Beautiful Maiden!

Beautiful day to maiden a beautiful aircraft! Its my practice, as it is of many who trained me, to allow someone else to maiden my newly built aircraft when I can, since I am still a bit of a novice pilot. This way if something goes wrong its the wand and not the magician. Today I nervously took the Eflite Pulse XT out to BMF to maiden. I asked Dickie Ober, our club prez, to take her up for me. We checked her out, and then he took her out to the flightline, shortened a bit while the scars of the recent repairs heal. There was no wind, beautiful cloudless sky. He powered her up and with a smidge of back stick she lifted off clean and sweet. She flew so incredibly well it was mind-boggling! This is what you get when you purchase a well made kit by skilled designers, follow their lead and install quality electronics. She was sharp in her maneuvers, speedy, great vertical, and calm on takeoff and landing. He took her through mid and high rates, and we trialed the flaperons. They worked smoothly and had a sound effect, but I think a bit more is in order. I had -25% and -40% dialed in, but reprogrammed it at the end of the day with -40% and -50% which I will try tomorrow. I flew her myself for the remaining 2 flights. I am so excited and pleased with this, my favorite plane!

Oh, and I managed to get my Tail-Hook Ticket punched! There was a yellow ribbon about 6-8 inches off the ground cordoning off the repaired runway which is closed. The approach to the remaining runway to the south requires an approach right over the patch. I brought her in low, thinking I would clear the tape, but at the last minute realized I wouldn't... I could power up and hope to clear it, or land and roll into it. I chose the latter and she touched down, rolled out snagging the 2-wire! Not bad!

It was a lot of fun, the couple hours I was out! I flew the Stearman, amazingly well behaved though she tried to tip stall on landing twice, and the Trojan. All in all a great day!

We hung out in the south pit since the northern end of the runway is still closed. Jerry, Joe, Bobby and Ron in this pic. My Stearman, Pulse and Trojan on my bench with my IS in the background.

Dynam C-47 Skytrain/Dakota

As an aviation buff, one of my all time favorite aircraft was the Douglas DC-3, and its modified military variant, the C-47 Skytrain. I have been chewing on getting the Dynam version from Nitroplanes since I got into this hobby almost a year ago. Venom makes one, quite similar though larger with more scale features, but way, way overpriced, and it doesn't have the engine cowls that look more scale. Last week I finally did buy the Dynam plane, and yesterday I started on the build, finishing it today. This was one of the easiest planes to build, and it really surprised me how nice looking it came out!

The build was so easy I skipped doing the build shots. There is a very good set of build videos on the Nitroplanes page for this airplane which I found very useful. A couple of issues. I chose not to do the steerable tail wheel mod as it was going to be a pain in the butt to drill a hole in the top of the lock button for the castering assembly inside. It would have been nice but I didn't want to risk damaging anything (because for some reason there are NO replacement parts available for this plane...). The elevator is a bit shabby. I epoxied the uni-hinge control horn attachment where it joins the elevator, and that should do the trick. Also, the wire connector to the control horn is just barely long enough, and was challenging to get tight enough not to slip. Tossed some Locktite into the wire assembly to help keep it from slipping. The bottoms of my two wing halves were different shades of gray, so I painted the entire bottom surface with gray auto primer, looks awesome. I didn't glue in the panel that covers the wing joiner and aileron/ESC wires since I am expecting at some point to have to replace the aileron servos. I just pushed it into place and used the Normandy stripe stickers to hold the edges in place. Its snug and shouldn't go anywhere. They tail numbers are screwey... on one side it ends in 6351 and on the other it ends in 6531. QI a little? I added 3/4 oz of weight to the nose to get an ever so slightly nose heavy CG. Lastly, the darn thing was glossy shiny... I covered it with a dusting of clear enamel and that took the edge off nicely. I wanted a used, dirty look. I am quite happy! She will be flying 3S 2200 mAh batteries, an AR6000 (I know, its a parkflyer receiver, but I accidently gave Kenny my last Orange/Satellite that I had set aside for this plane).

A ginormous box...  I got the ARF, so the radio etc was not included.

Three metal plates, 1/4 oz each, for CG corretction. The upper two plates are the canopy magnets. The black velcco came installed in the battery compartment.

I did the blade tips. Sweet details! I want to enjoy her for a bit before I challenge her with a maiden flight! 

Windy Day at KAMS

Our field at BMF remains half of what it is as the recent repairs have to be allowed to settle in. So Kenny Chandler and I visited KAMS Field in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and flew on a very windy cross wind day. I flew my Alpha Sport 450 and my T-28 Trojan, and he flew his Parkzone Super Cub, Striker and his 3-channel  Thunder Tiger Corsair. He flies the Corsair on full rates with no expo... made even more challenging by the winds.

Our station.

Kenny strapping on the wing. He had forgotten the wing bolt, so we used large wire ties and later rubber bands to strap the wing on.

Kenny and his Thunder Tiger 3-channel Corsair.

Wire ties holding the wing on.

Completing the Pulse XT

Pulse XT build Part 1 and Part 2 outlined the first couple of days of the build of my Eflite Pulse XT 25e. Today I installed the aileron servos and their control rods, installed the wing and set up the flaperons. Ran her up and holy guacamole, has it got some scary power!

