TomCrump

Your storm passed through here, last night. I have several inches of snow to clear before I can put in any shop time.

It's too bad about your CA incident.

I guess that I am too impatient to use anything else. I have wood glue and epoxy, in my inventory, but CA is my "go to" adhesive.

You're making excellent progress. How do you like the Sig kit, so far ?

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

I know right where it is!!! I grew up in Rolla. My wife and I try to make it back to STL every year to take in a few Cardinal games. We plan on retiring to some land that has been in my family in Sedalia in about 10 year or so.

Ken

Melchizedek

[QUOTE=TomCrump; How do you like the Sig kit, so far ?[/QUOTE]

Tom, I like it very much. With my limited experience it seems well thought out.
I really like working on a bigger bird. When it gets time to put plumbing in the fuse the extra space will be nice.

Kevin

TomCrump

You're gaining some good experience by building this kit.

I like the larger birds too. As you say, they provide plenty of room inside, making installations easier.

VincentJ

...and they fly better!

SrTelemaster150

After a lot of research & the fact that I didn't want my 1st R/C aircraft to be something that i would "outgrow", I chose a 95" WS Sr Telemaster for my "trainer". It was a very wise choice. Bigger also flies easier. I soloed W/O buddy box & didn't crash it until I gained experience & started to hotdog W/it after making a few modifications. The choice of the Saito FA150 form power was also a good move. I still have that engine albeit in a modified high compression 180 version.

Melchizedek

Well SR,

I learned on a buddy box with a great instructor. I was a very slow learner. He just about gave up on me. I didn't blame him, he had spent hours and hours with me with no improvement. I was getting frustrated also.
So I made a deal with him, go out to the field and fly on my own when no one else is flying. I do better when not under pressure.
He said, "one condition, don't tell anyone I trained you. DEAL!!!!

I got to the point where I was ready to Solo (officially). He soloed me and I got my wings. We were both very pleased to say the least.



As You, I got over confident one day and hot dogged it and guess what happened?



At the time I said to myself, Going to have to get me an arf.
Next day I started to grieve the loss of the Kadet. I did not realize how fond I was of it.

The Wing survived as well as the tail feathers. So I went to Sig and looked under there parts section.
They will sell just the fuse, or any other part. So I bought a fuse and commenced rebuilding.




I thought it fitting to acknowledge Her rise from the ashes before placing her back in commission.




I was very pleased to fly her again.

Kevin

acerc

Now if there was a little Kadet blood poured over your head it would be official!!!

TomCrump

Ouch !

Melchizedek

Club Rule #49 states :

There will be no sacrifices (human or otherwise) permitted on club property.

Kevin

acerc

Well the shirt fits the otherwise catorgory, so, being that rule #49 has been broken my rule is necessary in that it makes the action of breaking rule #49 official.

SrTelemaster150

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melchizedek

Well SR,

I learned on a buddy box with a great instructor. I was a very slow learner. He just about gave up on me. I didn't blame him, he had spent hours and hours with me with no improvement. I was getting frustrated also.
So I made a deal with him, go out to the field and fly on my own when no one else is flying. I do better when not under pressure.
He said, "one condition, don't tell anyone I trained you. DEAL!!!!

I got to the point where I was ready to Solo (officially). He soloed me and I got my wings. We were both very pleased to say the least.





As You, I got over confident one day and hot dogged it and guess what happened?



Kevin

The 1 place where my research had failed me was my radio choice, or rather my Rx function. I selected a Hitec Prism 7X so that it would be compatible W/the Futaba buddy boxes every club in the area used. My mistake was to select a PCM Rx & Hitec PCM is not compatible W/Futaba PCM like their respective PPM functions are. I could have swapped in a PPM Rx, but for some reason nobody thought of that. So that left us W/the instructor taking the aircraft “2 mistakes high” & hand over the radio to the student method.

On 1 of my early flights I got crossed up on the ailerons as I turned on approach. The plane went inverted & immediately started to go straight in. George, my instructor said, “You better giver me that radio”.
It was about 40’ from the ground when it started to pull out & I swear it clipped the tops of the tall weeds.

