el_xero

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Alright people! Time to wrap this one up!
lets put some clothes on this puppy!



DGrant has a great thread about this exact plane and I blatantly ripped off some of his ideas He knows what I mean.
Had to go at it a couple times before I got it right though ha.

I like to seal my hinge line, (a recommendation from R.N. way back in the day)



Bottoms up and Topsy Turvy ?



So much easier to fit the wing servos with the top covering off
lets break up some of that dazzling white!




It's about to get serious!
This is about where Slick started disliking his dazzler and proposed purchasing mine.. " you don't sell gifts Slick" No that would be um.. rude.



So, I was thinking about getting a nose job the other day aaand.

el_xero

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Blind fold?



naaah

So Slick saw these... and again, the offers were rolling in..Much to the delight of myself and R.N.

Off course we know how that ended. lol



I can tell you, it looks sooo much better in person!

I mentioned earlier about ripping off designs? If you own one of these and built it your self I'm sure you'd recognize
where this scheme came from.. ok ok here I'll show you from the box.

Gee ain't it kinda puuuurdeee?

R.N. Thought up the purple canopy and I re-thought my nose job!



That's it people we're on to the final show down!

el_xero

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Putting it all together


Ya so, canopy glueeee waaaass... um... *scratches head*



Even on the maiden some of this glue had not dried up, and then we flew on a bit of a rainy day and the stuff doesn't like water.
Do this instead get some goop... the blue stuff, not the red shoe goop (trust me). Use some masking tape top and bottom
of your intended glue area leaving just enough of the area you intended to glue put some goop on your finger and run it between
the gap left by your masking tape. Then peel the tape off.. Easy, clean, dries super fast and mega strong! Oh and yup its water resistant too.

Here I'll show you!


Yeah I know canopy glue would be much easier to remove after just by wetting, and goop can be a bit harder. So use goop if you know for sure you've got the bubble in exactly the right place.

el_xero

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All done!
Lets wire it up!

el_xero

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AAAAANNNNDDD SMILE FOR THE CAMERAAA

Aww the Gang's all here!

Everybody say cheezeee!!!







From left to right newest to oldest So you know which one's mine.
The one in the middle is Slick and the All trans red one is R.N.

el_xero

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So Maiden day came!

We got to the field rather late, (as usual my fault this time totally, I was working up till the last minute to get her ready and had to eat and shower and and and you get the idea)

pre-fight posing (well you just saw that bit!) and pre-flight check (had to make sure my balls were in place for this one too!)

Fired it up tuned it up (on the rich side) - I was really worried about that slimline pitts muffler causing a dead stick since I hadn't pinched one of the stingers closed as is recommended
in so many threads about pitts style mufflers. R.N. said we should just try it out and see first. Well it worked out just fine. Loud bugger! like, obnoxiously loud and gargley too (hate it hate it)

Hopefully leaning it out will produce better sounds (next flight)

Take off was.... something out of a Saturday morning cartoon....
You seeeee.... I've got a bit of a eerrr um.. massive rudder? And at the time I had no clue how to dual rate or expo my rudder on my Airtronics RDS8000 (figured it out later)
so I had errr, full deflection on that thing.

(well I did say I wanted to knife edge the bugger didn't I? And very sensitive servo movements to boot!)

ya well

So zig zag and when I got tired of marking up the runway I pulled on the elevator to prevent any more embarrassment

It felt fast!

I've got a 5000mah NiCd (on board glow) in there next to the LiFe Rx pack plus an O.S. .46 FX in this bird (are you catching my drift yet?)

(Slick asked me to pick up the other two dazzlers and then lift mine)

It was like lifting feathers and then on to lead!
My plane is heavy... I've got a scale that goes as far as 5lb.... my plane was beyond that by um... a staggering amount to my eyes!

With a master airscrew 11x5 (going to try the 11x7 at some point) it seems to pick up speed right quickly so I only flew WOT up wind (windy day!)

I even tried knife edge.... epic fail!

Hoping that leaning out the engine and changing the prop might solve that somewhat, otherwise I'd be rather disappointed if I didn't get something that resembled
a knife edge.

And off course Slick was quick to point out

" if we had that rudder on any of our planes? Guarantee it would knife edge"

Thanks Slick, you're always a pal (bundles of sunshine that one )

\\ had me considering removing my on board glow and changing up/down to a .40 size engine there for a moment but this was a maiden!

So I dare to press on!

My first landing was (much to the disappointment of both R.N. and Slick) rather smooth and light, feather like HA!

Take that non-believers!!!

Oh and they thought I'd pancake my "rock" into the ground spread my landing gear (what with all that extra weight and what not!!)
Ha! I showed them!

(you have to understand, that in our mini club, if you can't take a joke.. (okay millions of them) you simply wont survive the three of us haha)

M-eye second landing was not so graceful though, forgetting that I have a heavy plane and letting it slow down like it was a regular dazzler is not so much of a great idea.

It kinda dropped onto the runway

*whistling*

but but buuuuut! My gear never did spread! So there!

(um the tail did bend a little.. but just a widdle bit!)

