Rebuilding Cornell, what, um, #5?

Today I restructured the internal main spar of the wing and a part near the trailing edge at the fuse, strengthening them and then recoting them. I forgot to take pics, but it was pretty straightforward. I had to remove cote and sand away the field repair I had done, then run some popsicle stick across the section between the wing stringers. Came out pretty good, actually! I also recoted the area around the wheel well I had to fix when a previous hard landing wrenched the gear. In reinstalling the gear I gave them a little more forward sweep to help with the tipping problem on landing.

Just to the right of the star is a long patch along a section, and then a small square at the leading edge all the way right.

New cote around the wheel on the left.

Forward sweep of the gear.

I did some repair work on the hatch, though I have a new one coming. I think I can actually get this one back up to speed. I fabricated a forward bulkhead as you can see, and CA'd some cracks. I will use some packing tape to seal over the cracks after sanding them, and the hole, then spray paint it gloss black.

I ended the evening with removing cote over the damaged sections of the fuse, including one contribution by a naughty, naughty cat, to expose the damage.

The fuse was fractured through and through here, where the crack is. I repositioned it and CA'd it, as well as associated cracks elsewhere along the fracture line. This is post CA.

The battery section and motor mount were sheared off, and I will be repairing them tomorrow. Here's the forward section of the fuse. 

The floor of the forward fuse is fractured. The front "wall" is broken.

Another view of the cracked bottom of the forward fuse.

The right horizontal stab, post a previous repair, cracked again.

The rudder is cracked at the lower opening of the cote, and the top is, well...

My darn cat must have chewed... I was looking at this wondering how the heck the damage got there from the crash when I realized this is a post-mortem injury! Damn it, Neko!  Its a good thing you're cute....

So I will make these repairs and start on the battery box/motor mount.

It's in the box!

And I am keeping it that way! NIB, baby! My Eflite PT-19 Cornell from Chief Aircraft came courtesy of my friend in the Brown truck!

Piratey Squadron adding another Stearman?

I loves me a Stearman... and Alien Aircraft has a new 863mm one coming out on Sept 16th! They haven't announced the price, but looking at their other models the kit should be reasonably priced at less than $100. After the Eflite Pulse XT, I think this one in yellow is next!

Where am I going to put all of these planes?

UPDATE (9/16/11@1845 hrs) whoa... nice, but it turns out its a build, not an ARF. I have a psychological issue flying planes I have spent hours building... I will get one though, perhaps my first build, eventually.

Hot diggety-dog!

I found one, I really, really found one! I search regularly for the Eflite PT-19 450 ARF to have in reserve as its been discontinued and I can't find it, but I found one at a fair price! I found it at Chief Aircraft and they have one in their Florida store. Psych! This one is staying in the box for as long as it needs to, until I can no longer get replacement parts. Awesome!


Its been 20 minutes and they haven't called to say, "Oops, its a stock error." Yay!

Come in, Major Tom!

She was in a nice descent on base and I started my turn to final. And then she wasn't there anymore. We all stood there kinda stunned. The Cornell simply stopped flying and just as suddenly was gone. Major Tom stopped responding to Ground Control...

I had been toddling around in a holding pattern waiting for Greg to bring his Ugly Stick in for a landing. He cleared the threshold and I turned to base. I was just starting a turn to final when she just disappeared. She had plenty of speed, and hadn't done anything quirky. Her battery was fresh, she hadn't been up long (still over 4 V on recovery). She disappeared in a hurry. I was dumbstruck. A lot of people were watching and it was clear I wasn't doing anything other than a nice gliding turn. When Kenny, Susanne and I found her (using the motor sound to track her), she didn't look too bad. The wing is a little tweaked. The motor mount and battery box are bits and pieces, but I think enough remains to rebuild it. I won't make the mistake of angling the battery as I did before. If it's too much trouble then dammit, I'm buying another expensive fuse! She just flies too sweet. I won't be using the AR6100E I had in there... curious as she wasn't more than 500-600 feet away, and I've never once had an issue with this receiver. I may put an HK Orange Receiver and Satellite in her, since I have never had a problem with one of them... Don't know. We can't think of anything else it might have been. Its nigh on impossible to stall this plane.. There was nothing else wrong that I can see so far. Has to be the reciever.

