fred123

Spencer: You are getting pretty fancy, adding the text to that picture. What program did you use? Fred123[&:]

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

I used photoshop, but there are other programs that you can use. Paint is very limited in what you can do, but it would work.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

Lots of stretching!

fred123

Well Guys: Got some bad news to report. Got to the field, wind was about 10MPH gusting to 12. Cranked her up, taxied onto the field holding a little up elevator to keep her from tipping. Started my takeoff run, probably holding a light up elevator...Big Mistake. Lifted off too soon, stalled and bellied in at full throttle. Took off the gear, sheared off the bottom wing at the bolts. Broke one of the wing struts and broke off both upper wing attach tabs where the struts bolt on. Stripped a servo. All repairable, but sure does make you sick to make such a stupid mistake...Will report back when I get her back in the air.. Will be several weeks, since we are leaving next week for two weeks in China. Fred123[&:]

robert85614

Fred,
So sorry to hear of your bad luck. The wind here has been blowing hard for 2 months and I haven't been flying. My instructor crashed my Nexstar 3 times. It is rebuilt now but I need a new instructor and lower wind speeds before I try again. It's given me a lot of time for building. I enjoy building as much as flying. I hope your repair goes quickly and the wind speed drops.
I will be going to puget Sound Wa. in2 weeks and living aboard our 37 foot Trawler for the Summer. i now will enjoy my Winters in Az a lot more with my Hobby.
Have a great summer and I will be checking the RC forum when we get to a Marina.

Robert

hookedonrc

fred - Real sorry to hear about your accident. I can imagine how it feels to put in a lot of hard work on a new plane to have the problems you did. I am stealing some time here this morning. We went to two graduation ceremonies at OU (Oklahoma University), yesterday morning and Friday night. Senator John McCain was the keynote speaker Friday night and it was great fun. Today we are having an open house for my son and will be pretty busy. I am at the computer making a couple of signs for the party.

robert - Oh am I jealous... so just to not be outdone, I am attaching a picture of my sister inlaw's 39' Island Packet sailboat. They are off in the Caribbean for 18 months and are currently in Grenada where they will spend hurricane season. My wife and I flew to St. Maarten in March and spent a week sailing with them and had a great time. I got hooked (no pun intended) so bad that we are in the market for our own sailboat. Nothing as fancy, but we are looking for a Catalina 22. We plan to take some sailing lessons later this summer at a lake north of Tulsa. It looks like I will be flying to the Bahamas about this time next year to help my sister inlaw's husband sail the boat back from there to Ft. Lauderdale. She hate's to sail...can you believe it.

Anyway, will hit the building table again beginning this week after all of the graduation stuff is done. Will keep you updated.

robert85614

That's a great boat hooked. I know you will enjoy Blue Water Sailing.
I haven't attached the tail feathers on the hog bipe as yet. After closer examination I too had a gap under the verticle empenage. I added 3/32 balsa and beveled the bottem. looks much better.
I am going to remove my Super Tiger .61 from my Waco and install it in the Hog bipe> I hope it will be adaquate.
I hope you get some time to finish the Hog Bipe.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

hooked-

How did all of the graduation festivities go? Hope all went well and that you found time for your building board sometime today.

I've got just a few things left to do, but need the servos to do most of it. I need to get some new material for the windshield as I ruined mine. Then just a little more trim and some text and I'll be good to go.

From what I can tell the placement of the servos, Rx and battery will control where the cg will end up. I will mount the servos first and then determine where the Rx and battery will need to go, but should not be a problem at all as I am balanced fairly well now without that stuff installed. The pull-pull on the rudder will add some tail weight, but should be able to compensate with the batt and Rx.

hookedonrc

Day 44 - (HEY I'm BACK.....finally!)
The graduation was great and the only thing I would have done differently was try to stay in Norman, OK. between the two ceremonies. As it was, we drove there last Friday afternoon, went to the whole senior class graduation at the football stadium. Senator John McCain spoke and then there were fireworks. Got home at 1:00am Saturday and had to turn around and go back at 7:30am the next morning for the specific college ceremonies. Then it was back here to Tulsa for the open house on Sunday. Quite a weekend and I am still recovering.

