Removing the Covering & Wings |
The assembly starts by removing some covering to expose the slots for the wing to fit the fuselage. Using a sharp hobby knife remove the covering as described in the manual. There is a total of 5 holes per side that need to be opened up. This is followed by opening a exit hole in the bottom for air to escape. Lastly the rudder servo bay and the elevator stab holes are opened up. Note the unique mounting location for the rudder servo. |
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Removing Covering | |
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Side Covering Opened | |
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Cooling, Servo and Elevator | |
Next up is the hinging of the ailerons to the wings. Note the nice lightening holes on the side of the wings. The wings have anti rotation pins on both the front and the back. Drive T-pins through the center of the supplied CA hinges to aid in aligning and slotting the aileron. Once the aileron is seated, deflect it to what you estimate your max throw will and wick in a few drops of thin CA. Do not use kicker on this step allow for the CA to soak in and setup naturally. Repeat this on the back side and other wing. |
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Lightening Holes | |
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Pinning the CA hinges | |
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Thin CA hinges | |
At this point I used some blenderm tape to seal the gaps and also provide some additional support for the ailerons. Though I do not think that sealing the gaps for a model this size is required, it does not hurt. At this point the wings are ready to receive the servos and we can move on to the tail and fuselage. |
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Max Deflection | |
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Sealing Gaps | |
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Wings Hinged | |
Remove the covering to expose the bay for the aileron servos and install your servo of choice making sure that the gear faces the aileron. I used a HS-55 which fit without any hassles or need to trip the bay and I did not require any servo extenders to route the wire in to the fuse. Prepare the horns that are supplied and determine the mounting location of the horns. I simply placed the wing in front of my desk lamp to find the location on the aileron that has the reinforced horn mount location. After mounting the horns, the screws will protrude on the top side so use a wire clipper to take the sharp edges off. Repeat the procedure for the other wing. |
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Aileron Servo | |
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Horns | |
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Horn Location | |
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Arm Direction | |
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Screws Protruding | |
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Clip Sharp Tips | |
The supplied control horns and linkages are not up to the task of providing a solid link from the servo tot he surface. The holes in the horns are too wide to accept the thin linkage that is provided. The free play here causes the aileron to move up and down quite a bit without any servo movement which can cause flutter and the loss of the airplane if not addressed. To address this issue, I simply created a smaller hole using a T-pin next to the holes that already exist. Drive the T-pin through the plastic and then force the z-bend of the linkage in to the newly created hole. This will create a solid link to the servo. |
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Aileron Servo | |
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Horns | |
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Horn Location | |
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Linkage | |
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For the ailerons, I did not use the supplied EZ connectors as I am using the lightweight Dubro micro arms. Instead I choose to simply make another Z-bend on the servo side.
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Tail Section |
Next, hinge the rudder in the same fashion as the wings and wick in some thin CA while deflecting the rudder. Nothing special here but pay attention to getting full deflection while maintaining the gap to a minimum. Blenderm tape can be used here to seal the gap. |
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Hinge Rudder | |
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Rudder | |
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Rudder Deflection | |
The stab has a unique slot to help center it in the tail. Insert the stab and check from the rear of the plane to see if it is parallel with the wings. Mine was off quit a bit so I shaved a little bit of the slot on the bottom right and top left hand side (as seen from the rear). After I was satisfied with the result, I measured from the wing tip to the stab and centered the stab. Once it measured and looked about right, I marked and removed the covering. Finally, I wicked in some thin CA to set the stab, |
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Stab | |
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Stab Not Level | |
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Trimming | |
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More Trimming | |
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About Right | |
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Removed Covering | |
The elevator halves are supplied as two separate pieces and Fliton supplies a handy leveler to make sure they are parallel to each other. However, I did not completely understand why this was designed this way as most other ARFs supply this either pre-hinged or in a single piece that can be slid in before the stab. The two pieces must be epoxied together during the hinging process. One of the inner CA hinges is used to drive through the connection join but requires some persuasion with a hobby knife. I removed the covering of the connection point and hinged the longer part of the two halves. After test fitting the two halves together, I used 10-minute epoxy to join the two at the previously removed covering location and pushed in all the hinges. The supplied levelers are then used to make sure the elevator halves stay parallel as the epoxy cures. |
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Set Stab Angle | |
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CA or Epoxy Stab | |
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Done | |
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Remove Covering | |
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Ready for glue | |
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Hinge Elevators | |
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Note Location of Hinge | |
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Epoxy Halves | |
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Slide in Aligners | |
As the epoxy on the tail section is curing, I turned the plane around and started to work on the motor mount.
