Sorry to hear about the wing warping.  I know you'll find a solution! Best of luck till then!
Sky9pilot

Well, isn't this a little embarrassing!  I had my camera all charged up last night and walked out without it this morning...Not that there would have  been much to see.  Oh, the C-130 does fly quite well, in a straight line.   Not a good thing if you are flying indoors.

That is one of the odd things about multi-motor models.  People are always asking me if I have opposite rotating props on these models, and I have to tell them that they are not necessary.  They don't torque roll because the multiple, parallel thrust lines cancel each other out and the trick is actually getting them to turn.  You only need opposite rotating props if you are going to do aerobatics on the rolling plane, a la P-38.  With 240 turns on each 1/16", flat, Tan Sport motor it flew across the length of the room and straight into the wall.  For the most part it could handle this, but I did have to rebuild the nose twice this morning.

I tried combinations of drag tabs and rudder tabs, both right and left, until I finally settled on a left turn that required a drag tab on the left wing tip and a rudder tab that was nearly the full height of the rudder.  This gave me a flat turn right between the basketball court side lines.

In the first flights I noticed a slight stall under power, so I put in a small, very small, amount of down thrust on all the motors.  Another thing about multi-motor models is that a small amount of thrust line adjustment goes a long way.  The hand launches went OK. but the down thrust would not quite let the nose get up on an R.O.G. even with 2000 turns on each motor although the fast taxi did stay between the court sidelines.  I decided that it only needs the down thrust on the inboard motors.  (The inboard props are clipped so that they turn faster and run out the motor before the outboard props.  This allows a fast climb to near the ceiling then cruse on the outboard motors without hitting the lights.) The meeting went a bit long so the flying session was a bit short and I did not have the opportunity to take the down thrust out of the outboard motors.

Unless I fly it outdoors the next chance I will get for some video will be December 2.

Sky9pilot wrote on Nov 11^th, 2015 at 12:18pm:


Yes, I was aware of that.  All my skins and markings are drawn in scalable vector graphics files so I can enlarge and reduce them as required.  My skins are original drawings from references.  I do not simply scan drawings in an print them.  This can be a little tedious.  Sometimes a small individual or squadron insignia can take longer to draw than the rest of the airplane.

I did not get the chance to test fly the C-130 this morning.  The rec center, a city facility, was closed for Veteran's Day...next Wednesday.


 

Kittyfritters,

As a retired Coastie, I very much appreciate your rendition of the venerable C-130 in Coast Guard garb.

I have flown as a passenger in Coast Guard C-130's many times and loved every minute. (Flights from Kodiak to Attu, Dutch Harbor, and the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea are most memorable.) Though a ship driver/ground pounder, I very much appreciated the capability of the C-130, not to mention the skills of my aviator brethern. Eyesight kept me from qualifying for flight school (20/20 uncorrected back then), otherwise I would have been an aviator for sure.

I would eventually like to build a flyable scale model of the C-130 (CG colors of course). Perhaps one day...

In any case, Thank you!

Richard

Here are a couple of shots of it done.  The top view shows the motors and the side view shows that it actually does sit on the wheels, Yes, they roll.

I got some nice glides in the back yard before the breeze came up tonight, about 40 feet from shoulder height. It's very stable.  I still have to make a stooge for it, since it can't use the one from my Fokker F.36.  I did make a couple of mistakes on the plans and I have redesigned it already.  Powered flights will have to wait until the O.F.F.C. session on Wednesday morning.  We've lost our Luther Middle School gym on the second Friday night for the next four months, but that's another story.

Your right about the base name and this one is also missing the Coast Guard shield in the red flash on the fuselage.  Earlier this afternoon, I took another look at my reference photos and corrected the skin drawings in case I have to print another set.  The base name on this one is Elizabeth City.

Not quite done here, but you get the idea.

It has four motors and 4" propellers.  I don't know about a kit for this one since I would have to sell it for about $25 and I don't know that there is that much of a market.  Lets see how it flies first.  I might go full bodied with it and make it electric R/C.