JRgraham

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Iacquired this 'kit' from my Dad this last year, who had it sitting on a shelf for 15+years untouched. It is one of only a handful created by Jon Nozler and afewother friends of ours back in the 90's. Anyone that knows of the Lightning Buildover in the electric Pattern section, Jeff Carder was behind the CADwork on the Zeus here. Nice work Jeff. (Jeff, i see the calypso in there somewhere.. dont I? )

The Fuse was laid up with light glass, and Kevlar. It had Carbon Fiber strips and patch's added to areas for extra strength. Foamwing and stab cores that had been honeycombed and wing tube socket drilled. That basically sumsup the kit.From what Dad remembers, it wasa fuse that was good, but didnt have that perfection toit that Jon holds himself to (simply cosmetic) so he got it for next to nothing, unfortunatelythe kitcame with.. next to nothing.

The airplanewas designed at the turning point of the 2m limitation rule change. As you will see, it still holds the'classic'pattern aircraft profile. Which is why Idecided to post this here. Ifigured Id get some flack from the serious current pattern guys out there today had Iposted in standard pattern section..

Iwill postoverall measurements of theship later, but for the moment Iwill attach a couple images,one of a built Zeus from around 95.. the only knownimage of one that Ican find anywhere, with the proud owner Clayton Foster holding it. (Hope your well buddy ) And a couple of the initial Zeus pieces to start with.

JRgraham

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Well, with nothing to go by but that one picture Idecided first thing was to fit the wing tube, cut and fitthe sleevereinforcement ribs, and get the sleeve set in the wings.

Icut the center rib out of 1/8 light ply. Bored a hole under-sized, and with a round rasp file hand filed them to the perfect fit to the sleeve.
Ireceived from Dad (Thanks Dad)a 32" anodized aluminum wing tube, plenty sufficient for this ship, since it may not really be a competitor any more, for today's pattern.

Once the fit was good, Iset the pieces in place with a 30 minute epoxy, and weighted it down same as if Iwas sheeting the wings. Since the wing tubes were already drilled, Ireally didnt go to great lengths to verify the accuracy. If Iknew Jon like Ithink Idid, its perfect. (We all miss you Jon).

JRgraham

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Idont know what to call it, but the Fuse, where the wing meets, is extended out, the shape of the wing profile. This wing soffit(?) is deep enough inside for a nice 1/8 light ply reinforcement rib for the necessary hardware to come. Imay decide to strengthen it up further yet, later in the build.

Iwill be installing Gator wing adjusters both in front and behind the wings joining tube. The stabs also will be plug-in with Gator stab adjusters.
Icut-out the ribs, set the hole for the sleeve tight on one side, and a slight (1/32 at most) bit of slop on the other side for room to adjust the incidence prior to setting in place.

Dad cut out and supplied me the final dough-nut ring with a nice tight fit to finalize the sleeve set, inside the Fuse.

JRgraham

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Back to the wing, Icutout root ribs from 1/8 ply. Got it drilled and fit to the sleeves in the wing.

Igot some small diamiter cardboard tubing, realy thin walled, in the rocketry section at the LHS to use as aileron leed tubes. With a sharpened piece of copper tubing the size of the cardboard tube, sharpened, Idrilled the holes for them, and set the tubes in place, and matched the hole to the Root Rib.

TonyF

My Feedback: (92)

I flew the Zeus for a couple of years. John did a couple of fuses for me, one a beautiful glass/balsa layup, but that one was damaged in shipment to me from the builder. I flew it in the '96 Nats in F3A. Very nice flying model. Here are pics of my pair at the Nats.

JRgraham

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Idecided that Ididnt want to go with the retract landing gear for various reasons. So Ileft the cutouts blank.

Ireally have no photos of the sheeting process, but Iused 1/16th balsa sheeting, and a slow cure finishing resin. Being they were honeycombed, we didnt vacuum bag them, instead used the normal weight method.

Once set, they were popped out of the chucks, trimmed and sanded flush. 1/2 inch balsa strip added to the LE, 3/8 balsa to the TE using good old Titebond.
LEand TEwere rough sanded down with a good rasp, and sanded down near finish with 150 grit on a longboard.

Ithink Iused 1/2 balsa for the wing tips, though Imay hollow the center, and add another 1/4 to 3/8 to them for more area to sand the right shape.

JRgraham

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For the gator adjustment sockets in the wing, Icut 3 inch lengths from 1/2 inch dowel. Bored out the centers the size of the gator sleeves. Icut out from 1/4 ply, square pieces that the dowels will set in. These will set within the wing, and be covered with the 1/8 ply root rib in the end.

For the wing retainer bolts, Icut from 1/4 ply, squares with 1/4-20 blind nuts set in place. These also will be set in the root of the wing, faced over by the 1/8 ply root rib also.

