Hey all, no building tonight, went to the local beginners night and it was great! They gave my plane the once over, commenting on it, they all said its looking real good.

They let me fly the club trainer for 40minutes, that was alot of fun. Learned alot!

Anywho, I'll get back at it tommorrow!

I need a little help with my somethin extra, I have been flying for about two years and have 7 different planes, guess I'm addicted. I have been doing some simple 3d stuff with electrics and last summer picked up a used (10) flights, Something extra from a guy at the local club. I saw him fly it and flew great, but he needed some cash so I bought it from him. It has a TT pro .46 mounted at a 45 degree angle, a 14" tuned pipe, 2 extra inches on the rudder and he had the CG at about 4 1/2 inches back. I was not ready to have the cg that far back from the suggested 3 1/2". I pushed the battery as far forward as possible and still had to add 6 oz of weight to get the CG back to 3 1/2. That seems like a lot of weight, I'm guessing the plane is about 5.5 - 6 lbs is this normal. I thought the tuned pipe might be weighing it down it is mounted under the fuselage, could that be the problem with the CG and is the weight difference worth the extra power. Thanks Randy

I forget the exact weight of mine, but it is around 6 lbs. I have an OS .46 AX on mine & I have to add 3 oz. of weight to the nose with the battery shoved against the firewall under the fuel tank. My CG is in the stock range but I don't recall the exact number.
I bought a 12.25X3.75 APC prop for mine & it will hover with some pull out, but not with authority.

Thanks Tony, you don't think the extra 3 oz will hurt then. I see you are from omaha, I fly at LaVista ( im about 2 minutes from field) and at Bud's in CB. Rumor has it the Lavisa field might be moving to Valley...sure hope not, just got use to avoiding the trees and power lines. Is that your video of the Something extra in the video clips on this web site. If it is it looks like the plane spins like a top.

Yeah, that's my video. As far as regular aerobatic's it's pretty much limited by my abilities only. It floats more than my trainer, so there's certainly no obvious weight issues. On high rates the rolls are blindingly fast & it turns on a dime.

I live in SW Millard & the La Vista field is probably the closest one to my house. I joined Omahawks becuase of the nice runway & it's close to where I work. I have heard good things about Buds field but I've never been there.
I do a lot of flying around my house with my typhoon & other foamies too.

I was going to fly the SE but field was closed, tornado took down powerlines in the Lavista soccer fields. Cant wait to get it up in the air. I also have a typhoon, I had to replace the elevator and rudder servos about the 5th flight, both were toast. Replaced with hitec 81's I think. Flies great. I work in Council Bluffs so I stop at buds field after work, buds field is nice, grass runway but very short and smooth. Only $25 for the a first year member. .

I just got done rebuilding about the 15th stripped servo on my typhoon. lol I really should just replace them.

Well, I'll be going out this weekend with my SSE at Hawk Field. PM me if you want to swing by. We allow guests as long as your with a member.
Dang for $25, I might have to join Bud's too.

Sounds good, but I have to install about 400 square feet of oak flooring in a buddies house. I may just take a rain check though.

Hey all, got some building done today, but I cant find the digital camera, I'll ask the wife tommorrow where she put it .... probably in the babies room.

At any rate, got the tank installed, tank deck put on, stringers put on ...... I'll post the pictures tommorow(today)!

I'm finishing my 1st kit, sse, as well. it's ready to cover, wanted to know if ther were any readily available outlines of the airplane to try out some different covering patterns. Thanks to all the helpful posts while building, the plane came out really good, if I do say so Myself!

http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/up...95/Zx71707.jpg

And lets see some pictures!!!

Alright, here are some "before I melt plastic all over it" shots, and thanks for the drawings. You guys are quick.

Looks good mj_drew!!

Heres my progress for the last 2 nights, I decided against sheeting the turtle deck, no good reason not to other then I didnt have the extra balsa sheeting lying around, else I probably should have

mj_drew:

Looks great!

I have the same engine on mine (Irvine .53). Great engine, great combo!

-tychoc

Hey all, got alot of stuff done this evening, getting really excited to get this done!!!!! I went ahead and bought some 1/16" balsa sheeting and sheeted the turtle deck, learned alot doing that, one side is definitely better then the other, nothing some filler couldn't fix.

A few questions, I bought 2 rolls of monokote (Jet white and Metallic blue), I'll work up a color scheme, but probably going to be blue on bottom, then white on top with some design on both sides. Are there any tips/tricks you have for a newbie coverer? I bought the covering iron as well. Also, is 220 sanding enough or should I do more?

Okay, now for the real newbie question. I've never, ever, set up a glow engive before. The manaul lists how to break in the engine, but it doesnt say to do it on the plane or not. Is it a bad idea to break it in on the plane, outside staked to the ground?

