*Flight of the Phoenix*
 

This is a build I did elsewhere.. Was suggested I bring it here..
Sooo,, here it is...
Ok,, So I was recently asked about a project I have had on the
back burner for a while.. So I thought I would put it out for you
people to scrutinize..
I decided to call this plane the 'PHOENIX' in reference to the old
movie about the plane that crashed and was sorta rebuilt to fly
again to save the people who remained..

Life for the Phoenix started out as a Hobbico ARF, the Twinstar..
I aquired the bare airframe less anything that was not balsa.. No
fuel tanks, no landing gear, nothing.. Just a well used and abused
bare airframe.. Battle tested,, ohhh yeahhh...
Having done a couple of Twinstars in past and knowing what I
would like to see different I decided to make those changes on
this one.. As silly as it may seem I wanted to keep a close
resemblance to the 'ARF look'.. Some of the changes I wanted
were to loose the blunt nose, increase fuel capacity, increase
rudder authority, increase of speed ability, and loose some of
the 'cookie cutter' look... I know, sounds ambigous, keep ARF
look but make less cookie cutter look.. But it isn't really...
So, the basic plan is to extend the nacelles to accommodate
larger fuel tanks and be able to set motors at zero downthrust
and at zero outthrust..
Rather than increase rudder size move the rudder hinge line
forward which is more effective than making a larger surface..
Then extend the nose and make more pointed... Part of the nose
extension was to also move nose gear forward as well just for
the heck of it.. Additionally the elevator was made anew and was
enlarged slightly towards the center leaving the ends same size..
With things being extend forward there is a major shift in the CG
(center of gravity) so it needs to be compensated for.. I prefer not
to add weight for balance so this necessitates moving some items
needed for a plane towards the read.. A couple of changes along
these lines are make a battery box behind the trailing edge of the
wing and move elevator servo to rear of plane from the center
area.. Having done some of these changes it still up'd the total
plane weight so some lightening was done along the way.. Then
there also needs to be access to things as nose gear in case
adjustment is ever needed, access to battery, and access to the
rear mounted elevator servo.. Hatches were made to facilitate
access these things..
Ok, lets take a peak at what we have going on now...

( questions and comments welcomed)

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here is a shot of the bare nose of the Phoenix..
The red line shows where the original plastic nose would be..
The line where the extension joins the fuse is where the nose
gear used to be..
As noticed the nose gear is slanted now where prior it was
not..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

This is my favorite control surface... The RUDDER ..
There has been approx 15% of the vertical removed from the
front and the hinge line has been moved forward.. Of course,
this means the rudder was extended forward as well and as
seen a counter balance incorporated to reduce servo load..
The rudder is attached via three Robart pin hinges..
In this pix covering with MonoKote has been started ..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here is a pix of the hatch to access the nose gear steering so
adjustments can be done when needed..
It has wooden pins in front and attached with button heads in
the rear as shown..
The large looking gaps are for room after the bottom and the
hatch are covered they will fit well..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here is a pix of the hatch for the battery box..
The rear has hardwood pins into the rear wall of box and the
front is attached by buttonhead screws going into hardwood
blocks.. This is in case of a possible hard landing..
There is a hole in the front wall of the box at the top for the
power wire to exit.. This location was chosen so to be sure
the wire does not interfer with the aileron linkage..
Helps to plan ahead.. ;)

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

The elevator servo is mounted on cross blocks which are
attached to lite ply that was added to that area inside the
fuselage.. The servo was installed into the rear of the
fuselage to help shift some weight towards the rear of the
plane.. An additional benefit of doing this is having shorter
linkage so less likely for linkage to flex under load.. It also
allows the linkage to be totally inside the fuselage so it can
not be seen..
In order to access it for adjustments, to get to servo arm,
attach linkage, or to even replace if ever needed the servo
there is a hatch on bottom of fuselage as shown.. This is
mounted with two light wood dowel pins and has a single
buttonhead screw attaching it to fuselage..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here is a basic overview of where what is..
The red line shows size and location of the battery box..
The green shows where the elevator servo is located..
And the blue shows the oringinal size of the rudder in relation
to what it is now..
The orange show approx how much was removed from the
vertical fin...
The large holes showing were made mostly for access to the
steering and rudder ny-rod installation with the added benefit
of less airframe weight..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Now lets the landing gear as it will be necessary to do so
balancing of the plane can be done..
As I didn't get the original landing gear had to make it.. Not hard
to do.. Just get some 5/32 K&S wire stock from your LHS and
bend away..
First set desired height.. Make sure there is prop clearence..
As the nose gear was already made I used it for the basis of
where the height would be plus I wanted to allow for a 12" prop..

