Hey Guys,
Well the German captured LA-5 is getting very close now..... It only took a few years
. It's a tale of whoa add misery but she's very close.
First my question, I have the LA-5 on the balance stand now double checking everything.
Are you measuring from the front edge of the wing at the point aligned with the wing saddle and leading edge ? This ls is the same as the face of the front mounting surface for the wing where it meets the saddle. Currently the LA-5 balances there with no weight needed, wheels up, and empty tanks.
I am balancing at 150mm since the range seems to be 150-155mm. Just want to be sure If I move the tips of the balance stand back to the actual leading edge that looks like it would be tail heavy where it sits on the wing at that point.
Front face of the saddle of the wing a good starting point to measure from to CG?
The story - I was going fast on the build until I hit the retract portion. I got the ESM's, they burnt out, I got an updated controller, that burnt out. I got disgusted and put it aside. I had built the the LA-5 with a 53cc XYZ installed. Ran it, tuned it and wore out my arm trying to start it by hand. I got tired of smelling like gas. I also had a Laser 300v that I had bought for this project originally. I had sent t to Adrian aat CH and he converted it to gas but it never developed the power needed on gas. It ran great but just lower power. So I set the LA-5 aside.....
This year I've been going through planes finishing lots of projects and tuning. This includes the LA-5 and a CMP L-4. The L-4 is flying great now on an ASP 160 glow CDI. It will get a Gyro next week and go into Tow Duty soon.
The LA-5 got the Laser 300v put back into it, moved servos around, mounted 2 tanks, and a new set of Electron 80degree retracts with 11mm inserts. I was hoping the struts would drop right in..... Wrong. The insert size is correct but the portion on the strut that is 11mm is too short and the wrong length. Grrrrrrr...... So on the lathe they went to turn them down and then cut them shorter by about 1/4 inch. The Electron retracts work well so far with no hiccups. I got them from the Electron site. Easy and fast.
Since the LA-5 needed a scoop it was time to do that bit. I laid down some packaging tape, then 3M Sprayed some foam to stick the foam to the cowl/packing tape, shaped it a bit and glassed it with 6oz cloth. I let that all dry and peeled it off the cowl to cut and shape into a scoop. I put a barrier inside the scoop so air would only go about 1/4 into the scoop. Then i cut a hole in the cowl and added some internal ducting made from card stock and CA. The scoop now blows air from the nose down onto the engine. At the rear of the scoop I cut some oval vent that look like they belong and added some screen. I drilled a hole inside the top of the cowl and made that opening about 1/3'rd the size of the area of my new vents. This should draw hot air from the top of the cowl. So my new scoop both feeds high pressure air into the cowl and onto the engine. It also vents the stagnate air in the back to there should be no pocket of hot air in there. I made a front baffle out of ply with openings for the twin jugs and painted it black on front and gray on back with Klass Kote.
Tidy everything up and add a dual cylinder remote glow from Sullivan and the LA-5 is very close. Basically, a new coat of Klass Kote clear as I'm now running glow. I want to protect the latex I used as I was thinking this would be a gas plane when I painted it. Confirm balance and go through it nose to tail in set up and systems check including making sure all the bolts are tight. Since it sat for so I long I may have left something loose that I don't want to miss.
Looks like I'm about a week away from maiden.
I'll post some pics soon. I also have some Warm White 8mm 5 Chip 100,000mcd LED's on their way from Ebay to create Gun flashes. I prefer the Warm White for gun flashes and vintage NAV lights. The stark white ones look too modern for me. I programed the sequence already. But I'll wait to be sure the LA-5 is in one piece before installing the guns. I programed the flashes to fire in three groups of 3 shots with a slightly longer pause between each group of three. I started one gun to start the sequence on the flash and the other to start the sequence on the long pause.
This way they flashes start on one gun then the next gun and each one does 3 shoots then a slight pause then three shots.... This cycles three times and repeats infinitely while you hold the trainer switch down. The end result is a loose feel of a gun fired through the arch of the prop blade (3 blade). I just didn't want both flashing together with no life to the look. Now it looks like something is going on. Once maidened, I'll program the controller and install the LEDs
Pics soon.
Joe