MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks.

There is no question that Fliton put plenty of thought into the basic design of the plane. Everything fits so clean and snug and I cannot find a bad joint or a lack of glue anywhere so far. I dont have the design incidences for the wing/stab but as I make my way through I will make sure that if nothing else the wings match and the stabs have the same relative incidence, but I am almost certain they will. Structurally, the frame up and fit is really first class.

I have been looking hard for places to be critical but I have not found anything significant yet. So far the construction itself is flawless.


Here is all I have so far, none of it is significant.. I am REALLY nitpicking here.

1. There are a couple of places in the instructions where they copied and pasted information balloons and then did not change the text to match. Stuff like "Cutout here for the elevator servo." They copied that and pasted it into several places and forgot to change the text.

2. The locations of the elevator and rudder servo bays have been relocated, but it is not reflected in the instructions. I just put a light inside of the fuselage and quickly found them. Just to reiterate, the rudder servo is located on the bottom of the fuselage. The elevator servo is further forward than the instructions indicate.

3. The covering acted a little strange. Today when I cutout the servo bays, I wanted to leave a 1/8" lip to fold over and tack to make the servo bays look nice and keep the covering from peeling back. But when I tried to get the covering to stick it would not. I eased the heat up on my iron a little and then the covering wanted to roll on the edges. I could not seem to find the right temperature to get it to just stick. I decided to just cut the covering off flush with the edges of the openings and just use enough heat to get it to stick down. Seemed to work ok. I think I might take a Q tip and soak it in thin CA and run it around the edges of the covering where the cutout is for the wings just so that it does not pull away with repeated cycles of installing/removing the wings.

RVM

This must be true of all Fliton models. Their covering material sucks. It's definitely not Oracover like they claim. That's why I'm going to recover my plane some time in the spring or summer.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

I would not go so far as to say it "sucks", I think it is fine and I am pretty sure of they say its made by oracover, it is. I have talked to these guys and I get the impression that they are straight up guys. They are in business to succeed and provide nice planes. I really dont think it owuld be in their best interest to be dishonest about the materials they use[8D].... Besides, from the factory it is stuck down really well and it looks nice, it really does. Has a nice shine and its nice and flat and tight.... There just has to be a specific temperature to get it to stick without rolling up.

RVM

I've been trying for a week to find that temperature. No luck. I think that once this covering is heated and applied, it never works quite the same again.

Let me rephrase - the results with their covering are great, no doubt. It's the application of their covering that sucks.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

I would buy that.. I do not think it likes to be reheated. Once its been heated its a done deal.

phat742

i think they may have used too high a temperature to put the covering on in the first place. from what i've found out with using oracover is you put it on with the lowest temp possible. then later when you need to take care of some wrinkles or whatever you need to raise the temp a little. then so on and so forth until you've basically max'd it out. that may be the case here.

RVM

I have found the same thing. When I first starting using it I would use the max temp, which would stick and shrink the covering. On later attempts I would use just enough heat to get it to stick well, and just keep it as tight as I could without the application of heat. Then, once I was done with the basic covering, I would take an iron or heat gun (depending on the application) and go over all of it again and a somewhat higher temperature to get it nice and tight. I would then apply any Ultracote (Oracover) trim details I wanted, use the lowest temp to get them to stick, then go back over it again with a slightly higher temp. Once this was, done, I'd up the temperature to the maximum, and shrink everything as much as I could without distorting the designs I had used. After this you can apply vinyl graphics or stickers or whatever. This method works really well for me but is very time consuming.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Today was motor mounting day. This step is not hard if you follow the steps and use the tools that are built into the motor mount and the equipment.

First off. Lets look at the firewall. There is a hole drilled offcenter in the firewall. It has lines extending horizontally, vertically and diagonally. These lines are vector lines to use to lineup the motor mount.