Here is one side done and a wire stock to make the other side..

1- Just put in vise, bend, then hammer corner to make it less of
a radius..
2- Now for the second bend ... With each bend do a trial fit to be sure it does fit..
3- Making the second gear is easier as basically copy the first one..
Even so, do a fit just to be sure...
4-And here we are, all the bends and cuts done...

Now that wasn't hard,, was it ... :D
And then mounting hardware..
The wheels have to be mounted to our newly made landing
gear..
Here we see a nylon collar from local Ace Hardware to keep the
wheel from binding on the small radius of the bend..
The brass collar with set screw from Ace will hold the wheel from
coming off the landing gear..

And here we are, babys first step... :D
So after spending a little time and very little funds we have
made the main landing gear for the Phoenix..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

We know we will be adding more power than what the plane
was designed for and knowing the horizonal of the original
TwinStar is a weak point on the plane we have modified it to
make it stronger and more effective..

The pink line shows where the original hinge line was.. Just
making the elevator a larger surface does not really do a lot..
But to make it larger while reducing the horizonal area by same
amount makes elevator more effective..

When the hinge line was cut in the trailing edge was replaced
with dense balsa.. The forward area of the horizonal also has
had dense balsa cut in to strenghten it so that it does not fold
or flutter..

Robart pin hinges were used to secure elevator to horizonal and
to allow elevator to deflect up or down to about 50 degrees..
Will it ever see a 50 degree deflection,, I highly doubt it.. ;)

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Now we are going to attack the wing, the final frontier ... :)

As depicted in this picture is how the original nacelle looks
and how the modified nacelle looks..

The red arrows show the original lenght of the nacelles...

And the orange arrows show where the motor mounting
rails are pin'd ...

The new firewall is a lot thinner as can be seen here.. As the
motor will be mounted on 'rails' there is no need for a motor
mount and no need for the heavy duty firewall.. Now the firewall
is basically a thin plywood former within the nacelle ...

The 'forward extensions' are tight grain balsa and the motor
mounting rails are attached in a way to make the extensions
stronger.. More of an insurance thing as the motors will not be
mounted that far forward on the rails..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

After doing the mods to the nacelles I made a facia out of 3/32
balsa to put over the outter side to both add some strenght and
make it look better by no chance of any work showing thru the
covering.. While working on the modified nacelles the original
balsa facia was sanded rather thin so adding a new facia over
the original one that is now a lot thinner will strenghten some..
Thin CA could have been used as it would have soaked into both
pieces of wood however I elected to use Titebond even tho it
takes longer to dry.. This was done as the Titebond is every bit
as strong as CA in this application plus allows for a little flex, not
to mention less cost.. There is no weight difference..

As can be seen with the outter facia there is no chance of any
work showing after it is covered...
Then we have a pic of the finished nacelle with the 10oz
fuel tank installed... Yes, the rubber bands stay on fuel tank..
Additionally there will be a piece of soft foam on top of tank
to insure it stays put as the nacelle cover is rounded and could
allow fuel tank to move around..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Ok,, so lets flip the wing over and see what has happened
down there...
Opps,, there is a dang 22x10 Zinger prop in this pic... What
in the heck does a 22X10 prop have to do this the Phoenix
you ask....
Welll,, lemme tell you.. The original Twinstar uses a two part
block for the main landing gear.. The long flat part which holds
the gear to wing and the vertical block to keep it from rotating..
In many cases the vertical block splits or breaks off.. So in giving
this some thought I was wondering what wood I could use that
was strong as heck but not as heavy as a brick... Taa Daaa...
A Zinger prop comes to the rescue...
The pic isn't real clear but the vertical block is a very snug fit
to the long horizonal gear block and it is also has epoxy holding
it to the rib which is lite ply..

(disclaimer: There were no live or usable Zinger props used in the making of this segment )

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

The original Twinstar has decent axial control, or better put,
decent aileron control.. but that is about it,,*decent*...

As I wanted more axial control, very effective flaps,, and the
original ailerons are left uncovered on the ends they soak
up fuel and become nasty,, I decided to slap on a larger aileron
as shown in first pic ..

