A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Some where during the construction of my GP Corsair I told my wife I was never going to build another plane, except ARFs.

I lied.

My Wing Mfg A-26 Short kit came yesterday. I ordered the wood option too as I hate having to go to the LHS for something I forgot or can't find in my scrap box. Yesterday I made a copy of the plans and cut out all of the templates and mounted them on poster board. The quality of the parts and the balsa looks very good. I am pleased but time will tell if this first impression holds true.

The Short Kit, the wood pack. my Corsair

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Great. I'm looking forward to enjoying this build as much as your Corsair. Stock up the wine rack for this one:D Pete

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

I will be building an A-26 by Wing soon too. You can follow on my site!!
ianober.tripod.com

A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

The wind was 15 gusting over 20 so no flying for this pilot. I went up to the field just to see, waste of time, it was ugly.

Spent most of the day cutting balsa. It is very good quality balsa. Borrowed a friends jig saw to do the plywood (tomorrow). Didn't get finished cutting balsa got bored/tired.
Maria is working on window coverings, so you know what that means.

None the less things are moving forward. Photo shows the cutting done so far. I have glued the templates to the balsa with double sided sticky tape. They will come off easy as the tape does not stick to balsa very well.

Ian, I went to your site but nothing was there???

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Islewis-RCU I have the old wing A-26 from the original Wing mfg but they are both the same kit and plane. On the plans look closely at the nose wheel and measure the nose wheel wire. On the old kit it is off by 1 and1/2' in lenth check this out before you fly this bird cause the nose down attitude will cause the plane not to rotate properly when you have gotten to flying speed which will cause the plane litterly to jump off the ground. Extend the nose gear wire or strut sos the wing is horizontal with the ground or a little up latitude. You will have a better maiden flite. I love mine and has flown at Taylor Mo. and at the I-net fun fly in Indiana and at the scale meet in Davenpot Iowa. I have TT 40s on mine with 10/6 props realy screems and will stay up with the 1/4 scale plane on a regular oval flite pattern. Sorry don't have retracts though do have navigation lites and bomb-bay doors and glass nose. Done up in chrome monocote. Hope this will help you guys on yours and if you need any more advise maybe I can help.;)

A-26 Landing Gear
 

nchrome - Thank You, thank you. I checked the plans and you are absolutely correct!
The nose gear is too low. I would never have noticed. The nose gear is on is on page 1 and the main gear is on page 2. I would not have compared them.

RCUniverse and the members come through again!

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

ianober,

Checked out your site and pics of the T-34 so far....looks good! Question, where do you get the straight pins you use? Ive been looking for something to replace my tired old t-pins and this looks like the ticket.

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Cut all of the ply and the thicker balsa. Lightning holes in everything. Took all morning and part of the afternoon. Never would have completed with out the borrowed jig saw. I wonder if he wants to sell it?

Mounted the 3/8" triangle stock on the fuse edges and bonded the ply to the sides. The picture is just a dry fit. Some more adjustments will be necessary before I glue the fuse. Furthermore I hate gluing the fuse I have a heck of a time getting them square.

Tomorrow I would like to go flying, maybe a quickie because I need to attend to my "honey do" list or I am going to be in deep trouble.

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Islewis-RCU are you planning on making yours a bomber or the gun nose one I personaly like the glass nose one. But you build what you would rather have. On the tailfeathers use flat stock balsa and use some 1/4 stock for the leading edges of the control serfaces then use scrap 3/32 strips and make ribs for the control serfaces sand to a taper and round the leading edge and there you have it a more scale control serface that you can cover with solartex and paint to your collers or like what I did just cover with what ever covering you plan on useing. You will see the difference between the kit control serfaces and the ones that have the ribs showing. Did this with all the control serfaces. If you go to the Davenport web site or E-mail Proflooney on this web site he should have the web site to see what my A-26-B looks like and if you look closely you will see that the right prop is broken. Just a little hard landing but that is all that got broken.

