A couple of new Star Wars "toys" of interest

Announced Thursday. On sale now. Not rockets, but.....

I won't say what, see the video first of the two that these guys unveil. Follow-ups later.

https://youtu.be/i3OkEpkwC4E?t=5920

Unfortunately, it seems the TRF forum software can't deal with displaying the video itself, because the link has the starting point queued up to just before these are unveiled (it's at 1h 38m 40s of a 4 hour video!). So, click on the link.

- George Gassaway

Perty cool, perty cool. I like the second product, and the way that it's described as "light and indestructible". I've got a similar product from Estes that I'm afraid of flying because I *know* I'll break something.

Oh boy! I can see these being added to my boy's Christmas lists!

ballistic_trep said:

Oh boy! I can see these being added to my boy's Christmas lists!

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Heck, I can see these added to my Christmas list!

I think I'll have to pick one of those up after I score a Velociraptor.... Oh... Wait...

Maybe after I build the Velociraptor.

The millenium falcon looks like a neat idea. I'll wait to see how the xwing flies, I have yet to see any airhogs plane fly really well. I think it says 250 foot range or something...

It was really neat seeing the X-Wing had a clear canard. Here's why (Photo and a writeup I did in a post years ago):

1978 scratchbuilt X-models. A large and medium X-wing fighter. The large one was designed to have the top two wings deploy up for glide, like a “K” wing, plus a clear plastic scissor-canard. But, that model was underpowered and I never could get the glide trim worked out (it tumbled). The medium X-wing was optimized to glide, less detail, lighter, and a larger clear scissor-canard. It actually did glide, but it had to be trimmed nose-heavy to glide fast, because if the X-wing stalled it would never recover. The X-15 was about 24-30” long, flew on a D12 usually, flew really nice once on an E20.

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As for Air Hogs, in 2006 they did have the "Aero Aces" series. George Rachor flew the Biplane at NARAM and I soon got my own. They flew pretty well for $30 planes. I even posted a thread suggesting buying one to learn fly R/C with rather than get anything more expensive to start (To see if they can get the hang of R/C, or not).

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?100153




I even rigged up a D12 powered BT-55 rocket to carry two of the Jets up. Of course they can't steer in "glide", so the differential throttling of the two props provided the steering. Fun but didn't fly it much. Documented on this page:
https://georgesrockets.com/GRP/GLIDERS/Twingliders.htm





I did take note that many of the follow-on planes did not fly very well. Or, maybe they flew OK but they used so much battery power they only flew half as long as these did. Since it took 20 minutes or more to recharge, a 5-6 minute flight would sorta suck, so I never tried those (The biplane and jet flew for 10-13 minutes depending on throttle use). I did like the Biplane and Jet enough to have more than one, so when one charged, I flew another, and at one point I had at least three flyable ones so almost no waiting (pre-charge all at home, fly & land #1, charge #1, fly& land #2, charge #2, fly and land #3, charge #3, repeat with #1, etc.).

So, I dunno about the X-Wing. It was a bit disappointing there was no video of it flying. But since they are on sale now, there ought to be videos on the YooToobs soon.

Here's a pretty nice profile-type X-wing without canard (the profile horizontal fuselage acts a bit like a canard but it probably has reflex in the wing(s). IIRC, several R/C X-wing model planes thru the years that had a full fuselage, 1980's-ish.

[video=youtube;EcE0y4o_uxU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcE0y4o_uxU[/video]

As for the Falcon multicopter, a few have done those before.

[video=youtube;15uwalmwvGc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15uwalmwvGc[/video]

Also a Speeder Bike, someone else can look that one up.

This is also neat……. even if from a totally different Sci-Fi movie series

[video=youtube;eA4U-6GmkUw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA4U-6GmkUw[/video]

- George Gassaway

yes, I had both the biplane and the jets back in the day, they didn't fly great, but were ok, I got bored with them pretty quickly. I'm just not a huge fan of throttle only control..

Cool! I collect Air Hogs (going back to the Aero Ace which I had several) and their product line seems hit or miss. Seems that they sometimes prefer to sell something that looks nice over something that works well. Additionally, some items get terrible reviews since parents buy it for their little kids thinking they can fly it, but flying isn't that simple. Also manufacturing quality may be partly to blame as well.

I do recall Toys R Us had a Millennium Falcon which was based on a counter-rotating stabilizing rc heli, but that was pricey and didn't sell too well (plus also had some bad reviews).

I'm looking forward to seeing these two...the X-wing would be cool to fly around and the falcon looks really awesome; however again, it depends on price point and whether they end up being one of the AH duds.

Thanks for sharing George! May the Force be with you!

yes, i also hope the X-wing has decent performance.