In order to have aileron and flaps (flaperons) seperate servos
have to be used...
To do this the centered mounted single servo mount was removed
and lite ply was used to make a new mounting for two servos..
Not shown int his pic but to be added later is a balsa spacer
between the two servos.. This is for more of a 'wire loom' to
keep two throttle and two aileron servo wires from getting into
the aileron linkage... They were mounted in stock location so
to hide the servos...
The aileron servos are back further than the original so there
will be less linkage length so less chance of linkage flex.. Where
the original servo was on the CG both or the replacements will
be behind the CG... Remember, we have larger fuel tanks and
larger motors in front og CG that need to be compensated for,,
so rather than add weight to balance lets just move items during
construction to compensate.:D

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

In this segment we shall do a little covering of the wing now that
we have all the wood work completed... I prefer to install the CA
hinges prior to covering onto the wing so I can make sure the
hinge is thourghly glued in.. Thin CA can be put on the outside
and from within the inner wing area to insure this.. Nothing like
having a hinge pull out at high speed.. [X(]
As we want to match the way we cover the tail in the beginning
of this series here is a pic of the basic look we are after.. :eek:

Ok,, as I dislike having seams when I cover I try to use one piece
in as much of an area as possible.. Now true, there are sometimes
that having seams just can't be avoided, however, this is not one
of those times..
So measure out the piece of covering needed.. In this pic it shows
the basic piece and with the first cutout for the nacelle.. Carefull
alignment is required so not to make the nacele hole too large
which would require 'filler' pieces (seams) nor too small or the
overlap will show..
When the nacelles were covered there was a small overrun left
going onto the wing surface.. So when the wing is covered the
cutout needs to only be to the side of the nacelle..
Is it worth all this trouble... Only you can answer that for yourself..
For me, welp.. Lets see....

The tighter the
covering is kept during covering the less shrinking will be
required and the more opportunity for future shrinking of
the covering as needed in time with age and use..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

So now the added trim/design is ironed on.. Yeahhh...
After getting all edges trimed and ironed down, making sure
all joining seams are totally sealed by lightly running iron over
them then a heat gun can be used to shrink as desired..
Because the covering was kept tight during the covering process
very little shrinking with the heat gun was required... :D

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here we can see the wing, allll done... Took a while but came
out rather decent if I say so myself... :eek:

As this is one of the original Twinstars that had plastic tips
and I wanted to keep the ARF type look, the tips were put
back on.. Tips are on, ailerons are secure and blended to match the
tips,, nacelles painted and fuel coated and all covering done..

So its about time to toss on some motors,, huh... [>:]

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Here the design can be seen..
Try'd to match it out to how the tail was done..
The one dark green strip will be carried over into
the fuse which will be covered in another segment..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Covering the fuselage of the PHOENIX...

I lost the pics showing so will text it to give you the idea how
we got to where we are now..
First, we laid covering over a side, ironed it on for about three
inches at the tail area.. Then we pull covering very tight towards
the front.. The tighter the covering is kept the less heat gun use
required and better it comes out.. While pulling it to the front
very tightly about an inch or so is ironed down.. hen the top is
pulled out from fuse as iron is run along edge to hold it down and
same is done for the bottom, keeping it as tight as possible..
Trim off excess from top and bottom leaving an ample amount of
covering so we can wrap the nose.. Now for the fun part.. Pull the
covering extremely tight around the curve of the nose towards
the other side running iron over the center to hold it.. Now trim
off excess and iron down edges.. There needs not to be much
to hold it so only an inch <approx> was wrapped around the nose..
Now cover the same on other side leaving the nose section undone
for now.. Take some 220 sand paper and lightly sand the piece of
covering from the other side to knock down any of the 'creases'
and to get a rough surface.. Then pull final piece of covering around
tightly and iron on, do final trim, and then work out the edges so there
are no rough edges left..
Now go take a break 'cuz this was nerve racking. [:@]

Ok,, break over.. Back to work, Bucky.. Time to attack the top..
Again we will lay out the covering and iron down a couple inches
in the tail area first.. Then pull the covering extremely tight while
running free hand in a forward motion to insure it is very tight..
Tack iron it to the windshield area and work way down entire
windshield.. Then pull remainder across the front/top ironing it
down on the end of nose.. Do initial trim of the excess from the
entire top covering but leave a decent amount at the nose area..
As part of the bottom to the nose gear will be covered with this
material go ahead and wrap it around nose and pull tight over
bottom area to be covered, leaving 'nose ends' undone.. Do the
final ironing of this area and do trim.. This piece will be wrapping
over the two side pieces that we have overlapped and sanded
already.. This will totally lock all the covering together so not to
come undone.. Take the covering that is remaining, pull outward
tightly and iron down, working all wrinkles out, on both sides..
Now do final trim, than finish working any wrinkles out of the
edges.. Doing compound curves as this nose does make for extra
scrap but is worth it with the final result being a clean smooth
finish...