Also, The wife has veto'd getting a prop balancer and CG apparatus (for this build ... I'm way over budget [8D]) So what can I do at home to replicate these? Or is it just a bad idea to try it myself. CG shouldnt be a problem ... can probably make something out of some plywood that would do the job.

Let me know!!

The only newbie advice I could give on the monokote is to not give up until you've melted a hole through it with the heat gun.
What I mean by that is on my SSE, it was my first covering job & I had a ton of really bad wrinkles in the wing. I went oh crap & ripped it off. I then did it again & it was worse, I figured what the heck I'll try it with the heat gun & practice some shrinking before ripping it off & holy crap. It shrunk all of the wrinkles out & it looked absolutely perfect.
If your going to do decals, or trim pieces spray windex on the base monokote & slide your trim pieces around until they're where you want them. Then use a credit card to squeegy out the windex. Let it dry for a few hours (or overnight) & it will stick fairly well as it is with no bubbles. take your iron & run around the edges to keep it from peeling up. If you try to iron trim pieces on directly it's very difficult to not get any air bubbles under them.

As for the engine, it's obviously better to use a balanced prop. But to be frank, I've never balanced a single prop on my SSE, or my Nexstar & they run as smooth as silk. I think with the smaller props the forces aren't as great so it probably doesn't matter as much.
I also broke both of my OS .46's in on the plane. They don't pull that hard & the vibrations are minimal so you'll be fine. Obviously make sure the tail is anchored down. I also broke both mine in per the manual & they are doing fine.

For the CG, you can get it close with your fingers, but I also drilled a couple holes & stuck a couple pencils with the erasers pointing up into a 2x4 & it worked out ok. You'll be a little more accurate with a CG machine, but I would say the margin of error with the fingers or some other apparatus would be less than 1/4".

Your build is looking good. I can't wait to see your covering scheme!

Tychoc:

Thanks!
Having read all the motor/sse posts I decided take the plunge and use the Irvine, even though no one I know has one, but the enthusiastic following the Irvine has swayed me, and I like things a little different -I just hope os didn't mess with it to much, it seemed well liked as it was.

Question- how did you tint your canopy? I've read posts about guys using rit fabric dye but this isn't suposed to work on sig canopies(?).

[quote]ORIGINAL: KCRemoteFlyer

Hey all, got alot of stuff done this evening, getting really excited to get this done!!!!! I went ahead and bought some 1/16" balsa sheeting and sheeted the turtle deck, learned alot doing that, one side is definitely better then the other, nothing some filler couldn't fix.

Right on! Whats the point of a kit if you can't make it stand out a little?

P.S. you sure build a lot faster than I do

Drew ... I thought I was going slow, sometimes the simpliest stuff takes an entire evening .... oh well, guess I would rather have it right then quick!

I think on Sig canopies you just have to try it, there was a tinting thread somewhere where people were saying they were having luck getting SES canopies tinted. YMMV.

I did mine with RIT dye - about 150 degree water - 2 part black, 1 part Navy Blue - submerged for about 45 min.

krossk, nice scheme, is that a new SES? (I followed your build thread)

Well I dove into covering today, took my time but I made a couple of mistakes regaurdless, I recovered from all but one. The first pics are where Im at so far. I dont have my covering scheme photoshopped yet, I'll probably be done covering before then ... but on the tail, its all white, with either blue or red as the tip trim, the bottom is all blue, then white over the top, and the nose section (where the blue curves forward) will be red up and over the top. No white on the bottom to help with orientation. Also, the ailerons are white, the wing is blue on the bottom, up around the top to just before the rib spaces, then thats all red, then blue trim again on the TE.

In the last pic, I nearly creased my covering over a void, and I can't seem to get it to pull out even if I leave the iron over it for 1-2 mins. Anythoughts?

Hey KC, Take that heat gun to the monocote to remove the wrinkle, it works like magic!

Thanks. I bought the kit at my LHS in 12/04 and finished construction in 1/06. So I'm assuming that it is a recent kit. I haven't flown it yet as the weather is just starting to turn nice enough to think about flying here. At least now the nice days are windy and the calm days are cold - it used to just be cold AND windy! I'm looking forward to getting some more stick time on my Avistar and T2 before maidening the SSE - hopefully in another month or two! In the mean time, I've got the motor to break in...

The trick to covering is to not be afraid to use a little more heat than you think you need, but to also know when you have too much. It just takes practice...

yup it just need a little more heat... Take a heat gun to it but be careful not to shrink it too much and pull the seam away.

Yes, same as krossk. I used the RIT dye method. Put it all on the stove and had a thermometer to monitor the temp. Make sure you dye it before cutting off the edged since they tend to buckle a little if the temp gets too hot. I think mine took about 15 minutes or so. It all depends on the temperature. The hotter it is, the faster it dyes but you also then have the potential for melting it.

It's kind of messy ( don't do it when your wife is around). but works great.

-tychoc