yeah kirk I think its gonna haul and the TF along with the smaller Vio exit is gonna be wicked! I'm dying to see how fast she goes! Set a record dammit! lol


Barry

The rudder was cut from the vertical stab and hinged. The rudder servo was installed and the cover was fitted. The nose gear assembly has been glued in place in the fuse. The plate in front of the nose gear is supposed to house the steering and mechanical retract servo but since my gear is pnumatic I used the plate to mount the steering servo. I glued some poly ply to the underside of the plate to keep the laser cut parts from falling out. The door opening mechanism has been installed and works with no problems. The intake ducting was glued in place after the mold seams were sanded out. The fan mounting former was glued in place along with the wing mounting formers and the vertical and horizontal stab mounting former. Next steps are to glass the wings and horizontal stabs.

Kirk

wow Kirk,
I have seen how fast your builds can go and this is fast!.
To think that two weeks ago you showed everyone the fuselage of it just out of the box.
Tomorrow is good to fly but theres a Squad of F-18s to look out for i think that they might take off tomorrow or just stay another day.
My dad is in california for another week so i am gona come with Mike.
hopefully, winds will be down and clouds will be clear by tomorrow.
the open house i think might just bring my Veko F-3A on Sat and bring the Extra 330L on Sunday. Well, have a nice build and hopefully cya tomorrow. I might tomorrow try put the vid and pics of the F-16 but my dads not here so i might have to get it to you next week.
Good building,
TJ

Thanks TJ. I plan on going out to the field tomorrow. See you there.

Kirk

Before glassing the wings a 3/8ths wide strip of 1/64th ply was added to the top T.E. of the wing to provide a hinge line cover. This is not part of the kit but I have been doing this for years.

All of the wood structures have been glassed with 3/4 oz cloth and West Systems epoxy resin. After te epoxy dried, they were sanded and then primed. Filler was added where needed and the structures were sanded again, removing most of the primer.

Panel lines were drawn with a pencil. 1/32nd Chart Pack chart tape was laid over the drawn on lines and the inspection covers were placed on the wing.

A couple of light coats of primer was sprayed over the entire structure. Then a couple heavy coats of primer was sprayed over the chart tape. After the primer dried, the chart tape was removed.

The next step is to add the rivets. These will be burnt into the primer using a low amp soldering iron with an attached 1/16th brass tube. Photo 1 shows the tools I use; a soldering iron, a thin brass strip with holes drilled, and a Top Flite Warbird template. As you can see, the tempate includes rivet spacing for 1/7th through 1/3rd scale and various shapes to make inspection covers. I used the template to drill the holes in the brass strip.

Lines were drawn where I wanted to add rivets that were not next to panel lines. A low amp soldering iron with an attached 1/16th brass tube was used to burn the rivets into the primer. After all of the rivets had been burnt into the primer, the suface of the was wet sanded with 600 grit in preparation for paint.



Kirk

The horizontal and vertical stabs were glued to the fuse. Fillets were made using auto body filler where the stabs joined the fuse. The white gel coat on the fuse was wet sanded with 400 grit and panel lines were drawn and taped just like the wing. Once the primer dried, several thousand rivets were burnt into the fuse and stabs. The fiberglass canopy was cut off and the clear canopy was fitted along with the cockpit provided with the kit. The fuse still needs to be wet sanded with 600 grit in preparation for paint.

Kirk

Very, very nice Kirk!

That is impressive!

looks great Kirk!

Looks awsome
Ready to do my L-39 in Swiss design?

Finished repairing my A-7 front strut today.
Looking forward to the maiden flight

John

Hey Kirk,
That plane is going on so well, that I dont really know how much better it will be. I am really looking forward to it's maiden, It is gona look really nice out there.

TJ

Hey Kirk

Got a whole bunch of 2.4 receivers DX-7 and XPS. If you need to use any of them let me know. I also have one more glich buster as a spare if you want to use it.

Looks like Larry is going to have the Enforcer ready for Sunday. Im letting him use the DX-7 TX for that one.

Thanks everybody.

The painting is complete. The colors are the same as what was used on the F-16. Beings this is not a scale airframe, I took the liberty to create a fictious Marine Corps Adversary scheme. I made paint mask for the stars and bars, service name, and squadron codes and pianted with flat black. I will add the rest of the decals after they arrive from Pro-Mark. The cockpit and canopy have not been glue in yet. Once the canopy is glued in, it will sit tighter than it does in the photos. Next step is to start the weathering process and the first step is to rub down the paint with steel wool. This will start to give the paint a worn look and it will also start to bring out some of the details such as the rivets and inspection covers.

Kirk

S A W W H E E E E T T T!!!!

good looking paint scheme amigo.

Thanks guys.

I have started the weathering and detailing process. First, I started rubbing it down with steel wool (right wing and right side of the fuse). I also started the detailing of the fuse (about the first 3/4 of the fuse) by applying dry paint pigment to the panel lines, rivets and inspection covers and then wiping it off with a damp paper towel.

Kirk

The weathering is finished. The canopy has been glued in place along with the pilot and cockpit. Currently working on the missile rails and missiles.

Things left to do:
- install what' left of the radio equipment (3 servos, receiver, and receiver battery, run servo leads)
- install the fan
- install the flight batteries

Weight in current condition (minus the above mentioned equipment) is 7.5 pounds.

Kirk

Awesome paint job Kirk!,
It looks really great how you fit the paint scheme to an airframe that isnt really a real jet.
Hey...do you think it will be ready by the next weekend?
oya, tomorrow the 8/19/07 i think they're going to have a potluck....pardon my spelling.
Nice plane there!, Cya tomorrows,
TJ

Thanks TJ.

I took the Electra out to the field today and ran the setup on 10S and 12S Thunder Power ProLite 8000 mAh packs. On both run ups the packs were holding at 3.3V per cell. The numbers for the 10S were 127A and just under 4200 watts. The numbers for the 12S were 122A and 4850 watts. The maiden is set for next Sunday and will be performed using TP Extremes 12S (these batteries hold 3.6 volts per cell under load) which should bump up this setup to over 5200 watts. I can't wait

Kirk

Hey Kirk,
I was wondering if you took this past sunday for a maiden. I guess my dad and I wernt really into going out on sunday. We had too much stuff on the work bench to do. The Super Skybolts showed up this past week too. we will get a routine probrably starting late september. We are waiting for the new Futaba spread spektrum stuff so it wont be too much of a worry to get those up. How'd your maiden go though? Sunday was a great day for flyin, sadly I missed it. []. But Hey, did you se the lunar Eclipse last night. It was kool.
I hope to cya maybe this weekend.....maybe on monday's holoday we will come out...i dont know yet but ya.
Cya later,
TJ

The maiden was performed on Sunday. Most of the flight was performed at 1/2 throttle with a couple of high throttle passes. I didn't want to push it too hard. The Electra is a great flying airplane and with the Turbo Fan 4000/Nue 1527 1.5Y motor combo it is fast.

I dopplered the upwind and two downwind passes. The temperature was 93F. I set the temp on the WaveOscope doppler software for 30C (86F). The wind was blowing down the runway at 10mph with gust up to 15mph. Both downwind passes started with a slight dive.

Here are the numbers from the WaveOscope doppler program. I adjusted the speed in the upwind to compensate for the head wind and in the downwind pass to compensate for the tail wind and dive using the following formulas:
(Upwind Speed) + (Head wind Speed) = Speed of Pass
(Downwind Speed) - (Tail Wind Speed) - (Est. Speed Picked up in Dive) = Speed

Upwind Pass:
Time on video - 2:01 to 2:11
Speed - 242kph/150mph
Adjusted Speed - 150+10 = 160mph

First Downwind Pass:
Time on video - 2:20 to 2:29
Speed - 340kph/211mph
Adjusted Speed - 211-10-10 = 191mph

Second Downwind Pass:
Time on video - 2:52 to 3:00
Speed - 370kph/230mph
Adjusted Speed - 230-10-15 = 205mph

In the coming couple of weeks I plan to use an Eagle Tree and radar to verify the doppler readings.

Here's a link to the video: [link=http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=737082#post8107319]http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=737082#post8107319[/link]

Kirk

Great Job Kirk!!
very exciting stuff going on with EDF's
it takes guys like you to push it... so it works for guys like me...
hope you have many good flights on her
Ron

Dang, that sounded like a Really nice flight.
I really wish I couldve gone out on this past sunday, but we had to go to a Bday Party.
We came out on Monday but only Mike, Woody, my dad and I were there and the other Mark came out to talk a little. But we left about 2:30. I hope to see it fly next week if im gona be there hopefully

Kirk -

Congrats on a great build, sounds like she came out great!

My Electra kit and EVF setup is arrving this week...wanted to get a head start on ordering servos and hardware, the Electra manual download lnk on the BVM Web site is not working - would you mind posting the recommended servo list and related hardware here?

many thanks -

Barry Mattingly