sdherington

I just got it in today and will be posting the build over the next few weeks.

I will be using 42% Opto-Gas-Kill, RCG 26cc, 6001MG Servos.

mal75

I've been thinking about buying this plane for some time now. I look forward to your updates on the build.

sdherington

When I carried it in I was surprised that it wasn't double boxed. After I opened it I found out there was no need. The only packaging that would be better is a plywood crate.

I did my inspection and found no damaged parts, The covering is tight and just about every inch of the seams are ironed down solid. I will still go over it but it sure makes things alot easier without having to fight the covering.

I looked it all over and while there are a few elements that are different and not necesarily scale ( landing gear, wing roots) this ARF is built pretty well. I will do my normal thing and paint the stress points with epoxy.

The majority of the wood is light ply, even the wing ribs. This seems to be built SOLID.

I have a Hanger 9 40 size Pawnee that has been in the air for a little over a year that I may make some comparisons too.

sdherington

Here are some fuselage pics. There are enough Pre-cut switch holes to handle just about any configuration you can think of. I read the instructions through and have done some rough figuring. The engine mounting calls for 130mm to the prop. Mine is 167 to the end of the standoffs. I am either going to have to machine new standoffs or move the firewall back. I will probably machine the new standoffs. My engine is rear carb so the firewall will be opened up so that it fits through. THe back of my muffler is at 135mm so I will have to address that also. I am leaning to putting a smoke system running through spray bars so that may end up being a mute point. There is already cavernous opening under the deck to mount can mufflers in.

Read more: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_97...#ixzz0o0uIIqNk

sdherington

Not much progress to report.
The stabs are mounted and I put the switches in. I assembled the gear and put an aftermarket tail assembly on. It looks better than the stock one and I will be able to mount a tow release on it.
I did a rough assembly of the whole plane but didn't take pictures. I will put it together again after I mount the elevators and rudder.
One note the will be a bear to get used to is the wing mounting bolt locations. They are in a pretty prcarious location. You will see when I post the next set of pictures.
The servo mounts in the wing are awesome. Not just a block of balsa to be epoxyed onto a hatch but full surround light ply frames with braces. It even has the screw holes in the hatch already so you don't have to fiddle with laying them out.

I am really looking at putting a spray system on it and have read quite a bit from here. Has anyone ever used Fog Juice that is used in theater or concerts?

More later

mal75

Thanks for the update . It looks like a pretty nice kit from the pics.

PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

I spoke to kevin-I am picking one up tomorrow-I cannot wait

sdherington

I worked on the wings tonight and here are some pics. I use Chapstik to coat the hinge points so Epoxy won't penetrate them. I keep a cotton swab wet with alcohol for quick clean up of any flash.
I had to do some whittling and sanding to get the servos to go into the mounts.

sdherington

Here are some more pics. You can see the ply and fiberglass spar on top of the wing. You can also see the wing bolts in the root rib. I hope to have more tomorrow night. I did have to trim the elevator and rudder hinges because the packets were a little shallow. The stab core is plywood and being glued it is almost impossible to dig out.
More to come.

PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

I got mine today-drove up and met Robert-great guy and beautiful airplane-nice job and be great for giant electric -it is really light and the lazer cutting and the fit is top notch and not one wrinkle in the covering !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sdherington

Well I got all the servos mounted this weekend. The control rods are a little long. I had to cut the elevator rods off a little more than an inch. The ones on the flaps may need to be cut but I will work on those after I get the insides done. The pull-pull system on the rudder worked out great and I like the way the turnbuckles are made and will have to remember them. I went into two of the Hobby City servos and reversed them so I would not have to install reversers on the elevators and flaps. I took about 5 minutes each. I bought a power buss from Servo City and got it made this weekend also. That will take the load of my receiver. I am installing 6v 2000 ma NIMH from Tenergy for power. I have had them on my charger doing the form most of the weekend. I know that some people say you don't have to do this step but I prefer to. I am getting about 2200 ma on them and the hold a constant 1A dischage for about 80 minutes the they kick up to 1.5 for about 20. The curves look great.

I will take some more pictures and post them tomorrow. I will do a comparison to my Hanger 9 Pawnee side by side. I can already tell that this one is not going to porpoise like the H9 because the wing and stab have the same incidence.

