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OK guys, just finshed the "Extreme Makeover - XLT Edition". . . . This project has been on hold after a flying season, move to a new house, building a new workshop, ect., ect., ect. Once I got my new shop done, I put this one on the front burner. I made sure my 2012 CPAdues were paid before posting this in case you guys want to drum me out for the fixed gear conversion. . .
The reality is that I fly off a grass field and didn't want to be cringing during every landing.
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Except for the landing gear being a little too tall for my taste, I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out. The number I'm most excited about is the weight. This plane originally was 8 lbs., closer to 9 lbs. with the added nose weight, extra servos, and other sundry crap. As you can see in the picture, all-up weight without fuel was 7lbs. 12 oz. I also switched the prop to a 10 x 10 from a 12 x 7 Vess. The 7 pitch made alot of noise in the air, but the plane seemed to be driving in first gear. We'll see if the 10 pitch will speed thing up a bit. . .
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The major modifications were:
1) Removed the entire retract system, including the gear plates in the wing and covered the holes with contest sheeting.
2) Removed all fiberglass and paint from the wing and replaced with Monokote.
3) Removed the two mini-servos in the tail and replaced with a single standard size servo in fuse using the DEPS system.
4) Replace the full-size servos in the wing with the mini-servos from the tail. The extra full-size servo is now a spare.
5) Removed the nose weight that was required due to the tail mounted servos.
6) Installed carbon fiber fixed gear.
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Can't wait to get this thing back in the air. . .