After crashing my chippy I decided I liked this plane too much to not rebuild a new one. This will be a modified plane with retracts, and a DLE20cc gas engine.

All that I have learned building in that last year or so will go into this plane. I started with the wing and decided to sheet the entire wing for strength being it will have the DLE20 in it.

For the retracts, I am using the Sierra 100 degrees rotating retracts. They worked well in the last bashed up chip with the Corsair wing. The chippy wing is not as thick at the core and the spare is a little forward. I am using the same system used on the Corsair wing with a plywood spare at the retract. I also installed a plywood rib on either side and at the LE. Sheathing the entire wing should help with strength also.

I am going with the servo in the wing also. On all my kits, I have been doing scale hinge lines and I have only done three planes this way. It is a lot of work, and I wanted to come up with a better and easier way to do this. The first system was using triangle balsa and sanding it down to a radius to receive the rounded ailerons or elevator, a lot of sanding!

Furthermore, the TE of the wing at the ailerons is very delicate and does not cover or finish out well. So I decided to try using carbon-fiber strips and a small balsa block to achieve the pocket. It would be strong and hopefully easier.

It worked out very well and was so much easier than all the sanding, and it was no more work than the standard beveled systems recommended in the kit.

Step one is to clamp a strait edge to the bottom of the TE, put wax paper between the two so they don’t get glued together. Clamp every few inches.Step two, cut a piece of CF to length leaving it just a little long at the end (wing tip). Clamp it down to hold it in place and at the right angle. Using quick CA glue it in place. Step four, cut and glue a piece of square stock to the inside of the CF and TE, clamp it of hold it with your finger. Repeat for the top. This is so easy and takes only a few minuets to do. It does push the aileron out a ¼ so it is best to do the ailerons first then do the wing tips and center section to match the ailerons. Very clean and very strong. I am very curious to how it will finish out with covering. The ailerons finish the same, round them off, cut the slot, and you are good to go. We will see if this works on the tail feathers.

TB

Hinge line!

TB

The finished wing ready for sanding, I will do that when the fuselage is done and then I will fiberglass the center section too. I did solid balsa wing tips and made them a little longer and thicker at the aileron, nice and strong for those windy days and wing tip scraping.

Tail feathers

The scale hinge line worked great on the stab and fin also. I did do it a little different then the wing. In the stab I held the sheathing back at the TE using a small square stock of balsa. Then I glued a small piece of 1/32 balsa to shim out the CF to be flush with the top of the sheathing. This was as much work as the ailerons and very easy.

On to the fuselage!

TB

Completed tail feathers.

Modifications to fuselage and tail feathers.

I beefed up the firewall and added right thrust. I also added another set of ribs on the fuselage sheeting; the three just is not enough to give a clean rounded look to the turtle back.

I placed the retract air tank up in the fuse behind the cockpit to allow for the pull-pull for rudder.

The tail feathers will be getting scale linkages. The elevator gets a heavy doughty torque rod soldered this time; also the rudder and tail wheel get a soldered torque rod too. The fule tank will sit at the CG up in front of the cockpit.

TB

Battery compartment!

Engine and cowl

For those that are wondering how a DLE20 will fit on a 60-sized kit, here is how it fit on my chippy. On my first chippy that was built for the Saito 100 all I did was drill new holes for the new engine mount and move the cowl out to fit. On this new chippy I am building it for the DLE20 so I put some mounting blocks for right thrust and to move the engine a little further away from the firewall so the carb can breath. The throttle and fuel lines are pretty much the same as you would for glow. I did decide to put the ignition inside where the tank use to be. The fiberglass cowl fits well and it looks great too. I decided to go with the stock muffler this time. I had a Pitts on the first chippy and it worked well being I had already cut the cowl for the Saito. The Pitts was damaged so I did not want to spend the $80 for a new one. I like the way the stock muffler fits. I do not have to cut anymore than I would have with the Pitts. You don’t have to cut the entire back portion of the cowl like you do for the pits so I like this better. Not sure what I am going to do for a spinner this time. The scheme I want will require a white spinner, so I might go plastic. I added no down thrust.

I have learned that blind nuts and 4-40 bolts are not the best way to hold the cowl on. I have fond that smaller screws work better. They don’t wallow out, and they look good too. So I went with three on each side into the plywood sides and three on top into the ribbing. On my old chippy the four bolts were always giving me trouble. The nine smaller screws worked really well so that’s what I will go with.

By moving the cowl forward it creates plenty of venting in the bottom of the cowl with no additional cutting needed.

RTC

This Chippy is all ready to cover. I like to set up the plane with all linkages installed (elevator, ailerons and throttle) and working before I cover to make sure all is working right and there is nothing that needs to be changed. I won't do the pull-pull until I am in the covering process, the fuel lines and the rest of the electronics will be installed after covering.

Now comes the hard part, figuring out what scheme I want to do. As soon as I figure that out I will paint the cowl. I am thinking of doing a red, white and blue with some black. The top of the wing will be a star burst, red white and blue. The bottom will be white with red stripes for identification (inverted flight). The fuse will have mostly red with the top of the nose being black, maybe some on the bottom too. Then the tail section of the fuse will be white with a tapered red strip from the nose. The fin will be white, and I might do something on the rudder. The top of the stabilizer will be the same as the wing, as will the bottom too.

I installed the elevator servo as close to the outer wall and the 4-40 push rod runs along the side of the fuse down to the tail pined a few times before it reaches the elevator toque rod. I went with the 4-40 rod because it is stiffer, and I can use the weight in the tail section. The tail feathers are all ready to be covered, hinge line works great too!

The aileron linkage is clean and works great. I used the Sullivan horns (my new favorite) with titanium 4-40 rods. I glued in a 3/16 ply hard point in the ailerons for the horn. The landing gear is all mounted and ready to be hooked up once she is covered.

I am going to use Ultra coat for covering.

TB