Last batch

Any link about order or price of the evolution?

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The Evolution seems to be a "double-secret" project . . . .
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I don't think it's secret. Ultra rc only got a limited number in. They were pretty much already spoken for by those of us that had a pre order or had our name down on the list.
The second batch will be in soon from what I was told by Bryan. I think it's smart to not list it until they have some sort of stock.
Kind of like all of us that have wanted an icepoint for the last 6 or 8 months. It's been on the website, but they haven't had any.


Probably smart business IMO..

Give them a call at 609-714-0040 if you want to order..
http://www.ultra-rc.com/

PS. I am not affiliated in any way with ultra-rc. Matter of fact, at this point I'm still not a satisfied customer. But I feel they will make it right. So I'm giving the benefit of the doubt!!! So those of you with that may have some issues with it. Hang in there!!

Chris

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Well, that sounds reasonable to me. . . now I understand!!
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Oh, sorry, price was 429 plus I think 50 shipping in the us..
C

After reading about the evolution on this thread I picked up the phone & called hoping to get my name on the list for the next batch. 4 days later I had one sitting in my office. It had absolutely no damage and was in perfect condition. Packed beautifully and even included wing,stab & fuse bags !! I do think the shipping box is to light but it wasn't damaged upon arrival.
Unfortunately while carrying it home from work I crushed the canopy. I figured out how to repair it but decided to give them a call to see if replacement parts would be available. Today I received a brand new canopy sold to me at a very reasonable price. I didn't ask for any special consideration because I damaged it myself but they were extremely helpful and even gave me a discount on the part.
I don't think I could ask for a better deal or to be treated any better.

After reading all the negative posts on this thread I got the Evolution out and took a second look. Everything looks straight as can be. I don't normally look at the inside of the aileron cutout of the wing but I checked that area closely. It is straight to my eye.

I've refrained from making this post because I'm a nobody in pattern ( a 402 beginner) but then I thought " if they treat me this nice i need to brag on them !!"

I'll be assembling it later this fall and hope to put a YS 140sport on it. I'll be reading Eric's assembly notes carefully as I do wish to retrofit wing adjusters. everything else will be left stock.

Eddie

I'll trade ya one of my sets of wings for yours.. LOL

No, I agree. Bryan, when I spoke to him, was very personable. Seemed like he was eager to help. Also said he had parts in stock. Just not my parts..

Have you started building it yet though? I only found issues as I built it.
I have video of the issues that I have sent to them. Just waiting for a response. I'll probably have to call again.


Maybe Jarvis and I are the only lucky ones that got bad kits. With my luck, I can believe it!! LOL
I hope everyone's fly's as good as I think they will!!
I would be flying mine but with the firewall and sides of the fuse flexing I think my axi will rip the nose off. Maybe this is normal for this lightened plywood fuse.


Chris

Ref. "I'll be assembling it later this fall and hope to put a YS 140sport on it. I'll be reading Eric's assembly notes carefully as I do wish to retrofit wing adjusters. everything else will be left stock."

The wing set-up will be exactly the same as the Giles 202 review modifications. You can get a jump on my building speed by reading the RCU review and looking at the pictures. The construction of the Evolution is very similar so the mod's will be the same.

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=720]http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=720[/link]

Regards,

Eric.

Thanks Eric. Truthfully I haven't looked at the giles review. But I will now. I don't like the giles as a plane so I tend to ignore any giles models.

Chris. Thinking the Evolution was designed with electric in mind, I was worried about putting the YS on it. So I asked Jim(didn't speak to Bryan), when I called to order the canopy, about using the YS140sport and the new stiffer Hyde mounts to avoid a nosering. He said it should work fine. He told me the Evolution is being used in Europe with several of the small gassers. Now I haven't heard of any but I'm in the backwoods of Louisiana What do you guys think? By the time I can get started on this plane maybe I can save up for an Evo and go electric. I think it would be a blast, I just can't aford it at this year.

Well to be honest, I believe the Evolution is designed for either. The only difference in the glow version and electric version (and yes I have both) is that the electric comes with a mount for a hacker (I can't use as I run axi) and a battery mount for under the plane in the pipe tunnel (which I also can't use as the batteries I use don't fit it. I will say that the Hacker mount is really nice and has air intake scoops built in.
I will say that if you buy this plane and it's in good shape, which it appears most are, I feel it will fly good.
I can't wait to get some new parts so I can fly the fricken thing!! It's hard to just look at it sitting on the bench.
C

I have had a few off-list e-mails about “my review� of the Evolution that I want to address before I continue. First of all this is not a review.

Please just regard these posts as a “Build of the ARF� that are aimed at peolewho are putting one of thes together. I am stopping as I go and taking notes and pictures that will hopefully get you a better result than just following the instructions.

As I run into problems or challenges I will show you how I managed the issues or got around them.

Overall I find that the Evolution is pretty current in its design. The wing is in a double-taper which is a popular current pratcice. The fuselage body-width is not a super-wide-body, but has and the general outline of an amalgum of current pattern planes.

Hinging - The stick-hinges were replaced with Mylar hinges as a personal pattern-preference. I find that they give a tighter gap and a better hold around neutral for the servo to work with. The Central Hobbies hinge-guide is a very good tool to help you do the job. The original stick hinge holes make good channels to conduct the CA all the way into the hinge location. This tool has wide flanges that work with the large beveled edges of the control surfaces.


Till the next note,

Eric.

A Hobbico hinge cutter makes fast work of the hinge slots. I use pins to stop the hinges going too far into one side of the hinge line. The resultant gap is very small and usually you do not need to seal the gaps for good flight performances.



Eric.

Alignment is paramount in getting a pattern plane to perform well in all directions and attitudes.

The Evolution has a plug-on stab at hat is already done for you. The Wings are variable in position, back and forth but are set across the plane. The stab tube was in correctly but I found variances between the sides of the fuselage and the root ribs of the stabs. The stab tube was reasonably tight [Quite often this is not the case in more expensive ARF’s and the CF tube has to be tightened with some CA as a thickener]

To align the stab with wing the following was done.

1. Temporarily fit the wing to the plane with wood-screws through the tabs rather than bolts and blind-nuts.

2. Check measurements of the wing tips to stern posts were equal. The wings were square to the fuselage when pushed fully forward. They also were square when viewed from the front.

3. Bolt stabs in place. And check for alignment.

To make the checking easy the ailerons and elevators were taped at the tips to give a neutral on each control surface.

The first thing that I saw was that the stab was a 1/8� high and low at the tips, relative to the wing. It was also not at 90 degrees to the fin.

The fix was to make a 1/4� wide micro-ply shim - 1/64� - that was tacked to the lower root rib of one stab. Then when the 3-mm bolts were tightened the stab was now in line with span of the wing.

The leading-edge of the other stab needed a small 1/64� shim at the front tip of the root to get the distances between the wing-tips and the stab-tips equal.

This gave me an alignment that was within 0.5-mm. The stab was rock solid due to the 3-mm bolts above and below each stab-half. When the stab is finally installed a thin (1/16�) bead of silicone will be used around the edges of the stab-root-rib to seal any gaps create by the shims.. Any excess is removed with denatured alcohol. To remove the stab at a later date, dental-floss will easily break the seal.

Eric.

These photos show the stab and wing fit to fuselage.

Alignment result.

The incidences on a pattern airplane play a major part in its success as a precision aerobatics weapon!

The Ultra-R/C Evolution canopy-line appears to be parallel to the centerline of the fuselage so it can be used as a reasonable reference point. The pre-set wing-incidence was parallel to the canopy line. Both wings were found to be at the same angle of incidence. I set the stab with a 1/4 of a degree of negative incidence using a slot in the attachment tabs. This is what I have been using on the last half a dozen of my pattern planes. I can set it back to zero if I don’t get what I want in the air. - Personal choice again.

A tip when fitting the epoxy-board tabs is to feed thread through the slot/hole in the wing root-rib. Then loop it through the screw hole in the tab. When you have applied the epoxy you can easily pull the tab through the slot. This makes the task a lot less fiddly, messy and more “certain�.

The hole/slot in the root-rib for the tab was wider than the thickness of the tab. To be line up the wing-retaining-tabs correctly, make sure that you position the tabs on the bottom edge of this hole. I used some 1/2� x 3/16 x 1/16� scrap ply pieces to hold/wedge the tabs in the correct position and CA'd them later.

The wing is still only temporarily held in the forward position. I will move the wing later if I need help to get the desired CG. Meanwhile the alignment is complete and we can get back to assembly, especially if it keeps raining.

Regards,

Eric.

Here's the thread-pull method for the wing tabs. Also the strategically cut hole for the elevator leads.

Eric.

The pushrods, clevises and horns were replaced. The clevises and horns with ball-bearing versions. The pushrods are titanium turnbuckles for accurate adjustment outside of the radio.

2-mm locknuts and servo screws still to be added :-)

The full-size JR servo fits into the stab with room to spare at the sides.

The more it rains the more building that can be done....

I was asked to post the sizes of the pushrods.

Ailerons = 2.5"

Elevators = 2"

Titanium prolinks HAN3550.

The horns are Chip Hydes from Central Hobbies and only come in one size.

Also the canopy release is one that is often seen on the current Japanese pattern planes. It is a simple wire that is spring loaded to hold two tabs on the canopy.
Here are some pictures of how the wire goes into the ready made holder.

Eric.

This is how it operates

The tailwheel assembly that comes with ARF is more than good enough for the job but I prefer to use the Sullivan spring tailwheel with a slight modification. The Sullivan assembly comes with a spring-wire to steer the wheel. I replace the spring with 3" piece of 1/16" piano-wire and redo the silver solder. This lets me "service" the tailwheel assembly without damaging the rudder. A pattern plane can easily be flown 300 plus times in one season. This can be hard on the tail wheel.

I used a couple of aliminum tailwheel collars to hold the hatch-latch-wire in place.

Regards,
Eric.

The aileron lead has a habit of taking a trip inside of the wing so a J-TEC wire guide was used in each wing.

Also the balsa sheeting at the fornt of the wing at the root is vulnerable to being squeezed or over gripped by such actions as uninformed/bad lifting and possibly becoming cracked. It is a quick action to just smear thin CA inside the first panel.

Regards,

Eric.

Eric,
What is that device in the first pix to the left?
Looks like a little squeeze bulb or something.
JLK