NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build

NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (Full Version)

All Forums >> [RC Airplanes] >> Twin & Multi Engine RC Aircraft

Message

alqwad -> NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/6/2006 10:58:29 PM)
Hello all- Stumbled upon this OV-10 from NitroModels a week or so ago and decided to give it a try. I looked through the forums and saw pretty positive things to say about the ARFs from NitroModels, but not too much on the OV-10. On another RC forum site, I dd see a thread where someone built the NM Bronco, but as an electric. He too had nice things to say about the plane, but I wanted to go the glow powered route. I ordered the plane from http://www.nitroplanes.com on the 30th of August. I received it today, the 6th of September. I decided to go with two AP .15 Yellow Jackets for power, Hitec HS-55s all the way around and a Hitec Electron 6 Receiver. I had originally considered two Magnum 30 four strokes for power, but opted not to for potential weight issues. I think the sound and power with the four strokes would have been great, plus I'd get to run a bit larger prop or a 3 blade style to keep the stand off scale look. After receiving a few more items later today, I'm pretty much set to begin my build. I'll be documenting it here in future posts. Wish me luck.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/7/2006 3:59:11 AM)
First impressions... The plane arrived via FedEX, double boxed with no damage. Shipping from CA to FL was around 20 bucks. The inner box is labeled and has a NM sticker attached to it. The packaging was excellent. Each main component was double wrapped (thin foam layer removed for pictures). All items appear to have no damage. I elected to go with the military schemed plane and was happy to see that it was counter shaded with a gray underside. The covering job seems pretty nice, just needs to be tightened up a bit. My plane is actually covered with a white covering material and then spray painted with the camo scheme. It has a nice flat finish, but I'm worried that the paint may not be fuel proof. I'd hate for the pretty nice finish to run or fade. We'll see... Most of the formers in the twin pods and the main body appear to be laser cut and fairly well reinforced. The booms have a fair amount of sheeting that runs their lengths. I don't believe that the firewalls are fuel proofed, but I'll make sure that they are when complete. The engine cowls are fiberglass and appear to be pretty strong. The main body fore and aft caps appear to be made from a lexan type of plastic. The main body is also very large, providing plenty of room for steering servo, battery and receiver. The added room should also help for CG issues with lots of room to move things around. I think I'll go with a small 6.0 volt pack since I'll be running 9 servos total. That's right, 9 micro servos. (2) Throttle, (2) Aileron, (2) Rudder, (2) Elevator, and (1) for Nose Gear Steering. The Throttle and rudder servos mount in each outer pod. The throttle is basically right beside the fuel tank (one in each pod) and should be an easy setup. The rudder servo is mounted right beside the throttle servo and the control rod runs the length of the pod to the rear. A pushrod tube is provided and already installed for this. The elevator servos mount in the inboard rear of each pod and have direct linkage to each end of the control surface. The steering servo mounts directly behind the nose gear inside the main body. The main wing is a one piece design that appears to mount to the airframe in three places on the trailing edge over the two pods and main body. The control surfaces are complete with CA hinges that just need to be glued in to place. I was initially concerned with the size and weight of the engines for this project. I was afraid that the 30 four strokes would just be too big and that I'd have hack up the cowl to get them in. I was also afraid that they would weigh too much. I opted to go with the AP Yellow Jacket since it is very light and very small. One of the advantages of the AP engine is the muffler setup. The muffler is tiny and I hope to be able to divert the exhaust out of the cowl in a symmetrical fashion. The APs will certainly fit completely within the engine cowls and I may even be able to get them in without having to invert them. My only concern now is that after seeing the overall size of the airplane (much bigger than I had anticipated) I hope that my power selection is powerful enough. Additionally, I am going to try to use a 3 bladed propeller. To achieve the scale proportion of the prop to the airframe a 10 inch diameter would be best. I tried a MA 7x4 3 blade that the AP will swing at 12000 after only seven break in runs. It's slightly smaller that I'd like for looks, but form will have to take a backseat to function here. I think they'll have enough pop to do the job, but the jury is still out... With the engines broken in, I'll begin assembly tomorrow.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/8/2006 3:39:54 AM)
Well, did a mock assembly to get a basic idea of the parameters and assembly of the kit. Looks pretty good so far. A few things that I noticed that I hadn't really realized before... The booms and the center pod are not connected in any way other than the wing. Duh... I guess it never really occurred to me that this would be the case. I have seen some multiple boom planes that have a center section of the wing that is attached at all times keeping the main fuselage pieces intact. The twin booms will only be permanently attached by the horizontal stab at the rear of the aircraft. Great care will have to be taken when removing or replacing the wing so that the horizontal stab / vertical stab bond is not broken or disturbed in any way. Additionally, ALL of the wiring to the booms (throttles, elevators and rudders) will have to be run through the wing. The wing has three holes cut on the underside to facilitate this. This is going to be a wiring nightmare and once I have the wing in place, I don't think I'll be taking it off unless absolutely necessary. I have decided to ditch the .15 two stoke engine idea. Like I had mentioned before, the plane is larger that I had anticipated. The props for that application could only be 7-8 inches max and the 3 blades 7x4 prop looked plain silly when I held it up against the cowl to get an idea of how it would look. I got on tower last night and ordered two Magnum 30 four strokes like I had originally planned on going with. TRUST your instinct... I had them over nighted to me so they should be here tomorrow so I can proceed with my build this weekend. We'll see if Tower and UPS come through. The max prop size for the Magnums is 11 inches or so (according to the manual). I could not find a 10 inch 3 bladed prop with a small enough pitch to conform to the one down on diameter or pitch rule. Most of them on tower were in the 10x7 or 11x8 range, I think. I remembered that a friend of mine had a Mustang PTS by Hanger 9 that had a 10.5x4 3 bladed prop. I decided to give a few of those a try. I know it may end up making me a bit slow, but at 3 dollars each I can't go too wrong. Maybe, once the engines get nice and broken in, I can go with something higher pitch wise with a slightly narrower blade to boot. We'll see... As for the covering, it tightened up nicely with a little low heat from my heat gun. Also, I cut a small piece of the painted canopy and squirted a bit of nitro fuel on it and let it sit for a while; looks to be pretty fuel proof. So far, so good.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/8/2006 9:24:14 PM)
I LOVE Tower Hobbies... They came through with flying colors. Promised today and delivered. Now I have everything I need to assemble from start to finish. Got the Magnum 30s, the props and glow plugs. The pictures show the Evolution 3 bladed props, but I'll be breaking in with 2 bladed MA 9x5 props and will probably stick with them for the first few flights. With these new little engines, I'll need all the RPMs I can get. I plan on working the remainder of today and try to have it in the air Sunday. More to follow...

