SloBat

Here's the place to talk about "Light" electric combat limited to Open designs with brushed motors.

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RH
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SloBat

Post by RH »

Just got back in from the first flight of the first of 2 Slow Sticks I am putting together for, hopefully, an indoor combat demo event at the upcoming show at the old Lowry AFB. The wind was howling at the soccer fields but that just made for a nice vertical takeoff[:D] I was impressed at how much wind this thing coud handle, a goor 15-20mph. I was surfing that wind like crazy with this thing, standard motor with a 3S Lipo. Great fun with huge combat potential.

jj and Tom, I know you guys have em, let's get ready to RUMBLE!!

George - buy one of these!!

Frank, 4ple and Ric - you too [:D][}:)][;)]

rh
slam
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Post by slam »

i think these would be great spec indoor combat planes. just keep the tape and ca handy[:D]

i hate brushed motors but think that you should keep the stock brushed motors so you don't get into a "gotta try this motor" race.

at one point the ama was going to limit wing span or area used in indoor flyins, at the time i heard this the slow stick was considered over the limit.

ama has no clue on electrics.....this plane is perfect for indoor flying.

slam
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boiler
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Post by boiler »

Slam, I flew a standard brushed motor and 2 cell lipo against brushless motors using 3 cell lipos. We were in a high school gym and I felt competivive. The characteristics of the slow stick and the small box of the gym are great equalizers. About all the high powered guys could do that I couldn't was loop. When they came out of the loop, I was on their six.
RH
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Post by RH »

We had a little one on one park flyin Slobat, yesterday. I fit on up with the stock can rig the other with a BP12 combo. 3 cell Lipos on both. They both flew very well, then the ole beater ESC I had on the can motor started acting up, LHS should have new ones in today. I want a more fair comparison before I start raving about how much better the BP12 performed. Actually we ran it about half throttle most of the time.

Bob, try moving your CG back, both of mine will loop tight enough to almost cut it's own 15' streamer, plenty tight enough to do loops in a gym.

Prop cuts on that light weight foam are going to be an issue with these. The wing shouldn't be too bad, fix er up with some packing tape but the tail feathers, I don't know....Right off the bat I cut half the elev off with a prop cut. The wind was just hard enough to carry the pieces to New Mexico. I'm wondering about 2 mm coro tail feathers. It will add some weight but will be okay with an outrunner, I'm thinkin.

These things need more rudder to fly outside in any breeze at all. Man, it's crank in all the rudder she's got and wait and wait and wait for it to bite to turn into the wind.

These things are a ball to fly.

rh
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boiler
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Post by boiler »

I cut a roll of Scott toilet tissue on a band saw to about 1/2 inch thickness for streamers. It worked well and we go cuts without sticky stuff. The guys in the gym used packing tape and hot melt glue for fast repairs.
RH
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Post by RH »

Toilet tissue may be a better streamer for indoor slobat. I just unrolled a regular black streamer, tore it in half and we tied em on. We didn't use any stickyness and had several drapes but couldn't get a cut. The TP would probably tear easier with wing contact but I wonder how it would hold up outside in a bit of a breeze?
RH
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Post by RH »

It didn't take two of us very long to reduce 2 SLow Sticks to a pile of rubble. I believe it is Depron that these are made from and it is not very durable. I had replaced one set of tail feathers with 2 mm coro after a previous foray and that worked just fine. Seems like the wing might need to be coro as well but then that is a lot heavier than the Depron.

I had hoped this might be a way to lure new folks into combat but I am afraid the carnage rate will be too high and probably scare more people off than it interests.

The open designs we demoed a few weeks ago were much more durable than these Sticks.

Maybe if we had been inside we would have been flying slower and the carnage would not have been as bad but then again we didn't cream any basketball hoops either.

rh
RH
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Post by RH »

Bob,

I am setting up a Slow Stick combat demo at an Air Modeling Expo in a hanger on the old Lowery AFB on the 14th of January. I am wondering about some of the mechanics of the event. We will be flying 2 and possibly 3 times during the day and I have 5 pilots comitted so far. There may be a good number of spectators so we will want to conduct a pretty structured event with all safety aspects covered. Are you guys wearing hard hats in the gym? Do you think they are necessary, if nothing else for appearance sake at a public gathering? How are you starting and stopping combat? I was thinking maybe a horn or a whistle blown by someone with a timer/watch. I was wondering about fire extinguishers or a bucket of sand and a shovel in case something goes bad with a LiPo battery pack. What else do I need to consider?

Input from anyone is appreciated.

Randy
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boiler
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Post by boiler »

Randy, none of the guys that I fly with are regular combat pilots so we don't all have hard hats. We have been waiting for a break in the heli/3d flying and taking over during their break. The Scott toilet tissue streamer works great. You need a fine toothed band saw to cut it clean into 1/2 inch strips. We use about four arm spans of rippon attached to the aluminum boom with masking tape. We have had as many as 6 slow sticks in the air at once with maybe two other craft towing streamers. If someone goes down, they usually go get it and put it back up. We are going to try organizing it better this Sunday. The best place for spectators is behind the pilots but a distance of 10 feet should work if in a crowded area. The slow flight of the slow sticks in the gym makes it a fairly safe plane. If you have a lot more indoor space where you can really shoot the electrons to the planes, it will be more destructive and you will need to put the spectators further back and wear the hard hats. Half the guys are running the 300 size brushed can motor that comes with the plane and a 2 cell lipo or equivalent. I have a himax 2015 on a gearbox which is equal to the other half that have brush less out-runner motors or my set-up. The only advantage we have is that we can pull out of a stall and then throttle back to re-engage the flight pattern. We have found that a gentleman's rule to fly left hand pattern cuts down on the mid-airs in this small area. We have fire extinguishers on the walls of the gym. If someone has an all purpose chemical fire extingusiher, it would be a good idea to have it there. It's best not to try recharging a battery while at our event since they only last 2 hours and people will try to charge at too high a rate. In your case you have time to recharge. I recommend to limit charging at .9C as it will prolong battery life by 50% from the 1C rate. (So I was told at a workshop on Tuesday) During the flying, You may want people to limit their speed controls so speeds are about 2/3 the full throttle speed on a two cell lipo. That really cuts down on carnage and makes for an easier to follow demonstration. That's about as fast as we can fly without running into a wall in the gym. I suggest some test flights at this site to get the feel of things so take some spare batteries and some packing tape and hot glue for repairs. You could have an organized start combat that ends 3 minutes later without plane retreival for safty. A whistle sounds like a good idea for start and stop combat. Since we haven't done that yet we really don't keep score, just have fun flying. Hope these ideas help. Let me know how things go as we are all learning at this point.
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