I am sure that the Episode is similar to the Nuance in that the incidence is already dialed in. You can always add your own adjusters if you like, but I found that it really wasn't necessary on the Nuance so it probably isn't required on the Episode. Most people noted a slight aileron trim needed in the Nuance, myself included, but it was pretty minor and not worth the hassle, in my book, of putting in adjusters just to take care of that.

On carbon fiber control horns that glue into the control surfaces. Look neat but will the material durable enough for hundreds of flights? These horns are pretty much not replaceable.

It appears to be a ckt board-like material and really tough.
On my Nuance I used H9 ball links which have a 2mm screw that goes through the horn....no slop...no wear.

edit....oops....I was thinking about the Nuance...sorry.

The bottom 6 horns are made of carbon fiber sheet as shown in the picture.

In the worse case that play/wear develops, one could drill a separate hole or take the entire piece out via Drimel tool. Not an easy job though.

I got a text message from my Daughter today, a shipment arrived....

Congrats on the new arrival, LOL! I'm looking forward to your build posts Steve. Say, what motor is going into your Episode?

Sorry to leave everyone hanging. I intended on posting some pics last night but that banner message at the top of the forum was something that I should have paid attention to. The RCU site shut down at 10pm.

I got my Episode direct from BJ Craft and not part of the first shipment. I am lucky enough to be part of the BJ Craft team so I got mine early. I will do the same sort of build post that I did for the Nuance. Hopefully the info I post will be helpful to those of you that are waiting for your planes.

This is basically a Nuance with modifications. The basic fuselage shape is nearly identical, the only change is the height of the vertical fin as far as I can tell. The canopy is very different so that the Canalizer can mount to it. It includes heavier fiberglass and a support structure. It also attaches with the quick release buttons, not a latch.

I am going to power this with a Pletty Advance. This will be my first time trying a Pletty, so I am anxious to give it a shot. I also plan on using the OS ESC.

I'll try and post weights tonight, although it should be very similar to the Nuance. I plan on attacking the motor installation first since it is the toughest part. Overall, I have to say that it is really sharp looking. It looks much better in person than in the pics. That's what I said about the Nuance as well, but the color scheme on the fuselage is really neat.

Since mounting the motor is my first order of business I started scanning the RCU pages to see how everyone has mounted their Pletty Advance's. I see that F3A Unlimited has a cool mount setup, but in talking with someone who tried to use that mount in a Nuance it turns out that the front mount plate is too big. Darn. But the rear support works fine in the Nuance. I asked Chris at F3A Unlimited if there is any way to purchase just the rear mount. He is going to make it available as a separate part! So, now my job is a bit easier. I am attaching a pick of the full mount system for reference. The tail support mount is the part that you need.

I am printing out a 40mm bolt circle template with 6 holes so I can use it as a template for my front mount bolts. I'm posting the PDF of the bolt circle pattern which also has a 27mm circle at the center (according to the pletty print, this is the diameter of the shaft/bearing raised portion at the center of the motor). The actual firewall mount should be pretty simple, I just need to determine the diameter of the nose at the firewall location then cut out the disc.

B.J. Park says that you aren't absolutely required to have a rear support for the Pletty in this particular airframe. But, I think it is prudent to put one in and it is a pretty simple matter so I am going to install a rear support. I will be hard mounting the motor, no soft mount. The main reason is that there is no room for a soft mount with this motor and airframe. Also, I don't know of a good way to soft mount this beast that won't cause some other problem. From what I can tell, this is a fairly quiet setup anyway so there is no real need to soft mount it.

Steve,

You will be very happy with the Pletty. Very quiet even hard mounted. A Pletty is in the nose of the Nuance I won the NATS with. Great power, very similar top end to the Neu, but the bottom is much softer. You will want to run a fairly aggressive throttle curve to get the bottom end you want, but once you get it, you will be very happy. No maintenance. Just go to the field and fly.

Arch

I am very interested in this plane. I am thinking about using a Nuance for the P program and the Episode for the F or perhaps the the Episode for both. Maybe a Nuance for both, not sure? I will see how the response turns out on this one first. It will be a winter/fall project perhaps. Still trying to decide what I want for the NATS 2013.

Look forward to your build thread.

bholsten

Steve,

I used a rear support on the Advance in my Nuance. I lost the bolts on a flight and there was a efinite increase in sound level and some strange noises. Replaced the bolts and was back to normal. I would definitely recommend a rear support.
For the front mount I used Chris' mount as a template for 3/32 plywood, reinforced by carbon mat and epoxy. The correct diameter is through the screw holes as you can see in the photo. For the rear mount I braced the recess in the back of the motor. There should be pictures.

John

Here are the weights. I used the same scale that I used during the Nuance build thread so the weight comparison should be apples to apples. Based on the feedback that I got from others with their Nuances, my weights seemed to match what others were seeing.

NUANCE WEIGHTS
Rudder 45g
wheel pants, wheels & axles 50g
tailwheel 10g
Left and Right landing gear and mounts 135
Horns and Linkages pack 60g
R Wing 330
L Wing 330
Wing tube, stab tube, anti rotation pins 85g (wing tube 65g)
L Stab 70
R Stab 70
Fuse + canopy hatch 1080

That totals 2265.

