Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Looks good from a couple thousand miles away here in South Carolina! Covering is something that takes a lot of practice to get good at. This being your first build it looks fantastic! Keep the pictures coming. I am planning on flying mine the first saturday of March. My eight year old just told me that the plane looks too nice to fly. I don't think he would understand what a hangar queen is yet. I just told him that I would be carefull and not try to crash it.

Brent

mrbigg

My Feedback: (21)

Looks good to me Stick![sm=thumbs_up.gif]

Stick Bender

Thanks guys.

I have the turtledeck and right side of the stab done. Time to have some dinner.

The turtledeck is far from perfect, the top sheeting settled quite a bit between the stringers and formers. If anyone points it out, I will just have to remind them it is the first thing I ever sheeted. I can fix it later if it bothers me, or just order a short kit. I could do sooooo much better on the next one.

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Scott

Looks good. What brand of covering are you using? I got the first wing bottom done. Almost through, I am ready to be done covering!

Brent

Stick Bender

White ultracote/oracover, pretty easy to work with once you start to figure out what it wants.

Yours is looking top notch.

I need to start getting the surfaces ready.

How many rolls of covering should I need?

Here is the other side.

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

It takes almost 1 full 10 meter roll to do the whole plane in white. I prefer ultracote as well. It workd a lot better for covering curved surfaces like the wing tips. I mainly use the iron to tack it down and then I use a heat gun and a glove to shrink and smooth every thing. To do the wing tips leave plenty of extra hanging over the tip. Then use the heat gun and pull it around the tip shrining it as you go. If you get a wrinkle just keep heating and streching. It will come out.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

I am working on painting the cowl. The guy that laid up the cowl for us left a few pin holes that I am having to deal with. Scott I filled the holes in your cowl. I hope that you don't find too many more. If you do find some holes it is easy to prime the cowl and use glazeing putty to fill the pin holes. On mine I did not notice some of them until after I put the first color down. I just waited until the pain was almost dry and took a very fine brush and dabbed some paint into the holes. when the paint is cured I will color sand it with 2000 grit paper and clear it. That should take care of it.

Here is the first couple of colors. I still need to wet sand again where the white will go and mask it off and paint the white.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Cowl is painted!!!!, just need to color sand and add the black pinstrips.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Down to 1 elevator to cover. I finished color sanding the cowl and rubbing it. It has a few very small pin holes. You have to get about 6 inches from it to see them. All in all the cowl turned out pretty nice. I spent 4 hours covering the elevator and cutting the covering for the other side. Here are some pictures.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Hinging

I use gorilla glue to install the hinges. I start by opening up the holes with a solidering iron. I then run a christmas tree stone in the hole to make sure that you have room for the hinge nuckle to rotate in. Use painters tape on each side of the hinge bevel. This will keep the glue from expanding out onto the covering. Cut the hole for the hinge in the tape. I spray a little water in each hole to help the urithane to activate. Lubricate the nuckel of the hinge. I use 3 and 1 oil. spead some urithane in each hole. I use a small syringe to inject glue into the hole. Put a little glue on each hinge and insert it into the hole rotating it and move it in and out. Install all the hinges in the stationary surface first. Repeat the gluing procedure for the moving surface and spead a little glue on the hinge. Install the control surface and slide it in and out over the hinges to make sure that the glue is well distributed. Move the surface full diflection both directions and use some tape to hold it while the glue cures. I move the surface a couple of times while the glue cures to make sure that every thing is alligned correctly. Once the glue is about 3/4 cured you can remove the tape and pull out the excess glue that is stuck to it. I pick out any excess glue from around the hinges once the glue has cured.

Here are some pictures.

Time to install the radio and set it up to fly this weekend.

Brent

cam-flyer

I like it!!!

What time you are flying, I am coming...

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Club meeting starts at 10:00. I will be flying after the meeting. I got the elevators set up tonight. I plan to set up the ailerons tomorrow.

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Installing control horns.

I start by sanding each horn where it goes into the hard point and sand the back side of the square hard point cover. I cut out the covering over the hard point smaller than the cover. Put the arms in the cover and install it in the hard point dry. Make sure that it slides in all the way and sits flush with the cover. Cut around the cover and remove the covering. I inject 30 minute epoxy with a syringe to make sure that the slot is filled. Slide the horn in and out of the slot to make sure that the epoxy is full depth and covers the horn. Apply a little epoxy to the back side of the cover. Slide the horns through the cover and install all of it through the hard point. Wipe any excess epoxy from around the cover with alcohol. Make sure that it is all setting flat and the horns are straight.

