"Everyone, please make sure your seatbelts are fastened and your chair is in the 'up' position. Its going to be one fast and exiting ride."

One more thing, i have decided to add more legomen to the cockpit. There will be about 20 if i can fit them

:-D

One more update.. I have finished the wing accept for aileron controls.. How should i do this. Tourqe rods? Or bell crank? Also, The broken spars have been replaced with new ones. Hardwood new wones to be exact....

-chad

Chad... with all the lego men what is the weigh getting to be up to. You don't want it too heavy.

Chad,
What you use for your ailerons depends on your servo setup. If you are using one servo then you should use torque rods connected to the servo with pushrods. If you are doing a dual servo setup then you should use control horns on the ailerons which connect to the servo by pushrods.

On the spars, are you replacing the existing spars with new ones? Or just repairing them? If you are repairing them do it with the technique that Minnflyer sent you earlier in this thread. But to answer your question, replace/repair the spar with the same material that the original was made of. If it was balsa then use balsa, if it was hardwood then use that.

Hope this helps

Ken

Replaced, not repaired. I have heard of a bell crank system for single aileron servos. What is it?

Search works wonders

Please tell me someone in your club will be looking this Airplane over and flying it before you attempt to...

Without wanting to sound like your Mum...


Some aspects of the build concern me... And I am sure others too...

Matt

Yes they will. What aspects scare you?

To be honest I am a little concerned with the structural integrity of the whole Airplane...

But looking at this photo...



The engine looks skewed to the right... (Which has obviously been done to clear the exhaust mount)

The Fuse looks to be either leaning to the right, or bent... (This could be from the Camera or Landing gear)

I noticed you had not drawn the Horizontal Thrust lines onto the fire wall and I think your engine is too high as a result...

Apart from the Aero issue associated with this, I think your Carb may be too high in comparison to the fuel tank, which may mean engine/fuel problems...

I am comparing your Airplane to my 60 setting on the work bench right now...

I had to take out about 3/4 of an inch on both sides of the cheeks to clear a ST G-90 into the Airplane... My Carb is sunk below the Cheeks!!!

And although Quirky... I don't think you are onto a winner with the Lego men... At least weight wise… If not because the first hard landing is probably going to send them west…

Not trying to be a downer Dude... But there would be nothing worse than paying for and building the Airplane only to wreck it in the first minute of the first flight...

Matt

the engine was accidently done like that.i am changing it next time i work on the fuse. The cheeks have been cut off on top, so the carb looks very high. Where the needle valve is, i had to cut off alot of cheeks.

The gear makes the plane look messed up, one of the wheels were lose, and i lost the allen wrench to fit the wheel which i have found and fixed.

And as for legomen, Weight shouldn't be a problem with legomen, they aren't heavy at all, this plane will also be exceptionally powerful too..

OK...

They will be in for one heck of a trip I'd say...

Let us know how you go...

Matt

Chad- just how powerful will the plane be when the engine quits in flight and you are trying to stretch the glide to get back to the runway?[:@]

Chad,

A pretty common thing is to know the weight of the plane, with everything attached. You can also weigh things like the completed fuselage and wing seperately.

Even though the legomen seem to be light, 3oz's on a plane that weighs 6lbs in allot of weight.

I'll give you an example.

I have a Carl Golberg Sukhoi that I want to put a lightened Zenoah G26 on. Everyone said it could not be done except for one member. I listened closely to him and followed his recommendations and now I have a plane that is as light as it would be if I used the recommend setup for the manufacturer. It took allot of work and cost a few extra bucks but now I have a plane that will fly 30 minutes on 16oz's of gas. I explainined what I did and how I did it and weighed everything I could and posted it. I now know of several of these planes with the same setup and people are loving it.

Here is the thread

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_25...tm.htm#2554116

Take notice that I researched, measured, weighed and all to get the info I needed. I did not berate anyone for anything I felt was negative, I took all suggestions, formulated a plan, listed the plans for opinions, chose to use some of those opinions and now I have a great plane. I used foam pilots that are less than one ounce but without them IMAC will deduct points so I have no really choice in the matter

Moral of the story. weight is the enemy of any plane. The lighter the better. Listen to people and you will come out a winner.

