The oddities of the RC community

[Burkeomatic]

Alright, I have noticed something, it is something I have known for a while, but it came blaringly apparent into the foray of my last FPV plane purchase. 

As you all know, I lost my RD2, I may still get it back, but I found the PNP version of the funky, you either love it or you hate it, Eachine airloader on sale on banggood for $119. That is pretty good for a ready to go plane of that size IMHO. Now before I bought it, I did some research. Nearly every online reviewer has something good to say about it, except for one Andrew Newton, who tipstalled it on landing, and he labeled it a fail. 

Ok, fair enough. But literally everyone else says it is good, or good enough. It isn't like I am paying top dollar for it. So, anyway, the RC Groups community has adopted the attitude that it is utter trash. Apparently there were some exchanges between Newton and the other reviewers where some accusations were made, and it looks like most of the general info on it doesn't exist... However one thing I did notice, is that they compared the wings of the Airloader to the Sonic Modell Binary with a "fat wing mod". The binary is known by all reviewers for tipstalling very easily in stock configuration.  

However, the plane admittedly looks better, and the community has went through huge efforts preserving and defending the Binary's honor. There are wing mods for it like lengthening the chord of the wing, folks putting in vortex generators, and doing all of the work to make the thing livable. 

So on the surface, it looks like in an unmodified form, the Binary offers inferior performance to the Airloader, and doing work to get it to fly reliably is just part of owning the binary. No such effort was ever made for the Airloader, which is ashame, because I think it looks cool. 

So, why does the community anoint one product, yet decide another is trash? 

I forget what plane it was, we were on the FT forums and I remember Monte.C chiming in and making fun of people that were telling me whatever plane I was flying flew like garbage, and I was like "actually, it flies fine guys."

So then, people all over the internet, even though they haven't flown the dang thing, or even laid hands on it, have carved in stone that a plane or product is trash. That's fine. 

Just to be a troll, if I get this thing flying well, I am going to make a new thread over there, that is entitled "The Airloader, Turds Can Be Polished" or something to that effect. 

On a side note, I have an s800 wing that everyone seems to adore, and before I put VGs on it, you had to be careful anywhere south of I would guess 35mph or the plane would tipstall and have no chance of recovery, just a death spiral. I have dropped a wing so much on landings I pretty much just ram it into the ground at a shallow angle when I land it. 

I don't know what mods I am going to do to the Airloader, it is going to be a while before it gets here, so I will have some time to think about it, but I think it is going to be a fun little ship. 

What have you all experienced that whole mentality on? 

[foamieninja]

Hmm, If you need a hand optimizing performance, perhaps I can be of assistance.
Nothing irritates me more than a craft being shamed, likely because the guys trashing it on rcgroups are too reliant on artificial stabilization to fly a proper craft nowadays.

Not saying it may not have bad characteristics, of course. The root cause may be related to an "attachment" to the onboard gyro. I have a friend suffering from the same issue.

That said... artificial stabilization is the devil's bane of model aviation. It becomes a crutch when misused... Once you've become accustomed to not having to put forth the effort to control the model, "manual" control becomes difficult, if not impossible. xD
Despite shooting my budget with the AA truck, I'm almost tempted to get an airloader airframe and fiddle it together myself... Curse these impulsive urges.

One more thing... Artificial stabilization is fine for niche applications. Autonomous stuff? Sure. Wings that need to stay in a tailheavy state to perform certain functions? (perhaps like my... still unfinished... wing concept that can fly in both orientations) Okay... But, for most everything else, it's completely unnecessary. That includes "beginner level" trainers. That's the absolute worst thing one could do to a new pilot. xD

I think I'm going to investigate further. This has me intrigued for some reason.
Also.. Bet ya couldn't tell that I'm completely opposed to having gyros in wings. lol

[Burkeomatic]

May 25, 2022 1:44:59 GMT foamieninja said:

Hmm, If you need a hand optimizing performance, perhaps I can be of assistance.
Nothing irritates me more than a craft being shamed, likely because the guys trashing it on rcgroups are too reliant on artificial stabilization to fly a proper craft nowadays.

Not saying it may not have bad characteristics, of course. The root cause may be related to an "attachment" to the onboard gyro. I have a friend suffering from the same issue.

That said... artificial stabilization is the devil's bane of model aviation. It becomes a crutch when misused... Once you've become accustomed to not having to put forth the effort to control the model, "manual" control becomes difficult, if not impossible. xD
Despite shooting my budget with the AA truck, I'm almost tempted to get an airloader airframe and fiddle it together myself... Curse these impulsive urges.

One more thing... Artificial stabilization is fine for niche applications. Autonomous stuff? Sure. Wings that need to stay in a tailheavy state to perform certain functions? (perhaps like my... still unfinished... wing concept that can fly in both orientations) Okay... But, for most everything else, it's completely unnecessary. That includes "beginner level" trainers. That's the absolute worst thing one could do to a new pilot. xD

I think I'm going to investigate further. This has me intrigued for some reason.
Also.. Bet ya couldn't tell that I'm completely opposed to having gyros in wings. lol

I get it. I have noticed when I use them I get reliant real quick. I actually just lost a plane partially because of that. I tossed it up and didn't have the manual mode set up right, and when I went back to manual mode the rates were too high right above a building and I lost it on the roof. That was the first and last time I don't get it good in manual mode. I always get it squared away without a gyro and fly mainly on manual mode anyways. The one time I didn't follow my rule it bit me. 

I just wanted them for RTH anyways. 

As I am looking at it, I think I will just stick some vortex generators toward the tips and put a little reflex in the ailerons for some washout, and that should probably get it and maybe print up some leading edge extensions. You can live vicariously for me. I am actually pretty determined to make it freaking awesome and unstallable now. 

