erans

A friend found an old airframe of The World Models - Super Sport Senior 90 that was lying in someones shed for many years. He took it, and after a year or so lying in his own shed (with minor attempt to do some re-covering), he asked me if I am interested...
Well, why not... It will make an interesting refurbishment project. The aeroplane seems to have nice dimensions, and if it looks right, it is probably fly right. Now that this project is finished I thought that I may share it here:

After thorough cleaning, the photos below show the starting point:

• The covering throughout was in very poor condition. TWM is using "Toughlon" covering material which do not age well. The "new" covering was a Hobby King" material which is also not great.
• The canopy had a minor crack
• Minor finger crushing of the fuselage sheeting in the front section
• Tail skid arrangement in lieu of tail wheel
• Modification to a tail servo for the elevators
• Cowl already cut - Not an issue as I did not use a cowl

Cheers,
Eran

erans

More starting point photos:










Cheers,
Eran

erans

I decided to start with the fuselage. Stripping the covering was a much more challenging task then anticipated. The Hobby King yellow was leaving large amounts of yellow residual sticky goo. I had to return the now clear plastic that actually came off, heat it with the iron on top of the goo which made it stick back, and re-peal. The Toughlon covering was as bad and required the same technique. The Red covering was particularly awful to remove and I used Acetone to remove some of the leftover goo.
As to the canopy, I glued a pre cured fiberglass on the inside and it seems to do the trick stopping the crack from expending further. I did not bother to remove the covering from the fuselage in the section under the canopy.







Cheers,
Eran

erans

The uncovered fuselage reveals some issues:

• The switch holes required attention,
• The elevator joiner not glued properly,
• The dorsal fin not glued properly and came off.

Cheers,
Eran

erans

Repair work prior to re-covering:





Cheers,
Eran

erans

The re-covering was done by using Monokote. Bottom main colour is white. All control surfaces to be sealed.
It can be seen how the iron got stained by residue while covering and stained the Monokote, which required me to clean the newly applied covering once covering was completed.









Cheers,
Eran

erans

The top main colour is red. Starting at the tail and going forward.











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Eran

erans

The rest of the fuselage...










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Eran

erans

A closer look at the wing as received. The red strips on the bottom are stickers, not covering material.







Cheers,
Eran

erans

The removal of the wing covering was very messy. Once done, some damage was noted with few broken ribs. This was an easy repair.











Cheers,
Eran

erans

Again, main colours white and red.








Cheers,
Eran

erans

Making some covering patterns. I always use stripes on the bottom to assist with orientation in flight, and something nice (and easy) for the top made on clear template to get the size correct and then transferred to the Monokote.















Cheers,
Eran

erans

The fuselage was looking a bit bare, so I created the manufacturer logo in Monokote after printing it on paper to size...





Cheers,
Eran

erans

Now that the aeroplane was in ARF stage, I installed the gear. Hardly none of the original gear supplied by the manufacturer was re-used, almost all of it was replaced as it was of poor quality.











Cheers,
Eran

erans

The main undercarriage was installed with fabricated brackets.




Cheers,
Eran

erans

The true catalyst for going ahead with this project, which was sitting on my "to do list" for few months after receiving it was that I managed to buy an O.S. FT-120 Gemini II engine. This was an ideal airframe for it as it has a wide firewall to accommodate the supplied engine mount. I did have to plug the numerous holes already drilled in the firewall as this airframe had at least two other engines prior to my own installation.







Cheers,
Eran

erans

Throttle control and fuel tank assembly. The fuel tank was re-located to sit as low as possible on a newly fabricated removable tray, as this engine has the carburetor positioned very low, resulting in fuel siphoning out if the fuel tank installed high.

erans

Final touches - an on-board glow plug heating system was installed which is powered by a dedicated battery. Switches, battery trays and receiver were installed.
The prop had to be rimmed to 12mm to fit the engine shaft, and a Sullivan tail wheel replaced the tail skid.












Cheers,
Eran

erans

Some static photos and CG check prior to being ready to fly






Cheers,
Eran

erans

Finally, last Sunday (9th April 2023) it was time for a test flight at the Wanneroo Aeromodellers club in Western Australia.












Cheers,
Eran

erans

The test flight was very successful, and was followed by further three flights on the day. The aeroplane is flying as expected, i.e. very well. The engine requires a very long run-in process (10 fuel tanks) and therefore no aerobatics were performed, but I have no doubt that this aeroplane will perform all the basic aerobatics well.
I hope this project will inspire others to give an old airframe a chance to grace the sky.

Some snippets from the test flight were captured by a club member on his phone and the video is available here:

Cheers,
Eran