Flying a Piper L4 Grasshopper
Hobbykings 1400mm span electric modell airplane
I used to fly my Piper L4 “Rosie the Rocketer”, a nice wooden modell by Carl Goldberg Models with a Saito four-stroke glow engine. I practically flew it till it was worn out of all the landings, side-slip passes and “slowly-batics”.
It was decommissioned, because of the wood drenched by the oil of the engine and the covering beginning to tell the signs of time.
Just last week I came across the Hobbyking.com website, and saw this little electric Piper, in the L4 Grasshopper livery… Fun, lets have a go at this one. So, click “Add to Cart” and select some Lipo-accu’s for it, and go to “Checkout”. And after some days, this big package arrives at the front door.
Till so far, no problem. I open up the package and everything is present and intact. So let’s start building. Very easy, allthough the landing gear is always a small challenge of looking at too tiny pictures and figuring out where all those little bits go.
Next, the connector of the motor-regulator, which off course, needs to be a different one than you have on all your batteries. So those come off, and I’ll replaced them with some 4mm HXT connectors. Will this work? Connect the battery, and yes, with a spare receiver it will pull your wig off.
Next is to center all servo’s electrically, so you need the least amount of sub-trimming to get all surfaces aligned. This is where I went wrong, badly…
By resetting the aileron mode from 1 to 2 aileron, the transmitter (Futaba T14SG) resets itself and the motor, with the fuselage attached, went ballistic. Cutting through the new wing, snaps the prop in half on the stone floor and generally causing mayhem through the livingroom.
Well, great, the end of a great day, becoming a sad one. A totall-loss, not even ready from the building board.
Ordered the next Piper within the hour. I’ll keep you posted, hopefully with some nice pictures of the succesfull maiden flight.
Update: Just yesterday, I got two packages from Hobbyking at the door. One contained the P-51D Mustang “Gunfighter” having a span of 1600mm and the replacement Piper L4 Grasshopper. Both fly with the 4S Lipo’s. The 3.300MAh size is a bit big for the Grasshopper, but fine for the Mustang. I will have to find a way to gently pull the accu from the Pipers’ belly.
Update 2: And again, the maiden flight went fine, allthough almost by tradition there was just a bit too much wind to really enjoy the flight. However, the modell has flown, and is still in one piece. I took these pictures after the flight, just because I forgot to make any pre-maiden images.