1. I used a little piece of paper as a straight edge and a pencil to extend these lines out so that I can see where they are with the motor mount sitting on the firewall.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Next, In the instructions we are told that the distance from the firewall to the back of the spinner backplate (front of the knurled hub) needs to be 130mm. So the 1st thing we need to do is get this measurement and mark the engine mount. To do this I simply sat the engine on one side of the mount and got a measurement. I used my dial calipers, but a tape measure or ruler will work just as well.

Be sure and get this started on the right foot by getting the mount right side up. The taller part of the mount that mounts to the firewall is the top. Make sure you get this right or the engone may not line up correctly with the cowl.

2. After I got the measurement, without moving the engine in the half mount, I marked the front and rear of the mounting plate of the engine in the mount with a pencil.

3. Next I simply transposed these marks onto the other half of the mount.

4. Next, I found that the engine was hitting the motor mount at the needle valve so I marked the approximate location of the rub and then used a dremel tool to clear away just enough material on the mount so that the motor would fit nice and flush without compromising the structure of the motor mount. This is a judgement call so you need to think this through and make sure that you do not remove too much material and weaken the mount to the point it cannot do its job and securely hold the motor in place under extreme flight conditions..

5. Next step is to drill the holes.
On one half of the mount I held the motor on the mount and then using the correct size drill bit, I marked the holes by just bumping the drill and getting a pilot started for each of the two holes on the half mount. Once I had the pilot holes, I removed the engine and drilled the two holes in the half mount.

6. Next I took the other half mount and mated the two halves together side by side and used a pencil to mark the centerline of the holes.

7. Once I had the pencil marks in place I repeated step 5 on the undrilled half of the mount and the engine mount holes were in place.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Next step is to mount the engine mounts to the firewall.

1. With the engine mounted in the engine mount securely I got a measurement of the inside distance between the two mounting halves.

2. Then I transposed this measurement onto the firewall as seen by the two vertical marks that I drew onto the firewall.

3. With these two marks in place I sat the engine mounted into the mount up against the firewall and lined it up with the two marks I just made. This puts the motor mount in the proper location from left to right.

4. Next, if you will look closely at the provided mount there are reference lines that are stamped onto the engine mounts where at the point where the surface of the engine mounts meet the surface of the engines mounting plates. This is the centerline of the engine that extends out to the tip of the threaded end of the crankshaft. You need to line up these marks with the horizontal centerline mark on the firewall.

5. With the motor mount hand held in place according to steps 3-4 above, use a sharp pencil and carefully mark the preimeter of the engine mounting halves where they meet the firewall. I failed to get a picture of this, but you get the picture I hope.
(Note* notice that I did not have the landing gear and tailwheel installed during this entire process, it makes it much easier when the plane is not wanting to roll around on you.

With step 5 completed, what you should see are two vertical rectangles drawn onto the firewall where the engien mounts will sit.

6. Remove the engine from the engine mount and with the engine out of the way, place each half of the engine mount against the firewall, carefully lining it up with the rectangles you just drew. Mark the holes on the firewall (predrilled from the factory) and then drill the holes in the firewall.

7. Loosely install the motor mount onto the firewall using the provided socket head bolts and blind nuts. Later on after the engine is o the mount in step 8, I would highly recommend using a drop of "Blue Loctite" on each of the 4 mounting bolts so that they lock into the blind nut and do not back out in time.

8. With the Engine mount loosely in place, remount the engine to the engine mount and secure tightly in place.

9. Go back and completely tighten the mount to the firewall useing "Blue Loctite" on the threads before tightening.

10. Last step was to go back and use a dremel to grind off the bolts flush with the back of the firewall. This serves 2 puposes, it eliminates weight and it removes the potential to cut a fuel line or servo lead with the end of the bolt.
At this point you should be able to trial fit the cowl and admire your exquisite work. [8D]

RVM

Good thing you posted this. I always thought when mounting an engine inverted, you put the engine onto the mount rightside up, as if you were mounting it normally, then simply flipped the whole thing over, engine and mount. I see now that you mount the mount normally, but put the engine itself on inverted.

