Steel Chin

The other day I lost control of my Eflite PT-19 Cornell in a spin and nosed it in hard. It turned the cowl into shattered egg shell, and the motor mount/battery box into wood chips. Today I began the process of rebuilding the nose. I decided to use a metal electric motor mount similar to this one, instead of rebuilding a wooden mount. Kenny Chandler had given me this mount several months ago for just this purpose. One problem now may be that instead of absorbing the impact by turning into chips, the energy may go back to the fuse and destroy it if it crashes again...

I removed what was left of the original motor box, and installed a header piece across the top.

I built a mount out of sandwiched popsicle stick wood. Trimmed it to fit.

You can see the top of the sandwich mount just over the battery. I installed the metal mount upside down to allow the back of the frame to let the battery pass through. This keeps the battery mobile for CG management.

Side view. I had to set the motor attachment part above the midline of the mount to keep the motor aligned with the cowl.

The ESC is installed below the motor mount. You can see the bolts into the frame I made (the sandwich frame above).

Lucky me, it lined up spot on! I really mean lucky... I guessed at where the mount should go on the front of the fuse!

This is the shattered cowl before repairs begin.

The top...

It was so badly shattered that I first had to CA and epoxy the breaks and cracks to stabilize it enough to sand it. I will let it cure overnight and tomorrow sand it down, Bondo it and if time permits, prime it and paint it over the next day or so. I think with what I learned working on Kenny's cowl this one can be resurrected too!

UPDATE (11/13/11): Checked CG today and I did have to pull the battery back all the way, and add 1 oz to the tail... Hate adding tail weight so I checked, rechecked and checked again. Put the weights as far back as I could.