hey
first post here i like the site best one yet

but im wondering how perfect does your first model have to be?

mines not 100% so im thinking of getting an arf learning on that with instructor then flying my creation, good bad?

A plane doesn't have to be perfect to fly. It does need to be structurally sound, balanced properly, control throws and directions correct and generally in alignment. I have seen some pretty ugly planes fly. One club member's wife named his trainer the "ugly duckling" and it was a lot uglier than it sounds. Once in the air it was a thing of beauty and had over 300 flights until an attempt was made at an outside loop. He said "if the soybeans had been harvested I would have made it". This plane had been crashed twice before being used by this member to learn to fly.

EXCAP232

Just about anything will fly as long as it is balanced and the fin, stab and wings are reasonably straight. The accuracy on those is even pretty forgiving. My trainer sure was ugly, but did it's job to teach me. My advice....stop worrying, find and instructor, and have a blast! Good luck.
Ty

Integrity is more important than beauty. I've seen works of art show up at the field with perfect covering, only to see the gear rip off on landing, or a flight control come loose in flight...or one of the most popular...the nose gear set screw come loose. Don't worry about perfection. Even a plane that's not perfectly straight will trim out fine at the hands of an experienced instructor. Here's what to worry about...your glue joints are solid as a rock! If the instructions said use epoxy, make sure you don't cut corners with CA. If you put screws into wood (such as servo mounting) it's a very good idea to install the screw, then remove the screw, then run some thin CA in the hole, let it soak in and dry (hardens the wood), and then put the screw in for good. This way your wood won't strip out under the loads of the servo. Make sure your fire wall is fuel proofed, unprotected wood soaks fuel in and doesn't last long! Another thing that provides extra security is a small piece of fuel tube around your control surface clevises so they can't pop oven. Also make sure your wheel collars are tight! A dab of silicon sealer on the axle and threads of the set screw helps keep them there. Give your control surfaces a moderate tug... make sure they stay in! I could go on...but your instructor will give your plane the once over before he takes it up...these are the important things...I've seen a lot of pretty planes hit the dirt and shatter from pilots paying too much attention to looks, and not enough into the airplanes integrity...I've also seen some real ugly clunkers go on and on and on and on...because the owners know what's important!

I think we are missing the point here....Take your 'ugly' plane with you to the club and have your instructor check it out. I bet he'll tell you it's fine to fly or you might need to make some minor mechanical tweaks before she'll fly. Why spend money on an arf if you got that thing sitting around. Chances are, if your were to get an arf and learn, you might not want to fly that ugly duck.

Besides, who the heck cares how she looks when she's 300ft in the air. Your learning aren't you? Just get tips on what you did different/wrong and learn from this experience.

Enjoy.....

At the field I fly at there is a club member who goes over planes before they ever take off on there first flight he also goes over all the controls and gives some basic ground school to new pilots. This member has taught me alot and I probably owe much of my success to him even though he never works on a buddy box. If you are fortunate enough to have a person like this at your field just have him go over everything for you and take the plane up for a trimming flight. Even the planes that start out the prettiest are going to get some wear and tear from normal use. I figure you might as well start out just shy of perfect so you don't embarrass people like me who have a few repairs on our planes.

cman:

A wise gentleman, who has just been inducted into the AMA hall of fame told me: "Warps are here to stay. Learn to live with them."

In the 40+ years since Tommy Thompson told me that I have learned to build pretty straight, but sometime you will have everything as straight a it can be, then you go to the field and the sun hits your baby......... It's warp time. And that is not warp speed.

Twins can be straight, but even warped they fly great.

Bill.

PS: Bryant A. Thompson - one of the good guys. wr

thanks alot guys

from what ive read here shes good to go.
ive done at minimal everything the instructions say. (wasted alot of epoxy but its written there for a reason)

i however have also made a few mods. for one my engine area is epoxeyed and so is my fuel tank area, im also looking for away to seal it off from the servo area and ideas are welcomed.
i use locktite on the set screws on the wheel collers after tightening them and triple checking it.
so i guess i take either the butterfly or the bob martin ET out to the club come march/april and see what happens.

the arf would make crashing alot easier sence ive put many hours into these birds but i built them to fly so fly she will do.

pretty don't make them fly I have seen new people come to fly with beautiful planes and are to nervous to fly them others come with a plane you might call junk and learn to fly much faster

My old instructor had a saying,[with a big enough engine he could fly a 2X4]so if it looks kind of like an airplane it will probably fly great.At the club the instructor will help you get air borne,most new people spend to much time what ifing the new plane when they could be flying and thinking about the second model.Some of my combat planes look more like an experiment test bed for glue and tape than a plane but they still fly pretty good.

i've crashed every plane i spent any time in finishing well in less than normal life spans... 2 weeks covering, 6 flights.
however the really ugly ones just live on and on.
partley pilot nerves i think... you can make so many mistakes when your worrying.
prophanging at night when your drunk? easy

cman,
All those mods are just perfect. Make it as tight and strong as you can. As for your question, in my GP learjet, I made another "firewall" behind the fuel tank and sealed it as well. Ass it takes is some scrap 1/16" balsa sheet and a about a half hours worth of work. Hope that helps.