As an example lately of something that sells a lot but I think does more damage than good for kids/new flyers, the estes proto-x nano..I had one I got for xmas, it drifted continually, had poor control and was really a waste of $35 or whatever my wife spent....same with most of the micro helis that came out in the last few years....

Frank

burkefj said:

yes, i also hope the X-wing has decent performance.

As an example lately of something that sells a lot but I think does more damage than good for kids/new flyers, the estes proto-x nano..I had one I got for xmas, it drifted continually, had poor control and was really a waste of $35 or whatever my wife spent....same with most of the micro helis that came out in the last few years....

Frank

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I know what you mean about the micro helis (not multicopter but helis). I got one, flew it inside, and about the third time it hit the wall the tail rotor set-up was damaged and it could never fly right after that, the fuselage rotated around and around as the tail rotor could no longer fight the rotor blade torque properly.


Do not know if I will get either of those Star Wars R/C models. The Falcon interests me the most. But I am very picky about flying multicopters using "toy" controls. I want them to bind to my Spektrum TX so I can use what I am used to flying with, otherwise I'm not too interested. Which is a big reason why I didn't try the Estes one (considered it until I found out I had use it's tiny little TX with my not-tiny big hands).

As for small inexpensive quads, the Blade Nano HQ is REALLY nice ($70). It self-stabilizes to vertical. Can fly it indoors. And flies surprisingly well outdoors even when there is some wind. I've flown a slightly bigger beginner copter (U.F.O. I think) but it was "dumb", no self-stabilize to vertical feature (if tilted at 5 degrees and you go to neutral, it stays tilted 5 degrees). I finally learned to fly it…. but just didn't enjoy flying it like I enjoy flying a self-stabilizing model. Info and pic of the Blade Nano:

https://www.horizonhobby.com/nano-qx-bnf-with-safe-technology-blh7680



I built my own quad (not 100% scratch, I did buy a raw frame then assembled the rest from there), A 250 size Racing Quad. I really like flying it, as I mostly zip around horizontally at less than 50 feet. It's out of service right now though, need to get it fixed up to fly some more before winter sets in. Also I'd love to add FPV to it someday (or FPV to any R/C model, really).

Just saw the RC X-Wing at my local Walmart tonight. $59.99...I was tempted (and even had it in my cart for a bit), but decided to wait for some reviews before spending $60 on it.

KenECoyote said:

Just saw the RC X-Wing at my local Walmart tonight. $59.99...I was tempted (and even had it in my cart for a bit), but decided to wait for some reviews before spending $60 on it.

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Retail is $70 ..so sounds like it is on sale for Force Friday

Kenny

Hmmmm, found this video of the new X-Wing flying.

[video=youtube;JyR6UqA7nsk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyR6UqA7nsk[/video]

it is just nuts thatthis guy is flying in a small Cul-de-sac with power lines and trees and such, like there could not possibly be anyplace else bigger to fly within a 5 minute drive or something. Or even a cul-de-sac of the same size without all the power lines.

Anyway, it does not seem to fly well. Seems to stall too easily. That is the issue in discovered with my small semi-scale X-wing that had a scissor-wing clear plastic canard. The main wings tended to stall before the canard did, and once the main "X" wings got stalled at a high enough of an angle of attack, the airflow of "two" wings ended up as the airflow of one wing, the top wing blanked out by the bottom wing. So that made the canard's effectiveness nearly double, shifting the CP more aft, so it would do a deep stall. Now, this is not doing quite the deep stall that mine did, but I see enough of that tendency at times to recognize it. And also, making the clear canard have an undercamber makes that problem worse, an undercambered wing will fly slower, but you want a canard to stall before the main wings do so a regular airfoil, or even flat-plate foil (like I had) would be better.

So, with the right amount of noseweight it might have better pitch stability. It would have to fly faster.

The other thing I noticed when it is nose-high, sometimes before it has a chance to stall, it yaws off to the side and spirals in. Well, at low sped the "X" wing does not provide very good yaw stability, the front fuselage is grabbing the air at some sideslip angle that shifts the CP forward enough to go unstable in yaw. So, that could probably be fixed by clear rudders. Even on my semi-scale mode, I had clear plastic vertical fins between the wings,and it had great yaw stability (I do not recall for sure, but I might have test glided it before adding those and found it would veer to one side due to poor yaw stability. But that's been so long…..).

So, I think I won't get one. But if someone gave me one, or asked me to "fix" it, I'd add clear rudders, and add noseweight. And if it still had screwy stall issues, replace the undercambered clear canard with a flat one at a specific pitch angle.

- George Gassaway

This one looks better, but probably takes no wind, and you'll just get mild turning out of it, so boring after while.