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Before I decided to build an A-26 I researched the plane. I saw yours, did not note your name (nchrome) but did see the broken prop!

The A-26 was designed and built for WW2 but production was held up consequently the plane did not see much of the war. Then they renamed it B-26 to confuse everyone. During the Korean war the hard nose version was very successful taking out anything that moved, trucks, trains, tanks, etc. They had fourteen 50 cal. MG firing forward and could fire the four in the turrets as they were departing the action.

I like to model my planes after a full sized bird and honor the crew that flew them in combat. I want my planes to look correct and recognizable but I am not heading for scale masters. I am building the 7th Chadwick a Korean era plane with a long history that is way too much to reproduce here. Photo of the full scale bird below:

RE: A-26 Construction Log - Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Islevis-RCU very good looking plane. If you will look at the engine cowels you will notice an airsoop. That's not in the kit you have I have made a plug for the proper cowel but haven't found any body that could make some vacuformed ABS pieces for me yet but am looking for some one or maybe just make some glass ones and see what happens.[&:] What size engines do you plan on putting in your A-26 originaly I was going to put two OS40 fourstrokers but have to do too much modifying to the cowel and firewall to make them work.:(

Building the 7th Chadwick
 

I am planning to use two Axi282010 motors but the final selection will be made after I can get a good estimate of weight. I did some of the non-exciting assembly today, making hatches, laminating ply to the nacells, etc. I do not want to assemble either the fuse or the nacells until the retracts get here. Maybe this week. The retracts require that the bulkheads be moved forward so I wanted to be sure the fit would be OK before I got out the glue.

I did not notice the airscoop, as I mentioned I am not very gung ho on scale, just close. Furthermore I must keep the weight down so I am not adding anything extra. Excepting the retracts. I have never had a plane with retracts and I just got to see this one take off and tuck the gear in!

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Islewis-RCU not too familar with the motor that you are going to use but on my Wing B-17 I plan on electrifying it and I plan on using lithium Ion batterys These will greatly reduce the amount of weight that you have to hall around. And will greatly increase the flight time of your plane. I am kind of wondering if a person can have seperate speed controls and just use the ground and signal wires whied to the reciever and use a regular 4.8 flight pack. That way the lithium batteries will only have the drain of the motors. I think I can do this but I don't know for sure can you help on this tought. I first am planning on electrifying my PDQ racer and see what it does with lithieum Ions in it .[:-]

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

nchrome - I am really new at flying electrical, I have for the past month read and studied everything I can find. My brain is a mush of batteries, motors, controllers, gears and props. I purchased an electrical ARF from Hobby-Lobby named Bonnie. Bonnie convinced me to begin to think about electrical, easy to fly, easy to set up. I can set her down on the taxi-way, casually walk over to the flight line and when comfortable take off.

There is a ton of info on the Internet, I suggest you read, read some more and begin to ask questions. I am too green to guide you properly.

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

:DIslewis-RCU I've been reading and asking quite a few questions but not getting the rite answers. Their answers is all greek to me I only understand common sence. LIke a forty power plane will take a forty or a little bigger engine. These guys want to keep it all to them selves weight versas thrust versas wing area = flight but not too long. I do know one thing though and take this from the park flyers use litheum ion batteries. Just follow the recommended patterens of hooking up the batteries for the max voltage and max miliamps = longer flite time and more fun and less weight as far as batteries. So far I have one thrust Master T-600 motor and gear box going to need three more motors and speed controls. Have already seen the batteries that I will need they are about $24.00 a cell which I will need 12 of these:eek:. This should fly my B-17 for about a full afternoon of flying.:D Now this B-17 has foam wings and tailfeathers the rest will be balsa,lite-ply,and some spruse. I also plan on having a set of spring air retracts and flaps. Will keep you all posted on what happens after I get it all together. If it doesn't work I guess I'll just have to put my OS 26 fourstrokers on it and fly it then.[:@]

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

If you guys have not found it yet, there is a well of electric info at the E-Zone.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index...topic=air-elec

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Thank you for the E-Zone link. I have not visited E-Zone as often as I should.