The third flight was my last of the evening, and wouldn't you know it.... I didn't line up right and was a little off the runway, left wing struck a pole sticking out of the ground hmm about half a foot off the ground.

Spun me round, disconnected my rudder clevise (servo was okay) and bent my tail gear (again)

Took her home water and hot iron to the left leading edge fixed er right up. A little handy work with pliers fixed my tail gear and I'm good to go again!

Well guys that's it!

I hope you enjoyed my little stories and my first building experience as much as I did putting it all up!

I'd like to come back and post some videos hopefully the maiden vid would be good enough to post on here! keep checking in.

On to the GP Revolver rebuild!

Thanks for checking it out!

Special thanks to Slick and R.N. for the donation!
A massive thank you and shout out to DGrant, for his awesome thread on the dazzler build which served as a major source of inspiration and help in my build!
and last but certainly not least
Mega thank you to Gray Beard for being my first Subscriber EVER and joining me on the recap of this journey and pointing me to the Uproar thread!

Well....

That's a wrap!

philakapd

That was fun! Thank you for taking your time and sharing with the community. The Dazzler was one of my first builds. Unfortunately, I lost it down a river...literally.
Your aircraft is beautiful, well done.

Happy flying and clear skies.

-PD

el_xero

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Thanks Glad you enjoyed it! You're welcomed!
Sorry to hear about your dazzler. Getting an other anytime soon?

philakapd

No, my hangar is already full. I'll be too old for the Dazzler when I have the time to build another kit. By then, I will have come full circle and back to the high wing trainers...just larger!

SushiHunter

Wow, very well documented build. It turned out really nice. Also happy to see nitro, these days it's almost rare.

el_xero

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Pilakapd: Sounds like you've been at this quite a long time any threads I can check out to see your stuff?

ShshiHunter: Thanks much, I tried to make it fun, glad you enjoyed! Yes lots of electric going on (I started off in electric my self R.N. Poured fuel on me and now I'm hooked)
going gas soon though glow is just expensive is all but I do love it.

Gray Beard

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Scroll down the thread page and look for the title Great Planes Up-Roar 40 build. It may go to page two by the time you look for it? I have never figured out how to post a threads URL so I can't do it? I'm computer stupid.
Next time you put on a canopy try out the canopy glue and masking tape to hold the canopy down with. Cleaner isn't better though, just cleaner.
You can add the biggest rudder in the world on a short coupled plane and it still won't knife edge well. Ricks Roars all knife edge pretty well. The trick is the weight and CG. They need to be light and CGed way back. Rick was trying for a 3.5 pound weight when fully assembled, he was close. I was shooting for the same weight and almost made it too. Mine is right about there.
I used wood I had on hand and went with standard servos. Just going to a micro servo would really lighten up mine even more but mine is also a free airplane, I used everything I had on hand.
The landing gear is something I had under the bench from my old Up-Roar fun fly days. I was going to make up a lighter set but that feeling left me?
I used carbon fiber cloth inside the fuse at the weak point. The weak point is in the fuse at the back of the wing where it goes through.
I have broke them there from hard spot landings during competition.
If you don't hit things with the plane it should last you a very long time.
I really like the trim pattern you did. I just got lazy and never finished the trim. I'm feeling pretty good today and may go out and do some more trim work before I fire it up.
If I ever build another one I think I will make a turtle deck on it like the Dazzler. I always thought the Dazzler was a much better looking plane but I thought the Roar flew a bit better.
Rick usually posts in his thread when the kit comes up on sale. Hard to skip a full kit for $40.00. As long as I have the templates and plans I don't need a kit though.

el_xero

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Found the thread DGrant posted the link, going to go through it as soon as I get some time! I quickly ran through some of the pages and it looks like a very good read.
Oh I got the canopy down great with masking tape and canopy glue it was fine and solid. No, the problem was, that we went out flying on a rainy day and a little water got onto my plane
The glue went from transparent back to opaque white. That's when I realized I needed to lay goop over it. I'd used goop before on my super sportster and used the masking tape method with fab results.
I Just forgot that I used the goop from the blue tube, I some how thought the red tube and blue tube were exactly the same stuff but they aren't. The blue stuff seems to give you way more time to work with it.
This is why I'm suggesting the blue. I much prefer this to canopy glue though. It easy to work with doesn't run, and I don't need to wait over night or in my case overnight and a couple days for all of it to cure.

R.N. shed some light about the knife edge and short coupled planes to me earlier today as well. It's something he over looked and as he read what you posted a bell went off in his head.
My CG is at about 3 1/2" to 3 7/8" from leading edge that really made for an easy to land plane. I think my issue is my weight with such a large engine and a massive onboard glow battery pack I'm starting
to think It will never actually knife edge at all. Sad... I'll have to see about removing that battery.

