Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
< Message edited by alqwad -- 9/7/2006 4:00:12 AM >
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
< Message edited by alqwad -- 9/7/2006 4:24:28 AM >
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
< Message edited by alqwad -- 9/8/2006 3:46:02 AM >
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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...
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
< Message edited by alqwad -- 9/10/2006 9:30:48 AM >
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
Posts: 57
Joined: 1/20/2005 From: REIDSVILLE,
NC, USA Status: offline
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!!
Posts: 144
Joined: 9/14/2005 From: Madisonville,
KY, USA Status: offline
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.
< Message edited by alqwad -- 9/15/2006 1:02:19 AM >
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