ChicoFlyer

I first got into contact with Shaun (Yellow Aircraft on the forums) almost one year go to have him build a Yellow Aircraft F-16 for me. The kit Shaun assembled for me was top notch and I knew I had to get a Yellow Aircraft warbird at some time. After just completing the F-16 I did not expect to be getting another plane for awhile, and then Yellow Aircraft announced that they would no longer sell kits when they were out of stock. Shaun let me know that they were on the very last two warbirds they had in stock, 2 P-40's, and they would not last long. I knew this was going to be my only chance to get one of their warbirds. I called Shaun up and bought the very last P-40 they had in stock.

The kit arrived at the shop that I will be building it at (which is unfortunately about a two and a half hour drive away) as I don't have the room to assemble it. Once I got off work last Friday I drove up the road so I could un-box my new plane and see if I could get started on some assembly! As I'm sure most people that have experience with Yellow Aircraft kits know, this kit is absolutely gorgeous, everything was packaged very nicely.

This will be my first kit that I have assembled, so I am very open to suggestions and comments. The instructions have been pretty clear so far. I would love to power this with a four stroke, however most likely will be going with the Zenoah G62.

And now for what most people click on the thread for.

ChicoFlyer

After unboxing the plane and components, I was able to get the leading edges of the wings formed, flap well liners installed, ailerons cut out, trimmed, capped, and hinges drilled.

I will be posting progress pictures after each time I have the chance to work on it.

Shaun Evans

Nice!

I'm excited to see you working on this already. She's a good bird, dude. You'll love flying her, and riding that rudder on takeoff!

ChicoFlyer

Got some more work done on the P-40 this weekend. I got the servo wells trimmed out, as well as the wheel wells.

My flaps are now hinged and the leading edge of them are now rounded. Servo covers are also fitted into the servo wells with the mounting blocks epoxied on. I just epoxied the wing tips on as well.

Along with working on the wings, I mocked up a couple engines that I am considering for this plane to make sure that they would fit within the cowling.

Shaun Evans

Chico,

Nice work!

ChicoFlyer

Thanks Shaun. It feels like I am moving through this a lot quicker than I had originally thought! When I'm working on it, I'm putting in about 8-12 hour days.

I think I may have found a color scheme for it as well. My friend was recommending to paint it in the same colors as Herschel Green's P-40, desert camo with yellow and black checkered tail.

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

The only thing stopping me from getting this P-40 were the RETRACTS....spendy for sure, but you gotta have'em

Just picked up some Sierra's for my P-47 (Yellow)...so construction should begin 'soon'

Heck, it's FLYING season now!!!!

ChicoFlyer

I ended up ordering an engine today for this project. I ended up going with the Kolm EZ65 with a rear mount carb. Below is a video of Kolm testing an earlier version of the engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g_Azjfc3mA

Shaun Evans

Hi,

Is your Jug the Bubble or Razor?

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

Bubble

Shaun Evans

Dang....

ChicoFlyer

Good news! Should be getting a lot more time to work on the plane now, single again! Working on the wheel fairings this weekend and getting the gear doors. The doors seem to be very tedious, just have to take my time! Next weekend will be finishing up the gear doors and hopefully join the wings together.

Shaun Evans

Chico,

Yep, those gear are a PITA to get right. You're right, though. Take your time. What servos?

Shaun Evans

BTW,

Is that really good news?

ChicoFlyer

I grabbed a couple ProTek 100SS's but after reading a couple reviews I'm not 100% I'm going to use them or go with something else. The gear doors are going pretty well so far, I just got the doors lined with balsa and glassed today. I was hoping to get the main doors hinged and installed onto the fairings, but the resin had not set up in time before I had to get back home for work. Next weekend I'm definitely going to get the doors hinged and join the wings together. Tentatively aiming for Thanksgiving weekend to glass the wings.

If I had the room to work on this plane at my apartment, this thing would be done by now!

And the news actually kind of blows... makes for a bad weekend.

Shaun Evans

Hi,

Keep your chin up, dude.

tp777fo

My Feedback: (28)

It's an awesome flyer. Unfortunately I lost mine due to a rudder servo failure. Should have gotten another one before they went into the night. It's a shame YA is now gone, they made some wonderful airplanes.

ChicoFlyer

I got some more work done this weekend. I moved away from doing the gear doors for a little bit, I figured I could do those a little later down the line. I epoxied the wing together this weekend and got it mounted to the fuselage.



I started working on horizontal stab, which I was truthfully dreading to shape the blocks on the ends of the stabs for the fear of screwing them up. (First time for doing a lot of this stuff for me...) I started working on it kind of slow and trying to figure out the best way to shape the blocks. I settled on using a rasp to rough shape them and then finish shaping the blocks using a sanding block and sand paper. I was ecstatic with how they turned out, they follow the shape of the stab quite nicely.


I decided to put the tailwheel in and see how the plane would look sitting on the wheels. Incredible if I do say so myself!



I glued together the rudder and noticed some issues that I had to fix. Some of the ribs in the kit seemed to be either labeled wrong, or cut out incorrectly. (No idea how that would happen as it is all laser cut balsa) As you can see the piece that lines the back closest to me does not come all the way down to the bottom of the rudder and the bottom rib does not meet it. The rib just above the trim tab does not quite go all the way to trailing edge buildup piece either. Using some of the scrap sheeting the ribs come from, I cut them into shape and filled this gaps. I have some sanding work to do on it to get it to look good.


Reinforced the glue join on the wing.


This next weekend I plan on glassing the wing and finishing up the horizontal stab, elevator and rudder. Hopefully I'll be able to get the stab installed into the fuselage as well.

77chickenhawk

Good luck on your project you have here. Here is a link to my yellow P 40. It's in the final stages but I haven't touched it for quite some time. Here is the link you might find some tips and tricks that you mite like to put on your plane as well

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-w...struction.html

ChicoFlyer

Chickenhawk, I had seen your thread before, you did some amazing work on it. I doubt I'll get anywhere near to the attention to detail like you and LQUAN got into, primarily for the lack of time. For the most part I'm sticking to the manual. Maybe on my next plane I build will I go into some of the details like you have. I would like to put in the access door behind the wing to put a panel in there for my air and battery fittings.

I do have one question regarding the mounting of the main wing, the wing bolt is just threaded into about a half inch of threaded plywood. Do you feel the threads on this plywood will hold up over time? I am considering have a piece milled out of bar stock that I would hysol into place. I feel like it might be easy to strip those wood threads.

77chickenhawk

I don't think there will be any problem with the wing bolt. I tapped mine out and then put a couple coats of thin-CA on it to give it strength. I haven't heard of anybody ever having an issue with it. I suppose if you wanted to, you could put a Helacoil in which would add some more strength to it. Or even another layer of wood for it to thread into.

Shaun Evans

Hi,

Yeah, thread a bolt in there and try to pull it out. That'll give you confidence in it!

ChicoFlyer

This last weekend I got the main wing glassed and also got a coat of filler on the wing, I had some low spots and the fill coat of resin did not turn out as well as I had hoped. I got the rudder almost ready for covering, I just have a little more shaping to do on the leading edge to get the throws necessary. The horizontal stab and elevators are really close to being covered as well.

I have a question regarding what to use for covering the rudder and elevators, what do you guys recommend for this?

Shaun Evans

Hi,

If you can find some, use solartex white. You can prime it and paint it to match. It's durable and stretches just as well as any film covering.

jeffEE

My Feedback: (5)

Never had a wing bolt problem. But then when the plane is flying the body just sits on the wing. More stress is when its on the ground and the wing is hanging from the body. It sure is a nice bird when it sits on its legs for the first time.