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Prelim


Well, in the next couple of days I am going to have a birthday... So I thought it has been a while since getting a new RC airplane, and while I have been building up my RC fund to a decent amount, this looked like a good reason to purchase one.

In a previous post I talked about attending the MIFF in KC and met a cool vendor called Fancy Foam. The owner Mike Hammel, in between his customers, talked with me for quite awhile about his company, airplanes and the construction process and philosophy that he uses to fabricate his aircraft.

I told him of my experience with another foamie (starts with a "T") and how I was very disappointed with the outcome of that plane. The strength, construction as well as fight characteristics were to me, just plain poor. He described very nicely and never bagging on a competitor, about his construction versus the "T"'s constuction. He said he was at the first concerned about the "T"s ability to take over the market and put his just starting company out of commission, as both types of planes were coming to market around the same time. At one time apparently the "T" was a good aircraft but when it went into mass production it faltered. Well I must have gotten one of those.

I am very glad to have gone to the MIFF sponsored by the KCFC and met Mike and got to see his planes. He had an ace pilot Brandon Chitty flying in the freestyle portion of he Fun Fly and was using an airplane Brandon designed for Fancy Foam the Chitty 3d Bipe. Bradon really was impressive Here is a video of that flight.. Wow.

Anyway, what really caught my eye was the design of the landing gear used on all his planes. Just so slick. That was the kicker for me. The "T"'s gear absolutely sucked. I tried to fabricate a piece of coroplast and CA on each side of the fuselage to glue a substantial holding spot to re-use the stock gear. That was pathetic. Check out the Fancy Foam gear. There's a set of gear. I am going to be using that on all my Foamies. There is even a video on that page, click on gear pix to view it and what Mike tried to do to destroy the gear. Not possible.

I then spoke to him expressing my love of "Cub like" flying.. Slow and easy but still what ailerons etc. I want to be able to take a break from high excitement aerobatics and just fly around, and still do most of my flying on calm or indoor flight conditions. He recommended the Fancy Foam Mini Ultimate. It is a bipe that will do most if not all what I am looking for, he said.

Looking closely at the aircraft one can see his craftsmanship and attention to detail. All parts are CNC cut, all parts have slots and positions that are cut out to further induce correct placements. For example the servos have little rectangles that are CNC'ed out to allow the modeler to correctly and with out question get the airplane built well.





The airplane I decided upon was the Mini Ultimate Bipe. I asked Mike what would I need to get to make this fool proof. Well he has that already thought out. A whole one-stop-shop kit that you can buy and get the whole thing done right, the first time. It includes:

• AXI 2204-54 outrunner


• Phoenix 10 speed control


• Etec 450 Lipo Battery


• Berg 4L microstamp receiver with crystal


• 3 Waypoint 038 ultra micro servos (4 grams each)


• GWS 8 x 4.3 prop


• Complete Mini Ultimate 10-300 white airframe precut and glue ready


• Printed instruction booklet


• Comes with over 6 feet of carbon fiber strips, laser cut plywood control horns, pushrods, landing gear with wheels, plywood firewall and 100+ sq inches of scrap repair foam just in case!
  

Well, we have a winner... I just had to do my "homework" before outlaying the cash but it definitely looked good.

So I did it, I ordered one today and hope to have it in the next few days.

This will be a multipart series, from start to finish of construction, test flights, (both indoor and outside) and maybe this will lead to the Fancy Foam Sukhoi SU-29...





Tnx Mike for the time and patience you spent with me at the Fun Fly! I learned A LOT! and very much enjoyed finding out that my new plane is coming from a fellow Kansan!


Please visit:

Here is the page of my experiences with the Fancy Foam Mini Ultimate.


