I think you got that one deep enough. It just might grow come spring.

Geeze, kbear, y'know, I never thought of that. I could have grown a LT-25! And when it grew up, it could have been another LT-40!!

What do you think I should use for fertilizer? And please, don't tell me to talk to it, OK?

Bob

Bob is that in the parking lot?

Nope, it's actually over the other club field. I had to go there today cuz we had to get together for an informal meeting. Otherwise, I would have planted it over at WB Field. I came out of a turn and flew right into the sun. I had a new wing on it, and it turned slower than I had anticipated, otherwise, I would have missed the sun. Once it went in front of old Sol, I never saw it again until I heard the thunk. I've never buried an engine that deep before (Magnum .91, its first flight, was running sweet).

Sorry to get off topic. With the LT gone, I might have more room in the 'hangar' for another plane. I still have that SSE kit looking at me, along with the Mid-Star.

Bob

Fertilize with 25% nitro of course.

Bob sorry to hear about that hope the engine survived...
Looks like no fly weekend for us, that is, unless your into some wind chill....

Well finally got back to building tonight and as I was waiting for the fuselage side doublers to dry I started to read through the manual again. Every time I got to pg 13 and read step 48 I got a bit more concerned. The reason for that is if there is any problem with the relationship of the wing panel roots to the fuselage that must mean that something is out of square. Since the wing panels are built on the plans lets assume for a moment they are square, so what does that leave? That only leaves the fuselage itself as the issue any misalignment of the formers and you’re going to have one side or the other out of line and that will skew the fuselage sides making the wing tube no longer 90 deg. to the fuse, and create a problem with where the root meets the fuselage. Now by the looks of it only the formers and the servo tray serve as the means to keep the fuselage sides in the proper orientation to each other.
Given that we are working with wood and it is not an absolute perfect medium how much of an issue is this?
Am I being overly concerned with something that is not that big or common of a problem? I notice that they make no mention of what you can do to correct the problem in the manual, and I have read of others using fillers sanded to shape when they encountered this problem.
But my trying to think ahead has come up with a whole myriad of problem this can cause down the line up to an including having a twist in the fuselage as you build up the tail by adding formers and the top and bottom. From what I see they look at the components and there installation as being the thing that keeps the fuselage square and straight. As a matter of fact I recall that when I built the lt-40 for my wife this was the case. During the course of that build you assembled the fuse with rubber bands and tape and did not glue it till all of the components were in place and it had been checked for being straight and true. After all of the stick building I have done, this seems to be a bit of a leap of faith as far as building the plane and wonder if it is a real issue, or as usual I am getting stressed over a very minor detail.

I am really not trying to be critical here, I just think that it would be far better to not glue up the servo tray, landing gear block, or the reinforcements for F1 prior to fitting the wings to the fuse and make sure it is square before every thing is set in stone by gluing them up.
And I wanted to get opinions of other builders are far as their thoughts on it, before I proceeded. Perhaps it is not as much of an issue as i think and I am just bing to fussy about the whole thing.
As far as the tail, I intend to build over the plan so that I will be able to keep in in proper alignment, and where I am making some changes to the structure such as adding longerons to the bottom of the Fuselage so I can round it out on the lower edges rather than leaving it square or only the edges rounded out. I wanted to get some input from others whom have built these before and their thoughts about the build.

HI Paul,

It's been a few years since I built my SSE, and I remember a bit of a gap between the fuse and the wing root. The gap was about 1/32" - 1/16" as I recall. It didn't seem to affect flight or the structural integrity. Tha gap seemed larger to me than it probably actually was. It was probably my imagination.

I have wondered since then if I could have put some waxed paper over the fuse/wing area then buttered up the wing root outline with something, then mount the wing. The squeeze-out could be trimmed flush with the wing sheeting. Whatever is used for 'butter' would have to be sandable and relatively strong.

Maybe an idea like this would be some food for thought.

As for the crash, well I considered the plane totalled - it would take too much work to get it to fly again. The engine has been torn down completely and rebuilt. No apparent damage. The bearings seem clean, and the crank seems straight, so no damage done. The frustrating part was that I had just found that 'sweet spot' on the low end. Tick-over idle and great response. Rob L would hate me!!

Bob

Bob

Bob you left me in shock with that picture yesterday.
Forgive me.
Paul if you glue that servo it will a bigger fuss to remove it if its not functioning as it suppose to.

Alex

Hi Alex,

Are you referring to the Vertical LT-40 two pages back???? :-)

Bob

Yes im still figuring it out, maybe because i was working once doing fracture analysis in reverse engineering company.

