Composite-ARF Extra 260 2.6m
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| 11/29/2008
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Posts: 30
Joined: 3/6/2007 From: El Dorado Hills,
CA, USA Status: offline
Kyosho Kelly F1 Racer – Build Thread A few months ago I suffered from a loss of one of my favorite .60 sized electric planes (Fliton Extra 330) due to a faulty receiver battery and wanted to get back into the air. I came across the very sharp looking Kyosho Kelly F1 Racer, but it was suited more to pylon racing instead of aerobatics. Always up for something different, I thought I would give it a shot. Besides, I can use the smaller planes for the more dangerous flying. According to their website, there are two different versions suited for either electric or glow; obviously I ordered the electric version. The big difference from what I can tell was the addition of a hatch to the top to gain access to the battery.
My goal for this project was to add some “Wow” factor out at the field (http://www.edrcf.org), try a new class of plane, get something that can do over 100mph on “e-power” and perhaps strike up some friendly pylon racing on the weekends.
I ordered the plane through the Kyosho America website, but it was shipped from a local hobby store, in this case it was Ultimate Hobbies in Orange, CA. Oddly enough the LHS had a sticker on the box listing the plane for $80 cheaper than the Kyosho website; I guess I should have shopped around harder. The package showed up 2 days after ordering.
Opening the box, was a joy. Everything well packed, no damage, nothing missing. Being the first time I have seen a full fiberglass fuse, I was really amazed at the complexity of shapes that could be built and keep the weight down. The design was classic, but still modern looking. The wings are still built up with covering but are really solid and well built. In particular look at those winglets…sweet. Also what was nice is the color scheme. The bottom is pure white while the top has a lot of color which should help with orientation.
One of the neat features of the kit was the ability to assemble the servo & battery trays outside of the plane and epoxy them in and get the CG just right without adding extra weights. The battery tray also has a nice ability to slide forward and back even after it has been installed. Makes fine tuning the GC a snap.
While everything is self-explanatory, a few things could have been done better. Specifically the rear wheel requires that you cut out a groove in the tail base in order to have as small of a gap as possible. That was not discussed in the instructions. Also the wheel pants were quite unique and required small wooden washers to be glued inside of the cover to hold the end of the wheel axle in place. Pay close attention to the placement as it needs to line up perfectly for it to work. I guess it would have been nice for them to at least mark where to put it instead of the trial and error I went through. Lastly, the CA hinges seemed to have problems grabbing. This was the first time I have ever see that problem and ended up replacing all of the supplied hinges with others I had sitting around.
The pull-pull rudder was pretty easy, however as usual I struggled with the push-rod elevator. For some reason they put a wood former very close to where the rods needed to exit the fuse body causing a lot of binding, eventually making the servo stop working. I had to bend the heck out of those wires to get a clear path. I’m hoping someone will come up with a better way of doing this.
Okay, now that is out of the way, I moved on to the power system. Thankfully everything but the airframe survived the last plane so they easily moved over and fit perfectly. I ended up using an E-Flite Power 60 brushless motor (1200 watts), Evo 6S1P 3700 Lipo, Castle Creations 80 ESC and Spektrum DX7 Radio/Receiver/Servos. I also added a few other goodies including a Voltage Watch and an Eagletree Systems data logger. I pondered using a BEC to skip the receiver battery, but with the heat and power being drawn, I didn’t want to be in a situation where I lost both power and control. Call me a “belt and suspenders” kind of guy these days.
Anyways, the motor is actually mounted backwards, meaning it is inside the fuse with only the shaft poking out. To accomplish this with an out-runner, the shaft has to be pushed through to the other side. A few turns on set screws and a hammer and the deed is done. This also means the ESC connections have to be checked to ensure proper rotation since it is on backwards. Use the four screws that came with the motor or other means to secure it to the mount. The predrilled holes lined up perfectly. The ESC was secured with Velcro in an area that should get some decent airflow (more on that later).
