luckymacy

I've got one ordered. I don't suppose there's an online manual anywhere?

What's the consensus on the HW like the wheels. Use them or replace everything (more or less)?

What were the completed weights of the planes?

charlesp

I dont know about a online manual any were

I bought all new HW for mine, and put carbon fiber tubes over 4-40 rods going from servos. I did use the tali wheel bracket and carbine. maine wheels are ok but tail wheel will not last.

also I would recommend changing the tabs for your wing struts!!! I replaced mine with 3/32 aluminum tabs. When I took out the tabs that it came with there was no or verry little glue on them.
The tabs pulled out after one side of the ply was removed.

I will get the weight for you soon

charlesp

some pics

charlesp

looks like it is 18lbs dry but i have put quite a bit up frunt so it is nose heavy acording to the manual. Im sure it will be lighter when i get the cg back were i want it

luckymacy

I appreciate your responses, Thanks! You physically replaced the upper wing tabs with aluminum ones if I understand you right, correct? You don't think just runnine extra CA glue into the existing slots would have been good enough? What prompted you do do that? Did you give them a tug or somethign and they just popped off or came loose?

How did you secur the new al tabs? Just epoxied them in place or is there more to i?

any other mods you care to make? I bought this plane just because I wanted a biplane to put an unused 4.2ci (70cc) gas engine in. Once I knew these guys built tail heavy with a 50cc engine, I knew I found the right biplane considering the price. So I'll be 'beefing up stuff' like that so thanks for the heads up. If you can think of any other 'mods' I'd love to hear them. Has anyone on this list crashed theirs yet or experienced any airframe failure or near failure?

Is everyone epoxing the top wing halves together permanenty? Is the stab strong enough w/o wire supports over the long haul?

charlesp

not the upper wing tabs but the strut tabs in each wing 8 total

The reason i changed them is becouse two of them broke off flush with the top of the bottom wing and i had repaired them but was getting a cracking noise when i lifted the plane from the wingtips (balancing). I knew something was nt good! At first I was just going to look. I pulled off the covering and scored the light ply on the side of the tab... Pulled th ply off without any trouble then grabbed the tab. It pulled out without any glue on it

I would not just glue it with CA as this is a gas plane and i just would not trust it. Believe me I hated cutting into it but would rather have a patch on the plane rather then have to fix it after a crash.

What I did was remove the ply on one side of the tab inside the wing. I then removed the tab and dry fit the new aluminum tabs. note :: I made the new tabs 1/4 "longer so there was some fitting required.

I also made a new inner rib to replace what i had taken off. I then drilled a hole passing through the new rib the tab (witch it taped) and ply on the other side.

I then put a bolt passing through everything

After i got the two tabs on the one side of the wing to a point that i was happy with the way it fit. I used 30 min epoxy to glue them. I had the strut installed to be sure that everything stayed lined up during the curring

After everything was done i lifted up on the wingtips and there was no cracking noise like before

hope this helps

charlesp

pics of tab with bolt

luckymacy

Good stuff. Thanks. Have you flown it yet? What's your impressions?

charlesp

yep flew it last Saterday and have a flight report and landing viedo on post 49 of this thread. it flew real good but I didnt do anything except level flying as i was real nervous

luckymacy

I'm ordering some things tonight. It would be really helpfull if you could tell me how many servo Y leads you used, the length of them and how many servo extension leads and their lengths you also bought. I'm guessing two 16 inch leads for the 2 elevator servos, probably 2 12 inch Y leads for the ailerons and 4 16 inch leads for the extensions in the wings? Maybe some of those are too long. Let me know.

charlesp

I used 1 chanel for all the anerons and mixed the elevators together witch ment that i needed 3 y leads.


One out of rx seperating top and bottom wing, then 1 for each wing. All my y leads were 9" i think

I think I used 10" leads in the bottom wings.

Anything i cant get to in the fuse i alwise soder it so i dont have to worrie about it comeing apart

hope this helps

luckymacy

Somehow I'm not quite sure we got the same biplane down to the nuts and bolts, or should I say, manual and level of airframe completeness?

