After building my first Super Sky Surfer from Banana Hobby I got to enjoy some great flights and awesome footage from its ~4 hours of flight. Then it decided to commit suicide and release the main wing from the body and fall 400ft to its death reaching 60-70mph before hitting nose first on asphalt

This Thread is focused on the second build and everything I wanted to do to the first after its wreck.

Lets start off with the First build...


EPIC Flight!

SSS FPV - Sunset over Oak ridge (9 min 15 sec)

And the Final footage Before that terrible day...

Super SkySurfer Lights (still under construction) (1 min 38 sec)

Super Skysurfer DOSD+KK2.0 (5 min 41 sec)

The Failure...

So...
Let the Second Build Begin!

Ill add the Pics for now and then Add details soon...

Reinforcing the Wing area...
I started by cutting a tiny groove around the wing area and under the body, Then I cut open the Motor area to install the 55A Turnigy Trust ESC and cut a air scoop hole. I then reglued the halves together, wrapped 3 strands of paracord strings (the inside of paracord) into the grove, and then soaked in gorilla glue. After that It got covered in Fiber tape, A light coat of Epoxy, and then 3mil vinyl.


Fixing wiring...
The wings have two servos already, and then when you add wiring for lights it would be a mess to connect at the field (and its too big to keep in one piece) So I used 6 position Latching Connectors From TE electric to connect all servos and light controls.


Making it shiny... without LED's
The Decals were cut from 3M™ Scotchlite™ Reflective Graphic Film Series 580 E and 3M™ Scotchlite™ Reflective Material - SOLAS which has parts covered in red permanent marker.


Bringing some Light to the Project...
I ran some wiring out to the tail, wingtips, and Flood lights for plenty of lighting. The LED Strips are (RED) (BLUE) (GREEN) And the 3W White LED's are found at Home Depot and are Philips 2.5-Watt T3 LED (you can also see here that I moved the Servos To the tail since the stock Push rods are so terrible.)


Getting Ready for FPV!
The Pod was hand built from 1mm CF from Hobbyking and uses two Servos a turnigy 180degree and a Turnigy MG90S. The Cameras are two PZ0420's One with the Stock 3.6mm lens and the other with a 25mm MTV Lens that will be a Zoom.

Place holder...

Did you relocate the elevator servo as well?

Originally Posted by RandallJ

Did you relocate the elevator servo as well?

Yes, it is on the other side of the rudder servo. The linkage was also flipped over so it is a "Pull" for up ele rather than the stock "push" for up ele...

Chris

I'm subbed!! Great work so far!!

Originally Posted by mattthomas78

I'm subbed!! Great work so far!!

Thanks!
I have it about ready for flight...

Sort of wish i got pics or video of replacing the pushrods with the wiring...

I used the pushrods to pull the shielded servo wire to the tail.

Chris

Looking sick!

very sick.... now i'm gonna have to plan on just catching up to this build

lol...
Step 1: get your Dragonlink setup...

After that your close!

Originally Posted by chanyote66

lol...
Step 1: get your Dragonlink setup...

After that your close!

it looks so peaceful in it's box besides... i just HAVE to see just how far my DX8 will take me! 3km as of friday, gonna shoot for 4 tomorrow

Originally Posted by polix

it looks so peaceful in it's box besides... i just HAVE to see just how far my DX8 will take me! 3km as of friday, gonna shoot for 4 tomorrow

12000' in cold weather was my best with the dx8, now if only my DL would get back to me.

Originally Posted by Beerwiser

12000' in cold weather was my best with the dx8, now if only my DL would get back to me.

in that case i feel bad... mine's sitting here right in front of me begging to be installed

but my spotter was complaining that he couldn't see my plane too well, so i painted it bumble bee on the bottom and fluorescent on the top, check it out, i totally think chanyote66 should go with my painting scheme. If anything it's extremely annoying to just about everyone the fluorescent doesn't really come through well in the photo, when we took it out in the sun today it was almost blinding

Nice!

Chris,

Could you post a picture of the LH rear (ele linkage) as well? Love the build. Inspiring me for my next SSS build. Also, in regards to the CF FPV tray, why not saw off the "instrument panel" portion on the front that angles up and flush it out all the way to the nose and make a simple flat tray? Would give you some more room up front if you needed it. Something like this: