LOL

I'll sell you a new belly pan if you want it, let me know. I have an extra new cowl to if anyone wants to buy that.

Yes please but I'd like to give Nitro Planes a chance to make good. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have two of them My first child is too old and I'm not having any more so how do I go about it and how much. Email me if you'd like.

Bob

I hate to pester but cockpit instructions... nuff said, I really appreciate all you've done already, THANKS

I just got an email from Nitro Planes...

Not bad, same day service. Hope they actually send it.

Bob

What part of the cockpit do you need help with? For cutting the fuselage use the drawings that come with the kit, once the formers are installed it just drops in.

The parts are not going anywhere, so we can wait for them to get your parts.

I hope they come thru , seems like RCU sales get better servace the ebay thry Nitro , so I think and hope you will prove this to be true

Black Sheep 1

Luke you did not answer my email, please tell me how to get one of the cockpit kits and a drop tank. I am ready to start building mine.
Thanks
Ron

Hey, bigbird;
Hope you'll get your belly pan afterall. But if not, like you said, it could be replicated easily with a piece of foam and fiberglass. If I buy another CMP kit I buy from AKModels. Alex the owner seems to be a straight guy to deal with. I asked him about the cheaper version of the Hellcat and
he recommended not to buy it because of quality issues. My "real" CMP-Hellcat is almost flawless. The only issue I found was they painted the flaps on the wrong side. No big deal since I am going to repaint my entire plane, anyway.

Alex from AK is great to deal with. Not many places give you a phone number where you can talk to the owner on the phone. I also got to meet him in person since he lives fairly close to me here in Iowa. Not too often do I get to meet someone who has a Gold Medal from the Olympics. (Unified Gymnastics team in 1992 in Barcelona).

Thanks Pappy, I guess the main question is about all the pins. I understand the push pins are for levers but there are quite a large number of other pins. Maybe just a pic of the finished cockpit would give me enough. I'm not very good at the challenges you like so well and follow directions pretty closely. I try not to let my handicap slow me down to much.

Bob

I thought my wings were painted on the wrong side when I first opened the wing but they weren't. The servo is on the top of the wing and is covered by the Fuse when installed, so the arm for the flap is on top of the wing. Felt kind of stupid when I figured that out... Are you just painting over the already painted covering? That paint seems to come pretty easily. Good luck on the bash.
Right now I'm pondering how much of the sheeting to remove around the retract servo bay. Sierra's retract is a little wider than the box built into the wing and to just sand it out to make the retract fit would pretty much remove any strength it might have. Love this thread!

Bob

No problem Bob, I was just wondering. If you have questions, please ask. OK, here are some pictures with some explanations. The right panel just uses some placards for detail, but you can spruce this up by adding small cut off pins in the places where small toggle switches would be. Notice the 3 black radio wires. Also for the two larger silver levers I gave them a 3D look by gluing on a strip of plastic, see first picture.

Next picture shows the Left panel. Attach the map case as shown. A few more pins on this side, notice the placards locations. The throttle quadrant is the only tricky one, I spent more time on this one by adding small pieces of scrap plastic to the pins to make them look like levers. Also for the throttle lever I made it out of thin aluminum and a little balsa, use a Coke can.


For the instrument panel you just need to add 2 levers. Make both as shown in the picture.

Forgot one, the center console. The red emergency flap and gear levers were made with thin aluminum and small brass pins. Use the Dremel small drill bits to drill the holes in the aluminum first before cutting out the levers. Then trim them down and add the small brass pins, wick in a small amount of CA and paint red. The rest of the panel has only 2 blue pins.

I'll post more as I get my plane finished.

Pappy

Beautiful, Thanks! I hope my cockpit turns out half as nice! I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm making a pdf of the instructions, you can have it if you'd like. If you like it you could put it on your web site for others like me who need them. I'd also like the cowl former template if you still have it. I asked Hal but he said he couldn't get into his basement...

I was planing on using a glue stick for the placards and do I need to spray with flat clear for longevity?


Any one else strip the wing and have a filled gap like this at the dihedral joint?

Here's what I decided to do to install the Sierra Giant scale retracts. The problem was the rails provided didn't leave enough space between them to set the retracts in and if I made them narrower it wouldn't leave much meat for the screws that hold the retract down.

I opened up the wing and trimmed the sides of the retract bay where the bottom slots into the sides. See picture 1.

I marked the back of the mounting blocks supplied and trimmed out the outline. This allows the full width of the block to mount the retract.

Then I cut some 1/8th aircraft plywood (5 ply) to epoxy on the back side to help strengthen it. I still have to sand out the spar for the air cylinder and cut the bigger hole for the 4" wheels I'll be using. I plan on using the carbon fiber idea that HalH showed in an earlier post. I'll also beef up the original structure with some more epoxy.