Bubba,
I guess i will change my pilot to aubbie (auburn mascot). I just need to decide what i am going to cut off him!

Legomen and crooked engines aside, whats happening with the wing? I read in another forum you just bought a Vmar Vstick 40. Is the Four Star being put away for the summer or are you waiting on a wing kit?

Damon

The four star kit, is done minus the engine thing and the wing being covered. I need to make an order tot ower soon, so i am saving up and getting some stuff before i do.

I had a four star 40... im a young kid also (16) i bought a fourstar 40 arf. was excited my first low winger, basically mastered it my first 10 flites. started to get fancy, stablizer and tail flew off during flight when i was doing flat spins a high speed turns and barllel rolls. came down like a rock into the cow pasture fence, fuse is in alright conndition wing is totaled. found out that the epoxy was still wet on the fuse were the stablizer connects to fuse, i did not mix it right, it wasnt even dry. make sure your stablizer is connected to the fuse strong, put on triangle supports on the connections, you wouldnt think how immport it would be to mix the glue right.... don't rush it man, it looks to me you are, i can tell how you just glued on the canopy, with a huge amount of glue that "scared" it. I wanted to get my arf in the air as fast as you want to put you kit together and now i lost 150$ over it... here are picks of what happened. I bought this spitfire before i crashed to four star 40, I don't know what i should do, the crashed scared me off from flying it, should i just go ahead and fly it? or buy a new four star and get my confindence up agin. this spit is so nice i dont want to crash it, should i sell it off? tell me what you think

I wonder how in the world the thing lasted ten flights with tail feathers that weren't even glued on? You should ALWAYS jerk on your tail feathers and control surfaces to make sure they are glued/hinged on good. This can save your plane. I give mine a good tug (I mean good tug--don't break the balsa, but give the joints a good workout!) after building. then, I pull on them again as part of my pre-flight every so often. I really should do it everytime, but I do make sure to do it quite often.

in conclusion take notice to my mistake chad

Oreo,

The Spitfire is going to be somewhat twichy on the ground and I cannot tell with the pic but is it retracts???

I would be careful flying it just yet. I's a pretty plane but if you can really flat spin, and do all the other stuff you might be ready. The Spitfire once airborne will not be a problem but retracts are another issue. Constant maintanence is a must especially if you are flying from grass.

In all honesty I would go buddy box with it if at all possible and for that matter, if you still have your previous plane fly it until you get over your nervousness. We all go through it, just get right back in the air ASAP....There is no harm in getting on the buddy box right after a crash if you feel you need too.

The cool thing is you know what happened and are cool enough to admit your mistakes so you are miles ahead of most new pilots

Chad, if you are this far along on your wing, then I doubt you can install torque rods without tearing it apart again. Those usually go on before the trailing edge--early on in the build. What happened to the ones that came with the kit? A bell crank system is WAY beyond your skills. Not to be harsh, but if you can't figure some of this easy stuff out, then don't even worry about a bell crank setup. But, FYI, a bell crank utilizes a single servo in the middle, with control rods running horizontally towards each wingtip. At a given point in the wing, those torque rods fit into another control horn (a bell crank), which redirects the force out toward the trailing edge of the wing. The bell crank then has another control rod hooked to it that goes out to the control horn on the aileron. Anyway, there is no way you can install this setup now--your wing is already sheeted. Your best bet is to go with two ailerons. You are going to have to bite the bullet and do this now. You made a decision early on in the build to do it, and now you are basically stuck with it. Dual ailerons are not difficult. However, if you have already sheeted the wing fully, and have no way to run servo wire through the wing, then you may have some work ahead of you.

BTW,
when I monocote, I always start at the bottom/back and work my way up. This is for a couple of reasons. First off, it makes all of your seems overlap in a way that isn't going to get ripped apart by the wind, and it makes for cleaner lines when looking at the plane on the ground. I like your color combination, I have a small .10 sized stick done in the same colors:

One other thing, you could by a wing kit and a set of tail feathers from SIG. Wing kits are 40 bucks but I'm not sure about the tail setup. Now your tailfeathers look to be in good shape so if you can sand of whats left of the epoxy you might just be able to fix it.

Send me a PM if you want to do the wing kit thing. I may be able to help you out