@Blaze
There are plenty of replacement parts at Tower for this plane, but if you don't want them, I'll give you 10.00 to ship me the remaining undamaged parts! Sounds like that would be the hardware, decals, the main delta, 1 canard, 1 fuse half, 2 tail fins and the fwd and aft canopies. I don't need the motor.

I just recieved my firebat the other day and will be following your instructions. I see that you don't glass it first to make it stronger, Why don't you?

I know this sounds like I build to crash,but I have found with the more fragile planes, that you can cover them with packing tape and the are very strong and can withstand a very hard bounce off of the ground.. My formosa hit the pavement at about 20mph and all it did was scratch the tape..

Well, the whole concept of this build is to have a very light and aerobatic firebat with something of a 3-D effect. It has a very wide speed envelope. It's going to have a flying weight 12 ~ 15 oz, as opposed to the typical 22~24 oz firebat. This build barely uses any of the instruction from the manual. At this weight, this plane is fairly durable and very light on it's landings in comparison to the typical firebat that can easily break it's nose on a good landing. I am some where near or past building and experimenting with 20 firebats now, I have done everything from glassing to monokoting, .15 glow engines to light-stik motors, this is the electric version that I find most enjoyable, and the best low cost altenative t othe stock build.

good enough for me

I saw the Firebat sale when I went to look at the RV-4 kit, and bought both. Your approach sounds good. I can barely wait for more progress.

Len

Sorry for any delay, I am competing in a UAV project between some colleges, along with all the duties of a stay at home Dad. I am waiting for my GWS motor, thats the next step.

Motor installed

My GWS EPS 350 arrived today, so I took some time to install it!
In pic1, you see the motor mount stick installed. If you don't happen to have spare material that fits the gearbox mount, there are a few quick options. The lower fuselage spar that comes with this kit is the correct size, you could remove the portion necessary to create the mount stick or take it to the hobby shop to find a match. Some of my firebats came with 2 fuselage spars for some reason, so I used one of those. If you use some of the material from the fuselage, there will be an empty space when it does get installed into the lower fuse. That aft open area will be covered with tape or vinyl along with the rest of the lower fuselage, it's not a real weak point so it should be ok. The measurement of the mount stick length is 3 3/4 inches, if you notice there is a little ledge that acts as a backstop for the original spd 400 motor. The measument from the aft end of the mount stick to this ledge is about 7/8 inch. How that 7/8 came about is when the motor is pushed onto the stick, I hold them in place and position them so there is a 1 inch gap between the prop tip and aileron. Even at this gap, I have had a flexed prop strike the ailerons or tail on occasion due to a hard landing or crash. It's not a real problem, some lite balsa grafted and sanded to match into a spot that was chewed up by the prop is an easy repair to accomplish. I set mine up for a 9 inch prop, when the prop nut is locked into the end of the threaded portion of the shaft. The trough that the mount stick is epoxied to shouldn't need any shimming, you can add some down thrust if you wish, but I haven't notice any need for it. To check for correct thrust angles, look from the side and use the prop or spur gear or propshaft itself to ensure a parallel or perpendicular line according to what you choose in relation to the aft fuselage. With that done and making a note if shimming is needed, now look straight down and try to allign the motor with the side walls of the molded spd 400 mount area. Make some allignment and position marks for quick return when your ready to epoxy the stick into position. Up/Down and Left/Right thrust angles are fairly critical to pusher planes, they will cause the plane to climb or dive or the tail end to wiggle left and right. When epoxying the mount stick, hold it in position until the epoxy is cured so it doesn't move.
In regards to the 2nd pic, 3 inches has been removed from the aft canopy and will be shaped a little more later, 5/16 has been removed from the spd 400 mount portion of the plane itself, it's now almost flush with the spur gear.

THE 350 MOTORS ARE TIMED FOR TRACTOR ( PULLER).....
They will be reversed timed for pusher...
When we first got the gear drives we had PROBLEMS with the motors.They were timed for push on props & when we put gear drives on them they didn't work cause the motors ran backwards and were reversed timed. The 350's are timed to run puller with gear drive.......not pusher with gear drive.....


PHIL I.

Darn, I didn't know they did that. I thought they were neutral like the 370s. I'll check the performance.
Thanx for the info, may need a new drive train.

Phil, are you sure about the 350s being reverse timed? I don't recall reading about that.

OK, I tested it and it's good to go, no reverse timing. Flipped the props all around and tried a few different props, also switched battery polarity, no difference in performance.
If some of these are timed, this particular ratio may be excluded due to the wide range of of possible prop and battery set-ups.

The old 300 motors were actually timed to run better as a pusher. The 350 motors are neutral timed, they will run in either direction the same. They are a slightly hotter wind and will draw more amps with the same prop.

Len

General Installation

Today I took the time to find the general location of the equipment I chose for this model to be positioned. This starts off by placing the NOSE fuse spar in it's slotted position and taping the fuse halves together. In regards to the nose fuse spar, I have been replacing the the wood spar with carbon rod. I cut the carbon spar a few inches longer than the stock spar so it overlaps the the balsa keel that attaches to the lower fuse. This mod is a great improvement over the stock set-up in regards to the nose breaking off. If you choose to do this mod, it may end up being heavier than the stock and of course you may need widen the slot channel depending on the caron rod you choose. A soldering iron is helpful in lengthening and widening the slot, you don't necessarily need to touch the foam with the iron. Getting it close to the foam is usually enough to cause it to recede. Finally, install the lower fuselage keel spar.
Now with the foam halves taped together, tape the nose to the delta. Use tape to tack the canard assembly and position it on the plane, use tape to keep the canards level and not droop. Also tack the tail fins into their position. Connect the ESC to the motor and string it forward then place the aft canopy into position. You will then place the servos, receiver if heavy(a heavier than GWS receiver like the Hitec 555 for instance), and battery into positions similar to mine, then place the cockpit canopy into position. I plan to install my GWS RX in the next opening behind the aileron servo. During this time, each time you make an adjustment to a component re-check the CG.
My choice of components turned out to be relatively close to the stock molded areas, so with little mods to the foam, I mounted them. However, because of your choice of components may be different than mine, your components may vary slightly in regards to positionings and may balance differently. With 2/3 A cells, I found it necessary to mount the canard servo in the aileron servo position and the aileron servo in the opening behind that. They were stacked in a 3 on 4 pyramid and sat in a slightly recessed pocket created with the solder iron, some of the inner canopy was recessed too. Whatever battery you choose, they should be in the same basic area as the 3S lipo you see in the pic. If you find your battery needs to go farther forward than the cockpit area, mark the area and create the necessary pocket in each fuse half. You could use a blade or solder iron to accomplish this being careful not to burn or cut through to the outter surface.
Let me just say, this is a general set-up, the aircraft will most likely fall out of balance during final construction. If you are careful in regards to your placement accuracy, only very tiny amounts of ballast should be needed if any. I like mine slightly nose heavy for first flights.

So here's my Firebat, balanced and it should have a 15 oz flying weight once the RX, 1 servo extension and epoxy to assemble the parts is added. Once I get these parts, I will post what will probably be the final construction update.

A little extra info added.