RE: GP Waco?
 

Mine came in just under 13 lbs without pilot. With it, it will be close to 13lbs.

RE: GP Waco?
 

flyntruk - Assuming that the Saito 120 has very similar power to the Saito FG-20 which powered my WACO, I would suggest to you not to add any weight to the aeroplane. Make all considerations for later addition of smoke pump, but have your test flight first to see what kind of performance you have and if you still want to add it, do it then...

RE: GP Waco?
 

I am running the Saito 125 in mine and has plenty of power. Most of the time I am only flying at half throttle. I agree with erans, do all the test flying first before you add the smoke system. I did not have to add any weight to mine plane. WHen running the smoke system try to put your smoke tank over the CG area. this way you will not have to add any weight to the plane for balance.

Walt

RE: GP Waco?
 

Is anyone else having problems with the outer brace angle brackets breaking? Mine has broken 4 of them.

RE: GP Waco?
 

No problems yet with angle brackets, but if you don't align just right, when bolted together wing will twist, which may Stress Brackets.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Hello all, newbie Waco owner here. just want to thank all you guys for posting the mods and pictures. special thanks to Cannonball200 for taking me under his wing. got my Waco back in March but i just took it out of storage cause it's one of my winter builds here in New Hampshire. have the dle20 and going with hitec for servo's. i think we would ALL love to see this wonderful bi-plane with a smoke system. what a video that "will" be. again thank you all for a great Waco thread. don aka airboss

RE: GP Waco?
 

Bellow some photos of the result of 7 hours with the iron and Monokote, and 5 seconds on the Tx sticks... The extra Monokote was added because I found it hard to tell which way is up when the WACOwas a bit away (with both sides yellow)...

Took of in stiff wind, the Waco left ground on 1/3 throttle and 1m of runway... Itried to throttle it to full, but the Saito FG-20 died. I managed to keep the wings level coming down vertically like an elevator without any forward speed from attitude of about 4m... on the last 20cm the nose came down and the WACO hit the grass forward of the wheels on the spats and then tipped on the nose. It ripped the landing gear, but I think the damage is reasonably minor. She will fly again (this was supposed to be the third flight)... Looking at it before removing the covering and the landing gear, it looks as if the landing gear mount was not very strong to begin with...

RE: GP Waco?
 

That's too bad. But the damage looks repairable. Maybe the wind won't be so stiff next time.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Too bad, Saito FG-20 is a terrible motor and definitely not strong enough for this model. I have the FG-30 in mine and I wish I went with the DL-30. I am now on my 2nd fuselage, landing gear area is NOT built strong enough. I wish these ARF builders would make the fire walls and landing gear plates stronger. But then they wouldn't sell more models. I hope you are able to fix her.

R/C Foolish

RE: GP Waco?
 

Thank you cleonard and R/C Foolish for your comments. In Perth Australia it is the windy season, so we just live with it and fly anyway. As to the FG-20, it is a bit week for this aeroplane, but is representing it in scale manner. If you are looking at doing aerobatic manoeuvres that were not possible by the real WACO, you need a stronger engine.

Ihave attached few photos of the landing gear mount and the rest of the damage. There is no question that there is a design flaw and it is only held by four 3mm x 3mm plywood sections of the side doublers, nowhere near enough to sustain anything greater then the most gentle of rearward motion. If you always nail your wheeled or 3 point landings there should be no problem, but anything less then great landing will put the mount in risk of breaking.

Istarted to look at the repair, and in the next couple of weeks will post how I got on with it. Ialso sent an e-mail to Great Planes with the photos and my concern of a design flaw and will update you if Ireceive a reply. Iam a huge GPproducts fan and also fly their now discontinued Performance Serious SU-31 and enjoy it a lot, so Ihope that they will stand to their reputation and look into the issue.

Eran.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Idecided to start the repair with something easy, so I started with the fairings on the landing gear. After pushing them back to position, I had to fix the huge cracks. Idecided to use polyurethane glue, in this case Gorilla Glue. This glue require damp surface, so Ibrushed water into the areas to be glued, and used sharpened wood to get into the narrow cracks. The glue expands to 3-4 times its size when drying, which was perfect to get more surface area glued and stronger bond as a result. This glue is easy to sand to shape once dry.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Next Istarted to look at the fuselage repair. The first 3 photos bellow show the damage in more detail, it is actually a bit worse then Ioriginally thought. Idecided to start with aligning, strengthen and re-glue the structure in the area between the landing gear and the wing saddle. This structure support the balsa sheeting and I wanted to make sure I am not going to increase the damage to the general shape of the aeroplane when working on the landing gear mount. The last two photos showing re-alignment on one side at that area. Since access is very limited to this area, Ihave carried the glue on long stick accessing from 3 directions to get the glue on all joining pieces.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Today Iconcentrated on strengthening the structure surrounding the landing gear mount, to which there will be no access once it is back in place. I used Tasmanian Oak to re-create / reinforce side structure where it was broken. Ithen went over all the exposed joints using epoxy glue.
Iglued thin lite plywood sheet to the back of the front former which wasn't too damaged to give it some extra strength.
The back former which is oddly made out of 3 sections glued together ("top", "in between cut-outs" and "bottom") was dislocated and broken. Pushing it back to place was not an option as it will tear the structure behind it. I decided to cut it and glue it back in place after the installation of the landing gear mounting plate (there is no way to put the landing gear mounting plate in place anyway if this former part is in place due to the space taken by the protruding squares).
Finally for today, I re-installed the fuel tank and receiver battery which I took out before the repair work started and glued the mounting plate in place with epoxy.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Erans! Nice repair! I also have had my landing gear fairing split in the front and repaired them the same way with Gorilla glue! That stuff is great! :D

RE: GP Waco?
 