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/10/2006 5:18:26 AM)
Got a good bit done this afternoon. Began by finishing the main wing. Not much to say about this step. Pretty straight forward. The supplied CA hinges don't wick very well, so be careful and make sure you give the control surfaces a tug when you finish. After that I assembled the horizontal and vertical stabilizers. I like to use my drill press to drill holes for horns, so I'll wait to CA those in until after the booms are joined and servos are installed. The cut outs for the horizontal stab (in the verticals) were a perfect fit. Pretty nice. In the pictures, you'll see an aluminum bar that is joining the two booms. I was concerned that while working on the plane, I might tweak the joint where the tails fit into the booms. Since the two booms are only held together by the H stab, I added the bar for extra security while building. The only real issue throughout this build thus far are the servo cutouts. The cutouts themselves are very nice laser cut outs. The wood is a light ply and seems to be fairly strong. There is; however, a little recess on one end of the cut out that seems to be a relief for the wire to fit through when installing the servos. Problem is, when you go to screw the servo in there is no wood under the screw location. To fix this, I have been using thick CA and placing a small piece of light ply under the servo tray to attach the servo firmly. This is getting old though. Again, I don't know why it was done that way, considering the effort that went in to doing it. On to engine mounting. No problems here, just time consuming. I promised myself that I would not mess with the cowls and just focus on building leaving the details for later. Wrong... I got started working on the cowls and before I knew it they were finished. But again, I spent alot of time working on them. I did come up with a new way (for me at least) of doing precise cuts on the cowls. I mounted a dremel bit in my drill press, raised the press table to the right height and just moved the cowl around to make my cuts. It was nice, since I didn't have to hold the dremel I could just focus on the fine movements of the cowl. Also, I found a neat way to make just about perfect circles in the cowls for the thrust washer. When I started hacking on the opening, it was no bigger than a dime. Now is about the size of a half dollar and pretty freakin' round. I took a tube that was about the same radius as the hole I wanted, wrapped sandpaper around and went to work. The results were pretty good, for me at least. I also, cut out the little vent holes at the top of the cowl. The canopy was pretty simple to cut out and I liked how the rear of the canopy overlaps the wing joiner area covering the joint and dowel. If I continue tonight, I should have no problem getting up in the air tomorrow. Wish me luck.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/10/2006 5:23:24 AM)
Additional photos.

