BashaBolla

Hi Guys
Thanks for the comments /info re wheels and brakes.
I am indeed a long way from needing the wheels but I can see this is going to be an area that is not quite as straightforward as it might first appear - so I might as well get onto it now !
I would go with the TN set ( and beef up the spring ?) but , given that I have a set of electrons available, it seems such a waste to pay some £600 when all I really need are the mains oleos .
I am not a metal worker but can turn my hand to most things so I may have a go at making my own ( thanks for the photo Dave- if you have any more they would be much appreciated ! ) ...or I might see if there is anyone who has the tools and skills and is bored and fancies a little job .
I will check out the JP range of wheels/brakes as suggested ( although I would prefer to use Electron ones as the JP's tend to be all on or off )..perhaps 65mm nose wheels wouldnt be noticeably larger than they should be........
Just starting them build ...top deck sheeted....but it is proving fiddly to get it all square with the ribs being so long and twisted !

Dave Wilshere

The load on the nose wheel is relatively light, so proportional brakes won’t really add much, the Vulcan has a tonne of rolling drag, so brakes are not really needed! Holding it before or after take off is the main function.

BashaBolla

Thanks Dave..agreed....I am hoping that with the relatively light wing loading I may be able to fly this from a strip that I sometimes use that is grass and relatively short . I can get my other jets off there by holding them on the brakes until the turbine has spooled up to max ....it would be good to be able to do that with this one too..but its not a deal breaker .
Currently considering just twin main wheels ...the dangling bogies do look great ..but I am not sure if its £600 great ! ( if I go with twin mains on each side I can brake them instead of the nose .
I will have to see what I can come up with re : the dangling bogies though as I would much prefer them ..........

Dave Batchelor

Hi Richard,

Sent you a PM

Cheers
Dave

BashaBolla

Hi All
Maidened mine at the weekend ...flew brilliantly but there were a few lessons learnt !

The plane was set up with the recommended ( on here ) slightly forward C of G ( 20mm in front of the TN recommendation ) with slightly reduced throws and 30% expo .
The flight itself was great ..looked spectacular in the air with the strobes and the afterburners ..( sorry - in all the excitement forget to take any pics ! - will do next flight ) . Power from the Wren 100 was ideal ...the plane rolled slowly and majestically ...inverted flight showed it had just a touch too much nose weight . The stall was very benign...had to almost stop before it dropped one wing...recovered beautifully .
Problems came on landing ....energy bleed from the turn onto finals is high ( so lesson 1 : throttle needs to be kept on during the turn to finals ) . It was a still day so the aircraft was slow to dissipate speed. Final flair out showed insufficient elevator movement ( lesson 2 : add more up elevator ) this, coupled with the slightly heavy nose ( Lesson 3 : put c of g back very slightly..say 15mm in front of the TN recommendation) result was a bit of a "bounce " on landing ...the big problem came on the second bounce when the nose section cracked off . It was a clean break with no other damage apart from a scraped nose ( the break was at the former just in front of the wing intakes ) .
On reflection I understand why - When building I could not understand why this plane does not have an accessible cockpit area as the idea of putting stuff in panels in the body etc just didnt work for me . Hence I made a lovely hatch from just in front of the wing intakes to just in front of the canopy. Worked a treat and made radio installation etc very straightforward. I did recognize that it did weaken the structure but only made a couple of rudimentary efforts to beef it up ( big mistake ! ) . The nose is now back on ..fiberglassed on the inside with strengthening longerons now running from the nose gear bearers into the fuselage and attaching to the central keel . Its not an easy job to beef this up as you have to go quite a long way back into the fuz to find something substantial enough to anchor the longerons to ! ( Lesson 4: if you are going to make a hatch beef up the structure ! )
All fixed and as good as new ( actually better ! ) ..hopefully next flight this weekend although its looking a bit breezy ......

johnshiell

Thanks for the information. I'm about a month away from my first flight so very timely.

​​​Wondering why we believe Tony's cog recommendation is too far back?

Good luck with the next flight. I've been working on mine for four years so can understand the pressure of the first flight.

Pictures would be great.

Regards

John

BashaBolla

Hi
Flew the Vulcan again this weekend.
I flew it this time ..2 flights ..both great ! :-))
I have videos of a take off and a landing but cannot seem to be able to attach them on here ( they are mp4 format) ....does anyone know what video files are allowed on here ?
Moving the C of G back a bit ( to 10mm in front of shown on the plan ) was fine although I did find I needed a fair bit of down trim and could probably have done with leaving it where it was ! ( 25mm in front of shown on the plan) . The extra up elevator movement was a great improvement....flared beautifully for landing .
Richard

JP-1

........

