old bird

Eflynow, I looked at your pictures and your reenforcments look really good. I did the same thing to our landing gear blocks, but used some spruce to reenforce the spars. We have over 100 flights on ours now. Last week I finally broke one of the landing gears. It broke just below the lowest weld as you might suspect. I had ordered replacements earlier so we are airworthy again. I still love the way this plane flies and looks.

Happy landings and best regards from old bird.

kmyersefo

I sure wish I had found this thread before ordering mine. Too late, so, taking some of your folks' advice and experience, hopefully mine will last a while. I did a build thread for it over on RC Groups (hope that is not a dirty word, as I don't want to offend anyone and this is my first post at this site). I hope to maiden it tomorrow morning, August 26, 2006, if the weather cooperates in southeastern Michigan. You can check out my build thread at: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=557165

Ken Myers, Croswell, MI USA

kbrd

Well, I just test flew my Sportsman STA, and the stock gear stayed on, but I had already beefed up that area anyway. Has anyone tried installing a cap spar or just putting flying wires on the bottom of the wing to control the flex? I was thinking of running two wires just inside the aileron servos to the gear, with center wires to brace the gear so it wouldn't spread from the flying wires. I thought the wing was too soft to begin with, so kept to straight and level and shallow bank turns when I test flew it. Also I have had a heck of a time trying to match the yellow covering- the closest I have been able to find is the Monokote Cub Yellow. Anybody been able to find out what covering they used?

kmyersefo

oldbird above sounds like he added a spruce cap spar and eflynow did this: http://www.rcuniverse.com/community/...y&memid=264934

Functional flying wires might help.

I "think" the covering materal might be "related" to Sig Aerokote, but it is not the Cub yellow for sure. What is on the plane has a white backing on the film itself and the Sig Aerokote has a white backing on the film itself. Sig Aerokote is possibly the worst covering I have ever used, NO, it is the worst covering I have ever used!

I sure wished that they had designed the wing properly. It would have also been handy if they had used a mainline covering so that it could be matched. Their Stik uses real Monokote, so they obviously have access to it.

Tightening up the wing covering a lot more with a heat gun, as mentioned earlier in this thread, does help some, but it is pretty easy to warp the wing while doing this. An incidence meter should be used after tightening to check out both panels for warps.

After nine flights, I have to say that it flies okay.

Did you change your aileron throws from those suggested in the manual? I found that adding differential made a HUGE difference for the better.

eflynow

Hi guys,

When I recovered my Ryan wing I used Solarfilm. There is a dark yellow that is a very close (but not exact) match.

Regards
Chris

kbrd

Ken,

No I haven't tried differential aileron yet. I will save that for the second test flight after I fix the wing. I will check your post in the "other" forum for the settings you used. The next test flight will be only to test the wing structure and the mods I have to make. I think we need to create a whole new class of models just for the Ryan- ARRB: Almost Ready to Rebuild!

kmyersefo

I like ARRB! :-)

At the Midwest RC Society last night, I described it "It arrived at my house as an ARF, Almost Ready to Fix." :-)
Seriously, I have almost 60 hours in this ARF. My normal kit build time for this type of plane is approximately 80 hours.

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

I wimped out on my wing beef up. I just attached 2 carbon fiber rods to the lower wing surface with clear packing tape. It did however allow me to keep the stock covering. I've been flying it this way for 4 months. Not bad for having a cracked leading edge and partially cracked wing spar. I do watch my speed and don't yank when flying fast. Still doing snap rolls, spins, loops and rolls. The Ryan makes a great battery hack for breaking in new Thunder Power 4200's for my Miss America and for my e powered Sea Hornet twin which is under construction. Gear repair is holding up OK and I do at least 5 touch and go's on every flight. I think flying wires on the bottom sounds like a good idea, scale too. Hi to Old Bird I'm coming up to the air races for the first time in over 20 years!

old bird

Howdy Merlin Fan, Our Ryan is still flying and the wing is holding up fine after the addition of some scrap spruce and tri-stock around the landing gear blocks. I made the worst landing,(crash), ever with this plane during a SWOAS event. I broke the landing gear wire but no damage to the wing, just the ego with everyone watching. Glad to hear yours is still flying. The Reno air race committee announced the other night on the TV news that they are going to treat the air races as a terrorist target. They said that they are going to search everyone and NOTHING, including water can be brought through the gates. A lot of us regulars are not going this year as we feel this is just a ploy so the vendors inside can sell more stuff. Just a heads up, I don't know what the RV people are going to be subject to, but I can imagine what the scene will be like at the SINGLE gate. Real smart to squeeze the golden goose until you kill it. I am going camping in the Nevada outback that weekend.

