Yea, I finally finished the CG Super Chipmunk I've been building and should have the maiden completed this weekend if all goes well. Now that it is done, I have set my sights on the BTE Flying king.
I cleared off the Old bench and pulled out the kit. After inspecting it, all I can say is "WOW"[X(]. The wood is some of the best I have ever seen in a kit. I have built about 20 kits and assembled several arfs. After rolling out the plans, I found that my building board is to small. So, off to Home Depot for some ceiling tile. The plans are beautiful and should be a joy to work with. I am going to build it as a tail dragger since the person i bought it from already included the optional tail wheel. I also have the stronger landing gear and carbon fiber push rods. I will be powering it with a Saito .100.
I hope to put a candy drop in it as well as mount my video camera on it. I will be taking my time on his build because the kit is so nice. Almost seems a crime to cut the balsa, because you dont see balsa this nice very often. I will start posting pictures tomorrow. As for now, heres a few piks of the Chipmunk.

P.S. If anyone has any pictures of their Flying King, sure would love to see them.

That's a really striking Chipmunk. I like it!

Thanks for the compliments on the FK kit. I really do hope you take you time building and enjoy it.

For those who are patiently waiting, I'm still working on a new batch of FK kits. Always takes longer than I think, even after seventeen years!

Finished building the center section of the wing with flap torque rods installed. So far been fun and easy. I have been thinking of doing a Coast Guard C130 color theme on this one.

Here are a couple of pictures of a removable candy/bomb/wiffle ball drop compartment I built for my FK. The doors were activated using the gear channel. One of our club members passed away and we had a memorial service at one of our club sites. We use the FK to drop his ashes over the field. I didn't want to fly the plane with such sacred cargo and one of our better instructor pilots agreed to fly it. You can see that after airborne at about 200 feet he nearly stalled the plane. Later while landing he almost flew it into a tree. But the ash drop was a success as seen in this you tube video of the drop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OOzn...e=channel_page

Thanks for the video. You say he is one of the better fliers at the club? lol. If you have anymore video of your FK sure would like to see it, or pictures. Would it be possible to get the dimensions for your candy drop,the one on Bruce's website I believe is for the Super Flying King. I cant wait to fly this one.

Well I got the outer wing panels built. Pretty easy so far and the balsa is very nice quality.

Looking good Dan !!!!

I am building a FK, and I would love to have a candy drop like yours, do you have plans?

Flynpreacher: Please post pictures of your build and any comments you may have on said build. I, too would like the dimensions of the candy drop if airbusdrvr has them available. I am going to mount a video camera on mine also. I glued the wing panels onto the center section last night. The wing is Gi-normous. I will try to post pictures later tonight.

I will try to post some pics but, I am not very proficient at that kind of stuff, but I will ask my son to help. lol. I think that candy drop box would be awesome! Not sure if he has plans or not or if he just built it from scratch, but it looks very nice.
I just received the glue that I ordered to start building, so I am off to the spare room to get started. Thanks for the reply, and your FK looks like it is coming along nicely.

this is about as far as I go tonight, but so far the wood fits together like a nice tight puzzle! this is supposed to be a winter project, but if it all goes this well, it might be a fall finish. [img][/img]

I had a little extra time this morning on my day off, to go ahead and complete the center section. It turned out real nice! Hope to start on the outer wing panels soon, maybe this afternoon.

Hello, am wondering if you have a set of plans for the candy drop box? I would really like to know how you did this and how all was situated in the fuse, let me know if you would I would greatly appreciate it. It looks awesome!

Thanks!

I meant for this post to go to airbusdrvr, but still don't have the hang of this posting stuff yet. Sorry.

Your build is looking nice. If you find out any info on the candy drop, would sure like to get specs. I hopefully will getto work on mine tonight. Keep up the good work.

Hello all. I had a good build night. Got a lot done on the Flying king. I finished both built up ailerons and flaps. I also got both flaps and one aileron hinged and fitted to wing. Its coming along slowly but surely. Hopefully I will have the hard mount for my mini video camera finished and will get to start the fuselage tomorrow.
Got a few pics.

Well, I completed some more work on the king tonight. I finished building the fuse sides and got them glued into some semblance of a fuselage. Put the wing on top just to get some instant gratification. Looks good to me, has been a smooth build so far. Going together faster then I thought it would.
Flynpreacher: How you doing with yours?

Got some more work done on the FK. Finished the tail feathers and got er up on wheels. Not much more to go, then comes the covering. Some pics.

Dan

Looking good Dan!!!! Saying it again!

Got some more done on it last night, not much left to do. Got the plastic windows installed. I used a cool tool I purchased from BTE, its called the route-a-bit. It is awesome for inlaying the windows. Hooked up all control rods to flying surfaces and
flaps. All that is left is installing the bomb drop and camera mount then its onto the covering and painting. Hope to maiden it in two or three weeks. yeah

Hope this is not on here twice, I thought I posted a minute ago, then I lost it. oh well, here goes again. I have been very busy last couple of months, but finally got back to the work bench and my flyinking. Here are a few pics of the latest. I have the tail feathers yet to build, and then a lot of finish work, but I am starting to get cabin fever and the urge to go fly, so maybe I will get busy and get this thing in the air!

Hi Guys , just going over the thread to see what all you had to say about this kit& build. I started one myself yesterday and so far it's been a nice kit where everything fits like a glove with no supprises.

Hello Cyberwolf!

I also just started my Flyin’ King. I picked the kit up from BTE in person two weeks ago - it was a pleasure to see Bruce Tharpe in his “native habitat!” He is pretty much a one-man-band craftsman & he makes the parts in batches using the finest wood he can get.

So far, I have the wing mostly done. This has gone fairly quickly - mainly because the weather has been too crummy to do much flying! As you say, “everything fits like a glove.” I did make one change - I cut the dihedral in half - 3/4 inch on each end rather than the called for 1 and 1/2 inch. We will see if this works out...

Since this is the first kit that I have ever attempted, it is reassuring to use the quality parts and the excellent instruction manual that came with my kit. It sounds as if you are enjoying your build as much as I am.

–DJ

Hi David yes this is a very fast build for such a large plane a 1-1/2 days to make the entire wing is quick. I hope the flaps and airlerons go as well.
As a rule I build manys kit a year, this has slowed down some due to all the ARF's hitting the market now days and people are just not buying kits like they used to.
But I would have to rate the Flying King kit to be one of best if not the very best kit I have ever had the privilage to build. Being a Machinist myself I can see quality and pride in workmanship and this kit reeks of it. Excellent wood, proper fit on everything so far and I don't expect any issues father along.
So you are very correct in thinking that I am enjoying the build, I even got the wife to come over and showed her how well things fit together. She is not the typical RC hobbiest wife by any means and has helped me several times with a build when I needed a extra hand. Also if it was not for her my hanger would have far less planes and engines in it.
Keep up the great work David I think you will like the way it flys with the lesser amount of diehedral just fine. Thats a trick I use on some trainers to make them more airobatic.

Well guys I got the Flying King finished and ready to give away this year at the Salmon FunFly. Here are a few pics of the completed plane . I went to BTE's website and seen some nifty window trim I decided to try out. It really adds to the overall look of the plane, gives it that finished look I think. It is a bit time consuming to do but I think it was worth it. The reason I went with tri gear is most of the folks up at that flyin are older and seem to get along better with this sort of a set up.