Return of the Sukhoi

The Sukhoi had a rough day, in part winds, in part poor pilotage. She landed unseen and hard, but belly down. Her landing gear were torn off, and they struck and dented the port horizontal stabilizer, and crushed parts of the underbelly framework. She's a good flier, and worth putting back together, and none of the damage was deadly. A few hours of work and she is back to near new.

I don't know how I did it, but as she disappeared over the ridge, I managed to get her wings level, nose at least level. The damage was surprisingly light.

The engine looks good. 

The muffler pipe broke off. The prop and cone are fine. I am thinking of returning to the two blade Master Airscrew Scimitar 14x8 as opposed to the triple blade 13x8 for no particular reason.

Internals look good up front.

Some frame buckling braced and fixed. In the foreground a cross member is missing, just aft of the battery pack. I put one in to stiffen the frame. 

Looking at the aft belly of the fuse, airframe on its port side. The frame here was broken up, cross frames gone and frames cracked. I would fix this thinking I could rejoin some of the longer stringers, but it looked like crap. Removed them and found the right wod to make it clean.

The port horizontal stab took a landing gear strut head on.

To repair this you have to cut out the busted section. I wasn't thinking about where the frame pieces were and lucked out, as there it is...

I CA in a couple of small pieces to support the cover balsa. One on top, one on the bottom.

You can see the two small supports, and a round dowl in the front. This will support balsa to make the leading edge, but itself will remain internal.

The repair patch in place and sanded smooth. I didn't curve the balsa, didn't feel like soaking it and working it. I just overbuilt it and sanded it down to shape. Works just fine.

You can see a small strip I added and sanded almost completely down to make the leading edge smooth and round.

I use a very lightweight silica spackle (plain ol' constuction spackle) to smooth it out.

Sand it smooth. Top.

Bottom of the repair. Same process as above.

Bottom finished with cote. I don't have any of the orange cote, so made the stab blak.

The top, nice and clean, perfect repair.

You can see the wobble in the aft belly, just before the vent at the most aft part of the fuse.  This was sloppy work, so I would remove it.

I found the right piece of wood for the underside port stringer, installed it (30 cm) and re-coted it. Looks marvelous and clean.

The new landing gear hardpoint installed. Made of 1/4 inch plywood. The back end has "teeth" embedded in the frame, the forward end is held in place with epoxy and those two screws. I thought I had pics of the hardpoint plate, but nope.  It is epoxied into place, with the teeth and the screws. This design "failed" appropriately in this crash, and works quite well.

And here she sits, waiting for the RCGF 10cc muffler from Valley View RC.

Once that is installed, I will fire her up and check the servos and electronics. She is a tough bird, this Sukhoi, and a favorite. Its nice to see her back on her feet.