suitcase


the home page is www.vectorflight.com

Exeter Acres,

At the home page Dingawing posted, scroll down to the bottom and look for the link "Supplementary Instructions HERE".

That gets you to http://www.vectorflight.com/Suppleme...tructions.html

Good luck,
Dave Olson

Interesting... Haven't seen that diagram before... Looks like they are building in aileron differential.. I put it in using the radio.. This looks like a better way to do it..

Thanks. I've built three. I still have the Deb but I stole the controls and engine for my Twist. I never finished the rail with the tube just needs controls and engine to go.

I see you've been given the link. Wish I had read it first.lol

The cowl does come all white and you put the finishing touches. It has me a bit worried too. Oh well, I messed up my first cowl anyway so I'll have one to practice with. I'll let you know how it comes out and gives some pointers............hopefully

Geez....I've looked at that page many times... sorry I missed it

Well I got to work on it today. Finished the wing except for the control rods. No big deal there, I'll wait till I get the other control surfaces installed. I installed the servos in the fuse and then removed them to put some CA on the holes to toughen them up. I added the tri stock to the tailend and fit the fairing but not sure which glue to use. I can get some contact cement at work but that stuff is hard to work with. One screw up with it and it's a done deal. Instrs say plastic cement. Is that the stuff you use to use on models? I have some canopy glue. I'm going to have to do some odd covering to cover up the horizontal stab bracing. I'll use some ultra cote. I glassed the firewall and some of the joints in the front end. Tried to get some on the landing gear mount but don't think I did it much good. I don't like the single bevel aileron setup. Just doesn't look strong enough to me. Any differential could be programmed in with the radio seems like and the ailerons could beveled like the Funtana 40. For some reason I'm getting a bit bored with putting the whole thing together really. The Hanger 9 stuff went together so easy I guess I got spoiled. Fooling with the fairing and looking forward to the cowl and putting the decals on it mounting engine and dealing with the cowl, I don't know, kinda wished I had bought something else. More simple to assemble.

Yeah,, I'm lazy. Maybe I'll get going after the tailfeathers are done. Hope so.

I had one of these planes and had the same feeling. Wound up selling it before I even started on it!!!

To each his own. Have you compared the price and quality of the vectorflight vs hanger 9 ? You get a lot for your money and NO ARF is perfect anyway. IMO

Pete

I see three areas that need updating besides the manual. Other than that you'll have one tough great flying plane. While your 95% completed quick and easy to assemble ARFs will be tail trophys on the wall after a jack hammered landing or crash.
"Here's what I'm screaming."
1. Get with the times! Give us a prefitted alum or cf wing rod. No more guessing on those wooden joiners.
2. Complete the tail section of the fuse. The plastic tail fairing piece is not nessasary if the tail comes ready in the first place.
3. Get rid of the plastic parts completely. Have a fiberglass company mold and supply the cowlings . Up the price of the planes to compensate for the costs. It's worth it.

An in depth step by step manual could be created by VF and the customers that would answer all these questions plus give advice and tips on the small things such as how to mount the fuel tanks and what if any after market hardware works best with each model.
Don't get me wrong. My VF is still numero uno in my hanger. It's just like looking in the mirror every morning. There are always things we could improve about ourselves.

Can I use canopy glue on the fairing?

Sure,,, also use the supplied extra red vinyl they send to cover it .

I ordered my 66" Extra last week. My Mag 91fs will be in tomorrow.. So I guess I need to start thinking about servos. I usually use Hitec or Futaba servos. I am thinking about Hitec 425's or 475's. What is everyone else using?

I used Hitec 425's for throttle and ailerons. Used the 475's for rudder and elevator. I would suggest the slightly stronger servos for at least the rudder. There is very little throw on the elevator so if you set it up with full servo travel, you will get a great mechanical advantage. I suspect that the 425 would be perfectly adequate for the elevator.

Ross

Since I was given a grand to put a plane together I figured I would get something that I could use on a larger plane too if I wanted to move up in size some. So I got Hitec digitals. HS 6635s for all controls and HS 6475 for throttle. YS `110 engine, and a new 9CAPS Futaba transmitter. Now I just need some motivation to get it together. Guess I'll work on the tail tonight and try to finish that. Then again, maybe I'll just play Far Cry again.

Oh, BTW, my new cowl came. It come with all decals too. Screwed up the first one, over heated the water

Are you talking about that piece of red about two inches wide and 18" long?? I wondered what it was for. Why don't they give you something to cover the seam where the wing come together?