After that, I learned to just pull up elevator when that happened & Split “S” my way out of the situation. Anyway, I soloed & flew that plane for the rest of the season & part of the next. There were minor bangs, bruises & a few recovering jobs. I even had to use my turkey choked Model 870 12 ga to shoot a limb off in the top a tall cottonwood tree to release its grip on my airplane. I caught it W/a spread tarp on the underbrush & there was little damage.

I slowly modified the airframe by reducing wing incidence to 0° & taking out most of the dihedral. I added wing struts so I could yank back on the stick in a WOT shallow dive & watch it go straight up for 300+ feet W/that FA150 burning 15% Cool Power W/CDI clawing @ the air before kicking the rudder over in a stall turn. I loved doing reverse Cuban 8s & running by on knife edge. The rudder was so roll coupled that to do knife edge & used full aileron & full cross control rudder. When I wanted to roll out, I would just release the ailerons & the rudder would roll it right out.

One wind day in early May I was @ the field W/only 2 other guys that were sorting out a plane in the pits. The wind was quartering across the runway from behind my right shoulder & since nobody was on the flight line I was flying a diagonal pattern. I was hot dogging @ WOT doing reverse Cuban 8s when @ the far end of the pattern, I rolled inverted & pulled up elevator. As soon as the plane pulled through, I knew I had screwed up. I had misjudged the altitude & before I could react, it went almost straight in @ WOT.

When it impacted the still moist Southern Indiana clay, the 95” span 13” chord wing immediately turned in to large chunks of confetti. There wasn’t a single piece that wouldn’t have fit into a standard size envelope. The fuselage was still speared into the ground W/the front quarter destroyed. The muffler was the only part of the engine visible above ground. I reached down & attempted to pull the engine from its grave by the muffler. OUCH! I soon thought better of that idea.

Anyway, the front of the fuselage & wing saddle was destroyed, the wing no longer existed & the servos had pulled free ripping the control horns from the rear control surfaces. I broke out all of the radio gear & stuffed the remains into the trash barrel. Upon later inspection after a thorough rinse in the utility sink, I found that the engine only suffered minor damage.

I didn’t feel too bad as I was really hucking it up when it went in & I had gotten plenty of enjoyment out of that plane. My biggest regret was that nobody got to see it. I have never seen a crash so spectacular, even on video. Those 1300 square inches of wing area disintegrated in a most impressive explosion of Cub yellow & black sunburst stripes. It was breathtaking & those 2 guys @ the field that day had their noses buried in the fuselage of their aircraft W/their backs to the spectacle that was occurring.

Ah, the memories!

Melchizedek

At our club when a guy successfully completes his solo, there shirt tale is taken and the date, names of trainers and any other pertinent info is written on said shirt tale.
It is done to memorialize that mile stone. I thought it odd at first. They say a lot of the guys have framed them and hang them in there shop or den (man cave).

Mine sat around until this last Christmas. My daughter took it and did this with it.


When I opened it I had no idea.
Don't mind telling you it made me all misty eyed.

So, what do your clubs do to commemorate a Solo ?
This could be interesting.

Kevin

SrTelemaster150

When I "soloed" I was taking the plane off, but still handing it to the instructor to land. He had me practicing low, slow passes just above the runway & I inadvertanly stuck it on a nice wheel landing.

Geoge said "that's it" & from that point on I was flying all by myself.

BTW: I have never flow a tricycle landing gear plane. Taildragger from the get go & never wanted anything else. i don't think I would know what to do w/a wheel up front in the way.

I never had much trouble using rudder on the take off & usually apply throttle slowly, let the tail come up, pour the coal to her & give a little elevator when the speed seems appropriate. Seems like once you get her rolling & level, the "P" factor is not so overwhelmimg.

VincentJ

Great story Kevin. I think that's an awesome idea for first time pilots... I'm going to bring it up in our next meeting. The pictures of your Kadet show how the plane resorted back to kit form. That's how we all learn, glad you could rebuild her and enjoy flying it again.

Melchizedek

Vincent,

so glad you liked the story.

This is from Wikepedia "first solo flight". If anyone at the meeting looks at you funny over your suggestion you can be armed with this.

