Insanity...

is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I think it was Albert Einstein who said that. Well, yeah, I'm insane. Just before I left Gulfport the Hobby King Sbach 1000mm crashed, not so bad, fixed pretty quick. It did its usual, a dive of death from on high. Its done it before, and in the week before I left, it did it again. It was crushed, the nose shoved in crushing the motor box and caving in the firewall, bending the motor shaft, badly folding the gear, and crushing the cowl itself, fracturing it in three places pretty severely, and badly damaging the fuse in several places. Since I was moving, I piled it together and let them ship the pieces you can see in the lower left corner of this pre-move pic.
 
Its been laying in my apartment, the body in the lab, the wings under my bed, shattered. A couple of weeks ago I started reworking the frame. I had to rebuild the fuselage behind the cowl, the underside and back behind the canopy, recote it, and rebuild the motor box and the firewall. That took a cuple of weeks of slow work. I then rebuilt the cowl, using epoxy and Bondo, and sanded it down to the fiberglass. It still has some imprefections. I primed and repainted it in a similar, if not exactly the same pattern as the original. It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself! I am worried she's added some weight though.
 
Today I finished her. I drilled the new cowl mounting holes, lined up the motor, and drilled the firewall support holes for it. I found the motor shaft bent on the HURC Power Up 15 motor. It was jammed solid in the outrunner and I ended up having to cut the shaft at the top of the outrunner, and pound the other end out with a hammer. Replaced the shaft, rebuilt the motor, and installed it. Put the wings on after fixing some cote damage (minor, from the crappy packing job the movers did). I had to take the AR500 from the Hangar 9 60 sized Sopwith I have museumed. I would prefer a AR600 so I could prgram flaperons, but its what I've got. It took me a while before I realized it was an AR500 and not an AR600... when I couldn't program the left aileron I realized it (the Aux slot is actually Aileron, and acts like a Y with the regular Aileron channel.
 
Last time she seemed to fly well with 3S batteries. The 4S batteries give a lot more power, but the weight penalty bogs her down and she flies heavy. I have no idea why she cannot come out off some dives. Many people have found this fatal flaw, so its something about the design. The first time it happened to me I put larger mini servos in for the elevator, but that hasn't made any difference. I still don't know why... I will always fly her aerobatics high from now on.
 
I wish I had taken pre pics of the cowl and fram damage. Here's the FINAL rebuild. FINAL. I MEAN IT. This week, possibly tomorrow weather permitting, I will find out if she will die one last time... but then she's sooo pretty...
 
 

 

 

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