fun 51 back to life

fun 51 back to life
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fun 51 back to life - 7/10/2007 6:07:32 AM

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Joined: 10/18/2006
From: raeford, NC, USA
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well, i got this fun 51 from one of the guys in the club that said he was sick of fixing it. it had torn out the part of the fuse that the main gear mounts to. I did a repair by using epoxy to glue back inthe broken out piece and then used a couple aluminum plates to double it up. it worked ok for a while and then I hit a dandelion on what looked like a good landing and ripped out the new repair. taking it back apart (after a 4 month deployment) i noticed that the epoxy still had not cured. it was old so it may have gone bad or I might not have mixed it well... anyway, that is the analysis for the first failure.

new repairs are in work. here's some pics. the pile of broken stuff is what was left of my first repair. just a pile of junk. so i cut it out and replaced the damaged lower portion of the fuse with a couple sheets of ply and a couple sheets of balsa skin. cut and trimmed to fit my cutout and laminated it all together between a couple .040 7075 T-6 aluminum plates. put a few hi-locs (full size aircraft fasteners) in it to hold everything together. all i have to do now is drill my repair for the mounting of the gear and do some covering on the bare wood. after that, it will just need the tank and engine remounted, and should be better than ever.

here's a couple pics of the progress so far. should get a chance to finish it up tomorrow. the green stuff and tape is PVA and tape that we use on composite repairs on fullsize aircraft. it is just there to minimize the mess if the epoxy dripped (which it did). that stuff got peeled off after the epoxy set up. I will have more pics tomorrow when i finish up the repairs.

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< Message edited by troposcuba -- 7/10/2007 6:09:58 AM >

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/10/2007 7:20:41 AM

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From: Raeford, NC, USA
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Hey Scuba, looks like your working on the centerfold for Ugly Planes Magazine

Just play'n of course. Get out there and fly now and tell the guys I wish I could be there.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/10/2007 1:44:43 PM

daven

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From: Andover, MN, USA
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Wow, that should be strong enough

That is a weak part of that plane. I like your idea of using PVA as protection from Epoxy spooge.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/10/2007 7:47:05 PM

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From: Burton, MI, USA
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I had the extra version of that plane, it was a good flying plane. Broke mine there once also.

Tim

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/11/2007 1:25:16 AM

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From: raeford, NC, USA
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well, let's see $0 spent on purchase price... just supplied the cost of servos and linkage etc... can't complain. as far as ugly, i was just trying to keep up with your ugly bird. actually i plan to deal with the ugly issues during the covering portion of the repair tonight. should look pretty good when i am done.

since the aluminum was only .040 it only added minimal weight. i don't think i will have any problems with that area again.

obviously this is the weak point of this design. the part right aft of the landing gear mount point is only about half an inch tall where the wing goes through. it is no surprise it snapped off there. then my previous repair the epoxy still had not set up after 4 months... i think that could be a problem that caused the failure... ya think?

PVA and flash tape for cleanup just seemed natural since that was handy and is basically what we use to vac bag all our composite repairs on fullsize planes. sure made a nice neat repair when i was finished. it still looks ugly in the pics, but it ended up nice and smooth and even fillet along the wing root. once there is some covering on it to hide the ugly patchwork underneath, i think you will not notice repairs other than the metal plates.

it didn't turn up too well in the pics, but i jeweled the plates (sometimes called machine turned) just for the appearance. it actually looks pretty cool. ooooooh shiny!