Darren D. -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/10/2006 5:33:18 AM)
Looks Good! great job. Let us know how she flys. Darren

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/11/2006 5:06:28 AM)
Thanks Darren. Well, got off to a late start today and since it was going to be raining all day, I just kinda worked on and off instead of making a point to finish it all today. I did manage to get the majority of my radio programming done today. I'm going to be using my JR9303 transmitter and a 7 channel receiver. Here's the channel breakdown: Two throttles on two separate channels (9303 has a neat twin function that allows for independent throttle management and throttle curves for each engine), rudders and nose steering on a single channel with daisy chained y connectors. two ailerons on two separate channels for flaperon / spoileron function, and two elevator channels (two servos mated on separate channels so I can move the elevator evenly from both sides with no twisting or binding). Mounting the nose gear was a pain, but got it all done. Should have it done in the next few nights for sure.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/14/2006 12:16:03 AM)
Build thread is still alive, just a bit bogged down. All is well, just trying to find time between work and my laziness. I'll make some progress and begin the chore of wiring soon. Stay tuned, more to follow.

JRAllen -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/15/2006 12:18:02 AM)
GREAT!!!!! I am so happy I found this forum. I ordered my OV-10 Bronco from NitroModels today. I really love the looks of the red and black. I will be tuning in everyday to see how yours turns out. Those 30 4 strokes should sound awsome. Thanks for the idea!! Jamie

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/15/2006 12:59:42 AM)
Thanks. I think the solid colored bronco may have been a better choice. The paint over the covering is just hard to keep from peeling or cracking. I don't think any surface prep was done since the surface under the paint is pretty shiny. If this little guys turns out to be a good flyer, I may consider recovering it. Overall, so far, pretty nice. Most of the fit and finish is good. I ended up going with 8 channels instead of the 7 like I mentioned before. I wanted separate rudder control since the servo tray / push rod didn't jive with my plan. Also, I'd recommend mounting the elevator servos with the out-drives pointed toward the nose and also to use long servo arms to get the proper linkage setup and mech advantage. Should have it ready to go for this weekend.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/16/2006 8:25:24 PM)
Still making progress. Got the throttles, fuel tanks and lines installed. I used dubro 6 oz tanks mounted on their sides. Also used sullivan gold rods (flexible) wire for throttle pushrods. I tried to keep the linkage for both sides as symmetrical as possible, but it's not a HUGE deal since I have the twin engine throttle curve setup on my radio. I mounted the throttle servo in the left pod a bit further inboard than designed. Again this was to keep my linkage as close as possible. Also, I used a few Tetra Products fuel dots similar to the ones I use in my gassers. Basically, all I need to do now is mount the canopy, attach the nose gear linkage and secure the battery and receiver. I ended up using 6 24 inch extensions coming from the pods. 3 each for the left and right side throttles, elevators and rudders. Additionally the elevators have 18 inch extensions on each of them bringing the leads to the front of the pods. The ailerons each have 18 inch extensions extending their leads. One 6 inch extension for the steering servo and a y harness combining the right rudder channel and the steering servo. All in all 11 extensions totaling 222 inches or 18.5 feet. Ridiculous. This wing will definitely stay on once finally installed. Working on engine break in. The only thing that sounds better than a four stroke is a pair of them !! Check the link to the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2DPcygW30

