Greetings.

I wanted to capture some of my experiences putting together my WH Ultimate with a BME 50 in case they are of interest or use for any other Ultimate owners out there.

At the recommendation of Tom Fawcett, I'll be putting these observations in a this new thread (he pointed out that sometimes long threads can become hard to get through).

Interested parties should know that there is a very useful build thread done by Ken Bryant (with excellent contributions from a great community of fellow Ultimate owners) here: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2965626/tm.htm

So, its off to the workshop!

Misc materials/electronics:
Wildhare Hardware pack (a great deal for the price)
BME 50 with Pitts muffler
Hanger 9 mounts with SWB Manufacturing standoffs for the engine
Hitec 5945s for ailerons and elevators (overkill, but I would like to buy now in case I would like to re-use for larger airframe later) wih 1- 1/4 Airwild servo arms
JR 6011 for rudder with 3" Airwild Pull-Pull servo arm
Futaba R149 PCM (using Futaba 9C)
NoBS batteries for ignition and dual HD switches and batteries for receiver/servo power

Tom was extremely helpful on the phone and talked me through various hardware choices during the ordering process to make sure I would be getting what I needed.

My Ultimate arrived in a very sturdy box (a day earlier that promised) with no shipping distress. Some minor wrinkling in the covering to iron out and we were off!

The engine mounting instructions in the manual work just fine for the BME - I made up a stand off block and mounted the BME to the Hanger 9 mounts and attached it to the standoff block.

This method allowed the engine to be positioned to match the spinner backplate centered on the cowl. I then removed the cowl, removed the engine and the hanger 9 mount, while leaving the standoff block in place.

Just like Tom's instructions said, the standoff block made an ideal drill guide to drill the holes for the blindnuts.

My standoff block was 1 7/16" but the resulting gap between the spinner backplate was too much - no worries - the Hanger 9 mount is slotted and it is an easy operation to make minor adjustments to the location of the BME by adjusting the engine bolt locations.

I used the 1" - 1 7/16" SWB Manufacturing standoffs to get the optimum positioning of the engine on the Hanger 9 mount. The standoffs come with 3 spacers and you use the ones you need.

A drop or two of epoxy (or medium CA) on the inside of the cowl around the bolt holes proved to be very useful to ensure the holes did not get enlarged during the process of installing and removing the cowl multiple times. This is important as the position of the cowl is how the location of the engine and spinner backplate is determined.

Also, be very sure that all 4 bolts are used to fix the cowl in place - the cowl is flexible and not using all four bolts can throw things off during the cowl cutting and engine mounting process.

Next step - wing assembly! Before gluing the top wing together, you can take some guess-work out of your servo installation later on if you drill the exit holes for your servo leads now - you can align then with the servo lead tunnels easier before you glue the wings together. The bottom wings are already drilled with appropriate holes.

Wing assembly delayed by having to earn the daily bread - grrr...time to apply for that full-time R/C model assemblers position...

Assembling the top wing first. Instructions are straight-forward; dry fit first, practice clamping method, dampen surfaces to be joined; spread Gorilla glue, clamp (I'm using a combination of a small ratchet strap bought at Home Depot, a larger clamp and some catalogs to keep the wing flat as the glue drys. Check the joints periodically as some gorilla glue does foam out - a quick wipe with a rag dampened in acetone takes care of this just as advertised.

And what aircraft assembly would be complete without expert Q/C inspection??

Shhhh - don't tell anyone...I got to take most of the day to pretending to be an airplane assembler! Bottom wing was straight forward repeat of the top wing - test fit, glue, and clamp in place. While it was drying I moved on to the tail feathers. The instructions are clear - especially the measure 3x and cut once. I followed the advice in Ken's Ultimate build thread and used a piece of mason's string to find the mid point of the turtle deck for my measuring device. I found that a hot exacto knife is the bomb for making quick work out of cutting super-clean openings in airplane covering (I can never find the knife with the SHARP blade...). Mark the horizontal stabilizer and remove the covering and glue in place with 30 minute epoxy - Q.E.D.

