Danh4

My Feedback: (5)

Hello all, I'm building my first C/L model (been building and flying RC for many years) and I have a question about how the leadout eyelets are supposed to be installed in the wingtip plate. I'm building from the Brodak plans and instruction book and they aren't very clear on how the eyelets should be installed. The wingtip plate is glued perpendicular to, and centered on the last wing rib, so it sits right in the middle of the slots in the rib that the leadout wires pass through. The instructions say to cut channels for the eyelets and judging by the photo they are cut only as long as the eyelets themselves, about an inch or so. If that's true, do I just cut them so that the flared opening of the eyelets sit in the center of the 1/8" wingtip plate and then let the wires lay across the top of the tip plate? I hope you guys can tell what I'm talking about!

Dan

cutaway

That would be very very bad and create a lot of friction on the leadouts. With any C/L plane its critical that the control assembly operate with the utmost freedom. Any friction reduces the controllability of the plane under light line tension conditions. I've seen people crash many planes due to stiffness in the controls I would have found unacceptable had I built it.

There's basically two simple approaches to your leadout question.

1) The easiest answer is to simply epoxy some 1/8 or 3/32 copper/brass tubing leadout guides to the bottom of the wingtip plate at the prescribed location (a length of the yellow inner Nyrod slider material from some crashed garbage can R/C ARF will work OK here too, and Sullivan Products supplies actually supplies that Nyrod kind of leadout guide when you get one of their leadout kits) . When covering, this will result in an some lumps in the covering though as it has to get around the tubing sticking up.

2) A bit more work, but produces no lumps to work around while covering, is to fully embed the leadout guides, be it brass/copper/Nyrod, into the wingtip plate. This requires cutting the tip into three sections and epoxying the whole mess back together. This method will have your leadouts exiting in the middle of the wingtip plate with no lumps. Normally, I'd make the guides longer than 1" when using this method, so the epoxy has more surface area to grab into with the guide.

You can use option 2 with 1" flared eyelets, but I'd put some scrap balsa patches over the remaining tunneled out area behind the eyelets so the tip has some added structural integrity while you handle it.

Either way will work and can be accomplished fairly quickly/simply. With either method, you'll want to add some scrap filler around the eyelet flanges that gets sanded down to avoid a sharp metal edge sticking up and bearing on the covering.

Danh4

My Feedback: (5)

cutaway,

Thanks! That is exactly what I needed to know. I think I will cut channels all the way through the tip plates, box them in and then glue the eyelets in after covering.

Thanks again,

Dan

DaveSR71

Dan
Carefully drill hole from outer edge of tip in towards center of airplane all the way through to inner part of tip.
on top and bottom of this area ads a 1/2in wide 1/16 thick strip front to rear to reinforce,say 3-4 inch long.
Glue eyelets in tip.(hope that made sense?)

Midwest Magician is nice flying airplane.

A little more work and you can have adjustable lead out guide. (pic) just one way to do it.

David

Danh4

My Feedback: (5)

Thanks Supertiga, I was just reading about the advantages of an adjustable leadout guide, maybe the next plane will get one. For this one I just finished cutting the slots through the tip plate and boxing them in, I think it will work OK and hopefully the leadouts are where they're supposed to be!

Dan

cutaway

I have a Magician built from scratch using the Brodak plans with a Fox Stunt .35 in it. The Brodak plan version is a somewhat smaller model than the old Midwest kit was BTW. Using the stock plan location for the leadouts, works fine with .015x60 lines. I can fly the whole stunt pattern with it and it generally stays out on the lines fine during the overhead 8's, cloverleaf, hourglass, and square 8's.

I think I'm going to build another soon to the Midwest kit spec dimensions. My 35 year old Midwest Magician flies OK, but the kit fuselage was made out of ironwood and it came out a tad on the heavy side.