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/17/2006 4:54:00 AM)
Well the Bronco flies...[:D] For a while...[>:] Got it out to the field to do the maiden. Not with out a few problems to begin with. The the nose gear steering arm rubbed the inside of the nose cone pretty badly. The instructions say to trim off the two outer holes, but even that doesn't do. Has to be shorter. I made mine fit by really filing it down. Got it everything put together and it balance right on the CG, about 2.5 inches from the leading edge. I was worried that my engine choice may have been too heavy to balance, but no problem. Plenty of room in the main pod to move things around without adding unnecessary weight. I didn't get an all up weight, but I'd say at least six pounds or so. A little porker. Probably a pound of extensions alone!! Got the engines to sync up pretty good and I was making in the 11000 RPM range on the ground. 9x5 two bladed prop, only about 30 minutes of tun time on the engines. Idle was reliable, although high, but it will come down in time. Decided to take her airborne and taxied into position. Pushed the throttles forward and airborne in about 15-20 feet or so. Nice climb out, plenty of power and flew nicely, not too heavy. These engines just sip fuel and with 6 oz. tanks there is plenty to go around. Flew a few circuits checking on each pass to make sure I had decent smoke trails on both engines. Looking good... Began to get pretty confident although the paint scheme I chose was hard to see. Full power passes about 25 feet off of the ground sounded and looked great. I was bout 200 feet up in a wide open hard bank and everything went to crap in a hurry. I said uh oh and oh boy a few times and my friends could tell I was in trouble. It was not a dumb thumb situation, but it would certainly turn out to be my fault... You see, I had been messing with the low speed needle, throttle barrel and throttle arm on my engine. The engine was mounted and the little set screw / detent that holds the barrel in place was kinda hard to get at. Not only does the screw regulate how far the barrel moves, it also holds the entire thing together. If the screw comes out or gets loose, the entire throttle arm, low speed needle and throttle barrel fall out. Well, it did. Since the engine was mounted, the angle to get my screwdriver in behind the carb was awkward. Instead of getting at it directly, I kind of pushed the screwdriver up from the bottom and turned the screw like you would with a knife. That was fine for loosening it, but I replaced it the same way never fully tightening it. Duh... When we got to the wreckage, it was all to evident. The carb barrel, throttle arm and low speed needle were attached to the throttle linkage and not connected to the engine. The set screw was still attached, but it had backed out pretty far. Far enough too loose its bite. Needless to say, I felt pretty stupid. Total airframe loss although all components including the engines appeared to be fine. Obviously I lost an engine at the worst possible time and situation I could. Full power in a bank and at the time I really didn't know what happened except that I had no control to speak of. Maybe if I had been up at altitude without so much power on... Idunno. This Bronco project has really peaked my interest in twins. Even though I had a tough time in the end, I realize what happened, so I won't really put it away as a bad experience. More of a learning experience, although I already knew better. As far as the plane goes, it's pretty nice. It flew good and about the only thing that I would have done in the future was recover it. I would recommend this plane to those that don't rely on instructions too much and have a bit of patience. Also, I'd recommend one of the other color schemes, not only for contrast and colors, but also so you don't have to deal with the cracking and peeling paint issues. I'll post some pics tomorrow of the carnage. Best of luck with your Bronco if you decide to go with one.

alqwad -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/18/2006 1:39:19 AM)
Here's a picture of the carnage. All components except for the servos made it through unscathed. I had nine servos in all and every single one of them has a broken gear train now. Every one... Hope Tower sells replacement gears!! On well, my inputs on this thread will come to a close now that the Bronco is no longer. I'll stay subscribed to it so if you guys have any questions that I can help with, I'll get the notification. Best of luck with your project. BTW, the Magnums will ride again!![sm=punching.gif]

FallDownGoBoom -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (9/18/2006 6:27:31 PM)
Alqwad: My sympathies on the loss of your Bronco... I totaled mine about this time last year. It's hard when after all the work, there's a crash on the first or second flight.

billdoh310 -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/16/2008 5:58:06 AM)
Sorry to hear about your Bronco. HOw did you like the performance?? Did you think you had enough power with it set up that way? Just curious.... am building mine now, but electric.... Cheers!

FallDownGoBoom -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/16/2008 10:10:25 PM)
Bill: Not sure if you were directing your question to me or Alqwad, but... I had a pair of Thunder Tiger 25's in mine. Power was OK, they got the Bronc off the ground, but I never did get a chance to really figure out their performance. I got in two flights, the first was just cruising around at about 1/2 throttle, the second I did a loop with no problems and then tried a roll... the nose dropped, up elevator couldn't pull it out, and it went straight in from about 75'. I still don't know if I froze on the controls or something jammed, and there wasn't enough left of the OV10 to tell. My Bronco was one of the 44" Rich Uravich models... I think the Nitro Planes version is a little smaller, but I haven't looked for awhile. Good luck with yours. Fred

billdoh310 -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/19/2008 6:18:36 AM)
Fred, Thanks for the reply to my question!!! I haven't gotten mine together yet, but am looking at this kit, and finding that it is not very good with torsion on the booms, just from chekcing it out. I've been stiffening mine with a little bit of "ladder structure" added to it with balsa pieces (I already stripped off the monokote and put more braces into it to look like a crane boom) and that seems to help, but with the inherent design issue of the elevated horizontal structure, I'm not sure if that will be enough. The Nitro Models kit is 48", and it seems that it might be susceptible to locking the elevator if there is enough torque applied from the motor. I have twin electrics power 15's from e-flite, and am thinking I gotta be at least 9x6 for enough thrust to have it perform simliar to scale. I'm going to do quite a bit to it, and will be ready for first flight later this week, and will let you know what I think about it then. I'm actually building this for a guy, but am happy to do it and get to fly it. I've never done an OV-10 before, and while some things about this ARF are cool that they are done, it also has it's drawbacks. I like to build from scratch. Happy Flying! Bill