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Motor Mount |
The motor mount is supplied in six separate pieces and requires some assembly which is described in quite some detail in the manual. The first step requires you to glue the fire wall to the supplied brace. The two pieces fit together only one way so make sure you test fit them first and make sure that the marked side faces outwards. The side pieces slide in the front of the fuse. I test fitted all the pieces and once comfortable with the fit, removed the hatch and used thin CA to set them. |
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Motor Mount Pieces | |
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Slide in Sides | |
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Slide in Bottom | |
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Then the Top | |
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Firewall | |
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Remove Hatch before CA | |
Make sure you do not leave the hatch on as you apply thin CA or you will glue the hatch to the fuse.
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Landing Gear |
The landing gear is a straight forward assembly except I had to widen the wheel holes and thin the sides to fit the axles properly. The axles are screwed in from the inner side of the landing gear and held in place by two nuts on the other side. Make sure the outer nut is very tight and use some locktite or CA to hold it in place or you may loose your wheel or seize the wheel during taxi and flip the plane on its nose and break your prop. The wheel pants are screwed in to the landing gear using a small tapping screw to fasten to a small wood block that is glued to the inside of the wheel pant. The holes are already drilled on the landing gear which makes things easier. The landing gear is fixed to the plane by sliding it to the holes on the side of the fuselage and using 4 self tapping screw to fix it to the wood base. I added some CA here to make sure that these wood screws would not work themselves back out of their holes. |
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Landing Gear | |
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Axles | |
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Widening with 1/8 | |
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Removing Lips | |
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On Its Feet | |
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CA Wood Supports | |
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Wheel Pants | |
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Score the Fiberglass | |
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Screw in Pants | |
Once the plane is on its feet, the wheel pants can be aligned for clearance, drilled with a 1/16 bit and screwed in. I also used a few drops of CA between the wheel pants and the landing gear to make sure that the wheel pants would not work themselves loose on touchy landings.
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Tail Linkages |
The rudder and elevator servos are installed next. Using the Hitec HS-65 servos, I had to enlarge the precut holes with a hobby knife. I used 2 6" extensions to route the servo wires to the front of the fuselage. The elevator and rudder control horns are installed in the same fashion as the ailerons. Using a 1/16" drill bit makes things easier during this process. The supplied linkages were used to connect the elevator and rudder to the servos however I did have to create new holes in the horns to make sure that they were tight similar to the ailerons. |
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Rudder Servo | |
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Elevator Servo | |
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Locate Hard Spot | |
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Horn Installed | |
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Linkages | |
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Drill | |
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Cut a Channel | |
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CA and Tape | |
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Bend | |
The model is not supplied with a steerable tail wheel. The tail section has a block of balsa that is ready to receive a pre-bent wire. I used a 1/16" drill bit to drill a small hole and inserted the bent end of the supplied wire. I then cut a small channel in the balsa block and used some medium CA and kicker to install the landing skid. I used a small piece of tape to make sure that it would not pop back off during transport and landings. The final step involves bending the wire to resemble a landing skid.
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Motor and ESC |
The motor and ESC I used for this project was a Park 480 that I had laying in the drawer to be controlled by a 36A CC ESC. The Park 480 is shipped with a cross 'X' mounting brace for fire-wall mounting. Using this, I marked the locations of the holes and drilled them using a pilot 1/16" drill bit. The kit does not supply hardware to mount the motor so I dropped by he local hobby shop and picked up a bag of 4-40 bolts and blind nuts. After making sure the pilot holes I drilled lined up with the holes, I enlargened the holes and installed the blind nuts. The motor then screwed right on without any hassles. |
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Power Setup | |
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Mark Holes | |
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4-40/Blind Nuts | |
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Pull in Nuts | |
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Blind Nuts Set | |
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Mount Motor | |
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ESC Location | |
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Insulated | |
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Zip Tie Leads | |
I choose to locate the ESC under the battery tray, insulated by a small piece of foam, and fixed it in place by using zip ties.
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Final Setup |
The canopy has to be cut and trimmed along the marked lines by using a small scissors or body reamer and installs to the hatch with the supplied tapping screws. I added a few drops of CA to make sure that it would not blow off during violent maneuvers. The metal screws on the bottom of the hatch can be adjusted in or out to make proper contact with the magnets. The magnets provide a pretty good connection of the hatch to the fuse. The cowl is held in by 4-6 of the supplied self tapping screws and is a simple process as the screws do not have to line up to any special location on the back. |
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Canopy | |
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Cowl | |
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Wiring | |
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Left | |
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Front | |
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Right | |
I choose to use a 12x6 APC prop and used the 4mm supplied spinner nut to hold it in place. A small white spinner would make the Extra shine out and look more scale.
From the supplied decals, I choose to use only four stickers. These have to be cut and trimmed to size but they are self adhesive so this was a straight forward process as well. |
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