Anyway, on to the build. Got into the shop this morning and started where I left off on the bottom wing. First I glassed the center joint with epoxy. Exact steps were to mark 1/2" in either side of the center so that aligning the masking tape would be easier. I completed both the top and bottom portions and then did some reading here on RCU for exact steps. Settled on spraying 3m adhesive in the area along the seams and then attaching the fiberglass cloth. Once this was done, I came back with 30 minute epoxy (not thinned) and using an acid brush, I forced it down into the cloth and then smoothed the surface. As soon as this was completed, I removed the masking tape to avoid it being glued to the surface. As far as I can tell, it came out very good and will require only minimal sanding.

Next step was to go back in the instructions and mount the servos on the servo hatch covers for the bottom wing. I had skipped these steps in the original run through because I hadn't bought the servos yet. I am using HiTec HS-475HB Deluxe servos that have a top ball bearing and are rated at 60 oz. in. of torque at 4.8 volts. Should be more than enough to power each of the aelerons. Once the epoxy on the center wing joint has cured, I will go back and sand it smooth, then mount the servo hatches making sure that the servo arms do not hit the sides of the bay. On one of them it appears that this might be the case. I will simply stand away some of the servo rail to make sure the servo arm clears completely. Looks like the back of the servo case is hitting the rail a little bit and causing the arm to hit the side of the other rail. Pretty simple solution though.

Here are the latest pictures and boy does it feel good to be back on track.....

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

Glad to see you back at it and everything went smooth hooked. Won't be long and you'll be maidening your hog.

What are you using for all of your servos? I ended up with the HS-325HB for throttle and 2 on the elevator and put the HS-475HB on the ailerons and rudder. I will post some pictures tonight of the setup. I still need to buy the throttle and aileron servos, probably this weekend, but got the major pain in the butt finished last night. If I had to do it over again, I would have dry fit the pull-pull rudder system before covering, but in the end it turned out pretty good.

I picked up some windshield material (since I damaged the first one) and got that fitted and attached on Monday. Just a little left on the trim, not sure what to do, finish the radio gear install and connect the linkage for the throttle and ailerons and the hog will be flight ready.

hookedonrc

jspencer-I am using all the same servos except for the throttle. Those mentioned in my previous post will go on all but the throttle. For the throttle, I have some JR537's still in the box and will use one of them for the throttle. Have been doing a little more this afternoon, mostly sanding..yuck... I have added the two small ply plates on the bottom rear of the wing. These provide the heavier wood needed to drill through when adding the holes for the wing mounting bolts. No picture taken and it is part of the instructions. Next step will be to cut and sand (preliminary sanding) the aelerons for the bottom wing. Will most likely get to it tomorrow.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

hooked, unfortunately you are almost to that point that not many people like... sanding, sanding and more sanding.[:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(] but in the end you will be rewarded with a great looking pig.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

Here's a few pictures of the fully assembled hog. Because of doing the two elevtor servos, I either need to get a Y with one reversed, or get a new 9C so that I can plug in each half individually. I'll probably just wait and get the 9C as I would just feel more comfortable putting it in the air with that setup.

I'm going to mount the switch tonight in the cockpit area near the front so that it is somewhat out of the way and hidden. It should blend in nicely though since it is black on the black felt.

Also there are pictures of the pull-pull setup on the rudder. It was a bit of a pain to install, but I really like the setup.

My AUW ended up at approximately 8.5 lbs, but I don't have a very accurate scale either. It was a little heavier then I would have liked, but not bad considering the mods that I did.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

It must be good flying weather as everyone seems to be flying instead of writing. Well, I couldn't wait to fly the hog, so I bought a Y with one leg reversed. I still need the 9 channel Tx, as the elevators don't quite have the same stopping points at full deflection, but very close.

The first flight I almost put the hog into the ground. The ailerons were reversed, I thought that I had checked them, but must not have or did it upside down and got them backwards. It is a good thing that I had high rates on as it did a roll at 5' off the ground on take off. It started going left so I gave it some right and over it went. I nearly $&!^ myself. I tried to quickly reprogram the brain and gain some altitude to figure out what I was going to do. One of the club members came out and I waqlked him through reversing channels 1 and 6 and then I was good to go. I was very fortunate, as the hog should have been a pile of sticks[&o].