FallDownGoBoom -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/19/2008 6:39:22 PM)
Bill, I've never seen one of the Nitro OV-10's, so have no idea how they attach the horizontal stab to the vertical fins or run pushrods/cables. On my Bronco I rebuilt the horizontal stab out of 1/4" balsa in a truss structure, but on the each outside edge I used 1/2x1/4 hardwood. Then I drilled two holes in each side and tapped them for #4 threads. Drilled a pair of holes in each vertical fin to match the holes in the stabilizer, then used nylon bolts to hold everything together. The Uravitch model uses a flexible cable running through one vertical fin to control the elevator. After I installed mine I thought there was a lot of friction in this set up, so ended up using two cables (one in each fin) and dual elevator servo's. If I had it to do over, I think I'd figure out a way to mount one of the Hitech low profile wing servo's under the middle of the horizontal stab with a short control rod onto the elevator, then run the servo wire through the inside of one of the fins. I was flying 9x5's and 9x4's on mine. If the Nitro Bronc is a little lighter than mine, I think the E-flight 15's will do OK, not that I'm any kind of electric expert. Fred

billdoh310 -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/19/2008 7:12:22 PM)
Fred, The Nitro Models kit uses two micro servos at the inboard side of each boom, with a rod connecting to each side of the elevator via the horn. I'm really a slope soaring guy for most of my flying, as I live close to several accessible hills for that, and all of them have great views and some of the best slope soaring the US has to offer, so I am still trying to get over the whole power thing, but am working on it with electrics just because they finally have the technology wher it is good enough to peak my interest again. I designed, built, and sold lots of slope soaring planes and kits up until about 10 years ago and actually made a decent living at it for a while, but because of that, I just build things different. I like single elevator controls, but also like the idea of redundancy. I don't like the way they hang servos outside of the airframe on the Nitro OV-10 - that's just stupid to me, but that's what they built and it's an arf so I'm not going to mess with it - yet. I'm gathering from talking to people that have OV-10's that the tail is just another thing to deal with, but almost every Nitro OV-10 person I've talked to says the same thing happened "I was doing something and I went to pull up and it went into the ground", which tells me it is a design flaw of some kind. So, am just trying to avoid the issue if I can, but I may just be thinking way to hard about the airplane. I have 2 60 amp ESC's, 2 4000mah Lipo battery packs (I like to fly for long periods if I can), and plenty of props, but think I'm gonna be flying counter rotating 10x6x3 bladed on the finished airplane. I am only into electrics because I got tired of the mess growing up as a kid with .049's puking all over everything - which is why I got into gliders and slope soaring almost as soon as I learned they existed and I found my home flying spot. I'm also adding flaps to this plane and mixing in flaperons to slow it down and give it a more scale build. Besides, it's easy to do with this kit. We'll just have to see how things work out and again, I'll post in here after the first flight later this week. TTYL! Bill

Norton -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/20/2008 2:37:24 AM)
I'm about to build my NM OV-10. Looking to use at least 400 watts in each nacelle. Instructions say to use 27-350 watt motors but the suggested 400T motor is not 275 watts. I'd like to keep AUW to 7.5 lbs or less but motors in that high watt space are going 6-8 oz each. Unless I got with some ultra expensive AXIs, I may be asking for trouble. Build thread to follow. Hopefully crash thread not to follow.

billdoh310 -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (5/21/2008 3:39:10 AM)
Good Luck Norton!! Hope your build goes smoothly, as mine has been going. Almost done!! Should be flying this Friday, and will post pics if I can. There is an infinite amount of choices for power, so don't fret. Mine doesn't actually weigh that much (about 5.5 lbs so far). We'll have to see about how it handles in the air, and whether or not there are any issues I been worrying about, hopefully worrying for nothing. Bill

