Wing came off clean at least...

I am resisting putting a 3-axis stabilization system on the Big Stick, in part because there is really not a place for it, its a very stable flier, and I like having some planes without it. But today made me rethink that.

Took her up for a flight, and on the first landing a brisk wind, about a foot off the ground, the left wing dipped suddenly, struck softly and came right off. Clean. Off. No damage to the fuse, which humorously continued along on its way for about 30 more feet. The wing did split along the center seam on the underside, pulled the fuselage wing attachment block off cleanly, and broke off the leading edge tip that secures it to the fuse, but there is no other damage to the wing or the servos. It yanked the servo wires out of the receiver, and tossed the receiver* from the fuselage breaking off the side of the receiver next to the plugs. The wires all survived, nothing parted or pulled out from the servos, all the servos work and the receiver works. Basically, wing only. It is easily fixed, but I want to also make the seam stronger.

*I noticed the receiver was missing when I got home and was looking to plug the wires back in and it wasn't there. I drove back to the field and found it half way between where the wing had landed and where the fuse ended up.

That's the wing block attachment dangling from the back of the wing. The aileron servo wire extensions were pulled right from the receiver.

You can see the plastic end of the receiver is gone. It works fine.

Drill and battery pack is my favorite workshop weight. I gapped the crack and packed it with epoxy.

After laying down the fiberglass. Underside where the crack between the halves is. I epoxied the halves back together by opening the gap on the bottom, let that dry an hour or two with the weight on it, then laid three layers of fiberglass and epoxy thinned with alcohol out 1 inch out either side from center.

A little over 1 inch wide on the topside. I can't say how far down toward the top of the wing the split between the wing halves might have gone, so I decided to lay 2 layers of fiberglass on the top too. I have a couple of days at work, so I can let it completely dry. I will sand them down smooth and re-cote or paint them on Wednesday.

And with that I reset the Crash Clock.

And I am okay with that...

Chasing Daylight

Went out to Joppa Hill this afternoon and took her up, only to have to land because a women's lacrosse team showed up for practice. Came back a couple of hours later and got in a flight before it got dark enough I couldn't see her orientation and landed.

Tomorrow.

Waco Maintenance

The grass at the Joppa Hill Field has always been hard on my planes, in particular the landing gear. Today I had to repair the wheel pants, and re-install the rudder. The latter was a bit of a surprise as the bulk of the vertical stress from the tail gear is on the fuse, but the tail wheel gets banged back and forth by the clumps of grass. I think that yanks the tiller and stresses the rudder hinges.

As seen earlier, the wheel pants take a beating.

Repaired the rudder, removed the wheel pants.

Rebuilt both. The port one broke in half, and the other was splitting. just finished repainting them.

I frackin' hate the Rustoleum rattle can spray caps. it took a lot to get it to spray. i just bought a bunch of replacement caps on eBay hoping that helps.

I noticed a crack in the cowl. The muffler header is apparently right against it and its cracking.

This bears close watching. Not quite sure what to do about it. Notice the grass stains on the muffler... cutting grass just taxiing.

Today I also ordered a smaller bullet hub for the prop from True Turn. I think it will look much nicer. Can't wait to get it.

She sounds amazing, I wish I could capture video of her in flight. The sound is so scale its scary.  She has so much power I flynher mostly 1/4-1/2 throttle.

Wheel pants...

They never survive the grass.

Flew the Waco several times this morning, and she flew great! But the thick clumpy grass tipped her over a couple of times and created some tricky take offs and landings. Eventually one of the wheel panta craked off, and the other just cracked. I'll repair them, but suspect I will eventually have to just remove them.

Tactic Servo Snafu

The recently maidened Hobby King Sbach 1200mm is grounded since I changed the servos to the new Tactic TSX10. The included servo arms are probably common in length, but they are narrowed at the end. I needed to drill the holes a bit larger, at the last hole but this made the material too thin for my liking. These were not going to work. Searching on line gives some conflicting data on the spline, but I think they are all Futaba 25T, same size across all the servos but the TSX5.  I had ordered Futaba Micro arms, but they are too small, so I think the data is correct that the standard size spline for the Futaba fits all of them. I will be ordering a set tonight...

Sukhoi Flies Stabilized and Waco Aileron Rods Installed

This morning I took the now HK Orange 3D Stabilization equipped 10cc Sukhoi out for its first flight with the system on board. I wasn't sure how she would fly with the stabilization on board.

She flew just fine! I turned the pitch and roll gains down a little and will fly her again later to see if it needs further adjustment. The higher gain caused a little stiffness in roll initiation and some pitching up in final approach. At some point the damn tail wheel tiller failed again. So when I got home I figured out a way to take a short nose gear tiller arm, put a wire on it with a Z-bend secured with wire ties and shrink wrap along with a touch of CA. I think this is it, I think this solves the problem for good.

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I also finished the aileron connectors I made for the Waco. The horn failed on the right lower aileron due to the bad geometry creating intense leveraging stresses that pried it loose. The ones I had were the wrong length for the new connector horns I had installed on the lower ailerons to change the geometry to something more linear. The movement is still not entirely balanced, and I am not sure why; I suspect its because the upper horns are still curved so there is still some curvilinear geometry.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to flying her in what I hope is her final engineering, so I can get on to just enjoying flying her.