Plus, some people think it is boxy and ugly, but I think it looks awesome. It reminds me of 80's movies future planes. Kind of like if robocop had a drone, it would look like this.



On a sidenote, at some point during college, I acquired a vehicle for pizza delivery for the low cost of $2000, and it was a 90 Taurus SHO, black, manual transmission, just like robocop drove. It was a sweet ride. 220hp, 3000lbs, it was quick for it's day. It was faster than most of the mustangs...

[ratcheeroo]

I think its an awesome plane, have seen several vids where people have done mods, the most memorable being the Petronic Bros. , it's one badass Airloader now LOL.

[Burkeomatic]

May 25, 2022 13:31:34 GMT ratcheeroo said:

I think its an awesome plane, have seen several vids where people have done mods, the most memorable being the Petronic Bros. , it's one badass Airloader now LOL.

I think the FPV community, kind of like foamieninja was alluding to, kind of wants things done for them. I get that programming controllers and other things is a skillset in and of itself, but I also think that maybe they give up on some things too soon. But then, they put so much effort into making the binary liveable.

But they just about want the plane to fly itself, and stabilization is nice for fpv but also can turn into a crutch if you arent careful. Ever watch the big FPV reviewers fly manual mode.... the plane just porpoises mostly. I was watching one reviewer, and I was thinking to myself "i am pretty sure I fly better than this person" and I am usually pretty humble about my piloting skills, or lack there of.


The reason the night fury rocks is I built it and flew it, and developed it quite extensively even before I had any sort of flight controller. I'm not saying that a plane I paid $300 should need a ton of work, it had damn well fly pretty good.

I also think the manufacturers are lazy, know you will be putting a flight controller on it, and just design it so you can stuff battery bricks in there, and the wings and such are an after thought. Yet people still pay it.

[ratcheeroo]

You guys have hit all the points, simply said, learn to fly without them first. The two things that helped me the most was a simulator, and putting landing gear on my planes. Getting off the ground rarely results in a crash now, whereas hand tossing resulted in a crash most of the time right off the start. I bought two controllers to help me but got used to taking off from the ground so just really never bothered with them, although I can see the sparrow controller being useful as I get into the FPV thing

[Mr NCT]

On the other side of this coin, I use an Aura5 to learn to fly planes that are beyond my abilities. Since I don't have local buddies that fly it's my buddy box. I use it to launch and land but switch it off once I've got a couple mistakes of altitude. It keeps the plane alive long enough for me to learn to fly it. So far it's worked on a 36" wing span DR1 and an over powered F22 both of them I can now fly and land in manual. It's a crutch but crutches have their uses.

[Mr NCT]

And speaking of slamming wh.at you don't know - I've stopped recommending the mm DR1 over on the FT forum. Everybody says it's too twitchy, hard to fly when it's actually an easy to build and fly good second plane for a beginner. And a big plus is you can cartwheel it in, pick it up and fly again. Very sturdy.

[Burkeomatic]

May 25, 2022 22:43:16 GMT Mr NCT said:

On the other side of this coin, I use an Aura5 to learn to fly planes that are beyond my abilities. Since I don't have local buddies that fly it's my buddy box. I use it to launch and land but switch it off once I've got a couple mistakes of altitude. It keeps the plane alive long enough for me to learn to fly it. So far it's worked on a 36" wing span DR1 and an over powered F22 both of them I can now fly and land in manual. It's a crutch but crutches have their uses.

I think they can be good and have their place. Who knows how many planes I may have saved by just getting them higher up first. 

At the end of the day, I'll defend people using them just as much as those not, because at the end of the day, how you fly is how you fly. You aren't flying to impress me with your mad manual skills are you? I think you can get the best of both worlds, there is the off button, so how much you challenge yourself is how much you challenge yourself. I don't hate them, and I've been saved by them. I posted up how GPS RTH saved my plane when I dropped signal. People get pretty tribal on that too. When I am feeling lazy sometimes it is nice to toss a plane up and get some idiot proof satisfaction. Other times it is a blast to streak across the sky in something challenging. 

Part of what I think set me up for success on flying jets was my S800 wing. The tipstall/deathspiral master. Keep that speed up, and the little motor with the higher pitch prop doesn't provide immediate acceleration like the low pitch big torque set ups, so you kind of have to keep it moving all the time. I probably crashed that plane a half dozen times before I got it to go a lap around the field. Good thing it was invincible. Now I love it, but I was afraid to fly it at first. 

[Burkeomatic]

May 25, 2022 22:48:01 GMT Mr NCT said:

And speaking of slamming wh.at you don't know - I've stopped recommending the mm DR1 over on the FT forum. Everybody says it's too twitchy, hard to fly when it's actually an easy to build and fly good second plane for a beginner. And a big plus is you can cartwheel it in, pick it up and fly again. Very sturdy.

I just never built it because I thought it was too small and WWI isn't my thing. I may still yet build it, but that seems like another example, I like your plane. 

I actually kind of feel bad for FT, all it takes is for a couple of the more prominent names to build something, say it isn't the greatest, and then it is automatically trash. I would say that is what happened. I try not to talk smack about stuff I don't know about. I still do sometimes. I kind of quit building their designs, I don't even know if I have one of their designs. The P-40 was a winner, and the best design of theirs I had flown. I'll never know how they got the explorer to balance with that little battery they allegedly used. The Goblin was pretty ok too, actually everything Andres Lu designed was awesome. The only other FT design I was going to make was the A-10, but that won't be for a while. 

But that is another place where there are rules about what is good and what isn't. Better underprop that motor while you are at it too. Now they don't even seem really to care about what other people are doing in the community, and focus on hawking John Overstreets stuff.