bubbagates

My Feedback: (32)

Ken,

I just realized. I do not see the Bee on the wing, or is it going somewhere else???

Ok, you can turn off the light switch for the wing...It's burned into my retina's now...Man that thing is bright. It definitely is reflective and should show up well in the air

brocja01

Ken,

That looks awesome so far!!!!! You will most definately need sunglasses out in the sun with those colors. [8D] I'm glad your the one covering, I could have never have covered as nicely as you have. Nice to see a color design that I just thought up come to life. Very Well Done!!!

Jeremiah

theo63

fantastic is all i can say what a job you have performed here,it has helped me a great deal,waiting to see your covering post i hope anyways,,thanks again wow

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

looking good Ken, very well done![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif] I was gonna give ya a ribbing about not wrapping that servo tray in pink too, but since it's mon & not fri. I'll have to let it go.

bruce88123

I think the Seabee goes on the vertical stab, but I could be wrong.

somegeek

My Feedback: (2)

Beautiful work, man!

R T W

Wow, Ken That is going to be one ccrolorful bird .
Keep up the good work
You the Man

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

With my post that has pictures of the wing in it the cat is out of the bag about how far along I am in the build as opposed to where I am with documenting it. I guess I need to do a better job of keeping up with the paperwork huh??

Right now in the build thread discussion we are up to a point where all of the main assemblies of the plane are built, i.e.: the fuselage, wings, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizer. For all intents and purposes this is the major part of the airplane. So at this point I want to take a few minutes to discuss how I build a plane. I fully understand that my opinions on building an airplane are just that, my opinion. In fact, the way that I do somethings are not the same way that most others do them. But they are what works for me, and I'm comfortable with the way I do it. So what I'd like to do before we continue with the thread I'd like to take a few minutes and discuss how I will proceed into the build from here.

Most people that build will actually cover the plane, assemble the major parts, and then balance it. I hate doing it that way. Why? Because I'm just a little bit obsessive about the covering. If a plane that has been covered is out of balance you sometimes have to cut the covering to add weight in the plane. Cutting covering absolutely drives me up the way. I hate doing. So I will proceed at this point in the build a little differently.

So here's what I will do. I completely assemble the plane uncovered. And when I say completely I mean that everything is on the plane with the exception of the covering materials. Engine installed, tail feathers epoxied in place, all controls and servos in place, fuel tank installed, and the battery and receiver in the plane. At this stage I will align my wing and tail structures according to the instructions in the kit. So when I have my plane completely assembled I am ready to balance the plane. Remember that when the plane is balance we're not just talking about the front to rear balance of the plane, but we're also talking about the lateral balance of the plane (side-to-side). In fact, many people either don't know about the lateral balance or they forget to check it. This can have a HUGE effect on the plane in the air. Think about it, if one wing is heavier than the other it will always drop, and that drop will steer the plane in that direction. To correct that you will need to trim that out with your radio. Bad bad bad situation. In fact, on this plane I added about an ounce and a half to the left wing to balance it laterally. When we are doing the balance I try to use the battery and receiver for as much adjustment of the balance as possible. Please do that before you start adding lead to the plane. Lead weight is dead weight. That means that the weight is just there and that's more for you engine to haul around the in the air. But if you can use the position of the battery to actually adjust the balance of the plane then your not adding any extra (dead) weight to the plane. So try to use the battery to adjust your balance of the plane. Now when I have the plane covered and ready to fly I will again do another check of the balance to make sure it's still good. 99% of the time the balance will still be good, but in the rare instance where it's not you can usually make another move with the battery (and possibly) the receiver to fine tune the balance.

So with this in mind I'm going to proceed with the build thread over the next few days. I'll be discussing how different parts/areas of the plane are put together to get the plane ready to fly. As we go through this if anybody has any questions about why/how I did something please don't hesitate to ask.

Until next time.

Ken

jbarnes

Could you describe how you do the lateral balance. Are you attempting to balance laterally with the wings and fuselage attached? Just curious what kind of setup you have do lateral balance with the fuselage attached. I've gleamed alot of good information from your various threads, thanks, us new guys appreciate it.

airscooter

Awesome covering job on that wing, I don't think you will get quality like that out of a box.
I would like to have seen seabee1 and his daughters face when they saw those pics, probably still smiling.
Anyone would be proud to have a plane like that and the colors are actually very bright and should be really easy to see.
Looking forward to seeing the finished product

carrellh

Lateral balance is discussed in the Great Planes PT-60 manual which can be downloaded from http://www.greatplanes.com/parts/index.html#kits

The direct link is http://www.greatplanes.com/manuals/gpma0119-manual.pdf but it’s a pretty big file (over 4 mb) to open in the browser.