More later

sdherington

Well here are the pictures I promised. You can see the difference between the Hanger 9 Fuse and the Texas RC. I cut the canopy down and stuck it on for reference. I will order a 1/4 or 1/3 scale pilot for it. There is plenty of room. Anyone have any suggestions for mounting the fuel tank and smoke tank. There is a cross member on the CG which is where I normally mount a smoke tank. Has anyone ever thought of mounting the tanks sideways? I was thinking of using boat tanks and stacking them.

sdherington

I have made a little progress the last few days. I got the engine mounted. It was major surgery to cut the hole in the bulkhead large enough to get the carb through it. I machined new standoffs that were 22mm shorter in order to get the backplate in the right location. For those of you that don't care to hog a hole in the firewall I would recommend using the SPE 26. I spent a couple of days figuring out how to do the carb linkage but as you can see I came up with a plan that I think is pretty workable. Almost all of the engine will tuck into the cowl nicely. The only holes I will have to cut are a small clearance hole for the plug boot and the hole for the muffler.

If you look back at the earlier pictures you will see that there are no stripes on the rudder. I took them off because they were about 6mm out of position. The blue and black ones came off easily with a little heat from my trim iron. The red ones required a little more aggresive touch and I deystroyed them in the process. I had to use Trim solve to get residue off but it cleaned up nicely. Never fear I had some red that matches pretty close and all has been fixed now and it looks pretty good. I have always had trouble with any color red Monokote. It just seems to perform totally different from other colors, ie temp, stretch, and etc.. I did note that the paint on the cowl is a different shade but that really doesn't detract from the overall apperance.

Structurally this seem real sound. In all my man handling I have not popped one joint. I am getting excited about getting this jewel in the air. Having grown up on the farm in West Texas I have very fond memories of crop dusters and thier lumbering grace as they dodged high line wires and turned on what seemed to me a dime then skimmed across a field at head level.

I have come up with an idea for a smoke system that I can route through the spray bars for the full effect but that will be worked on after I get a few flights on this bird.

SO far guys I have very few complaints on this bird. I have built quite a few ARF's and this is one of the better ones and it isn't even a "Name Brand". I am pleased with the value for the money.

I would like to hear from PLANE JIM on how his is going. I am not an electric guy (they just don't sound or smell right but that is just me) but I am very interested in how you are going to work things out.

sdherington

Well I got all of the motor components mounted this morning. I have installed a choke rod that is accessible through the right air hole in the cowl. I did this same proceedure on my Baby Edge and it has worked out great.

Texastbird

Love that G.S. "ARF" with his landing lights on!! Beautiful covering job!

sdherington

Yea he is at my feet pretty much most of the time.

PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

no electric here either-I got a G-26 EI-I am going to install-I am in the process of converting an old storage shed that has a concrete floor that is 18X18 into my hobby room-the pawnee is still boxed up although I have got my flight pack and switches together I am putting smoke in mine and just recently picked up a sullivan skywriter and was planning on brazing a brass tube system on the underside for plumbing

sdherington

Good to hear from you Jim. I have mine finished and will be patiently waiting for the winds to die down for the maiden. I am working on a smoke "spray" system for mine. I have used some aluminum tubing to wrap around the muffler for a heat exchanger. I will probably use Bennets pump and valve for mine.

sdherington

I couldn't wait any longer. Here is a pic of the finished plane after 4 flight today. The maiden was exciting to say the least. I had an 8+ mph cross wind and found out that even with the wide dumpy fuse the rudder is very commanding. After getting a good trim on it and getting it back on the ground took the rates down ALLOT. 1/4 on the ailerons, 3/8 on the elevator, and about 1/2 on the rudder. These made it very flyable.
I did 4 more flights and a few touch-n-go's.
Landing takes about 1/3 throttle until just before touchdown. The flaps are neat but not needed. It settles in great.
Takeoff's are smooth and scale. The landing gear is great on our rough field. The screws in the tail gear popped out or I would have flown more.
I would recommend putting a 30 to 35cc motor in this one. Maybe my 26 need more time to break in so I will keep that in it for the time being. I will geve everybody an up date after a couple of gallons are through it.
All in all I am pleased with this aircraft.