Best regards from old bird.

kbrd

Hello All,

Here is my contribution to the wing redesign/rebuild saga on the Sportsman Aviation Ryan STA. I stripped the covering off the top, made rib doublers out of 1/16 ply for every other rib- through which passes 8 mm carbon fiber tube left over from Dave Brown push rods. I then epoxied all the unglued joints (half of the total!) with DEVCON Two Ton epoxy. I have given up on trying to find a matching covering material, Ken after your experience with Sig covering, I am just going to say to heck with it and use Monokote Cub Yellow. While I am at it I will also put new wing walks where they are supposed to go, instead of where SA had them. Other than beefing up the gear with JB weld and additional wood in the mount I am not going to bother with the gear fairing mods, although if I have to pull the gear again, I will mod the gear fairings at that time. I fly off of hard surface, so nose overs aren't a problem unless I cause them!

Jack

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

The Ryan has gotten a lot of air time over the last 2 weeks. I've been breaking in some new Lipo packs gently. I have been thinking about converting it back to glow. I think that with my spar strap on the bottom of the wing less power would be best. I have no doubt that it would fly well with the Magnum .28 as Hobby people recomends (they mention low wing loading) but I like the sound of a 4 stroke better. I'm thinking about a smaller than .52 OS four stroke. I want to put the AXI motor in a Cub. Guess I'll check Ebay.

old bird

Hello Merlin, glad to hear that your Ryan is still alive. I flew ours yesterday for the first time in three months, it is holding up well and is still fun. We are using a Magnum .52 4-stroke and it is almost too fast. I think a .30 4-stroke would be perfect. I have heard that the smaller engines are harder to keep running when inverted, but I have no experience with anything smaller than the .52. There have been quite a few of the smaller Magnum engines on ebay lately.

best regards from old bird.

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

Hi Bird, I ordered a 40 4 stroke from Tower, I was afraid the 30 would be too small. I pulling the electrics and putting them into a E-flite Cub with floats. Hope I dont shake that poor wing to bits.

kbrd

Hi everyone,

Here is an update on my last post since my mods to the Ryan. The wing mod is still holding up well. Even though it still flexes noticeably, it still hasn't failed despite some high g pulls while doing cloverleafs. I still haven't put any down thrust on the .40 LA, so it doesn't fly inverted well but it will do all the stock military maneuvers with ease, along with hammerheads and some zippy snaps. Here is a summary and some pics of my mods to the basic ARF:

Built up the landing gear area, added additional wood fore and aft of the gear mounts.

Removed the covering and installed carbon rods with through plywood doublers on every other wing rib. The rods are Dave Brown pushrod stock and go from tip rib to center section rib. If I was going to do it all over again, I would run the rods all the way to the joiner rib and bevel the ends to mate up with dihedral angle[img][/img].

Used a Dave Brown carbon fiber push rod for the elevator, and Seven Strand bronze fishing leader for the rudder cables.

Removed the mounting flanges on the gear fairing and plastic welded heavy polystyrene angle bar to mount the gear fairings. I also plastic welded polystyrene doublers around the gear wheel openings to prevent cracking.

Replaced the cheap plastic struts with Dubro tail braces covered with streamlined aluminum struts mounted to brackets taken from my model sailboats.

The .40 LA is as much power as the model can handle, I wouldn' t want to power it any more than that.

Regards,

Jack

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

Well the Ryan has been gutted and its power system is in the Cub. The Cub is lighter and flies great with way more than scale power but it sure doesn't take-off or land as well as the old Ryan. The OS 40 4stroke is ready to be mounted along with the original fuel tank. Looks like ony a little bit of cutting will be necessary for cooling and the muffler. Probably won't fly till after Xmas. Hope the Cub behaves better on floats. The Ryan would be great on floats I'll bet. Happy Landings!

kbrd

Hey folks.

