Pierre Rondel 7/09/2010

The Dingo is the latest creation of Vaclav Vojtisek (F3X.eu) and is succeeding the famous Ascot and Short Ascot.

The Dingo differs from the Ascot by the built-in dihedral on the wing that has been removed. The section is also different: the thickness moved from 7.8 to 8% whike the camber has been reduced from 1.8% to 1.7%. The fuselage is shorter than the Ascot even though very close to the Ascot one in term of shape. It is however thinner in diameter. Ballasts are siimilar to the Ascot with 2 short ballast tubes in the wings and 6 in the wing joiner. Ballasts are an option, like the wing bags. In term of construction, many layups are possible to match F3B or F3F requirements. You can almost give the complete layup specification to Vaclav. Mine is a double carbon F3F version. The fuselage is by default 2.4 gHz friendly.

Quality is absolutely top premium, in term of finish & fit and robustness.

Specifications:

• Wing span: 3.04 m
• Length: 1.05 m
• Area: 62.1 dm2
• Wing airfoil: Special N.C.
• Tail airfoil: E478 Mod
• Weight: ~ 2200g

For comparison, weight per element are the following depending of the version :

If you want to see more color layouts, just click here and enjoy !!!

Assembly:

On my 2 Alliaj HMs and on my Dingo, I tried a new servos with an excellent ratio performance/price: The Inolab HG-D250MG. The only thing you will have to pay attention in certain installation is the height between the fixation legs and the top horn which is higher than the average. The servo is perfect for elevators. On the dingo, Vaclav provides a very nice system to connect the carbon rods to the servos horns. It works smoothly without any slope. For me this is the perfect solution.
	The battery is made of 4 cells Eneloop soldered in position 3+1 in order to let some place in front of the servo tray.
The receiver is a Jeti Duplex R8. The 2 antennas are located at 90° and fixed on the servos tray.
	On the wing, servos installation went well. I used Airtronics 94761Z on the flaps. Airtronics 94761Z Spec's: Weight 22 g Dimensions 27 x 12 x 30 mm Torque 3,9 kg/ 4,8 V Speed 0.15 / 0.12 sec @ 4.8 / 6.0 V Std 3 Pole Motor Plastic and metal gears with two bearings
... and the new Hyperion 95FMD on the ailerons. Servos lead extend (wire without connectors) are installed in the wings. They seems very thin, but finally they are perfect.

Hyperion 95FMD as been tested on Servormances: It is a software that present in a clever manner the results of the servos test under the same condition, in a repeatable approach. Olivier Seguoin just made available a new database that includes a couple of recent servos like the BMS 555 DMG or the Hyperion 095FMD I was pretty curious about the hyperion as I choose it for the ailerons of my Dingo. The results are convincing compared to the competition (s3150, Aitronics, Graupner, etc ...) and given the price, it offer a good ratio price/performance.

The software can be loaded here: http://www.teaser.fr/~osegouin/aeromode/servos.phtml (Sorry chaps, its only in French !)

Then you can upgrade it by copying the 2 files contained in the the zip file in the repository of Servormances: http://osegouin.free.fr/servo/Upgrade_decembre_2009.zip

Thanks Olivier and the Servormances team for your contribution. It is appreciated :) !!

In flight:

My Dingo weights 2.5 kg

• Fuselage: 696 grs
• Joiner: 95 grs
• Right wing: 806 grs
• left wing: 809 grs
• Righ tailplane: 48 grs
• Left Tailplane: 47 grs
• Total: 2501 grs

To be completely honest, at the beginning, I though that it would be too much, that I made a mistake by ordering such layup, but after a season, I can tell you that the plane doesn't care about the extra weight. It's doesn't feel heavy in the air. I just start to ballast later compared to my "Dingomates".

This plane is just great in flight: very precise and agile, fast and plenty of lift in the turns. What I like very much with the Dingo is the quick acceleration in a F3F run. It is pretty desmonstrative as soon as the lift is coming. The energy retention and the lift during the turn is just great.

However, I would say that the Dingo is more efficient in medium to strong conditions than in small condition where it is averagge from my point of view.

The Dingo is also an excellent sport DS plane, not hard DS because it is not designed for it, but the Dingo is very stable with some reflex flaps (1 to 2 mm up), accelerates pretty quickly, when other planes would loose their speed and energy.

In conclusion, the Dingo is another great plane from Vaclav. It is a very efficient F3F and is very well made. The only negative point for me is the joiner which hosts the ballast. Some slots in the joiner are not free enough (some carbon remains) and the ballast cannot enter completely. This is really a shame on such beautiful plane. When ballasting, first you need to use the rear slots, then mix the center slots and the wing slots. I don't know about the front slots. I'm afraid it moves the CG forward to much.

I purchased some tungsten ballast to obtain 1.5 kg with 4 ballasts in the joiner (instead of 6) and in the wing. This is equivalent to the lead ballast provided with the kit as an option.

There are several Dingos doing the french F3F league and owners are plretty happy with them.

Below are the pictures of my Dingo:

• Kit as it arrived
• The assembly
• Pictures in flight (not only my Dingo)