I’m not sure how much people want to read about this, but here we go. I’m formally educated in Aero and Electrical Engineering and I have much experience with aircraft andphysics in general, but feel free to shoot me questions or concerns if people have feedback that they think can improve my attempt, lol. There are a lot of smart people out there, and I eat up any criticism or learning I can get, from just about any reasonable source!
: )<o></o>

I’m a pretty good 3D pilot, and I kinda skipped the whole“trainer� phase of learning… I did much crashing and plane dismemberment on my fast-track to 3D and sport flying… It wasn’t until I destroyed a few planes that I decided to get a simulator, which should have been my FIRST purchase, in hindsight. <o></o>

Finally, after owning over 50 different planes of sizes ranging from 14� to 80�, most of them performance and 3D-oriented, I decided to “go back� and get a big lumbering trainer-style plane for some lawn-chair-sitting, food-from-a-cooler-grabbing, beer-drinking,slow-flying. My friend, who’s been flying for over 30 years, recommended the Senior Kadet, and I actually got the kit from him. I’ve never scratch-built a plane before, so forgive the hundreds of tiny mistakes along way! <o></o>

Here is the plane in “skeleton� form:<o></o>

Notice the cut-outs for where the ailerons are going. First mistake: I glued the vertical stabilizer on prior to monokoting… that was annoying later on. I also had to re-enforce the corners at the aileron cut-outs because it looked weak to me. I put little triangles in there (not shown in this pic).<o></o>

Here is the plane with my poor job of covering the nose; you can see all the cracks in the balsa. Even soaking the wood, I couldn’t manage to keep it from breaking onme. So I ended up gluing down the pieces and holding it with tape/bands. Since I decided to do an electric setup, I had to change the motor mount. I made two spacers with the appropriate thrust angle to counter torque roll.<o></o>

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I really like the Sig-style color scheme for the Senior Kadet,so I used that as my inspiration for what I wanted to do. I made some changes that I thought made itlook better, in my opinion. I made a purple sweep-back on top of the nose, thicker purple band on the nose, thicker white edges on the wings/stabilizers, broader curves, more white behind the window, a sweep-back in the middle of the wing, a flat white on the bottom of the elevator, and a straight white (no curves) on the bottom of the main wing. I had some issues with overlapping the two-tone monokote, so I have a few bubbles in there, but I’ve since learned about the windex method, so the covering improved later on, such as with the wing, which was a lot cleaner on the overlaps.<o></o>

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Above, I glued the horizontal stabilizer down, and you can see in the fuselage cabin where I started to re-enforce the area where I planned to mod the plane for a bolt-down wing system. For my bolt-down design, I actually wanted to keep the rubber-band dowels on the plane in case I ever decided to revert back to that instead. More on that in a bit.

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Note that there is no dihedral in the wing:

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In the following image, you can see where I decided to meet the two-tone colors:<o></o>

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You can barely make out the little triangles I put inside the wing to support the corners where I felt may have been weak from the aileron cut-outs.<o></o>

Next is the wing with a straight white leading edge, which Idid not like,

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Next, you can see how I decided to do my bolt-down wing system. I basically made two “hooks� on the wing that fit under the front dowels of the fuselage, and I use two nylon bolts that pass through plywood plates (that pancake the wing) and into the fuselage, and finally held with blind nuts. It holds very securely, especially since the glue on the hooks and the re-enforced “box� area in the fuselage/wing are relying on the shearing force, instead of “pancaked� pieces, which could pop loose.<o></o>

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For my power system, I went with a 600kv motor,5s/40C/5000mAh battery, and 60-70A ESC, with external switching BEC (3A). I’m using a 14x7 TGS prop (I’ve tested other systems and props). This produces a max of 45A, 780W, 6.4lb of thrust, at full throttle. The flying weight is 7lb. <o></o>

Here are my basic calculations that I wrote equations for in Excel:<o></o>

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I used red conduits and clear internal sliding tubes as mycontrol links, and I attached carbon fiber ends to reduce bending at the control arm and servo endpoints. You can see these links through the monokote in some of the pictures. I decided to keep the nose-steering becauseall of my aerobatic planes are tail-draggers, and I only have two other nose-steering planes, which I love. Ijust think it’s more fun to land the nose-steering planes because you can sit them on their butts and really lean back into a two-point landing. I love doing that for some reason, lol.<o></o>

Today, I finally maidened it. My thoughts after the first flight are that it’s a bit more “draggy� than I thought it would be. I think this is due to the significant down-thrust that the plans call for, which required some uptrim on the elevator…. I may need to adjust my “flaperons� a bit as well, since they extend beyond the wing’s nominal trailing edge. I need to find a good neutral position for them such that they continue to provide proper lift from the wing, but don’t force any pitch change since they lie behind the CG. I’m going to straighten the thrust vector out a bit; I think it will clean it up some, and increase my flighttime; reducing the necessary throttle in general. <o></o>

Overall, it was very stable, as expected. I didn’t push it too hard on the first flight, but it did some nice smooth loops with zero tip-stalling, and the rudder was very responsive with nose-up flat turns and hammer heads. I plan to tweak a few things and fly again in a couple days when the weather is nice to see if my changes make a difference in performance and flight time. Overall, I’m glad I built this plane, and it will make a fine addition to my hanger. I likely won’t be getting rid of this one!<o></o>

Here are some pics of the plane before my maiden flight today:<o></o>

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