jetfixr

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I finished installing the trailing edge sheeting on the left inboard wing section and mounted nacelle former 8 and the wheel well tonight. I think it is really coming along. It is starting to take that "Turbo Commander" look. I will have to be really careful now so I don't get ahead of myself because there is so much that goes into the nacelles, and I don't want to sheet over something, or build myself into a corner with it. I probably won't even put the stringers on it until it is hard mounted to the fuselage. Here are a few pics of tonight.

dale691

Good to see you back at it Jetfixr.

Maxiemac where did you get the old commander kit from? I guess it's out of production now. Many moons I used to fly for GAM and flew UJV. Where did you get your kit and retracts from?

Good to see interest in the commander.

maxiemac

dale691 - I started in r/c 1979 and bought a Hustler kit, Enya35 and Kraft 4 ch. radio from Brian Andrew Hobbies near Blackburn Rail Station. In the weeks and months I visited his shop there was a completed Aerocommander Shrike model, not painted, hanging from the roof and another new in box (NIB) on the floor. I was so taken by the lines of the model I wanted one. Both models were a Joe Bridi kit. Bridi Shrikes went out of production at least 10-15 years ago. As far as I know someone else has the plugs but I don't know who, or if they could again produce 80" Shrikes. Come to think of it, I think Great Planes did them for a while.

Upon another visit to the hobby shop I found the NIB model on the floor had gone - it was sold - some weeks/months later I visited again and the NIB was back again sitting on the floor. Brian Andrew told me the purchaser had looked at the kit and decided it was too hard and he sold it back to the shop, so I bought it.

It took me over a period of 10 years to build it, not full time - just now and then as I was new to r/c modelling. In this period of time around 1982, a boss of mine went to the US and I asked him to bring me back a set of retracts. He had a friend over there who knew how to get them. In those days you could buy a set of Rhom 3/16" legs, rotating mains retracts that fitted the Bridi Aerocommander - the nosewheel retract was a mechanical Carl Goldberg unit as shown on the plans that was operated by a servo. I made it so that the servo also opened and closed both sets of nosegear doors in sequence - all from one servo - my mechanical masterpiece. I still have the retracts and the model - albeit broken. Hopefully I'll rebuild the Shrike as well as the Palmer build - just need to live long enough.

I used to visit General Aviation Maintenance (GAM) to photograph and measure various details of the Shrikes' and got on well with Steve Nott. When it was time to paint my Shrike I said to him (nicely) I didn't particularly like his planes color schemes so he said "go and design me a color scheme". There was Steve, the foreman and a couple of others and we 'workshopped' the color scheme - it had to be white with blue and red stripes. So I sat down and designed a color scheme. When finished I took the plane out to show him and all gathered around and admired and complimented my paint scheme. Fast forward 12 months, maybe longer I was at GAM and Steve said I want to show you something. In his office he had a large photo about 4' x 3' on his office wall of three of his Shrikes flying in echelon formation all done in the paint scheme I designed - most of GAM Shrikes are still in this color scheme today. Incidentally Bob Hoover flew UJV at Avalon Airshow a few years back - I told him of my Shrike tale and he commisserated with me - I have his autograph.

Brian Andrew has passed on from cancer many years ago and I probably don't have to tell you Steve is no longer with us having crashed in a Shrike in severe downdraft turbulance about a year ago over Clonbinane - all very sad - both lovely people.

I presume Steve's son is now running the busineess (On Saturday mornings when I visited I used to watch Steve teach his then 6 year old son how to change tyres etc) and at some point I'll make contact again with GAM for details of the a/c to help me when I build my Palmer Plans Shrike.

A long winded answer - glad you asked the questions - by chance I found this Shrike thread and am glad I did - it's getting me going again to build my bigger model.

cheers - maxiemac

Prairie Mike

jet fixer,
Be sure to show us how you set up control lincages for the rudder and elevators.

jetfixr

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That is quite a story maxiemac! I did have the pleasure of seeing Bob Hoover perform once when I was a kid. It was amazing! I have also read his book "Forever Flying". It is an amazing book that is well worth the read.

