Revolt 30 By Aquacraft

Wow! This boat thing has become a passion! I have always loved planes and I still do but RC boating is a nice change of pace. So on that line I recently purchased the Revolt 30. By Aquacraft. I am not going to write a review about it because you would probably hear the same things that have already been written about this boat. That's the reason why I bought this boat. Great reviews throughout the internet. I have to say I have yet to maiden this great machine. But hopefully this week I'll be able to get it on the water. As always here are some pics. Come back soon as I will post videos and additional info about the boat.

Predator Outrigger Maiden

OK, So this weekend I got out my Predator outrigger to the pond. This thing is wicked! My fun was cut short though with a completely fried/destroyed ESC. I had never seen anything like this. The solder literally melted and capacitors just fell to the bottom of the boat. I had a 40 amp ESC with no cooling at all which proved destructive. Actually my boat almost caught fire. The bottom and top of the hatch burned. Here's a frame from one of the video I took of the Predator coming out the hole.

I only used a 3000KV BL motor. The battery is a Turnigy 2200 Mah 45-90C 3S. I do already have a new water cooled ESC, it is a 60 amp ESC. This should do the trick.

Predator Outrigger Update

I've been working on my Predator. It's painted and ready to install all the hardware in it. I am still waiting for the shaft bracket to arrive. As soon as that come in the mail, it will be finished. Here's a pic of the latest work done on it.

Predator Outrigger Hardware

I just wanted to update on the predator outrigger and do somewhat of a review. As you might now if you follow my blog I am on the process of building a Predator Outrigger. So I ordered most of my drive hardware from OSE. I got from them Stuffing tube (K&S), liner,.130 flex cable and prop,bearing, drive dog and nut (the flex cable and shaft come complete as a kit) and motor colette. This guys shipped fast, packaging was good and the quality of the hardware is superb. Most of the drive and shaft are Octura hardware. I was impressed by the precision of the fit on the parts. I am new to RC boating but you know quality when you see it. This is quality and I know this will perform beyond my expectations.  Here's a pic of some of the flex cable and stuffing tube assembly.

Rc Truggy Race

This past weekend I stopped by the off-road track to watch the truggy races.  This things are awesome! I feel very fortunate to have such RC complex available to us. We have our Airplane and Heli runway, this guys are accross the street from us and they also have a drag race track right beside to the offroad track (this dragsters are on the 110 MPH mark! in less than 2 seconds!!) and on the other side is the pond where we ride our boats. You could practice almost every aspect of RC right here. So I guess we should be grateful that we have all that for our use. Here's some off the action from the offroad truggy race.

Predator Outrigger

Ok,I have built the Predator. I have to admit. When I first saw an outrigger I thought they looked hideous. Then I started to build this one and they actually look badass!this thing looks mean and like they mean business. I cant wait to get this one on the water. On the next post I'll post specs and hardware.

Predator Outrigger

I know I know it's RC hangar which is for planes. But I am also getting into RC boats. This things are mighty fun! So I am building a Predator Outrigger. I am thinking a 3000 KV motor to get it running and be plenty fun. I got the materials for the boat and soon I'll bee ordering hardware for it. Stay tuned if you are a RC boat enthusiast if not, you can start thinking about it! I will post pictures on the next post.

RC Boating Continued

This is a video of the 22" scratch built boat that I made recently. It has improved speed due to better CG location. Now it's able to plane better and I also added a bigger prop. Unfortunately it has suffered the consequences of not being built properly. I didn't know the type of punishment a boat went trough while riding on water. it's seems that the action of hitting the water has split the sides on several parts. Although this could be fixed it doesn't make sense to fix it anymore. It will keep breaking and more weight will be added. So I am building another one. Good thing is that this one I will document on here and will update with building pictures and info. I hope to also give away the plans on pdf format if anybody is interested on building this boat.  So stay tuned.

RC Boating

I know the title of this blog is RC Hangar. But we pilots also like the ocean and fishing an other stuff. And we usually think about how to exploit the environment around us to have some RC fun. In that case I built this RC boat. It is a scratch build it is made out of balsa which right now I am noticing should've used ply for  the skin. Or I should've glassed the whole thing. I will make improvements on the next build I already have some ideas to implement on the next build which includes a deeper V bottom. Watch the video!

D25 Goes Faster

Finally I am happy to report the D25 is flying to my expectations! I still want to push it even more but this time I am happier with the results. On this flight we used a Hobby King NTM 28-36 brushless 3000kv with a 4.75 X 4.75 prop with a 11.1 LiPo battery and A 40 Amp ESC. This motor handles a 4S lipo so soon I want to put that in so we can push it even further. Sadly I did not have a speed gun. In the near future I hope to get some real measurements. I did however use RCSpeedo to get a reading off the video to get an approximate speed. One of the passes was clocked at 96 MPH. But I am not sure how accurate that can be. It does look fast on the video, we'll see. The landing was pretty rough, dumb thumbs I guess. But I like it too when stuff like this happens too. This crash/landing let me know how tough this thing really is. The only thing that came out damaged was the motor firewall. It just became unglued. I could've changed the broken prop there and re-glue and it would've been flying again. I am surprised at how tough this thing is for a built up plane. Stay tuned for more updates.

3000kv Brushless

I recently received this out-runner 3000kv motor. It's already installed on the D25 delta wing. It is setup with a 4.75X4.75 propeller. I will be using a 11.1 LiPo 3S battery. This motor will accept a 4S LiPo but I want to try it with the 11.1 first. This should be able to bring the D25 to the 100MPH+ mark. I will post a vid pretty soon hopefully with a radar gun. Stay tuned!

Burned ESC

HA! I had never ever burned an ESC since I started flying electric. So for the first time, here it is. This is why when you fly electric you need a Watt Meter!!! Yes, Battery, ESC and motor were properly matched. Still that doesn't mean you trust all the specs given by resellers or manufacturers. There could be typographical errors, conditions can change. USE A WATT METER!

RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design

 Hey everyone! Today I want review the book RCadvisors Model Airplane Design Made Easy.
 By Carlos Reyes. I have been building model airplanes for many years now. And one of the things I love about this hobby is that you can pretty much create something out of some raw materials like Balsa, composites, foam, plastics etc. In the past I had tried to build self designed airplanes of my own designs that worked ok I guess. But if you want to design and create great RC models you have to know what you are doing. Thats where this book comes in. The book is writen in simple language, easy to understand and there's plenty of ilustrations to demonstrate how everything works. Many, many topics are covered all which are necesarry to understand the design of a RC aircraft and full size aircraft for that matter! It covers aspect ratio, Reynolds numbers, airfoil basics and selection, problem analyzing, propellers explained, material characteristics, adhesives, drag, lift, control surface proportions and a lot more. This is a very complete book.

   Believe me, I have laid out many designs on paper just by looking at other models and this works to some extent, sometimes you can get good results sometimes you can't. This book improves  the chances of successfully designing your own RC aircraft by giving you the tools and understanding why aircraft are designed they way they are. If you are interested in designing an RC aircraft you must read this book before you start laying out anything.