ROCKETCHRIS

My son and I are just finishing a build of the Nick Cara designed YF 23. It's built of model plane foam and hot glue. Its powered by a Sun Sky 2212 ,2450 KV motor with a ZTW, Beales, 60 amp ESC. Were using a 6x4 ACP prop. The battery is a Luminiare 2250 3S . We added KFm4 airfoils (borrowed the design for the KFm4's from the 5EZP YF23 design) We hope to finish painting this week and maiden it soon. We will post pictures as soon as the paint is done. We are using a 3 servo set up : one for the elevator and two for the ailerons.

crxmanpat

Nick did some great pusher jets. I worked with him on designing a couple of his planes. My favorite was his F4D Skyray!

ROCKETCHRIS

Hi CRXMANPAT :

Ive been wanting to ask someone with first hand experience with Mr. Cara's F4d Skyray about the responsiveness of the rudder. My son and I want to build a pusher park jet ship with good rudder capability. I wasn't sure how the YF23 would act with rudders because of the 45 degree angle of the stabs . My son is practicing an old pattern routine to perfect his flying and we don't have a pusher park jet yet with a rudder.

crxmanpat

I did not have rudder on any of the many pusher jets that I built, they really don't need it. But if you're doing a pattern routine, you will need rudder for some of the maneuvers. The hardest part will be placement of the servo and routing of the wire because of the prop.

ROCKETCHRIS

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...r9?usp=sharing

Here is a link to a photo I took of The Nick Cara designed YF 23 Prop in the slot Park Jet my son and I are finishing up. This is before the decals and pilot cockpit stickers were added. Unfortunately, the all up weight is 22 ounces ready to fly with battery. I'm glad we installed a motor which at least in theory has 32 ounces of thrust. I found the most difficult task on this build was to design, shape and fit the KFm4 airfoils which were not part of Mr. Cara's design. I got the idea for the KFm4 airfoils from the 5EZP YF 23 on this forum. The plane was easy to balance by just moving the battery around in the Electronics box beneath the plane. I forgot to mention we are using 3 , 9gram Miuzi servos and a Spektrum 4channel receiver. During my research before the build , I found out that most of the previous builders for this design had made the elevator one solid piece and used separate servos for each aileron because the usual elevon 4x4 set up with the ailerons didn't provide enough elevator function. We are going to program the ESC tomorrow (Our first time programming an ESC) and adjust the control servos and do a radio check. If all that goes well we will attempt a maiden flight.

ROCKETCHRIS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mwu...ew?usp=sharing

Try this link if the one above doesn't work.

Don Sims

That is a really interesting paint scheme. Very nice plane!

ROCKETCHRIS

Thank You Mr. Sims ! My son can fly a scale military paint scheme all day long, But with my tired old eyes I need something very visable not to loose perspective. Thanks for your positive comment.

ROCKETCHRIS

My son and i test flew the YF23 today for the first time. The hand launch was rock solid with no torque roll what so ever ! The single elevator set up provided plenty of control and the same holds true for the separate ailerons (the roll rate was very good, but not as good as linking the ailerons and elevons 4x4). I'm reserving judgement on my home designed (not stock to the plan) KFm4 airfoils. To be honest, I was expecting the bird to penetrate the wind more than it did. Keep in mind that I shaped and sanded all the leading and trailing edges everywhere on the bird (including the prop slot). I was surprised the bird was so floaty. The landing was very cool . It was 15+ mph wind and my son flared a little to high and it just helicoptered in as gentle as can be. Yours truely forgot to bring his phone to film - I will fly more and take some video. The Sunsky 2212 - 2450 kv motor was a disapointment with respect to performance. Banggood claims 30+ ounces of thrust. With a 60 amp esc and a luminiare 2250 3 cell , i say more like a Grayson MJV3 in my opinion +- 20 ounces . The Beatles ESC was a huge success. We easily programmed the throttle and are happy to report the battery , motor and ESC were not even warm after a 6 minute maiden flight.

ROCKETCHRIS

My son flew the Nick Cara designed YF23 we built again today for the second time. A photo and video is atatched of the flight. We changed props from a 6x4 apc thin e prop to a 6x 5.5 and the plane performed much better at all throttle settings and penetrated the 10 + mph wind much better. Check out the VTOL helicopter landing at the end of the video. The roll rate and elevator performance is smooth and very responsive with this set up of 2 servos for ailerons and one for the single elevator.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bgj...ew?usp=sharing

Don Sims

Nice plane Chris. Can't see the video for some reason.

quorneng

Looks good and flies well. well done
It would make viewing easier if you either to use an option to turn the video through 90 degrees or hold the phone on its side!

ROCKETCHRIS

Sorry about the sideways video. You can see the video now because it has finally finished downloading from my device. I am still leaning how to post and manipulate video , ect. I hope to have the video reposted today in a correct (non sideways display. Thank you very much for bringing it to my attention so I can try and fix it .

solentlife

Videos ... much better to use a proper video host service such as Youtube or Vimeo ...

ROCKETCHRIS

Just got through with 4th flight of Nick Cara designed yf23. It flew great and required no trim what so ever. The launches are rock solid with no torque roll. It's roll rate is fantastic. and the single one piece elevator is very responsive. In this flight my son and I experimented with inverted flight. In my research before building this plane, I found out that the Scott Lott RC Powers YF23 did not fly well inverted according to the comments. Also, the FRC Foamies YF 23 did not fly well inverted according to the comments. I don't know about the 5EZP YF23's ability to fly inverted. When you roll inverted with the Nick Cara YF23 here is what happens: As soon as your inverted and apply down elevator to maintain level flight while inverted , the plane immediately rolls over and rights itself to straight and level flight. With my limited knowledge of aeronautics , I can only assume the vertical stabilizers positioned at 45 degrees act as dyhedral to keep the plane in level upright flight. Otherwise the Nick Cara YF23 performs loops, rolls , ect very well.

ROCKETCHRIS

My son and I flew the Nick Cara designed YF 23 yesterday which makes it the 6th flight of the model. I wanted to pass along a few things to those who may be interested in the build and its flying characteristics:

1) The center of gravity is spot on as designed by Nick Cara.
2) We got the plans from the Park Jets website
3) The bird can be flown with a wide variety of batteries just by moving their position in the battery box beneath the plane. Their is no need tomove the battery outside and forward of the battery box to maintain COG. We have flown it now with a 1300 MaH , 2200 MaH and a 2250 Mah battery and we were able to maintain center of gravity easily just by changing the location of the battery inside the box on the velcro.