Ty

Tattoo- good advice i will be putting the fule tubing around clevises before flying, i never thought of that one, makes since now that i read it.
also i wull be pulling the servos out and running some CA down it as you suggested.

den1tjb sounds like a good plan too me. it may be a tad heavier but if i get a fuel like id like it to do as little damage as possible.

everyone else thanks again, I wouldnt say my plane is junk just looks good from afar.

Rock on cman!!! When strengthening wood where screws are used, make cure you use thin CA...and be sure it's soaked in and totally dry before putting the screws back in! You'll love this idea because the screws won't come loos and the holes will never strip or wallow out.

Also...one more tidbit on ugly planes, especially for new pilots! I've seen some beauties at the field all dressed up with fancy trim jobs...on the top as well as on the bottom of the wings. You want all the orientation help you can get, and it really helps a LOT to make sure the top and bottoms of your wings are different! Put the biggest baddest boldest ugliest brightest most contrasting trim on the top of the wing you can come up with...and leave the wing bottoms alone. You'll be glad you did!

P.S. Some guys do it the opposite...with the contrasting markings on the wing bottom and leave the top alone. Some guys even make the top and bottom different colors entirely, whatever it takes for your brain to tell the difference from the top and the bottom in a fraction of a second!

CMAN, heres a tip I figured out after seeing several planes loose wheels after takeoff.
I always secure the wheels by soldering a washer on the outboard side of the wheel, or, at least solder one on beside the wheel colar. Havnt lost a wheel yet.
An added bonus to this method is that it gives a more scale apearance once you get handy with the iron.

A few more thoughts..

Orientation is very important specially for a beginner..

As for colouring.. since the eye loses colour definition before it does brightness definition (have you noticed how a plane looks a multi shade of grey at a distance?), you should make the top and bottom of the wing a different brightness (e.g. yellow and blue) as opposed to a different colour (e.g. blue and red, but the same darkness).

Also, striping in different directions is a good idea. Span-wise on the top and parallel to the fuselage on the bottom.

David C.

I sometimes still find myself in that "Left-Right Turn" confusion stage, so I took some fluorescent spray paint in the most vivid red and green I could find and painted a 4" wide swath on the appropriate wing tips for my trainer. It's a 72" wing, so I had plenty of room to work, but the 4" width is highly visible and in nice proportion to the rest of the wing.

Now, no matter which way the plane is heading, I don't consider left or right. I have a visual reference that determines which way the sticks go. When I want to turn to the red side, I know that I must move the sticks left and vice versa for the green side. Problem solved.

Now I'm thinking as I'm sitting here typing that perhaps a similar swath on the stab tips might be helpful to determine aspect, at least until I get more hours under my belt and it become second nature...

Ed

That's a good way!

Also, remember when coming towards you on approaching landing, to move the aileron stick towards the wing that has dropped to bring it level again.

David C.

How perfect? Not very!

This reminds me of something that happened many years ago. I had acquired an old kit one day that I sent to my son who lived with his mom 1000 miles away. He was about 7 yrs old at the time, and had never built a model before. To make matters worse, this kit was designed before the modern building techniques of todays kits. When he came up for his summer vacation, he had the crookedest looking plane I had ever seen!

When he glued the two fuse sides together, he did it with one side laying flat on the table, so the fuse looked like the picture below. The kit was called the "Cricket", but after seeing his completed plane, we dubbed it the "Crooket"

The wing was warped so badly that it just couldn't be used. But he was so proud of his plane that he really wanted to fly it. So I dusted off a wing from an old glider that was sitting in the basement, and we rubber-banded it to the crooked fuselage and headed for the field.

To make a long story short, the "Crooket" flew just fine, and we got many flights on it that summer!

Hi MinnFlyer,don't see what's wrong with the picture,aren't you supposed to build on a flat surface??

I've seen a combat plane hit in a mid-air, and half the rubber bands holding the wing on broke...and the wing flipped to the SIDE of the fuselage!!! The rudder now became the elevator and the elevator the rudder!!! The pilot was able to continue flying and land safely with no problems! Another example is the planes made of gutterpipe. The tails are mounted 1 1/4" off center for simplicity, and it has no effect on flight performance.

Every Crash is an opportunity. If you don't crash a few now and then, you won't have reason to build more, or space to put them.