repirazz

So, one day last year I arrived at our field to find one of the guys selling all his glow planes cuz he decided to go strictly electric. By the time I got there, he already had everything sold except an old, whooped thundertiger world trainer 40T. This thing was crashed several times over, covered with vinyl, packing tape, bumper stickers etc. the framework inside was all busted up, but it had a good engine & JR radio w/ fresh battery packs etc so i gave him 40 bucks for it. Figured I could pick up an ARF & use the gear & have a knock around plane. Then one of the guys in the club was saying, "There's no way you'll ever be able to fix that thing up". As soon as I heard that, it was on! I had no choice but to rebuild it! 2 months later, here is the result. In the before pic, the framework is taped together for photo. Don't know what was used for glue, but it completely fell apart when covering was removed. All the wood had to be de-fueled, did taildragger conversion, shaped the windshield & cowl area behind engine, added larger ailerons, bolt on wing, fabbed new tail feathers, added dubro gear, wheelpants were made from balsa & glassed.

I love building kits, but there's something especially cool about bringing one back from the grave.

Lets see some pics of your restoration projects & "return from the grave" stories!

-rep

basman

Rep good effort on the rebuild, are you sure its not just another plane ????
I am converting an old crashed trainer to tail drager low wing, but all with work and other projects its taking time. How was the first flight ?

outdoorhunting

Beeuatifull plane. Nice looking colors. Are you sure it's the same plane ??

repirazz

The kind words are appreciated, and yep, absolutely the same plane. (at least the wing & most of the fuse). Alot of the wood was overly fuel soaked due to poor condition of the covering & was replaced. Also, the magnum engine was replaced with a new supertigre .40.
I got the same thing from the guy I bought it from till I pulled the wing off & showed him his ama number was still written inside. What gives it away is the 'notched out' area in the back of the wing where it joins the fuse and also the stab not mounting to the top of the rear fuse but slightly above center. Not typical for most trainers.

Unfortunately, the story does not end well. It flew well for about 50 or 60 flights til one unfortunate day, one of the trees at our field suddenly grew 40 feet when i wasn't looking , & i clipped the top of it & ripped the wing off & turned it into a lawn dart. (dumb thumbs on my part). Ashes to ashes as they say?

The engine & gear now reside in my sig LT-40 project which flies great & has over 150 flights on it. It also has taildragger conversion, bolt on wings, wing struts & 4" dubro inflatable wheels. great touch & go plane.

Basman, would love to see some pics when you get some. A low wing taildragger conv. sounds interesting.

outdoorhunting

50 or 60 flights? I don't think I have a plane in my hanger has that many flights. Those stinking trees have way of doing that. Recyle is the " green thing" to do.

crossman

Very nice rebuild, too bad the expiration date came up so quick.

repirazz

Thanks crossman, I'm one of those who enjoy building as much as if not more than flying, & got some much needed covering practice out of it. Also, I was just finishing up a new four star 60 kit when it happened, so that helped offset the dissapointment of it. The other thing is, I now have a tree named after me!

Hoping to build a 1/4 scale BUSA or Sig CW cub next maybe using the same orange & white scheme. It really popped out in the sun, Hopefully, you won't be reading about it in this crash thread.

-rep

I-fly-any-and-all

My Feedback: (1)

sorry but thats no thunder tiger trainer. I had one and still have the instruction booklet it came with.
It's a Hobbico Flightstar 40T.
They are a terrific flyer but the original covering was crap.
Stock covering had a sticky adhesive backing and plane had stock plastic wing tips.
Glad to see you were able to transform it into something decent.
Come to think of it, when I recovered mine, I also chose orange and white but it was white wing tips white on the tip of the vertical, and white on the tips of the horizontal.

repirazz

It's definately an older thundertiger, I also had the manual for it. The decal on the wing said "world trainer 40t". You can still see in the before pic the "...ner 40t" where the vinyl patch is not covering it. However I have seen the Hobbico flightstar 40t & believe they are the exact same plane w/ same exact graphics but different decal (flightstar 40t). Wouldn't be the first time the same arf has been sold under different brand names.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_1400917/anchors_1400917/mpage_1/key_/anchor/tm.htm#1400917

http://anchorage.craigslist.org/tag/1739267885.html (here's other examples I found)

Your absolutely right about the covering! What a nightmare it was stripping that stuff off! Even with heat gun & razor blades, it was a 3 evening affair.

-rep

Daren71

This was my old LT-40. I got it for a $25 Dairy Queen gift certificate. It had ran out of battery before it ran out of fuel. It was my first repair, rebuild. I built a bunch of new wood parts for it, and put a Saito 56 in it. I had troubles with the Saito, and wasn't flying it, so I sold it before I could sort out the engine issues. The few times it did fly, it was great to see it in the air again. Daren

repirazz

Daren71- good job, it sure doesn't look like it was wrecked! LT-40s are nice flying planes. No matter how many planes i get, I always seem to keep flying mine. Too bad you sold it, I would've given you 2 or 3 Dairy Queen certificates for it!

-rep

1wrangler

My Feedback: (1)

Hey guys,
I am also interested in one day restoring/modifying my original trainer. I want to convert it into a tail dragger but I can't figure out how to make the tailwheel steerable since the elevator is in between the rudder and where the new tailwheel would be making their connection impossible. (or so I believe). Do you have to run a push rod back there to steer the tailwheel on this style of tail?

Thanks,
Brad

repirazz

1wrangler- That would be one way to go about it. The cheap & easy way & method I used on my LT-40, is to drill a hole thru the fuse (lined up with hingeline on rudder) epoxy in 1/8" brass tube & bend a tail gear from 3/32" music wire. Stick it up thru the tube & bend the top inch or so straight back & into front edge of rudder. Details here. http://www.pacaeromodel.com/Knockabout/Taildragger.pdf
You will have to cut rudder hinges & rehinge them.

The down side of these two methods is there's not much load protection for the servo. If there's ever any significant side loading on the wheel (crosswind landings etc), it could damage a servo. (maybe a car type servo saver would do the trick?) The stock nylon pushrods on my sig have some 'give' in them so it hasn't presented a problem for me.

The best way would be a quality aftermarket tailwheel setup & a pull-pull setup with springs. This can be run off the existing rudder servo or a separate servo & Y connecter.

Eventually, i will snip off my tailwheel wire leaving enough there under the fuse to mount a steering arm to it & run springs from there back to a real tailwheel setup.

Hopefully others will chime in with some pics.

-rep

flygilmore

Beautiful job!!!

Daren71

When I did my LT-40, I used the rudder servo. I used a long arm on the servo, and hooked up the rudder and the tailwheel to it. If I can remember correctly, I think they were hooked up to the same side. It looked a little wonky inside, but it handled great on the ground.

Daren

Daren71

Thanks. I keep an eye out for it in the local classifieds just in case. It sounded great with the Saito, it was really too bad I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

Daren