Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
I received my 42% Aerotech Yak kit and wanted to post my pics and thoughts here as I build it. I'll probably end up posting more questions than answers, but hopefully this will be helpful for others. I know that there's another extensive thread already here on a Yak build, but everyone has there own issues, opinions and tips when they build so it should be worth another thread anyway.
Three giant boxes showed up on my doorstep just after Christmas (they wouldn't have fit under the tree anyway). One box was mostly foam, with the wing & stab cores, and some wood. The other box had foam for the fuse, and more wood. The third box was just the canopy and some other misc. parts.
Unfortunately, upon unpacking I discovered that a number of parts were missing from the kit. This was pretty frustrating, but an email to John at Aerotech yielded another box on my doorstep the next morning. So while it was disappointing, the customer service response was excellent!
Also, some of the wood was less than perfect, as you can see by looking at the balsa sheeting. Additionally, the sheeting was not trued, so this took me an hour or so to true up the sheets before I could start the wing skins.
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
I used Elmer's carpenter glue to put the sheeting together. First was to lay the sheeting on a flat surface, and scarf joint the sheets together to get the length required for the wing. You need to do this for four sheets for each side of each wing panel (so a total of 16) extended length sheets.
After the panels were glued and taped, I put some magazines on them to hold them flat on the board.
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
While waiting for this stuff to dry, I started on the fuse. The laser parts look great. One of the things you need to do with laser cut parts though is to sand off the "laserburn" so you can get a good glue joint. I found a popsicle stick with sand paper was just perfect for the former cutouts for the stringers.
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
The motor box/wing tube structure forms up quickly and pretty easily. I found that a few of the ply parts were slightly bowed, but this shouldn't matter as you can straighten them as you glue the stringers in. Also, this plane has a really beefy gear plate structure. You could probably reduce some weight here by swiss-cheesing the parts, but then you'd have to be sure that EVERY landing you made was PERFECT! You can see that the fuse formers have been already swiss-cheesed with the laser, this looks cool and definitely helps to reduce weight as well.
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
Now I'm scarfing together the bass wood stringers to get the length of the fuse. It's a little wierd, because the scarf joint on the plans is right where the side of the fuse starts to angle in toward the tail. So when you cut the joint, it can't be a straight scarf joint; you've got to take into account the angle of the fuse as well. I think I'll probably laminate some 1/32 ply to the joint just to be sure it won't fail.
Posts: 45
Joined: 6/29/2003 From: lusby,
MD, USA Status: offline
ha pete cant wait to see your new yak this season . i will be watching your thread they look to be real nice planes when there finished . well good luck with the build. john morisi
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
More work on the fuse. Had a couple of issues. First, the wing socket caps didn't fit on the fuse. First the cap was too wide to fit through the slot in former F-3, so I had to cut a small notch in it to get it to fit. I thought maybe I hadn't lined it up correctly, but it lined up perfectly with the wing tube. Anyone else have this issue?
The other issue with the socket cap was that the front of it didn't mate up to former F-2. The reason for this was because F-2 was bowed, so I had to bend it straight to meet the wing cap. After bending it, it lined up perfectly with the plans to be square.
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
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The other issue I had tonight was with ST-1 plate, which is in the tail of the fuse. I'm presuming that it just glues between the bass wood top stringer, and the balsa bottom stringer (at least that's the way it looks on the plans). I thought it would be better to glue this in place before the fuse sheeting.
But with the plate resting on the bottom stringer (the bass wood one) the plate appears to be about 4mm (1/4" too wide to fit between the stringers. Do I shave some off the plate, or do I notch out one of the stringers so it will fit? Not sure what to do here, because if I change the positioning of the plate, that would change the location of the stabs. Maybe 4mm isn't enough to worry about?
Posts: 130
Joined: 3/9/2004 From: Forest,
VA, USA Status: offline
I doubt it. I'll probably sweat out the year in Advanced, since everyone's saying the Unlimited sequence is easier than the Advanced sequence this year. Are you flying Unl? Going to the JR Challenge?
And hey, it's ASS. N.E.R.D. - not the other way around! So get it right!
Posts: 674
Joined: 9/29/2003 From: Whitestone, NY, USA Status: offline
I have flown both. I do not think the Advanced is harder then the Unlimited. I cannot see why people feel that this years advanced is any harder the past years.
I don't think I will be able to make the Challenge due to work.
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Yet Another Yak! - 
too wide to fit between the stringers. Do I shave some off the plate, or do I notch out one of the stringers so it will fit? Not sure what to do here, because if I change the positioning of the plate, that would change the location of the stabs. Maybe 4mm isn't enough to worry about? 
