Bill, I did pretty much as randy.. I made a connection through the rear of the nacell to the wiring tube. Remember I used only the normal throttle to control all 4 engines so I did a lot of soldering and heat shrinking. I tried to have NO connectors in the wing. But while on the topic.

I do TAPE each flight control connector that is not directly plugged into a receiver. Ex.. throttle, ail, and flap all plug into extensions inside the fuse. These are taped before each flight so that vibration will not cause them to unplug.
Just another tip..

While we are on the subject of secured connector, I have a sad note to pass on. I lost my C-130 due to a failed battery connector. I had more than a dozen flights, most uneventful on the airplane. Performance was great. But at the last air show of the season and the first better cold day in northern Oklahoma, the 130 went down. After four laps around the pattern, I lost control signal and it flew another 200 yards rolled over and sprialed into the ground. The fuselasge broke into three pieces and the center section of the wing was distroyed. Maybe I can rebuild it, I still thinking about it. After evalulting the crash, I normally top off my batteries before flight at these air shows and the battery would not take the charge. I pulled to wing off and removed the battery and connected it directly to the changer. I found that the problem was at the connection on the charge not the airplane. As I was pluging in the battery to the charger I noticed that a pin on the connector had push out. I reset the pin and reinstalled the battery. Prior to this all my connectors were taped and secured. So I belive that when I plugged in the battery connector into the switch harness maybe the pin did not seat correctly.
We have been flying these air shows for more than five years and you are always rushed, tensed and stressed out. This does not make for a good flying day but the spectators love our performances.
I have the crash pictures posted on our club web site www.okbarnstormers.com on the C-130 project page. Oh well, the other guys are coming along well with their projects so we will have at lease one in the air show.
Check those connectors!

Oh man Sorry for the loss of the herk. sniff

Gunny

Rich -What a bummer! Good luck with the repair if you decide to go that route. I checked out ya'lls site, very intresting. Has me rethinking a couple of points on my upcoming Herk project...

Thanks Beplo, more material to feed my addiction!

Has anyone used(or thought about using) onboard glow in their herks? Any thoughts for or against? []

Ohhh Rich, Sorry for the loss of the herk!!!

Enrique

..........Has anyone used(or thought about using) onboard glow in their herks? Any thoughts for or against?

Well, here's my take on that. I thought about installing the on board glow, but the wiring would have become more complex. I put my faith in the O.S. .25FX engines instead. I fly from a grass field. I can run a fairly high idle on landing approach, so high that I'm not really worried about a flame out. My lowest trim setting on the throttle gives me a low idle, but I run high idle right through the approach and landing. So far, no problem. Also gives it more of a "turboprop" sound with the high idle when taxiing. I can easily take off at 3/4 throttle. That's on a 17# plane.

Sorry for the loss, Rich. That has to be a bummer.

Randy

Rich
Sorry about your 130 . We run in to the same problem about 2 months ago on one of the leads from the switch. even it look fine , it was bad. luckly we cought it before they flew the plane. Rich

l

Sorry about the loss of the Herk, I was impressed with your fiberglas work. Jim

Hey Guys, I haven't read all the post here but, I was wondering what kit this is your building and what is the size. Is it a tough build? Here is one I saw a Dayton DOGS flyin this year. 130some inches and 4 saito 91. man it was awsome.

Kelly

.............I was wondering what kit this is your building and what is the size. Is it a tough build? .......................

Cowboy,
There are a lot of different typed being built and contributing to this thread. I know there are at least 3 of the Quality Fiberglass kits being built, which is what I built. Also, the one you spoke of at the DOGS show must be a Jet Hanger Hobbies C-130 with a 133" wingspan, or one that was built from plans. Several people are building From plans, and a couple are scratch built. Some are Foam construction by Skip Mast Plans. Enrique is building one with a 13' span, and it's a beauty. We got a dukes mixture here.
As far as a tough build, I guess that depends on what you're used to building. I thought the Quality kit was a reasonably difficult build. But compared to what I'm into now, it's making that kit look like an ARF!
Still, I liked the Quality Fiberglass kit, 102" span, foam sheeted wing & stab, fiberglass fuse and vertical stab, fiberglass nacelles. The kit does not come with any wood, so you furnish your own.
I have lots of build pics of mine, should you be interested.
Randy

Thanks for the info Randy. Maybe I'll wait till my building skills get better.

Kelly

".............I was wondering what kit this is your building and what is the size. Is it a tough build? ......................."

