My friend bought an old flight box from a guy on Craigslist. It was in about 6 pieces when he got it. He brought it to my house last week and we put it back together and cleaned it up and here it is. I think it is very classy looking. he added the brass drawer pulls and we put hinges on the box where the battery goes.

I put an ad in the local Craigslist to see if I could find some RC airplanes to fix. I know there are people out there that have wrecked a plane and don't know what to do with it. I offered to do the work reasonable and that I would trade work for RC equipment. I got a call last weekend and the guy brought me his plane yesterday. It is a Hobbico Superstar. It hit a tree and must have taken the impact right in the front windshield area. The hood area is cracked the piece of wood that was the windscreen was broken completely off. One wing is damaged at the root on the front. All in all the damage is not bad. I have the fuse cleaned up and almost ready to go back together and be covered. The wing will need a little cut and replace work and a little covering. It also has a couple of holes in the covering on the other wing. We worked out a good trade for payment. I should have it done in a couple of days. He did the right thing by picking up the parts and bringing them to me also. That always helps.

My friend got a Sig Mid Star 40 kit last weekend. I am going to help him with it. I went to his house yesterday and we got started on the right wing. This looks like it is going to be a nice easy kit to complete. Part of it is stamped and part of it is laser cut. He has servos and an engine so we hope to be able to complete the kit with no issues. I only took one picture before I left. He sent me a pic today of the left wing. He is going to take some pics as he builds too I hope.

Well once again it seems like the progress on all of my projects has come to a grinding halt. I do however have everything I need to complete both planes now. I got the throttle lever for the Tiger Trainer. I have tested the wiring for the big Cub wing and that is going to work. All I need now is TIME. Today I am going to my friends house to help him start on a new kit he got.

I actually took off work last Tuesday and ended up helping him rebuild his flight box and we went to Mid South Hobbies and got some glue, epoxy and some other tools he will need for the build.

I would be willing to bet that I will NOT get anything done tomorrow except for drinking a few beers and watching Superbowl stuff all day.

I am going to meet a guy today and pick up a plane that he wants me to repair for him. He has offered some RC goodies in trade for the work. The damage is not bad so I suspect I will be doing this for him. He says he has a .40 engine and some servos and other stuff he will give me for the work.....SCORE!

This is my next project... A Sig Mayhem 40 that someone started and never finished. I was looking at it yesterday and I figured out why there is only 2 spots for servos in the fuse of the plane. The rest of them are mounted externally. There really is only one that is mounted in the fuse and that is the throttle servo. Rudder and elevator are mounted on the tail and ailerons are mounted on the wings.

I don't know if this was built from a kit, it must have been because it is solid red. It was supposed to be red, white and blue. I am not opposed to removing some or all of the covering and doing something different. I don't have the servos for this thing yet, but I may be getting some this weekend and if I do, this one is next in line. It is very light and I think it will be very cool looking with some work.

Well I got the throttle hooked up so I had to take her outside and see if she would start. To my surprise she started right up. I didn't even really have to monkey with the throttle or needle valve. I put my finger over the carb and turned it a few times, put the starter on the spinner and after a few seconds it started and ran.

I have all of the servos in the plane hooked up and working. I am working on the wings now. I have the aileron servos installed but I am going to make the wires longer so I can hook it up to have flaperons. I am working with a new (older but new to me) JR 6 channel radio and I am having to learn how all of the programming works. This is new to me but it seems like it will be great once I fully understand what it is capable of. If anybody has a link or something to some programming help please feel free to post them in the comments. I have looked a little and have not found anything that has helped me understand what it is really capable of. I need something like "Computer Radios for Dummies".

I don't have any pics, but I shot shome video of it running. I can't seem to figure out how to post it here. Not like it is spectatular or anything. But it was a big event for me. I think I did a couple of back flips or cartwheels or something when it started. I don't have any video of that though.

Anyway, I hope to have it ready to fly in a couple of weeks. I am also working on a Thunder Tiger Sky Lark 40 trainer that is almost ready too. But that's a different blog post.

Later,
Kerry

Was going to fly today but the wind is blowing about 20 mph. I went to the trouble to put my plane together last night so it would be ready today. To keep it from being a complete waste of time I set it outside and took some pictures. It tried to blow away but I managed to snap a few before I had to put it up.

These are for you Earl.... LOL

I posted a few weeks ago that I bought a flight box for $25. After cleaning it up and out, doing a little rewiring, painting and adding a decal, here is the finished product. The paint is such a pukey yellow that it is hard to tell it has been painted. I may do some more painting on it later if I get some time or I get bored, or I get some paint. I coated it in polyurethane after I painted it to try to help fuelproof it. I added a logo on it. My buddy made me some neat logos that say Elliott RC Aviation. I laminated it at work and cut it out and put some spray adhesive on the back. believe me that dude is there.

I guess I have a lack of focus. I keep jumping back and forth between the Cub and the Thunder Tiger Sky Lark. Part of me really wants to get that trainer finished. The other is dying to see that big Cub fly again. Last night I got the engine mount installed on the trainer, epoxied the hinges for the control surfaces and I fuelproofed the cowl for the Cub (you can see it laying in the background of the first pic. it is drying). Then I flew my RC sim for an hour. Life is good sometimes!

The throttle lever is broken off of the engine for the trainer. it's an OS 46 LA that I bought used, it only had one flight on it but it was a fatal one for the aircraft it was installed on. It was on a P51 of some kind (ARF) and the tail section came apart just before it touched down and it was destroyed. The engine seems fine except for that $2 piece of plastic.

