Originally Posted by wheelspinner20

Mark, how far south of Toledo is the field where you fly?? I wouldnt be opposed to a road trip if I know there is going to be that many wings flyin.!

Pat

Pat,

We are located in Urbana, about 2 hours directly south of Toledo via I-75 to SR 68.

Google Maps Link

http://www.flyurbana.com/

Ok thanks Mark, thats 3.25 hrs so maybe on a sat or sun, if its for the whole day, it will be worth the trip. Assuming you would welcome a visitor.

P.

I'm building my Assassin right now, and it's my first combat plane. I have two questions that I haven't found answers for in this thread:

1. When you paint, do you paint over or under the laminate? I have no painting experience.

2. The formica square can affect the motor's thrust angle depending on whether you push the leading edge or trailing edge flush with the wing. The change can be +/ 5 degrees or more. What's the best technique for ensuring the proper thrust angle? And what is the proper thrust angle anyway?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Done Crashing

I'm building my Assassin right now, and it's my first combat plane. I have two questions that I haven't found answers for in this thread:

1. When you paint, do you paint over or under the laminate? I have no painting experience.

2. The formica square can affect the motor's thrust angle depending on whether you push the leading edge or trailing edge flush with the wing. The change can be +/ 5 degrees or more. What's the best technique for ensuring the proper thrust angle? And what is the proper thrust angle anyway?

Thanks!

Not sure what you mean about the location of the Formica but I mounted flush with the trailing edge where the two half's meet. The motor mount should mount flush also.

Originally Posted by Done Crashing

I'm building my Assassin right now, and it's my first combat plane. I have two questions that I haven't found answers for in this thread:

1. When you paint, do you paint over or under the laminate? I have no painting experience.

2. The formica square can affect the motor's thrust angle depending on whether you push the leading edge or trailing edge flush with the wing. The change can be +/ 5 degrees or more. What's the best technique for ensuring the proper thrust angle? And what is the proper thrust angle anyway?

Thanks!

I painted the wing first, then laminated. I used a technique used by ritewing to give the wing a coat of 3m90, then paint, then another lighter layer of 3m90, then laminate. Since I couldn't find 3m90 in my country I used Ados F2 (which is similar to 3m77) which never seemed to dry, and I also used it way too sparingly. As a result the laminate stuck but comes free when I crash. I can iron it back down again but it never seems to stick as well. I suggest using the 3m90 which you will be able to find as you live in the US. There is actually a small discusion two pages back, post 2097. As for the formica I think that I sort of bent the wing a bit so that it was flush both sides but really it won't matter because you can just bend the motor mount anyway. My motor mount bent foward when I nose dived into the ground but I just bent it back again. This is why Lee chose not to use an aluminium motor mount as you can't bend it to change the thrust angle.

Originally Posted by wheelspinner20

Ok thanks Mark, thats 3.25 hrs so maybe on a sat or sun, if its for the whole day, it will be worth the trip. Assuming you would welcome a visitor.

P.

Pat

Our club always welcomes visitors. AMA membership is required for flying since the property is city owned. We have a few events a year that include lunch, dinner, tour of the Champaign Aviation Museum... Maybe dinner in the Champaign Aviation Museum...

Originally Posted by Done Crashing

I'm building my Assassin right now, and it's my first combat plane. I have two questions that I haven't found answers for in this thread:

1. When you paint, do you paint over or under the laminate? I have no painting experience.

2. The formica square can affect the motor's thrust angle depending on whether you push the leading edge or trailing edge flush with the wing. The change can be +/ 5 degrees or more. What's the best technique for ensuring the proper thrust angle? And what is the proper thrust angle anyway?

Thanks!

Line the motor mount up with the angle on the bottom of the wing. the motor mount is bent at 90 degrees so it is easy to check to see if it is bent. As was mentioned we got away from the aluminum and even went to a heavier gauge stainless steel so the mount is as indestructible as the plane.

DC:

1 - I painted the outside of the laminate on my first wing (Titan). Looks nice, but the paint has a tendency to get scratched, etc. I've had to touch it up several times. BTW - I only painted the top of the wing. Paint will not hold up very long unprotected on the bottom. This time (Assassin), I am leaving the wing white, but using decals underneath the laminate and holographic tape outside of the laminate for color. Hope that helps.

2 - On both the Titan and Assassin, you are correct in that there is a curve in the bottom of the wing and the formica does not sit flush.

On the Titan, I used contact cement around the edge of the formica and Gorilla glue in the middle. The contact cement allows the formica to be pressed against the wing...thus removing any gap around the perimeter. In the center of the formica piece, the Gorilla glue expands, and fills the center gap. Worked well and is solid.

This time, on the Assassin, I used contact cement around the perimeter of the formica and hot glue in the center. I replaced the Gorilla glue with the hot glue so that I could goop on the hot glue to fill the center gap, but didn't have to worry about the Gorilla glue foaming up and seeping out of the edges. Worked well...seems to me a little easier than the Gorilla.

