Originally Posted by gunradd

Looking great! Its a real easy plane to build. I am glad you are showing how easy it is to do the glass work because it scares allot of people away from these kits and into ARFs. But its real easy to do.

I disagree Ed about the deans. Every BVM plane out their including mine uses deans and pulls over 100 amps with no problems. But this argument will never end.

Try and do panel lines on the wings they make a huge difference and dont take to long to add at the end.

I'll definitely have panel lines. I'll do a vid on them when the time comes to demonstrate how easy they are. This is my second fiberglass project. The first was an AH-64 Apache which had lots of curves. That was a great introduction into the art of glassing for sure! It's nice that almost all the glassing on this plane is on flat surfaces!

Here's Episode#8. Enjoy!

Yellow F-16 Build #8 (9 min 39 sec)

Video is set to private bro.

Originally Posted by gunradd

Video is set to private bro.

Fixed! Sorry gang... this is the cursed video. Thanks Gunradd for the heads up!

like the added comedy

Here is episode#9. I made it this far without any major hiccups, but I ran into some trouble on the rudder. Nothing major. This is what these videos are for: so you can learn from me the good and the bad. So on with the vid!

Yellow F-16 Build #9 (9 min 59 sec)

Check out the vid to see what I've been doing. I decided to take a step back and focus more on the rudder. I got in a hurry and now I'm fixing my 2nd mistake of the build.

YA F-16C Video Update #1 (3 min 44 sec)

I got a little bit more work done on the "new" rudder. I bought a belt sander for this task and let me tell you it was well worth it!

I found that one of my issues with the rudder travel was that the hinges on the vertical stab were not aligned on a common center line. I was using the seam as a centerline and it was a pretty dumb thing to do. I primed the trailing edge of the vertical stab to hide this seam and it made life a lot easier. Also, the hinge tool I was using to find the center doesn't seem to work well on tapered objects.

YA F-16C Video Update #2 (3 min 7 sec)

Here's another update:

YA F-16C Video Update #3 (4 min 49 sec)

Looking good! Make sure that the servo and rod for the rudder will still work with that peice on the torq rod. It is very tight in thier when you are using a solid rod.
looks like what you got will work. My hands are to dam big lol I had to cut that back peice off.

I am still tailheavy on mine . I am still moving it a little forward every flight. I talked to charles at yellow and he said he would move it up at least an inch from the instructions. I am at 3/4 of an inch now and next flight will be at about an inch. I will let you know where I end up at.

Iv been watching closely, please keep the video's coming. Iv got a Yellow F-18 to build soon.

Simon

Update #4: I think the torque rod modification will work out great. The arms line up perfectly with the pre-drilled holes on the torque rod. The dimensions are almost identical! All I had to do was bore out the center to the same diameter as the torque rod, flatten a spot where the set screw seats and voila! So far there doesn't seem to be any clearance issues, even when the vertical stab is mounted on the fuse. Take a look:

YA F-16C Video Update #4 (3 min 54 sec)

And now a detour from the rudder/vertical stab. Behold the landing gear. I'm going to disassemble them, clean with alcohol, then use self etching primer before final white paint

Landing Gear #1 (3 min 28 sec)

you are moving right along! All you really need to remove is the air cyclinders and then tape off the nose gear oleo. But if you do take them apart do it over a clean area to make it easy to spot those tiny little c clips. Man are they hard to find lol. I love the gear on this plane. And charles at yellow has all the parts for them in stock if you break something.........dont ask how I know

Originally Posted by gunradd

you are moving right along! All you really need to remove is the air cyclinders and then tape off the nose gear oleo. But if you do take them apart do it over a clean area to make it easy to spot those tiny little c clips. Man are they hard to find lol. I love the gear on this plane. And charles at yellow has all the parts for them in stock if you break something.........dont ask how I know

Funny you should say that. I "tested the waters" the other day and took the nose gear off. I heard something hit the garage floor and spent the next hour on my hands and knees looking for whatever it was (it's really tough when you aren't sure what you are looking for...) It ended up being a small metal spacer for the nose gear. Phew!

So yes, I will be disassembling the gear on a white cloth for sure. I will also thoroughly sweep the garage floor BEFORE I start.