ultimate2

[8D]Hi Tony, I used mech retracts on the P-47, but many people are using oleopneumatics retracts usually instal the fill valve in the fuse. Really it is not necessary to take the wing off to fill the tank, that usually also is mounted inside the fuse, you can install a Robart filling valve for service, for example on the lower side of the fuselaje or inside a funcional port custom made if you want more scale. To mount the wing with the tank inside the fuse you also would considerer some air conectors to help in these operations.
Today I began to add pannel lines on the tail and iron the monokote, cause it were right on the box with many warps, maybe for the heat and humidity changes, so after a little iron time, tail was ready to panneling, we used a 3 views drawing and also made a carboard pattern to help in the leading edge of the elevators, and others areas to a more precise execution. Also I sprayed a coat of satin varnish to the drop tank as finishing. In the tail, the monokote was sanded to simulate weathering and aged, like we did before in the wing. Now is ready to more weathering and shadows, 3D lines and paint chirps on some areas.
As my flying buddies know that now I´m doing the Jug, one of them send me this first page papers news by e-mail.
Cheers buddies.
Manuel.

Boomerang1

Hi Guys, I stumbled on to this thread late.

Pics of mine below, built in 1997, still going great. - John.

VooDooVW

Learned my lesson!

I had my maiden flight on my new Jug Friday evening. I thought I hadtaken care of everything (I'm usually very careful) but missed setting up the throws and exponential. All the controls were working in the correct directions and the Saito 115 was running nicely. As soon as Eileen was in the air I knew we were in trouble. The slightest movement of the right stick caused instant and huge changes in direction or altitude. I made a couple of laps around the field and trimmed her out best I could then started setting up for some landing attempts. After the third pass I dropped the flaps on downwind and made a decent pass down the middle of the field. I left the flaps down and came around again with the intent to land this time. I carefully eased Eileen in and set her down about mid field but think I froze up at that point and she nosed over but after she was just about stopped. No Damage!

Once I could breathe again we check out my new JR X9303 to see that I had not set dual rates or exponential for Eileen. Being my first JR and having my P-47 build interrupted by another project I just missed completing the radio setup. You can bet from now on I will keep better notes on my builds and add this to my prefight for future maiden flights. I have performed a number of maiden flights in the last few years and this was by far the scariest! Thanks Wayne for calming my nerves and walking me through getting her back on the ground...

Vince

VooDooVW

Vince

JayBird26

Great idea. All I need to do is finish painting “Franken Pilot” (thanks Ron for the idea) strap him in, secure the canopy, and yes, set throws and expo, then take her up. Hopefully this Sunday will be the day. Although she aint as pretty as Ron’s or Manuel’s Jug, (very nice models by the way) she should fly like hell with the saito 125 and be loads of FUN!! I will share some pics as soon as I’m done.

VooDooVW

lablover

I'm half tempted to try the new eflite electric retracts for 60-120 size birds. Buddy has a set on his p-51 and they are very smoooottthhhhh


Joe

ultimate2

[8D] Hi Boomer, what a beatiful razorback, congratulations ¡¡¡¡. Mr. Vodoo, I like very much your neat idea for the joystick, so I going to do it. thanks for sharing. These days I spended the time for our hobby detailing the tail group, doing the 3D lines, and some weathering. Also yesterday I did a maiden flight to my last winter proyect, a Yak 55M gasser.
As the hinged area in the full size airplane is very particular, I decided to do some carboard patterns to save time. After paint the lines with a permanent Stadler Lumocolor black fine sharpie, I used again a nĂşm. 3 sharp pencil to press over the lines and do the depresiĂłn to simulate the separation interpannels. Later I did one more pass over all the lines with the point of the trim Top Flite Iron. After that the leading edge of the elevators and rudders were sanded with 400 sandpaper. With the same pencil we did some weathering according the airflow, and the last touches were some chirps on the stab with the silver Mithril paint of Warhammer and some wash with a fine brush and acrilic paint mixed at 50 percent with water.
As the white stripe wasn´t continued over the hinge line from factory, I decided to add some strips of white monokote in these areas to looks that the white paint flows better.
Next time let´s go to begin on the fuse work.
Cheers my friends.
Manuel.

Ron101

My Feedback: (22)

Man Manuel!
you are doing such an amazing job, you are going to have one very nice looking plane
wait until you fly this thing, it flies just as good as it looks.... over 16 years of rc I've owned many many planes and this has to be in the top three flyers for me

can't wait to see your finished products, you have come up with some great methods

Ron

Ompa

As i said before, you just have to love this plane [sm=tongue_smile.gif]
Must get one for my self [sm=biggrin.gif]

lablover

I've flown my several times during events and everyone comments on how great it looks in the sky as well as on the ground. I'm glad I spent some time to trick it out like Manuel. After his latest posts...Looks like I have more to do The giant scale one is looking real tempting

lablover

Manuel

Any way we can get you to scan those cardboard templates for the tail feathers, rudder etc.