As most have noticed, with larger electric setups there tends to be a lot of wires going everywhere. This is no exception for this plane. In fact, with the Voltage Watch, Data logger, LCD screen, receiver switch and power system cut-off it looked like family night at your local Spaghetti Factory. I ordered some wire guides to clean this up, but they have not shown up yet…so this is the best I could do in the mean time.
Though the picture on the box shows it, the manual is clear that no spinner or pilot comes in the kit. I decided to skip on the pilot since I would be using that space for the various displays. The spinner is a basic red 2.5” plastic one until the real one from TruTurn shows up. Until I get comfortable with the plane, I decided to go with a 15x8E prop as I need more airflow than speed. Later I will try out some additional combos to see how fast I can get this baby going.
The couple of steps that I really disliked, but eventually became more comfortable with was cutting into the fiberglass. This is needed for the elevator & rudder linkages, switches, plugs, display wires and the air cooling vents. The first few were easy enough, just small holes. The venting was a different story. General rule of thumb is the exit vent should be about twice the size as entrance as it creates a vacuum effect. I didn’t measure it, but after a few flights, the data logger will tell me if I’m running hot and need to open the vents more.
Okay, everything is put together and used most of the supplied decals. I opted to replace the giant “Kyosho” on the wing with my own design. Easy enough with some clear window decals sheets from Office Depot and an ink jet printer. Voilla.
Okay, now the setup. One thing that really bothered me was the aileron servos. Normally you would use ALE & AUX1 for these on your receiver. However for some reason I couldn’t get them to travel in the right direction. Regardless of how I did it, they simply were not up to working the way they should. I ended up using AUX2 and mixing to ALE on the MIX5. As I found out with a lot of digging the MIX1-4 do not accept trim adjustments in the mixing algorithm. So while I could adjust one of the servos, the other would remain unmoved. MIX5 & MIX6 allow the trim to affect both the master and slave channels. However, no matter what I did, I could not get the flaps to work properly.
In general it was a very good build and high quality. However there were a few items of note. First was the manual; it was not written for beginner builders. If you have a few similar sized planes under your belt, it isn’t much of an issue and you can get through the build in about 6-8 hours. While it is nice to have the aileron servos hidden in the wing, the internals had to be built from supplied pieces and as you noticed above, the way they are places makes the radio setup confusing. Since there is a fair amount of epoxy being used, I found it was impossible to follow the sequence of the instructions without waiting for things to dry. So I ended up building very much out of sequence to keep things moving. Lastly was the tail wheel; it simply didn’t seem like it is up for the task. However since I haven’t flown it yet, I will reserve judgment.
Build Summary: Pros: Beautiful workmanship & finish Good hardware & packaging Solid build & well designed for electric conversion Servo & Battery trays can be worked with outside of the plane.
Cons: Manual is average at best Need to get comfortable cutting into fiberglass Tail wheel could be more solid Can’t realistically build in the same order as the manual Push-rod elevator design and exit holes could be better engineered
Next Steps: Well I need to get it out and flying. The motor setup should be plenty to get it in the air, but only trial & error will tell me if it has the power to get it over 100mph. I should have it up in the next week as soon as I can get my buddy Don over with his Radar gun to get some accurate speed figures.
< Message edited by sbritton -- 8/16/2007 1:48:03 PM >
How exactly does the servo tray attaches to the fuselage ? Just epoxy ? With or without rails ? My manual does not mention anything about installing the tray.
Posts: 30
Joined: 3/6/2007 From: El Dorado Hills,
CA, USA Status: offline
The servo tray is just glued in with epoxy. There are no rails or guides, but it is tapered for the body, so is a solid fit all around. I guess they do it that way to give you some flexibility for CG or other reasons.
So far it has held in with zero issues...very solid.
Flight Report coming soon...1st one was this morning and really got my heart pumping.
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Kyosho Kelly F1 Racer Electric - Build Thread - 
