SMALLFLY-

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How bout a few pics and stories for the curious.
Arrived in very good condition. I weighed every pc of the plane and the airframe came in at 40 ounces. The gear with screws less wheels weighs 4 oz. I allways start by taking a soldering iron and opening up all hatches, servo openings etc as shown by my first pic.
The first thing to do is glue the wing to the cartridge (for lack of a better term). Slip the cartridge over the wing and into the fuselage. Square it up using the normal cross check methods and mark it. Remove the covering on the wing where it will sit and glue it on with epoxy. Set it back in the wing, check for square and let dry.

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

When that was good and dry I removed the covering from the edge of the wing fairing and lined it up on the wing keeping the same distance from the bottom. Marked and removed the covering from the area on the fuselage where it will sit. I did that on both sides first and then glued one side at a time with medium ca checking for square to the fuselage and proper measurement (gotta do it quick)
Shown in the next two pics.
Thats all for tonight

dhooks

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Dude...looking good!

SunShyne

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logging in to monitor the build. Looks good so far, Accell has their stuff together I tell you!



matt

TailTwister

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I'm right behind you Smallfly. I was gonna start an assembly thread, but got caught up watching CSI NY. By the time the show was over, I had all my covering cut, and the tail in the plane with hinges. I even got the landing gear mounted.

So far the book looks good too, this should be a pretty easy job. Today, I'll fit the wing and motor. The hit up the control horns.

I like the wing cartridge for a few reasons. First off, even the Suburban gets crowded every now and then a little space savings is nice. Second, once alligned, I can set to the side and work on the rest of the plane, with no faer of shifting the glue joint as it dries. I will, however, replace those screws with a set of 4-40 screws with locking nuts. Also, I'll carry a spare set in the flight box. Little screws vaporize in grass, you know...

I'll try to use everything else that the plane came with.

I have a Saito 100 for the plane, but I'm lacking servos. I think I'm gonna step up the torque a bit. I'll probably use 60 oz-in on the ailerons and 77 oz-in on the tail. Sound like enough to you guys?

SMALLFLY-

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Ive got a bunch of hitec 625's and 645's in the drawer and Im going to use a few of them up. I have also purchased 2 of the bluebird 621 MG servos to try. 100 oz at 6v with .10 speed for just under 22 bucks. I figured Ive got to at least try them for that kind of money. I allways put the control horns on before I glue the surfaces on so I also got the control horn on the elevator and the rudder last night. As it comes there are only 2 hinges on each elevator half and 2 hinges on the rudder. It would make me feel better knowing there were 3 hinges each so I used my GP slot cutter and added a third hinge to each elevator halve and the rudder.
The first pic shows the added hinges and cut aways and the second pic is the stab while the epoxy is drying.

TailTwister

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I was OK with the elevator having 4 hinges, but the rudder got a third from me as well.

Wing and fairings done.
Tail done.
Engine mounted.

It's time to find some servos...

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

Of course the next step was gluing in the tail surfaces using thin ca. 1st pic is the completed tail. I then moved to the wing. The BB 621mg are 100 oz servos so there a smidge bigger than standards. Some trimming and filing were required to get them to fit the bay. I also had to put a 3/32 shim under the trailing edge to slightly lift the servo to keep it from bulging the covering. It didnt buldge much at all but I figure while Im there... The second pic shows the servo installed after attaching 12" extensions and fishing it through the wing with string. ANd finally for tonight the 3rd pic shows a close up of the control horns, they look pretty nice to me. 3 2-56 bolts pass thru them and a back plate on the opposite side is held with washers and nuts witch I loctite on. Tomorrow I'll glue the ailerons, install the gear and start the tail servo install and saturday I should get pretty close to done.. Later

lenz rc

My Feedback: (228)

Smallfry I like that rudder nice and large for easy NE and rudder spins. Dose it have any tail support hopefully keep the Horizontal stabilizer from tearing off if flown to fast? Or power tip spin did mine in on my EF Edge 540 Still landed ok missing 1/2 of the stabilizer and it tore off elevator as well.[:-]

Gordo-ProBro

No braces are added by the designer, but you could of course do so. I've not seen a need, and you can't try harder than me to break something!!!!!

TailTwister

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I was impressed with the control horns. The 3D guy that automatically tosses the hardware pack in the trash will regret it on this one.

capthis

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Hurry up, and gettttterrrrrrdone so I can fly it will ya!

Smallfly needs a new saito 100 for this bird!

dhooks

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Guess what I got in the mail yesterday!


