hugocraft
Jul 18, 2008, 06:25 PM
I've been around and flown full scale planes all my life and just got back into the RC world. This spring I got an Art-tech pitts and flew it with my old hitec focus 4 and well after flying that for 50 flights (which is still in great flying condition) I bought a Dx7 and the eflite Edge 540 BP 3d profile park flyer. I have a ton of flights on it and can do about everything with it now including sloppy rolling turns. But both are electrics and I fly sometimes at a RC field with glow planes and I’m I want to get/try glow out. So I just got this old J-3 Cub that dad let me cut down from the living room ceiling.
He bought it used about 15 years ago. He ran it a few times but never flew it since he had no RC experience and then it hung from the ceiling ever since. I bet the plane is at least 20 years old. After briefly leaving comments about the plane here is the list of things that I would like to do.
1. Use a heat gun to uncover the plane for damages or weak spots.
2. Add some nav lights, strobe, and maybe a wing landing light while I'm at it.
3. Remove the old O.S. FS-60 engine (3rd or last version) and go through it. Here is the tip I got "the only thing that might be wrong with it is the bearings. There are 5 of them. Two on the crankshaft and 3 on the cam mechanism. If you take it apart, remember the screw in the camshaft is a left handed thread. One of the bearings is an odd ball 15x20mm bearing. The FS60, 75, 80 and 90 all used the same bearings. They aren't hard to work on." Basically get it running.
4.To get it running I should remove the servos and things to remove the tank and probably should replace that and reinstall it.
5. Next is update it with a rx to use with my DX7 and rx battery. I plugged the old servos in the my old hitec focus four rx and couldnt get them to repond at all. I tried new servos and the rx is working but I couldnt get any noise or movement out of the old ones.
6.I got 4 new same size hitec servos that came with the focus 4 but they are 10 years old but are NIB. Either use those or get some new ones but thats more $$$.
7. Maybe add brackets so I can floats later on.
8. Recover it the Old Lockhaven Yellow since when dad owned a full scale cub it was the older darker yellow orange color. I don’t care much for the white with red tips. That’s the plus of recovering; the plane will look new afterward. The only covering experience I have is that I covered a guillows p-51 with coverlite microlite which you iron on like regular covering. Covering a cub should be the most simple thing to cover. All yellow and add the black lightening bolt and cub logo sticker so it should be good to learn with.
9. Last make it more scale as in find a cowling with the fake engine and eyebrows even if its just on the left side. Scale gear with cub caps and extra struts with the bungee covers. It needs landing gear fairings. It needs wings struts.
10. And that should be it.
Here are some pics of it. Any suggestions or input about my plan??? Or any info about the plane?? I have no clue what kit its from.
He bought it used about 15 years ago. He ran it a few times but never flew it since he had no RC experience and then it hung from the ceiling ever since. I bet the plane is at least 20 years old. After briefly leaving comments about the plane here is the list of things that I would like to do.
1. Use a heat gun to uncover the plane for damages or weak spots.
2. Add some nav lights, strobe, and maybe a wing landing light while I'm at it.
3. Remove the old O.S. FS-60 engine (3rd or last version) and go through it. Here is the tip I got "the only thing that might be wrong with it is the bearings. There are 5 of them. Two on the crankshaft and 3 on the cam mechanism. If you take it apart, remember the screw in the camshaft is a left handed thread. One of the bearings is an odd ball 15x20mm bearing. The FS60, 75, 80 and 90 all used the same bearings. They aren't hard to work on." Basically get it running.
4.To get it running I should remove the servos and things to remove the tank and probably should replace that and reinstall it.
5. Next is update it with a rx to use with my DX7 and rx battery. I plugged the old servos in the my old hitec focus four rx and couldnt get them to repond at all. I tried new servos and the rx is working but I couldnt get any noise or movement out of the old ones.
6.I got 4 new same size hitec servos that came with the focus 4 but they are 10 years old but are NIB. Either use those or get some new ones but thats more $$$.
7. Maybe add brackets so I can floats later on.
8. Recover it the Old Lockhaven Yellow since when dad owned a full scale cub it was the older darker yellow orange color. I don’t care much for the white with red tips. That’s the plus of recovering; the plane will look new afterward. The only covering experience I have is that I covered a guillows p-51 with coverlite microlite which you iron on like regular covering. Covering a cub should be the most simple thing to cover. All yellow and add the black lightening bolt and cub logo sticker so it should be good to learn with.
9. Last make it more scale as in find a cowling with the fake engine and eyebrows even if its just on the left side. Scale gear with cub caps and extra struts with the bungee covers. It needs landing gear fairings. It needs wings struts.
10. And that should be it.
Here are some pics of it. Any suggestions or input about my plan??? Or any info about the plane?? I have no clue what kit its from.