bemeson

ATTACHING GEAR

Next, I began working on the landing gear. Like I said, check your building addendum sheet. There is a little change in the build. The landing gear cover is allready attached to the plane when you get it, so I took it off. It appeared as though their was a slight CAD mistake when they cut the fuse out. The area where the cover attaches to the fuse was allready cut out. They then glued the circles back in and cut them in half. At first I was a little concerned, but as I went on it was no big deal. I will explain that later in the post.

Next I added a little Epoxy to sure up the little circle that had alleady been CA'd inside the fuse. I let it dry prior to attaching the gear with the supplied hardware. One thing that made me very happy is you can see the aluminum angle brackets that beef up the landing gear. The are bolted in with allens and lock nuts.

I placed the gear on and secured the allens with a little blue loctite to make sure they did not come loose. I tighted them down and then placed the cover over the gear and got everything lined up the way I wanted it. I then marked the two holes on the landing gear the coincided with the holes that secured the landing gear cover. I then removed the cover and started drilling pilot holes with a very small bit. I gradually enlarged the hole as I went along. One thing that suprised me was how damn hard the carbon fiber gear was. I have very sharp bits and it took a bit of drilling to get through the gear. I guess that is a good thing.

I then placed the cover back on an reapplied the it. It worked well, but the supplied screws were a tad soft for my liking. The heads were quite easily stripped. That is why I said start small on the hole and gradually work to enlarge it a bit. I wanted to make sure the screws did not come out. I did harden the holes with CA to make sure they gripped in the wood.

I think the little half holes that were glued in will more than do the job, because the landing gear will keep the circles from pulling out and the cover can not push the holes deeper into the fuse. The landing gear prevents that from occurring. I bet the next batch of planes will have this little goof up fixed. It was no big deal though.

The holes on the landing gear are allready offset, so you can not attach the gear backwards. I will add some additional details tomorrow about the servo install and I hope to have pictures. I can tell you one thing about those little Power HD servos. Man they are powerful and quick. More tomorrow.