Redshift; Used Purchase

[Konrad]

Did I read that correctly that you have lowered the stabs by upping angle between the stabs from 104° (as designed) to 109°-115°. I have to ask why the 6° variation?

Yikes, I see no stability in the stab joiners (img #9075). Those joiners are to extend all the way to the other side of the fuselage! You have the option of imbedding the joiner end in a puddle of epoxy inside the fuselage. Or do as the designer recommends and punch through the fuselage side to gain the much needed stability and strength. As I see it you will always be breaking the stab mount!

The dent, I'd lift it out with a bent pin. Inject water to swell the balsa wood fiber. After the water dries (about a week) I'd inject some thin CA glue. Now if I was willing to do some paint repairs I would do a classic lay up repair.

As to the structure showing through. Well that is as a result of the thin balsa skins and the unstable epoxy use by the OEM. Over time the epoxy shrinks. I'd leave it alone to save on paint weight back there. Now if you can paint then do block sand the surface for better airflow and control. But watch the weight build up!

 

[purview]

Did I read that correctly that you have lowered the stabs by upping angle between the stabs from 104° (as designed) to 109°-115°. I have to ask why the 6° variation?

Yikes, I see no stability in the stab joiners (img #9075). Those joiners are to extend all the way to the other side of the fuselage! You have the option of imbedding the joiner end in a puddle of epoxy inside the fuselage. Or do as the designer recommends and punch through the fuselage side to gain the much needed stability and strength. As I see it you will always be breaking the stab mount!

The dent, I'd lift it out with a bent pin. Inject water to swell the balsa wood fiber. After the water dries (about a week) Id inject some thin CA glue. Now if I was willing to do some paint repairs I would do a classic lay up repair.

As to the structure showing through. Well that is as a result of the thin balsa skins and the unstable epoxy use by the OEM. Over time the epoxy shrinks. I'd leave it alone to save on paint weight back there. Now if you can paint then do block sand the surface for better airflow and control. But watch the weight build up!

yes, I have to embed the joiner end in epoxy. I did't recognized that it is also possible to drill through the fuselage side. Maybe I will add this feature.

I like the idea to strengthen the balsa with CA glue. How much time consumption is the additional paint repair?

6 degree of variation: The epoxy inside the fuse cracked during the last landing. Therefore it was possible to move the stabs within this variation. Now I must fix the issue to a fixed angle. I can read out of your posts the need for an shallower angle, not as it was designed4.

 

[Konrad]

Doc's manual goes into detail about this. The green red shift shows how this looks with a V-tail angle of 104°. I show what my battle hardened Redshift with a 99° angle looks likes (note the original holes prior to the V-tail flip). And then the top V-tail I added some carbon fiber biased at45° across the fuselage part line as I've had this joint split on my Strega's. (This adds weight to the back that some might not want).

P.S.
It looks like PPG my paint supplier can't get titainium (white pigment). So most of my planes will be in primer this year! I'm willing to suffer that, to put pressure on the mad dictator!

 

[purview]

I like the surfaces of your tails. And I like how you added carbon on the fuselage. May I ask which tools are you using to get such clean surfaces? The plane with 99° has also some grey added. It looks like a filler to smoothen out the wobbles after repairing. This leads me to your electric grinder or do you use the angle grinder... which grinding disks (sizes) do you take or do you work with grinding bits too?

Painting on clean surfaces with the perfect colour is very nice. But first I need to check about the smoothness, otherwise it makes no sense not to start working with the dent and missing the right tools and manual skillz

 

[Konrad]

All that you see was done with 3m wet & dry sand paper using a foam sanding pad. The blue is epoxy filler for the gross surface damage. Most other fill work can be done with primer and basic block sanding.

 

[Konrad]

Tools of the trade. Try to avoid sanding with your fingers or palm. All that does is make an impression of you body parts into the surface. Always use some form of backing and sharp sandpaper!

 

[Konrad]

Well, I did it again!!!! I crashed my Redshift!

This was again as a result of pilot error! (This is getting old)!

I had just grafted these old wings onto my 96° V-tail Redshift fuse. It was very easy with the help of OpenTX and Mike Shellim's F3F templet. I was test flying before the race to make sure there weren't any surprises. The only surprise was that there wasn't any lift at the SLoT even though there was a lot of wind.

Well I got caught in sink making a down wing turn. While I had great ground speed my air speed was very low. Yep, I stalled the wing even before making it to the "telephone pole". She spun straight in from about 40 meters. So ended the day hoping to prove that the 96° V-tail was the bee's knees. Had a great race with the light weight glass Redshift. But that's a different story.

Here these poor wings again suffered a failed wing box. Again I was surprised at how little damage I found. You might recall that this wing suffered a similar fate in some earlier test flights. Again all the structure snapped back in place when I used a sledge hammer. (yes, literally a small sledge hammer. That is my modus operandi don't use force use a bigger hammer. It works great).

But this time I have a bit of bottom skin distortion as some of the balsa wing skin fibbers got caught out of position. SO it is looking like I may have to block sand the bottom skin to get the airfoils back. Not too much of a problem as PPG just delivered my paints.

I'm posting photos more for my records too look back as I try to repair this wing for the second time.

Doc. When are the new ships due to land? I'm running out of flyable F3F ships!

 

[purview]

today was my last flight. It is an awsome machine, although I was new on the topic of high performance slope gliding I wanted to try a Redshift. Still can feel that I have to do some more setup changes with my radio — got crashed on first flight into a hook for bungee — broke fuselage in two pieces — ripped of the flaps — v-tail assembly was also kinda tuff — all repaired and still flies with good emphasis and nice crispy feeling. But it is time, to let go Redshift Mk.1...