Parts:

• 6. First Flight - Thoughts


• 5. Push Rods - Radio Gear - Finishing touches


• 4. Wing to Fuse - Gear - Firewall - Control horns


• 3. Fuse build


• 2. Painting


• 1. Arrival


• 0. Prelim

A few snippets from the Fancy Foam site

What Makes Our Kits So "Fancy":
...kits are cut on very precise 3 axis CNC equipment. This CNC cutting equipment was developed and built by Fancy Foam Models. We have total control of our processes because we designed and built everything from the ground up. Unlike 2D cutting (laser), our 3D machining gives us the ability to pre-bevel all the hinge lines, create pockets for all of the radio gear and make the most precise slots you'll ever see for the carbon fiber tubes... Our cutting is so smooth, you'd swear we spent hours sanding the edges to make it perfect! The wing and stab "lock" into place to make alignment simple. Our kits are made from 6 mm white Depron foam, which is the preferred material for foamy construction. When you open one of our kits, you'll surely say "WOW"!!!

About Us:
...We went through the learning curve and made all the mistakes. We also found out how frustrating it can be to find sources for all the components only to find out that they don't have what you need in stock. ... direct sources for all of the components needed to build your aircraft and get it flying, all from one box.

Please visit:

3rd Annual Mid-America Indoor Fun Fly


Well a group of the SMWB's made a little road trip to the 3rd Annual Mid-America Indoor Fun Fly. This was going to be exciting!! This was to be the first time I got to go to one of these events and what made it even more special was that it was moved from its original venue to the KC Chief's indoor practice facility!!! Woah very cool. The building was awesome! Imagine getting to walk on the turf that the NFL players get to practice on. Wow.

To me the event was fantastic there were tons of RC aircraft on 3 different rows of tables along with 1 full row for just vendors. From micro lites (which were way cool) to bluecore foamies to balsa kits to the 3D Foamies.. There was just too much to see. I got there about 930 am and left around 5pm. Those that were in attendance were Ross, Alan, Randy, Joe H., Jason, Gene, and myself.

BlueCor
Had to stop by Bob Gill o BlueGill Slow Flyers. He had an assortment of airplanes made from BlueCore. He even had a Corsair, that was neat. He demo'd a glider for Alan and I and then let us give it a flight. It flew great. He gave us the low down on how he creates his curves in the oven with a mold he made up and it sure does produce a nice curve. He can be reached at bobgill27 AT charter dot net.

Here are some pix of the event.





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Slow Stick
Several pilots were flying SS in some form or another.




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One pilot had rigged up car audio LEDs to his and really had a good setup. Red and green using 3 or 4 lights per wing and some for the tail.




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Flying box car??
One of the factory Futaba team pilots were burning holes around the gym with his Flying box car. It had no rudder on its twin tail just differential in the props via throttle usage. He had the whole crowd watching...




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Cubs
As usual several Cubs in some form showed up, some even in the military grasshopper colors. I had to stop by and grab a few pix of them for my next plane..




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Helos
Wow those guys were over the top..
Lot of crazy aerobatics happin'. Only 1 crash that I saw due to "Lock out" as he said. ?? Fixable but not very happy he was..

Foamies
Well these are really growing on me. I met 2 pilots who few for and with e-foamies. They were way cool, gave a lot of information on EPS and Depron and the e-foamie business that they fly for. Very resilient planes, full fuselage.. That is definitely going to be one airplane for my hanger.

Freestyle
Well the Freestyle portion on Saturday was awesome! Here is a link to some of the competitors from RC Groups MIFF thread. Man those guys are good. Really inspiring, those guys and their performance really pushed me over the top along with talking to Fancy Foam owner Mike Hammel to get into foamies and 3D flying..




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Notable events
Only one baddie that I am aware of.... Minor mishap when one of the SMWB had a glich and hit is transmitter antenna and then proceeded into the crowd and managed to glance off a spectator with whirling helo blades.. Spectator ok. TX damaged. But no bleeding.. So all is ok... Whew.. I missed that as I was on the other side of the building.. Bet if I wasn't it would have been me being hit..


LINKS / sponsors of Fun Fly

Castle Creations
FancyFoam
RC Groups
Futaba
e-foamies