See page 31. The plane needs to be pretty much assembled, engine mounted, landing gear installed, etc.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

jbarnes,
Sorry that I didn't get right back to you, but here is more info on laterally balancing the plane. As Carrellh said, this needs to be done with the plane completely assembled, everything needs to be on the plane that it will have on it when it's flying. The only exception would be the covering, because like I said above I will balance without the covering.

Anyway, here's how I do a lateral balance. Using a strong twine or fishing line (I prefer twine instead of the fishing line because sometimes the fishing line can cut into the balsa wood) and tie one end around the crankshaft of the engine right behind the spinner and tie the other end around the tail of the plane, you want to have enough string so the plane will hang about a foot below your hands. Then you simply lift the plane by the string and observe what happens. If the plane remains level then you're good and the plane is laterally balanced. If it dips a wing then that is your heavy wing/side. You'll need to add weight to the other wing tip to balance it out. As you can see in my pictures the right side of this plane was heavy and that side dipped. So I had to add some weight to the opposite wingtip. You can see the weight that is epoxied in the wingtip on the left side. In the final picture you can see the plane hanging level on the twine and is now laterally balanced.

Hope this helps

Ken

RC Senior

Hello Ken!!
I am just started my first plane,The LT-40 and I am following your step by step thread on how you are building it.
I know the thread is going back to December but I just found this site 10 days ago.
I hope it doesn't disapear off the forum before I finish.
At 56 years young and retired,I needed to find a hobby that I was truely interested in.
My wife took me by surprise by giving me this kit for Xmas.
The way you are discribing the various steps and tips and trips really helps the first time builder in enjoying their first build.
Thankyou for all your detail and pictures.
John Reilly
Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

somegeek

My Feedback: (2)

Great tip! Where are you securing the line on the back end?(can't see in the pics)

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

RCSenior,
Nope, this won't go away anytime soon. If I'm not mistaken every thread ever posted on RCU is still available for viewing.

Somegeek,
On this plane I secured it around the fuselage right in front of the vertical stabilizer. but every plane is a bit different. Just figure out where you can secure it so you can lift the plane.

Ken

somegeek

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks, Ken.

jbarnes

Thanks, I was visualizing the plane fuselage sitting on some kind of tight rope! Thanks for all the tips.

shd3920

I notice you are doing the lateral balance with an uncovered model. How do you perform this balance when the tail ends and fuselage are already covered as mine is? I don't have any open frames to tie the twine to.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Just tie it around the fuselage in that case

Ken

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

Ken, Great tip on the lateral balance, I'll put that in my back pocket with the rest of em' .

Ferocious Frankie

My Feedback: (7)

Hi Ken,

I don't have this plane ,but I want to ask a general question. How do you know how much weight you should add on the wing tips? What if you add too much and the side you were putting weights on tips?

Thanks

Edited for spelling

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

What you need to do is test how much weight you need. Add some weight and re-check the balance. Just keep adding weight until you find what will work to balance it out. Look at the attached pictures you can see how I tried different weights until I found what I need to get it to balance. Just keep in mind that the epoxy you are going to use will add a little bit to the final weight. So once I knew how many weights I needed to balance the plane I took a half of one away to compensate for the weight of the epoxy. Of course I double checked after the epoxy was set to see if the balance was still correct. It was, but if it hadn't been I would have just added a bit more weight.

In the first picture you can see how much weight I started off adding, and in the second picture you can see what I finally ended up using to get it to balance.

Hope this helps

Ken

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

Frankie, I would think add a little at a time WITHOUT GLUEING it in place & check it, keep adding till you get it right, then install weight permanently. Just the way I would do it. Ken may know a better approach though. [8D]

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

lol ya beat me to the keyboard Ken

phklucz

Very good work at explaining things ken. Im sure this will help the begginers a lot . Keep the good work going. Thx i m sure i will learn something from you as well : )