They do, it is called a belly pan

Darn it!! See,, I told ya I'm not smart enough for this hobby.[X(]

Well it's 7:30 and I just finished working on the xtra. Got right much done this evening too. Did some grinding on the supplied engine mount to get the YS to fit. Looks like the hub nut thingy what ever you call it is going to be 5 1/2" from the firewall. Instructions say 5" +/- 1/4. I glued up the fairing and got all the control horns installed. Hinges are all in and ready to glue when the fairing is dry. Bent the tail wheel wire and it's ready for install.

Now,, there is two control rods of equal length with thread on one end. Elevator?? One rod, longer with threads on both ends. Rudder?? One rod, shorter than the others with thread on one end. Throttle?? Two very short rods, obviously ailerons. Am I correct? Why does one have threads on both ends? It's too long to use as is.

The cowl seems to slide way up on the fuse. Will there be a gap all the way around it when it's cut to size?

After the tail feathers are all glued on, I'll have some trim work to do to cover up the messy butt end of this thing. The whole tail wheel thing seems a bit weak for flying off of grass. I'll post some pics of my progress next time. Going to the giant scale flyin in Danville, VA Saturday,,, Y'all come.

A couple of recommendations...

1) Do something about the landong gear mount! I had a harder than average landing a couple of days ago and tore out the landing gear. Its mounted with 3 x #6 cap screws into blind nuts. The LG plate is not strong enough and the steel screws have absolutely no give. I am re-doing mine with 2 x 1/4" nylon bolts into a basswood plate. I've tapped the plate rather than using blind nuts since drilling the 3/8" hole for the blind nuts weakens the plate more than necessary. Its a good idea to beef up the whole LG area as well as switch to 1/4" x 20 nylon bolts. The cowl cracked when the LG broke away so I am doing a little fibreglass/epoxy job inside the cowl. Relatively minor fixes.

2) On my Extra, I found the plane unwilling to do a knife-edge without losing altitude. Seems like not enough rudder but I was running at the recommended high rates. At least part of the problem is/was the rudder control horn. The balsa rudder is too soft for a horn with the small footprint of the supplied horn. I have peeled away the covering and inlaid 1/16" ply to make a hard point about 4X the surface area of the control horn. The covering went back down over the ply and hardly shows. (Also put a hard point behind the plastic backer for the horn). I'll see how this mod affects rudder effectiveness.

Ross

Anyone care to explain the control rods please?

I would appreciate some tips on tank installation on the extra. I'm using the YS so it doesn't have to be right behind the firewall.

I've finished the tail, including covering all the bracing and fairing. I'm not too good at that but I guess it's passable.

BTW, how do you get to the inside to do ANYTHING to the landing gear mount??? I can't even see it! I did mix some epoxy and tried to brush it inside, yet I'm not sure I even hit the right spots. I don't want to remove the covering to get at it. I guess if I tear the gear out, then I'll fix it stronger.

I have mounted my tank, a 16 oz by the way, using foam to cushion the base and top and used zip tie anchors epoxied to the side of the fuse. They are available at home depot. They have a 4-way slot for the tie and they either screw on or self stik adhesive. I epoxied mine onto the fuse about 1/2 way up. Zip tie goes over the top of the tank and foam and holds it nicely.

You'll probably need to push the tank as far forward as you can so the gear bolts clear on the inside. I hope you have used 2 or 3 1/4-20 nylon bolts to mount the gear, VF says they no longer ship these without the nylon gear bolts. I glued a couple of 1/8" ply plates to the bottom of the fuse over the gear and extended the plates forward a couple of inches to form a base for the tank as well.

Thanks Grelker, I'll look into using your method. Did you make the piece of ply run up on the curved surface at all or just keep it flat? Did you use the existing blind nuts or change the size?

What size do you drill wood to tap for 1/4 20 bolts? How thick should the wood be to hold? In steel, the nut is basicly the size of the bolt thickness.

The ply is on the flat portion only and I installed two 1/4-20 blind nuts. The location for the new bolts is the outlined in the last item under the "Important" heading on page 2 of the general instructions. Can't help you on the drill size for threads; maybe google it? Wood thickness is a good question, can't say for sure. I think it's more that the ply extend longer up the fuse to resist the twisting pull-out force. I've never seen the wood fail on gear pullouts, it's always the glue and the gear block twists out of the fuse. Remember we're using nylon bolts with much less shear strength than steel.

OK thanks. Maybe this evening I'll get on it. Hope to fly my Big Boy this afternoon. Twist too I hope.