tschuy

My Feedback: (1)

If you hadn't seen it yet there is a ton of good information at this link: http://www.gettingairborne.com/air.html

tschuy

My Feedback: (1)

If you hadn't seen it yet there is a ton of good information at this link: http://www.gettingairborne.com/air.html

SeamusG

FT6 - here's a good reference site about "many things RC" - it's called AirfieldModels

Good reading

FlyingTgr6

Just read through the section titled "The Basics of Everything". Loved it...lol He's very strait forward...I like that.

Hydro Junkie

I just read the Q&A section on Airfieldmodels.com about solder clevises and found his descriptions and techniques a little lacking. There are other ways to solder on a clevis that will work better than what he described and be stronger as well. One thing I would suggest, if you use a solder clevis, is to use it only on one end of the pushrod. If you use them on both, you take the risk of not being able to adjust the control surface as needed after the rod is installed

SeamusG

Hey Hydro - don't leave us hanging. Please share "other ways to solder on a clevis that will work better than what he described".

Thanks for sharing ...

Hydro Junkie

What I would do is after his suggestion of sanding is clean everything with alcohol, apply flux and then pretin both the clevis AND the wire. You can then heat the two and get a good bond with only adding solder as needed to fill the gaps. Pretinning assures a good bond between the solder and the metal parts as you can see how the solder actually bonds to the parts and allows reworking as needed prior to assembly, something not taken into consideration in the Q&A. Something else not mentioned is that you need to use silver solder, not plumbers or electrical solder. I also didn't see mentioned anything about how big of iron to use. I wouldn't use one smaller than 50 watts for any soldering project of this kind. To use smaller could mean possible cold joints or voids due to uneven heating. Something else that will cause cold joints is having a fan or A/C unit blowing in the area. This will cool the solder too fast and cause the solder to be uneven and pitted. I hope this is enough to show what I was referring to about lacking

SeamusG

Hydro - excellent post.

It's goin' in my BP file (best practices) ...

Thx.

Admiral052

I am planning on recovering my SIG LT-40 after the summer and this is my scheme below. I know it doesn't exist for this type of plane but hey we make our planes what we want! Also something else to think about in your build is converting the wing attachment over to bolt on wings. I hate using the rubber bands. I plan on converting it also. There is a great post on doing this will lots of advice and guidance on how they did it.

tschuy

My Feedback: (1)

Mind sharing the post link on how they converted to bolt on wings?

SeamusG

Here's one Link

FlyingTgr6

Getting the miter box today (aluminum, instead of plastic), so I should be ready to work on this some more this weekend.

acdii

www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10988782/tm.htm

Here is a thread where I did the bolt on wing using the dowels that come with it and 1/4" plywood. Its pretty strong, already smacked teh wing into an obstacle that required repairs and no damage to the fuse or wing at the pins. Snapped the nylon bolts as it should too. Some good pics, Ican get more if you want.

FlyingTgr6

I redid the vertical stab this weekend and got the horizontal stab done. The rounded leading edges turned out better than I thought they would. It's a learning experiance, but it seems to be turning out just fine. Since I don't have a motor or servos yet, I'm thinking that I'm going to continue on to the wings. Any tips out there before I start?

Won't let me upload pics for some reason, I'll have to try again later.

fix-n-fly

My Feedback: (1)

I like the covering design for the plane. For what it is worth, I would not make the leading edge of the wing a dark color - it will be difficult to see when landing.

SeamusG

On the covering scheme. It will look great on the setup table but not so great during flight. The white wing top will almost totally disappear. The black leading (as pointed out earlier) will make landing tough as the LE will disappear - especially if there is any kind of back drop at your field. What's the plan for the bottom?

tschuy

My Feedback: (1)

Follow the instructions carefully and make sure your building board is flat. No sags or warps as they will be built into the wing. I take a 48" steel ruler and place it length wise from one end to the other to check. I place a desk lamp behind the ruler and check for gaps of light coming from the edge in contact with the table top. If Isee light then its time to make adjustments or replace the table. I build from solid core doors bought at HomeDepot or Lowes.

SeamusG

FT6 - Just make doubly sure that the Dihedral Root Gauge is nicely marked so that the root ribs are at the proper angle for dihedral and that the seam made by the two wing half root ribs are nice and tight. Easier to fix the alignment during the build of the wings rather than when you put them together and there is a gap that needs some "quality personal time" to get right.

