Its been a long Winter in Colorado. So long that I ran out of projects for my Winter builds. I've only been in the hobby for a year now with my first build being a Senior Telemaster last Winter. I powered it with a OS 61 and it flew well except that it had repeated issues with the stab breaking. It was also difficult to transport that long wing. The landing gear was real weak (probably as a result of my landings) and the fuselage design allowed for a fair amount of twist in rear of the fuselage.

So I decided to pull out the plans and build my ultimate Telemaster from scratch. The modifications I intended to make were the following;

Sheeted fuselage to increase the strength and remove the twisting.
Stronger stab.
Increased rudder and elevator.
Bolt on wing.
Two piece wing.
Stronger landing gear.
Gas engine.

Fuselage Enhancements
I wanted something a little different that the standard design so I changed the front end by removing the hatch and windshield area and wrap the top of the fuselage around the leading edge of the wing. To increase the strenght of the fuselage I used 1/4" balsa sheeted with 1/64" ply for the front half of the fuselage. The firewall was moved back 1.5" to accomodate the Fuji 24cc gas motor and ply formers replaced the balsa ones used in the kit. The top and bottom of the fuse was sheeted with 1/4" balsa and and extra longeron added on the sides. This approach removed all the possiblityof the fuselage twisting. Accomodations were made to have the rudder and elevator servos in the tail.

Stabalizer Enhancements
I think the biggest problem I had with my old kit and the stab constantly breaking was a result of soft balsa. The kit contained too soft of balsa which made the stablizer too weak. I decided to make the stab per the kit plans but I sheeted the leading and trailing edges of the stab and cap stripped the ribs to increase the strength.

Rudder, Elevator Enhancements
The rudder and elevator on the kit could use more area IMO. Rudder response and elevator response seemed soft to me when floating in for a landing. I increased the area of both the rudder and elevator by 15%. Hopefully its no worse than the original!

Wing Enhancements
I found several threads here on RCU regarding wing mods. I decided to make the wing two piece by taking the wing joiner and making in removable. I was worried about the stress of the joiner using the standard 1/4" ply joiner used in the kit. I made the joiner two bays longer than the original and added 1/8" balsa sheer webs front and back the entire length of the spar. I also increased the joiner to 1/2" thick ply. While I was at it I removed the bulk of the diehdral on the wing from the standard 4 degrees to 1 degree. To strengthen the wing I sheeted the leading edge and trailing edge and cap stripped the ribs. I also reduced the size of the wing by two bays. The bolt on wing enhancement used the hole and hook method mentioned in sevaral threads along with a nylon bolts at the trailing edge.

Langing Gear
Why is it that every plane I fly seems to have inadequate langing gear? It must be my landing technique! I flew my old Telemaster and rebent the gear after every landing. This time I'm solving this issue by putting a 3/16" thick aluminum gear under this bird along with a beefed up tail wheel.

Gas Engine
I'm standing at the LHS and I'm looking at this cute little Fuji 24cc. I'm thinking to myself that would be a perfect match for the Telemaster so I go ahead and buy it. I must say that it fit in there very nice. It is not electronic ignition which is fine for a plane like the Telemaster.

Hopefully some of you who are getting ready to build the Telemaster can use some of this information to bash your Telemaster. I know I got lots of good information from RCU threads so I thought I'd return the favor by documenting what I did.

Thanks, Jerry.