wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

With all the gear and hardware in place, back on the CG machine it goes. Unfortunately, it is quite tail heavy at this point. The picture is with an ounce of lead sitting at the end of the motor mount. I'm going to try moving the flight pack into the nose with the throttle servo and see if that won't balance it out, especially since the covering process is only going to make it even more tail heavy. I'm not super happy at having to add a battery mount in the nose, but it will certainly add way less than an ounce. I weighed the airframe and it came out at 3.25kg (7lb 2.6oz). It is going to be over 7 1/2lb by the time it is covered and the rest of the servo wiring is in place and a hair over 8lbs fueled and ready to fly. It looks like it will be 8-10oz over what I had hoped, but certainly not a pig. Hangar 9 lists the RTF weight of the electric conversion at 8.8lbs and I expect to be under that.

I still need to put in the extensions for the wing servos and run all the interior wiring. The doubler I added to the firewall has not yet been glued in place, and I need to seal the entire nose. I need to go over the entire airframe with filler to get any bumps and dings, then sand everything. That will leave covering. I'm still up in the air on the covering, though I am leaning more and more towards a custom scheme. I'm going to keep the stock color set, but I thing the pattern will be custom.

sir crashallot

excellent work, whats the wingspan of the stick.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

It's the 60 size 66". I'm guessing I'll end up in the 20oz/sqft range for wing loading.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I spent some time over the last couple of nights drawing up the wing so I could play with covering schemes. Here are a few samples. The first is the bottom of the wing. That is what it's going to be. Nothing fancy, good visibility. The other three are ideas for the top. Haven't decided what I'm going to do there. Just playing at the moment. My only real rules are the colors have to be the same as the stock Ultra Stick so I don't have to go buy more Ultracote and the top has to be distinguishable from the bottom at distance.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I haven't had as much time of late to work on this project as I would like, but I have made some progress.

Given that there are four servos in the wing, there are a lot of connections from the receiver to the wing. Rather than deal with them individually every time I put the wing on and have them flopping around in the fuse, I bundled them into a single multi-pin connector. I nick named it the "squid" given that it has a big center point and 8 wires of varying length coming off of it. It is a nine conductor connector with eight of the connections installed. There are four conductors for the servo signals and the pair of servos on each side of the wing share power and ground pins. On the wing side, I made custom extensions so that everything lines up well. It works really well, though I am concerned that I may have to hard a time separating the connector when taking the wing off. No way will it come apart in flight though.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

With all the wiring in place, I pulled the flight pack out to see what I could do about balance. With the flight pack moved into the nose, it gets quite nose heavy right now. It takes about an ounce on the tail to balance out. You can see the lead sitting on the back of the horizontal stab in the picture. Turns out this is a good thing. The tail is almost exactly 4 sq ft in area. At about 1/3oz/sqft for covering, it works out to adding a little over an ounce to the tail just by covering it. Since most of the covering weight will be behind CG, I think I can make a mount in the nose for the flight pack and get pretty well perfect balance with no added lead. No way I will make it under 7 1/2lb dry. Just the base wing and tail covering will push me over. Add in the extra covering for whatever scheme I chose, the filler for smoothing any dings, the nose mount for the battery, misc zip ties and such and I am guessing it will be about 7lb 12oz. I might be able to knock and ounce or two off by getting carbon fiber landing gear and lighter wheels, but I'm not sure it is worth the money.

speedy72vega

Very nice work. I'm in the process of almost completely rebuilding my Mini Ultra Stick. I put it in very hard last weekend, and not much left of it. I was only able to salvage half of the wing, the tailfeathers, and 3 of the fuselage bulkheads. The rest i'm building from scratch. I don't care too much for the original color scheme, so i'm going to make mine a smaller replica of the 'Red Baron' scheme from the GP Electrostick.

Keep up the good work, the plane looks great.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

First covering!!! Ok, actually the first covering was started several days ago. To facilitate accurate gluing of the hinge pins, I am covering the leading edge of the control surfaces, and the trailing edge of the wing/rudder/horizontal stab. Once that is done, I can glue the hinge pins and still be able to easily work with them. When I cover the tops and bottoms I'll notch the overlap around the pins.