TonyBuilder

My Feedback: (11)

ultimate2

[8D]Tx very much for your support and kind words buddies, Ron, as I said earlier, you and friend Kurrikan really inspired me in this project, I love your works so much, that I decided to do something similar with some from my own, using the Jug as platform to try new techs, tips and ideas. Most people think that film covering is only for sport models not scale; maybe, but what about sport scale ?. Usually it is seen a monokote job like something shinny, plastic, irreal, but actually it is the point of view. On some civilian airplanes like modern aerobatics airplanes as Extras, Edges, etc. is even O.K. ,but I wanted to try these covering and tech on a warbird, so let´s try it and time will tell.
Hey Lablover I´m sorry about the fotocopy, but I did a photo of these paterns and copied in a paper page with their lengths. Just if you or anybody are interested in a copy of the patterns, please feel free to send me a P.M. with your address and I will send you a free copy.
These two days I was involved in cleaning and adjusting the Yak 55 M gasser and cutting the hidden hatch as Ron showed us.
http://www.acro3d.com/public/phpbb3/...php?f=2&t=6640
Not as fancy as doing pannel lines, but it is possible to do, even if you´re carefull you can use again the same monokote for covering. More latter I plan to do a step by a setp of how I did it. Thanks again Ron to find and show us this hatch. I think many Jug´s owners even doesn´t know that it exist.
Cheers, Manuel.

JayBird26

TB,
Funny you bring this up. Your right, it is very tedious and can be aggravating but it’s a must that it is done correctly. I just finished balancing my Jug about an hour ago with the help of a good friend that has done this probably a 100 times before. I have the saito 125 and I anticipated that it would be nose heavy, I was wrong. I had the battery pack mounted aft of the servo tray. With the landing gear extended and on the balancer inverted, as the instructions recommends, it was tail heavy. I now have the battery pack mounted to the side of the fuel tank and she balanced level, and with a slight nudge of the building table it would drop to the nose. By no means am I an expert at building, that’s why I enlisted the help of an expert builder. He has a very good and very sensitive balancer, “daddy long legs” or something like that, not sure, but it should hold level or tilt very slightly to the nose. I balanced my TF P-51 like that and she flies great. The most important thing to remember about CG is that it will be most critical for landing when the fuel is low and the CG has shifted aft. It sounds like to me you are very close, but for myself I would prefer it be ever so slightly to the nose than dead on level. I would think you only have ½ inch range either side of the recommended 4 and 1/8th in the manual. I would not deviate from the book.
Again I’m no expert on building models, but I do have very extensive training and knowledge of CG on real aircraft and if you balance it in this manner it should keep you out of trouble.
Does this make sense?

TonyBuilder

My Feedback: (11)

VooDooVW

You will always want to balance a model so that it will never be tail heavy in any situation. They will fly fine nose heavy and even a lot nose heavy but tail heavy is a killer. So in most cases the retracts retract back towards the tail so they should be up. The fuel tank is toward the nose so it should be empty. You might even want to fill the air tank for pneumatic retracts as it is usually towards the tail. Once you've flown the model you can slowly move it back if need be to make it perform the way you want.

