Ok it's been a while since I wrote a blog post. In the past few weeks, I was able to pretty much clean up my small work area, finding places to store all my stuff and clean off my workbench.
Now that I've done so, the first order of business was to repair those planes that have been hanging around needing a little TLC.
First one up is my HK wood Spitfire. I broke the right tip trying to land on a paved runway, instead of letting the plane land itself.
The tip section was broken in 3 pieces and the tip rib was obliterated. Also missing were the two tip spars.
I was a little bit anxious about it, since it came to me as an ARF, with no plans, so I knew I'd have to improvise the repair.
First thing was to heat-seal the covering at the last intact rib and then cut away the damaged covering.
I used thick CA to glue the tip section back together.
Next was to sand where the tip rib was and to use a sheet of paper and a pencil to sketch a rough outline of the root rib.
After that, I transferred the pattern to 3/32 balsa. It took me three attempts to get the shape correct, and still, it wasn't perfect .
So I decided to add a sub-rib to the tip rib to stiffen it and get more area to bond with the spar and sheeting. I also made cutouts for the upper and lower spar caps, as well as the leading and trailing edge sheeting.
I used my proton tool as well as some sandpaper to clean up the area where I would glue the rib. I then glued the rib in place and let it dry. You can see how...Continue Reading

The Hawker Hunter is one of the sexiest airplanes of all time. I've always liked the looks of the plane. And from all reports, it seemed to fly fine. So last May I ordered one through Turbofan Electrics. The airplane was drop-shipped from RCLander. With the kit I ordered servos for flaps and mechanical retracts, which I would replace.
When the kit arrived everything was in good shape, albeit the wingtips were a little bent from transport. A nice bonus were the suspension gear, which were listed separately as an additional cost.
One of the things I decided to change was the elevator setup. instead of using long push rods, I decided to use a two servo elevator setup for less slop. I laid the servos on their side so that I would have access to the output shafts, once the Horizontal tail was put on. This dual elevator set up required reversing the rotation of one of the servos through the radio.
The other significant modification was the substitution of electric retracts. I figured I could buy them cheaper and have them drop right in. That did not happen As far as putting them in the wings, I needed to do some grinding of the wood and foam to have them fit. One of the other things needed was to cut down the suspension legs a little to get them to fit in the wheel wells. In hindsight, I should have placed the retracts a little further outboard to try and keep the original strut length as I had to shorten them to the point where I had to cut past one of the set screws that held...Continue Reading

September 17th and 18th, PG R/C held it's annual Warbirds rally with giant scale being on Saturday and any scale warbirds being on Sunday. I met up with Chris True Sunday and we flew our jets. I also flew my HK Spitfire, but had a mishap on the first landing
Eric Holmes was there with his camera and snapped some pictures of my Phantom. He did a fantastic job!
I'm really glad I went to it as it was a lot of fun to catch up with old friends and do some flying.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

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In preparation for E-Jets this year, I had ordered a bare Stryker airframe, as well as the other airframe parts to complete the model. As most of you know the airframe is white and the other parts are grey. Not being happy with that, I decided to paint the grey parts white with some Krylon and keep the airframe bare to save some weight.
I filled in the aileron attachment recesses with a mixture of micro-ballons and WBPU and used the F-27A Stryker ailerons attached with tape.
I also used iron on covering for all the trim except for the canopy and turtle deck sections. I just figured it would be easier that way.
One thing I can tell you is that heat will warp the plastic coated foam if you're not careful. Some heat and gentle bending was able to remove any warps.
The canopy and hatch cover were painted with Testors Chrome paint and the turtledeck was painted with Lustre Kote Insignia Blue. I was hoping for a perfect color match and a nice glossy blue, but it dried semi-dull and not quite the same shade as the blue covering. Never the less, I went with it for now
The maiden will probably have to wait as the forecast calls for rain.

