I will ask this again,

Has any one that has flown the Staggerwing, had problems will ground loops?

I have a question about the fuel tank. I'm using the OS 160 with the tank from the kit. Should I add a third (vent) line to the tank as shown in the engine manual, or leave it at two lines (pressure and carb) as shown in the Stag. manual?

Got the toe in correct and the bird is straight as an arrow.
No more ground loops!

What's a good fuel mixture for the OS160 2-stroke? Buying fuel here in Germany is more expensive than mixing it myself, so I thought I'd look into this. I'm looking at 75% methenol, 20% castor oil, and 5% nitro methane.

Bob

If the engine does not use a pump, then you do not want to vent the tank. A vent will allow all your muffler pressure to escape, won't it! I looked at the OS manual, and the current one shows the standard two hoses: fuel to carb, and muffler pressure. You could, of course, add a third line for filling/draining, but it would need to be capped while the engine was running.

Sandy T

Roadtrip, I used three lines. One for the vent / pressure to the pitts muffler, and the other two for fuel with two clunks. The two clunks are set up for one to the carb and the other for fueling and de-fueling. Hope this helps.

Dano

I took another look at the engine manual and see that the third line is indeed capped. I didn't notice that before. Installing a third line with a second filter/clunk for fueling is a good idea. Thanks.

QUOTE:

I also have another problem I have just come across. I am at the point of installing the wings and find that there is a 5/16" difference in the incidence of the bottom wings. The left wing sits almost flat on my work bench, which is also flat and the other side is 5/16" higher at the tip. This is after I lock them in with bottom bolt. They both have a very slight gap with fuse at the leading and trailing edges with a flush fit in the center of the wings. I can't seem to figure out what's causing that other than a warp at the root. Not having the Staggerwing plans, how do I tell which wing is off incedence and is there something I can do to fix it? I tried installing the top wing with struts as well to see what difference it makes, but do not see any change. The right wing front anti-rotation pin is hard to insert, so If I elongate the front and rear holes away a small bit IAW the tech note, P.11, step 1, will it lower the high wing enough? I don't want to take too much away, cuasing any slop there. First I need to find out what the incidence is supposed to be in order to determine which wing is out of specs. The tech note change states that minor differences in incidence will not effect flight charecteristics. Is a 5/16" difference to be considered minor? You can clearly see the difference on a flat table.



I too had a small problem with the lower right wing, as has been well documented in this post. I fixed it by epoxying a hardwood dowel into the pre-drilled hole and sanding it flush. I inserted the nylon anti-rotation pin into the fuse, used "sidewalk chalk" on the end of the anti- rotation pin and carefully slid the wing on. When I was close to touching the chalk mark, I used my incidence meters to verify both wings had the same incidence. The number doesn't matter as long as they are the same on both sides / top and bottom. When the meters matched, I pushed the wing the rest of the way on and transfered the chalk mark to the root rib / dowel. Then I re-drilled the hole..done! Both wings have the same incidence, no slop, no mess and no waiting for a "replacement" wing.

The numbers on the meters do count when you have a meter on the horz. stab. and the wing at the same time. My tail has +2 deg when the wings are 0 deg. This is more than likely built in by design to make the aircraft more stable at slow fligt and to keep the tail up in level flight.

If the wing is hard to slide on to the pins...then you are introducing a twist and changing the incidence. I would fix the problem and not asume because its an ARF that the manufacturer made a perfect model, they dont!. Some building skills are still required even in 2007.

I contacted the tech support email and asked the same question about the 5/16" off wing tip and was told that 5/16" isn't really significant in the air and I shouldn't worry about it. I don't notice it so much when the struts are locked in.

Can you post a pic or two with your batteries and on-board-glow installed? I'd like to see how folks are setting them up.

Can post some pics of how you used that 12 volt tire compressor? I like that idea!

This is the one I use. I just put a ball inflater needle into a piece of air line and attach the robart inflator adaptor to the other end of the air line. Here is the link to the compressor. I cut off the cigarette adaptor and soldered on bananna plugs to go directly into my field power panel.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=4077

That's too easy! Thanks. I'll have to go out to the car and get my inflator out and see what adapters it has. I like your cat! I wish I could keep mine from trying to get into my hobby room without locking the door every time!!!

Not much to see. I had to put the flight pack battery (sub C 2000 mAh) and the onboard glow pack (4.8V 2400 mAh) as far forward as possible. The flight pack battery is stuffed in forward of the instrument panel and the glow driver pack is beside the fuel tank. The box with the glow driver electronics is tucked in forward of the retract air tank. Despite moving it all as far forward as possible, I still had to bolt 18 ounces (!) of lead to the firewall to get it to balance.

I used a small zano saw to cut the rearward bulkhead out and then yanked out the mounting plate from the foward bulkhead. It's two pieces of plywood glued together and comes out easily. I then mounted the wedge to the plate and the gear to the wedge with the supplied screws. I used a piece of hardwood epoxied to the mount plate to attach the non moving end of a robart 1" air cyl.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXET28&P=7

I ran the two air lines to the rear which elimanated the need for the "hi-torque" servo, y-harness, long control rod and associated hardware.

