I had a misfortune shipping my hotrod fundango in the back of my pickup; the gusty winds in fairfield caused significant damage that i felt wasn't worth the repair. i decided to order the hyperion speed 400 extra 300L to put the electronics in. (pic/link below)

[link=http://www.nesail.com/detail.php?productID=4154][/link]

mines arriving possibly today or early next week, at which point i'll post "build" pics & what not. i'm using the same electronics that i had in my fundango, except the weak mpi mx-30 rudder servo (planning all hs-55's or s60's instead). the power consists of a hacker a20-20L, x-30 esc, tp 3s2100 & 3s1320 lipos, & 10x4.7 apc. should be a blast.

anyone else have one, or any comments from ppl who know the plane?

-kev

a quick update:

northeast sailplane finally shipped via fedex ground today, after i called them to see what was taking so long. so the plane i ordered on the 5th of this month will finally arrive 10days late on the 22nd... i'm afraid this will be too late for me to build it in time for the weekend, when i had planned to travel out of town to fly with some buddies. i'm disappointed i won't have my new extra to play with, but at least i'll have some old nitros to bring along. it's usually very windy where we were planning to fly, so my arsenal of sub 10oz planes won't be much help.

shame on you nesail.com, bad customer service. [&o]

kev

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another update:

i finally recieved the extra in the mail on the 22nd undamaged & looking excellent except for the usual arf wrinkles that are easily ironed & heat gunned out. i have started the assembly & all has gone well so far. today i assembled the motor mount, fin, rud, stabilizer, elevator, & ailerons, and cut the covering for the aileron servos, wing roots, control horns, & tail control rod exits. now i'm waiting on servos, and for some epoxy to cure fully before i continue this easy "build". tomorrow i'm headed to the lhs to pick up some sub-micro servos and a berg 7 to complete the plane (maybe a spinner too, if they have a nice one).

i nearly pulled a newbie mistake & glued the mount upside down. luckily i caught my mistake before the epoxy cured and managed to flip it with no problems. if i failed to notice this i would've had a left pointing thrust line, lol. so far the fit & finish is awesome & it's a pleasure to assemble.

after inspecting the hacker style ply box motor mount, i found it was not secure against up & down twisting of the motor (the firewall former bends a lot near the top). to fix this i added some medium weight 1/4" balsa struts from the top where the mount glues to the fuse, to the next former back where it joins the battery tray. now the mount is solid as a rock. pics to come...

kev

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the progress continues:

yesterday i picked up 2 @ hs-55 & 2 @ hs-65hb servos (55's for the wing, 65's for the tail). i also managed to finish off the plane except for battery tray velcro, despite the fact that i had to correct a terrible mistake!

the day before i epoxied together the motor mount, but yesterday after mulling through some pics at other forums, i figured i somehow assembled the mount backwards & upside down. the result was i had the correct right thrust angle, but the thrustline was about 1/2" too high. DOH, the epoxy was already cured, so i had to use a razor saw to chop the mount from the first former. luckily it went well with little damage to the former or mount, and i was able to re-epoxy the mount in the correct location. although it is still upside down and slightly heavier due to some hardwood gussets i had to install, the correct thrust line is now well secured. considering the severity of the mistake, i feel everything came out good.

seems like a newbie mistake, but i've built planes for decades & this is my first arf. the easiness of assembling an arf can lull you into assuming things will fall in place. to add to that, the instructions on this critical step are very vague (pic shows the mount going in upside down too). so let this serve as a warning to those assembling a hyperion sp400 arf: ***check & double check that the motor mount is assembled & installed correctly before you start gluing. mark the part locations if you have to. the thrust line should line up with the motor stick holes in the formers, and the open area should face down.***

i had another issue with installing the wheel pants. i clamped the ply backing so it was sort of centered on the wheel axle, which resulted in a "bowl legged" mount angle due to the curve in the pants. perhaps i could shim them straight, but the axle assembly is already too long for the narrow pants such that the wheel collar pushes on them. the paint cracked on the outside face of both pants from the pressure of the collar (wheel pants too narrow for the wheel assembly, no good). i've always avoided wheel pants for reliability anyways, but i'm somewhat disappointed at how these went on. they look good from the top/bottom & side/side, but front to back the plane looks like it's bowl legged. at least the wheels are straight & aligned, and it probably won't be long before a rough landing breaks the pants off anyways.

i'll post pics after work, when i'm done removing the wrinkles from the covering. i also plan on shaving the horns down & painting them white, but we'll see if i'm not too lazy after work to do that.

cheers
-kev