SonicModell Mini AR Wing 600mm Flight!

Thursday morning I get my kids up and on the bus. Today we were ready early so I brought them to try to fly the SonicModell Mini AR Wing 600mm wing again. When we got to Church the wind was 6mph+ so I scratched the flight. Instead we flew the chuck glider we got from Walmart.

It flew pretty good! We tried throwing it different ways into the wind, with tail wind, hard, soft, downward thrust, and upward thrust. I have challenged my good friend Dave to make one of these RC! So stay tuned for pictures and video of my build and our maiden challenge!

After I took the kids to school I got back to the office and noticed the wind had died down. I’m so excited to fly the SonicModell Mini AR Wing 600mm that I decided to send it!

Trevor from Get-a-Hobby gave me some advice on the throws.

• Low Rate 40% + Expo 20

• Mid Rate 70% + Expo 20

• High Rate 100% + Expo 20

They turned out to be perfect! Trevor also advised that I take off line of sight, and then get it high enough in the air and switch to goggles. So that’s what I did.

My first launch I forgot to start the recording. I also launched with the goggles on, and it basically did exactly what it did the first time and nosed right into the ground breaking the nose piece in the same spot. This time I just taped it back up because I knew I was close to the right CG. Second toss I remembered to start the camera, took Trevors advice to launch line of sight, and intentionally threw it very soft because I wanted to see if it was nose heavy or tail heavy. It seemed a bit nose heavy so I moved the battery back. I gave it a third very gentle toss and it still wanted to nose right in. So I moved the battery back a little bit more.

Third time is the charm! Just as Trevor said by launching line of sight I was able to level it out after the toss and get it up in the air. I was really anxious when I took my hand off the radio to put my goggles on, but I knew I’d crash if I tried to fly line of sight and it was moving out of sight fast!

As you can see it flew great on low rates! That spin at 2:10 was on low rates. It wasn’t as fast as my quad, and I think I can handle more! I didn’t want to push it till I was sure my battery wouldn’t slide or anything else come loose.

I noticed right away it just wanted to gain altitude. I had to push elevator down to get it to fly straight! I thought maybe I moved the battery back too far, but then realized I was at 80%+ throttle! Lowering the throttle leveled it out. I love how responsive it is on 3s to be able to climb with a little throttle adjustment.

I’m still very nervous about flying. Maybe it’s because of all the soul crushing failures. Maybe it’s because I have wrecked so many times and spent so much money building things that were destroyed in meer seconds . . . Ya that’s probably it. Because of the utter panic and nervousness I get when I finally get in the air I almost immediately want to land! The second I get in the air I think “IT’S FLYING!!! WOOHOO!” and then immediately “OK GET IT DOWN WITHOUT CRASHING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” haha. I push through those worries, but they are definitely there! That’s why my flights are so short 😂.

I started to work out some landing approaches like Dave showed me. The goal was to set up some approaches. My first attempt to land I realized I had to push it down. You can’t just cut throttle and glide down. This thing just wants to stay in the air for ever even with zero throttle! I had to fly it to the ground.

You’ll notice in the first video that the fpv feed is really noisy. I even lost video a couple times. I just didn’t panic and the feed came back. I think it’s because of where I was standing with the buildings so close on that back field. On the second flight I bumped the VTX power one notch and it was much better. I had some noise but that was my diversity receiver’s switching between antennas. As I get more confident with launching I can stand in a better place with less interference further from the buildings.

This is the face of someone who finally succeeded after so much difficulty!! Such a great feeling!

After my meeting I got back to the office and the wind was still 1mph! So I decided to fly it again! Fresh batteries in the wing and the radio! The video was cleaner this time. Though the dvr recording isn’t near as good as what I actually see in my goggles. The fpv in the goggles is quite clear and not compressed at all like the dvr. It’s even worse once I upload to youtube. Still you can see the FPV noise is mostly cleared up!

I’m still a bit timid on the launch so the first one wasn’t hard enough and nosed in. But it wasn’t bad. Second launch I was up! That first turn over the church is right after I put my goggles on. This flight I turned the battery 90 degrees to see if it was better. I think the wind was starting to blow again because I was getting pushed around up there. Even though it was jittery I still had authority on the sticks. I did notice it was climbing with less throttle and I could barely get the nose down even at half throttle! I thought for sure I was tail heavy. But I just cut the throttle to 25% and it leveled out perfect! So this may be the better battery placement. I feel like I could cruse a long time just sipping off the 850mah 3s!

I tried the different rates and Mid rate was more responsive. I like that. High rates wasn’t insane, but it was just a bit too much so I think Mid rates will be great for cruising.

I knew I’d have to fly it down to land. So I did. Unfortunately I left the throttle on a bit while landing! And broke my only prop!

Hopefully Get-a-hobby has a 5x4.5 prop that works. Otherwise I’ll have to order some! I should have ordered last week! Still I’m very happy with my flights and I’m excited to fly this wing more!