I finished out the flight, but needed quite a bit of down elevator (which leads me to believe that I'm tail heavy) a lttle right rudder (is anyone adding in any engine thrust angle ~ 2 degrees or is everyone at 0, I think it has 1 degree down built in?) ailerons were close, but needed a little right as well. Landing was near perfect, just a little hot, but on the money. I will go over everything again before the next flight and make sure that everything is good and tight, and move the Rx and battery forward a little more. I'll have to build some sort of removeable tray as I will have to mount it directly over the throttle servo.

The second flight the muffler came loose along with the high speed needle valve coupler. The engine ran great, but I could tell I was losing power and landed. Tightened everything up and was ready to go again.

The third flight was good. Tried knife edge and noticed it really wanted to go to the belly. Flat spins were nose down attitude, not sure why, maybe not enough elevator or just the pilot. Loops and rolls were nice. Rolls needed very little up when inverted. Inverted flight needed just a touch of down elevator for level flight. Landing was good as always.

I really like the hog and once I get everything set up just right it will be a great bird in the hangar. I would definitely take RCKen's recommendation and put nothing less then a 91 4-stroke. Flys very nice with the 91. I think hooked will be happy with the Saito 100 he is putting in his. Overall a thumbs up! I'm very pleased.

hookedonrc

Sounds like you dodged a bullet on yours. I haven't been writing because, I haven't been building much. It has been 91-92 degrees here, and I work in the garage. With the temperature, I haven't got a lot done besides what has been posted. We are to get a cool front in here today/tonight and it'll be back in the garage for me. Next on the agenda is to center the bottom wing and put in the wing dowels, then it's on to the elevator and fin/rudder. I am headed back to work tomorrow, so I will be able to hit the bench each day after I get home. Seems like I make a lot of progress this way. Maybe it's my way of just relaxing after work....

Hardy_H

Greetings from Germany!

I'm Hardy and I'm a newbie here. Please excuse me if my English is less than perfect and I get some technical terms wrong. I was surfing the web for a nice airplane kit to go with my new O.S. FS-91 S2-P (four stroke with fuel pump) and this forum thread, together with the Hog Bipe gallery at fubarhill.com, made me choose the Hog Bipe although initially I wasn't looking for a biplane at all.

It's at least two weeks until my kit arrives, so I can't say much about modifications I'm going to make. I'll probably reinforce the construction in some places, especially the wing mounting. In "mild" crash landings that would do no harm to a monoplane the struts between upper and lower wing often cause heavy damage of biplane wings. Another point is the plane's nose. I don't really like engines sticking out of the nose top, so I may mount the engine upside down and/or add a cowl.

I guess your experiences with this plane will be of great help...

Hardy

dmanson

My Feedback: (1)

jspencer -- I also noticed that a touch of down elevator was needed for proper trim. I was careful balancing the Hog and am quite certain that the CG was set a bit nose heavy, so I don't see that shifting weight forward is the full story. Please keep us posted on what you learn about the trim.

Hardy_H -- I wish more of our native speakers could write English as well as you do.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Hooked,
I for one am glad that you building is going slow, because that will give me some time to get some repairs done before I come up for your maiden. Yep, had an "incident" this weekend. Was shooting touch and gos when my timer sounded. I usually have 2-3 minutes after it beeps so I kept shooting. Of course I got to one that I "knew" I should have come in, but Murphy was sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear "just one more". Yep, I listened to him. I lifted off and made a climbing turn away from the runway, and that's where she died on me. I tried to turn her back towards the cut grass, drop the nose, and go for a down wind landing. Unfortunately I wasn't high enough. Came down on the landing gear pretty hard. The damage is on the lower wing. I know that the lower spar is broken in at least one place. I'm pretty sure that I can fix it, but won't know until I get the covering pulled back to see all the damage. If it's not repairable I do have another set of Hog Bipe wings from my last one that I can recover and get back on this plane. We'll see what happens.

I'm not worried about it because it's nobody's fault but my own. Hey, stuff happens.

jspencer

My Feedback: (6)

Hardy_H-

I only made a couple of modifications, but one that I would definitely suggest is moving the landing gear forward a 1/2". I had no ground handling problems at all. In fact it tracked down the runway with very little elevator or rudder. I don't know that I would do the pull-pull on the rudder again, it seems to have great authority with it, but I would bet the performance isn't much better then if you did a normal setup. Split elevators, unless you have at least an 8 channel Tx or plan on buying one real soon, don't do it. It is nice, but if you have no way to set the end points on each so that they match, it's not a good idea plus it adds the extra weight of another servo.
EDIT: Dual aileron servos is a must as well.