After the horizontal stabilizer dried, it was time for the fin. Don't tell my high school drafting teacher (Mr. Workman) that I still have his (now modified) 45 degree triangle... The slot for the fin allows some postioning - be sure to measure it and get it centered with the fuse...since the horizontal stab is already centered (from previous) you can measure from wach tip of the horizontal stab to the centerline of the fin to make sure it is centered. Pin it in place with T-pins or tape it in place.

Test fitting the struts and the wing tabs. One of the struts needed some minor touch-up to better fit the curve of the wing.

Test fitting the wing struts. Saaaaay....starting to look like an aircraft might be coming into focus.

I"ve got my best crew working on mine to get it done. But they always want to take a cartoon break very 10 minutes.

Kids...tooo...cute...can't...move...

Did you decide to change engines? I see the BME with stand-offs isn't on there any more.

Sorry for the confusion - I took the engine off to make the fuse easier to move around and to fuel proof the firewall.

v/r

tom

Tom,
Are you using 4 aileron servo's or 2 and slave struts? My WH ultimate is just about done except for the aileron servo installation, I am using a 70cc FPE 4.2 on mine.
Dom

I would think that much power you would want 4 ailaron servos that would lesen the fluter risk.

I would like to hear how the 4.2 works though

Dom,

I decided to use 4 servos.

In Ken Bryant's build thread, Silversurfer has a fairly detailed discussion about slave struts and his approach to making sure that the geometries were kept even between the two sets of ailerons [ http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_29..._9/key_/tm.htm Post #: 212 ] that you may wish to review....fairly comprehensive discussion that you may find helpful.

v/r

tom

Alright...here we are with the setting up of the cabanes and struts. I decided to go for 0/0/(-1) incidence so I could take advantage of the top wing giving me a little longer before the stall takes over. The instruction manual clearly lays out the sequence and is straight forward. I read through it several times and referred to it often throughout the sequence to make sure that I did not miss something (I guess I have learned something over the years). First, attach the landing gear and the lower wing. Next, block up the tail until the stab is at 0 degrees incidence.

Next, I checked the incidence on both sides of the Fuse as well as out on each wing. I was very impressed - the bottom wing set up at 0 degrees with no adjustments. I made sure to follow Tom's guidance and recheck the stab incidence regularly to make sure that nothing shifted. It was true - the lower wing set up exactly at 0 degrees - very nice.

Next I attached the top wing and checked the incidence - wow, it set up right at -1 degrees. After double-checking the stab and lower wing one more time to make sure nothing had shifted...yup, the top wing was spot on. Actually the center of the wing was slightly less than -1, but I figured I could make that up when I attached the cabanes.

The wing tabs are only set in place during this process to allow for any neccessary adjustments. Since I had a handy drill extension, I used it to drill the tabs with the wings in place. Per the instructions, I worked on the bottom tabs first. The drill extension worked great. I decided to use blind nuts on the struts (the kit is supplied with lock nuts if that is your preference)...I installed the blind nuts before doing the drilling...lesson learned - wait until after the tabs are drilled. No serious inconvienience but I had to clean out the threads of the blind nuts after the drill bit bumped into them. After drilling the tabs, I screwed in the bolts and proceeded to glue in the tabs using thick CA per the instructions. Be very careful here - it is REALLY easy to use too much and permantly glue your struts in place - I almost did it - once on the bottom wing and once on the top.

After doing the bottom tabs, reassemble and make sure that everything is still aligned. Then do the top tabs following the same process. The instructions recommend substituting aircraft ply for the supplied tabs - I decided to use the stock tabs, but I reinforced the tabs with CA. Again, make sure that everything is dry before sliding those struts on (ask me how I know [X(] ). Next on to the cabanes. Dry fit. As per the instructions, I had to grind off some from the front and rear vertical cabanes. No big deal - grind, check, grind and you are good to go. Again, double check everything with the incidence meter and then grab the drill and let fly! Next, on to the hinges.

Based on a couple of lessons learned from Ken Bryant's build thread, after I took the bottom wing off, I reinforced the former in front of the bottom wing hold-down bolts with some triangle stock and also used some balsa to build up the area over the wing hold down blind nuts.

I used Gorilla Glue for the hinges. I tried the technique of using the masking tape to keep the foaming glue off the wing, but it seemed to me to take as much effort as watching the hinges closely and cleaning up the excess as it appeared. Per the instructions, I glued the hinge points into the airframe first.