I usually crash into nasty trees on a peaceful approach for landing,,,,, right before I need a new plane.

I remember me and other guys were telling some guy “listen stop this crashing every weekend, its painful to see”.

Its painful but there is nothing like a new plane to compensate for the event (i'm not from hobbico or something).

Sorry, but I had to laugh at the landing gear lying on the ground that were ripped out from the G forces of the sudden stop! Again, I apologize for a sidetrack here but I have never seen that before!

edited for spelling.

Bob,
Glad to hear your engine survived, looks like you have a reason for a new plane to put it in now.

Yes, I had thought about doing that if there is an issue with the wing panels, hopefully by making sure that the sides are matched to each other I will have a chance to have the wing tube properly aligned. I am just a bit curious about why they wait till you can not do anything about it before they have you check the alignment...

Alex I am not talking about gluing the servo in, what I was talking about was waiting to glue the servo tray until after the alignment of the fuselage sides to one another so the wing tube is 90 degrees to the fuse and the wing panels fit flush.

Then you must not have seen one of my hard landings...
LOL
I have had more than landing gear leave the airframe after impact... I mean landing.

sorry I was thinking you are talking about the throttle servo. [X(]

In this case maybe to use simple black papers clip to hold it in place and then glue it.
your threads guys made me comeback to build and solder throttle cable now.


yes i was wondering about the landing gear from the LT 40....

I think The Weston Observatory picked up seismic readings from that landing, and even a few of mine. You know its really bad landing when the USGS list the seismic activity on their web site.

I think it was about 3.2 on the Richter scale...

Would one of you guys who have added the taller Dubro (or other) landing gear please post a link to the correct set. I've got a weed wacker with the 55AX and 12.25 combo with stock gear. Here's mine, if your interested. Nice job iron eagle!

Very cool covering job reincarnate! [8D]

I really like how you put the Somethin' and Extra graphics on the side.

-MA

reincarnate,
Nice job on your SSE, hope my finish comes out half as nice as yours.

The Du-Bro gear I got was number CAT 789, they are an inch higher, and a lot wider 14 1/2 inches. There also is a nice set that you can get from TNT of metal.

Well got the formers glued up then installed the second side.
I did not glue the servo tray in place yet, I will do that when I square up the wings and fuselage, before I install the tri stock behind the firewall. You may note that the servo tray has been lightened up a bit, the servo for the throttle is going to be relocated, save another .2 oz. here. I know it may seem I am obsessed with weight but a little here and there adds up over the course of the build.

Got a bit side tracked today watching the Pats v Chargers....
But I did get a few things done despite the distraction.
As I mentioned before, I put the wing tube and dowel into place and test fit the wings. The joint between the wing and fuselage looked good, so I glued the servo tray and wing tube into place. I then went on and installed the hatch mount plate, and the landing gear block. You might notice the cheeks were cut off the fuselage now where I am going to build a full cowl they are just in the way at this point. I also added a bit of wood to the bottom of the firewall, this was shaped to fill in the small void of where the fuselage bottom would meet the firewall. I need to beef up this area a bit where cowl cheeks have been removed and there is a larger engine that is going to be use in the plane. Add to that the fact that the engine is going to be inverted and because of that the plywood tank floor can not be use as I need to bring the tank down as far as is possible to match up with the engine setup. I also included a shot of the tri stock I added to the landing gear mounting plate. Since I am not using the stock gear, I am going to use the Du-Bro Cat#789 setup so I can use larger than an 11 inch prop with out having to weed whack with it.

The gear was 1/2" taller than the stock gear and I bent it down to add another 1/2" or so.

BJ's Manufacturing - 40-60 Landing Gear

somegeek

Why do you guys like cowls so much, IMO it adds complexity and source of issues…
My TT trainer had a cowl, I damaged it all the time until there was nothing to glue anymore then I started enjoying flying the plane, it was ugly tough.
I like sigs because of those cheeks.

Paul,

Regarding the weight removal I have the opposite problem, I’m adding weight in form of reinforcements that not always needed.

you have a big motor and its possible to get a bigger motor why are you trying to remove weight all the time?
In my midstar take off happened as soon as Âľ throttle was reached, no need to remove weight.

They add clean lines to a plane and it doesn't end up looking like every other plane out there. Of course on my build it did add complexity to the build to rotate the engine mount, run in custom throttle linkage and plumbing and build the cowl but the end result was worth it. Just because it adds complexity to a build doesn't mean it's not worth it... odd rationale.

Removing weight is a good thing. You can run a larger engine, but you have a finite amount of wing area to load up. Quote I read recently... 'Don't find one way to save an ounce, find twenty ways to save a gram.'

somegeek