Utah is not exactly a bastion of pylon-racing enthusiasts, but there are a number of racing fun-fly events throughout the spring and summer to keep your fingers in good shape. I'm going through the schedule and will be adding a number to the club calendar shortly.
Anyway, so today I had the chance to maiden my Lanier Predator II (Predator 2). It's designed for "sport quickie". Quickie 500 races are divided into Sport Quickie (424) and Quickie (428) categories. In Sport Quickie, you're limited to stock mufflers and motors that retail for less than $100, plus the wings are required to be normal built-up or balsa-over-foam rather than hollow molded carbon-fiber high-dollar items. All of this is an effort to keep the cost of building a "Sport Quickie" Q500 racer, including all electronics, to a minimum.
The cost of the Predator 2 was pretty reasonable:
- Q500 ARF (Great Planes Viper 500 is pretty popular): $125
- Spektrum AR6200 receiver: $75 (this one has the dual receivers so it's safe to use)
- 2x Hitec HS-225BB servos: $21 each, $42 total
- A salvaged Hitec HS-525BB servo for the aileron, like $20 new
- Sub-micro servo for throttle. $15
- Receiver pack: somewhere around $30-$40. Mine was closer to $40 as I use a UBEC and LiPo
- Thunder Tiger .40 Pro BB motor (includes muffler): $85
- OS #8 Glow plug: $6
All-up cost: around $400, less if you already had parts laying around like I did. Plus, of course, you need to have fuel and starting equipment, you know how that goes.
Anyway, this is MUCH cheaper than the $1000+ birds flying in Q500 428 or other high-performance leagues. And the fact is, my bird was easily beating 100MPH in level flight today. Upwind in a 20MPH breeze, not quite that much, but downwind it was controllable but frickin' fast. In fact, it was OMGWTFBBQ fast. The prop was turning around 16,000 RPM on a 9x6 APC Sport prop, clearly spinning much faster than that in the air. And it's a brand-new engine with only 4 tanks through it!
Very, very fun combo. If you went to a 10x6 prop instead of 9x6, this Q500 racer would just be a fairly fast sport plane. In fact, I probably should have started with that prop, but oh well, too late now! I also hear they are fun, predictable, sporty flyers on a .25 motor.
The really impressive things about these racers are their design simplicity, superb energy retention and speed on cheesy commodity motors. I also learned, to my chagrin, that they have excellent glide characteristics. It is, in fact, somewhat tough to land the bird with the power on; it's efficient enough that even the motor running at idle will give it enough energy to clear the runway and keep flying through the weeds 100 yards upwind.
I had a really good time maidening the bird, despite an annoying right roll at speed and some difficulty on my third landing. NURCAC is participating in the June 7 races up in Logan, and I plan to compete there in whatever they have equivalent to a "novice" class. If you have the spare dough -- or a spare .40 engine and airframe -- come on up!
I'll be spending the next few evenings tweaking my setup. Gotta get that right roll figured out and get the girl flying right.
Go fast. Turn left. Race!
