erbroens

Well, I am quite happy today. It was a great weekend for me and would like to share some pictures of the rebuilding of my Viper that perhaps would be useful for somebody that crashed or damaged a jet and is thinking about repairing it.

Also I am greatful to my friends Patake and João that helped a lot in this rebuilding, my family that gave me support and time to spend on my crazy addiction, the Camilotti father
and son jet team wich provided the best field possible to test a jet, and also of course Ary Figueira wich captured incredible pictures of the mishap as they are available in hi-res in his site, www.figueira.ms in wich I will write this same information but in Portuguese, and as well many other friends that helped me since this days, from just picking parts on the ground from giving ideas, So this is what happened:

I was flying my skymaster large viperjet for the second time ever, in a large jet event in may 2011 in Brazil, among good friends when unfortunately my plane mid-aired with a ultra lightning.

The ultra was totalled, as well the viper.. I confess that at this moment we didn´t think that a repair was feasible. Anyway, all the small parts where recovered and this is when the repair turned possible.

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After a week or so of dissasembling the turbine, radio,etc.. I was about to throw away the carcass as the left wing was broken in half, the fuselage was flattened and broken in half, the tanks where split in half and cracks everywhere but in the rudder and right wing.

However, as my friends picked all the small fiberglass parts I managed just for fun to re-assemble the fuselage with CA glue , and then took the airplane to a professional builder and long time friend Patake, wich is a busy guy to take a look.

Next visit to him I found the nose section re-glued, with a new canopy arch and canopy frame repaired with plywood and almost ready for painting.. then we discussed about reinforcing it with a carbon fiber and kevlar 50/50 cloth and it became very good! also the formers where repaired and the fuselage returned to its normal shape.

We later checked the fuselage alignament and it turned out perfect.

erbroens

I was quite optimist about this, and then thinked in ordering a wing from Michel wich is our skymaster local dealer, but considering the cost of a single wing added to our local very high import taxes, we decided to tackle the wing next.

It was cracked in two, and analyzing the wreck we discovered that the only thing that holds the whole wing at the point it broke is the outer skin. Both wing tube and outer spar have a descontinuity in this place, so we decided to simply glue it back in position:

erbroens

Then, after roughing well the outer skin was covered with the same CF/kevlar cloth wide layer, a second one thinner right over the crack, and later a very light fiberglass cloth for finishing .. then some automotive putty and the wing seemed aligned and plenty strong, and also not significantly heavier than the right one.

erbroens

And here is where Patake I believe did the best work in his modeling career.. the repainting was brilliant. I bought the colors for him to work in a auto repair shop using a repaired elevator as a guide, (on the outside of the shop, using solar light) to try to match the colors. Even so he returned to the shop to buy a better matching ones and they turned out simply perfect.

erbroens

meanwhile I was rebuilding the cockpit wich was simply obliterated.. but with some glue , some unexpected fonts of small parts I was able to rebuild them, only the seats where beyond repair so I decided to build new ones, but this time ejection seat. I know they are not scale, but who cares? they look better than the barbershop ones used in the original and are also safer to the pilots..haha they where built from depron/cardboard used in architect´s models. A good and light material wich is RF friendly.

erbroens

And this is the only part I needed to buy from SM.. the canopy. It is still flimsy and simply too thin for a model this size and speed. Only solution for now is keeping the steel 2mm wire arch reinforcement for keeping it on its place.

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This is a mod I liked and recommend doing in this plane. At first I used the second tank over the air intakes, but as this plane doesn´t have a turbine hatch you can´t see what is happening inside there at startup. So I put the tank beetween the intakes and now I can see the turbine, and also have better cooling when shutting down. Also as a advantage this applies less pressure in the fuel solenoid in case the safety valve is left open, and thus avoiding a hotstart.

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The radio installation was changed too. As usual I used RF friendly materials (plywood with primer) but put all the stuff behind the rear section of the fuselage, so only two airlines and four wires where are connecting the aft fuselage, and this allows with only four screws cut in half the airplane. Done this for traveling , so I want visit Manaus again this year, by air travel.

The satelites where placed also in a CF free zone, and after the test flights the radio link showed great numbers. Also forgive me if the installation looks too simple! LOL

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Well, all this took almost a year and in this last weekend I returned to the same place I crashed it, and thanks to the work and encouragement of my friends did the third flight..



It went perfect, and it needed only 1 click of trim to the right. I confess that I was nervous, and didn´t retracted the gear until 3 or 4 circuits at low speed.. and even so I just flew straight and level all the time until landing. Reactions at low speed where great and after the landing I was a happy man!

just 5 minutes after this I fueled again (this plane with the rhino is a fuel sucker, LOL) and went for it.. rised the speed progressively taking special attention on sounds, (buzzing) every seemed fine, so I did some rolls, first slow and then normal.. and after taking a good breath I hammered it down, and in a low pass did a big, big and fast loop to see if everything held together. And it did! after landing I wasn´t a happy man anymore ... I cannot express in words what I felt when I took this only two pics.

Guess that this is why we like this "hobby" so much. Is difficult, expensive, takes your time, many times frustrating but it is damm good when this things roar around and comes back to base in one piece!

Ok, this is all for now and if somebody has any question about the details of the repairs, feel free to ask.. I will post any other important detail I may remember, or give suggestion to try to bring back your jet to the air if needed!

Best regards, Enrique.

FenderBean

holy crap, if I was like you I could save myself a lot of money! good job and it probably will fly better now to

erbroens

Thanks, and yes, it will fly better because any single flight I´ll get from it it will be in borrowed time!

Andrew Bird

Lol - it's a free plane now Great story, good to see it worked out so well.

RCISFUN

My Feedback: (44)

Enrique,
Very nice job on the repair, I had to repair the left wing on my 2M Viper due to shipping damage.

Before making the repair I made a template of the Viper Jet logo. I have attached a pdf copy of my template. If you want you can tell me the height of the lettering and I can scale it to fit yours.

erbroens

Thanks, I hope that everthing will keep going well, even so I will be extra careful in the next flights and will take extra attention to the airframe to see how the fixes keep holding.

erbroens

Thanks very much RCisfun, I though putting another logo in the wing like "Interceptor" or "Diehard" or something, LOL perhaps I can read suggestions here?

igorcar

Nice to know that is ok now! Congrats let's fly together ate Maneco Giant at ITU!

erbroens

Grande Igor, what a surprise!


Looking forward to fly with you in May there. Also please send my best regards to your parents.


Um abraço, Enrique

polishedbrother

Great post, with pictures and All. Thanks for sharing.

erbroens

glad you enjoyed it!


Enrique

Dr Honda

My Feedback: (4)

Looks great!!! I don't think I would have even tried to fix that.

luv2flyrc

My Feedback: (6)

Congratulations, what an unbelievable rebuild! Beautiful work

Mike

extra 300

My Feedback: (3)

" Viperjet REBORN". Congratulations! Great work!!

erbroens

Thanks Tony / Mike /Extra 300.

All credit belongs to Patake, even if he was reluctanct sometimes in the rebuilding and tried to kill me once or twice, LOL.

PaulD

My Feedback: (39)

There's a simple test for that:

1) Push "happy" stick all the way forward.

2) Fly at least 3 racetrack laps at this throttle setting

3) Front and center - pull hard on elevator with wings level

4) Report back on your results

Nice job on the repairs - hope the second life is much longer than the first. My Viper didn't fair so well....

PaulD