In American aviation lore, the traditional removal of a new pilot's shirt tail is a sign of the instructor's new confidence in his student after successful completion of the 1st solo flight. In the days of tandem trainers, the student sat in the front seat, with the instructor behind. As there were often no radios in these early days of aviation, the instructor would tug on the student pilot's shirttail to get his attention, and then yell in his ear. A successful first solo flight is an indication that the student can fly without the instructor ("instructor-less" flight). Hence, there is no longer a need for the shirt tail, and it is cut off by the (often) proud instructor, and sometimes displayed as a trophy.[SUP][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_solo_flight

Kevin
[/SUP]

acerc

Very cool Kevin, I will have to remember that for the next soloed pilot.

Melchizedek

Greetings

Been pondering the ailerons and there hinging.
I intended to use Rotary Drive System to operate the ailerons.
If you are unaware of RDS --> http://www.irfmachineworks.com/g2rds/
I already have a set for the Spacewalker.

This system was employed on my Kadet.
Why on earth would you put that in a Kadet, you ask?
Well I thought the system was cool, it eliminates external linkage, and I wanted to practice installing it on a less costly bird.
It turned out very nice and I like it.

The problem comes in with how the Spacewalker is hinged and the design of the aileron.
It is hinged at the very top. The pocket for the linkage has to be on the hinge line.
If I sneak the pocket all the way to the top there is not much meat there and it really angles the drive shaft and cheats the angle on the actuator.

So, was thinking about a bull nose on the front of aileron snuggled in the wing.
I drew an arc on the drawing of what I was thinking.
The second photo shows the proposed hinge.
This would enable placement of pocket in middle of aileron.
Straighten out drive linkage.
Also eliminate the gap at the bottom of aileron.



I know, this is a lot of work and is not scale to the Spacewalker.
I like a challenge.

Do you veterans see any thing wrong with this set up ?

Thanks,

Kevin

VincentJ

Kevin, sounds like the configuration I did on my Ryan STA if I understand you correctly. Check out the pics in that thread on page #10, post #230 to see if that is what you were refering to. The problem that I ran into was that the trailing edge of the wing where the aileron's leading edge fits into has to be spaced properly with that type of hinge (Robart) for the aileron to move up and down without binding. The hinge has to stand proud of the wings TE for it to work, no biggie just something to consider. I used the Robart style hinge with the knuckle portion visible at the top on my Spacewalker, it worked great! You may also want to see some of those pics as well.

TomCrump

I see no reason why you can't do it..

The RDS units are sure a nice system. I built one in the fin of my Cessna 195, to control the rudder.

Like Vincent says, proper spacing is required. I achieved by covering the gap with 1/32" ply.

SrTelemaster150

I wonder if the full sized Spacewalker has a similar aileron control set-up as the 1/3 scale version.

If that is true then why alter a "scale" system?

Melchizedek

Thank You Vincent.
That's exactly what I had in mind.
I had your Ryan book marked so I didn't have to go search for it, I am at page 51 of following that build and forgot what you did. I need to finish reading to find some more gems.
Thanks for pointing me to it. I have read so many builds, they start to blend, in a good way .
The way you did your Spacewalker hinges was going to be my 'go to way ' if I got disheartened on option 1 .

Tom, thanks.
That photo is a tease. Feel free to post the whole plane.

Sr.
'If that is true then why alter a "scale" system? "

Cause I want to !
Hard to argue with that. lol
Other than that?

If this was a Corsair or P51 or P40 then scale would rule supreme.
It is well down the list on my 3rd build. Challenge is up pretty high.
Also I like nice clean lines, I hate hardware hanging out on a wing although I did that on my Something Extra.
The gap at the bottom of the aileron where it meets the wing also rubs me wrong.

So, all ahead full steam. Soon as I get time to throw some coal in the boiler.

Kevin

TomCrump

The 195 is a Hostetler design. I built it after my 1/3 SW.

It has a 50cc twin for power, The airframe was glassed and painted with Rustoleum.

For some unknown reason, I never took pics of the completed airframe.

The model has yet to be maidened.

Melchizedek

Wow, Tom

Very nice indeed.

TomCrump

Thanks ! I appreciate the compliment.