Push Rods - Radio Gear - Finishing touches
My "Big Brother", Alan came over and helped get the finishing touches put on the plane Saturday May 8. (Sorry about delay in getting this post out. :( ).
Starting with the control surfaces, we decided not to use the heat shrink way of connecting the ailerons, elevator and rudder push rods. Instead we used
Dubro Mini E/Z Connectors. Yes it added a tad more weight but in the field it was a snap to adjust the control surfaces so that was a good call.
I changed out the regular battery connections with
W.S. Deans Micro 2R Plug and got them on the charger. Neat little batteries. Make sure when you are cutting the battery leads to replace them with other connectors you don't short them. Almost did that! Whew!
We mounted the aileron servo very close to what the instructions specified but just moved it Setting the aileron control horns was way cool. We cut a length of wire and after leveling the control surfaces with the main part of the wing set the wire in the holes after z-bending them with the handy dandy
Great Planes Precision Z-Bend Pliers.
I mounted the motor, using the supplied template, with the leads going the wrong way..
(Mistake #2) So we mounted the radio gear opposite the instructions. I actually had the motor wires in correct sequence so I did not have to adjust them because they were spinning the motor backward. Cool.
We had some trouble finding a good spot for the elevator/rudder servos. In the end we mounted them as far forward as we could and used the battery as the weight we could adjust. Since we had 2 different size batteries we had to make sure both would be ok to fly the plane
When we were setting up the Castle Creations speed controlor and testing the servos one servo just started spinning around and around and around. Oh great bad servo... Well upon closer inpsection I found that I had it on the speed controller backwards. Reset that and all was A-Ok. This was the first time for me using the CC speed conroller, I will have to read up more on the fine print instructions.
Lastly, I applied some decals to the plane. Just a Castle Creation and Axi motor. Did not go overboard just a few to spice it up a bit. Alan reviewed the tape that I had used on the control surfaces and liked it. So he decided to get a few rolls and apply them to his plane as the factory supplied tape had released and was not functioning anymore.
All in all the plane went together very nicely. The instructions where well written and easy to follow. I guess being somewhat of a novice at this and these types of airplanes - foamies - I am not quite used to the nomenclature. I could not find the "X" that Mike was talking about in the instuctions to when referencing the carbon fiber at the nose of the plane. Looking straight on to me it looks like a plus "+" sign. Oh well that's just me.
This was a really nice project, I am definitely leaning toward another Fancy Foam plane --- Sukhoi SU-29...
Next post will be the first flight.
See you then....
Pix follow
Another Aileron view
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Tail Decal etc...
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Overhead view
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Full view
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Radio Gear mounting
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Nose view 1
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Nose view 2
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AIM - rcparkflyers
