I have been reading this forum for a while, Thank You all for the posts and information.
I had started my Top Flite DC-3 a couple years ago, but it has continually been delayed due to Life.. However, I realized there is sage advice here with starting on a sport plane before I try to fly my scale twin.
Therefore, I'm taking the two Saito FA-40a's I have ready for the future C-53 and putting them onto a sport airplane. Since the Twin Stick is gone from the books, I went looking for another ARF to bash. Thought about the HobbiStar 60 Sport Utility Twin bash and also looked into the Big Stick 60, but you cannot find those any longer.
Then I saw the Ultra Stick Lite bash by ExperimentalAviator and decided to jump on into my own bash.
The 'new' Ultra Stick 10 cc has a little shorter wing than the Big Stick did and it is set up as a taildragger, where I do know that good advice has been offered to start with tricycle gear. However, It had a couple of benefits such as split flaps and a larger rudder already built into the airframe. Since I want to use this as my step into the DC-3 project, I wanted to have the flaps and taildragger as part of the setup, so we're giving this a try.
I broke the Saito engines in on test stands the last couple of weeks. I did get the chance to run them side-by-side and boy do they sound sweet together. I'm using 11X5 props on them and they each peaked around 10K RPM. I'm planning that my operating max will be right around 9,500 rpm.
Then I went ahead and made the final commitment to bashing the ARF - I measured and marked the wing for the cutouts.
Marked up and sheeting removed.
Cutouts complete, Rib tip salvaged and the paper box for planning.
I decided not to go between two ribs because that was going to push the nacelles too far out on the wing for my comfort. The second photo shows the rib tip I saved. I'll install that tip back into the final cutout and just have to make one more rib tip out of balsa for the other side; just to provide some support for the sheeting and a little more 'grab' for the nacelles.
The paper box was based on my firewall size and the length adjusted to fit the fuel tanks. They are a little longer and place the engines a little farther forward then I wanted, but I decided that keeping the spars in tact and mounting everything forward just fit better than trying to hang the nacelle under the wing (which I also drew out).
Hope to have a few more things completed this weekend.
Blue Skies.