ultimate2

[8D]Hi friends, let me explain how to make removable the hidden hatch on the top of the fuse.
As Ron said, the first thing is to know is how and where to cut the balsa sheeting and the balsa stringers, and so, the first and most important step I must did it was to ask for, beg, and be so good mate, that my wife, let me searched in her sewing tool box and find some large pins that we´re going to need latter for the second step.
Once you have these long pins, you will need them to push from inside the fuse between the floor of the battery tray and the triangle balsa stringers in both places of the lower sides of the hatch. The rear of the hatch near the canopy is straigh, so if you push the pins near the rear corners it will be bettter. The front of the hatch is angled and a little more dificult to find. What I did it was to instert the pins betwenn the little tonges that align the hatch former on the battery tray.
You must push the pins so they will be visible fron outside the fuse, and done, mark with a permanent sharpie the lines from cutting. On the rear former you must let 1/8 more for the widness of the former, and on the front former you should remember that it is angled. Before cutting the monokote add another lines paralell to the first ones about 1/2 inch. from the first ones.
Now you´re ready to cut the monokote. Use a fresh single edge blade and carefully remove the monokote and once done, keep it in a safe place because we´re going to use this scrap piece of film again to cover the hatch. Don´t worry about the puntures of the pins, because latter when we iron again to the hatch and aplieed heat, they will be almost invisible. After removed the monokote, draw again the cutting lines with a fine pencil or ball pen over the exposed wood, please try to be as acurate as possible.
Usually what I do is to cover with the tape the line of cutting the monokote, overlapping it about 1/8 inch. or so, this way we seal the cutting line and avoid to enter balsa and filler dust more latter, between monokote and the wood.
Now comes the funny part . With the sharp new blade, cut over the lines that you draw before, trying to feel how the blade itself cut only the sheeting not another things, as formers or battery floor. When you feel the 1/4 balsa stringers use and X-Acto fine saw to cut them. The hatch has two powerfull magnets on the from that secury it hold down but on the rear, there is two 1/8 dowells to aling. Really it seems, they´re not necessary, but on my model they were glued to the hatch and the fuse former and anyway, I´had to cut them. Maybe latter I will replace them with a new carbonfiber ones, but as I said it seems not necessary.
Once you cut the hatch, it is possible that you are not glad with the adjustment between the bay on the fuse for the hatch and the hatch itself, so I used some balsa colored filler from Hobbico to smooth the area.
Whem the filler is dry use a good 220 and 400 sandpaper blocs and sand the hatch and the fuse gently so both blend smooth and the gap between the fuse and the hacth it will be O.K.
Now cover the hatch with the scrap piece of green flat monokote that you cut before, and use the scrap piece incluided in the kit to cut stripes of green and cover also the exposed wood area on the fuse, and presto, you have a removable hatch to access at the battery compartment and also to the radio switch if you wish. Thanks very much again Ron to show us the hidden hatch.
Cheers my friends.
Manuel.

lablover

I'm kind of sad mine is done. Sure I can do some more weathering etc but it's flown several times etc.......hmmmmm what to do. I know, I'll order the new ready to cover giant scale p-47.

Firepower R/C

My Feedback: (10)

ultimate2, looking good! I like your detailing, and may have to borrow a few of your ideas for my bird! I also cut out the hatch, even though I am powering with a Saito 1.25. I will hide all switches, fuelers, and jacks inside the hatch, as well as have easy access to the flight pack battery and receiver. I am going to try out my new Hitec Aurora in this beauty! Woohoo!

JayBird26

My maiden flight will be delayed. I have had lots of trouble with the retracts in my P-51, got real frustrated and ordered Robart air. So I decided to go ahead with air retracts for the Jug. This will set me back at least a week
Here is some pics of my Franken Pilot that was taken out of Ron's playbook. I can't claim the paint job, my sweet little wife wanted to do the painting, so.... yes hunny!

lablover

WOW

That pilot looks great

Been flying mine tons and finally had an issue. Had a little rough landing and the stock retracts bent...Just a little. I knew these would not last. I wanted to get robostruts but when I called robart, the guy said I should wait a little...Guess they are coming out with something new...hmmmmmmm He said it was a new mechanical retract but all aluminum. He would not give more details. Not sure I can wait, I want to fly my baby!!!

ultimate2

[8D]Tx very much for your kind words Firepower. Still working a little bit every day, but weather here is really warm and wife and kids want to be all day on the beach.
Just begin working in the fuse and also opened a detailed step by step of my mods and detailing on a thread in my favorite spanish forum.
Here is the link.
http://www.acro3d.com/public/phpbb3/...php?f=2&t=8920

ultimate2

[8D]Hi friends,... these days still working in detailing the outside the fuse. Some moments ago, when I turned on the light of the workshop I finded Gizmo[:'(][:'(] running by the Jug´s tail. What to think, to believe in gremlims or some funny joke of my little son.. Anyway I must try not give him to eat passing midnight or drop some water.... just in case.

Sierra11861

Never had a Futaba servo strip out on the internal gearing until now and it cost me a TF P-47 1/7 scale ARF on its 8th or 9th flight. During pre-flight the ailerons checked out but once in got in the air it rolled a complete roll left and crashed. I found the right aileron S3004 gearing was striped out internally. Turns out that all it took was the slight additional load the air creates moving over the control surface to turn the servo horn and then when I tried to correct it with aileron input, it did not respond in the other direction. When I arrived at the crash site, I grabbed the servo rod and moved back and forth by hand and you could tell it was moving without the normal resistance the internal gearing mechanism provides. It basically felt like the gears were stripped for a lack of a better way to put it. At first it seems like the horn is stripping on the stem or that the servo horn screw was loose on the stem, but when you investigate closer, you realize the horn is fine and it is the internal gearing that is stripping out.

One thing for certain is I did not like the design of the servo position in relation to the aileron horn/hinge line. While the horn was positioned perpendicular to the hinge line, the servo arm swing direction and corresponding push rod were not. I should have made a change to this when I built it but I followed the directions like an idiot and now I paid for it.