Yak Dude

Here is the finished airplane, top and bottom view.

Yak Dude

Side's and detail. I just need a number for the nose. Does anyone know of a Coast Guard plane that has crashed on a mission that I can use that tail number for dedication?

LADDIE

predmech,
Great looking NS. Good luck.
Laddie.

Cougar429

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Oh, man! That's the scheme I was looking at for mine. Have the Ultracote for the two primary colors and black trim, but where did you get the USCG stickers?

cavandish

REALLY NICE

Falcon6667

really cool looking. is it paint? if so what was the prep?
Falcon

Cougar429

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Well, delivered one of the Northstars to my friend today. Phew! Just have to finish the C/F reinforced vertical stab and he'll have everything with no excuse not to finish covering his before me.

Have to admit his has taken most of the time, though, so mine is just a tad behind, (maybe I'll use that as an excuse if he beats me to the water!).

Hope to have some pics soon of a "Ready-to Fly" machine.

Yak Dude

Sorry to take a while to reply. To answer the couple of posts: the CG stickers I found on a web-site that had all kinds of military flags that were 3 x 5, this is were I found the emblem on the side after cutting off the red outside part of the flag.
I don't remember the exact web site.
All the USCG is cut free hand with a #11 blade with a pattern to include the U S COAST GUARD on the sides of the pod. That took a long time to cut and put on.
The other question is about paint. No it's not. It's all Monokote, then clear Monokote over the stickers and anywhere there are details or corners of letters that could lift off. It's simple. Just cut a circle or shape thats bigger than what you need and round all the corners off. This is really good to help resist peeling from water. (Also works good for parts of the plane were exhaust oil collects.)
The military Star on top and bottom of the wing is also cut from a pattern and all three colors are layered and then clear over the entire thing so it won't peel from the water abuse on the bottom.

I look forward to more pictures of planes, Wes

Cougar429

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Predmech, don't mean to be a bother, but what is the purpose of the groove in the top of the aft canopy?

Yak Dude

Not a problem. The top of the aft canopy half has the power switch that is the black dot. Down is on. Behind it is a 1/8 inch slot by 1.5 long. This is to see the Voltwatch that is under it. That area is covered with clear monokote. I think this is what you're talking about.

I was reading an ealier post on your building two planes and beefing up the wing. I added a half span spars that connects the main landing gear blocks together and ties into the fuselage for additional mounting. I also glued in thin carbon fiber on the fuselage, just forward of the joint up to the pod (all inside the structure) to reinforce that area because this area has broken on some airplanes that I've seen. This didn't add any weight to speak of. I do OK with carbon fiber and fiberglass due to the planes I work on are all composite. Any other questions you have, feel free to ask. This is what makes this hobby so great. Wes, Predmech

Cougar429

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I tied the two landing gear blocks together on my friends with fibreglass sandwiched between two sheets of lite ply. You could darned near stand on the wing once it was done. For mine, since I mounted the alloy gear to the bottom of the fuse I created a false spar at the CofG point. I had some C/R tubes I picked up at the Toledo show, but by then the wing structures had already been assembled.[&o]

I did run fibreglass under the sheeting at the aft spar on both. That also added a lot of strength for little weight. One other mod I made, in relation to your mentioning the weakness at the fin/fuse interface, was to sandwich several layers of light glass cloth between the balsa and ply doublers. I hope this gives the same strength as glassing the outside without the mess. When I bonded on the pod I used a mix of epoxy and FLOX and created a fillet using the same anywhere critical pieces were joined together, such as the pod/fin and wing/fuse junctions.

Another bit of reinforcement was to add a longtitudinal fill sheet of lite ply between the nose block on the fin extension and the plywood stress spar running from the fin top to the fuse bottom. That, along with the ply bottom and ply block just aft of the wing where the nose block rides should have built a very rigid and strong structure that spreads the load a bit.

Still undecided on the power system, but for now I'm trying to find some dark smoked plastic sheet to install into the canopy so I could use a BEC left over from my T600. That would drop the 7.2 LiPo down to 6V and it has a power meter integrated onto the board. Like you I like to see the status of the flight pack.

A question for all of you that have run the servos in the pod. Since the giant scale guys swear by them, I bought extensions with the noise-cancelling modules and installed them into both planes. I wondered if anyone had used that long a run without them and how it turned out.

Cougar429

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While on vaca this week, (weather too bad to go anywhere[&:][&o]) I've been able to plug away at it a lot more than normal.

Cut open the canopy and started to run the strips for weathersealing. Still have a bit to go there.

