W Reid

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Hello

I am new to this forum and have a few questions I am hoping someone will be able to answer.I just acquired a Unionville Hobby Turbo Beaver kit.My first question is has anyone built this plane to be both used as a land plane and a float plane.From what I see on the plans the landing gear setup for wheels has the wire struts buried in the fuse bottom.This seems to suggest it would make it some what difficult to have a scale float strut setup.I am open to comments and ideas that would help me in this area.My other question is the method used to mount the wings.It looks a little weak to me.Maybe this is because everything I have built with removable wings used an aluminum wing tube that passed through the fuse and the wings slide onto it.Does Unionvilles method work fine?Has some one built one and used a different method?Once again any comments or ideas are welcome.Last of all I am open to any ideas from builders of this kit on tips to make it a little more scale.

I should mention I have been in this hobby for about 12 years.I have built a fair number of kits and and scratch built a couple of planes.I have flown everything from trainers up to a few scale planes as well as helicopters.
My thought here is it would be nice to here from other people who have built this kit and get some input from them.It is always nice to hear from other people in the hobby that have built the same kit you are working on.


Wayne R

Jollidude

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The wing mount for this kit is plenty strong. You do have to remember that the wing struts ARE functional and required. Just make sure that the struts are tightened properly. If they come loose in flight, well, to quote the manual, "remaining flight time is directly proportional to altitude" at the time of failure. There are at least five of these models in clubs around our area (Halifax,NS) and they fly like trainers, very stable and easy to fly. Most have Supertigre 90's for power although a 91 four stroke is plenty strong even for floats. As for being able to convert from wheels to floats you may have to compromise on scale fidelity. The main landing gear can be used as the front float attachment, just build in hard points for the rear float struts. I have a number of photos of the full size Turbo Beaver on floats so if you want pics, send me a PM with your email address. Good luck with it, a very nice flying model and the kit wood quality is exceptional. I have the 6' Beaver (radial engine) on floats and the 6' Otter on wheels. Both are exceptional flyers.

Cheers!

Jollidude

BillHarris

I am building a Unionville (radial) Beaver.

As Jollidude points out, the struts are active and not "for looks", and you need to keep that in mind when putting the mouting points in the wing and in the fuse.

Dual landing gear (land and floats) is a problem, especially from the scale fidelity point. I have a removable fuse bottom in the area of the landing gear mounting plate so that the landing gear can be accessed. I have one fuse bottom for land gear and another for floats. Initially, this Beaver will be flown from land, but I'm planning ahead for float installation. I am not using the suggested wire gear, but had a set fabricated out of aluminum plate by TnT.

My Beaver is "reasonably" close to true scale, but there are a few differences. I didn't like the supplied windshield, it was too rounded and "cessna-like" to suit me, so I redid that area of the fuse. I am not terribly familiar with the details of the Turbo Beaver.

http://www.dhc-2.com/ is a good site devoted to the DHC-2 Beaver and has many photographs.

Jollidude, do you know Gord Schindler (and one other gentleman, Hawkins??)? From the Ontario area. They first got me interested in the Beaver a couple of years back and got me started on this project.

Jollidude

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Hi Bill,

I don't know Gord Schindler other than seeing his planes on the Internet. He lives in Ontario and I live in Nova Scotia. The other gentleman however, John Hawkins, is from Nova Scotia and taught me how to fly (coincidentally with a float plane, a Goldberg Freedom 20 on floats). John lives on a lake and I still fly with him from time to time. We have quite an active float flying group here in the Halifax area. I've attached a picture of my Unionville Beaver (6'). The Unionville kits, although not 100% scale (the smaller ones anyway) can me made to look very nice. The wood quality is excellent and I would highly recommend then to anyone looking to build a Canadian "bush" plane. They fly very nicely too.

Cheers!

Jollidude

BillHarris

That's right, John Hawkins is from NovaScotia and I recall that he lives on a lake. Small world! Both he and Gord seem to be excellent modellers.

I need to drop them an email and let them know that I'm still alive.

Does your float group have a WebSite? The Canadian one I have in my bookmarks is

http://webhome.idirect.com/~ironsidz/index.html

but it's in Ontario.

The Unionville kits are excellent in terms of quality and design. With scale, there is always a difference of opinion on how things should be modelled; and I wanted to do some items differently. All in all, this kit represents a good tabula rasa to build upon.

