I got my Integral flying this past Sunday, June 15th. I received the kit (white version from Comp ARF http://www.composite-arf.com.hk/ ) on June 5th after ordering it a week before from Jason. I am in the Eastern part of Canada and I was tracking it on the UPS website. It arrive the day that UPS said it would.

That plane replaces my Twister that crashed 4 weeks ago due to a TX battery failure so the first few flights, I was still a bit nervous. It went well and after 2 trim flights, I tried P09 to get an idea of the differences with the Twister. I also tried the knife edge loop. It feels very similar but I had not flown a lot in the last few weeks. I think that it won’t need much trimming to get it right.

Equipment :
Motor: Plettenberg Extra 30-10 Evo ( http://www.icare-rc.com/plettenberg_xtra30evo.htm )
ESC: Schulze fut-32.80KA, F3A version with proportional brake ( http://www.icare-rc.com/motor_contro...ss.htm#Schulze )
Battery: 2 x 5S5300mha Thunder Power ( http://thunderpowerrc.com/html/prolites.html )
Landing Gear: Twister from ZN Line (40g lighter than the original from Comp ARF http://www.znline.com/ )
Receiver: Spektrum AR7000 ( http://www.spektrumrc.com/Products/D...ProdID=SPM6070 )
RX battery: 2 x 480mha Thunder Power with 2 Radio South regulator ( http://www.radiosouthrc.com/safe_switch.htm )
Elevator servos: JR3421SA ( http://www.jrradios.com/Products/Def...A&tag=hqls4029 )
Aileron servos: JR8411 modified with 8231 nylon gears except the output shaft to make them like 8411SA ( http://www.jrradios.com/Products/Def...A&tag=hqls4022 )
Rudder servo: Futaba S9155 ( http://www.futaba-rc.com/servos/digitalservos.html )
Total weight: 4915g
CG: approx 1/2in in front of the front edge of the tube or about 285mm in front of the trailing edge.

Comments on the kit & build:

This was the first composite airplane that I build myself and the first pattern plane that I build alone. It went very well thanks to the good quality of the kit and info from this thread and personal emails. Since I was a bit on a rush, I followed the instructions for the most part.

The main thing I did differently is the down trust. Following Chad’s recommendation, to follow Brian’s trimming procedure, I took some of the down trust out when installing the firewall. I shimmed the rest out. For now, I have the stab and the motor parallel (0 deg) and the wing is just under 1deg from what I could measure with Robart incidence meters. I may try a different measurement technique later.

As mentioned above, I used the landing gear from the Twister. It saved 80g total. I also used aluminum wheel axles from NB Engineering in place of the 4mm screws of the kit to save weight. I used 4-40 screws in place of the 3mm screws to attach the gear to the fuse.

The white finish seems to be only a primer. It’s very sensitive to Acetone and even alcohol and dirty fingers.

The instructions mention a blob of epoxy/micoballoons on the sleeve in the stab for the securing screw but I haven’t found it. I don’t think it will come off anyway with the screw going only thru the sleeve. I inserted a balsa piece inside the tube with a piece of nyrod in the balsa for the screw.

I used the JR's 3421 in the stab because the Futaba S9650 I planned to use didn't fit well in the molded recess.

There was nothing inside the bottom of the rudder to link the tail wheel so I cut an opening in the front of the rudder to insert a piece of balsa and glue it in place with polyurethane glue. The place for the tail wheel on the fuselage doesn’t have the proper offset with the bottom of the rudder for an MK tail wheel. A shim was needed to make it fit right.

The wood insert for the horn in the elevators and ailerons could be located more inboard (more in line with the servos) so the horns could be located in the middle and not need a long servo arm. Using a long servo arm means that the servo travel need to be less than 100% to achieve the proper throws. Knowing that in advance, I would have located the horn a bit closer to the servos (not in the middle of the inserts). I was expecting the throws to be fine with the long arm since the hinge line is on the top skin but there is still too much throw. Using a shorter arm would make the linkage not in line with the surface horn. If they were horns with ball links, I would not mind but with the phenolic horns that need to have clevis, the link must be in line. I may change to the ball link horn later if I really don’t like it.

I mentioned the above 2 items to Jason and he said that it should be fixed in the kits coming in near future.

As expected, the cowl and canopy installation were the part needing the most thinking. I looked at many pictures and in the end I used some of the hooks provided for the canopy. I got something light, that wasn’t too difficult to do, and it seems to works well. We’ll see if I loose the canopy in flight…

I added a small shim on the root rib where the securing stud is located to avoid deforming the fuse as recommended earlier in this thread by Jason.

Once this one is trimmed, don’t be surprise if I order another one for backup. I think that a second one could be build over a weekend. I may also do the adjuster mod like Chad at one point.

Xavier

Pictures of the build:
http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.m...ey=fLx74oBd4gM