Redshift; Used Purchase

[Konrad]

Looking at some of the photos it becomes clear just how different the Redshift is. Here you can see how the wing shape and stab area are so different. The Droops is a very popular and fast ship at this site. I found it interesting that the owner of this Droops does not use aileron to flap mix and he has a bit (more than I thought) of rudder mix. Also his aileron differential looks close to 3:1. But you can see that his turns look level.

In my current trim my turns appear to be showing a bit of a diving turn (too much rudder and or too much differential).

 

[Konrad]

With those inflight photos I'm surprise how much I don't like the camo bottom stabs with the red & white paneled wings. I've warmed up to the the angular red & white tails opposite the curvaceous camo on the wings.

Now those of you that know me, know that I'm a strong proponent in form follows function. So how can I justify all the work to change the esthetics of the stab? Well, you might recall that the more I fly my Redshift the more I'm liking her. But I'm complaining that the Redshift has a bit more tail wiggle than I'd like to see. Well, I'm going to try to get the airfoil to perform closer to what the designer was expecting. I'm hoping that this will cut down on some of the wiggling. As a result of my crash the flippers were torn off. There is a bit of misalignment in places were I tried to reattach the control surfaces. So I'm going to try to block sand the hinge line to realign the control surfaces. The use of primer and some filler will be the justification to repaint the V-tail.

On my next Redshift will see me bringing down the V-tail angle from 104° to 100° - 98° when I flip the V-tails to try to control this wiggle.

 

[Konrad]

Well I was hoping to try out these repairs to the stab airfoil on Sunday. But again we had to cancel the race on account of the weather.

On one flipper I was able to block sand the hinge line to get as good (smooth) an alignment as I see with the undamaged stabs. The other stab need a bit of epoxy filler added. It appears that the flipper was out of alignment about 0.1mm to 0.15mm. You can see this as there is a bit of a blue haze the full length of the hinge line. You can also see where I had to fill in a few low spots from the damage the flipper suffered as a result of efforts to get the OEM arms to work.

Now what you don't see is any filler filling in the airfoil cusp. This was a potential problem as block sanding is prone to leaving the surface flat. I had to make a concerted effort to leave the flippers concave.

On the other side I had to sand down the proud wiper. Again this was a result of previous repairs combined with the fact that the surface was aligned proud.

 

[purview]

Had a nice flying pm ; -)

 

[purview]

Today with the Redshift. Amazing how well it can be with some steady conditions.

Sadly I recognized that one aileron servo do not work properly. Sometimes it moves and then it stops and no movement. Can I detect the error with some testing or is it better to change?

 

[Konrad]

Test to make sure it isn't a connector issue. But if you are sure it is a servo, replace the servo.

 

[purview]

Connector checked, servo checked. Servo replaced and failure is inside the servo. As it was the right AIL and had function not-function function problems during flight – it was to slow to get out of the bank with only one moving part on the outside – so I had to land with this twisty felt issue. But yesterday without a crash and only little workload on the thumb training... if flying more aggressive and lower I unfortunately had lost something

In the videos you can see the counting of the servo checker without a servo movement. Only with slightly mechanical pressure the servo gets back to whatever. I changed it. I was also able to fix this in the air but it stucked and stucked again.
Machine is OK
Glad that it happened during calm conditions ?

Many Regards
Chris

 

[Konrad]

Looks like a feedback circuit issue (pot). Have these servos been subjected to shock loads? I find that adding a secondary outside bearing support helps extend the life of my servos, not just the gear train but also the pot. I don't know that servo brand.

 

[Konrad]

In post #29 I see you are using IDS. So how many hours are on these servos? Are you happy with their life?

 

[purview]

In post #29 I see you are using IDS. So how many hours are on these servos? Are you happy with their life?

About 26h in use and >100 landings with 10-13 bigger hits. I would say it is OK, but should I use that for reference within maintenance cycles?

IDS is good! Works properly and is a combination with alu rod and plastic horns from this thread:

Redshift building: Anybody interested?

Hey lads! I'm just building up two Redshift f3f planes - would anybody be interested in the process/pics?

forum.alofthobbies.com

#16 ?

 

[Konrad]

@Doc James Hammond, I've been getting some PM's from some of my friends* telling me that all my taste must be in my mouth if I don't like the Camo look. Some of those in flight top view shots really do show off the Redshift to its full advantage.

* Friends like that who needs enemies!

 

[Doc James Hammond]

@Doc James Hammond, I've been getting some PM's from some of my friends* telling me that all my taste must be in my mouth if I don't like the Camo look. Some of those in flight top view shots really do show off the Redshift to its full advantage.

* Friends like that who needs enemies!

Hi Konrad - Camo? I think its like 30-year old Laphroaig - you either love it or hate it. Me? Well I don't have to tell you.

Let it be known though that I am actively exploring alternative colour schemes this year.

As to the model, I think you have a developed a completely new science. Instead of "please fill in this form" you have now developed it to the "please fill in this model" stage.

Seriously though - if you are going to go so far with the tails I'd suggest bunging a carbon tube down the thick point and adding 50mm to the length with light balsa.

Then I think you might find your wiggle unwiggling.

Cheers,

Doc.

 

[Konrad]

...

Seriously though - if you are going to go so far with the tails I'd suggest bunging a carbon tube down the thick point and adding 50mm to the length with light balsa.

Then I think you might find your wiggle unwiggling.

Cheers,

Doc.

Wow thats a lot of added area! I don't want to go too deep into the realm of spiral instability.

I'm hoping the Redshift Spada is a harmonized design.