Meanwhile I have assembled the fuse leaving out F-2 where the nose-wheel retract goes. Per usual I can not put two pieces of balsa together square. Some day somebody is going to tell me how to put a fuse together correctly.

I am having a problem trying to figure out how to cut the nose of the 26. Four pieces of 1/2 inch balsa are cut and staggered glued together as to end up hollow inside and minimal carving required on the outside. I have made the first cut but have not been able to figure out where the second and third cuts go.

All suggestions, recommendations, instructions will be appreciated

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

I just purchased one of these kits and I think I am going to do it in the fire-bomber scheme from the movie "Always".

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Terry - Nice looking kit, who markets it?

I made the cuts for the nose. I may have to do more carving than the plans call for but it is safe.

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Larry,
That is just some artwork I found on the net. It's the Wing Mfg. kit. I built the P-38 from Wing about 5 years ago, and I have been wanting to do the A-26 for a while. Will be using the 2 Magnum .40's that were in my P-38, and a set of Spring Air retracts.

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

The retracts came yesterday and they were a disappointment. The retracts look to be very high quality, no problem there, my disappointment is because they weigh 10+ ounces. The power system can handle the extra weight but the wing-loading means more skill required of the pilot. While I have been messing with model airplanes since vacuum tube receivers, I have not been flying that long. Retracts are on Hold! Darn[&o]

Today we went over to the LHS and purchase stuff, little stuff, hinges, control horns, blind nuts, socket head screws, a piece of ply, clevises, air line (extra to install to enable addition of the retracts later), nylon wing bolts, collars for the landing gear, fixed landing gear, etc, etc... I left the best part of 100 bucks on the LHS counter top.

My building guru Stuka John recommended building in sub-assemblies, so I have followed his advice and tried to focus on the fuse. F-2 got added (LG mounting bulkhead), bottom panels added and I continued to form (sand) the nose. Started thinking about servo installation, built a servo mounting plate last week but for larger servos. The small ones (18g) I purchased from www.raidentech.com jitter on my small servo tester but the work fine using my Futaba 127 receiver. Two of the small servos weight the nearly the same as a single medium Futaba (older FP 9132H) so they will be used.

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Spent the entire day here in the office/construction department. Some website work and some build of The 7th Chadwick. Going to get out of her in the morning and go fly my Bonnie.

Mean while I tried to get the fuse and nose to match. The design of the nose did not match my fuse so I spent lots of time filling, shaping and sanding.

While waiting for some glue to dry I got the hinges in the rudder (dry fit). I hate installing hinges. Picture of the ruff nose below:

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Larry,
Here is a link to a good 3-view. Might help get the shape.
http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/a26.html

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

Islewis-RCU are you going to go with near scale shape or are you going to go with the flat sides. I personally went with the scale look for the nuesells. Make you some formers to go on the sides and then start planking or if your going to glass her then just put some foam on the sides and then start sanding to the shape you want then glass with latex polyurothene works great on strait foam. With no real weight gain.:)

RE: Building the 7th Chadwick
 

First! Thank you Fickle Flyer the drawings will/are a big help.

nchrome - Until I started working on the tail feathers I did not realize how far out of scale the model is. I am not a fussy but scale nacelles would really look good. They are so big they would cover up the flat sides of the fuse.

Your on you own building cockpits etc. not even a suggestion. For me the cockpit has to be removable for battery access. I may end up with a pilot head and nothing more. A decal instrument panel.

Prime work needs to be done on the nose, it needs lots of sanding. The nose cone I built didn't come close, actually it is a combination the fuse can not be rounded enough to match.

Trying to focus on the fuse. I find the detail of installing the horizontal stab and the rudder lacking it information. Also the rear of the model is way off scale. Just finished installing the twin push rods for the elevators, getting the balsa stick with rods attached was a problem. That balsa push rod was used the first time I built a model (1950) it worked so I did not reinvent.