RCU Forums - suitable first plane?

So far I vote for the Tower 60. It just came today and I started some build notes.

My background:
I started with stick and tissue free flight and display models when I was in grade school.
I’ve built maybe 15-16 kits, Control line and RC, and a few scratchbuilts from plans. I’m 47 and presently fly gliders, planes and helis. I’m a mediocre flier but a great builder. I’ve also done a couple 1/8th scale mahogany boats, and love woodworking in general. I bought this ARF (my first!) for three purposes. First to get some stick time and get over my fear of crashing my own handiwork. No emotional attachment here. No sanding through the night and worrying about my “perfect” paint job. Second- after I see how good this flys, (for a while-lol) I’ll take the floats from my Cub and try some lake flying with this one first. Third, I need someone to fly a tow-plane for my gliders.
I’m doing this plane “by the directions” as much as I can in good conscience. If I see something lacking, I’ll note the problem/remedy so that first time assemblers won’t end up with a weak structure. Then again, maybe I just over engineer everything and will only end up adding weight. Oh well.

Out of the box, I’m impressed with the covering. Don’t know if it’s Monokote or what, but pretty good for a $99 ARF. Some wrinkles in the seam near the aileron gap, but that’s it. The aileron movement was a little tough.- the control arms coming through the wing sheeting seemed to bind. Nothing that a good manual workout by flexing back and forth (denting the balsa sheeting) didn’t solve.

My first inspection requires that I fillet all the fuselage formers I can reach (which would be F1 to F5 ) with some 30-minute epoxy. I can see light through some of the gaps against the bottom planking. A nice long 3/16th “ balsa stick will get the epoxy into the back of the firewall from the wing opening. If nothing else, I’d urge people to get some extra epoxy into that firewall joint.

Fillet some epoxy around the landing gear blocks/fuselage sides and bottom. What glue around there is scarce, and I don’t know if it’s epoxy or hot glue. It’s nice to see #6 blind nuts installed on the firewall for the engine mounts. I was expecting to see wood screws for this.

The wing went together as per instructions. The dihedral brace is laminated from 3 pieces of quality plywood- no “liteply”. I was thinking of putting some fiberglass on the bottom joint, but I’ll skip it for now. (maybe I’ll regret it, we’ll see) The stab went together per the instructions too. IMO, no extra strength/weight is needed here. Do the horizontal first and let it completely cure. That way you can use it to brace the vertical with masking tape to keep it 90 degrees while it cures.

The engine “compartment” is painted flat black, and there’s some raw balsa grain showing on the doublers. I’m going to give this area a brush coat of 90 minute laminating epoxy to make sure it’s fuel proof.

My first real complaint for now is that the included fuel tank plumbing is made of 1/8th” soft aluminum tubing. It deforms and kinks a lot easier than soft brass, and you only have “one good bend”. Try and rebend that stuff and it kinks shut. It’s good they give you 3 pieces and you only need two. A real highpoint is the plastic (PTFE I think, like the bottom plastic on a coke bottle) wing and tail tips. Looks like they’ll take a good scraping.

Going to let all the epoxy cure tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be doing the servo and control linkage, and hopefully the OS .65 LA will arrive soon. So far, about 2 hours of work, 2 hours of wait time and maybe 2 ounces of epoxy I’m looking at a complete covered airframe!