I'll put up some more pics when it is finished tonight.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/11/2007 8:33:34 AM

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From: Aurora, CO, USA
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heres a stupid question... weres the gear gonna mount? i dont see ne holes in those pics.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/11/2007 5:20:17 PM

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not stupid at all... quite observant actually. i have not drilled the holes for the gear. the hilocs that i used to put my plates together and that will also be used for the gear are supposed to be a tight fit. i didn't have the right size drill bit at home, so i didn't drill the holes yet. it didn't matter on the plates if there were a couple thousandths of wiggle since it was all getting epoxied pretty well. I am putting the gear on dry with just the fasteners, so i will drill it at work tonight. I also covered up 2 of the holes where the tank mounts with my repairs. so i will have to drill those as well. I just wanted to wait till the epoxy set up well before going on to those steps.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/11/2007 9:05:05 PM

daven

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Joined: 12/7/2001
From: Andover, MN, USA
Status: online

It may be the weakest part of the plane, but mine held up to about 5 years of abuse, so it wasn't that bad. Even landed it on a barn once.

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(in reply to troposcuba)

RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/12/2007 5:03:30 AM

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I hear ya, only thing is this one had already had the portion where the gear mounts ripped out a couple times before it was given to me. this should fix it for good.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/12/2007 6:05:51 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: troposcuba

I hear ya, only thing is this one had already had the portion where the gear mounts ripped out a couple times before it was given to me. this should fix it for good.[/b]

Fix it for good??? There is but two ways to fix a plane for good. One is to hang it up in the garage and never fly it and the other... well lets just say it involve pyrotechnics and gasoline

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/13/2007 12:27:15 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr67Stang

quote:

ORIGINAL: troposcuba

I hear ya, only thing is this one had already had the portion where the gear mounts ripped out a couple times before it was given to me. this should fix it for good.[/b]

Fix it for good??? There is but two ways to fix a plane for good. One is to hang it up in the garage and never fly it and the other... well lets just say it involve pyrotechnics and gasoline

well, you always did have a knack at pointing out the obvious. myself i prefer to live in ignorance. but seriously, bets are that the next part of this plane to break will certainly not be the area i beefed up beyond overkill. Mark told me he snapped the whole tail off it at one point. so my bet would be that will be where the next issue pops up. I should have been done now with this repair, but work has been a little too much for me to get to it this week. doesn't matter anyway, i have to work this weekend. so since i can't fly anyway, and most likely will be here just waiting on the flightline to break a plane, i will have time to fix it here at work.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/14/2007 4:10:55 PM

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plane's fixed. it is killin me to be stuck here at work driving it around the parking lot. can't wait to get off work... go give it a go if there is still enough daylight. I will post up some pics of the final repair tonight. I built a new landing gear for it out of .080 2024 T-3. the old one was .125. so the loss of weight there makes up for the added beef of the repair. balanced out perfect. it is a bit more flexible, so we will see how it holds up. it will still balance only slightly more nose heavy with the beefier gear on it. I will give the flight report if i get out of here at a reasonable hour today.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/18/2007 2:41:16 AM

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Well??? It's been days since you updated us. Did it fly or was the surf up?

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/19/2007 1:52:42 AM

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From: Talladega, AL, USA
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Add a bit more aluminum, and your all ready for a full contact combat round... yu'll be tearin them up all day long.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/20/2007 5:16:44 AM

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sorry for the lapse. repairs are done. can't post any pics though since the camera has no batteries. Been pretty busy at work this week, and like Mr.67stang said, the surf was good last weekend (actually worked the weekend, but surfed on the monday i got off as compensation for working). I do know this much though. the nice manicured grass in front of the shop sure didn't like the nitro too much. there are several fairly large brown dead spots from driving around on the grass in front of the shop after the repairs were completed at work on saturday. I have heard several people wondering what happened to the grass.

anyway, should have some pics tomorrow after i buy some batteries for the camera and a flight report saturday.

I like the comment about the combat readiness. I can't help it, i fix fullsize planes for a living, so i believe in stout repairs. it actually looks a lot heavier than it is. that is only .040 aluminum, and I used just the required amount of epoxy, so it is probably lighter than the old repair that was slathered with a ton of epoxy (which never cured, leading to failure of that repair). I also lightened up the gear, so overall i bet the whole thing is lighter than it was.

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RE: fun 51 back to life - 7/22/2007 2:39:40 AM

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alright for anyone out there that cares (not many i would imagine) here is the flight report. flys great. i think