Capn America

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All good info, thanks for the tips. Sounds like im gonna start mass production this weekend.

aimmaintenance

I'm gonna try the tape and bed thing. Got some cement blocks just waiting for this. I started on my fuse last night. It seems pretty straight forward. I do wish the kits would at least come with a bag of the necessary screws and stuff though.

Montague

If you do that method, a few tips.

Make sure you're working on a flat surface. A warped base will give you a warped wing. I know that's obvious. And if you stack the cores, make sure that all of them stay flat. A couple of times I've had problems because the foam blocks weren't very even to start with, so as the pile gets higher, the wings pick up a small bend.

Pay attention when you put the wing in to the beds to make sure the wing is actually settled in correctly. It's easy to be too far forwards or back. Sometimes this doesn't matter, but it can allow a bump to form.

Dry fit the wing in to the beds first. If you sanded the root of the wing cores, you might find that the beds have a different "sweep" than the wing itself. This can cause the wing to not sit right in the bed at the tips.

I usually tape the left and right beds together, so I get one long foam bed for the whole wing. (many of my wings are 3-part wings, so it's even more important for me to do this. 2 part wings aren't as critical here)

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

Put a couple test flights on the 1072 yesterday and after a somewhat hairy first flight and adjustment session it flies very well. Straight and true, a joy to fly. The reflex thing is very important on a plane this short. Once properly adjusted though it flies great. Talk about tough. Chopped the throttle first flight to land and planted it in tall corn. A little dirt but no damage. Gonna fly it every night this week to be ready for Detroit this weekend but its definatly an improvement from what i was flying.

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

Finally got to really fly this thing over the weekend in a combat environment. This thing is tough. Once trimmed out it flies fast and very stable. I want more Aleron than im getting from the stock setup and im going to dual servos on the alerons to rid it of some flutter. Had a mid air early on and lost the upper rudder fin. FDlew the rest of the round and made a cut. Flew a little worse but very managable. Gonna put more fastners in the fin. Took another mid air on the nose last round and only broke the prop. Hit another avenger that round in the wing over the reciever. Tore out his electronics and put a hole in the wing there but otherwise it held together well. Very impressed with the speed, handling and durability of this plane. I took only one plane for the event and had a few small servo, fuel line problems etc... but made the whole event on one plane.

sgilkey

My Feedback: (180)

Yeah, that was Brian's plane you hit, a virgin plane on its first combat mission. It looks like it was hit with a SAM! That wing is toast. It spiraled down into the weeds and we saw smoke rising, we were afraid a battery short or something had set the grass on fire. Folks ran out with a fire extinguisher to find the Webra screaming at WOT, the smoke had simply been the exhaust. The engine appears to be ok though the whole plane was covered with pulverized/chopped plant matter, and the engine got a chlorophyll speed hone. Suggestion to keep your fins in place: near the very front and very rear, lance a hole with a phillips screwdriver thru the coro, about an inch away from the fuse joint, thru both the fin and subfin. Then tie them together with zipties. Belt and suspenders that will help retain your fin bits in the event of a direct hit. You flew well, especially considering it was a first meet, that was a pretty tough crowd of all experienced fliers! If your front end is slightly out of whack after an impact, it's because the G10 slides relatvie to the HDPE core, which seems to help absorb energy and reduce the chance of the engine beams breaking. Just loosen the engine mount bolts, straighten out the hose, and retorque the bolts. I periodically retorque the bolts just to make sure everything stays tight, even though we use locknuts.

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks for the tips Scott. I should be a little more prepared net time. I was hoping for a streamer, did not expect a mid air. Did the reciever survive?

cmopar

Hey Scott like to thank u guys for a good time that was real fun !!!! Do u do any just for fun practice combat ? if so let us know i need
some more practice and make brian fix all them planes !! and tease him a little tell him if he was faster that wouldnt of happened !!




Corey

Pils

I've also lost the entire top fin during a round of combat- and didn't even realize it until I landed! I spend a lot of time using peripheral vision to fly my plane and concentrate on what the target is doing. I'm claiming this is why I never noticed I'd lost the vertical fin. When I landed my judge said he'd noticed when I lost it and assumed I knew. Lucky the sub fin has enough authority to not only keep the plane in the air but also allow you to still hunt and capture streamers. If your fin pulls out clean you can trim it slightly to allow for a slightly different hole placement and remount it. I haven't used Scott's tie idea but it seems like a good one. I have run a small hunk of bidi over the end that goes in the fuse and that helps some- but will still tear in a hard or direct impact.