This evening, I got to glue the first pins in. The first victim was the elevator. I chose it since I had the most trouble getting the holes correct. I used a couple of pieces of spare strip stock and taped the pins to it after I lined them up and got the perpendicular to the leading edge. With them taped in place, I could pull all of the out, put in hinge glue and slide them back in without too much movement. It seems to work pretty well as there was really no flex in the pins as I rotated the strip through 180 degrees.

A note on hinge pins... I was originally going to use Great Planes pins as they are a translucent white and don't stand out as much against the light yellow base of the covering. I say originally as I have since switched to Dubro hinges as there is no comparison in the quality of the pin that actually holds the hinge together. If I remember, I'll take a comparison picture.

darylm44

I have just completed building the ARF 60 size Ultra Sick. I have set it up with the quad flaps and all the mixes. I hope to maiden it this week, what kind of response-handling should I expect. I have never used mixes before and wonder just how much of a handful will it be on the maiden.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you as I am yet to fly a Ultra stick. I can give a few hints on the mixes in general. Test your flap and spoiler settings up high. It's important to get the flap->elevator mix set right so that you don't pitch up or down as you engage flaps or spoilers. Be prepared to land without flaps for your first few flights until you get the mixes right.

Get a good feel for aileron authority at the various settings. Moving from normal flight to flaps (just flaps) will decrease your roll rate as you will loose the aileron->flap mix. However, I don't expect that roll control will get a mushy as is does with a flaperon setup. I would, however, expect roll to get very mushy with the "crow" setting since you have full flaps and the ailerons are now acting as spoilers as well as ailerons.

Good luck.

darylm44

I maidened mine today. What a sweet plane

I tried out all the mixes and the crow setting. I had heard that the crow was a type of air brake so I tried it while going fast and the plane shot strait up vertical. One of our clubs more experienced pilots was at the field and came over and said the crow should not be used while going fast rather it should be applied near idle and used for slow graceful landing. I gave it a try and could not believe how slow the plane landed. In fact I slowed down the plane switched on the crow function turned my final and just let the plane drift in. It was almost like being on auto-pilot it just settled in so smoothly.

I never switched to high rates as the roll rate and loops were extremely tight when the mixes were turned on. I used the set up guide for a DX7 that Steven Korman shared with me. It is 5 pages long but worked perfectly. I will be glad to share with anyone who wants it.

I have the servos moved to the rear with a pull pull on the rudder. For a engine I have an ASP 91 4stroke ($139 Hobby King). It would vertical until I could barley see it. I use A123 receiver packs for my spektrum Rx's.

Can you tell I like this plane.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

Very glad to here the maiden was successful. I too have moved the servos back with pull-pull on the rudder. Personally, I think they could run a new rev of the airframe with that setup and have a whole bunch of happy customers. I'm putting Saito 100 in the nose of mine, so I hope to have stellar performance. I would be curious what the all up weight on yours is.

On to new activity. Now I really do have some covering on. I started with the elevator. You can see in the first pic the yellow base on the top and bottom except where the red will go. With the red in place, I went ahead and glued the stab side of the pins. With the pins glued and trimmed, I covered the rest of the horizontal stab. It came out looking pretty good. So far I'm a fan of Ultracote, especially the transparent stuff.

The pins aren't quite as free as I had hoped. It is quite hard to get them all lined up and parallel/perpendicular. I am not however going to pull it apart. There is no change in stiffness until the very maximum range of travel that is beyond what the tail configuration is actually capable of one the plane. I expect it will free up over time and there is no sign of bending or flexing in any of the pins.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I took a break from covering the last couple of nights and did some finishing work on the fuse. After taking everything back out from the test fitting, I filled and sanded the fuse and filled the sanded the tail fillet. It actually turned out quite well. I used 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a round pencil to round the transition in the the vertical stab and the fuse.