Goinstraightup

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Great pic Jollidude! Hope you don't mind, I saved it. There's a guy in our club that is nuts about those type of planes. Quite a good flyer too. Can't believe he hasn't built one yet.

cf-drg

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I have built one and I built it on floats...The one thing I would recommend is to use 7 servos. One on each control surface in the wings, 2 in the tail for rud elev and 1 for throt.... Also build it with flaps, you won't be disappointed.
Once its finished it should fly like a trainer, really easy. But not very aerobatic with floats on though, actually kind of scary...

Jollidude

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Bill,

John has a website that he maintains. It is:

http://members.accesswave.ca/~parklane/main.html

It has pics of float flying, flying off the ice and events from last summer in the Halifax area. If you want his email, send me a PM and I'll send it to you.

Cheers!

Jollidude

BillHarris

Thanks, John has some interesting photos on his site. I see that he still has his yellow Turbo Beaver.

The old email addy I have on John is @parklane.com, but his website has an updated @hotmail address.

Thanks!

DavidMC

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Hi Guys,

I had exactly the same questions when I started my Unionville Turbo Beaver as well. Though I knew Unioville setup for the wing mounts are perfectly strong enough for flight loads, but I wanted something a bit more durable. I also wanted to be able to quickly set up my airplane and not necessarily always need to use the wing struts. I also wanted a removable landing gear so it would fit in my car, and also so I could put scale floats.

For the wings, I installed a wing tube. Its very strong now and the wings are easily slid on/off. The diheadral is still maintained too. I kept the original wing mounting bolts to keep the wing panels from sliding off.

For the landing gear, instead of using the landing gear straps to keep the wire in the slot, I will use a ply plate held on with a couple of nylon bolts. The rest of the fuslage under the gear is then glued to this ply plate and the whole thing will be removable.

Ive also added a few more modifications. First is that all control surfaces use individual servos. The Flaps are now slotted flaps and the cargo doors are functional. The front windshield is also removable as a battery hatch.

My Beaver will be powered by a Maxcim motor on 24 cells. Very little is needed to convert this kit to electric as the wood is top notch.

I hope to have this bird flying a few months.

Jollydude, very nice Beaver! I saw the rest of the pictures on John's site. You may not remember, but I use to fly with you at Shearwater a few years back.

DavidMC

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Wing phenolic tube. I reinforced the ribs with 1/16" aircraft ply. The white stuff is epoxy with lots of micro balloons for fillets.

DavidMC

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Gear plate detail before making lightening holes. I made additional bottom formers to butt against those of the kit for the covering to stick too. Still some more work too do here though. I just picked up a propane torch to solder up the main gear.

Jollidude

My Feedback: (39)

Hi David,

If you're the guy that used to have the 40 size Cloud Dancer then I remember you. Nice job on the Turbo Beaver so far. The 8' Turbo Beaver is on my "to build" list as well, in the colors of my Avatar. I've build the 6' Beaver (radial) on floats and the 6' Otter on wheels. The 8' versions are super flying aircraft.

Cheers!

Jollidude

tks1

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Hi Davidmc

I am building an 8ft radial and have always been really spooked by the wing construction. The main spars in my kit were nothing more than 1/4 X 3/8 balsa. I called Unionville and they said they have never had a problem so I dont doubt them but just for peace of mind...

Could you give me more info on how you did the wing tube thing. My wings are built but I think I might modify them the way you did on yours. My bird is pretty much at the same stage as yours.

Thanks

DavidMC

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Hi tks1,

The wing is quite thick so the completed panel is very strong. I didn't bother to beef up the spar with Carbon and I am glad i didn't bother.

One modificaton I did do to the wing panel is to increase the trailing edge sheeting up to the rear spar. Not necessary but I didn't like the 3/8" wide strip they used. Plus it makes doing cap strips easier.

To start the wing tube mod, I laminated 1/16" plywood reinforcements to ribs 2, 3, 4, with the first rib remains the 1/4" light ply. The ply reinforcment does not run the full length of the rib, but just enough to lock onto the spar.

The ribs are placed vertically one on top of another and then offest each rib upwards 1/8" of an inch from the bottom of the rib under it. A drop of CA at the edge holds it all in place.

I then used a 1-3/8" fostner bit to bore through all 4 ribs at the same time. The offset provides the correct dihedral. The hole is located just behind the shear web. The fuselage rib is also drilled in the same spot as the first rib in the wing panel.