Flipping the tail was an attempt at a mechanical fix for the linkage problem. The Redshift manual had you drill holes though the outer wall of the fuselage. So I saw very little extra work drilling two more holes for the flip. (Thank you having the pins in the same place, left to right) I noticed a huge positive improvement in the control with the larger surface arms, compaired the 3 to 5 minutes of flight time I had with the green glass Redshift.

Test flying did bring to my attention that as trimmed I see a bit more wiggle than I'd like. This isn't gross just a bit more than "I" like. So on my next Redshift I'm going to narrow the V tail angle. I hope this improves the handling a bit and keeps me away from the spiral instability issue. (Wow this helped a lot!)

Working with what we got with the Redshift I'm actually rather please with the ship. This now includes the Camo livery. Those that know me know I'm always adjusting things until they don't work.

Here hoping/expecting the Redshift Spada to be an even greater design.

 

[purview]

Visibility within the moods of the day and with different sun positions? Keep them exciting for the users, not alert at all times ?

 

[Konrad]

I was told many times today that I don't need the Stregas anymore. That is most folks could see that I could fly the Redshift faster than I could fly the Stregas! This is true, my Redshift in my hands is faster than my Stregas. Today I flew the Redshift with 465g ballast to good effect. I could have used a bit more but didn't have any. Truth be told it is better to be under ballasted than over ballasted. Using the Redshift has dropped my times about 7 seconds compared with the Strega.

Today I flew my first round with the Redshift I didn't like the results! Switched to my red and white Strega and flew worse, I realized the issues wasn't with the birds but rather the air was very spotty. Flew the rest of the race with the Redshift even being a bit under ballasted. Got my personal best at 43.7 seconds. This was close to a 10 second drop. At these speeds you start to get into a rhythm. This actually adds another dimension to racing, I haven't seen this since my F3D pylon days.

The only black mark was that I had an OEM flap horn pull out. This made the landing exciting but I didn't add to the damage. I think the flaps are the only control surface not using IDS.

I think the reworked V-Tail hinge line is allowing the V-tail to perform better than last time. While the air was turbulent I think things dampened out sooner (less wiggle).

Another lesson learned, is that I fly a lot on the coast but with the inland slopes I find I needed more nose weight. I'm really loath to add nose weight but added 21 grams out of desperation and noticed smoother straight line speeds.

With this post I think I'm coming to the end of this project. That is my times are dropping and the amount of repair needed to reach the next race is almost at the level of basic maintenance. I think this Redshift has matured into my preferred F3F racer. Now to build another one!

 

[Konrad]

For want of a nail a kingdom is lost. (My apologies to Bill)

OK, I'm not the smoothest pilot at landing. But again I'm suffering from the poor quality of the OEM (Zhou) When I land at the SLoT I'm modulating the flaps a lot. On my last landing I lost the action on one flap. This caused all sorts of asymmetrical lift and drag problems. I was able to land with no additional damage.

Like I said earlier I've had some bad landing with this ship. But what caused this latest failure can be traced back to the the OEM (Zhou). The G10 (like material) control horn was not properly prepped prior to being glued into the flap. I hope you can see that the horn still has a very high shine on its sides. This means that the horns were NOT sanded to give the epoxy some teeth to bond with. In fact the shiny side indicate that there may have actually been some release agent from the manufacture of the G10 sheet.

Process failures like these can lead to the loss of the airframe. Seeing manufacturing issues like this leads me to think that the OEM really has little or no idea as to what skills are needed to manufacture anything in composites.

I'm ecstatic that Aeroic has dumped this OEM (Zhou). I'm looking forward to the new product line, and durable composites ships from the new OEM.

 

[Wayne]

Flying at that field I feel like a newb, it has some of its own character there that takes some time and experience to fully understand. I have only flown there a couple of times, so I lack that experience.

It is a different beast than the nice clean stuff we often get on the coast. I'd guess that something like 90% of all of my flying is coastal, so I'm a bit spoiled and lack the experience when at inland sight that has "features" to understand. Also why I am a terrible thermal pilot.

 

[Konrad]

I like the added dynamics. That is taking advantage of the thermals that roll on by. But yes that spot is not where I'd want to be learning to fly slope. Mainly for that rear rotor. (We fly on top of a ridge. So going too far aft and you are in rapid sink. This is what caught me, forcing a dive to maintain flying speed when I hit the back side tearing out my wing box)

 

[Doc James Hammond]

No Idea why - totally can't explain it, but I'm a really good thermal pilot.

Not Wurtz level - needless to say - but somehow I can sniff them out and keep in them pretty good.

Doc.

 

[Konrad]

Well, the other flap control horn popped out. This has to be the bane of sub-contractor work. Such a minor process omission as sanding the control horn costs so much. In my case this cost some damage to the wing wiper, but more important it cost me the ability to keep flying the Redshift in a race.

I knew I should have pulled this horn out as the other side had demonstrated that the bond was totally inadequate. But I feared that my "controlled" attempts to remove the flap control horn would result in more damage to the wing. As it happened the operational failure of the bond result in less damage than what I'd have expected had I attempted to remove the horn.

Now I haven't dealt with this control horn bonding issue as I normally install my own control horns (spoons) in the way of IDS installations.

While this OEM (Zhou?) results in products being much better than what we get with RCRCM. I ecstatic that Aeroic has dumped this OEM (Zhou) for one that routinely makes ships that withstand the forces of DSing. I know Aeroic doesn't condone DSing with its ships, it is nice to know that there has been a huge step up in quality.