EPISODE WEIGHTS
Rudder 55g
wheel pants, wheels & axles 45g
tailwheel 10g
Left and Right landing gear and mounts 125g
Horns and Linkages pack 55g
Stab Fences 10g
Canalyzer 85g
R Wing 285g
L Wing 290g
Wing tube, stab tubes, anti rotation pins 85g
L Stab 65g
R Stab 65g
Fuse + canopy hatch 1100g

That totals 2275. I am pretty surprised by this. I figured it would be quite a bit heavier, but the wings are so much lighter due to the reduced area. A few other items are lighter as well. So, it should be WELL under weight.

Here are my weight pics

Here are a couple more pics. Oh yes, I forgot to include the wing incidence adjusters @ 15g. Yep, he has made incidence adjusters which look like they are to be used with the standard wing tubes. I'll ask him a few questions about these.

That brings the total to 2290g

I decided to do a side by side weight comparison to see how much heavier the reinforced Episode canopy was compared with the Nuance. To my surprise, the Episode canopy was lighter! Episode Canopy = 190g Nuance Canopy = 205g. That one I can't quite figure out. Maybe my added wood cross braces on the Nuance account for the difference. He has included cross bracing in the Episode canopy

Hey Steve, why haven't we Americanized the spelling to channelizer? At least we should pronounce it correctly.

Jim

Well, at least I could spell it correctly... It should be Canalizer or Canaliser, not Canalyzer. They both have the same definition: to divert into certain channels; give a certain direction to or provide a certain outlet for.

Channelizer is probably a more direct and descriptive term for what it is. I like it. I'll start calling it a Channelizer from now on.....

Thanks John. I hope to get started on my motor mount tonight.

Does the episode canopy fits the nuance

Yes and No
The Episode canopy and Nuance canopy have the same overall shape but the Episode canopy is attached with the quick release buttons.

I assume you are asking in order to determine if you can add an Episode canopy and 'channelizer' to a Nuance. There are changes in the Episode for the channelizer. According to BJ, the stab position and incidence are changed in order to work with it. Rudder is different. Wing is different.

Hi Steve,
Do you have a recommended incidence for the cannaliser relative to the wing.
Interesting to see what different designers are doing.

Brian

I checked my notes and BJ says that the height of the wing is also different between the Nuance and Episode, so even if you modified stab position and incidence it is possible you would still have some coupling and issues with axial rolls. So, it would be a pretty substantial modification to try and turn a Nuance into an Episode.

OK,
On to the firewall.

I first measured the distance from the face of the thrust washer to the face of the motor. It is about 14.4mm. I then measured the diameter of the nose at a point 14.4mm back. it's a little tough to do that but it was about 80mm.

I then made a depron disk 80mm diameter with a 27mm cutout to fit onto the motor.

This allowed me to double check my depth and to see if I was in the right ballpark.

Next, I cut out a 80mm ring from lite ply with the 40mm bolt circle and 27mm cutout for the motor and used this to rough fit the motor. I wanted to have quite a bit of gap between the back of the spinner and the nose of the fuse so that I could incorporate a FR4 spacer in between my motor and my finished firewall. The FR4 is very hard and will allow me to either add a shim washer here or there or to sand any necessary thrust correction in the event that I don't get my motor perfectly aligned. I left a 3mm gap so that i can add my 1.75mm FR4 ring between the motor and firewall.

I then cutout my 80mm disk from 3/16" ply

I sanded it to fit, which resulted in the front of the disk being 75mm, with the bottom of the disk extending to 78mm (see John's pic in the above post) and I sanded the rear of the disk to be 79mm with the bottom extending to 80mm. There is still a bit of a gap on the bottom of the ring, but nothing too bad and the Aeropoxy will fill it.

I then marked the air holes in the firewall and drilled them out and used a dremel disk to turn them into a more triangular shape. Not as cool or precise as something that Chad or Isaac Najary do, but it should be good enough and it was easy.

I laminated the firewall and trimmed it up. Now its ready to install.

If you want to have a tighter gap, then start with about 80.5-81mm disk and sand it to fit.

This will be it for me until next weekend, I've got some family matters to attend to. My Father In Law has passed away after a long illness. He was a great guy and a tough old bird. I loved to listen to his stories from his days as a Navy pilot in WWII. I'm attaching a pic of him flying his Kingfisher over Tokyo in 1945. I was really proud to have found a picture of him in the air. What a rare find. He was so surprised that I found this picture. A good salute to LT. K.E. Mesnard USN Ret.

Firewall is in so I thought I'd post a pic. The spinner is 70mm plastic with aluminum backplate from Airborne Models. I may swap it out for an anodized tru turn with the cooling hole cutouts.

Rudolf the rednosed reindeer....

Cheers,
Jason.

Actually, it's purple...LOL. I have a white one, light blue, and dark blue as well. I'll try them all to see what I like best. So far, the white and purple match the best. The purple is a good match for the purple on the fuse, oddly enough. I think I got all of those for less than $35.