I have my elevators and ailerons set up. I ran into a small geometry issue with the ailerons. I am not sure the fix just yet. I was only able to get 45 degrees up and 40 degrees down deflection. I think the controll horns may be a little short and I am running into a straight pull before I get all the travel I want. My other planes had 40 degrees on the ailerons and it worked great. I was just hoping for a little more. I have 50 degrees up elevator and 49 degrees down. I am happy with the elevator set up. I will decide after I get some time in the air if I need to change the setup on the ailerons.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Here are a couple of pictures of the pull-pull set up.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

I did the maiden flight on saturday with a 15 mph cross wind. The plane ended up heavier than I thought it would. The standard weight balsa must have been pretty heavy. The plane came in 1 pound heavier than the first 4 that were built. It weighs 17 lbs 6 oz. If the scales are right. The plane flies very light and does not act like the wing loading is higher. On the maiden flight I lost a wheel and ended up breaking the gear plate loose on one side. It took about 20 minutes to fix. The plane ended up a little more tail heavy than I had hoped. I ended up spacing the motor forward 5/16" of an inch and moving all the batteries to the front. When I flew it today every thing went great. The plane flies great. Better than my prototype. I did some IMAC basic with it and it performed fantastic. Down lines had no pitching to the canopy or belly. Knife edge you only have to think down elevator to maitain straight flight. The plane took 2 clicks of up elevator trim. No rudder or aileron trim needed. With the plane balanced at 1 1/8" ahead of the wing tube it takes a breath of down elevator to maintain level flight. Balaced that way the plane did not hunt and was not sensative on the elevator. Doing a 45 degree up line and rolling and maintaining a 45 degree upline inverted took almost no down elevator correction to maintain. Landings were effertless. Cut the throttle and it settles into a gentle glide slope with no elevator input needed. The plane will land itself with throttle alone.

I did jut a little 3D. Harriers were rock solid with very little wing rock. Pull vertical do a half roll and pull full up on the elevator with the throttle choped and it flips over and flattens out into a perfect elevator. Rolling harriers are slow and predictable. On mid rates snaps were quick and very clean. Let off the sticks and the plane stopped instantly. Here are the throws for high rates. 40 degrees on the ailerons, 45 degrees on the elevators and around 50-55 degrees on the rudder. With my radio that was around 90% set on the high rate travel. For low rates I dropped the travel down to 37% on the elevator, 45% on the ailerons and rudder. I run 55% expo on high rates and 25% on low. I might bump up the low rate expo to 30% because corrections are so small.

Here is a picture of the plane on the maiden flight. Notice the wind sock.

Brent

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Scott

How is the plane coming along? I have 10 flights on mine now. Even weighing a pound more than the other planes that I have out there it flies fantastic. I have the cg dialed in. 1 1/8" ahead of the wing tube is the sweet spot. I was doing waterfalls on sunday. I did 4 back to back perfectly straight with little to no rudder correction. The plane would drop about 6 feet doing it and a quick blast of throttle yanked it right back to where I started it. I swaped out my mejzlik 23 x 8 for a Vess 23A. The Mejzlik is 2 oz. lighter. The Vess had quicker spool up and better vertical. Vess makes a fantastic prop. I will be adding 2 oz to the nose to get the cg back up to where it was with the mejzlik. That 2 oz reduction made the plane just a little more sensative on the elevator and rudder than I wanted.

If you have not started covering the tail feathers you might want to go kind of heavy on the sanding. This is the first plane that came in on the tail heavy side. Your plane has the 3/32 sheeting so you have a lot of room to sand on the tail.

Brent

mrbigg

My Feedback: (21)

I ordered a bunch of balsa a while back- sheets of 1/16x3x36. I weighed every sheet and the difference in weights was astonishing. I got weights from .28oz to .95oz per sheet. I was shocked to see some sheets weighing 3 times the amount of others. It adds up pretty quick. Say a guy was building a plane and when using the lightest balsa available the wood totaled 1lb. Now assuming he got an order of wood on the heavy side. His wood could be up to 3lbs instead of 1lb. I guess it pays to purchase the contest grade when every ounce or pound matters.

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

I agree that the weight variation is amazing. The only thing I don't like about contest grade is how easy it is to dent the wood. My scales are not sensative enough to check the weight down to the gram. I need to get another set of scales to check my sheeting weight. When I order the next batch of wood I am going to ask the supplier if they can weigh the wood so I can get a little more consistant weight. I am looking for something between contest grade weight and the heavy stuff. If I can get it in the 6 lb per cubic foot I would be happy. It can sure cause a problem when the wood weight varyies so much.