Mostly the time was taken up by building the two vertical stabs. Started with two different diameter C/F rods as spars and carved out some ribs from balsa sheeting. Now skinned and fit to the removable horizontal stabs. I'll let my friend bond his together as the horiz stab has to be bolted down flat to the pod before this is added to keep it straight. Mine is sheeted and already as rigid as it will get, so just alignment and final sanding to get the leading edge contour the way I like it and it will be time for final clearcoat and fine sanding.

Sorry, should have taken more pics along the way.

Cougar429

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Well, after giving another coat of clear over all but near the canopy, which will get final sanding soon, did the first float test today. Guess what, it didn't sink!

Did make one minor flub, though. Taped up the L/G bolt holes and all the control rod exits, but forgot the rudder hinge holes in the fuse aft bulkhead. DOH!

Cougar429

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Flight system installation is going ahead. Went looking for a waterproof container for the Rx and the nearest thing I could find was the Futaba labled box a GY401 gyro for one of my helis came in. Figured it would be a nice touch to encase the 149DP receiver in a legacy box. May not prove to be durable enough in the event of a dunking, (or worse) but it should keep out any errant H2O. Entire area was coated with thinned epoxy.

Right now the hurdle is how to retain the 6V battery, which is to be located just under the control rod tubes. I was originally intending to go with a 7.2 LiPo and monitor, but in the end the NiMH pack has proven so reliable that I don't think the complexity and work of fitting a window to view the battery status adds anything. If I had decided early on I would have continued the servo tray aft a bit as a cover to hold down the package, but that does not help me now. Just have to find some way to keep it in place and the velcro does not stick to the foam, regardless of the high grade adhesive.

AHA, figured out how to strap down the battery and it proved simpler than I thought. Knew I saved all that velcro for something.

Next is to check to see if I can find a color match and paint the bottom with Rustoleum, rather than sheet with Ultracote as with the rest of the airframe, since I intend to also fly from snow this winter. Would be a lot easier to paint the entire fuselage and tail, but I've done that before on other machines and the weight really piles on fast.

Cougar429

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Sorry for the singular post. For some reason last night I could not edit the previous item and had to add it here. Have since moved it up and now cannot figure out how to cut this one out completely.

Yak Dude

Your plane is looking good. I had my plane up for a quick flight this morning. The air was getting rough quickly as the wind was getting into the canyon. Keep up on your pictures as you progress.

tsp27

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I want to build another NorthStar I have the original plans, but want to incorporate a number of changes, some I did on the one I had for over 6yr before its watery demise []. I extended the nose 6� and increased the step to 1� this did a number of things, 1: it took almost all the nose weight out. 2: it made it easy to get up on step without water pounding the leading edge and my weight was 7lb . Now on this one I need a little help. I would like to make it with a foam core wing, be able to remove the wing or wings, for transportation, I figured 3 pieces, 1: the body, 2: the wing or wings, 3 the canopy, any thoughts as to how this can be done, any help would be appreciated[sm=confused.gif].

Yak Dude

Well, I finally got some pictues of the plane in the air. Here it is just touching the rudder on landing with the nose high.
As for the post from TSP27, I've been thinking about your mod ideas, The wing is part of the fuselage when glued on. This keeps everything strong from the nose to the fin, up to the pod and engine. I think you need to build the wing and glue it on the airplane and build the front strakes in front as designed. Modify the wing to plug in wings at the rib on the outside of the gear block, or the rib that is a few inches out from the fuselage. This way you will keep everything strong, light and have the removable wings. I recommend a carbon fiber tube or two because there is alot of force on the wing tips when you land on the water. Hope this helps. Wes

Yak Dude

Here is one low and fast.

Yak Dude

Just after takeoff with all the water coming off.

Strykaas

Very cool NS pix

twnotter

Just finishing up my northstar, should be ready to fly in the next week or so. The engine that I chose for it is a OS max 40 FSR, not too sure when this engine was run last but it fired right up no problems.

I moved the throttle servo to the tail, I used a Hitec mini servos attached to a removeable hatch on the right side of the nacelle, works great this way. I will post pics as soon as it is all ready to go.

Anyone have tips on how to land this plane? Fast? Slow?

russram

landing the NS is a breeze if you stall it in. They will not drop a wing on stall they just pitch up the nose untill they stop flying if you hold them just off the water you will get a perfect landing. Do not try hot landing as all you will get is a ballooned takeoff followed by stalled flatbottomed smack on the water and the belly splitting open at the worsed hot touch and goes are ok to a point but i still have seen the belly open up on on hot touches. I used a 40 motor on my old NS but the power is low for water take off. ASP53 now gives me great preformance Cheers Russell NZ

Cougar429

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Been a bit, but wanted to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year, with lots of Northstar flying!

LADDIE

Great shots of NS.
Laddie.