Learn something new every day.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

To be quite honest, I think that as long as the engine comes out properly centered where the plate meets the cowl, and it fits in the mount ok, it does not make that much difference. The mount hsould be plumb so orientation is not going to effect thrust angles or anything as far as I know. At least not with a standard mount. I guess my point in the post was, that you need to be conscious of the fact that there are usually tools built into the mount and on the firewall to help you get the engine in the right spot when you are building an ARF. Not necessarily so with a kit build.



Furthermore, with a closer look at the mount (you can see it in the pic) you can see another line moulded into the mount on the other flat side of the engine mounting surface you can see that it will keep you lined up if you flip the mount over.

If you look at the pics in the fliton manual, they show you how everything should be oriented. Its not spelled out in type, but the pictures get the message across.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Here is the landing gear installation. Not much to it. Just open up the covering on the bottom of the fuselage to access the outer bolt holes, slip the gear in and bolt through the landing gear from the bottom and into the blindnuts. Thats about all there is to it!

T. Bob

My Feedback: (9)

OH MY GOD Please fly the thing.
It's an Arf for pete's sake.
2 or 3 nites total.
Please let it go and go out and fly.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

I know I know, its an easy ARF build. I am behind because I had to wait about a week on the new fuselage to come in. I have really only been working on it for an hour or so in the afternoons when I wake up for the last 2 days (been working nights). I would be done by this weekend but I have a fly in I have to go to today and Sunday and then I am driving 9 hours 1 way to go fly in Abilene this week with a friend and that will take 4 days. Hopefully I will be done by next weekend.

T. Bob

My Feedback: (9)

Mike
After reading your post and seeing the pics I ordered one last nite.
Thats positive.
I have a 63 looking for a new home.
Get it done so I can see what to do on mine.
Not being snide just anxious.

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

OK, sorry. I didnt know how to take you[8D] Glad you like the plane, looks like its going to rain today so the fly in is off. I will probably glue in the stab, install the tank and start on the servos and linkages today..

LOL, I am screwing around bigtime this morning. I fly IMAC Intermediate and someone bet me I could not fly the unlimited sequence. I am always up for a challenge so I have been slacking on the build and burning electrons practicing on AFPD. I think I about have it much to my surprise..

T. Bob

My Feedback: (9)

What size spinner does it take and what are you going to use?
Also prop I would think apc 13 x 6 on 30%
Thanks

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

I talked to Dave Shadel at YS about what prop to use.

He recommended a 13x4 or 14x4 wood prop, I still need to run to the LHS and get a few. My engine is new so he recommended that I break it in on a 12x5 or 12x6.

The spinner size looks to be 2 1/4"...

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Got the horizontal stab installed. Just went by the book. I think the connecting dowel is going to work out perfectly. You have to epoxy in the dowel so I could not take many pictures becuase I had to work fast but its not hard at all. Everything fits perfect.

RVM

The stab looks canted to the right Mike...

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Optical illusion. I knew someone would see that and think so. Its level.

RVM

MikeEast

My Feedback: (3)

Installed the tank today and ran into a little bit of a challenge here. The tank is just too big to fit through the intended gap between the former and the wing tube support. I ended up cutting the forward former horizontal member and temporarily moving it out of the way. I used and exacto knife and made a clean cut on each end. I then slipped the tank in and CA'ed the member back in place. I then cut a piece of 1/16" light ply and glued it over the top of the former from one side of the fuse to the other to lock everything back in place.

The tank fits in there a good bit loose. I put a square of 1/4" hobby foam above and below the tank to hold it in place.

Last, I installed the included brace that mount in front of the tank and fits down tightly over the neck. I then opted to install a 1/2"x1/8" balsa strip behind the tank to lock it in place. Added virtually no weight and it will never move.

imfly123

mike, thansk for the mod pictures on the tank... iwas curious how this setup was on the plane. it is coming together very nicely so far and what a beautiful plane!