I will definitely show the control linkages when I get to them. I am going to deviate from the plans some here and relocate the servos, and use two elevator servos for redundancy. That will probably be a little while though.

dale691

I love your paint scheme Maximac. When I was there GAM were still using it. The last Shrike that was refurbished was UJL and it looked a treat. I worked for Steve for 3 years and had a great time there.

Where did you get you kit from for the Palmer plan. There is a guy in OZ that cuts the kit for about $310.00. don't know what it's like

dale691

A couple of pics from a few years ago. First two are UJL when it came back on line and one of UJV at Essendon out front of Hangar 1.

Good memories

Cheers,

p.s. sorry for diverging from the topic.

(keep the props dressed guys) wouldn't have it any other way. hehe

maxiemac

dale691 - love your photos, good memories for me too - I found a Palmer Plans advert in an old RCM or MAN and bought the plans back in Feb '99 for US$105 posted (plus whatever the exchange rate was then). In the plans was a booklet showing where to buy all the necessary bits and pieces. fast forward to 2004 when I looked again to start building and found the kit cutting company mentioned in the booklet no longer existed, so I Googled and found Precision Cut Kits and bought their kit (can't remember exact amount - you may need to enquire of them). Included in the box was another set of plans I didn't need (PCK refunded the overcharge).

As shown in the booklet I bought the Stans Fiber Tech nose and front cowls (still not sure if the shapes are accurate enough) for US$89.90 inc. post (plus exchange rate), and from Glennis, the wheels with Robart tricycle undercart and air kit (mains air braked) as a kit for US$455 (plus E/R). I bought locally 2 x Saito 100's. Still need to get more exhaust bits and pieces (as shown in the booklet). According to Jetfxr (in an above post) it seems this Robart gear may no longer be available - perhaps a direct enquiry to Glennis for a complete Palmer Plans Aero Commander undercarriage set, would sort that.

I think you'll find the local builder is Dave Brown (Brownie). He's known for good kits but I don't know how true to scale or extensive his kit might be. My kit was drawn by Dan Palmer from Rockwell plans and has everything except the fibreglass, wheels/brakes, engines etc. Hope that helps

As a couple of points of interest you may like to to look up "Australian Government Air transport Safety Bureau Report Aviation Occurrence Investigation AO-2007-29 In flight breakup-Clonbinane, Vic. 31 July 2007 VH-YJB Rockwell Commander 500S" (about Steves crash) and "The Aero Commander Chronicle" by S.J. Swift (Principal Fatigue Engineer Civil Aviation Authority - now known as CASA). Both sobering reading. PS: I've added the links below.

[link]http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2007/AAIR/pdf/AO2007029_prelim.pdf[/link]
[link]http://www.casa.gov.au/airworth/papers/AeroCommander.pdf[/link]

Now I'll try and get back to just building topics - forgive me if I again wander off.

cheers - maxiemac

maxiemac

Jetfixr - (or anyone else) can you tell me what servos and what output ratings they are and where you are going to put them - somewhere on one of these threads I thought I saw a formula for calculating servo strength needed for various flight control surfaces - but I can't find it again - thnx

cheers - maxiemac

jetfixr

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I don't know about any calculator for figuring it out, but I plan on using Hitec 5645's on 6V for 164.2oz of torque on the elevators and rudder. I will use less powerful digitals on the ailerons, and analog standard servos on the rest.

jetfixr

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There is a Bridi (Kitty Hawk) Shrike in the market place right now for anyone that wants it.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=564079

This looks just like the kit I sold.

maxiemac

Hello Leo - as a fellow Shrike traveller in this forum I noted you had a comment on another Shrike thread and other comments here about some errors on the Palmer plans.