I see all these people with these nice shops and work areas.... mine is half of a barn type storage building. I have an electric heater sitting on the floor and no insulation. I built a table addition last weekend. it makes my work area T shaped now so I don't have to pick up the plane and turn it around to work on the other side. It's like redneck heaven out there and I am proud to have it. I am happier out there than almost anywhere else in the world. I am either listening to classic rock or the comedy station on I heart Radio.

I have not given up on the Cub. I have just been busy with other things this last week. I have all of the servos and a new radio to put in the plane. I did hook up a couple of the servos and test them out in the elevator and rudder. I should be back working on it this week. I hope to get the throttle servo hooked up and the engine secured so I can start it this weekend.

Now that I know how the wing servos work I hope to get them installed this week also. I may have set my goals high this week, but you have to set them somewhere.

I may have found someone to buy some, if not all of my NASCAR collection. That money will go into my RC addiction. I have tons of NASCAR stuff from the 90's. I lost interest in NASCAR after the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. Not that I was a huge fan of his, but the sport went crazy after he died. I would rather watch grass grow than a NASCAR race.

I am bored. I was just messing around with a photo editing program on my phone. I can see this being a good tool in the future. These are my first 2 tries with it.

Below are pics of the servo hatch on the wing. I know Earl is going to send me a drawing of how this is supposed to work, but as always I am open for suggestions. I hope Earl sees this and this will give him some idea of what I got. My white Cub had one servo in each wing, but they are mounted flat with the entire servo horn exposed. This one seems to have been mounted sideways with just the horn sticking out through the hatch.

Anyone with any input or pictures please chime in at this point.

Here is what I got done. Cowl complete, needs to be fuel proofed. Not bad for a first effort. Now its electronics time. Got the servos for the rudder and elevator installed. I need some Futaba servo horns and a couple of control rods. Radio and receiver should be here later in the week. I may have to steal the battery and switch out of the white Cub for a while, at least for the testing phase.

I think I am going to make a balsa cowl for the Cub. I have the bottom half done and I cut the formers for the top half last night. I purposely mad the bottom half short so I could get to the carb and needle valve. I am going to make the top more like a Super Cub cowl. I never committed to making this thing a scale model. My only goal was to make it fly again. O dodn't like the shape of the soda bottle cowl and my yellow paint isn't quite close enough for that. I think it is OK on the landing gear, but I wouldn't want it on the nose of the plane.

As you guys most likely know by now, I am either a cheapskate or broke. Either way I was not going to pay $30 for a plastic cowl that will be trashed the first time this thing lands wrong. So I am going to build my own. It may take me a while, but time I got, money I don't. I saw a video on YouTube about a guy building cowls out of plastic soda bottles. Now this Cub is too big for a soda bottle, but part of a soda bottle seemed to be the right shape for a nose. I don't know if I am going to stick with this idea due to the fact I may never get paint to stick to it. But either way I am building my own. i have a couple of ideas that I feel sure will work in balsa if this doesn't turn out like I want it. Or maybe I will use this one until I can get a better balsa one made. Either way I was thinking that it had to be plastic or fiberglass, but I realized I was wrong about that after seeing people make them out of other things.

I was driving with my wife in memphis this week and I passed a hobby shop that i didn't know existed. We turned around and went inside for a few minutes just to look around. I currently use 2 different hobby shops depending on what I need and how far I am willing to drive to get it.

This hobby shop has obviously been around for some time. it is very unorganized and has some stuff in there that has been there for several years. After using Hobbytown USA for a few months, this place was a shock. Stuff was hard to find because it is just kinda laying around everywhere. But on the other hand, this is more of how I remember hobby shops from when I was a kid. It was less of a super store and more of a haven for the hobbiest. Guys were usually working on what ever their hobby was when you walked in and they had to put down their work to wait on you.

For what its worth, I kinda enjoyed the feel of the place. It took me back to when I was a kid buying paint for military models. I will have to say that they had almost anything anyone could want or need. They had a whole isle of just building tools and supplies. From saws, blades, and anything else you could want.

But one thing that I found that took my fancy was a plane that was hanging from the ceiling. It was a Pilatus Porter (see pic below). Now to give you some background on me:

I have loved airplanes for all of my life. I went to an airshow when I was a small child and i have been hooked. I started...Continue Reading

I bought me a flight box off of Craigslist... where I seem to get everything I have these days. All of my planes but 2 came from there. Well back to the box, I paid $25 for it. There is at least $100 worth of stuff there. It had the starter, glow driver, electric fuel pump and some other goodies in the drawer. I had to get a new battery but it already had the power panel on it. It was missing the end piece that went over the battery. I made a new one today and mounted it with screws. I think the other one was nailed on. Now I need to paint it. I will have to see what kind of paint I have handy. It needs to be something that is fuel proof.

Here are my 2 Cubs. I have one more but it is not near ready to fly. It's a Carl Goldberg Cub that is about 90% finished.

The white one is completely flyable. I did some repair on the fuse and fuse covering. I had a blue decal I was using as a patch right behind the wing. I got a piece of white monokote from my friend while we were covering his plane. I fixed the blue spot and another hole on the right side from my crash into the tree.

I got the covering complete on the big Cub today. I think it turned out pretty good. It was hard shrinking the covering outside. The temp was only about 45 today. But it is too big to do in the shop.

Here are some before and after pics for your comparison. I wish I had not took the last pictures in the bright sunlight. It is still the same color yellow. I onlu covered the parts that were torn, I did not recover the whole plane. I kinda wish I had though.