Gray Beard

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I would question an on board glow driver too, I have never had to use one on any plane. Of course I was told by the peanut gallery I just had to have one on a ny inverted four stroke? Glad I didn't buy into that thinking but I have had to make the on board system for other people when I built there planes for them.
You keep moving the CG aft SLOWLY until the plane is almost unstable and it will knife edge. Even my competition planes did a knife edge but being so short coupled they didn't do them well.
On my 60 size Kaos I added a much longer fin to the plane and it turned into a knife edging fool. You really needed to know how to work the rudder in a cross wind landing though. It just added some side area to the fuse. There is a photo of that plane in my photo gallery. There is also a photo of my Dirty Birdi and the design of the fuse made it knife edge a lot better then a stock Kaos.
I would start putting your Dazzler on a diet, it will fly a bunch better. It's a pretty small plane to weigh over 5 pounds.

sunnybreeze

Grey Beard, I couldn't agree with you more. That Dazzler has to go on a diet. I need a damn fork lift to get it in and out of my vehicle. Hell I would not even make any attempts to try to hand launch it for fear of having ligaments torn in my arms, fingers, lower and upper back, not to mention toes to keep me balanced during the throw.

The one and only "R.N."

Gray Beard

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Other then my little electric I would never try a hand launch of any of my planes. Last time I did it with a little 1/2A cub the wing blew off.

el_xero

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yeseye: No worries I have a 3.3v LiFe and some diodes I might change up!

or I might put it on an on-board glow fast all together, but given how it's balanced with both packs in the back, I suspect I may need a teeny bit of lead.
Oh man to run all those wires again? We'll see.

As for cross wind landings, Yes I def need some practice in that area. I've had plenty cross wind approaches though. Rudder management on that one is always interesting ha.

He's alright with the hand launching mind you, just makes sure we have plenty of wind and a good hand at the stick haha. I'm so glad he can't do that to mine though haha!

mikey1964

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Dazzler was my first build too. Great flying plane and easy to build. Lost it on a windy day.

DGrant

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Such a cool thead.... Thanks for sharing!.. You're quite the craftsman... and I'm definately learning from your work as well! . Thanks. Have a great weekend. Dale.

DGrant

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...and an FYI... stay tuned to the other Dazzler thread... If you want some knife-edge.. you might want to see the Super-Hots... resererrectected!.. I'll probably put up a few of the "before".. recent takes before major work takes place... I can tell you every plane in the Hots family is known for extreme knife-edge flight... Google them, There's a site that sells plans to most(if not all) versions of the plane.

Its like a free plane to me as I'm restoring it, as I've collected everything that's going in it for the last several years... I'm just putting some resources towards it is all... I've flown that plane alot.. I don't have any idea on how many flights I've had over 24yrs.... there were years I didn't fly it.. there were years I flew the wings and stuff off... but it'll probably look pretty cool.. .. C-ya.

el_xero

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mikey1964: sorry to hear about your loss was it really un-repairable or did you just not feel like restoring? Or perhaps when you say lost it you really mean lost as in couldn't find it anymore?
So goes the story of my super sportster, very sad.

(and I was just getting the hang of it too, R.N. is still mad at me about that one)

We mostly HAVE to rebuild our birds over here.
There's no hobby shop down the road, everything must be ordered in and the cost is by a factor of 5 so we choose carefully and spend a little smarter.

Lots of repairing have happened over the last 9 years lol.
I've even considered browsing though threads and asking around to purchase crashes which seem very repairable to me but mostly ppl just toss in the bin.

Thanks DGrant! That's awesome compliment and all for one build, coming from someone whom I essentially copied haha!!
Yes I'm actually watching your thread almost every other day to see what has gone on!

You're actually making me want to scratch build that super hots you know... really really!

I'm so glad everyone's enjoying this thread. It's going better than I've expected
Thanks for stopping by every one and leaving your thoughts!
Was a true pleasure putting this up!

xero.

mikey1964

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Crashed it pretty bad not repairable, had just built a Sig something extra so not a big deal. Also built a 60 size 300 extra from great planes, started a great planes 40 RV4 and never finished it, maybe some day. Been in the hobbie 20 years and have about 22planes and counting! Still flying glow engines. got my second plane avestar can't throw it out because I still see as a flyable plane with a little work.I havnt done any flying the last couple of years but it is still in my blood. Can't beat that rush you get on takeoff! Lol

el_xero

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Sucks about that crash.
Any pics of that something extra? Did you happen to visit the extra 300 build thread in any forum? there are two which are plenty good with loads of tips. I'm going to go through them when I'm building mine (.40 and .60) as I've got some mods thought up for them already .
That's quite some time in RC man! R.N. is right there with you on those numbers maybe even a bit more, and he's nuts about glow power too.
Avistar was my first plane (gift from R.N.) crashed and rebuilt too many times to count I guess he got tired of seeing me fly a trainer so he dazzeled me up!
I love taking off, but more than that I love a super smooth greaser landing after a very good flight! Main gear first then nose wheel or even main gear and then a tail wheel now that's something to see!

el_xero

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Hello All

So I'm back with the maiden video of the dazzler. I'm looking to add a few more but just this one for now. Apologies for the video quality I really had no control over that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_twXsUEEA&feature=youtu.be

el_xero

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Aaaand this is where it got parked on the stake sticking out of the ground on the second flight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSQw8IoDXs