Building the Sky King R/C Products Shrike

[Brian Courtice]

Ed Berris recently sent me a pre-release copy of his complete Shrike 60" pitcheron kit.

The plan is for me to build the kit and do a build thread. I will post detailed pictures and report on any glitches or problems I encounter while building the airplane.

Our intentions are to provide a reference for those who have already purchased (but have not yet built) one of Ed's earlier short kits, and to help Ed decide on any last minute modifications or improvements to the kit before the planned February release date.

So here we go.

Let's start by taking a look at what comes in the box. As you can see, this is going to be a very complete kit. Notice the rolled plans, detailed construction manual, lazer cut wood parts, and complete hardware package.

[Brian Courtice]

The most important parts of this kit are the fuselage and the wing cores. I was favorably impressed with both.

The fuselage layup looks very good. It's strong and free of pinholes.
The wing cores are very nicely CNC cut blue foam. There is not a ripple or a ridge to be found. Looks good so far.

[Brian Courtice]

Here's another view of the very accurate looking wing core. Note the pre-drilled hole for the wing tube and the precut slots for the sub ribs.

[Brian Courtice]

Ok, lets stop fondling the kit contents and start building!

The first thing to do is to cut a small foam wedge off of the tip of each foam core as shown. After the cores are sheeted, balsa wing tips will be glued on and sanded to shape.

[Brian Courtice]

The next step is to put a balsa end cap on the brass wing rod receiver tube.

Ed suggests that you first sharpen the tube by inserting an exacto into the end and spinning it around a few times. This will shave away some of the brass inside the end of the tube and make it quite sharp.

Now press and twist the tube into some scrap balsa until you are able to cut out a nice balsa cap. Set the cap in place with a couple of drops of thin CA and then touch up the cap with a sanding block to make it flush in diameter to the brass tube.

[Brian Courtice]

Remove one set of sub ribs and one root rib from the sheet of lazer cut parts provided in the kit.

[Brian Courtice]

Dry fit the wood parts, brass receiver tube, and the wing rotation pin as shown.

For clarity, I have drawn refernce lines on the foam showing where the parts beneath the foam are, and I have set the extra set of parts from the other wing in place to show how the parts get oriented.

The brass tube should pass through the hole in the outer sub rib, and the wing rotation pin should pass through the hole in the inner sub rib.

All of the slots in my wing cores were cut out about 3/16" too far forward. This was very easily corrected by cutting a 3/16" notch at the rear of each slot. The notches allow the sub ribs to slide far enough back so that the brass tube and wing pin will pass through properly.

The gap at the front of the slots is not a problem. They can be filled with a little spackle before the cores are sheeted.

[Mr. Innocent]

alright so.. HOW many planes have you got??? It seems like you get a few new planes every day .. jeeze... looking great though.

[InTheLift]

The SHRIKE!!!! WOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

[djklein21]

I want one!!

[jofo1]

Brian, the photos of the v-tail faring.

[Brian Courtice]

Whoa. You just broke the record for the most humungus pics I've ever seen posted on this forum.

I took the liberty of resizing them for those among us that are not using a 38" monitor.

Thanks for posting Jofo. The fairings look great. Can you describe how you made them?

(Jofo has built a few Shrikes already and he has some very good ideas.)

How about some pictures of your finished planes?

[jofo1]

Sorry about the pic size. I'm a beginner on the photo editor thing. I made these by gluing root ribs (had an extra set when I took Ed up on his early bird special) to the boom, slipping them over the already installed tail pins. Then I just filled the gap between the rib and the boom with bondo and sanded. It really stiffened the v-tails as they have a flat surface to mate to now, not to mention the ribs have added alot of strength to a weak spot (holes in carbon tubes can split).

I'll delete the monster sized photos.

[Brian Courtice]

Thanks Jofo. Those fairings look good, and they serve a usefull purpose by reinforcing the tail boom too.

Let's get back to work here:

While the parts are still dry fitted into place, stick the carbon wing rod through the fuselage and slide the wings on to check the gap between the wing root and the fuselage sides. Do this BEFORE you glue in the brass tube or glue on the root ribs. A little tape will hold the root ribs in place for now.

As you can see in this picture, my wing roots were cut at the wrong angle. (This is a small error that was made by the contractor who did the CNC cutting for Ed's kits.)

If you find that there is a gap of about 1/2" at the trailing edge, remove the root ribs and reciever tubes from your wing cores, and simply cut off a wedge of foam at the root to correct the angle. The red line I have drawn on the picture shows where to make the cut.

[slims]

Brian is wing linkage something off the shelf at a LHS or is this something custom? Next question are the tail feathers slid over the pins then held by tape? The reason I ask is that Ive been tinkering with a pitcheron and about to sub the (p) for a (b) if you get my meaning.