Bigbird I did the samething I also am using Sierra Retracts. One thing I did was to round the top inside of the gear blocks to match the curve of the retract to give the most possible contact area. After cutting the needed amount from the spar to give the clearance for the retract I felt that too much had been removed so I took 1/4" ply and added a sandwhich on each side of the spar for the added strength. Then as you I made new 1/8" ply ribs for the gear blocks but I also used triangle stock at each ends of the ply ribs to make sure that the whole landing gear blocks are very secure. then cut out for 4" tires and removed all needed balsa ribs in the wheel area but added balsa ribs on the sides of the wheel well to give strength. I have just finished glassing the wing should be in primer this weekend good luck.

Randy

Randy, are you using Dion's gear doors? Are the retract mounts flush with the wing or recessed?

Let's see some pictures.

Thank you NitroModels!

Glad to see you are getting your part!

Now for the gear doors, for the Sierra gear see page #25 Post #612. Hal installed them in his Hellcat with my gear doors. For the Century Jet gear see page # 24 Post #591. I had to cut 3/16" off the mounts for the CJ gear and I think Hal cut off 1/4" off his for the Sierra gear.

For the cockpit do not use a glue stick, use a special glue for paper that you can get at Michael’s. I use Aleene's Tacky Glue, Dries clear and flexible. Elmer’s and other glues like that have to much water in them and don't stick well.

You must clear coat your cockpit, especially after weathering it like I show you. I wish more people would try the black chalk weathering, they would see how easy it is to get a nice looking part.

Hey Pappy

I don't remember seeing the black chalk mentioned any where. You just smear it around with your finger?

We don't have Michael's here is that a craft store?

I'm guessing that Hal recessed his mounts the 1/4" to get the door to sit flush with wing sheeting but I'll find out when I get the doors mounted to the retracts and set them in the wing.

Thanks

Bob

Hey, bigbird
I am happy for you that Nitroplanes is backing up their products. Regarding the flaps: the flaps are suppose to work i one direction only. If you look at them from the end you can clearly see that they are not symmetrical like the ailerons. The guy who painted my cat must have put them on back wards before painting. My flaps would only move up but not down. Painting over the original paint job is a breeze. Just take a sheet of 400 Wet & Dry and sand everything slightly using plenty of water. I'll see how well the paint will stick and whether the covering stays wrinkle free. If not I'll strip it and glass it. How much weight did everybody add under the cowl for proper balance?

Mine moves up a lot more than down, I'll have to expand the torque rod slot in the right direction to get them to work right but I believe that has to do with the rod in the wing not the flap. At least on mine.

Does the hole in the flap (for the torque rod) line up if you turn the flap over and put it on the other side? Just wondering how symmetrically it was constructed.

Pappy - On the gear doors, the door is flat and the wing is not. Do I balance the difference or leave the front up to get it to sit flush over the wheel well? Decisions, decisions...

Bigbird

For that glue that BlackSheep-1 is speaking of go to WALMART and look in the crafts section for a gold BOTTLE WITH A WHITE tip/top...this is ALEENE'S Orginal TACKY GLUE [sm=thumbup.gif]!!!! IF in doubt ask any Lady in the fabric/ crafts section....(think ladies)...

Cheers!

-TOMAS

BTW... I compared the ALEENE'S Original Tacky Glue to a bottle of RC56 Canopy GLUE.... GUESS WHAT>.. THEY ARE IDENTICAL!!!!!!!! Bottle, TIP, consistency and also description of glue properties are just about identical..[8D]

Thanks Tomas

That's what I ended up doing (going to Walmart) after checking the local hobby store and craft store. I didn't find aleene's. They did have a scrapbooking glue that was acid free and made for paper, goes on blue then dries clear and allows the item to be removed if you let it dry first. I'll check it out on some scraps.

Bob

bigbird;
Here are my pictures of the left wing first with the wrong flap surface, painted correctly. You can clearly see the same large gap on top as the aileron. The next picture showes the flap down as much as it goes. Gap now is even bigger. Now I switched to the correct flap surface, which is painted incorrectly. You can see how nice and small the gap became. On the next picture it is obvious that the down movement is much more pronounced with the gap still being small. On the last pic I show the end view of the flap with the light gray on top and the dark blue on bottom. Yes, my holes did line up for the control arms.

Strange, it looks like it was put together correctly and re-assembled wrong for painting.

Mine is obviously the torque rod hole on the top of the wing. My flap won't move as much as yours did assembled wrong.

looking for anyone who might have changed there mind and decided not to build the hellcat and has the detail parts from pappy they would like to sell me?? looking for a set of everything pm me if so, thanks awsome looking plane...