Ian Whittaker

A quick update. I’ve been playing around with settings etc. I’ve now got less ailerons with crow. It doesn’t seem to affect the angle of decent but does give me much better control. If I need to extend the glide I’ll use the throttle, any major issues I just throttle up and climb out. Fortunately the UltraStick has plenty of power so there’s no issues on that front. Im pretty impressed with the plane, the crow brakes just add another dimension!

Thanks MattyB, I’ll give that some thought. I presume if you have the brakes on a throttle that at mid stick you get zero throttle, zero brake, low throttle stick equates to full brake with zero throttle and full throttle stick is zero brake full throttle? I like the sound of that…

Hi all, I've just bought a Ultra Stick off a clubmate (the larger 80" version) and it's a 10S set up - enough to go vertical on demand. It is a lovely thing to fly, forgiving and aerobatic. The question is regarding air brakes / crow brakes. I've got the t/x set up with 'normal' flaps on the left slider and crow brakes on the right (airelons well up, flaps pretty much fully down). This works well and drastically steepens the glide angle as you'd expect without increasing the airspeed. (The airelons do lose a lot of effectiveness but that's to be expected i'd imagine, as they're already raised well up. I'll have a fiddle on the t/x and get the rates increased when in this mode.) If i'm flying either a normal racetrack or rectangular landing circuit I'll initiate them either on the downwind or crosswind legs, no problem. I'm happy with flying the plane in with them in operation, the question / query is regarding if I need to go round again. Should I just open the throttle, get the nose up and climb out and retract crow brakes when at a safe height and settled again or would it be a good idea to set the t/x so retract them if the throttle is at more than (say) 50%? The sliders on my t/x aren't in the most intuitive place so I'd not fancy retracting the crow brakes at the same time as operating the throttle / airelons if it's getting a bit interesting on the sticks! By the same token I'm not sure swapping them round so the brakes are on the left and flaps on the right would help either, my elevator and rudder hand might be working too! To be honest the plane doesn't realy need this, it's probably me playing at much as anything. The next thing will be linking the elevator to the flaps to tighten loops (switchable!) and getting the elevator servos (again, switchable) to 'assist the ailerons.... Thanks for any ideas, Ian edited to add - despite being on a proportional channel (slider) they don’t operate as such - they’re either full or non. They’re timed to deploy slightly quicker than they retract too.

The transmitter is a Futaba 18SZ. The battery came with it, as did the charger. The battery has a standard Futaba plug (2 wires) with one unused, so can’t be balance charged in situ. The charger has a two pin plug to the transmitter.

I’ve bought a Futaba transmitter that’s got a two cell li-fe installed. It’s charged by a specific charger, via a two pin plug. As I was charging my lipos today I tried putting the t/x on a battery monitor to see how well the cells were still balanced. They were (relatively) miles apart - 250mV. I’ve balance charged it but wonder if this is an issue? Am I reading too much into nothing? I balance charge my lipos as a matter of course (very very occasional none balanced fast charge at the field) and even on my most abused packs the six cells are within about 8-10mV.

Please don’t misunderstand me, the plane flys brilliantly. I’ve had a lot of them now, bOTH kit and the previous ARTF versions and they are easily my favourite model. I’ve had them powered by glow (up to and including a 90 2stroke, bonkers, would climb while in a flat spin!!) and electric (I run 6S 4000mAh which is a it ott but I use the same batteries in other models so want to keep it simple) and y Club mates have 4S and 5S setups - all are more than well powered! I just feel that for a few pence extra at the component sourcing time they could be as good to build as they are to fly. The planes aren’t particularly cheap in my opinion either.

That’s petty neat Andy!!

Myself and two club mates have just purchased one of the new Panics each. They fly brilliantly but the quality of the hardware is absolutely awful. Whoever sourced all the gear should get a massive Christmas bonus with the money they saved when purchasing the clevises for example - simply trying to tease them open has resulted in just about all of the supplied ones snapping - not ideal on any plane but terrible on one where they need to opened to fit and remove the wings! Why not provide the ball and socket struts as per previous Perkins ARTF kits? Also why couldn’t the press studs for the end plates be affixed at the factory? I’ve had many Panics and none have suffered the press studs coming off - yet on the new ones they seem impervious to glue - epoxy, cyano, the lot. Its a real shame - it spoils my enjoyment of the plane which is otherwise fantastic!

It certainly doesn’t need it! I’m just playing around! I’m not needing it for flying the plane - or any other I own - to be honest. I’m pretty sure I can pilot a Panic around the sky unaided.

A pen on the tail fin - I like that idea! I wouldn’t worry too much about our antics though. He’s quite interested if a gyro would work too. I’m sure he’ll be up for any such buffoonery - and I’ll turn my gyro off!

Just as a matter of interest Don, where’s the crime in your opinion?

The gyro is switchable. I had it set to max when I took off with the Hawk - it was terrible, far too controlling. When set to the mid position it was ok, but in my opinion not really needed on the Hawk (my second version doesn’t have one and is in no way the worse off for it).

Hi Im in the process of putting together a new ARTF Panic. I’ve had just about every version of the Panic - early kit, ARTFs by the container full about ten years ago (90 engines plus a inclination to low level prop hanging and high alpha flight meant I got through a few when my intentions and ambitions wrote cheques my ability couldn’t cash!!) and I’ve just bought the latest version. This time I’m going electric (6S of course!) and have a gyro lying round. It came with my FMS Hawk, and was never fitted. So, the question, is it worth using? It’s switchable, so I’m thinking it could help when set to stabilise. My flying mate has bought an identical one so I’m thinking about ‘forgetting’ to mention I’ve got assistance in the prophanging competitions!

I’m not keen on a joining fee personally but I can see that a charge in the region of say £20(ish!) wouldn’t be out of order - in my mind this covers the costs of them joining - possible key cutting, membership card, postage of documents as required (yes, now all done by email I’d say!). Large fees as mentioned above - say above £50-75 are prohibitive and just milking the situation in my opinion. If a club can’t exist without these then shouldn’t every members fees be raised by say a fiver? I appreciate that some clubs could have just set themselves up and the membership have had to put substantial sums of money in personally, and a joining fee is in effect ‘buying in’, but for the majority of established clubs I’m not sure this is applicable.