Woketman

My Feedback: (6)

Nice Bob, VERY nice!!!! How are you planning to handle the transition from the painted intakes to the iron-on covering???

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

How to handle the transition? Really simply. I painted more area than will be exposed and just put covering over the paint. Worked fine, and seems to have stuck very well (but we shall see!).

The inlet lips were way to curved and hard to access to consider just doing film covering. So, I glassed them with some light glass. ( about 1.5 oz, but should have used heavier for more ding resistance). Then primed with rattle can Rustoleum automotive grey primer, then airbrushed some House of Kolor automotive single part urethane base coat in a bright silver color, then some rattle can Duplicolor clear coat (acrylic enamel, nice stuff for a rattle can!).

The covering was Ultracote, put on with the iron about 250F. That was enough to mess up the paint so I used normal blue masking tape to protect the lip area. Once the covering was on, I ran a razor blade around the edge of the tape and removed the excess covering and the tape. I am sure that if you kept the iron on the tape, it would mess up the paint, but the very brief contact I had was no problem.

Came out looking pretty good. Not as good as real metal, but not bad at all for the effort involved.

I am almost done with the covering and will post some more photos soon.

Bob

DREAMER-RCU

To answer the question about electrifying a Reaction.

It is very possible to do so. The area between the nose gear and the wing is plenty large for the batteries. The main work around is the body. Since EDF's are larger in diameter than turbines, the body needs to be modified to fit the larger fan diameter. The fan needs to fit within three points (decsribes a circle). Those points are the point of the wing trailing edge and the lower outside edges of the body boom. This means that the body will have to be made wider and most likely deeper to accomidate the circle. A cone shaped scallop needs to be built in the boom for the fan to sit up in. The top of the boat tail at that point will have to be faired in. A stinger needs to be added to the boat tail to cover the spinner of the fan. The same fan angle as the turbine works very well. The ESC can be built into the top of the body behind the wing leading edge. Cooling air comes from the nose gear hole and out the ESC hole. Also, slots?holes can be placed above the fan in the boom area.

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

Here are a couple photos, one sort of close up of the inlet. The covering over the paint seems to have done well, and it is stuck on very securely. And a photo of the fuselage. I have just a bit more trim work to do on it, then its time to start installing equipment.

Once its flown a bit, and the covering has had some temperature cycles, I will go back and take care of any bubbles, then do some panel lines with a Sharpie.

Bob

Woketman

My Feedback: (6)

Wow! Who new that Mr. Parks was an arteest??? BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Redline7000

My Feedback: (2)

When I opened the photos, it reminded me of an F3H Demon. What a beaut!

PaulD

My Feedback: (39)

Hard to believe that's a Reaction. Nice work.

PaulD

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

There is a bit of Demon, but also some Panther, Hawker Hunter, and a last minute little bit of Phantom II (I like anhedral tails, and did that mod just before I started covering).

Lots of nice looking airplanes from that era to "borrow" from!

I got the last of the covering trim done last night, a black "deicer" strip on the vertical tail LE, and trimming out the holes in the top and bottom fuselage for the "rotating beacon" lights. I got some lights from BraincubeAero in England. Very bright, 1W LED's. Typical tip lights, but I have red lights for the top and bottom of the fuselage with their "rotating beacon" controller, that looks very convincing! Also a landing light in the tip of the nose.

Also got a couple coats of BVM Heat Shield ceramic paint in the top of the engine bay area last night and this morning.

So, time for equipment install... more photos in a week or so.

F4 d best

Beatifull Bob, very nicely finished Reaction 54

regards
Mario

Woketman

My Feedback: (6)

I wanna see the lights!!!!! PLEASE??

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

"Rotating Beacon" video at [link=http://www.braincube-aero.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=69&products _id=196]Braincube rotating beacon[/link]

I will post a video of mine once they are installed and working.

Bob

robson63pilot

Hi guys
I just received a shipment from Bruce
will soon begin build, the first in Poland Reaction 54

Robert

Redline7000

My Feedback: (2)

You are going to enjoy building it. I rescued my first R54 and I am currently rebuilding it with a lot of the cool ideas I've found on this thread. This time, it'll fly with the new Jetsmunt 19lb. turbine.

speedbrake

Bob,
Did you connect the rotating beacons directly to the airborne battery pack? It would seem like a good idea to have them connected to the battery and have a visual indication the battery switch is on.

I like your jet

Keith

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

The BrainCube controller plugs into a receiver channel for a signal, but they have their own battery pack (4 cell NiMH, the system has a 5v limit). The way I have it set up, its on a Y cable to the landing gear channel. The navigation lights (wingtips) and rotating beacons are on any time the RX is on, and the landing light comes on when the gear is down.

You can also set it up so the controller is on its own channel, like a slider or 3 position switch. Then you would have all lights off, nav lights on, nav plus landing lights on as the options.

Its a nice system, although not cheap. The LED's are about 1 Watt each, so very bright. But with 5 lights, thats a current draw of about 1 Amp, so I really dont want that on my radio batteries (and, besides, I am running the radio on 6v)

The rotating beacon controllers are add ons to the basic system. It has typical strobe patterns built into the main controller... but strobes would not be appropriate for what is supposed to be a 1950's airplane. (besides, the rotating beacons look really neat!)