OH BTW dont let Bryan tear such a nice airplane up![:@]

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

As far as needing stab support. I really dont think that will be necessary, when slotting thru the trailing edge of the stab and the leading edge of the elevator I ran into some pretty darn hard wood. Im guessing they used some form of hardwood for those for strength. I also put the bolts and wheels on the gear last night. Pretty typical FF stuff, a hard bolt thru the gear fastened with a loctited nut, then slip a washer on each side of the wheel and bring a nylon locknut up close to keep the wheel on. The tailwheel setup is kinda cheesy so I dug thru the drawers and found a used 40-60 size sullivan tailwheel and I will use that.

TailTwister

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The tailwheel is much nicer than the fixed wheel it was going to come with. It looks like knock off of a million other designs, and the final two bends are up to the owner. I was able to get mine done, and I'll give it a go. I'd prefer the Sullivan style, but I'll try this one first.

Gordo-ProBro

Mine came with the hardware for the fixed version like the Kat 40, so I too used a Sullivan that I had. I can't stand fixed wheels, on Grass they just don't get me.

I'd like to see what they sent with a stock plane, could you post a picture Twister of what you did?

TailTwister

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Here is the supplied tail wheel set up. It comes partially finished. I bent the first bend above the plastic mounting bracket, and then the last 90 degree bend to go up into the rudder. It's a pretty inexpensive set up, but I think it will work. If it gets to be a pain, I'll swap out to a Sullivan.

Gordo-ProBro

Well, that's an improvement. Quin and I were berring for a steerable tail wheel not attached directly to the Rudder, that qualifies.

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

TGIF. I started today by Installing the gear and the tail wheel, easy doins with the provided screws and bolts. (pic1) I then secured the ailerons to the wing using thin CA. While I had the wing up I went ahead and installed the pre bent (and correct length) pushrods using the supplied clevis's. Im not a fan of plastic pin clevis's but These appeared to be of sufficent quality that I went ahead and used what came with it, see pic2. I moved on to installing the servos which slipped in nicely and attached 24" extensions. I fastened the servos and fished the wires thru the fuselage and that went easily. I then went ahead and finished the linkages. Since Im using 100oz servos and the control surfaces are pretty big I went ahead and used 4-40 rods fashioning Z bends and using hayes plastic clevis's with the metal pins. see pic 3. Finally I epoxied in the supplied throttle support beams and mounted the throttle after the epoxy had dried. I fished the wire down the tunnel (see pic 4)
Tomorrow Rx and Motor installation

John Wells

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Hey Gordo, do you think the stock main gear will do, or should they be springier- (love that original word / spelling?? ).

JW

Gordo-ProBro

I haven't seen the new gear yet. They hadn't get the good stuff in so they sent me .40 sized stuff. I have Crazylegs now. I'm hoping I'll get to see a new one soon.

TailTwister

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I think the stock gear is OK, but not great. It looks like it won't endure too many belly flops. I plopped my Kat 40 in real hard once, and the gear has not been the same since. I was rebending it every now and then, until the last snow storm.

I'm considering Teatherite for spring. I don't fly often enough for the expense now. That plus landings don't get anywhere near the ground right now. My field is under more than a foot of snow. When the gear stands a chance of finding Terra Firma, I might want Crazy Legs too...

John Wells

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You might see one NIB and a MoJo 60 being covered!

3Dn4life

Looking good GUYS!!!!

Cant wait to see one up close...

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

Today I finished her up. I started with drilling a small hole in the end rib and pulling the Rx antenna thru the wing and out the hole, only about 6" hangs out past the wing. I was ready to mount the motor and I knew I needed to put the bird together to determine motor placement for CG. Putting the wing into the fuse while hooking everything up using extensions coming out the top of the wing proved virtually impossible for me so the 3 leads seem to need to be threaded into the top of the wing and straight into the Rx (or 3" ext coming from Rx) every time. Im not sure I will like this combersome step every time I put It together but time will tell. Anyway the wing went on nicely after all the leads were pulled thru and hooked up to the Rx. I clamped on the motor and could tell right away I was going to need all the nose weight I could get. I roughly determined the placement and installed the motor about as far forward in the mount as possible. I then installed the muffler propellor and spinner. I had an APC 15-4W that I had run on the 91 so I will start with that. I installed a 6 volt 1650 NIMH pack as far up in the leading edge of the wing as I could get and installed the power switch and charge port. The correct starting CG is 6" and I balanced out at about 6.25 inches, well within the range of reason. But a lighter engine is going to make this bird pretty hard to balance IMO. With everything complete I programmed the radio up, set the centers on all the servos gave everything a quick test. So far Im not real impressed with the bluebird servos. They are supposed to be .10 speed but seem pretty slow and they dont allways center perfectly but some of that may be the stiffness of the new hinges. I still need to program rates and expo but she is complete. 6 pounds 1 ounce all up (dry)ready to fly. An OS 91fx should be balistic at 6 lbs
Pics to follow