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

So you thought you were alll done covering the fuselage, huh...
Welp, the bottom still needs to be covered.. The bottom is going
to be done in white to keep with the theme of the design.. This
will be a little easier than what was already done .. Lay out the
covering again starting at the tail and working forward keeping
it very tight... Part of this piece will be going over an open bay
where the elevator servo is accessed from and also over the
battery box.. After securing it at the forward most part pull out
covering from sides and run iron over edge to hold sides.. Lay up
and do trimming to where color separation is to be.. Trim and
iron down of course working out all wrinkles.. Sometimes a wrinkle
may get ironed in.. How in the heck does one get it out.. I found
by using a piece of thin balsa as a heat shield laid up to the line
on the new piece that a heat gun can be used with caution so
that the original covering is not heated to any appreciable extent..
Just gun it, then iron it out, wrinkle free covering...

Time to do the frontal area, bottom.. This is a little tricky as again
have to deal with compound curves, and, getting a color line on
the side.. Remembering I do not care for same color seaming..
I started at the rear are where leading edge of wing sits, ironed
in down for about an inch, then pulled it very tight to the front and
tacking it down at the rear of the nose gear opening..

After getting the piece tacked down had to do cuts to keep
covering from wrinkling over itself on the frontal curve as it is
brought up onto the sides for the color trim.. Iron it down, and
running gun over it where needed to get out wrinkles making sure
to run covering along entire side of nose gear opening..
Now the openings are cut out and covering is folded into the
openings after trimming off excess..

Now for the hard part.... Covering the simple flat hatch covers..
Waiting to do this till after the bottom is done the scrape from
doing the bottom can be used to do the hatches..

Now that the basic covering / colors have been applied time to
do the trim pieces..
First the windshield / windows are laid down.. This gives a good
idea where and how to lay out the coloring trim to match wings
and tail..
The windshield and windows were done with black monokote
scraps.. [8D]

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

But after a long time doing,
all the covering and trim is done..
DONE, I tell you .... [sm=bananahead.gif]

So here is the PHOENIX, ready for hardware installs..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Installed the motors, did throttle linkage and did
the exhaust anodised green ... To be totally different
I mounted Tiger Shark .52 's ... Zero outthrust and
about 1½ downthrust... Currently mounted are 10x6
Master Airscrew three blade props ...
Ought to be fun,, .52's on a .25 size plane,, huh... [sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

Made nacelle covers out of fiberglass.. Then painted white..

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

As I spend over a year doing this on and off.. I did take it with me to the Multi Meet
in McDonough Ga this past summer <06/2005>.. That was the first time I had even
fired up the motors... However, gremlins prevented it from taking to the air at that
time..
Here are some pics of the Phoenix and current stock Twinstar...

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

During the time doing this project,, with many interuptions,, the one question
has always been.. " When will it fly"...
Welp,, kidz.. On 11/11/05 it took to the air... Yup.. I *finally* flew the Phoenix... :D:D:D:D

I even took some pics... However,, being a cloudy day, flying off a grass field,
and starting to get dark,, the pics were not so good.. So I will do more another time...

Take off was in an instant... Was a little squirrly,, got it under control,, and just
started to trim it out when one motor died.. CRAP !!!
Much to my surprize,, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be given zero out thrust
and being highly over powered...[>:] If it would not have been so windy I probably would
have continued to fly it on one motor but I took the easy way out,, Yes, I brought it down..

So as short of a flight as it may have been,, *FINALLY*,, the title of this thread is true...

The FLIGHT of the Phoenix... [8D];):D

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Well, Robby, since your first post about this project was made "Over There" on January 16, 2004, all I can say is
It is Effing Well Time !!!

Bill.

RE: *Flight of the Phoenix*
 

Hey, I remember that site. It's McDonough, GA.

Can't wait until next year. Flaps and I are planning some new twins for it.