Well couple of weeks ago I started to work on a new project. It's DG-600 Evolution by Multiplex. This is the Carbon Master Edition which incorporates a lot changes to original release. I've had this plane stored for about 6 years. Though I don't need another addition to the fleet right now, I thought I'll work on it little bit at a time and not having a deadline to meet, it will be a slow, fun build. Hope to have it ready for the late winter/ early spring flying season. **Click on this link to see the rest of the build**

New way of joining the wings and the fuselage. The steel rod is floating and doesn't transmit flight loads to the fuse directly. Four smaller steel pins do that. Getting this assembly to line up has proven more challenging than the traditional style. Got to be dead on with the wing to fuse mate up with the fore/aft, up/down positioning and angle of incident settings in one shot. Hope it all comes out OK. We'll know more tonight when the epoxy cures.

I had a delay in installing the wing servo installation. The airtronics 141 servos which I designated for the wings were too big for the aileron servo wells. I had to order new thinner servos, HS-85MG+. In the meantime I trimmed and installed the canopy, made stand offs for the elevator, rudder pushrods and potted the multiplex connectors. The past couple of days I spliced in the wing servos and I'm done with the aircraft wiring. Wing servo's are now installed and waiting for the silicon to dry. Next is installing wing control horns, making pushrods, painting the canopy, shimming the tailplane for proper decalage, adjusting the cg and lateral balance and programing the radio.

So I installed the servos, installed the threaded control horn at the perfect angle for ailerons and flaps and waited for everything to dry. Next day I removed the tape applied at the factory to release the flaps and aileron surfaces from the fixed portion of the wing and could barely move the surfaces down! Maybe 1/4" tops. Now I know the CME edition uses a live skin for hinging, primarily silicon, but why could I only move them up,but not down. Maybe the silicon bead is too thick and I have to scrape most of it off, not a fun job. I did notice that the wing is covered in one piece, including the surfaces. After a lot of head scratching I decided to take a chance and cut the covering at the hinge line, maybe they didn't push the surfaces down when covering the wing and it was causing a lot of tension when pushed down at the hinge line. The problem with that is I may cut into the silicon bead and completely remove the hinge. Anyway this was way too much resistance for the servos and it would never work this way anyway, so I decided to start cutting the aileron hinge line very carefully on the left wing only. If that was successful, then I know the covering was the culprit. Used a very sharp blade and very shallow angle and very little pressure and started to cut the covering. By the time I got to the end of the aileron hinge line, the aileron just flopped down.! Yeah. It was the covering. I proceeded and cut the other 3 surfaces and they all now move freely. Next is to study the new radio's manual to figure out the crow (butterfly) set up for landings.

All the radio equipment has been installed and radio programing done. Just got to remember to do the fail-safe programing before first flight. Last bit of airframe work is to make sure the stab has the proper decalage by shaping a plate, provided in the kit, to a shim. That's a lot of sanding and measuring, that's all, but very crucial. Still got to paint the canopy frame. Still not too happy with the fit. I put the plane together to check how square the fin and stab are to the wing and get a feel of how much nose weight to add.

Setup the plane in the garage and affixed it so it doesn't move and measured the decalage angle of the stab. The manual says 1.5 degrees. As measured, it's currently 2 degrees off. So I put a plywood plate between the fin top and stab and kept measuring it, removing the stab, removing the plate, sand a wedge, install it all back on and measure again and repeat.............. Did that a number of times and I think I just got it right.

Never could get the canopy to fit just right. Spent way too many hours on this part alone. Finally decided to screw the front of the canopy down (not my favorite way) and modified the rear canopy plate. Canopy in now painted. A few fuselage stickers have been applied and the battery and receiver have been permanently installed and tubes for the 2.4ghz antenna have been installed. Elevator and rudder surfaces rechecked and adjusted for friction free and proper movement specially after installing the decalage plate under the stabilizer. The only thing remaining on fuse is adding the right amount of nose weight to obtain the proper cg. Still more work to do, mainly many small things, but getting close to first flight. Unfortunately we are getting into the non-flying season, so it may have to wait till early Spring.

I haven't been working on it continuously, knowing that the weather for first flights is months away, but chipping at it now and then finally got her done. Now I just have to wait for late Winter/early spring time frame to test fly her.

Sean

Maiden flight was last Sunday at the slopes of Los Banos Reservoir. Lift was strong and the plane flew solidly. No problems to report. I have to remember to add elevator compensation in the programming for crow activation. All pics by Martin (RCG: MAVA)

Very nice build and maiden. I'm thinking of building the same model. Have you flown her much? How do you like it overall?

Thanks, Mike

GOPRO 2 & BERGFALKE 1.wmv (4 min 7 sec)