Wow, what a sad thread, of course entirely my fault! ;-)

It's been a long time since I've cleaned up my airplane room, I was in there the other day and as I was moving stuff around, I pulled out the Impact fuse (no more complete than the previous posts) from the closet and thought "man what a pretty plane!". So after cleaning up the room, I got all the Impact parts together, all the electronics, everything needed to finally finish this puppy and off we go!

I guess I should start out by saying I got quite busy at work last winter and slowly got more into work than R/C, it's a cyclical thing, I'm sure many others go through. In my case, the time needed to finish the Impact against my already scarce time to fly, had me put the thing away in favor of a Fliton Inspire 60 (e-powered) that was ready to go. Enough time lapsed that I really forgot about it (not entirely, it was always standing tall in the closet, mocking me at 30% completion) and moved onto a few other projects like a Align TRex 450 SE, a hanger 9 Sundowner (with the same Axi 5330/F3A, Jeti Spin 99, FlightPower 12S 5000 & Mejzlik 20 x 12 carbon prop I plan on using on the Impact) and finally an Align TRex 600. Well after cleaning up the hobby room and deciding enough with the wanna' be pattern planes I have, let's get serious and finish this thing!

So I started this past Saturday, I lost a little time when I ran out of Aeropoxy only to find out the manufacturer had some issues and have since halted shipping. After a little coaxing by my LHS guru, I switched over to BVM's new V-poxy which so far, has the same rock solid holding power as Aeropoxy (with half the drying time). In any case, I've been able to get the stab tubes lined up, drilled and glued, the addendum bulkhead glued, the addendum stiffener inside the fuse glued, the stab tubes sanded and fitted to the stabs, the stabs cut for the servo arms, the stabs reamed to slip a mini servo inside, the rudder notched and the 4 hinges glued along with the rudder horn, the rudder post glued in the fuse, the chin cowl pinned and finally, the canopy painted, fitted, pinned and latched (whew!).

My next step is to glue the completed rudder/hinges to the rudder post, make 2 servo mounts for the stabs, drill the stabs, mount the tail wheel and the back half is done! I expect to then mount the wing servos (still puzzled how a 24" duct-taped screwdriver will feel), sand the rear wing pins, drill and tap the wings for the nylon bolts, mount the gear and finish the chin cowl mounting. I expect if I keep at it, I can be done by the weekend for a maiden next Wednesday (December 19 if all goes well). I still have to come up with a decent way to mount the batteries, I want something quick and well engineered, not an after-thought like some of my e-planes. I also plan on using an arming switch, I've had great luck with them, nothing like sitting on the flight line patiently while others fiddle with their idle speed and mix only to arm the plane in 2 seconds and taxi out ;-)

Some things I didn't do that were recommended, 2 things come to mind. First, I didn't use incidence adjusters on the wings or stabs, mostly because I couldn't locate any, that and the fact my flying skills wouldn't likely notice. Second, I used aeropoxy exclusively for all glue joints rather than epoxy with micro balloons as recommended. I am not worried about weight because I never plan on competing with this plane and if I do, I'd likely change out the LiPo capacity to cut weight but also because I want the glue joints to not be the part that fails. The only exception was on the addendum fuselage stiffener which was difficult to glue conventionally so I used epoxy and waited until it was hot and allowed it to run into position all the way down the inside of the fuse.

One final note, I mentined before that I built a Hanger 9 Sundowner recently using the same setup as I plan on using with the Impact, if anyone is curious, here are the bench numbers for the powerplant;

Components:

Axi 5330/F3A
Jeti Spin 99
2 x 6S2P EVO 5000 20C
Mejzlik 20 x 12E Carbon

Bench tests with a whattmeter and RPM check;

3,650 Watts (315+ watts/lb. for the Impact!)
81 Amps
7,110 RPM

I really have the bug to get this Impact built, I am dying to fly it!