Here's my instructions, turns out there's just a not in the box to got the link below. Did you get better/different instructions with yours?

http://www.generalhobby.com/manuals/ultimate-50cc.pdf

Were your cabanes pre-bent? How did you attach them to the fuselage? It's funny the detail they show on some of the ho hum asembly but then complete ignore some of the most important areas...

charlesp

looks like the same plane to me but mine came with a manul if you can call it that. It seames that what you have is so much better then what i had. what I got was just a basic manul for a pits bi-plane and the Ultimate. you do hav the same plane tho

luckymacy

I'm starting to notice even more differences. I have the large cutout in the wings for the servos to be install internally underneath the access panel with only the control arm sticking up through a slot.

My outer wing struts do not come with wooden tabs to screw into the struts nor are they installed. I have 16 little anodized aluminum tabs hanging lose in a bag that I guess I'm supposed to insert somewhere, somehow and that 's supposed secure the struts. Everything is monocoted over so I will have to hunt to pre made slots or something. There's no mention of them. Every website picture I've seen has the cabanes pre-colored yellow. Mine are not. All the hinging I've seen are robart on web sites, mine are slits for CA hinges.

One of the 4 top wing 'joiner tabs' to the cabanes that did come pre-installed has been snapped off during shipping. It's an integral part of the inner top wing ribs so in a sense part of the rib has been snapped off. I notice on this thread the original guy glued his top wing halves together and just eliminated this weakness in the design. I really don't want one long 71 inch wing if I can help it. I could easily see this happening again just from transporting the wing halves around to and from the field. Did you glue top wing halves together as well? I guess I could always hack the current rib out, use it as a template and put in a new one plus carbon fiber the whole inner rib/tab on each wing half to try and make it more durable and less prone to snap off. How's yours been holding up?

did you use the fuel tank that came with it? I actually like the shape, just not sure it's going to hold up over time without splitting. It's plastic half seams look pretty sketchy in a couple of areas.

luckymacy

I found this manual and it's definitely closer & more appropriate in many areas than the one on the website from where I bought the plane

http://www.troybuiltmodels.com/ns/ma...M-050V1CAF.pdf

charlesp

It sounds like they changed alot of stuff with that plane. I did glue my upper wing together and then made a rack in my truck to transport it I thought it would be the best thing as I will be doing some 3D stuff with it

luckymacy

Yeah, different enough I went ahead and posted about it separately on the FG website

luckymacy

Where did you guys end up balancing out at AND how much control throw do you have at low and high rates?

The ailerons are not double beveled so I can't get more than 30 degrees.

charlesp

as far as balancing if you read post 47 it should fly well. becouse I am just a little bit foward of that and will be moving it back

I would not think you would need 30 degrees on your first flight mine only moved .5" up or down on the first flight and responded well I would start there with your low rates just MHO Good luck

luckymacy

I had already read it and I had no idea how to intpret it - and my top wings are epoxied together so I'm not going to look at the root rib side profile and try to guess either. That's why distance from leading is the best and unambiguous way to describe this, like plans do. However, I heard there were mistakes on some kits so I'm not sure which one of those is even right that I've been able to find. No two say the same thing and the Aero works kit is different than the kit I have.

charlesp

mine is at 6.25'fro LE of top wing at the root rib

luckymacy

thanks. you are going to move it back about another quarter inch?

charlesp

as i get better with the plane i will move it back, but only for 3D! It is right on for normal flight

luckymacy

That's quite a bit different than the 4.13 inches (105 mm) the 'manual' that's supposed to cover my ARF calls out for. If my manual is right, your 6 inches would be quite a handfull to control!

The Gold Wing manual for this calls out 6 and 11/16 inches (170 mm)

I found some old Wild Hare 50cc Ultimate build posts and the CG range was 6.5" recommended for first flght with 6.75" for 3d.


Well, everything else about my kit was a bad joke so I'll presume they messed up the CG as well and just go with something in the 6 inch range too.

luckymacy

What's the weight, with or without fueld? W/O fuel this evening I weighed it for the first time and it came out right at 20 pounds. I hand calculated the MAC and came up with a 30% CG at about 6.5 inches back from the leading edge off the top wing. So good to go.