Bummer.

UPDATE (9/10/11@2057hrs): Ordered a new hatch and noticed that the cowl's will be available in Jan 2012!

UPDATE (9/12/11@0800hrs): Dick Clarke pointed out that I am using a Spektrum AR6100e, a park flyer receiver. I need to change these over to the new AR600 series full range receivers. I have flown this receiver without problems at great distances, but I wonder if the odds eventually caught up with me, even though it wasn't all that far away?

Love in an elevator

The Stearman got a few work overs today. The wing tab on the right was a bit long with all the CA repairs and the wing wasn't fitting snug. I had been looking for an excuse to redo the tab, so today I snapped it off, Dremel sanded a 45 degree slant on the wing side and an opposing one on the tab, and CA'd them in place. I also shortened it a mm or so. Fits very snug now. I was doing this before heading out to the field so I was rushed and realize I didn't take any pics. I started this afternoon working on the right horizontal stab and elevator. In cartwheel landings it tends to take a hit, and is cracked with a subtle but clearly evident flex. I opened the cote and CA's the cracks, and added an angled cross spar. Does the job perfectly. Re-coted and done. She flew marvelously today with these two repairs. Landings were sweet, even in a light crosswind.

The cote removed. The screw point at the cracked sections.

Match stick wood spar CA'd in place. Re-coted and looks as good as new!

Avast there ye Piratey Fella!

Today was an interesting day...

It started with the discovery that someone I thought was a gentleman and a friend was really a bully. Turns out he reacts like this when he doesn't get his way, I am told... We had the Piratey Flag for the Pirate Squadron flying below the American flag. I came out of the clubhouse having done some solder work, and he acosted me in front of a large crowd, including Bob Miller (see below), asking me if that had been my Pirate flag. I said yes, and looked realizing he had used past tense. He told me I could find it in the garbage where it belongs and proceeded to berate me angrily for flying it. I pulled it out of the trash, a bit bewildered why it merited such a spirited yet childish reaction. I calmly though shocked asked him why I deserved to be treated this way, and that I thought him a reasonable man, and was bewildered by this very unreasonable action. I knew this was not the place for a confrontation, but am saddened that the other members present we're cowed by this man and said nothing. I folded it, put it away, and let it go without further challenge, apologizing for any offense ("Apology accepted!"). I was ashamed for Mr. Miller, who had not visited our field, his field, for many years. I let the bully be. A member of Mr. Miller's group told me moments later they thought I handled the situation well, noting "You can't let the bullies win." Even they knew the situation for what it was. Unfortunately, the bullies are winning... if I had done this to him, I would have been told to leave and never come back.

But, it was another day with flying conditions beyond belief! Cool temps, light breeze. And I did get to meet the Bob Miller, for whom our field was named in respect to his efforts in establishing it. He is retired and lives near his family in Dallas. It was nice to meet a legacy who has given us this great place to play.

I flew my entire hangar of aircraft today, sort of, if we don't count the Super Cub which Ron helped me troubleshoot today. We think we are getting close to solving whatever the problem is. He took it up as we tweaked it, and when we did get it off the ground I am glad he was at the controls as it was really unstable. He managed to get her back down. Made some tweaks, but ran into a battery problem. My 3S 1000 mAh battries, some of the oldest and highest cycled batteries in my locker, would charge, but not discharge fast enough. No power. So I ended up retiring them one by one today. On my way home I dropped them off in the recycle bin at Home Depot. A couple of "corrections" to make to the Cornell and Stearman, but other than that, the planes handled the day well. And so did the Pirate flag, which, being a gentleman I will no longer fly on the flag pole, but reserve the right to display on my bench! Avast ye bully, hands off me property!