Tonights project was to build the battery mount in the nose and seal the front of the fuselage. The battery mount was just three 1/4" rails glued to cross pieces. Should be plenty strong. To seal the nose I used a 1 to 1 mixture of 30 minute epoxy and denatured alcohol and applied it with foam brushes. The brushes work really well, but either the epoxy or the alcohol, or both make the get really soft after a bit. Once it has dried overnight, I'll sand it and if needed, apply another coat. I doubt I'll have to apply any more as it soaks into the wood pretty well and I only need to sand it to make sure it is smooth for the covering.

I did go a "bit" overboard. I sealed inside and out all the way back to former F3. Since I move the fuel tank back, I figured this would cover any part that might get fuel on it under "normal" circumstances. Obviously if the back of the tank splits open on a vertical line, I have bigger issues.

OzMo

My Feedback: (3)

Nice work WP,
My 60 Ultrastick is my favorite plane and it is being rebuilt as well. I am getting WAY to good at repairing! I never liked the original covering much, Top and bottom to much alike.
Keep up the good work! Planes rairly are unfixable, sometimes after a couple of rebuilds we just want sumpin' different.

bird_dog0347

My Feedback: (1)

Good work man, I am in the process of finishing up my US .40 and should have it in the air by this weekend if the weather cooperates. I see you are over in the Colony, I am just down the road from you. Where do you usually fly?

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I fly at the [link=http://www.ndrcc.com]NDRCC[/link] field up east of Denton.

I should have some more progress to post tonight or tomorrow. With some luck, the base covering of the fuselage will be done.

SS

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

Enough playing with epoxy, back to covering. Since I need to be able to cover the fuselage from the tail forward, the rudder and vertical stab were next on the list. The rudder had its leading edge covered and then the pins glued. While that was drying, the trailing edge of the vertical stab was covered. After the rudder side of the pins were sufficiently dry, the rudder was covered. Then it was attached to the vertical stab and the pins glued. With only three pins to deal with, it was much easier to handle. The pin for the tail wheel steering was glued in at the same time. You can't really see it in any of the pictures, but it fits through a hinge that is glued into the back of the fuse to give it more strength.

With all the glue dry, the vertical stab was covered. I have to say, it is certainly easier to go over compound curves with Ultracote than it is with Monokote. I had to put a few splits here and there, but it went over the tail fillet very nicely.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

This is the sequence of pictures from laying down the yellow on the fuselage. Pretty straight forward, though I did learn a few things. Carefully place your overlaps as you can see them. Being transparent, the overlaps are a couple of shades darker. Not a huge deal for this plane, but if you are doing work to compete with, it would be worth considering. Also, you can see in the pictures where the epoxy sealing stops by the change in color. Be careful not to get the epoxy too hot when applying the covering. The adhesive on Ultracote may not gas when heated, but the epoxy will. Avoid bubbles took careful timing. I laid down all the yellow with the iron at ~220F then went back over it at ~300F to tighten it up and make sure it was well set. The latter pass is when you have to be careful on the epoxy. The covering will also amplify any imperfections and the epoxy sealing only makes it worse. Anyone who has ever done covering has learned this, but it is worth repeating.

Still, as this is just a "fun fly" plane, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

To ensure that the red stripe down the side was nice and straight and even on both sides, I put strips down the edge separate from the bottom covering. Looking back on it, I should have done the bottom covering first, then put the strips in place afterward. Oh well, live and learn.

You can see in the forth picture where I built up an rounded the notch that the horizontal stab sits in. It give the tail a very nice finished look and was definitely worth the little bit of extra effort.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

As I said, I should have done the bottom covering first, then the edge stripe, but oh well. A big thing to note here, for other people recovering and Ultra Stick. The taper back to the tail is not straight, it is rounded. This means that you cannot just measure the front and back and cut a straight taper back. It won't be wide enough. I went ahead and covered the bottom of the horizontal stab to continue red on back to the end of the fuselage. I used a soldering iron to make the holes for the gear mounts. Actually, I used a soldering iron to do all the round holes. It melts the Ultracote and leaves a fairly smooth edge. I went back over all the holes with a trim iron to make sure they were well sealed and smooth.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

