Royal P-26 Group Build
01-14-2012, 08:33 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Made the flying wires today. Eighteen of them in total. They add a lot of strength to the landing gear, I'm sure they'll add some drag in flight too.
01-17-2012, 07:24 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
One of the other P-26 being built in our group build. I'm getting grief that his plane is already painted an mine is not. Of course, my response is he's in a rush, mine will look better. 
02-05-2012, 02:48 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
I decided to nix the OS 160 twin. It would have meant hacking the Williams Bros. radial, removing 4 cylinders and making a mess of it. I'm using a YS-120 fs now. Had to modify the block on the firewall to make it the correct length for the different engine. I machined an aluminum mount, mounted the motor and started fitting the dummy radial. I'm probably going to mount the cowl to the dummy engine using some carbon fiber rods glued to the top of 3 or 4 cylinder heads, then I'll make a mount that goes from the firewall to the engine. I'll probably start that tonight.
02-09-2012, 07:55 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Links to a lot of the pictures were lost in a website move. I've had a few requests to re-post, so here is a "best of" set.
02-13-2012, 07:30 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Finished mounting the dummy radial and cowl. I machined a ring out of 1/4" ABS sheet that glued to the back of the dummy engine. It has three tabs with holes for screws. I made three standoffs from aluminum round stock and mounted them to the firewall. The ABS ring mounts to the standoffs. I drilled holes in the tops of 3 of the cylinders and epoxied in carbon fiber rod. Made plates out of aircraft ply to accept the rods and epoxied them to the cowl. The cowl is just held on by pressure of the ring and can be removed. I glassed over the plates to make sure they stay on. Finally I mounted the baffle to the front of the dummy engine. The baffle has wood blocks epoxied to it and is held on with screws from the inside of the dummy engine.
03-06-2012, 05:24 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Almost finished with the dummy radial. I had to make exhaust pipes, the ones with the engine were not going to work. Made them on the cnc, two halves, glued them together then put the on with carbon fibre tube. Did the same for the intake manifolds, but used the ones from the kit. I need to make the two pipes for #3 and #7 cylinders. Those go back a route through the fuselage to warm up the air going in the carb. One of the pics shows this. Need to make some spark plug wires and boots for the plugs, then except for painting the exhaust pipes it's done.
03-27-2012, 06:43 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
A little progress. Finished the exhaust pipes including the ones that go through the fuse. Just trying to knock out all the scale stuff like downdraft pipes for the carbs, antennas, gun sight, pitot tube, etc. over the next couple weeks to get ready for painting.
04-23-2012, 12:25 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Ok, here's a few pics of what I have done lately. All I have left to do is make a couple antennas and that's it, ready for finish and paint. All the electronics are in, all the linkages/control horns are done, the fuel tank is in, cockpit is done, instrument panel, windshield and a few scale details like the gunsight, spark plug boots and carb downdraft tubes. I need to get some stencils made soon.
04-29-2012, 07:29 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Fill, sand, fill, sand, pick nose, primer, primer again, sand, fill, sand, fill, sand, chart tape. Too windy to fly most of this weekend so I got a bit done. After the panel lines a few rivets then color.
05-12-2012, 01:55 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Panel lines and rivets done. This plane was done to fun scale detail level. I had three 3-views, each had very different panel lines and all three did not match any pictures I had so I just picked the ones I liked and laid them out by eye. Technically I should have put two rivets on one side of each panel line, but like I said, fun scale and I thought this looked better. It's ready for color. I have a friend making my stencils for the roundels, numbers and large letters. As soon as I get those from him it should just be a couple days of spraying.
05-13-2012, 12:27 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Out of the five people that started this build (six if you count one guy that dropped out very early) looks like only two will be finished any time in the near future, as in any time in the next few years. The other builders have dropped out or are on extended hiatus. Here is the other plane (not mine) that should be in the air within a couple weeks. I believe he still has to put in the fuel tank, finalize radio installation and put on some markings.
