Me and the Bean (progress!)

I'll take some pictures. And weigh the big Brodak weight. Elevator is straight now for sure.

Ron

Pictures of all angles.... The Brodak weight came in at a whopping .5 oz I suppose I could cut it in half.

Let me know what you think fellers.

I had to cut the weight in half for my Bean. Everything looks straight and perfect. Picture #2 made me think the rudder was crooked, but the rest of the pictures disprove that. It all looks perfect. The only thing left after the tip weight is to give it some rudder offset. I think the plans say 1/8". I think we talked you out of that when you were building it, but I'm at a loss. Unless you have some strange wind that only blows 30 feet up. I'm glad you didn't wreck it. I think JP had worse luck flying his modified Satan today.

So I took out the tip weight. 3 pennies, two were 1972 and one 1964. Total weight was 9 grams on the scale. A little more than 7, but not much.

This thing is driving me nuts. Problem with adding rudder offset at this point is it will be difficult to do without making the rudder look like crap.

Ron

It really is hard to say without seeing it fly or to physically check it out, but a couple things caught my eye. The leadouts do look really far back and you have a large eyelet on pushrod that still could allow some flexing? Line tension is pretty much a product of centrifugal force...that’s why you don't need tails on Combat planes. I do think some offset of rudder can help a little, you might try to heat up the right side of rudder with iron while twisting at the same time, hold while cools, to get a couple degrees of offset. 3-4 cents should be plenty.

Believe it or not but the leadouts are positioned exactly as marked on the original Goldberg plan. Your not the first to mention it though. Would tip weight location have an effect? It was in the last rib bay closest to the tip. I have since moved it to the outer tip as shown on the plans. Still on the fence about the rudder offset. Een though the eyelet is big rod flex is at a minimum

Ron

I feel bad now if my claim that three pennies wasn't heavy enough was the only reason you had to open your covering. Maybe this will help in the future:
1 ounce (US) = 28.35 grams

Coins weights in grams:
10 cents -- Dime -- 2.2 Grams
1 cent -- Penny -- 2.6 Grams
5 cents -- Nickel -- 4.8 Grams
25 cents -- Quarter -- 5.7 Grams

We mentioned the odd leadout position in the build thread, and that's what your plans showed. How much of an angle does it hang by the lines with a neutral elevator? Too much nose down would cause excessive drag. It's supposed to hang slightly down at a few degrees, less that 10 degrees I think. Mine are about 1-1/2 and 2-1/2 inches back from the LE.

EDIT: Ah, I see you wrote about that while I was typing.
Your tip weights should be on a shelf on the inside lead edge of the wingtip.

RknRusty wrote:I feel bad now if my claim that three pennies wasn't heavy enough was the only reason you had to open your covering. Maybe this will help in the future:
1 ounce (US) = 28.35 grams

Coins weights in grams:
10 cents -- Dime -- 2.2 Grams
1 cent -- Penny -- 2.6 Grams
5 cents -- Nickel -- 4.8 Grams
25 cents -- Quarter -- 5.7 Grams

We mentioned the odd leadout position in the build thread, and that's what your plans showed. How much of an angle does it hang by the lines with a neutral elevator? Too much nose down would cause excessive drag. It's supposed to hang slightly down at a few degrees, less that 10 degrees I think. Mine are about 1-1/2 and 2-1/2 inches back from the LE.

EDIT: Ah, I see you wrote about that while I was typing.
Your tip weights should be on a shelf on the inside lead edge of the wingtip.

That'a where it is now, it hangs ever so slightly nose down when dangling by the leadouts. I opened the covering because I couldn't remember if I used 2 or 3 pennies. So don't feel bad. Besides it already had a patch due to the fact I forgot to add the tip weight initially. I cut the supplied tip weight in half and it weighed in at .26oz so I epoxied it in place of the pennies. I will take it up again tomorrow. Between myself and you guys we are going to get this bean right. I surely appreciate all the help and advice.