Ithink this should be sufficient. Each piece was set with 30 min epoxy. The root rib however, is not ready to glue in place just yet.

JRgraham

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Tony,

Thanks for sharing those pictures Its great to hear from someone that they thought it flew nice. Ihave only heard from Jeff Carder that it flew great, Clayton Foster said "It was aaalllriiight" which in my mind, knowing him, meant it was pretty darn good

Idid run across another club member here that happened to have two of these things lingering around in his shop! One is ready to fly(never been flown yet) and the other is ready to paint/cover basically. Frank was nice enough to let me take the unfinished one home for reference(Thanks Frank!) That one, wow. Laid up in full Carbon Fiber cloth.. If it was me forget color, id wet sand it, and spray some clear.. looks beautiful! Iwill post a couple pics of that one too later, its just so pretty to see.

JRgraham

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With the wing's Roots prety well lined out and preped, time to get the Fuse ready.

Ilined up each wing half to the Fuse and marked the area where the Gator pins will need to be slotted, and made the nessisary cut outs. Ithen fitted each gator adjuster in place, drilled and anchored them in place with the bolts. Everything seems to check out so far, looking pretty good.

JRgraham

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Isheeted the stabs basically the same as the wings, 1/16 balsa and slow cure finishing resin. Trimmed the excess and sanded smooth. Capped the LE, TE and tips, rough sanded with heavy metal rasp, and final sanded with 150 grit on a longboard.

JRgraham

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After some back and forth thoughts about a one piece stab, or a plugin stab, Iopted to go with a plugin setup to ensure max ability to trim this bird out.

Ibegin this process by first verifying the stab half's match up to each other nice, and going ahead with joining them. Iused a 15 min epoxy for this.

The meters you see Dad found at Harbor freight while looking for alternitives to the old Robart needle incedence meters. They are about 40$ each, digital angle meters. They apear to be quite accurate and versital to many surfaces Ithink.

Might not be able to really see, but they are perfect so far.

JRgraham

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Once the stabs were joined, the real work starts. Ireally only have one shot at this, so Ihope it all works out.

Dad supplied me once again, with an extra set of gator stab adjusters (ThanksDad) for the girl, and after some mental planning, Idecided to just jump in and get it done.

The process here will be to join the stabs, rough cut out the elevator half's, Install the tube sleeve and retainer supports to it, then cut out the center section that will be mounted inside the tail section of the Fuse. Install adjusters, to finish it all up.

Imarked the area the sleeve will rest at, and cut out the balsa sheeting. Once verified it is correct again, Iremoved the internal foam for the channel. Ibelieve I used 1/8 light ply (dont have the bird here to verify at moment) and made up 2 square retainer plates per panel, and one for each end of the center section-to-be.

Idry fit everything here for verification. Everything checks out so far, good to set. Iused again 15 or 20min epoxy.

JRgraham

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I quickly found out its true what they say about Kevlar. It will not cut easy! Here Icut out the tail section for the horizontal stab. Iused a dremel cutting tool to rough it in, rasped the final shape.. and, had to use a new razor blade to trim out all the Kevlar strands that were still hanging around like a 10 year old pair of cut-off pants made to shorts.. Sheesh! (okay, thats a little exaggerated)

JRgraham

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Somehow Icant find images of seperating the Stabs and fitting the center section to the adjusters, but will add them Ihope later.

The Stab was fitted as a whole piece into the Fuse, measured out for center of course, and marked for cutting. Once cut, the center section had adjusters mounted inside, and finally Iwrapped the entire center section with some 0.75 light glass cloth, and a 45 min finishing resin Ibelieve.

Jumping ahead just a bit, with all thats been said, done... I am finally able to rough fit everything for the first time

JRgraham

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With the Stab in place as a one piece unit, measured out and lined up to the Fuse and Wing, Imark where the two halves will need to be cut, and remove the stab again. Iused a simple X-acto saw to cut the halves off. The carbon fiber sleeve cuts just fine this way.

Aquick dry fit with the tube in place for a visual, and we are about ready to get the adjusters prep'd.

For anyone that has noticed, which is a long shot here, Idid reverse the install of the stab plug in tube setup. Typically you would have the adjusters in front, and the tube to the rear end of the stab as per the Gator details. Id like to say Itook that into consideration here, and altered it.. But what really happened is I grabbed the opened package that had the paper missing already with the install specs.. And took it upon myself to decide the best location. It works out fine here since this stab has a fairly large area, and ultimately Ithink this will work out better, all the force will be taken by the carbon fiber sleeve and tube first.

JRgraham

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With the Stab now sectioned out and aligned with the joining tube, Istarted to create some pieces to mount the adjusters.

