Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

We (Turn-Key Jets) are starting an assembly on a new F-22 ARF for a customer, and welcome participation/tips/experiences from other guys who've assembled this ARF or built this bird from a kit. There aren't too many of you, I know, but I'm always interested in how other guys did things. I'm particularly interested in comparing notes and photos on your equipment installation and choice of hardware.

This bird will be equipped with:

Standard ARF with vectored thrust nozzles and new style cockpit/pilot.
All JR digital servos (8711's on stabs, 8411's on all other flight surfaces)
Hangar-9 titanium pushrods
A123's on the powersafe Rx
Li-Mang on the ECU
Kingtec K-170 for power
Ulpra Precision gear/door and brake valves
Pneumatic canopy

Pics to follow later tonight!

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Looking forward in following this build. :D

RRick

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Lookin forward to this one....I'll see what I did wrong.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Can't wait

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

I saw this plane last night and as is typical with Yellow, it's beautiful!! Great work and engineering. It's another winner Shawn!! Can't wait to see it fly.
The K-170 is a great engine too. I just maidened my new F86 with one and it flew great at only 1/2 throttle.
Let me know when you head out.

Lowell

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi Shuan

watching with interest

Ian

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

Couple of fuzzy pics. I've never been much of a photographer, and certainly not on my Blackberry. The hatch is pretty big, and all of the wood inside the airplane is saturated with some kind of epoxy for fuel-proofing.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

All of the bulkheads are installed, but I found a couple of places where I wasn't satisfied with the glue bead so I went over those with some hysol.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

The stab servo plate is 1/8" ply, interlocked with the aft-most bulkhead and glued to the fuse. The sad fact is that the plywood available in China isn't quite as good as what we buy at our LHS here. I'm sure this mount is fine, but as I'm building this for a customer, I want to be totally confident. I cut a couple of doublers out of Midwest 1/8" aircraft ply and matched them to the existing mounts. I had to trim some corners off to get them to fit inside the servo pocket, then glued them to the existing mount and added a nice fillet with hysol. They're super solid for the 8711 going in there now.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

The YA ply is just fine, dont add any more weight. I have beat mine pretty hard on landings and an attempted crash with no plywood damage at all (I bent the main landing gear frame with no ply damage) For my hatch I didnt use the instructions. I used 3 f/g tabs in the front with slots cut in the fuselage/hatch lip and 2 BVM hatch latches in the back to hold it on. My fingers are too big to reach between the inlet splitter to pull out for the hatch

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Tom,

I'm sure you're right. I doubt I'm adding much weight with this little 'peace-of-mind' mod, though. I'd love to see pics of your install if you have any.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

I unpacked the pipe from its travel box. Nice thing about the way they pack this is you've suddenly got a BUNCH of scrap lite-ply! The box in not glued together, but built from interlocking parts and taped. This is enough lite ply for a whole build job of some small airplane. The pipe was fitted to the airplane at the factory, then removed and repacked. I figured this out when I wondered why some of the tabs were bent, then subsequently realized that you'd have to make those same bends to get the pipe into the plane from the rear. When the VT nozzles were built, they were built to this specific plane and fit precisely to the pipe (whose mounting tabs are pre-mounted and inset to the back of the fuse).

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

This is the 'business end' of the pipe/VT nozzle arrangement.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Make sure your pipe is far enough back to allow nozzles to have full range of motion before you mount it. Too far forward and the nozzles catch and hang up on pipe causing them to jam. Are your vt pushrods top or bottom of fuselage servo mount?

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

As far as the main door hinge assembly ..... in the kit version it says to glue the assembly to the fuse (inside of the wing root). Because I was affraid that the doors (or their hinge assembly) may sometime get damaged or break, I decided to make the assembly removable incase I ever had to repair it. Four button head screws (for each assembly) will hold it securely in place. The heads of these screws are positioned where the lightening holes for the wing root are ...... so there is no problem with mating the wing to the fuse.

Also, I applied glass cloth and epoxy to the ply arms of this assembly for some added strength.

Bob

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Me too, and I have had to replace them. Easily done because of the mod.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

LOL,

Yes, and while I'm at it, I'll make sure the wing is on right-side-up so it don't fly funny.......:D

The VT servos are on the top of the fuse. I would have preferred they let me install the servo mounts as I don't necessarily like where they put them. Installing the screws was a monstrous PITA.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Shaun
I note you mentioned servos in plural for the VT servos. What servos are you planning?
 I guess there must be quite  some load on the nozzles when deflected

Ian</p>

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

I use 8611s, one for each nozzle.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC-vGWX6Xaw[/youtube]




This is a very great plane, I really like and enjoy it.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Nice flight! Thanks for the video!

Lookin good Shaun. How you make those nice Hysol fillets?

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

I saw this great flight,it is amazing! My friend Tony flied this F-22 with just about 30 to 50% thottle (power by Kingtech K-170),still very fast!The F-22 is still stable,even reverse flight and cross-wind landing.The only point to note,when building, is necessary to reinforce the fin base for rudder hinges.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Hi,

Could you please explain this a little more? Thanks in advance.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

Because the rudders of two fins pull-out last time of flight at nearly the same moment(only level flight,not very fast).After our examination,the base of hinge is only constructed by balsa wood.The builder ,our friend,didn't reinforced the base of hinge with epoxy comboned fiberglass issue ,only increased the numbers of hinge(7 large Robart hinges).However,it is not enough.Therefore,please note this point.

RE: Yellow Aircraft F-22 ARF Assembly Thread
 

I also lost a rudder early on. I replaced the rudder posts with ply and used Robart large hinges. No more problems.