FINAL DETAILS
There isn’t much left to do to the airplane at this point.
Propeller balance is of the utmost importance. At the very least, ensure that you spend adequate time balancing the propeller. Spinner balancing is nice, but if you don’t know how to balance the spinner and the propeller so that they work together, it’s best that you just focus on doing a good job balancing the propeller and leave the spinner alone.
Complete the tailwheel installation by threading the tiller arm into the collar on the tailwheel assembly. Use some blue threadlocker on this and tighten down well. Install the open end of the spring through the eyelet on the tiller arm, put slight tension on the spring, and mark the opposite end of the spring on the bottom of the rudder, centered. Using a 1/16” drill bit in a pin vise, drill a hole at this mark, thread the included screw in the hole to tap threads, harden the threads with some thin CA, and install the screw through the end of the spring to complete assembly.
Put some sticky-back Velcro on the battery tray and cut some battery straps to length. With all of the components in place, check the CG of the model. The recommended CG location in the manual of 142mm aft of the leading edge of the wing at the root is looks to be a safe starting point. There are tons of trimming charts and methods out there to trim out an airplane, so fine tune the CG when you fly the airplane. This is easily accomplished by moving the motor battery.
The kit includes some very nice adhesive-back graphics for the airplane. I have worked with B&E Graphix to provide a package of vinyl graphics for this airplane to include:
Aircraft logo
AMA Number
Pilot Name
CPLR Design Logo
F3A Unlimited Logo
Brand Logo of your choice
This is the standard package and is being offered through their website at
www.bandegraphix.com. As you can see in the images at the beginning of the thread, I’ve purchased a few extra graphics to finish out the airplane, but overall it looks very nice!
Give everything a good once-over to ensure that all nuts and bolts are tight, all linkages are secure, and that there is no loose covering. Once all systems are go, all that’s left to do is fly!
FLYING
I had to make an emergency trip back home to North Carolina for my wife's family, and I brought the airplane down with me as we are on track to get shut out for flying weather in Illinois until about June or July. I got one flight in before dark yesterday and was very happy. I think it's got a lot of potential and was very solid in the turbulence we had yesterday. KE performance, as expected, was quite strong. I found the airplane to be a little nose heavy for my taste, and there was some roll coupling, but an indeterminate amount of pitch coupling. I think the airplane compares very favorably (more potential) than the Carbon-Z Splendor, with which I have considerable experience. I like it!
PARTING THOUGHTS
Overall, I think this airplane is a home run. My airplane ended up weighing 2236g empty, and 2794g RTF. I was hoping for a little lighter weight, but the airplane as tested from the manufacturer was likely with much smaller servos that don’t have the same performance that the servos installed do. I am interested to know what CPLR’s airplane weighs RTF, but at the end of the day, there is no way that this airplane would NOT be legal to fly at any AMA pattern event, nor will the couple of ounces of weight make an appreciable difference in the way that the airplane flies for most people.
The airplane is very high quality, and the finish job is top notch. The airplane is very accurately built and the small adjustments that were made during the build on my airplane (stab alignment, rudder hinge alignment) were very minor compared to many other aircraft in the market today. It’s hard for me to give an honest estimate of how long it’s taken me to build the airplane, but I can say this, I’ve spend more time writing this copy than I have building the airplane by far. The airplane obviously has a champion pedigree and I’ve watched the video of Christophe flying it over and over in patient anticipation of actually being able to get out and fly my airplane.
I only have two gripes with the airplane. First of all, I am not a huge fan of the control horns, as previously mentioned. Secondly, as a person with big hands, installing the wing bolts is an exercise in futility for me. Short of running a bolt through the wing tube, there really are no other options, so I’ve substituted the thumb bolts for slightly shorter M4 bolts that I use a cut-down hex driver to install.
I’d like to publically thank Mike Mueller and the rest of my sponsors, JR Americas, Thunder Power R/C and Castle Creations, as well as Aero-Model and B&E Graphix for their support and friendship over the years. Thanks to Christophe Paysant le-Roux for designing and licensing this cool little airplane, thank you to Winner’s Model for bringing it to life, and thank you all for reading this build thread. It’s been a lot of fun to put together and to document. I hope that this thread will help whoever buys this airplane to put it together with relative ease, and I hope that some of the tips and tricks that I’ve passed along will help you as much as they’ve helped me.
Until next time, blue skies and 10s!