secondchildhood
New to GSN!
Nice video. Thanks for the build thread. I ordered one for myself, I like the bigger planes (old eyesight) and like the Epp for the forgiveness ;^)
Dwight
Dwight
Techone Swift
- Thread starter rpstar
- Start date
gyro
GSN Contributor
3DeltaFly
50cc
I just got one of these in the air last weekend, mainly to fly on those really gusting windy days to save risking my balsa models. My experience was similar, i.e. the main landing gear mounting being angled, and the rough "hot-wire" cut aileron hinge area. Also the stab and wing slots were cut into the fuselage slightly tapered, though easily corrected by trimming the tight side to straighten 'em up. Rather than CA I used Welders to glue the wing, stab, and fin to the fuselage. It works really well on EPP foam, has gap filling characteristics, and remains flexible when cured.
All in all I found this kit to be a good value considering the price of other kits, especially with all of the factory prefab work. I.e the Swift comes with pre-installed fuselage CF reinforcing rods, motor mount, landing gear mount, and precut servo bay openings. The motor mount is pre-drilled and fitted with 3mm blind nuts.
One weakness, and it's the same for my Techone Yak 54, is that the landing gear ply mounting box broke loose after just a few landings. So I got to re-glue that and straightened up the factory skewed mounting angle at the same time.
My setup:
Motor: Suppo 2814-8 (1000kv, some sites state 1100kv)
Prop: APC 12x6E
ESC: ZTW 50A (overkill, just happened to have it on hand)
Servos: 4x Hitec HS-65MG
LiPo Pack: 3S 1800mAH 35C Hyperion
Flight performance is very good and power feels like it's easily 2:1 thrust to weight with the above setup. I'll take some watt-meter measurements this weekend. This plane does nice walls, rollers, single roll loops, multi-rolling loops, upright and inverted harrier, and rolling harrier. With 1800 mAH (143 gram) packs the plane flies very light. I found it difficult to get more than about a half to three quarters of a rotation in pop-tops. Mine has some slight KE coupling too, but I didn't feel the need to mix it out. I've got to tweak the CG first anyway so that will change some. As is the CG is not quite far 'nuff back for the neutral feel I prefer, but pretty close for some 3D fun. Shouldn't take more than a few cents to do it, i.e. some pennies planted in the tail
Addendum:
"Watts-Up" meter power measurement for the Suppo 2814-8 motor.
Prop: APC 12x6E
LiPo: Hyperion 3S 1800mAH 35C
403 watts (peak at first power up to WOT)
395 watts (after 30 seconds of WOT)
The Swift is fast becoming my favorite windy day practice plane for the small park just down the road. I'm getting an easy 7 minutes of hardcore 3D practice time out of 3S 1800mAH packs (75~80% discharge).
Byron C.
All in all I found this kit to be a good value considering the price of other kits, especially with all of the factory prefab work. I.e the Swift comes with pre-installed fuselage CF reinforcing rods, motor mount, landing gear mount, and precut servo bay openings. The motor mount is pre-drilled and fitted with 3mm blind nuts.
One weakness, and it's the same for my Techone Yak 54, is that the landing gear ply mounting box broke loose after just a few landings. So I got to re-glue that and straightened up the factory skewed mounting angle at the same time.
My setup:
Motor: Suppo 2814-8 (1000kv, some sites state 1100kv)
Prop: APC 12x6E
ESC: ZTW 50A (overkill, just happened to have it on hand)
Servos: 4x Hitec HS-65MG
LiPo Pack: 3S 1800mAH 35C Hyperion
Flight performance is very good and power feels like it's easily 2:1 thrust to weight with the above setup. I'll take some watt-meter measurements this weekend. This plane does nice walls, rollers, single roll loops, multi-rolling loops, upright and inverted harrier, and rolling harrier. With 1800 mAH (143 gram) packs the plane flies very light. I found it difficult to get more than about a half to three quarters of a rotation in pop-tops. Mine has some slight KE coupling too, but I didn't feel the need to mix it out. I've got to tweak the CG first anyway so that will change some. As is the CG is not quite far 'nuff back for the neutral feel I prefer, but pretty close for some 3D fun. Shouldn't take more than a few cents to do it, i.e. some pennies planted in the tail
Addendum:
"Watts-Up" meter power measurement for the Suppo 2814-8 motor.
Prop: APC 12x6E
LiPo: Hyperion 3S 1800mAH 35C
403 watts (peak at first power up to WOT)
395 watts (after 30 seconds of WOT)
The Swift is fast becoming my favorite windy day practice plane for the small park just down the road. I'm getting an easy 7 minutes of hardcore 3D practice time out of 3S 1800mAH packs (75~80% discharge).
Byron C.
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, for a profile this is one very nice foamy. I suppose a lot of it is the sheer size of it but it's making me want to get rid of my other profile epp foamies and just keep this one. Still prefer the balsa of course but I won't risk flying those up and down the street like I will this one for fear of damage to the plane as well as it damaging something else.
Ok, finally flew this today. I've got a video, not the best but gives you some idea at least. I used an Exceed Optima 480 and 30 Amp ESC. This is a very good match to this plane. I was flying with an APC 11x7 in the video but plan to switch to 12x6 or even a 13" prop as the motor was not even warm at all after the flight. Battery is a 2200 mah 3s.
Knife edge is easy. Tucked a bit to the canopy but I believe I'm still a bit nose-heavy (just a touch). You can't really move the battery around so I'll likely add a washer or other weight to the tail. It does not need much at all. Knife edge spins were easy to do (sorry, did not capture one on the video) and blenders should be equally good. Inverted did require a touch of down elevator (nose heavy as I said) but that will probably go away when I add the weight.
All in all this plane reminds me of my T-link Yak but better as it's bigger. Sweet plane really for a foamy. I've now owned over 20+ 3d foamies over the past 5 years and this is definitely the closest I've come to the feel of balsa. That's probably because it's fairly large for a foamy at 48" and hence weighs a bit more as a result. Balsa is still better of course (more violent in maneuvers if nothing else) but this is quite excellent. I was pleasantly surprised it had much less of the foamy floating feeling than I feared it might.
Here is my vid. Yeah, not the best but it's something....
Russ -
Which field did you fly that at ?
3DeltaFly
50cc
Yes, for a profile this is one very nice foamy. I suppose a lot of it is the sheer size of it but it's making me want to get rid of my other profile epp foamies and just keep this one. Still prefer the balsa of course but I won't risk flying those up and down the street like I will this one for fear of damage to the plane as well as it damaging something else.
Yeah, I was surprised at the flight envelope. The Swift has a nice relatively thin and symmetrical main wing airfoil. Mine does very nice wing-rock free harriers. It is a breeze to execute spot landings right where ya want them
3DeltaFly
50cc
I use the general rule of thumb for all my 3D planes, that being that low rates are set to 1/2 of high rate values. And low rate expo is approx. 1/2 of the high rate value + 10%. For high rates on a Spektrum DX7S/DX8 TX I'm using 70% Expo on Ail/Elv and 60% on Rud. This will get you very close on your setup, and you can fine tune it from there to your personal taste.
As to high rate deflections, I'm using 30 degrees for Ailerons, and full deflection for the Rudder to bring it to within 1/8 inch of the Elevator. Shoot for 45 degrees on the Elevator, as mine is presently 30 degrees (using only the stock long Hitec HS-65 servo arm) and I could use more for the post stall stuff. I'm planning on fitting the Elv. servo with the kit supplied arm extension before my next flying session.
Byron C.
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