Skillet92 - I absolutely love this Gorilla glue. Since I found out about it Ifind so many uses for it, it is just brilliant.

Today Ionly had time to fabricate and install the two spruce mounting beams which will give the landing gear mount the strength it never had... Imade sure before I glued them in place that Ihave cut-outs for the mounting screws. Care also must be taken so glue do not get into the lock nuts while you slide them in. Ihad to cut the side above the mount to allow the spruce beams to slide into place as they are full length (fuselage width). If anyone wonders, they cannot be pre-glued to the original mount before putting it in place as you wont be able to get it into position.

RE: GP Waco?
 

With very limited time to work on the WACOover the last 3 days, I decided to re-build the landing gear centre fairing. Unfortunately, Ididn't take a picture before the clamping of the parts, but basically the flat side was glued to one "arch", and the rest was separated. Istarted by gluing the surviving sections together into the basic shape. Then Imade new support squares, sanded them to shape (as I didn't have the exact size) and re-sheeted with balsa. A bit more sanding and it is ready for re-covering.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Erans, real nice work. keep the pictures coming. she will fly another day! don

RE: GP Waco?
 

Thank you for your kind words Don.

Today it was time to get on with the final touches. The last structural rebuilds were the corners of the arches in the landing gear mounting bay and I had to reinforce and rebuild some of the sheeting supports, all made out of plywood.
Once done, I cut the broken sheeting in straight lines to make it easy to match the new sheeting. I taped plastic clear "sheet protector" over the area to be sheeted and traced the cut out shape. I then cut the sheet protector as per the outline and transferred it to the thin balsa sheet (Using the clear plastic allowed the curvature to be taken into account). After cutting the sheet balsa, it was almost perfect match requiring minor sanding. Super-glue into place, it is now ready for sanding.

You will notice that one of the photos shows balsa filler over the side of the fuselage. This is an area that Icould not easily access inside the body to re-align and is in part crushed in, and in part protruding out. Pushing it in would have caused more damage inside, so I decided just to fill the parts crushed in and to leave the small "bulge out".

RE: GP Waco?
 

This is the final part of the "restoration". Final sheeting, sanding, covering and re-installing the landing gear.
Starting with the sheeting, the first photo show the uneven tear of balsa sheeting. I then cut straight lines to make matching the new sheet easier. As shown in the photos yesterday, I again used clear plastic to trace the outline and transferred it to the sheet balsa. Ialso used a "block" of balsa to make part of the curvature which was requiring too much bending (as Iwas not going to wet the balsa to allow it to go through such curves). Once I had the block in place, it was easy enough to sand it to shape.

The black markings on the covering of the landing gear centre fairing is from the iron... I forgot to clean it after ironing the black Monokote on the wings. The photo that show the aeroplane on its side after covering show the "bulge" on the side. It is not very noticeable.

Now all that left is to wait for the engine to get back to me from my friend who try to figure out why it operates so erratically.
Ihope that the restoration methods Idemonstrated here will be of benefit to you, also Ihope no one will need to get through this same fix. Total time spent was ~35 hours...

Now it is time to get back to the Me-109 build,
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10698905/tm.htm

Eran

RE: GP Waco?
 

Eran, the work really looks great. hope you figure out what's up with the engine. don

RE: GP Waco?
 

Don, again thank you for the kind words.
Ihave received a phone call from the club "engine guru" yesterday. He made a new stronger spring for the carburettor barrel and re-assembled and run the engine and it has resolved the engine tuning sensitivity and erratic running issues. He reckons the engine is now running well.

Iwill try to catch up with him sometime during the next couple of weeks and get the engine back for installation, and will report on the flight experience.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Eran,

keep up with the repair....

It will look great!

RE: GP Waco?
 

Kostas, love that little fat Santa you have there. is Saito his real name? LOL don

RE: GP Waco?
 

I received the engine back yesterday from my friend Tom, my engine expert. Tom this time modified the carburettor a bit in his attempt to fix the erratic tuning and poor reliability (This engine was involved in a crash before it was rebuilt and mounted in the WACO) by making new harder spring to hold against the barrel and some modifications to the needle valve.
To prove to me that it is now 100% reliable, he brought with him the test stand to the airfield. The engine was running very smoothly, so Iwas convinced it can go back into the WACO.

Today Imounted it back in the WACO and re-checked the CG. Iwill wait this time for an opportunity to fly it on a day with less wind then what I had on the last couple of times.
Idecided no to bother at the moment with all the "look enhancement" pieces and also Iam going to try the Master Airscrew 16x6 prop instead of the APC 15x8 Ihad previously.

RE: GP Waco?
 

Eran, your close to flying her now! great repair. be sure to try and take a video of the next flight. we all learn that way. don