Mini Ellipse
Why waste all that money on a little plastic fantastic? I could think of
many reasons to justify it, but the real reason is I wanted one. I ordered the Mini
Ellipse from Euromodell in Germany by fax. 4 weeks later a box arrived with an invoice for
500 dm, no credit cards accepted.
THE KIT
The kit is made by Jaru Muller in Slovakia, makers of the ellipse models and is made to
very high standard. The English instructions lack detail, but there are 8 pages in German
| BUILDING Not a lot to do. Just glue the tail on and fit the gear. I decided not to use a rudder and fitted one micro servo in the fuselage. A 600 ma Ni-Mh 1/2 AA pack was fitted up front and micro receiver, this left the space under the wing empty for ballast. There is enough space to fit AA Ni-cads and two full sized servos if the radio is fitted under the wing seat, this will add a little weight, but it needs to be a little heavier to get the best out of it. |
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| , ,mini servo, radio, switch and ni-cads squeezed in |
THE WING
This is supplied in one piece molded from glass and Rahacell with carbon tows. Ailerons
are top hinged built into the wing. The servo space is 12mm deep, the Topaz mini servos I
used stuck out a little. A hole needs to be drilled in the wing for the servo wiring., , , ,, , , , ,, ,,, , , ,, ,,,,,, ,,, ,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,, , , ,, , ,, , , , , , , ,, , , ,
ELEVATOR
Snake outer are fitted in the Fuselage to accept 0.8mm wires ( not supplied) I used a
single push rod with ball and socket joints to the elevators
SETTING UP
The center of gravity was set to recommended position and aileron differential at 2 to 1
.I programmed both ailerons up 30 deg as brakes, this has to be the right amount or the
ailerons will bind if they go up to far.
| FLYING The first flight was on Selsley with very little wind. A final check to make sure every thing was working,and a little up trim for the light conditions A good throw sent it straight out, the glide angle looked very shallow and quite fast for such a light model. No lift was found so back to slope but only a short walk to retrieve it. second chuck still no luck.3rd attempt and I made contact with an area of lift and found out well the Mini Ellipse thermals, a gentle upward spiral with very little input from the controls. After the climb now the fun bit. the dive down, this was very fast and very noisy. After letting off the down elevator the Ellipse climbed back nearly all its height. |
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Don't blink or you'll miss it, good camera panning by Dylan |
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| This model is very easy to fly and has no vices, the stall
comes very late, just a small nod and very little loss of height. It can be turned very
tight at slow speeds. The Ellipse is very sensitive to the centre of gravity position, just gluing a fixing wire to the cover made a lot difference. The roll rate is very quick, loops can be slow, fast, tight or square. It will carry out a rolling circleand cuban 8s are very easy. I have fitted 6oz of ballast, speed has improved and the model loses less speed in any rolling manoeuvre, without any deterioration in handling. |
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CONCLUSION
The Mini Ellipse does not fit into any catagory, it is best described as a light fun
machine, It will hand launch OK but at 21oz it's three times the weight of a good chucky.
It thermals very well but with a RG15 wing it’s not the best floater. As a pylon
racer it’s too frail to carry a lot of ballast
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