06-09-2012, 07:10 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Pulling the tape off after painting has to be my favorite part of a build. Hope to get the marking done within a week, put it together in a day or two, then look for a nice day to test fly.
06-10-2012, 10:10 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Just as a point of interest I had the very good fortune of seeing the Planes of Fame Peashooter in action a couple of years back. Very interesting is an understatement! I would not want to be the pilot that has to operate this thing off of a concrete runway. Seeing it in formation with a Seversky AT-12, P-51, and F-86 was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Unfortunately I did not have a camera capable of getting decent flying shots but here is one by Britt Dietz from the Planes of Fame web site.
Here are a few of my own static shots.
Definitely lookin forward to seeing your Peashooter all finished up and best of luck with the test flights.
Here are a few of my own static shots.
Definitely lookin forward to seeing your Peashooter all finished up and best of luck with the test flights.
06-20-2012, 07:44 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
I have a bit of touch up painting, then I need to test out if the dry transfers I have for the nomenclature will work with the epoxy clear coat. I did sweep the floor after this picture, so the worst part is over.
07-02-2012, 09:41 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Thanks sirzepp. So close to done but need to go to sleep. I'll finish tomorrow. Just weighed it and got a nice surprise. I was hoping for done weight of 14 and right now with all the major items except the battery mounted it's 13. Might need a bit of ballast, so in the end should be 14.
07-04-2012, 04:19 AM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Finished everything but nailing the battery down. The antenna and pitot tube are removable and they are not in the pictures. There are a bunch of small detail things I will get back to if she survives the maiden flight like wingtip lights, pilot, covers for the flying wires, etc. It took one pound of ballast to balance, so weight somewhere around 14 to 14-1/2. For ballast I used 2" lengths of 3/4" round brass rod stuffed in 6 of the dummy radial cylinders.
08-07-2012, 07:11 PM
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RE: Royal P-26 Group Build
Well, while we were building these planes I searched the web high and low for first hand info on how the Royal P-26 flies. Here is a quote from one of only two people I found that flew one, it came from a guy in Belgium over on RC Scalebuilder:
With that in mind, here's my maiden. If you view it over on youtube it's available in HD so you can see all the gruesome details:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp3dAEqHn90[/youtube]
Here's an edited version with all the boring far away and no plane on the screen shots removed:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHn4AgvIYdE[/youtube]
Couple pics in case the maiden did not go well:
The Peashooter was a pig to fly, unstable on all axles with the most vicious snap behaviour i have ever seen. Altough the model was correctly build and i integrated some additional wash-out, it was the most nerve-wrecking airplane i have ever flown.
Because of the high fuselage (and altough i positioned the fuel tank andoverall vertical cg as low as possible) the Peashooter would display verry weird flying characteristics. A simple turn would go like this:
Apply aileron (i was my time ahead and allraedy used exponentials and mixers), rudder and elevator, immediatly apply rudder in the other direction to compensate for the yaw and use a combination of the 3 axles to complete the turn. Only in level flight, the airplane was stable altough it required constant control over the 4 axles.
After 20 flights or so the Zenoah refused again to pick up on the trothle command in final, stalled, snapped in the most violent way i have ever seen, and crashed. The remains have been lying on my addic for all these years...
Because of the high fuselage (and altough i positioned the fuel tank andoverall vertical cg as low as possible) the Peashooter would display verry weird flying characteristics. A simple turn would go like this:
Apply aileron (i was my time ahead and allraedy used exponentials and mixers), rudder and elevator, immediatly apply rudder in the other direction to compensate for the yaw and use a combination of the 3 axles to complete the turn. Only in level flight, the airplane was stable altough it required constant control over the 4 axles.
After 20 flights or so the Zenoah refused again to pick up on the trothle command in final, stalled, snapped in the most violent way i have ever seen, and crashed. The remains have been lying on my addic for all these years...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp3dAEqHn90[/youtube]
Here's an edited version with all the boring far away and no plane on the screen shots removed:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHn4AgvIYdE[/youtube]
Couple pics in case the maiden did not go well: