Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I was not able to find any recent threads on this fun fly machine. So, I figured I’d go ahead with a new one.

My project is actually going to be a triple build. Yep, going to do three at once[:-]. Intended purpose is for 3 of use to have some new and good flying fun machines for the winter. When the winter winds come, we do a lot of “kite flying” stationary flight into the wind. Sometimes in formation. It keeps us in the air when nobody else will fly and I can guarantee it helps keep your reaction time sharp. Here is some of last winters video. http://rcuvideos.com/video/Windy-April-2009-WMV . The last half or one third or so of the video has a couple of near zero MPH ground speed landings.

I’ll be modifying the tail feathers a bit. It could be a waste of my time. But I’ll try it and see how they fly afterwards. They’ll be powered with Super Tigre 51’s swinging APC 13X4 wide props. Lots of thrust and slow flight. In addition I will be going right next to nuts on weight reduction.

When I get to the point of covering they’ll be ugly because I’ll use colors that I acquired in a box full of stuff years ago. At any rate the covering is kind of free depending on how you look at it.

To kick things off here are a few pictures of the planned tail mods. In all of the pictures the light blue framework is the stock build. The yellow represents what I will build. The shape and proportions are close to a scaled down version of my Wild Stik 120 that is just a blast to fly. It's in the last half of the video linked above.

Notice in the drawing of the stab and elevator, I will be moving the hinge line as well as the leading edge of the stab forward about 7/8”. I am doing this to match (more or less) the proportions of the Wild Stik, plus it makes more room for rudder travel. There will be counterbalances added to the elevator as well.

For the rudder, I'll increase the height and length by about 5/8” while creating a significant counter balance. The trailing edge of the vertical stab (fin) will be extended down to replace the “shaped tail post” that goes between the fuse side. this is to increase strength of the vertical fin. In doing this the very end of the fuse will be about 3/16” wider than stock.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Just finished watching your video. Awsum !!!! In the spring, we get some pretty strong winds here. A couple of us guys have done the "flyin backwards" thing, however, we've almost "parked it", but not quite. My Twist 40 will do a pretty good job. You're right, it IS A BLAST. I did a few flights into a cross-wind, flying it sideways. Unfortunately, no video.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

All I managed to get done today was cutting out some of the 1/4 X 1/2 perimeter pieces for the tail. Here are a couple pictures just because we can. The tail parts you see under the wood is from another build I have on hold.


outdoorhunting,

I should have referred to the video to being from the spring and not winter. If you guys get a chance to shoot some “kite flying” video and post it let me know. We’ll try to get some with these once they are flying.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I am looking forward to your builds. I built a Dazzler earlier this year, and it is a really fun little plane. I am probably flying with 1/3 of the horsepower (.46LA) you are proposing. Should be a monster.

I think the tail mod is a great idea. If I were to build an Uproar, I would probably make the ailerons look like the Dazzler's. I always thought the Uproar 'rons looked funny.

Good luck

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Nice, I built an Uproar 40 a few years ago and had a lot of fun with it, i have another half built at the moment i havent touched in a couple years ive been wanting to finish in electric, but there is no good spot for batteries on this bird, maybe i'll do it in nitro again

Here is my old one, lost it in a mid-air

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

That's a nice Uproar, DM. I guess the ailerons don't look that bad.

This is the Dazzler I built this spring. It's almost the same plane, but with a turtle deck.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I gotta ask - did you buy three kits? Or just one and scratch building the other two off the plans?

After building the Dazzler, I was pretty confident that I could scratch build one easily. I saved all of the punched-out sheets to use as templates. I may give it a try later this winter. I bent an identical wire landing gear for a small ugly stick that I scratch-built, so that's no problem. The only other custom piece is really the canopy. The bulkheads should be pretty much just squares without a turtle deck.

Your stick piles are looking great. I can't wait to see the assembly line.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

DM & MC,

That’s a couple sporty looking fun fly machines. I hope these turn out decent.

MC, I am building from three kits in this case. I would not have a problem cutting a kit but, Man, after discount and what not, I do not think you could buy the wood and landing gear wire for the cost of a kit. I’ll be hanging on to the canopies for a rainy day given the intended use of these planes. I even considered putting a turtle deck on them and discarded the idea for plain simple and light stick planes.

I won’t be able to make any progress on the build tonight or tomorrow. Going to an area Fly-in tomorrow and have a few details to finish up on this evening.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

The Uproar is a fun plane and you're definitely on the right track to increase the elevator and rudder. Make them as big as feasable.
I had one with a GMS .40 and it was a rocket!

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Up-Roars, at one point in time that was my number one fun airplane to fly. I bought two kits but I made templates of kit number two and scratch built 6 more. I made up a lot of mods to them but ended up with my favorite mods just being adding a cowl and I found they liked the tail feathers of the Dazzler better tehn anything I came up with. The photo was taken some years ago in my first shop, I spotted the wing half of one of my Up-Roars in the photo, my wife picked the colors and I'm very color blind, I lost it and it went through a tree. The yellow one lasted for years, I just kept fixing it and it kept flying better and better. Won several fun fly events with that one. I gave it away three years ago when I moved here. I mostly used the OS LA .46 engines, way more power then needed, I did put an MDS .58 in one, talk about over kill!!:D High Fly Bev has one of the best wind flying photos on her thread I had ever seen if you look it up. Very inspiring!!;)

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Since looking at this thread I've been reminded how i missed my uproar from years ago, going to slap another kit together, these build fast:)

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

So yes, i got home tonight, and framed both wing panels in about 30minutes:)

Built the fues for this guy almost for years ago[X(]

Just need to finish up the wings once a few things dry up, frame the tail, and cover it!

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

All the fun fly planes were designed to be built fast. When the fun fly events were a big thing in this country and there were contests every weekend you expected to loose at least one plane during one of the events so we always had a couple of planes with us. There designs are for quick and easy builds, the thinking was you should be able to start a build at 8AM and be flying it the next morning. The born to die thinking. I still love the Up-Roars but I built one of the Mid West Hots some years back and it's still with me. If you don't compete with these planes then they too can last forever. Fun fly planes are a pretty good first build for people wanting to fly something besides an ARF.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Ya these kits build fast! Another 45 minutes of work i got the wings finished except for the front sheeting, my goal is to fly this thing on sunday maybe, week from today!

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Had a blast at the fly-in on Saturday. Most importantly we brought all our junk home in one piece. In fact nobody tore their stuff up and there was a ton of flying done.

Yesterday the “real world” chores caught up with me. None the less I managed to get an hour or so in on cutting pieces for the tail group of the three planes. Not enough done to add any pictures though.

ATGNAT
- I absolutely love the picture of the low inverted runway pass[sm=thumbs_up.gif]. Plane looks good too.

DM
- They’re quick building planes and your rockin’-on[8D]. But even if I could build one of these in ten hours (I’m slow at it) I have to make ten hours available to sit in front of it. Usually that is my problem[:o]. Anyway keep posting pictures. You’ll be done before I get out of the gate.

GreyBeard
- You are so right on your description of “Fun Fly Machines”. The quick build and short lived stuff…..But, I like to call them “Expendable” airplanes versus “Born to Die”.:D:D

You know- - - Born to Die sounds better though. . . ;)

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I just couldn't spell Expendable. When I moved here three years ago I gave away that yellow UR, Never mentioned how old or how many miles it had on it. I had picked up an old Midwest Hots 60 size kit at an auction just before I moved. I built it for wind flying, we get some really heavy winds here in the desert and it looked like the perfect plane. I have a YS 1.10 in it so it is really stupid!! Same wing as the UR but quite a bit more weight, still fly's about the same though. Turned out it isn't all that great for wind flying, I like my Kaos a lot better but the Hots will fly backwards and I can hit a switch and have flaperons slaved to the elevator for some true fun flying.:D It's a surprise to me why I don't see more of these fun fly planes in the air anymore?

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I finished cutting all the perimeter pieces for the tail as well as some for the ailerons. In picture two you can see the really blonde pieces of balsa at the outside edges of the stab and inside edges of the elevator counter balances. These parts I used some 1/4 X 3/8 from my stash.

I also started on the hinge slotting process. For me, it is a lot easier to slot the pieces at this point versus fooling with it when the stuff is already built.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Finished up getting all the hinge slots cut for the tail feathers.

I also drilled the hole for the tail wheel wire in the rudder. I used my hinge slotting tool with the hole guide to start the drill by hand. Then using a drill press they were drilled through.

In order to cut out the area at the bottom of the rudder and “tail post” for the tail wheel bushing. I clamped the two in my vise and started drilling by hand to about 3/8” deep. Then using my hand drill I drilled the .156 hole all the way to the .093 hole in the rudder for the wire. To know when to stop I had tape around the drill bit. You can see two of the pieces together with the tail wheel in place. Note how clean the channels are even before touching with sand paper.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Lookin good there!

Anyways, i finished up my fuselage and covered it with WHITE MONOKOTE (all these people seem to be whining about it), granted its a square and super easy to cover but still.

Finished up the wing aswell, except for the cap strips, which brings me to a building tip for anyone looking to build one of these. In the manual they tell you to finish all the capping before installing the wing, if you do this it will be a pain in the ***** to slide the wing through the fuse without breaking all the capping. Just do the centers, install the wing, then go back and do the cap strips, WAY easier.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Excellent advise. Glad you posted it. I would not have thought of that till it was too late.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

One of the mods I have been considering for this model is to laminate the stab with 1/16 balsa sheet to make it more flex resistant. After all, depending on the engine used, you need some lead weight at the tail anyways.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

prg,

Here are a couple of rambling thoughts based on your idea…[sm=50_50.gif].

No doubt 1/16” sheet will stiffen things up a bit. But I have to say, the 1/4” X 1/2” perimeter structure is pretty robust for a plane this size.

To go with sheeting on just the stab like you are thinking, I doubt the weight gain would be much. If building the elevators stock, a switch to 1/8 X ?? sticks would be made in order to match the finish thickness of 1/4”.

If I were to go with sheeting on all of the tail I would switch to 3/16” X 3/8” stock for the perimeter pieces. Maybe even 3/16” X 1/4” (doubled up at hinges only). Needless to say 3/16” X ?? for the internal bracing. This would give 5/16” instead of 1/4” for finished thickness after adding sheet. Could even use the 1/8” X ??, then you would finish out at 1/4” thick.

Another thought for stiffening the tail would be to build a light weight (say 1/32” wire) tail brace set-up???

Not having had one of these before I don’t know how they will balance out. But I would rather move the servos and battery toward the tail before adding weight just to get it to balance. Also I would move the engine as close to the firewall as I could get it. The advertised weight of the ST51 is in line with other 40 and 45’s. So I am hoping to not have a balance problem with mine.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Are you going to use it for the open bay wing too or just the solid fuse??
PR, if you get the tail feathers to flex you have other problems. Your gear can be located to get the CG, I asemble my planes while in the bones but only soft mount my gear to find my CG before I hard mount anything. After the first one I built I never used the wire to make the elevator one piece again, I used a Y and two piece elevators. This way I was able to do a fine tune or allow for a warp if I got one. I have also used two HS 81 servos for the elevator halfs and mounted them aft and close to the elevators so I had short control arms. That also gave some of that aft weight you are looking for.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

Yes, wood thickness compensation is need for this mod.



In my case, what I found is that depending on how monokote shrinks, it can flex the stab. Monokote can make the same effect in some wing structures. And, we all know the end result when this happens.


There are many different combinations to shift weight to balance out a model to avoid adding dead weight. In my case, I opened a hatch in the fuse bottom half-tail and installed the battery there. Also, moved the engine as close as possible to the firewall, still have the servos per plan, and had to add 1/2-oz of lead to the tail for my flying like. I also replaced the wire LG with duraluminum LG. I love the solid feeling of these LG. With a 46-FX and 11x5 APC prop, I have unlimited vertical at almost 5-lbs.

RE: Tower Hobbies Uproar 40 build
 

I just recieved my new Uproar 40 kit from Tower, they just raised the price to 49.99 from 44.99 last week... I am watching this thread with interest because I also intend to increase the elevatore as well as rudder size roughly a 1/4 inch and put a small dorsal for looks. I really enjoy the Uproar i have and it is currently my favorite airplane. I am running a GMS .47 on it and it is a great combo with awesome vertical. I am going to do a similar covering job on my new one, I built the one in the pic about 5 years ago. I may scratchbuild a couple of these great flying birds in the near future. I have even toyed with the idea of making a twin using 2 fuselages like an F-82 Twin Mustang and thoughts?