BashaBolla

I flew the Vulcan again this weekend....all was great and it was a joy to behold :-)
I am finding that the aircraft climbs a bit under full power ( Wren 100 ) . The c of g is slightly forward of where it is marked on the plan and I have fed in a lot of down trim ..flies fine under mid /low power but really wants to climb when given the beans.
When I built the plane I did think that the rear tail pipe section did look a bit odd as it appears to be raked upwards at quite an angle. When building it I checked, double checked and triple checked that the angle was as per the plan - there is a template supplied to make sure it is correct this was also used...all was true and good.
I am now beginning to think that the jet pipe angle is slightly high and needs lowering a few degrees. There is very little room available to do this without taking the whole tail pod off ( which i am not going to do ! ) . I will have a firtle with it over the next couple of days but just wondering if anyone else has experienced this with the Vulcan? ..and , given that I prob cant change the tail pipe angle now , are there any other solutions ? Perhaps mixing down elevator with throttle ( which may cause all kinds of other issues ?? ) , moving the c of g further forward again and increasing the available up elevator travel ? ( would mean riding the up elevator slightly during mid low speed flight but I quite like my planes set up that way ) ?..........

BashaBolla

Bit of a disaster last weekend. Flew the Vulcan again.....fairly breezy day which i thought would be good for slowing it down..wrong !! . The flight went well...I managed to move the thrust tube down at the exit by about a cm - which helped with the climbing under power issue :-). I rolled it inverted and found that it was climbing a bit hands off- so a bit more nose weight needed ( C of G to be moved to 20mm in front of where indicated on the plan ) .
Big problems came on landing . The headwind - instead of slowing the Vulcan down appeared to make if float on even more ( more lift than drag being generated) . This resulted in a bounce on the first landing attempt - recovered and went around. The second landing attempt was shallower ..and was held off as long as humanly possible ...at the point all elevator and aileron effectiveness was lost the plane touched down...would have been just great for any "normal" plane ..but not with this one . The plane bounced slightly and the wind got under the left wing lifting it and rolling the aircraft onto its back ( ouch !! ) .
Took 5 days to repair ..its now all sorted but I shall be making the following changes :
1) Never fly it in breezy conditions !
2) Move C of g slightly forward ( 20 - 25mm in front of where shown on the plan )
3) Lengthen main gear and shorten the nose leg to give a more positive angle on touchdown
4) Increase ailerons to make them full wing ( Elevator is already full wing )
5) Perhaps controversially I shall be adding Lift Dumpers on the wing shoulders as per the real Vulcan. These will be servoless spoilers as used on gliders - available from HK for only about £25 a pair . Approx 30cm long they will need to be retrofitted into the upper wing surface but shouldnt be too much of a problem . Could be interesting !!
On another point a friend of a friend has the same Vulcan ..on EDF. His is built heavy and weighs in at about 10lbs more than mine ( no idea how it weighs so much !) but it is reported to land beautifully . Perhaps this is a function of higher wing loading and no residual turbine thrust but I would guess that if anyone is planning on building one of these planes the thing to do is to build heavy !! . Mine appears to be a bit too light with too low a wing loading . Am considering suspending a couple of house bricks under the wings if the Lift Dumpers dont stop it floating on and on and on .

Dave Wilshere

When I reviewed the video you were forcing it down all the way in. You need to get the nose up going down wind, keep the nose up all the way round to touch down. You were diving at the ground and released the elevator just before touchdown which is why it bounced

Dave

johnshiell

Hi BashaBolla,

I really appreciete the information you have provided above. I am just a few jobs away from flying mine. Might even be tomorrow if the weather plays ball. Looking at the information provided I have gone with the following setup:-
1) Set up as ailerons on the outer surface only, elevators on all wing surfaces. I'll review after the first flight.
2) Throws as per the plan - although I have noted the Dave reduced them a bit after the first flight. Think I would rather have a slightly lively elevator than not enough on landing
3) CoG 15mm forward from the plan position

Dave W, Basha, - my feeling is that the Vulcan will need flying on the rudder quiet abit, especially on landing? Landing seems to be the tricky part - especially holding the nose up in the final turn. I usually keep my jets flat in the final turn to not provoke a stall.