Overall, I'm very happy with the way mine turned out. It is a little on the heavy side at 8.5 lbs, but still a great flier. It would probably be lighter with a newer engine, 91 Surpass II or Saito 100 and newer Rx battery pack.

Sorry to hear about yours Ken, but you will have it repaired and back in the air in no time. How is the review going with the Saito 100?

Hooked, I know what you mean about the garage being too hot. As long as you keep the garage door shut ours stays around 60 degrees in the winter, so you can imagine what it is like in the summer. If I work out there in the summer it is mostly in the evening once it has cooled off and I can open the garage door and let the evening breeze keep it cool. I did dodge a bullet, no doubt about that. It's a mistake that won't happen again I can tell you that for sure. I'll be double, triple and checking again all the throws before any plane goes in the air again. That's the odd thing though, I usually get out to the runway then check all of the controls again before taxiing out. I must have been too excited as I didn't this time and it almost cost me.

dmanson- I ended up going almost full down elevator on my trim (Futaba 6XAs), have a feeling that it may be an incidence problem. I will have to check it out with the incidence meter (don't have one yet, even though I should) and see where it is. I'll get it checked out and then hopefully get it back into the air this week and see where I am at, and then go from there.

hookedonrc

Thanks for the update spence. It is nice to hear about how moving the landing gear makes a difference. Sounds like I did the right thing in making the move. I am not too worried about power since I am using the Saito 100. Will get in the garage again just as soon as the heat and the humidity break. Shouldn't be too long, and I am getting ready for our club's Memorial Day open house. I have a couple of volunteer jobs to do, and will be getting a couple of planes ready for it. Will fly my Ultra Stick Lite with the G-26 and my trusty 4*60 with Super Mario as the pilot. The 4* is a hit with the kids that come to the field and it flies as good as any plane that I have.

hookedonrc

Day 45 - Back From the Edge
For those who thought I dropped off the face of the earth, you are close. I did not drop off, but saw the edge from where I was. I have been sitting waiting until the temp and humidity dropped in order to get back into the garage and resume building. My son's graduation was great and my wife and I are very proud of his accomplishments. Sort of took us both by surprise since we had been working toward this date for 22 years. Now our main goal (raising our son) is as done as you can get it and we are looking for other goals to accomplish. First, we have been resting

Also I am in the part of construction where I had the same problem on my last kit. Nothing to do with building, just my attitude toward it. After getting to this point, it gets harder to go back to the table and keep going. It isn't something that can't be overcome, but my enthusiasm is waning a little. My workbench is a total mess (as you can see in the picture), and I have to talk myself back to it more and more. I will get past this phase, but it isn't as easy as it was when I started to keep focused.

Anyway, I did get some building done today. Got home early from work and decided to tackle the installation of the wing dowels and adding the wing bolt blocks to the fuse. Doesn't sound like much, and the instructions that are given sound easy. However, it is a little more difficult than is indicated. Lining up the wing and making sure that you are centered up and down left and right, and that you drill the dowel holes in straight at the same time is a task that I don't find fun. Although I did get it done, I did have to take a rat tail file to the holes in the front of the fuse and move them to the left and up (as you look at the bottom of the fuse). Problem was that the holes in the fuse seem a little high (toward the top of the fuse) this caused the back of the wing to be propped up into the air about 1 inch above where the wing bolt blocks are. You can push down on the trailing edge of the wing to get it to fit, but you end up leaving grooves in the top of the wing. So I spent a good 45 minutes filing the holes to the left and up. Actually, when you turn the fuse right side up, the holes actually are ending up right and down, but I did accomplish what I wanted. I got the trailing edge of the wing to sit close to the area where the wing bolt blocks are now epoxied, and left enough space so that when the bolts are drawn, the wing does not sit loose in in the wing saddle. I am now awaiting the epoxy (30 minute) to dry on the wing bolt blocks. Next step will be to drill out for the 1/4 x 20 nylon wing bolts and tap the blocks for the threads. A friend of mine from work dropped by the local "ReTool" store and found a 1/4 X 20 tap and T handle for only $4.25 and picked it up for me. I do not have a tap and die set, so I really needed the tool to finish mounting the wing.