The wing was then build the normal way. Before sheeting the center section I slid the tube in and then put both wing panels on the fuse and checked for alignment. A drop of CA holds the tub at the correct angle in the hole (there is a bit of play). Take the panel off and mix up a batch of 30 min epoxy and plenty of microballons and make a good glue fillet where the tube goes throught each rib. Glue the 3rd piece of phenolic tube in the fuselage between the fuse rib holes.

The rest of the wing is done the same way. I used Unionville's attachment bolts to hold the wing from sliding of the tube.

The wing tube I used is a Gator RC 1-1/4" tube. 1" would be plenty strong but I used what the LHS had in stock. It comes with the phenolic tube.

If you have any other questions let me know.

Dave

DavidMC

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Hi Jollydude,

Yup, that was me. I sold off the old Cloud Dancer though when I switched my fleet over to electric. I miss that plane...
Glad to see your still flying. Too bad about Shearwater closing down. Great looking Unionville kits you have there too!

Dave

tks1

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Thanks DavidMC

That helps very much.

One question. Are the spars in the pic balsa or spruce. They look like spruce.

BillHarris

I "upgraded" my spars from balsa to spruce. Bu to save some weight, you would need to change only the upper spar to spruce. Wood is stronger in tension than it is in compression. When the wing is stressed, the upper spar is in compression and is in more danger of failure than the bottom spar. Therefore the upper spar needs to be spruce.

But I'm not sure that this is necessary: with the active wing struts used on this plane, you don't have the bending moments that you would with an un-strutted wing. I'd put emphasis on the strut attachment to the wing spar, though.

One thing we do with r/c sailplanes to strengthen the wing joiner/spar is to wrap the wing joiner tube and spars with Kevlar thread before putting on the D-tube/center sheeting. The wrap should have a pitch of about 0.10".

David, I note that your cargo door opening is "open". On my 8' radial Beaver, the window opening is framed but the door has 1/4" balsa across the opening. I'd like to make my cargo doors functional. Did you modify that, or did the designer change that part of the fuse construction?

I modified the landing gear plate much as you did, and I had landing gear fabricated from aluminum plate, as noted earlier.

DavidMC

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Hi Guys,

tks1, the spars are hard balsa. I replaced the spliced 36" length pieces for nice hard 48" lengths. Just personal preference. The splice at the end of the wing isn't in a high load area.

Hi Bill,
Thats good idea with the kevlar thread around the spars and tube. I debated whether to wrap the area with carbon, but its pretty beefy as is. If it was an aerobatic bird I probably would have done it.

Where did you get you aluminum gear? Id like to replace mine as well? How is it holding up and does it weigh less than the music wire?

The cargo door is a modifaction I made. Basically I used 1/4" stick to outline the frame. I added a plywood doubler near the floor to restrengthen where the 1/4" balsa sheet sides were cut out.

Dave

seaplane

Hi tks1, here's a pic of my 8ft radial Beaver in the bones. Just completed making the spar ends for the floats. I have an OS 1.20 four stroke for it and hope to have it flying by july. Anybody have any experience with the aluminum struts?......Seaplane

BillHarris

I had my gear fabricated by TnT landing gear http://www.tntlandinggear.com/
. There is a custom landing gear form at their website.

The aluminum gear likely weighs more and is as likely stronger. Wire gear on a 10-15 pound plane troubles me. My Beaver is still being built.
I suspect that the open cargo door modification is as structurally competent as the solid door. At least, the full scale Beaver has similar structure tying the wings to the floor.
Your wing tube-spar joint is strong enough. The kevlar thread idea was a "FWIW" comment, picked up from sailplanes. With the stock wing arrangement using the active struts, I figure that the highest stress are of the wing is at the wing strut-wing joint where the bending moment is at maximum.

tks1

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That looks great seaplane. I am going to get a digital photo of mine soon and upload. I am only running a 75 ST on mine but maybe I will be able to afford a 4 stroke later.

Still struggling mentally with the wing construction and debating starting over on the wing. They dont take that long to do. (I accidentally spliced the left wing panel spars INBOARD of the strut rather than near the wing tip ). I dont know if it is worth trying to BEEF up the wing or just start over?!?!?!

seaplane

I understand your delima. I used spruce top and bottom. I haven't done a whole lot on it lately, do in most part to another project. I'm making foam core floats for sale and just created a web page.......Seaplane
http://www.geocities.com/planefunfloats/

tks1

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Nice floats. If I wasnt so far away I would take you up on one of the kits when you start supplying.

BillHarris

> Nice floats. If I wasnt so far away...

They can be mailed. My Unionville Beaver kit came from ECMC on Prince Edward Island...