Have you decided what modifications, if any, you're going to make? Huh?

Convert to a bolt-down-wing?
Convert electronics from a single aileron servo to dual aileron servos?
Convert to a tail-dragger? (this will really load up the tail with a bunch of weight that will need to be compensated for with firewall lead.

The initial build of my LT-40 was "by the book". If flew fine. I mod'ed it as a tail dragger, bolt down wing and dual aileron servos. Since then it has been returned to a tri-cycle gear - better for the newbie on training night.

Have you been tracing your pieces on paper before assembly? If not, start now. Iuse the paper-side of freezer paper. The paper will last a very long time and it's on a roll so that you can trace any and every part without needing to tape paper pieces together. Easy to store by rolling it up and inserting into a mailing tube (or the tube that comes with film covering).

Note:the only issue with the SIG-provided main landing gear wire - it bends (splays out)on most landings. You might consider a flat aluminum one like Great Planes Dural gear.

acdii

it is amazing how adding a 1/2 ounce tail wheel equates to 4 ounces of lead in the nose.  Of course the heavy main landing gear didnt help much. 

acdii

This plane is awesome!  Mine has an OS52 on it, and now that it is dialed in, the plane performs great.  Last night was a bit on the windy side, 17 MPH winds, storm coming through, and had just rained. What looked like clear skies was deceptive, it was clear over our heads,  so I fired up the motor and did my checks, and took off. 

Admiral052

Thanks for that tip, I am kinda of a new flier and didn't realize that. Back to the drawing board? lol

To John the plan for the bottom of the wing would be the Red color . I did read about using two different colors top and bottom to spot the difference. Currently the plane looks like this below but I want to learn covering an conversion and figured this would be a great plane to do it with. It also already has the dual servo aileron setup. I was also thinking about the tail dragger conversion but I may keep it the tri set up since my new stick will be a tail dragger. Its interesting you mentioned the landing gear wire problem since in training mine has splayed out which I just fixed. Can you make a twoer recomendation for a solid replacement size for it? Would I just bolt this on in place of the current gear or do I need to modify the area to take it?

SeamusG

052 - be careful with using solid colors - it's not just the color that differentiates the surfaces it's also how they absorb / reflect light. When red is in the shade (plane flying upright) it will look gray, probably dark gray When a solid white wing is in the shade (plane flying inverted) it will look gray, probably light gray. Will it be easy to recognize the difference?

Things that visually differentiate the top from the bottom are recognizable graphic images - recognizable at the distance you are flying the plane. Trainer? The means you will typically fly 3 Mistakes high. What can you recognize at that height? Also, beginners typically (not always) fly farther away from the flight line than more experienced fliers (aka flying up and away). Visualization pretty much depends on the pilot's flying skills:

[*]Newbie flier - Graphics better be bold because the newbie is reacting to "what the plane does" - react mode.[*]Intermediate flier - smaller graphics as you are no longer flying as high or as far out (from the pilot station) as you were as a newbie and the intermediate flier is flying at or ahead of the plane but there are times when he gets behind the plane (react mode again)[*]Advanced flier - whatever turns you on as you are flying totally in front of the plane and no longer need visual images to confirm the plane's orientation.[/list]Btw - right or wrong - you will get an opportunity to recover your trainer, probably more than 1 time more. So you can afford to do different things.

Oh, you might just go to the field, kick back, and see how well you can or cannot "see" various covering schemes inflight.

Admiral052

Thanks john for that breakdown on colors, I will pay attention to that next time I am at the field. Now that I think about it I have a hard time telling the colors in the air of my plane, but never had a problem with what my plane was doing or the direction.

Can you answer the other question I posted since you would know best.

Can you make a tower recomendation for a solid replacement size for it? Would I just bolt this on in place of the current gear or do I need to modify the area to take it?

acdii

If you are asking about the main landing gear, you would be better off making them from wire instead of trying to retrofit a packaged one, unless you do convert to a TG. The nose gear offset would be too low with the packaged LG and you would need to replace that too. I got a Dubro main for mine, but its a good 1-2" taller than the stock gear.

Admiral052

Thanks Acdii, would I need to reenforce the area for mounting this if I was taking off the wire gear and putting this gear in place? I have no problem replacing the front wire and installing these parts.