My Multiplex Pico Jet

Irv Cooper ijcooper@juno.com

I am not going to do a construction article here.   Just the changes I made and my impressions. 

A complete construction article By Pat Mattes is at http://cgi.ezonemag.com/articles/2000/mar/pico/pico.htm

Pat did a great job on the above article and its the main reason I ordered one while Karlton was having his 25% off sale.

I have a twin star, so I did not want another Grey Foam plane and used a technique where I diluted rustoleum 10:1 with thinner and paint on foam planes - took two coats of the diluted solution to end up with the color in the picture.   The whole Idea is to just pigment the foam surface, not to 'Paint it'. 

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Small areas like the Windshield I did with permanant magic marker, which would also work instead of paint, but tedious to put on.  I did use Red Magic Marker to touch up after I was done.

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If you do not like the idea of using paint thinner on foam, you can also get Rustoleum in a latex base and thin it 5:1 with water.  It works the same.

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My weight came out at 21 oz with the paint and a Dymond Max48 with APC 5.5 X 4.5. (The MA48 is about 0.9 oz heavier.  But diffinetly worth the 'weight'.   I changed my Twinstar over to this power combination and at the same static amp draw as with the original Sp 400's and gunther props, I get noticeably better performance (better climbs, loops - rolls etc) with no loss in duration.

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While my PicoJet flies very well, I am probably not of the same skill level that Pat Mattes is and So I did not have the same uneventful first flights.    Probably I do not have the same ooomph in my tossing arm, but when I hand launch its touch and go to get my hands on the controls in time.   Much more relaxing if some one else tosses it, and I would recommend it for your first try.

First Flight(s)

I Did the 2 flights of the Pico Jet at the school across the street from my house.   Mine did not fly straight and true out of my hand.  In fact the first one was a real white knuckle flight,  besides it wanting to roll left and nose down fast enough that I was having trouble adjusting the trims. 

It is my first flying wing thing and I was having trouble visualizing it in the air and it was a tad faster than I expected.

After I got it trimmed out and was starting to get over confident I tried my first loop.  Not enough speed for a loop the size that I tried. It stalled flopped over and did a vertical nose down torque roll. I was short about 1.5" of vertical height to get my orientation, stop the roll and pull out.  Hence my first landing was unintentional and made for a really good puff of dust. I expected the worst, but no damage.

2nd flight was pretty uneventful except as mentioned I still find it hard to hand launch it and get my hands on the sticks fast enough. I make it but it have yet to do it quick and its still not a pretty sight.   Still the 2nd flight itself was pretty, I was getting used to its profile in the air and kept its speed up for  some minor aerobatics and did not experience the dreaded roll of death this time.  Did a setup for a landing and found it has a pretty shallow glide path so had to go around.   The 2nd landing was perfect, settled in for a nice gentle touch down and slid about 3 feet.

The 3rd and 4th flights (pictured above) were great.  I had my friend Bill K. who taught me the foam coloring tricks hand launch for me and it was terriffic. 

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Proud owner - I am glad I have a Pico Jet !  ijcooper@juno.com

 

There is another neatly finished Pico Jet you can see on EZone

http://cgi.ezonemag.com/articles/2000/feb/gallery/gallery.htm

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