I think I have solved the riddle of the Covering for the Ryan. I think is a covering called TOUGHLON produced by World Models Manufacturing in China (where else?) and the U. S. distributor is Airborne Models out of California. The PART NO. for the Cub Yellow is STL331 and it goes for $10.99 a roll. Could the riddle be finally solved? I'll let you know when I order a roll and try it.

BTW, Airborne Models has an interesting looking Sport Scale P-82 Twin Mustang.

http://www.airborne-models.com

Regards,

Jack

Richard Say

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven't said hi for such a long time. I have completely made the move to electrics. I have been spending my time getting rid of all my glow 4 cycle stuff and drawing plans, buying elec kits, building etc. By the time flying season comes around I will be flying all electric. Mostly multi engine (motor ) stuff. The move has rejuvenated me!!! One thought about the Ryan though - it would make a great electric powered aircraft!

Happy Flying
Dick Say

kbrd

Hello All-

The riddle is solved! The Cub Yellow on the Sporsman Aviation Ryan IS- Toughlon iron on made in China, and distributed by Airborne Models in California. I ordered a roll and it looks like a match! I would guess that all the ARF's coming out of China such as Sportsman, CMP, and probably ModelTech will be using that material. Whew!

BTW, according to the instruction, the initial "tacking" of the material to the airframe is done at only 140 deg F, with subsequent shrinking done at higher temperatures.

Jack

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

KBRD, glad you found a match. Nice info to know. My reversion to glo power is comming along at a snails pace but someday it will fly again. Hi Dick, You and I are on opposite paths I started on electrics and then discovered the fun of fuel, I'll still fly and build electrics (working on a DH Hornet twin) Even our clubs biggest electric hater is working on a plane for ski flying on those new A123 cells. It's all fun.

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

I finally hung the OS 40 on the Ryan! Its hard to get to on that back burner. It'll be a while till it flies again.

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

It's funny, everything balanced exactly the same as with the E setup. Didn't ned any lead. Only gained 4 oz. with tank empty. Electrons didn't weigh much. Decided to repair right rear gear hardpoint and its a good thing I looked, the rib was broken in 7 places. Made 3 doublers and lots of 30 min epoxy. Better reweigh

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

Home after first flights on fuel.

kbrd

Merlin Fan,

Congrats! How does it perform with the OS 40 4 stroke? Mine does well with the .40 LA, but I had to add about 1.5 degrees down thrust to reduce the climbing tendency and reduce the amount of forward stick I needed for inverted flight. However, don't you have it backwards? I thougt we were supposed to do "glow to electric" conversions?


Jack

Ryan #22

tessmar

Gear and Firewall Issues

Engine: 40LA

Although it seems this thread hasn't been active in awhile I thought I'd add my two cents. I won the Ryan in a raffle, and after checking here and on RCGroups, made the suggested reinforcements to the wings and landing gear blocks. I am a fairly new pilot, so I asked my former instructor to trim it out the first time. It flew fine...until the landing. He made a low level pass to check the descent rate and due to a fuel pickup problem the engine stalled two thirds of the way down the runway. Although he made a soft landing in the grass both main gears broke off right at the weld between the gear wire and the brace. The welding was worthless. No wonder the only listed part Sportsman did not have was the landing gear!. I made new ones out of music wire, and wrapped the brace to the gear with copper wire and then soldered the joint. Have had no problems since and the plane lands easier than anything I've tried (though it is a lazy and sloppy flier).

BUT...Issue number two is even more serious. I advise everyone to check and reinforce the firewall before flying. Better yet, pull on it and it will probably just snap out and then you can use REAL GLUE to put it back. After about a dozen flights, all with gentle landings and no bouncing, mine simply came unglued. The only thing holding the engine in was the cowling. Fortunately this happened during the landing (another gentle one). One of the triangle stock braces had fallen off. There is no trace of any kind of glue on this one. The other broke 2/3 down, but there was no glue above this point. The firewall was in one piece with no brace or fuse wood attached to it-broke right on the glue line. I made new bracing and epoxied everything back with 30 minute glue. I tested it by pulling as hard as I could on it and the firewall remained in place.

This thing isn't an ARF..it's an ARC (almost ready to crash). Love the looks though

MerlinFan

My Feedback: (27)

Yea, my firewall broke when I crashed it as an electric. After repair it has held up well with the FS 40. It sure is an easy lander. One of my wing struts has broken I need to find some better material.