Brent

Stick Bender

Sorry, My new computer crashed. Hard drive went bad, I need to find my flash drive to see how many build pictures I lost (all of them were on the new computer but I'm pretty sure I saved most of them to a flash drive)

Not much progress,

It's an unfortunate situation causing a change in plans for the airplane. I am paid on commission and buisiness is slow, no one has any money to spend...

So, I am forced to tighten my belt as well, the airframe will be a backup for the Extra 260's equipment. I'm hoping business will pick back up after April 15th but only time will tell.

I'm going to go ahead and start learning 3D on the Extra, if it goes in, I'll have the YAK as a backup.

I wanted a whole new 50cc plane but I'm still about $1200 short on completing this one with new stuff, I might still have two 50cc planes but it's going to take longer than I thought.

Wish I had had better news. But at this time there is no rush to complete it.

Scott

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Scott

I totally understand the tightning of the belt. I am a appraiser and every thing is weird in the market right now. Even though I work in the Charlotte NC market where things are still growing around 5% a year.

I am changing the servo mounts for this plane to a flat mount design. As soon as I get them cut I will send you a set to change over your plane. You will just pull out the old mounts and the new ones will go in around the old one. It will be a larger hole for the servo so there should not be any paching needed. The new mounts will be included in the kits.

Brent

cam-flyer

Scott,

Your new mounts will arrive this week. Also, I have made some link changes to the CAM website that was used earlier in this thread so go to [link=http://charlotteaircraftmodeling.com]Charlotte Aircraft Modeling (CAM)[/link]

Greg

RC-Captain

Will you ever make this kit available in a ARF version ? If yes how much would you estimate for the cost ?



CAP

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Cap

I don't have any plans to do an arf right now. The market is just to hard to break into. I am just a flyer that loves to design. The things that we are doing with this plane are things that just can not be done in an afr and be cost effective. The total time involved in making this plane is around 250 hours. That is with sheeting and vaccume bagging all the foam parts. I will be scaleing up the plane to 100" for a DA 85 or 100cc size engine, and a 120" version for the 150cc class. I am going to be doing some major modifications to this design for the larger planes. The foam will all be lightened and there will be carbon fiber laminated between the sheeting and the foam. I am hoping to have one of each size being built this winter. I have 2 guys that want the proto type version of the 150cc yak. I would love to offer this plane as an arf if there was some one who could bring it to market. The problem with arf's is the quality control. I don't think we could maintain the quality that I would be happy with.

I have 14 flights on my plane now and I like it more each time I fly it. The plane continues to supprise me with how easly it does everything. I was doing waterfalls on sunday. The plane did 4 in a row straight as an arrow with very little rudder correction. It didn't even loose much altitude.

ARF'S can't compete with the quality that we and the end builder put into an airplane. There is a great deal of satisfaction with building it yourself. The plane is easy to build and even easier to fly. I will always recomend that people build their own plane. Weather it is one of mine or someone elses design it doesn' matter to me. Building increases your knowledge about flight and will also improve your flying by having a better understanding of how a plane works. Give a kit a try!

Fly Hard!

Brent

cam-flyer

RC-Captain,

Let me introduce you to my laser cutting business that I started last year. Being in the hobby for over thirty (30) years has allow me to witness a lot of changes. Easy assembly, instant gratification and gorgeous cover schemes. The change that concerns me more is our loss of skills and our children never seeing or learning them, plus the gratification of building from scratch something that flys.

There is a coming push in the hobby to help the scratch builder with laser cut kits you build and finish yourself that will be about the same cost as the ARFs from overseas.

My business is focused on the custom designer and builder. Go to my website at [link=http://charlotteaircraftmodeling.com]Charlotte Aircraft Modeling[/link]. My goal is to help scratch builders and support designers.

Let me know if you have questions and if I can support you.

CAM-Flyer

Brent G

My Feedback: (5)

Hey everyone

Just wanted to give everyone an update on things. I am currently looking into other providers for laser cutting. CAM will no longer be selling my designes and I will just leave it at that. There is no need to go into the details of the situation. If anyone of you has a need for laser cutting I would still recommend checking with Greg, he does a quality job.

Any questions about the plane or orders for planes can be sent directly to me. I am currently working on scaling up the plane to 98", 104" and 120". I may even go a little bigger with the anouncement of the new DA 170. We are also working on the vacume table for making canopy's.

I hope to see a few of these planes flying soon.

Any questions just post or send me a PM.

Brent Good

Brent Good Custom Airframes