To be really proper on the navigation lights, there should be a white light on the tail somewhere, but I cannot figure out a good spot to put it on my Reaction. The aft tip of the vertical tail would be good, but its too much work to run the cable up there. I could put it on the rudder, but that much mass at the TE would make it more prone to flutter. So it wont get the tail light.

BTW, thanks for all the nice comments from everyone! Not much change on the airplane itself lately, what little time I have had over the last week has gone into sorting out all the systems. I had not run my Wren 54 for several years, so got it going again, and did some bench runs, which went fine.

Bob

flyinfool1

My Feedback: (2)

I have a red strobe on the top of my vertical stab.
You could add the white at the top of the Vertical stab at the hing line and just have it facing back. (White should only be visible to the rear)
To get the wire there I used a dremel with a TuffGrind cutoff disk to run a groove along the leading edge of the vertical stab. I set the wires into the groove and then added a black "anti Icing" strip to the leading edge to cover it. Where the LE meets the fuse top is where the wires drop to the interior.
Looks and works great.

flyinfool1

My Feedback: (2)

DBL post from an Error 500.

speedbrake

As I understand the system, the rotating beacon controller can be used as a stand alone system. It is not necessay to have it plugged into the larger light system controller. I plan to use just the single red metal core LED and that should be minimal drain on the flight battery...and besides the battery is way over sized anyway. My idea was to have a visual indicator that the battery switch is on. I can't believe how many times I've forgotten to turn the darn switch off after a flight.

Keith

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

I thought about routing a channel in the vertical tail for the wire and decided it was too much effort!

Bob

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

I think the rotating beacon controller will work fine just plugging it into the RC system battery if its a 5v system. And the average draw of one light on the beacon controller is not that much. Probably well under 100 mA.

The one issue with the current version of the beacon controller is that there is a bit of visible flicker, at least with it indoors with 60 Hz ambient lights.

Bob

speedbrake

OK Bob, what is the downside of a flicker? Isn't that how the effect is made...with a bit of a flicker? Fade out the light and then brighten it to a flicker. As long as it gets my attention then it will have done its job. I plan to place it along the top of the fuselage...probably on the aft hatch. I bought three units, one for each jet. If nothing else, it will look cool.

Keith

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

The LED brightness is changed by flashing it and varying the ratio of on to off time. Right now, the flashing is at 60 per second, and is visible to me.

I suspect that the flicker is made more visible when its indoors in the US, where our fluorescent lights flicker at 120 per second (60 Hz AC, but they flash on both positive and negative peaks). I have not yet tried the lights outdoors yet.

So, its not a huge deal, and Olivier ( the guy behind BrainCube) is working on going to a faster flash rate in a future version of the controllers.

Anyway, it will certainly get your attention, and it looks cool. I would say its 95% as cool as it would be without the flicker. I like it way more than the normal "strobe" modes.

I put my upper beacon where the aft hatch would be (I don't have the hatch on mine, the pump and header are under the main hatch). I put a lower beacon on the lower fuselage, just in front of the wing.

Bob

speedbrake

Bob,
What size canopy did you use? The size seems perfect for the fuselage.

Also, can the rotating beacon controllers be synchronized? Something like having strobe lights pulsing at the same time. If the LEDs are bright enough, the effect would be enhanced with both LEDs flashing at the same time........or at opposite cycles. Just a thought. I didn't purchase the larger light controller so I don't know how much programming capability there is.

Keith

bobparks2

My Feedback: (1)

I dont know what the canopy is! It was something on the shelf. I THINK its from an Aussie clone the 72" Nick Ziroli Panther. So try this [link=http://www.ziroliplans.com/ziroliplans/f9f-doss.html]Ziroli Panther parts[/link]. The R54 is a bit larger dimension than the Ziroli Panther, but not too far off.

I have two of the beacon controllers, and if you apply power at the same time, they start out synchronized. I am pretty sure the timing is done by the built in clocks on the (really really tiny) microprocessor chips, and those may not be that accurate, so they would drift over time. I have only run for a couple of minutes, and they stayed synched that long.

OTOH, one beacon controller can handle a couple Amps as I recall, so thats several of the 1W LED in parallel.. they would stay perfectly synched then.

However, for a plane that had multiple rotating beacons, I THINK they would NOT be synched. Certainly not unless someone went to great effort with 1950's technology and used syncro type motors. So, the way to do that is to put one on a switch and just turn it on separately, or have a momentary push button to turn it off for a bit. So, they would come on with RX power, and be synchronized. Press the button for a bit to get them unsynchronized.

bob

speedbrake

This is a bash of Tharpe's Delta. Added a nose section and canard. The canard will supplement the elevons, elevator only. A PST 600R will power it. I'll place a rotating beacon on the top of the fuselage between the front hatch (canopy) and the turbine. It hasn't flown yet and will be my priority to get flying this summer.

If I were to use two rotating beacons, this is the plane I would install them on. Place one on each vertical. I think having them in sync would look better.

Bob, check out the Wing Span rotating beacon system. Prices seem the same, not sure how they compare.

Keith