The T-50 is by far the most challenging RC aircraft I have eve flown. It is incredibly fast, power hungry, sensitive and a lot of adrenaline.
A video usually describes these impressions a lot better, therefore we made a video that you can find in the link below.
Footage of the T-50 in flight.
For the video I used Chuck Lohrs great Keycam.
Be careful which one of the keycams you buy. You will need a wide angle lens if you really want to see something. The Key cam can be used for FPV, as it allows video out and charging while filming! Very light and absolutely acceptable footage for the cost. Get it for example Key Cam.
The T-50 flies very well balanced out of the box. If you want to use a gear, make sure you have a flat pavement, grass wont work, the wheels are too tiny.
In the approach you can see the minimum speed required for a landing. The landing was done without any flaps (flaperons), the landing speed can be reduced using flaperons. I tested this lately with flaperons, make sure you have enough altitude when giving flaps and be ready to pull the elevator (as the flaps create nose down moment C_m).
All in all, the IMU was very sensitive during my last flights, I need to activate the lowpass filter. I assume the noise was mainly coming from the vibration of the cell. I could therefore not properly test the damping function and the hold control could also not be tested yet.
Building Hints:
When we built the T-50 we found some good recommendations on the RC informer Website (LINK).
Removing the paint from the glue surface was also performed by us. Additionally we strengthened the eleveator rods by GFK rods to have stable control even on high loads on the elevator (see picture).
Center of Gravity:
As many people seem to be interested in the CG, we equipped our T-50 with the standard recommended battery packs (3S 2200mAh) and measured the distance from the wing leading edge to the CG and found it to be 95mm (see picture below). This is the CG on a retracted gear. It will shift to the rear on an extended gear.
Flight Time:
With a fully charged battery, we were flying the T-50 on a middle throttle setting for around 4-5 minutes. Be aware to have some battery power left for the gear extension. Additionally you will need some 30% throttle to have a feasible glideslope on approach. Less than this power setting might end up in a very steep and hard landing. The gear came off two times already, but we were able to epoxy it back into position.
Out a timer on your remote to 3,5 minutes max so you have some time to configure the jet for approach.
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