5/5/08

XE5 news



























Yes, we are all supposed to be building XE5s for an indoor competition.. and of course there will be a dose of controversy surrounding weight and props etc to spice up the handicapping. Here are three contenders - from Ed, Richard, and Kermit, who will certainly be up there in the standings.

Gentlemen - please send me your construction notes and I will post them here for the benefit of members who just don't have your experience. Below are some notes from Kermit in response to my briefly seeing his beautiful yellow and green version perform at our last indoor meeting . . . .

Thanks for the kind words about my XE5. Now that it has actually flown, I can reveal "the rest of the story" behind its showing up Sunday. I actually began to cut wood to build it last Weds. afternoon! I keep promising myself that I'm NOT going to do that "last minute build" thing anymore, but it quite often seems that is the only way I can get myself motivated to get something built. I actually completed putting the last minute finishing touches (headrest, windshield, pilot) on it about 7 PM Sat. evening. I was quite pleased with how quickly I was able to get a reasonably good performance out of it Sunday. However, despite of how well it flew, I'm seriously considering cutting into it to put more incidence in the top wing as I really don't like the way it recovers from rafter and wall collisions (or rather DOESN'T recover!). I'm pretty convinced that the setup on the plans with the top wing with a degree or two LESS incidence than the bottom wing is NOT the way to go. Another clue, besides the "recovery problem", is that it seems to "want" to fly VERY nose high. My interpretation or analysis of that is that the upper wing is flying at too low an angle, thus causing the overall nose-high attitude. I'll probably first try to set the top wing incidence roughly equal to the bottom wing (about 1/16" higher on the LE than now), and then if that is better, but not enough, maybe even a degree or so more than the bottom wing. I'm pretty sure this will require the addition of a bit of noseweight, but oh well!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One additional point about my XE5 (the green and yellow one being held by some old fat fart!) - It's a bit heavy at 15g. I deliberately used strong, but somewhat heavy (8# and up) balsa to build it, and I even used 1/16" sq. basswood for the lower two longerons, which has worked out really well so far. The prop is also a relatively heavy stock Peck green molded plastic item.
Kermit

Anonymous said...

Hi guys,
I'm a huge fan of Dick Baxter's designs and have watching closely to see the different versions of the XE5 that come out of this build. I did one as an SE5, Thomas Morse Scout and a Fokker D7.

My experience with the plane was purely outdoor and found that the design needed quite a bit of down
thrust to trim. But all of mine were reliable and consistent fliers
and easily trimmed.

Thanks for your work on to make this site. It is really a top notch effort. Looks fantastic.
I'm really enjoying the XE5 builds.

I'm also very interested in the Quadraplanes. Looks like fun.

Kevin Mooney