From 1/8 light ply, Icutout small square mounting plates for the adjusters to bolt to. Islotted one end for the pin to slide within.
Imount the adjusters on the new mounting plates, line them up in the stab's center section and glue them in place with 15 min epoxy.

The Stabs are fitted with just a smaller version of Dowel plugs with the center bored out (as the wing was fitted with above) to accept the adjuster's pin.

Once the adjusters were set, Ifinished the center section off with a 1/16 balsa end cap rib, and glassed the section with 0.75 glass cloth and a 20-30 min epoxy resin.

JRgraham

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With the center section now glassed, the halves line up nice, and the adjusters seem to be nice and free to, well, adjust.. Ican now bond the center section to the Fuse.

Imix up a nice 30 min epoxy, and mix in a fair amount of Micro Balloons to keep the epoxy from dripping/running, set the section in the fuse in its correct position and pot the inside Fuse wall where the section sits. Ifirst glue the top, when dry flip over and pot the bottom area.

Once dry and set, Icant help but to put it all together again.

JRgraham

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With the Stab pretty well wrapped up for the moment, Ibounced back to do a little detail work to the wing joining. Iwant to get a fairly complete assembly to check the adjusters. This is the perfect time to find out that any one of them is binding or not able to travel the adequate distance for future adjustments.

With the wing panels in place, Ineed to recess the area of the Root Rib where the gator mounting bolts stick out slightly, create holes under the Fuse for the adjusters, Install the adjuster guide sleeve in the wing and adjust the wing to incedence.

Iuse a Dremel with a router head to rout the area in the Root Ribfor the adjusters bolts to recess into.
With the same cutting tool, Iopen the holes up for the adjuster bolts.

Iwas short on the Gator sleeves, so Isubstituted them with some aluminum sleeve's instead. Imay end up coating the inside of the aluminum with the thinnest layer of silicone just to help protect the gator pins from getting scraped up over time. There is about a 1/256 inch slop in there to accept this

After all of this, the wing lines up very nicley with the Fuse.

JRgraham

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Progress has been slow from this point. Iam at a kind of standing point trying to decide what to use as a power plant. The Zeus was designed at a time when the .61 longstroke tuned pipe was the standard, and the 4 strokes were just introduced into the game. At the time the YS1.20 was about the best thing going, and is whatthis was really designed for.. YS 1.20 with silencer/pipe.

Dad hasan old, tired YS1.20 that I used briefley in my Byrons Extra 300 for a few flights, but its tired. Ihad been kicking a retrofit for electric, and believe it would be anice fit at that. Money is an issue, and several projects going on as well.. So uncertain how quickley Ican both make a choice, and purchase it.

In the mean time though, here are a few shots of a complete up to date assembly so far...

Also, as to the retract setup that was in the design, Icovered up the bays as stated before, with intentions of going with a fixed gear. My old highschool flyin buddy Jeff Carder had offered generously his Bolly gear that was used on his original Lightning pattern ship. He has redesigned the Lightning, and also has a build thread in the Electric Pattern forum. Thanks Jeff! Heres a picture of the gear setting in a somewhat area they may end up being mounted, also.

JRgraham

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Here is just a couple more images. Wing mounting is fairly complete, panels mounted with retainer boltsinstalled, and the tail post cut and fitted from 3.8 balsa Ibelieve.

Viper Driver

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Looking good JR! One minor correction, when I did the plans for John it was on an old school drafting table with a pencil and a t-square. That was my payment for my Zeus kit. You are kicking butt with building, we just need to get you to some contests to show off the flying skills!

JRgraham

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Thanks Jeff, but Idont see my work any better than yours!

Flying skills? Hah, well i have not flown but maybe 3 full sequences in 2 years

The Lightning is still echoing in our heads over here though.. Im starting to think about talking dad into goin in on a double order of wood stock so we can both build one!

Thanks for checkin out the Zeus progress man! Igota get back with it on this thing.. been a few days..

tater1

The Zeus was one the great designs by John Nosler,I managed many wins with this model.One of the sharpest Zeus I ever saw was one by Clayton Foster,justa beautiful paint job

alawel

My Feedback: (3)

Tater, I think recognize that airplane. Did you bring it into the NW U.S. much?

Hey JR,
Nice looking build, it will be cool to have a Zeus gracing our friendly skies again.

Alan

JRgraham

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Tater, Ibelieve the Zeus you mentioned is the one Iposted the picture of in the first post at top, with Clayton holding it. The comment by the photographer was "Some people just dont know when to put the air brush down!". Ihad only seen it fly a couple times.

Thanks Alan. Iguess Ibetter get busy on this thing. Someone has to give you some challenge at the contests over here