I am not far off starting my build and would like to know, could you share your findings of other fixes you made that are in addition to the very useful comments I have seen in this thread already. Perhaps a list of things to look out for would be helpful and/or any tips on better ways you found to do things during your build.

Any and all advice welcome.

cheers - maxiemac

kingdom802

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All,
I havew been watching this thread since it has restarted, I thought I was the only one fasinated by this plane. I started this build on Sunday the 1st of november, it has a 48 inch span and will be electric. I am modifying some RCM plans to reflect the straight leading edge of the full scale model.
Sorry to hijack the thread but I wanted to share with my commander friends.
Larry

jetfixr

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No worries Larry. Feel free to post any Commander stuff here! Maybe we can get more people interested in this aircraft. Your build is looking great also! I am about to start on mine again now that my work life has slowed down again.

kingdom802

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latest pictures

dale691

How are things going Jetfixr, any more progress?

jetfixr

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Not recently unfortunately. I have gotten derailed a bit. I will hopefully start up again soon with the outboard right wing section. I will post some pics when I do.

jetfixr

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Well after a long pause I am back building the Commander. I started framing the right outboard wing section today. This is the last big structural piece. It will be fun to see it all put together for the first time. I have re-evaluated my project some however. In the interest of time and money, I am not going to be doing as much scale detail as I had originally planned. I am not continuing the lighting. It is extra weight and hassle that I can put toward something else. I am also not going to have functional cowl flaps on the inside of the nacelles anymore. I will probably just build them open all the time since they are open on the ground all the time on the full scale. I do still plan to do panel lines and whatever vents scoops and antennas I can easily replicate. It is good to be back building.

jetfixr

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I did a little more building tonight. I continued building my right outboard wing some, but also built my inboard flap sections. They turned out pretty good. The only thing I have left to figure out with them is how to hinge them. The plans call for thin aluminum cut into hinges, but I don't have anything to cut it so I am going to use plywood and then fiberglass them with the rest of the airframe. I will add a small nylon bearing, and it should be plenty strong. I will do some test setups with plastic to get the geometry right on them. Have you finished your airplane yet Larry?

jetfixr

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Big day for the Commander build as I finally finished the right outboard wing panel which is the last big piece to build. Here are a few pics of the wing fully layed out. Next I am going to work on joining the outer wing to inner wing and build the nacelle. I put a tape measure on it from winglet to winglet and the final measurement is 121.5"! It is really coming along. You can see what is holding the wingtips up, and why I am so slow at this build!

jetfixr

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I'm still working on it. I have completely finished framing the right outer wing section, and it is now at the same stage of completion as the left. Tonight I mounted the firewall and one other nacelle former on the inboard section and also installed the inner wing joiner on the inboard section. I hope to get the inner wing section to the same level of completion as the left side this weekend so I can start figuring out how to mount them to the fuselage as this will be my next step. Here is a pic of the joined right wing.

jetfixr

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Just another quick update: I am sheeting the top of the inner wing like the left side, and once I have that done, I will just have to cut and install one more former and the wheel well. I hope to be at least working on mounting the inner wings to the fuselage tonight! Better pics to come...

jetfixr

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I couldn't resist putting the wing together and taking one more picture. I ran out of sheeting for the center section of the right inboard, but when I finish it tomorrow I will be ready to mount them to the fuselage. I don't think my diheidral came out perfect as it looks a bit flat, so I may have to work on that a bit. I think it is coming along great though.

jetfixr

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Huge update today! I finished both inboard wing sections and mated them to the fuselage! This was one of the most difficult and stressful procedures I have done in modeling. There are so many factors that had to be perfect. I worked on it for about 11 hours straight today and got it done though. I also mounted my motors just for looks. Now I am going to be working on the landing gear some more. The first picture is how I lined up everything and had it perfectly level in pitch and roll. The wings are just clamped on there. The rest of the pictures is of the final product. It think it looks great.

Prairie Mike

Where are planning on locating the radio battery and the motor batteries?