Will pick back up tomorrow morning and am hopeful that I will complete the bottom wing installation. Once that is finished, it is on to building the horizontal stab and the vertical fin. Wow...as I write that, it does sound like I am getting close to the final sanding and then the covering. Will post more as I get along and add more pictures. Here are the latest pictures showing my progress.

hookedonrc

Day 46 - More Progress & Two/Three updates in a row!
As you can see in my first set of pictures, I ran into an unexpected problem on the trailing edge blocks on the bottom wing. The wing itself sat in the wing saddle perfectly, but the wing blocks were at a steeper angle that I had anticipated. You can see the gap in both of the first two pictures showing each side. It took me a little while to decide what to do. As indicated in the previous post, I had begun to move (even if slightly) the dowel holes in order to get the wing to set better in the wing saddle. Once that was done, I was still left with quite a gap. Maybe I should have left the wing bolt blocks higher, but hindsight is always 20-20. I decided to take some basswood sheeting that I have on hand and add them to the side of the mounting blocks facing the wing. (This is shown in picture 3 of this set.) After they were glued in place, I sanded, then sanded, and then sanded some more so that the wing blocks fit exactly. I did need a little filler between joints, but that was pretty easily taken care of.

Once the basswood sheeting was shaped to where it needed it, I then added triangle stock to the top side of the wing mounting blocks. This is indicated in the instructions, so this is not a modification, even though it might sound like it. I then moved on to drilling the holes for the 1/4 - 20 wing mounting bolts again following the instructions exactly. I have noticed somewhat of a gap between the wing mounting blocks and the joint where the rear of the fuse meets the trailing edge of the wing. I am considering adding a short piece of balsa to the bottom of the fuse between the mounting blocks to help seal this gap. It won't be perfect, but in looking at it from the bottom, it will dress up the area and not leave a gap. I, again, followed the instructions as indicated, the the wing bolt holes were drilled, tapped, and CA'd as indicated. I did find it a problem to get the 1/4 - 20 bolts to go in smoothly, but I solved this by putting some soap on the threads of the bolts. They work perfectly now.

The next step was my favorite. I have been waiting quite a while to try to assemble what I have completed thus far, and so I took the time to put the top wing, bottom wing, landing gear on the plane. I am not quite ready to mount the wing struts, but a few toothpicks helped out for the pictures. You can see the results in these two posts as well. I think it really helps to at least put it together as best one can just to get a feel of how the plane is going to look. I think the pictures speak for themselves, this is going to be a great plane once it is finished.

Lastly, I began building the horizontal stab. Only after I cleaned up part of my workbench though. Pictures of this are also included. I am now at the point where I am to remove the sub assembly from the work surface. First things first though, I am going to watch the Indy 500, Coca Cola 600, and fly all day tomorrow at our Memorial Day Open House and Guest Day. Also with this progress, I am feeling a bit better about building. Not that I am going great guns, but I am back on track and will be posting updates as I move ahead. It will not be an everyday thing, as I found out last week, I have a compressed vertabrae and bone spurs in my neck. I am scheduled for physical therapy 3 times a week for the next 4 weeks. That will certainly bite into my build time. However, I am again excited about getting this plane done, so the mental part is out of the way for now.

Hope you enjoy the updated pictures. Watch out Waldo Pepper!

hookedonrc

Second set of pictures on progress:

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Looking great!!!!

fred123

Well guys, I have returned from our China vacation and am ready to start repairing my Hog. The trip was one of the great ones. If you haven't been to China, I really recommend it.

Placed a tower order today with all the materials I will need. It shouldn't be too difficult a repair job. Will need to make a new wing strut and replace a set of gears in my 3004 wing servo. The hardest part will be installing new upper wing strut attach tabs (where the struts bolt to the wing). Both sides snapped off flush with the wing rib. The landing gear sheared off, but the break is clean and should not be much of a problem to epoxy it back in. Points out to me, that you should not reinforce the gear too much. Just increases the damage to the fuselage body when you crash. Hope to be back in the air in a couple of weeks. Fred 123[&:]