Ron

Couple washers on each screw on left had side of Mota between back plate and firewall?

As suggested on next flight add slightly more motor offset with an extra washer one each left mount

If still turing inside on loops temp add at the fiel a small trim tab of masking tape for slight rudder offset

You might try to see if in level flight it is trying to climb and you are holding down elevator to make it level. If true then you need some down mounting of the motor....sounds like no biggie but a small amoun of down thrust on a lift producing wing changes the vortex of airflow the elevator and rudder feels

I got plenty of offset heck if I add any more I will chop the leading edge in half with the prop.

I actually took off the side thrust washers and used 2 small nuts in place of them.

The up thrust may be an issue now that I look at it close. You would think that would only help in a loop though. Let me add some more washers........

i think the engine offset is fine, you might want to check stab is parallel to wing. Also this might be a long shot, but it is possible the leadout location was designed to insure a successful flight and with a strong running blackwidow it might be a little much causing plane to pitch out....now, looking at photos i just noticed a slight washout (pointing down) on inboard tip???

Thanks Mark,

I will take a look at your findings again in a few days. I took it up 2 hours ago and during my first loop the BW cut out and it smacked into to ground and snapped the fuse in half. So instead of putting my foot through the plane I have decided to walk away for a couple days and re-address the issue another day. I epoxied the fuse together and just broke in a NIB black widow as the current one has ticked me off one to many times.

I appreciate the help guys. I sure wish ya'll lived closer.

Ron

Here are my leadout positions

Here's mine.....

Had a long talk with Ken this evening. Mostly of Fox .35's however, the Bean dis come up and he was able to convince me to move the leadouts. I was flying it this evening and I noticed I could easily see the outboard wheel in level flight. This told me it was yawing out so the only way to fix that is to move the leadouts. It shouldn't be doing that as I have no rudder offset. Wish me luck!!!

https://i.imgur.com/eRyKd.jpg

Ron, I went downstairs and pulled out my Bean my father built. The first leadout is 2" behind the leading edge. When I hung it from the leadouts like a plumb bob it is certainly pointing outboard a bit more excessive than what I would like. I feel this would do better at 1 3/4" with 3/4" separation between them. I did have rudder offset on this plane. I removed it which indeed improved it's flying ability. More than likely, the leadout yaw in combination with the rudder had my plane crabbing sideways. Let's just hope this will resolve the issue. Until then, burn some circles up with the Clown. Ken

That second picture is after I moved the leadouts after our conversation tonight. The front leadout is 1 3/4 and the second is 9/16 from the first. Pretty close to what you just suggested. The patch isn't really obvious, but of course I can tell.

Sounds right. My leadouts are close to that at 1-1/2" and 3/4" apart. That is the position I guesstimated with the hang test.

Ok,

I finally got some time to put in a couple flights on the Bean. It's flying much better now except the Widow is "pukie" as Dave would say. I was actually able to do a couple loops without having to do a panic full up power save.

I won't really know for sure if it's fixed until I get the engine sorted, but it's promising. The only thing left would be rudder offset.

Nice one Ron
Don't forget the Vid.

Ok,

I fixed the Widow. I used dental floss to seal the tank, works good now. I would recommend that to anyone with a leaky tank. Zero leaks under pressurization. And runs nice and strong in the air.

So it is for sure flying better, not perfect, but much better. At least I am able to go back to working on my skills anyway seeing as I can control it now.

I don't have vid John as I was flying solo today. I do have an after flight pic of an oil soaked and grass covered Bean as I did the dreaded last minute manouver and the widow cut out inverted.

Kind of ticked me off too as it was an outside loop and it was actually going to pull out of it this time, but as it was coming out of the bottom of the loop it shut down. It forced me to land upside down.

Ron

https://i.imgur.com/ruyeJ.jpg

Sounds like a good day to me Ron.
Nice work.
Bob