vita-40

Great looking plane! I had a rcguys aggwagon it flew well but was not built strong and the covering was a mess.I think i will buy the texas rc this time.i am aboute over my crash of the aggwagon.It seems fron the pictures that the texas rc has a lot of engine down thrust.Mabe just my interpatation of the picture.Again a great looking plane.Thanks for sharing.I'm thinking of using a zenoa 26 magneto engine .How did you're c/g come out?
Thanks again vita-40

sdherington

Well guys I have 23 flights on it now and it is getting better. I changed the prop to a 16x8 3 blade. Not only does it look scale but it is flying great. The last flight was fun to say the least. I was just tooling around and noticed the engine sputtering a little. At first I thought this was caused by the engine getting close to being completely broken in since I have almost two gallons through it. I came in to land and all of a sudden the plane did a flat turn to the right. I flipped the kill switch since I was headed for the flight line and settled it into the high grass. I checked all of the control surfaces and they were functioning correctly (thinking it may have been a rudder servo or linkage problem).. I reached down to spin the prop so I could drag it back to the stand and it moved side to side. Hmmmmmm! Well I broke it down and defueled it and came on home.
On the work bench I pulled the cowl and immediately saw two broken stanoffs. Off to the machine shop to make some more. I increased the dia. .040" over the factory. Everything is back together and we shall see today.

vita-40

How did the texas rc hold up on the uninvited landing? What engine did you have in it?The sin rate must have been really shallow!Keep us informed.I still haven't gotten mine yet.They say that they are out of stock right now.Thanks for the info.
Vita-40

Up is up and down is expensive!

sdherington

It did great. Only a small hole in the covering. THe most expensive thing was a wheel hub broke so I put Dubro's on it. I have a RCG 26 from Hobby City in it. This motor keeps impressing me and the guys at the field each and every time. I logged another 8 flights on it today. I had the field to myself for about 2 hours with minimal wind. THe last flight was a real tell as to the sturdiness of Texas RC construction. I came in on the last approach and the wind switched directions on me and increased to about 10mph. (Yep Folks We are in TEXAS) Wow, two feet off the ground at idle with full flaps and the wind lifted the outboard wing. Well as you guys can guess it pushed the the downwind wing into the dirt. I flipped the kill switch and watched as it did a kind of flat 360. I was heart broken. I have had arf's do this before and to say the least it usually means MAJOR repairs. Well I walked to the plane and at first glance everthing looked fine. I picked up the tail and swung it around to drag it back to the stand then noticed the right wing had a 1/2" gap at the trailing edge against the fuse. My thought then was wow I poped one of the nylon wing bolts then it was .......how the heck am I gonna replace this? ( Those of you that have this plane or will soon get it know what or will soom find out what I am talking about.
Well I got it back to the stand and pulled the turtledeck and to my surprise the wing bolt is intact. The fuse side glue joint poped. YEA!!!!!!!!!!! About an hours work and I will have this one airworthy again. No damage to the wings. Main wing joiners are solid. THIS PLANE IS A TANK!! When I make the reapir I will run some 1/4" triangle stock at that point and up the sides of the wing joiner tunnel and this really will be a TANK. By the way that was the last of the Oil/fuel mix. I will change over to Amsoil and lower the concentration from now on.

HMMM I wonder what the performance will be like now.

Time will tell.

PS I am working on a smoke spray system for this plane.

vita-40

As they say "don't mess with Texas"! Sounds like it is as strong as it looks.
Up is up and down is expensive
Thanks vita-40

cropduster48

Been watching you guys for a little while. Nice looking plane. I am scratching building a AirTractor 401 B. Power is a DLA 112. 122" wingspan. One of my previous planes was a AirTractor 502. 92" wingspan. I scratch built it too. Flew it for four years. never was a great flying plane, but was a croud pleaser. I changed the 401B from pure scale, to standoff scale. It should fly better.
You guys are doing great, keep up the good work.
Ps. I would use a DLE 30CC engine on your plane. The DLA 30CC engine is a very close rival. The transfer ports in the DLE are a quite a bit better, and more thaught out.