You forgot about mine... hehehe! (haven't started building yet)

Palmer, 132" w/s, plans(scratch) built. Lotsa parts, but I wouldn't guess that it's a really tough build(we'll see! )Palmer also has two other sizes, one thats a 51.75" w/s, and one thats a 87". http://www.mag-web.com/rc-modeler/palmer/product.html

Hey Jimcork, are you still around?? I heard that a tornado went through Slidell the other day and was wonderin' about you.
Randy

You are right, a tornado did pass within a few miles of our house and did substantial damage to a subdivision. We were lucky it missed up. Thanks for asking,,

Glad to hear you're OK, Jim.
Randy

That's good to hear your all right Jim.
I'm back into building my c-130. Jim and Ryan, did you guys needed to add nose or tail weight and about how much?

Thanks,

Gunny

I had to add about 20 oz of weight to the nose. I put the battery for one of the flight packs in the radar dome (radome) and the 20 oz weight. I put a bulkhead in front of the fuselage to contain the battery and put a screw through the bulkhead. Then I molded lead to the correct shape and bolted it in. Without the nose weight it will sit on the tail,, almost anyway.

I built a cg machine like the topflite one but megga scale and used it to balance the bird to confirm the cg. I don't have specific measurements for the cg,, the machine is only accurate to about 1/2 " but this was not a big issue. When sitting on the main gear I can retract the nose wheel and the plane will still sit level so there is not enough weight to make the nose touch with the wheel up. If the nose wheel did not extend in flight I could still land on the mains with no damage to the nose. Hope this helps.. Jim

I didn't add any weight to mine, other than having the battery all the way forward.
Randy

OK. Very good.

Thanks guys


Gunny

Jim, your Hercules was made a plans, or kit?

Enrique

My plane was from a fiberglas fuse and foam wing cores that are available from Quality Fiberglas. qualityfiberglass.net

The plans? were basically line drawings that left a lot to the creativity of the builder. (At least in my opinion IMO). This is not a beginners kit. I am currently working on a TF Gold edition kit and feel very restricted building by following directions. [:'(] I guess I am just use to building from plans and making all the parts. This is not bad for TF,, and a begining builder, but tends to slow me down while building.

O.k. I've decided to split the wing between the ail. and the outboard flap. Why? A couple of reasons. 1. Able to transport the center section on my vans wing rack. (It was too short span wise otherwise) 2. Now doing so, I can make the third flap operational. Planning on a torque tube system for the 6 flap sections on one strong heavy duty servo in the center. I just could'nt see myself having 10 to 12 servos in the wing.

I know the flaps are not needed or even the outboard flaps, because of how well the c-160 model flys. But anyway, preliminary calculations are showing me to use 15 deg. half flaps and 30 deg. full flaps. +0 degrees -5 deg. (in other words no more than 30deg.)

Gunny

Gunny I did not use the 3rd flap on the removable tip section. But the 2 inner are functional. I use 50 % flaps for landing which is about 25 degrees and full flaps for take off which is about 45 degrees. I have started landing with 50% flaps because the plane doesn't slow as quickly in the flare and I get a smoother landing.

A warning on cross wind landings. If you have high crosswinds,, 15 mph + I would reco.. no flap landings. Also you are limited on crosswind cross control landings due to wing span and ground clearance. I have found that if you need to lower the wing and give opposite rudder you will be very close to the ground with the wing tip. Also once you have bank established and change rudder it will only change the yaw but not position of the plane over the runway. If you are off centerline and have max bank rudder will not get you to centerline as in a smaller model. Our runway has a safety fence and on my second flight I almost caught the fence trying to use rudder when close to the ground. Fly landings much like a 3 channel plane. You must be on centerline and elevator becomes your primary landing tool with ailerons only to keep the wings level is the winds. Rudder will only affect your yaw.

I would suppose a good way to practice would be fly a 3 ch. high wing trainer with no ailerons. Do this in crosswinds and it will be a good example of how the herk will land in cross winds. I am very cautious about cross wind landings. I flew in Mobile with 15 mph direct cross wind and have photos of the landing. You can clearly see the effects of the cross wind landings in the video.

If you fly in light and variable winds you will have no issue and can land with any flap setting you are comfortable flying. Happy Flying.. Jim

Thanks Jim for the inputs. Umm, I did'nt realise it, but actually there is'nt 3 sections of flaps on one wing half. Just 2, which now doing what I said earlier about parting the wing tip pannels between the ail. and flap section, I can make one longer flap and add a servo at the split like you did. Brilliant I tell you. I'm going to can the torque tube design. But since the flap now will be 18" long I will build up the flap in the traditional manner instead of a flexing piece of 18" long board.

Gunny