Aileron servo and the under-surface of the wing.

Balance is just at the forward CG line.

Underside.

Underside of the attached wing.

The ESC is on the right, the battery on the left. Tight fit. The red velcro is to allow me ot pull the battery out.

The name plate on the side of the cockpit.

She is all set for her maiden flight! 

Some screws for the 25 motor mount (I used longer screws for the 32 motor mount), There are 4 1" square pieces of hardwood, with holes in each corner. They don't show up in the instructions, and I have no idea what they are for...

Kenny Chandler and I set up shop at the KAMS field in Ocean Springs today. Way too windy... Flew the Alpha Sport, and the newly reconstructed Trojan T-28. It was challenging, but fun to finally get to fly after almost 2 weeks. Tomorrow I an thinking about heading out to BMF to see if I can fly off the runway or not. As soon as I know the field is open for sure, I'll take the Pulse out to BMF for her maiden. Tonight I will start work on the Nitroplanes C-47 Transporter.

Eflite Pulse XT Build Part 2

Part 1 done yesterday. Today I wanted to get the wing epoxied together, and get the cowl and air vent (not pictured) done.

After taping the adjoining edges with painter tape, I used 60 minute epoxy on the wing joiner, and then on the adjoining wing surfaces. I will remove the tape for nice clean surfaces. I used rubber bands to force the wing halves together, and the clamp at the end to ensure they join flat and flush. The wing joiner inside the wing keeps the front part flush and level. 

52" of lift surface, baby!

I read a post by one of the designers of this plane in regards to suggestions that the wing needs to be strengthened at the joint. He said that when the wing is joined in accordance with the manual (attached to the plane), some did not come tightly together, held apart a bit by the screws. He recommended NOT doing  it per the manual, but joining them off the fuse ensuring they join tightly. He notes that the joiner when properly epoxied joins each wings main spar into one large spar, and that the wing is solid and strong. I am still debating what I am going to do... In the meantime I used my CA edge method and cut the fiberglass cloth to fit, in case I decide to do it. The piece on the left is cut, the right one is ready to be cut. I found that the cloth did not stick to wax paper I set up the CA on. Nice.

I did decide to fill the landing gear box with Gorilla Glue. Its an expanding polyurethane foam glue that is as strong as, well, a Gorilla. I flooded the box with about 1/4" and you can see the hump of the foam through the middle hole. The two pegs are bamboo pegs I screwed into the landing gear nuts to keep the glue in the box and out of the screw holes.

Canopy is in place, landing gear reattached, sweet!

Tomorrow I will install the aileron servos and if I decide to glass the wing, I'll do that. Otherwise I'll be attaching the wing, completing the build.

Eflite Pulse XT Build Part 1

My Eflite Pulse XT arrived yesterday from Horizon Hobby. Today was a busy build day, and per usual, its always something. A couple of minor techincal glitches, overcome by some MacGyvering, and all's done but the most critical part, the wing.

Das box!

Das parts!

The first step was cutting off the extra 1/4" of axle, to allow the wheel pants to fit. The axle comes long so that the float modification can be attached, but if one uses the wheel pants instead of the floats it needs to be shortened. Easy peasy. This was a lot more sparkly than the photo lets on! (I like sparkly...).

Posts on the Pulse XT 25e discuss the weakness of the landing gear box, between my fingers. This one is rather built up, so I wonder it Eflite already addressed this problem? I had planned to glass this, but I can't see how I would or how it would add strength... 

But I did epoxy all the joints in the area, here the underside (also did the top, into the battery box as well). I think this will be helpful.

Landing gear and tail assembly comptleted!

To help support the model during the build I cut one of the boxes from the packing with the cutout seen here.

Into which the fuse fit nicely! This proved quite useful! I am so clever...

Elevator and rudder servos installed. JR MN48's. I wish now I had mounted them towards the center, rather than to the outside of the cut out. The geometry of the control rods would be a little betteras they come into the compartment a bit more along the midline. I may redo this, but it is really minor and moving them will just weaken the tray.

Control rods completed, servo's centered and servo arms trimmed. The Spektrum AR600 DSMX reciever can be seen here.

I had to re-engineer the motor mount. In this pic you can see that the HURC Power Up 32 motor's mount holes don't line up with the Eflite Power 32 mounting holes pre-set in the firewall. I gave this a lot of thought, and rather than build a new firewall, I opted to grind and drill the X mount to accommodate the original mount holes. I am not sure if it will vibrate out of center... but it seems secure and come out properly positioned and centered on the cowl. You can see that it is mounted slightly to the aircraft's left. It is also angled slightly right. 

The re-engineered X mount.

She went together pretty well! The ESC is ginormous (Emax 70A) and the 4S battery fills the battery compartment. Its a snug fit. I'll post a pic tomorrow. I also got the aluminum spinner and it looks sweet! That's a 13 x 6.5 APC eprop on there. Tomorrow the wings and canopy and she's all done! With the Power 25 setup she is wicked fast. With this Power 32, she should be a rocket!  

The Hangar 9 Sopwith and the Dynam C-47 Transporter arrived this afternoon. I think after I complete the Pulse I'll start work on the C-47. Its huge... 

Not sure what the status of BMF is. I wonder it they've completed the work. I need to fly something!