In commenting on the foaming of the glue in the spar- I haven't had much problem with this. If I put the spar in and don't tape over right away then it will foam out. But by putting the tape over right after this hasn't been a problem. Perhaps you could get by with less glue?

sgilkey

My Feedback: (180)

Sean, your spinner must have hit right next to the Rx, all Brian's servo and battery wires were cut clean off, the Rx was hanging by the antenna. There is a hole about 10 inches in diameter clear thru the wing, and it is split in half down the entire length of the core. Never seen THAT much damage before, this is without a doubt the most brutal impact we have ever suffered. And on the plane's FIRST combat round, you brute! Your killer engine continued on down the fuse to mangle the elev servo, linkage, and subfin, but the fuse is easily repairable. the wing is toast. Hopefully the engine survived its speed hone, have to do some test runs on it. The RX is one of those tough little Hitec HFS04MG, it survived and in fact I removed it and installed it in the SSC plane I flew later in the day! Hitec RXs are amazingly tough and great for combat, I highly recommend the 555, Electron 6, or the HFS04MG.

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

It was quite a site when i foud brians plane nose up in the bush running full throttle... never seen that before. Could not even hear the motor running till i got past my plane. Pulled the fuel line off to shut it down and passed it off to Brian. forgot to look, was the prop still in tact or did it get cleaned in the bush? I really was going for the streamer....

Montague

Don't sweat it, everyone knows you were going for streamer. We all go for streamer, and sooner or later, we all pound someone's plane in a shot like that, or get hit in a shot like that.

That was an impressive hole in Brian's wing. What was impressive about it was just how clear the hole was all the way around. I actually took a hit very much like that in SSC earlier this year, the balsa TE and aileron wern't broken, the spars weren't broken, but all the foam in between was gone. (made an easy repair, actually, I just glued in a new block of foam and sanded.)

So, anyone get a picture of that hole?

That the engine was still running was pretty wild. A couple of years ago, someone hung a plane in the tree line at Havoc, in Hamliton OH. That engine kept running until it was out of fuel and they could safely get it out of the tree.

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

I did finally take some damage tonight. Corey and I went at it on Club nite and hooked streamer leaders and pulled the planes together mid air. Took a chunk out of the top of my wing and another prop. Cut his G10 by the engine mount. Got a 1/2" deep 3/4" wide trench through my wing. How do you repair that? Cut a piece and glue it back in?

Rflyin

My Feedback: (6)

Hey Sean tell him the truth. I taught you that hole in the wing trick just because Brian's been such a pain in my keaster.


Rick

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

Shhhh.... The enforcer gig only works when you can write it off as an accident from a new piolot.... Corey and I on the other hand mid air with the 3D planes with some frequency as well. Guess we flya little tight. Two more local club members brought out combat planes last night as well. An avenger 972 and a preditor. We should have a good group for our upcoming event.

sgilkey

My Feedback: (180)

yep, if you have a gouge or hole in the foam you can patch it, i usually try to save as much of the parent foam as possible, I use a hypodermic (available at farm supply stores) to inject PU glue into the cracks/gouges, spritz with water, and trim/sand the resulting glue blob back to shape, then recover. if you need to, you can splice on a chunk of replacement foam with the glue, then carve and sand to shape.

Montague

I do like Scott said.

If the cut or hole is small enough, I'll sometimes just shoot in some polyurathane glue, shoot with water, then tape over and put in the wing beds with some weights. The glue will foam up and fill in nice and smooth with the wing surface.

Many times, on larger holes, I've done what Scott said, roughly cut a new block of foam to fit, glue in, and then sand down. Since the PolyU glue foams, and this is combat, the foam plug fit doesn't have to be very perfect at all. It can be a real hack-and-slash kind of operation and come out just fine.

Capn America

My Feedback: (3)

Im going to give that a try tonight, need to get it patched up and back in the air for practice wed. The fusalage is not as indestructable as i thought either. Aaron broke his over the weekend but ill let him fill in the blanks...