[video=youtube;7vGwcv72qY4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vGwcv72qY4[/video]

They should have made one of these [video=youtube;xNsXQ8aNMvU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNsXQ8aNMvU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNsXQ8aNMvU[/video] bad guys toys rock too!

I found the Falcon at Walmart over the weekend and picked one up.


I've never flown this sort of thing before, so I'm still working on developing some sort of proficiency at it. There's no trim adjustment, so its sometimes difficult to maintain neutral flight without drifting off one way or another. I'm not sure if that's typical of the breed. The instructions state that its for indoor use only - I tried flying it outside yesterday and found that it had little tolerance for breezes; its very light. In fact, I'm not sure that the drifting issues I was experiencing in the house weren't due to the ceiling fans running (which, BTW, will bat this thing pretty good it one's not careful). It probably has an 8-10 minute run time before the power level drop is noticeable (it starts blinking its lights when it gets weak as well), and the charge time seems to be about 45 minutes. It charges from the transmitter, but that can be plugged into a USB port to assist. The port will not charge the transmitter, though, as that runs strictly on alkaline batteries. After my third or forth flight, I started to get to where I could hover, rotate, move forward or back in a controlled fashion. I have noticed that it seems to get hung up on things easily - it comes down next to the wall or something and is touching it, its difficult to pull away from it. It also seems to find its way in and under things in a way likely governed by Murphy's Law. Under furniture, under the bicycles, on top of shelves, etc... Still, all in all, very amusing.

They also had the X-wing for $59.99, that was the price on a normal shelf tag (not a sale price).

I've been flying my Falcon for a couple weeks now, and have gotten a pretty good feel for it. I fly it in the warehouse at work, which has a lot more open airspace than my living room, and as long as I don't drop it on a high shelf, it works out well. I can now fly oval patterns down and back, stop, rotate, etc, control a hover in one spot. I've been concentrating on making slow, deliberate maneuvers, one function at a time. I'm just now starting to try to mix the controls for more fluid movements. Its a fun toy, my biggest gripe is that the ratio of fly time to charge time is low.

Videos I've seen of the Falcon, it is speed-sensitive. It is because the "saucer" shape, flying horizontally, is unstable aerodynamically, the thrust vector effect of the 4 props have their limits on stabilizing it. Also when pitches a few degrees nose down, as done for fast forward flight, that produces negative lift, so to keep altitude it has to be throttled up more than needed for just the angle robbing some of the vertical thrust vector. So then sometimes when a person tries to slow down by quickly going level at the same thrust, it "pops" up and the fast pitching sometimes makes it flip up onto its back. So it needs to be flown relatively slowly. And of course if flown outdoors it would need to be in calm winds

The RC guys at Flite Test have posted an episode about the X-wing and Falcon. Falcon does OK, of course those guys all fly multicopters so they know what they're doing and have steady hands. From other videos I have seen, it's a bit tricky.

The X-Wing... even they had trouble with. Some tweaking and learning how to make them fly helped. But those are experts. Pretty much seems like the X-wing is underpowered, pitch sensitive, and does not turn too well. In theory, an RC Guru could fix that by adding more power, some servos for flight control surfaces and other stuff. But then they'd probably be better off just building a bigger one from foam board or Depron rather than trying to make a silk purse out of a Womp-Rat's ear....

At the end, they do something crazy, as spoilered at the beginning. But by that point I do not even think it had the radio gear or props in it anymore and probably wasn't expected to glide down, just crash one way or another. And the fact one of the wings folded on the way up sorta clinched its doom. It had obviously suffered some other not-shown but alluded to butchery and disaster before that. This will make more sense once you get near the end.....

[video=youtube;mMfszvXvScA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfszvXvScA[/video]

To be fair, the Falcon doesn't fly that quickly to begin with, so flying it slow isn't hard. It is somehow satisfying to me to be able to fly it slow and control it fairly precisely. I guess I've taken the approach that I learn the controls slowly first, and then going faster can come later. The only issues I've had with it flipping onto its back involved a hard landing and a bounce. One does need to modulate the thrust as you perform maneuvers, but that's to be expected - the maneuvers are accomplished by differential thrust, so the overall thrust level will change. If you suddenly level it out, then your vertical thrust level goes up. All things considered, it isn't too tough to learn to fly reasonably well even if you have no experience with this sort of thing (as I didn't). One thing I have noted is that you need to give it a fair amount of throttle to lift off smoothly; if you try to lift it slowly, its light enough that the ground effect of its own thrust upsets it when close to the ground. The other thing of note is that as the battery gets weak, it gets wobbly while maneuvering. I think with low current levels it has difficulty modulating the thrust differential.