Steps:
1 - Line everything up and draw a guideline around the formica plate.
2 - use contact cement and place a 1/4"-1/2" band on the foam (inside your lines) and on the formica plate...and let the contact cement dry. (do not mate them yet)
3 - heat up the glue gun while the contact cement is drying
4 - when the contact cement is dry, quickly glop enough hot glue in the center of the lines on your foam and then press the formica piece down so that the contact cement grabs.

The contact cement offers an instant grab on the foam around the edges of the plate. The hot glue takes a little longer to grab, but oozes a little and fills the gap under the plate.

BTW - I position the formica plate, so that when viewing from the top of the wing, a 1/8"-1/4" of the plate pertrudes from the back between the triangle area created by the wing halfs. I found that it sits better this way and gives me a little more flexibility when mounting the steel motor mount.

Hope that helps. Then again, you can just follow Lee's queue on the videos and knock that sucker with hot glue, press it down, and be done.

For less experienced wing flyers it would be nice to have a 2 piece tool for incidents involving hard nose-ins. One piece would grab or clamp on to the edges of the long bottom portion- and the other would grab the back vertical portion of the angle with 12" handles so that one could more easily bend the angle back to 90 deg. while isolating any force to not include glue or screws to bottom of wing. or even put force on motor which can loosen set-screw/collar shaft joint.

Ive looked at doing this several times but lately have not had use for it because flight time has improved my skills enough to avoid nose-ins (knock-on-wood) lately.

Originally Posted by Lee

I always get excited when a new group starts combat. We fly combat every time we fly out here. Most of us have other planes too but they don't get much airtime once combat gets in your blood. When the call of COMBAT goes out everyone launches and joins in. We even combat at night with lights.

Combat flying is a much more social event. What makes combat flying different is we are all trying to fly in formation together at the same time in order to get the maximum number of hits. Rarely does a plane get hurt by making contact and most of the time it can be flown out of most mid air combat hits.

Before we got planes that could handle the combat we tried to stay away from each other, now we all arrive launch and leave together and there is a lot of laughing and cheering. One flyer told me today he has a plane that has over 400 hits that is still going strong.

Lee

Kinda like Mathew 18:20, "When two or more are gathered...combat happens"

Originally Posted by wheelspinner20

For less experienced wing flyers it would be nice to have a 2 piece tool for incidents involving hard nose-ins. One piece would grab or clamp on to the edges of the long bottom portion- and the other would grab the back vertical portion of the angle with 12" handles so that one could more easily bend the angle back to 90 deg. while isolating any force to not include glue or screws to bottom of wing. or even put force on motor which can loosen set-screw/collar shaft joint.

Ive looked at doing this several times but lately have not had use for it because flight time has improved my skills enough to avoid nose-ins (knock-on-wood) lately.

Wheel spinner here is talking about the motor mount when it gets bent in a hard nose in.

Mathew 18:20, "When two or more are gathered...combat happens"

lol

cliff, you must have one of those new revised standard rcaviation versions of the new testiment that is so popular lately...lol

spar position:

beginning of thread - 6.25 - 6.5
first video - 6.5
instructions on the website - 7

which one is it =P

The ailerons or whatever you want to call them look like they're too long and you call tell the 2 pieces where ones one and snapped in half so the edges are rough. They are super thin and are not cut on the ends like in the video either.

What gives?

Originally Posted by PnoT

spar position:

beginning of thread - 6.25 - 6.5
first video - 6.5
instructions on the website - 7

which one is it =P

The ailerons or whatever you want to call them look like they're too long and you call tell the 2 pieces where ones one and snapped in half so the edges are rough. They are super thin and are not cut on the ends like in the video either.

What gives?

I made both my wings with the spar at 6.5 inches. My son built his at 7". They all fly great so it doesn't matter but I found the same issue with the instructions.

The ailerons need to be cut to length. One of the videos shows how to do it. You also need to add extreme tape and laminate to make them more rigged. Once done they will still flex but I didn't have any issue pulling high G moves.

Originally Posted by Mike Freas

I made both my wings with the spar at 6.5 inches. My son built his at 7". They all fly great so it doesn't matter but I found the same issue with the instructions.

The ailerons need to be cut to length. One of the videos shows how to do it. You also need to add extreme tape and laminate to make them more rigged. Once done they will still flex but I didn't have any issue pulling high G moves.

I must have missed that video for cutting the ailerons somehow... argh.

I'll go with the 6.5 i guess and see how it turns out as that should be made more clear and not in 3 different spots =)

thanks!

EDIT*

Found the 2 second part in the 3rd video on cutting them but what's odd is they are 2.5 inches thick on one end of an aileron and 2.75 on the other end.

I guess you can't be specific when building these as there's just too much info out there that's not spot on.