If you set up the air system correctly, the retract will cam over and lock down. That takes the strain off the air system and the retract cannot fold up accidently.

I'm building the Stagger wing now, all holes lined up perfectly.
I have a Saito 180 I plan to use, question is, should I mount it inverted, requires lowering the tank
Or should I side mount it and cut a big hole in that beautiful cowl?
Then I could leave the tank mount alone.
Also, the supplied motor mount fits the Saito fine, it seems sturdy enough?

Any thoughts?

Pete,

I put the Saito 180 in mine. Look back at previous postings. Take a look at the pictures.

I mounted it at the 90 degree configuration. I just barely needed two openings for the rocker covers. I bought the Golden Knight covers for $14.00 from Horizon Hobby to mach the gold trim on the plane.

No need to lower the tank and none of the problems of running an inverted glow engine.

I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Jim K.

Boy, this thread has gotten pretty quiet. everyone must be over on the Cessna 310. Another one I will probably have to get.

GaGeeBees, have you done the maiden yet? I finally got my Saito FA-170 so will start on that process soon. Did you have to change the tank mountinglike others are doing with the OS 160 twin? I would think we wouldn't to do that with the Saito as it looks like the carb is higher. What glo driver did you use?

Great thread guys! Can someone post the size of the largest wing panel? ie. 20 x 30 ?? Looking to order wing bags when ordering the plane.
thanks

Sean,

The largest wing planel is one of the top wing halves. It measures 36"L X 11"W.

John

Thanks!!

I have just finished assembling the Staggering Wing. I have assembled many kits and ARF's over the past 65 years but with out a doubt this one is, as far as quality control the worst, ever. I spent ( as did one of my friends) 10 hours minimum working on the covering wrinkles were all over the covered surfaces. This is not to mention the miss located pins or maybe it was the holes. One wing has a slit in it right out of the bag. The pull pull wire tubes were not in the correct place. The cowling is not the same color as the rest of the aircraft and the paint is very britle. It is already cracked is several spots. I am now deciding where to mount the 1.7 lbs of lead to get it to balence. I have assembled two of their Pitts and had no problems like this one. I would think that for the price this one could have been looked at much closer than my ARF was. There were parts missing such as the wire fthat actuated the landing gear door flaps. One wheel was missing. I will say that there was pleanty of nuts and bolts that went nowhere. Top Flite has done a grate job on this offering as far as it goes, the problems are small ones and it looks GREAT on the bench. I sure hope it fly's as good as it looks. I this will be my third Staggerwing, Two from Byron and one from plans built from the Old Sid Morgan Plans.[&o] Top F;ite arf are good but some one missed the boat on this one.....[&o]

I agree. I too had similar QC oversights, such as the left pull-pull tube was directly behind the tail wheel mount and I had to cut away a large portion of the mount and run a smaller tube through it into the original to get the wire in. There was no way the wire would run around the mount. Also the cowling mount holes were in the wrong place, so I had to redrill them and several small cracks are throughout the fuse and one on the side window. Some hardware was missing, but I have spares. Like you said, the problems were small, but for the price there shouldn't be any QC oversights like this! I haven't gotten to the balancing yet and I'm not looking forward to it from what I've been reading in this forum. Also, I wasn't aware of the main landing gear mount problem until I stumbled on it in this forum and hate having to remove the gears and check to see that the mount blocks are properly glued in. Getting the doors to align properly was a PIA in itself! At any rate, I'm looking forward the maiden and hope she stays together and flies as good as she looks!

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Roadtrip,

I am sorry that I did not respond to your inquiry of March 22nd. I see that someone sent you a reply, but I thought that I would give you the details of my solution.

As you can see from the pictures, my little compressor comes with it's own carrying case. The air hose loops in the handle at the top. Thei it extends down to the opening in the right side of the case where the end of it and the wire are stored.

I replaced the cigarette lighter plug with banana clips, as you can see.

I cut of the tire fill nozzle on the end. Insrt a brass barbed fitting into the hose and secure with clamp. Screw on a brass adaptor. On the other end of the adaptor is a brass plug. Before you screw in the brass plug, drill a hole in th end and insert a Robart barbed air line fitting. Secure the fitting with Red Loctitie. Then add a length of Robart air line and their screw-in fitting.

It works like a charm. The air tank fills to 100 PSI in about 5-6 seconds.

Jim K

Jim,
I did side mount the engine, the ugly hole is probably worth it for a reliable running engine.
Plus, not moving the tank is a plus too.
Mine will take about two pounds to balance it correctly.
I'm using the fixed gear to see if I like the plane enough to spend the extra money for the retracts.
It's nice that it's easy to make the change if I want.

Have you flown yours yet?
Mines about ready, if the weather cooperates.