opjose

Basically I cut a piece of ply, in the appoximate shape of the cowl cross section, (but smaller) at the correct distance for the motor.

Think of an ovoid "O" solid piece of wood with a hole in the center.

I cut a .75" hole in the center. Think of an ovoid "O" solid piece of wood with a hole in the center.

Then I cut two notches on either side so that this ply mount would slide into the existing arms.

I secured it in place with BOTH epoxy and screws inserted through four small ply or hardwood "triangles" to hold it up.

There are other pictures here of this arrangement, which is where I got the idea for the mount.

It works perfectly and IMHO is better than using the Hobby-Lobby plastic mount that someone posted.

To re-inforce it even more I added one small piece of hardwood going from the top of the "O" on back to the firewall, to form a 3 point system.

Check the other threads and you'll see pictures of something very similiar, but without my third piece of wood.

The motor is secured to the wood using the X-mount and blind nuts and screws.

You want the mount to be quite sturdy as this arrangement will produce a lot of torque...

When I first tested all of this statically I ripped out the first mount I made that I had attached at two points and just screws!

Fortunately I only busted a prop.




As for the battery hatch.

I used 8 of the hobby lobby rare earth button magnents (they come four to a pack ).

I used a circular dremel grinding bit to create a hole in the top of the hatch. (see above picture but read on ) The hole was perfect for the magnet, but did not go all the way through the wood. It left a paper thin section of wood. Had I drilled or grinded further it would have gone right through the hatch re-informcement wood plate...

I then filled this with a bit of epoxy and put the magnets in place.

Once it was dry I put this back in the fuselage and pressed hard. Since the magnets were ever so slightly "raised" the left a mark in the fuselage wood where I drilled for the other four magnets.

I mounted them with epoxy as well, flush with the wood.

In effect I have high strength magnet to magnet contact, so there is no futzing around with the rubber bands.

This holds VERY well and pops off easily.

In the above picture you can see the results of my first attempt with just two magnets (this was not enough ).

Look at the back top where the hatch mounts and you'll see a small washer affixed "into" a depressed hole in the wood affixed with epoxy. Directly opposite this in the hatch cover is a magnet imbedded in the hatch wood.

This was not strong enough so I replaced this with four (actually eight four per hatch "side" ) magnets similiarly set up with NO washer... rather the magnets lightly "touch" each other when the hatch is in place.




You'll love this arrangement.

The plane flies like it has a .32+ engine in it with none of the glow mess, and better flight times.

The batteries are available from Nitroplanes as well, for about (or less!) cost, so I purchased a total of six, which gives me about an hour and a half of actual flight time!

This for practically the same price Thunder Power, etc. would charge for one set of two batteries!

Even with the smaller E prop (which I recommend) you'll find that it's a capable and FAST flyer.

It's doesn't have much drag so it's efficient and it slows down SLOWLY.


My only problem with this plane, is that it is rather light... heh...

Our airfield has an elevated runway, much like the big boys... and even though the air is relatively slow, we get a surface wind running over the top of the runway. This wind follows the countours so it turns "down" over the edge of the field.

As I cross the threshold my plane usually takes an abrupt nose dive at the worst time.

I've taken to bringing it in high and slow, then diving for the deck at idle after it crosses this line.


Anyway you are going to have a blast with it and with the 2P3S arrangement, you'll see people taking off after you then bringing their planes down TWICE to refuel while yours is still up.... resulting in the

"what DO you have in there?" comments I sometimes get.