horsepower advantage here!
Today was great! Brilliant sunshine on a 45 degree afternoon and we remembered to bring all the parts necessary to aviate. Even remembered to charge the glow igniter. Assembling the wing took just sliding the aluminum dihedral dowel into the aluminum tubes in the spars. A little clear strapping tape to hold the wing together and we were strapping the wing to Old Number Two.
The take off was straight through the clumps of grass that fill our convenient-but-rough field. The OS pulled us up at a leisurely pace. We were at two mistakes high in no time at all and trimmed out. The size of this wing makes things happen fairly slowly, but it proved itself to be more than a little tough. Inside loops were easy enough and it even handled inverted flight. Because we were concerned with the new wing joining method, we gave it a lot of sharp diving pull-ups at very high speed, and the wing just took it all and came back for more. So far it doesn't seem that we can break this wing in flight.
Got to abuse test the landing gear a couple of times due to trying to fly at part throttle too long. The OS 40 fp didn't take to running at 1/3 throttle for 10 minutes at a time on a fairly cold day. It finally flamed out and we got to try landing in the pucker brush. The gear came out fine, but the nylon bolts didn't fare too well. The good news is this is as designed, and we didn't even lose a prop. The bad news is that even if the design works, Old Number Two doesn't have the easy to replace design that our final kit has, so the gear was a little unpleasant to replace. Still and all it only took about 5 minutes to replace the gear and get back flying.
This was a terrific day! The wing design worked as we planned. The gear design worked as planned. It was a beautiful day, and we had fun playing hooky from the airplane factory. Too bad we had to go home when the sun went behind the mountain, but this time of year it gets just plain cold here in Yakima when the sun hides.
Spadlog 2-22-05
Old number two looked so bad that we decided it was time to build a new fuselage today. In the process, we learned a couple of things that you might find useful.
1. The landing gear bolts that we ship now are longer than the ones we used at first. This means that they must be cut shorter in order to clear the front wing dowel. Easiest way to cut them and still thread them into the blind nuts is to make a straight cut with a saw. If you just use side dikes you create an opportunity for frustration. Cut them off at 3/4" and they work great.
2. With an OS 40 fp, the battery and receiver need to be opposite each other just behind the forward wing dowel. The servos will be just behind that. This will get your balance just about right. With a ball bearing engine like the GMS 40 or Tiger 40, the servos will have to be in the back, and the battery and receiver will need to be closer to the rear wing dowel.
Stay tuned

Saturday 2-26-05
I took a new plane that I have built that replaced old number 2 and went flying with some friends that are interested in SPAD’s. Put the plane up for its maiden trip with the 60” trainer wing on it. It took off nicely and climbed just as it should. Once it was up about 5 mistakes high I trimmed it out to where I could let go of the radio and it would fly level.
Took some time to do some loops, rolls, inverted flying, outside loop, (well almost, not quite enough horsepower with the big wing to pull it through). I then brought it down for a couple of passes to get a feel for where I was going to land it. As I pulled up and turned I must have gotten a case of numb thumbs. The plane rolled over and headed to the ground at full throttle. I hit the grass harder than I have ever crashed before. Damage was minimal. All of us were amazed at what didn’t break. I lost the propeller, an aileron servo stripped, and the landing gear bolts sheared off. That is all the sustainable damage the plane received. If this had been a balsa kit I would be building a new one now.
This is why we like our SPAD’s, some days don’t go the way you planned.
Keep looking up!

Wednesday 4-6-05
This morning I went to my van to go to work and found it broken into with all of my RC planes and radios and equipment stolen, not to mention mine and my daughters rollerblades. You all know what it takes to collect the bits and pieces we use to fly with, all of it is gone - 5 years and $1500 worth of stuff. So here's a tip for you'all - don't leave you gear in the car. Even if you have to take it in 3 or 4 trips up stairs and down the hall, take the time to do it. The stuff you save could be yours.
Anybody go some good deals on RC equipment?
Spadlog 4-20-05
Took our new improved Spadflyer with the very elegant colors and trim out for a test drive. Bought a spanking new ASP46 and ran it in enough to be sure that even though it was running rich, it would keep running. Wanted to be sure that it was ready for the Valley Aeromodelers Volcano Fun Fly at Ben's strip in Zillah, WA.
Long story short about how the fun fly got the name---it was renamed for the 8 am Sunday eruption of Mt St. Helens a few years ago. Now it is tradition that the Fun Fly happens on the same weekend as always and is named the Volcano because St Helens made a "dark day"--like midnight at 12 noon. Made the fun fly very memorable for all the participants. Some came from more than just a few miles away and ended depending on the hospitality of strangers since it was unsafe to drive for a while. The Yakima Valley was covered with enough volcanic ash that we all spent most of the next month shoveling 1 1/2 feet of ash off the streets and roofs and yards.
Meanwhile, back at the test field. Our new bird took off proudly and lofted into the skies burbling richly into the overcast sky. Chip took a few turns around the field and complained that the sky didn't do much for keeping him oriented. Weeeeell----one of those spells of disorientation resulted in a spin at about 100 feet, and the corrections just seemed to make it worse--ever have one of those days? We now have proof. It is possible to crash a Spadflyer so well that you cannot get back in the air the same day. When you put the nose in the ground in a vertical spin with the throttle still at 3/4 you make a lovely hole. Even in the drought hardened ground we left a 7" crater. The fuse from the wing mount forward shattered into splinters and the engine broke from it's mount. The fuel tank disassembled itself as the firewall pulled from the fuse---we found the clunk 4 feet from the wreckage and never did find the stopper. Two servos died a horrible death. Control rods look more like pretzels or some bizarre modern art study than the useful implements they began the day as. The saddest loss of the whole event is the lovely Tru-turn aluminum spinner. It has survived many other misadventures, but today it died. Yes it is possible to crash so hard that even a Spadflyer has to go back to the shop for repairs.
Now for the good news. The wing will fly again. It is not as nice now as it once was, but it remains a testament to the durability of the Spadflyer design and spad construction in general. The tail feathers and tail wheel wire are unhurt. In fact as we were starting the replacement fuse and firewall/engine mount, we decided that by the time we are done, we may have spent more time crying about the crash than we will have spent in fixing it! We crashed at 6 pm, ate supper, started work at 7:30 pm and stopped work at 9 pm because we had no fuel tank and needed two servos, and our favorite local hobby store was closed. We figure that we will be flight ready in about another hour at the most. For those who like that sort of thing, we have couple photos of the remains. Seems in the rush to get out to the field, I forgot the camera and had to do the documentation thing on the grass at home.