While I am not keeping the original Ultra Stick scheme, I am keeping the blue stripe down the side of the fuse. I used masking tape as markers to try and keep the strip reasonable parallel to the red on the side. You can't tell so much from the pictures, but the gap does narrow slightly from the start of the vertical stab on back. This was to keep the blue from creeping up into the openings in the vertical stab. I didn't want to see the back side of the strip through the stab.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

And now, we are finally caught up again. I have spent a bit of time today installing the tail servos and putting the rudder pull-pull back in place. I had to re-adjust the linkage, but everything lines up and is centered. All the clevises are tightened down with loctite. I trimmed the ends off the rudder horn through bolts with the dremel.

Back in the covering realm, it trimmed the lead edge and side of the horizontal stab and elevator in red as a continuation of the red side stripes. It was a good finishing touch that really pulled it all together.

I have the tail bolted on right now and I am debating whether it needs to be glued or not. It has the four screws you see. They go through the center block of the horizontal stab and into the tail block. There is no wiggle in the tail, but I think I'm going to glue it anyway. I think the compromise will be to use Gorilla Glue instead of epoxy. That way I should be able to get it off a bit easier it I need to, but I don't have to worry so much about the tail loosening.

AA5BY

A very nice rebuild. Yes, I'd glue the tail section. Don't be afraid to use epoxy... if it needed to come off, epoxy can be loosened with a heat gun for removal. I'm not savvy about gorilla glue and thus am not knocking using it, I just know that epoxy is a good choice.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

I did end up gluing the tail using Gorilla glue. You can just see it as the white filling the gap between the horizontal stab and the fuse in the first picture. The horizontal stab still has all the screws too so I really really doubt it is going anywhere.

The control rod is 1/8" carbon fiber with connectorsrc.com pushrod ends. I ended up putting a good bead of medium CA around the end of the rod and sliding it in to the end. They certainly will not be going anywhere right now, but I am curious what the longevity will be. Much cleaner and easier than epoxy though. I had to trim about an eighth of an inch off the elevator clevis so that it would clear the rudder clevis. I'm thinking I will probably trim a bit more as the end of the post comes withing a couple of millimeters of the rudder when the elevator is in full down and the rudder is full right.

With the tail done, it went to work inside the fuse, laying out all the wiring. The mounting rails I put in place do double duty as good places to zip-tie wiring. I opted to mount the remote receiver to the rear so it would not have a bunch of fuel sitting right next to it. I had been looking at mounting it forward, but it would have been right in the center of the fuel tank. The big bundle of wires going back is actually the receiver side of the aileron/flap "squid" connector. I just had it running straight back to keep it out of the way. Both the battery and receiver are held in with velcro staps. There is foam underneath the straps so while they are not "surrounded " in foam, they are well cushioned. I will need to watch the battery. I may just take the foam off of it as it isn't really sensitive to vibration and it is heavy enough that it may slide. We shall see.

The fuel tank was mounted next. It doesn't have foam underneath the top of the velcro straps. There isn't physical room with a 16oz tank. It I need to, I can put a smaller tank in later I suppose. It turns out that the gap in the throttle servo mount does a great job routing the fuel and vent lines out of the way of the servo. All the connections have zip ties on them as extra insurance against the connections coming loose.

wpmcnamara

My Feedback: (9)

It was a busy weekend, but I did get a bit more done. I got the rudder side tail wheel control arm mounted and the springs connected. The springs were a royal pain since there wasn't really a whole lot of space between the two control arms. I had to cut and bend the two springs to fit and to have the same tension. It works well though. I mounted the throttle control rod and engine mounts, as well as the landing gear. It can now stand on it own "three feet" as it were. At this point, the fuselage it done other than any trim work or decals I do in finishing out the trim scheme. Even my wife though it looked pretty sharp.

Next up, the wings. I think I'm going to have to pick up another roll of transparent yellow. I haven't been particularly wasteful, but I have this feeling that there isn't quite enough left on the roll since the wing will take a bunch.