Hope you like what I did

Terry

I went to EJETS 2010 last year. This was the first big electric event I've ever went to. The only other big event I partcipated in was the '95 Nats. I was mentioned a few times in the pylon article of the Model aviation Nats issue.
I was a little overwhelmed and unprepared. However. I'm already getting my stuff together for this year.
Lear4's Byron f-86D:

Byron F 86D (4 min 18 sec)

Sukoi SU-27 (forgot name of owner):

EJets Sukoi (3 min 10 sec)

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In the summer of 2007, while on vacation with the family, I found out about a naval air station museum not far from where we were. Took a bunch of pics while I was there. Hope you like them.

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I'v had this for over a year and have just completed it, not without making a few mistakes of course!
I really like the look and sturdiness of the airframe and the fiberglass cowl. I used an AXI motor mount from www.smoothair.ca.
I should have weighed it first, but as I have another one, I could always weigh that.
Once again I am using SP400 stuff I had previously. A Mega 16/15/7, Castle 25 and 8 2/3 GP1100 and some 8 cell Kan 950's (last season for these).
I may go to Lipo for all my SP400 this year as prices continue to drop and the quality has increased across the board.
I also bought a Berg 4l for the receiver.
All up weight is 22 oz. which is about 1.5-2oz. heavier than others who have smaller motors and 4 oz. lipos....Continue Reading

OK,
This was purchased about 2 years ago and I finally completed it about a month ago. It's a 7-8 cell (round cell) pattern plane with a fiberglass fuselage and a balsa sheeted foam wing. It has about 270 sq. inches of wing area and weighs 49 oz. That's about a 26 oz. per square foot wing loading With 8 IB 3600 NiMh cells, I get about 400 watts fading to 370. So it's about 120 watts per pound. Motor is a Mega 22/20/3e spinning a Graupner CAM 11x6 folder. Definitely not a floater. I haven't flown it yet as I'm conflicted about using the NIMH cells or taking the plunge into Lipos. I made the mistake of telling the wife about Lipo fires and she hasn't forgot . The good news is that A123 cells (Dewalt 36V packs) offer a significant weight reduction and are safe. Either Lipos or LiFE will give an 8 oz weight loss.
I have to say, this is the second F/G fuse from the Czech replublic that I have had to fix. They put plywood disc in the fuse while it's being molded and the disc is never parallel to the nose. I had to grind it out and put in a new fire wall. THe other thing that really annoyed me about the plane is that the chord of the wing was longer than the canopy opening for it. I had to grind out the canopy opening and now it looks like
I decided to leave it as it is as this is one plane that you could spend hours on trying to get it look perfect and right now it's good enough to fly.
I decided to have a split "Y" elevator linkage and it was a pain but it...Continue Reading

I even have on board video of one of the flights of it as well. I had the camera mounted on it's side and had to rotate the image. I'll do much better next time:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=567674
I just received an E-FLite six series 2000kv motor and F-27C mount. I'll be putting that on in the coming days. As cold as it's been, I doubt it will see any air time soon.

Terry

Well, I've been on RC groups for quite some time but have not posted pics or a build thread, so I think I'll start trying to become a little more active and share with others what I've been doing. Last year I decided to get another flying wing to replace the FMA razor I foolishly sold. The flying wings greatest attraction to me is that you can't really hurt them, which makes it a perfect plane to warm up on or try new things with.
The downside is that without a ruder, aerobatics are more limited. However, I'm going to upgrade it to brushless and maybe start using lipos with it in the spring. I may just keep the NIMH in it and pump up the watts a little more.
I painted it with Testors enamel paints trying to make it look reminisent of the Thunderbirds scheme. It was also a test of the paint and the colors for another airplane. The Testors did not attack the foam at all. Even though I really didn't bother to do a "perfect" job on it, the more i look at it, the more the chrome paint on it impresses me. So much so that the next one will probably chrome paint also. Here is a picture in good sunlight: