R/C Art

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That race is usually won by the pilot with the best night vision or the smallest brain!
I am an old man who wears glasses......so you can guess why I was first up last year?!

R/C Art

My Feedback: (38)

By the way, David, its good to see your project almost finished and in the air.
I am working on a 1/3 BUSA pup.......I am installing a paintball gun for the sound effects.
Del needs to install smoke on his tripe so that he can do a scale spiral when we shoot
him down! See you at the field!

Prop Nut

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I have been following your paintgun escapades Art, it looks great.

Del has nothing to worry about from me, but please do let me know when you are going up...so I can LAND!

Prop Nut

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I have been doing a little more work. I try to keep the W word to a minimum though

I built the rudder using the laminate system, wrapped around a jig:


I wanted to install the control horns, 1/16th ply hardened with thin CA, after I cover the surfaces so I constructed the elevators with hardwood slots for this purpose:



The fuel tank is mounted on a removable hatch, I thought this would be a good idea if I wanted to rework it later for smoke. Easy access is always helpful:


I roughly copied Del's excellent tail skid system from his 1/3rd scale DR1, the wire and bungie are temporary, I have an idea that for a retainer that I need to work out on the mill and lathe made out of Aluminium. I also have rubber bands (see them on the landing gear? Scroll up for those pictures) that I will use here.


Speaking of the landing gear, if you scroll up you will see my Balsa USA 1/3 scale kit wheels. These are steel rims with rubber hoses joined by glue. They are excellent. I then covered both sides of the wheels with Super Coverite and CA glue. For a FunScale project like mine they look pretty good. I am not sure if Balsa USA is still selling this kit but for 29.00 it was a very good deal.

This evening, after I get some of that pesky real work done (darn customers), I hope to get a little more finished on the Triplane. Wish me luck.

Prop Nut

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All the wires and aluminium sheeting that will surround the nose has me worried about interference, so I ordered a Futaba 7C 2.4ghz system for this plane. Del, you seem to be having very good luck with the Spektrum on your DR1.

deljon

My Feedback: (4)

David, looking real good ole buddy.
My Specktrum preformed great the first two flights. Can't wait to get some more in.
I have read a couple reports about possable loss of signal if you have a lot of metal around the receivers. (I don't know, I'm not a radio expert). I have a big aluminum hood area above my two receivers.
I think I'm going to get an extention and move the aux. receiver under the turtle deck just behind the cockpit.
Keep up the good work.

Del

Prop Nut

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Thanks Del, its good to hear words of encouragement. I really should not have moved my airplane shop into the building that I use for my cabinet business...its hard to get these countertops done when that plane is sitting in the corner calling to me [X(]

My reciever is mounted about midship so I think that should work for the new one when it arrives. I will of course ground test it with the motor running, I am hoping for the best. Thank you for your advice. Feel free to offer more, since this is a scratch build (my first) and I have no instructions to remind me to "Insert part A into slot B" I am paraniod that I will cover the fuse and then remember something that I should have done!

Prop Nut

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I dabbled with my Sopwith the other night and made the aluminium covers for the forward fuse area. The full scale has a couple of hatches and air outlets in this area, I might do that as well depending on the maiden flight. I believe that I am ready to cover the fuse unless anyone can point out anything that I might have missed?

Mode One

The reason for the DX7's dual receivers was to allow another receiver antenna orientation. The original DX6's antenna could get overshadowed by the metal of the engine in bigger airplanes. Using more metal in an airplane may increase this problem. I haven't converted yet to SS so I'm not certain if this is a problem. However, Allen Flowers, has had problems and maybe he has opinions on the matter.

I can see you are a cabinet maker and the work on your airplane reflects this. Great job and a wonderful project, Prop Nut!

Prop Nut

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Thanks Mark

I have the fuse covered and back on its wheels now. I decided to do a scale cockpit, I have been following AbuFletcher's fine work and he has inspired me. Any comments on construction materials for the gauges etc?

eagledancer

hey prop nut your tripehound is looking mighty fine! i am currently real close to being able to cover my 1/3 camel. i also have the busa pup and those wheels you got from them. one thing you need to know about those wheels make sure you glue the tire to the rims very well. i have had problems with them coming apart on landing roll out several time (pup is now 8 years old) on my last flight the tire came apart and caused me to go over on her back and did some damage. ya she stubbed her toes real bad that day. damage is repaired and ready to go again.

on your guages i see your post that you have a metal lathe. i used alum for the guage housings for my camel and turned them on lathe. used screws i found at a model railroad hobby shop. the compass was a little tricky altho. pics over at rcscalebuilder. com in the mick reeves section, bobH also has some pics on his camel build that has been a real insperation to me, he is a top notch modeler, i just hope i can get close to his building skills someday.

JohnF

Prop Nut, I recently asked BUSA about those wheels and they said they don't sell them any more. You might think about making a sandwich with G-10 for your control horns. I tried just ply on the Loening and broke one pretty easy. I have now laminated them with thin carbon fiber strips. I will use G-10 on the Aviatik horns.

Prop Nut

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Does anyone have advice in making tailfin stab bracing? Dubro has a set that you can buy (I have used them before) but I would rather save 60.00 or so and make something. Attachted is a picture of a full scale to give you some idea of what I am looking at. I have already built in hardpoints for the mounts, I just need to figure out a way to make the struts themselves. I would prefer solid rod but wire would be just fine also. I want to make them removable and adjustable.

geezeraviation

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Those look like turnbuckle style wires. They have RH thread on one end and LH thread on the other, theres a place in switzerland called Aeroscale flying Wires that makes them (put one hand on your wallet and the other on your heart) You could make them with 4-40 pushrod material and steel clevises. Solder one end on and adjust the other. I've been looking for left hand tap and die combinations for years but the smallest die I find is 6-32. I have found L/H taps in 5-40 which is a bit smaller but no die. I'm building a BUSA 1/3 N 28 and changing a bunch of stuff, how else am I suppose to have fun, which used all wire with turnbuckles so between DuBro and Proctor I can do all my stuff without a hassle. I been following your thread for some time but never chimed in as I didnt think I had anything constructive to say. The Aeroscale stuff is really neat, I put about 400 bucks worth of it on a Mystery ship back in 91. Things were a bit better back then, I couldnt afford them now. Happy landings, Doc

Prop Nut

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Hi Doc..

You did notice my mention of "Cheap" didnt you?

I like your idea of making my own rods though. A friend uses welding rod to make his push rods, that might work with a 4-40 tap and die. I dont think I would need left handed threads if I soldered one end to a clevis. What I would like to aviod is the weak clevises that often strip with the gasser vibration (I have that problem with the 4-40 rod struts on my DVII and Pup (Balsa USA).

David

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Prop nut, For the rods, why not use 4-40 threaded rod and solder a golden rod threaded end on? This way you have a clevis on either end and some adjustment. Then you could fabricate a small metal plate to accept the clevis on either end. This is how my Fokkers are. Works well and cheap.

Prop Nut

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VG, cheap is goooood.

abufletcher

I used non-adjustable music wire on my Snipe and it's rock solid and looks great (in my opinion). At 1/3 size though I might be tempted to make these from flattened 1mm aluminum tubing and then just fake the turnbuckles. Why do you want to make these adjustable? If they do HAVE to be adjustable then the clevis solution is the only cheap option.

Eindecker_pilot

Dave,

When you get ready to cover your triplane, check out these pictures. Its the Sopwith Triplane at the Shuttleworth Collection. Mike & I saw it last year on a trip to England.

best regards,
Greg

Prop Nut

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Hi Greg,

I have already decided on the N500 trainer scheme, but thanks for the imput.

Mike mentioned that you will be in the UK several times this summer. Maybe we can get together to tour Ypres or something. I will be in Gottingen Germany for 2.5 months. June until mid August, I have weekends free to be a tourist. I doubt that is enough time to visit the UK but Ypres is in between and I hear has an excellent war musuem.

David

Prop Nut

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I actually worked on it today! I really should have been doing homework but...well...yep.

I covered the tail surfaces, hinged them and hooked up the pull pull system. I need to fine tune the rudder bar but otherwise it is working fine.

Prop Nut

My Feedback: (3)

Small update, I have the tail braces on, I used a cheap simple "non-scale" method of zbending the ends of 4-40 rod and clevising the other ends for ajustability. I also fired up the G62 for the first time. It runs awesome, idles at 1400 and throttles up to 5300 with a 24x10, plenty of thrust. I also covered the ailerons, assembled the plane and must only attach them and the plane is ready for its first flight. (All this today) I hope to have the ailerons on today or tonight. I will put it out on the lawn and get some pictures of it all assembled. Be kind and remember this is a FunScale project.

abufletcher

Ausgezeichnet! Es sieht sich recht gut aus! [sm=thumbup.gif]

Prop Nut

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Danke Don

Prop Nut

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It is Ready To Fly!!!

I will paint it and make a vickers machine gun for it later. The flying weight (including the pilot Snoopy) is 29lbs. I hope for good weather tommorow or Friday (my wife made me promise that she would be there when I did the maiden flight) so wish me luck. Its amazing, the larger I build something, the easier it is to see my mistakes!!!