billdoh310 -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (6/1/2008 7:18:41 AM)
First flight in: Everything started off okay, but as I got things ready to go the night before, I noticed that the horizontal stab had a slight twist in it after bolting everything together. Even though as I assembled things, I measured everything ( I thought....) It turns out that the horizontal stab is longer than need be, causing a twist as it is stressed after putting everything together. I decided to heck with it, and went to the field that way. Charged everything up, and went the next day to the field. As I set everything up, I couldn't get one of the throttles to work. Apparently a glitch - intermittent connection - dealing with one of the extensions. As mentioned earlier in this thread, there's gotta be at least 15 feet worth of extensions to get this plane wired up anywhere close to right, and that's with Y connectors on almost everything to reduce the number of channels used overall. So, I found it (the problem), shook it around and got things to work okay without any apparent interruptions of service, and charged things up, went back to the field for first flight. Got to the field, turned everything on, preflighted everything, taxied it around for a bit to see if I could make it cough or anything, and finally, went for liftoff! Rotation was easy, plenty of power to spare with lots of battery (2Kmah+ on each motor) and brushless outrunners on it with 10x6's. Got it trimmed and was flying fine, when I was in a left banked turn, and lost control of it about 5 mins into the flight. It basically rolled over to the right, and wouldn't take any control inputs, and crashed into the field. Not much is left of it. After being in this kit for a little while building it, and even being experienced with other types of building (a lot of gliders and more than a few gas powered) I liked the idea of electrics, and once they are set up they're cool. After looking at this kit, both before and after it was in pieces, there's a lot I would've done different. I don't like hanging servos or controls exposed to the outside of the airframe, I don't like using extensions except where necessary, which is everywhere on this airplane, and while I love the OV-10 as a real airplane, this is not an easy ARF kit compared to many of them out there... (20+ hours for an ARF with an experienced builder and other builder's staring at it trying to figure out how??? - c'mon.. there has to be a way short of building a jig to get this airplane square WHILE you are building it, not after. and if nothing else the instructions are weak and misleading) The fact that the kit, while it is well thought out and completely set up in some respects, it is almost completely built eliminating doing things that would make this airplane ROCK!!! If I do it again, it will be in a full kit form, not an ARF, and I might stay electric with it, and it will be built differently than the instructions said to, eliminating most of the headaches I ran into during construction over stupid things - like mounting the landing gear, or running wires (a gazillion of them, it seemed, that you had to fish through here, around that, over that, and out a blind hole) everywhere to make servo connections. I might build it again my way, but at this point I'm gonna have to wait and see. It flew well for about 5 mins, but I haven't heard of anyone having it fly more than once or twice due to issues with the plane itself causing it to crash, so am not sure what is going on with this kit. If I figure it out, I'll let you know..... My initial guess is either the horizontal/elevator twisting under load, or losing a connection (maybe an aileron) because of all the extensions required and not having it worked out right - but that's my fault if that happened, not the airplane's. Truthfully, I should know better, but here I am several hundred later kicking myself for it...... and wondering what the heck happened???? Sound familiar????

FallDownGoBoom -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (6/2/2008 6:05:19 PM)
Bill: My condolences... loosing any plane on a maiden is tough, even if it's an ARF. Especially when you're not sure why it ended the way it did. As for doing another Bronco, your choices (in the small size) are doing another NitroPlanes, buying the ScaleTech ARF from Hobby Hanger, or building from the Rich Uravitch plans/kit, also from Hobby Hanger. I built mine from the kit, which wasn't overly difficult, but not something I'd recommend for a first or maybe even second build. You could probably use the same electric set up on one of these. But I think the only way you'll get away from the servo extension problem is to solder longer leads onto the servos themselves. May 31 must've been mass airplane-expiration-date day this year. We lost three planes and one heli at the field this weekend. Not pretty, and like you said, expensive. At the same time, I know there's a number of RCU folks that have flown their Bronco's for years. Let us know if you start another one. Again, bummer about your crash. Fred

rjbranchii -> RE: NitroModels / NitroPlanes OV-10 Bronco Build (6/17/2008 3:15:22 AM)
Ok, I have a basic question. Has anyone found any posting anywhere of anyone flying this bird sucessfully? I have not been able to and it someone has please share the source so we can go look at it. I am a good builder. I used to build everything scratch and still do one a year or so. But most of what I fly are arfs. For the most part they have been decent. Yea, I change alot in each one. Don't think I ever built one without something different, usually in components. And I'm a good flier. I have gotten to 3D stuff and don't kill things with my thumbs much any more. But I'm questioning if I am even going the build this kit even though I have it and have two motors broken in for it. I don't feel like wasting the time or the servos for something that really just doesn't fly and that is the feeling I am stuck with on this bird right now. Can anyone point us to someone who has flown this thing successfully? bob

Page: [1] 2 next > >>

SITE MAP! : : FORUM RULES

© 2001 - 2007 24-7 RC, LLC, all rights reserved.

0.5629883