I definitely will try the Mark Number II, hope all good for aeroic and will be an exciting time to get the last itches done until until it pops out of the moulds (sorry ,)
-> keep on goin

 

[Konrad]

Sorry to see this. But at some point it becomes time to shoot the horse.

Like you I learned a lot with my Redshifts. As much what to look for (expect) in an F3F racer, what to look out for and how to trim and set up an F3F racer.

I think I’m now ready to move up to a proven design. The REDShift hit the sweet spot in having some potential performance at a rather low investment point.

The Spada looks to have much the same potential as the REDshift. I hope we can actually extract that potential in the production Spada.

As it looks like the Spada won’t be ready for the 2023 F3F season. Can I ask what you might be replacing this old horse with?

 

[Doc J]

today was my last flight. It is an awsome machine, although I was new on the topic of high performance slope gliding I wanted to try a Redshift. Still can feel that I have to do some more setup changes with my radio — got crashed on first flight into a hook for bungee — broke fuselage in two pieces — ripped of the flaps — v-tail assembly was also kinda tuff — all repaired and still flies with good emphasis and nice crispy feeling. But it is time, to let go Redshift Mk.1...

View attachment 12784

I definitely will try the Mark Number II, hope all good for aeroic and will be an exciting time to get the last itches done until until it pops out of the moulds (sorry ,)
-> keep on goin

I'm glad you enjoyed it - even with its shady past.

I guess like every other Redshift flyer except one, you did not see any directional instability from the hugely oversized nose?

Cheers,

Doc.

 

[purview]

every plane slips when it is not in proper direction with the stream. all wing to elevator configurations do it. We can see it is not an usual concept — the nose

 

[purview]

Sorry to see this. But at some point it becomes time to shoot the horse.

Like you I learned a lot with my Redshifts. As much what to look for (expect) in an F3F racer, what to look out for and how to trim and set up an F3F racer.

I think I’m now ready to move up to a proven design. The REDShift hit the sweet spot in having some potential performance at a rather low investment point.

The Spada looks to have much the same potential as the REDshift. I hope we can actually extract that potential in the production Spada.

As it looks like the Spada won’t be ready for the 2023 F3F season. Can I ask what you might be replacing this old horse with?

I have a brand new Orden in white/pink. For the public of interest — I will upload the video raw and uncut of my last flight — soul scratchin cloud swarming truth and bittersweet end... I flown it 4 years and taught me some good lessons

 

[Konrad]

E

every plane slips when it is not in proper direction with the stream. all wing to elevator configurations do it. We can see it is not an usual concept — the noseView attachment 12792

Exactly! And it is the job of the vertical stabilizer to control the amount of slip. Unfortunate the nose acts counter to the tail. The REDshift had about 60% the directional stability of say the Freestyler-5.

There are a few Ogdens here, and they are a great flying stable and high value F3F racer. They are on my short list to purchase.

 

[purview]

donno, I have done slope tests standing on the safety lin and flying on the safety line with different fuselages/planes, references here Post in thread 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' https://forum.alofthobbies.com/index.php?threads/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.3096/post-38513

all of them are flying straight on the safety line and about 10-15° yawed into the wind direction (some more some less, the judgement is a bit hard and not measured with any tools)

but by the way, directional stability is more than only looking at the vertical axis. The most common dampening issue is longitudinal dihedral and CG. Then wetted area, sizes, airfoil thickness and fuselage length

the direction of the plane can be manipulated on all three axes...

 

[purview]

...flexes do also minimize the directional stability (control rods, structure twist, bending and so on) 1%?

 

[Konrad]

Slip angle compared to the slope is not directional stability. That has more to do with speed.

And yes there is a lot more to control and stability.

 

[Wayne]

I was not going to edit things in this thread, but it is getting to personal attacks. No place for these games here. Play nice or don't play at all.

 

[purview]

Tx time stopped: 56½hrs
most if the time standing and waiting for a wave, some time walking and collecting it from the last save landing zone, but main memories are airtimes with different loads. >750 landings

I think it is a boring video, only right/left/right/left freaking playing on the slope. The start is amazing, because you can see that the Redshift started in a crosswind, then it got a gust (from the perfect direction) and then flying put with the current wind direction regime. Hope some enjoy some minutes of this high aspect ratio ship, there are not many in the circuit of F3F with these aspects.

 

[Doc J]

Tx time stopped: 56½hrs
mostly standing and waiting for a wave, main time walking and collecting from the last save landing zone, but mostly airtime with different loads. >750 landings

I think it is a boring video, only right/left/right/left freaking playing on the slope. The start is amazing, because you can see that the Redshift started in a crosswind, then it got a gust (from the perfect direction) and then flying put with the current wind direction regime. Hope some enjoy some minutes of this high aspect ratio ship, there are not many in the circuit of F3F with these aspects.

Nice flying Chris, easy to control with the model very fast and stable in the various wind conditions.

I haven't flown a Redshift for about a year or so but the last time I did fly it was pretty much the same your video - although I am a bit rusty and not quite as smooth as you!

Cheers, and thanks for the video.

Doc.

 

[ORRich]

E

Exactly! And it is the job of the vertical stabilizer to control the amount of slip. Unfortunate the nose acts counter to the tail. The REDshift had about 60% the directional stability of say the Freestyler-5.

There are a few Ogdens here, and they are a great flying stable and high value F3F racer. They are on my short list to purchase.

That phrase is not entirely correct - it is the job of the pilot using the rudder to eliminate the slip or skid - it's called flying - the statement intimates that we're just sitting there and aircraft arent supposed to have adverse yaw, or p-factor or other phenomenon - it's the job of the pilot to control the aircraft in a coordinated flight, keep airspeed up, maintain angle of attack etc - to single out a single plane on the design where nothing adverse has been proven continues to baffle me-