Regards,

John

Dave Wilshere

Elevator authority is not an issue, once the nose is up it will sit there like a kite. Yes, rudder is used a lot in the turns to skid it around.
A delta will not drop a wing as such, if it stalls it mushes, a slight reduction in pitch angle and it will accelerate again and be flying. You just cannot force it down, it needs to float onto the ground.

johnshiell

Thanks for the advice Dave

BashaBolla

Best of luck John ! although tomorrow is looking a bit murky ?
The video was of the first flight where Chris was flying it and I think he did indeed force it down.....subsequent flights there was no forcing it down....hence why it floated on and on and on . The best landings to date have been made where there was a slight crosswind and little headwind to keep it floating on.....
Once the nose is up it does indeed sit there like a kite.....and can get blown around like a kite if its breezy ( especially as it looses airspeed and control authority ) .....appreciate your setup John but would recommend full aileron across the whole wing if possible to maintain authority when it gets to low speeds.Rudder is powerful but increased aileron would also help ( especially if the wind gets under a wing !)
Look forward to hearing of a positive outcome

Dave Wilshere

Your last landing is on the Elvington Jets thread video, and it was being forced down, then you held it off initially and at the last moment released the back pressure.

Dave

BashaBolla

Thanks Dave..I hadnt seen the Video of the fateful landing !
Looking at it it appears clear that I released the back pressure too soon ( doh !!) .
Lessons learnt will be 1) to start the approach further out so that I can judge the touch down better ( the model was way past me by the time it was ready to settle and hence difficult to judge accurately) . and 2) Keep the nose up early and keep holding it off for longer !! ( it clearly needs to be well feathered in and cannot take any amount of dump ) . I am pretty certain that I didnt force the model down during the approach ( I never use any down stick during a landing) , it was coming down by itself , so I need to be aware that it needs the nose up earlier and a very long distance of holding off before allowing it to kiss.
Its not going to be a plane that "sticks" when landed on tarmac ( maybe better on grass ) so I will go ahead with lengthening the main legs and shortening the nose leg to try to mitigate bounce ..but will shelve the idea of the lift dumpers for the time being !
Thanks !

Capt G

My Feedback: (8)

Remember with deltas to start the descent at idle until the plane slows. Establish the nose up angle of attack and bring the power back in to control the descent. Descent is controlled till touchdown using power - not elevator. Only 4 landings on mine so far but works the same for my Mig.

johnshiell

Hi all,

I flew my Vulcan for the first time today. Couldn't of asked for a better first flight. Had two flights in the end.

I didn't use full span ailerons and reduced the throws to 80% on the elevator during the flight.

Here is a link to the video.

You Tube

Regards,

John

Capt G

My Feedback: (8)

very nicely done!

BashaBolla

Great stuff...lovely to see !! ..nicely held off for the landing too

BashaBolla

Just watched it again....it came in exactly like mine does ....(as in not slowing down much) and was still motoring when it passed you ( difference was that you held it off properly whereas I misjudged it and let it drop !) .
I noticed that you killed the throttle completely on the turn to finals ( ? ) and yet it was still travelling quite quickly by the time it got to you.. Methinks I am going to have to get used to starting my landing approach miles away in order to get it slowed enough to kiss the tarmac in front of me and not past me !

johnshiell

Thanks for the comment Capt G.

Basha - Yes i went to idle during the final turn. I think we'll have to practice getting the nose up through the final turn. That is totally alien to me but the only way it will slow down enough to land accurately. I think the technique will come in time. Luckily I have plenty of room at my local field to go long!

I'm hoping to get some more flights in soon but the weather is looking rubbish for the next week. If I can get the landing nailed I will take it to Stow Maries Warbird weekend.

Hope to meet you on the circuit sometime.

John

BashaBolla

Hi John
Yep..the nose up thing is a new one on me too.....most of my flying is done on tarmac so , although I can go long , I do need to get it 100% right every time - and I do hate going long as I cant see the wheels :-((
5 flights so far with 3 successful landings -and 2 nose off bouncy landings..not a great start !! :-)
Luckily I like building and repairing and the plane is now actually better both cosmetically and structurally than it was for the maiden...would be nice to be able to get on with other projects though !
Plan is to wait for a calm day ....practice some high alpha flight during the normal flying bit....then...pull the nose up in the turn to finals......cut the throttle ...hold some up in......and pray !!
Richard

johnshiell

Hi Richard,

Yep - practicing the slow flying characteristics up high is the way forward for me too.

There was very little wind on my test flight so a little head wind should help.

Regards,

John