Official Black Horse Fairchild Model 24 Argus 2357mm ARF Discussion Thread

[juppzupp]

Thanks again very much! So it should work. Man, that does not make easier to resist pushing the "buy" button. Unfortunately the price is at least 20% higher here in Europe than in US. Furthermore I am not 100% sure if I should go for the Fairchild or for the Phoenix Stinson. The Fairchild looks a little bit more sporty perhaps. And I really love the undercarriage with all those fairings. After several different tries, Ia m looking for my ultimate "high wing plane" (or shoulder wing plane?) now! Sorry I am not a native speaker and do not know all of the english expressions...
Jan

[oldnewbie]

FYI, with a 19 x 8 prop, plane sitting on its mains and tail wheel I have just under 7" of clearance, unless you do one heck of a nose low landing clearance should not be an issue with a 21" prop
Dave

[juppzupp]

thx for your quick answer Dave! Having a better look on the 1st picture in this thread (larger monitor), it seems that the wings do have a constriction towards the fuselage. I thought the leading edge was straight! Like this 54mm make sense.

one additional question: Do you think there is enough ground clearance for a 21" propeller? This would be needed for my planned 6S setup.

Jan

[oldnewbie]

Jan,
When I set up the plane I used the C of G stuff that the manufacturer supplies with the plane and the C of G was dead on. I am running an RCGF 35cc rear exhaust and have placed my 2 Life batteries on either side go my gas tank as forward's as possible. After having a senior check out pilot maiden the aircraft aside from a couple of clicks of aileron trim the plane fly's extremely well.
Stalls are a non event and the plane does look impressive whether sitting on the ground or in the air. Everyone at the field who have seen the plane cannot stop commenting on the fit and finish, to bad a made a boo boo when CA,ing the screw holes which leaked through to wing covering, live and learn.
FYI I had to get slightly longer SS bolts for the wheels as I found the ones provided were a little short and I did use nylon nuts to secure them as suggested by others. When attaching the strut brackets to the wing forget the measurements they show in the manual as the holes are already drilled in the wing structure, I was just about to drill holes when a closer look made me stop.
You will not be disappointed in this plane.
Dave

[juppzupp]

Hi,
I am really interested in this beauty. One thing is really strange to me: The CG is marked as 54mm from leading edge of the wing. I would assume that the depth of the wing is 300mm or larger? So considering the famous 1/3 rule, I would end up at about 100mm. 😲 Is the shape of the wing so unusual that this really needed? You could safe a lot of extra weight in the front with this more reasonable position of the CG...

Thx for your input,
Jan

[oldnewbie]

Thanks, will give it a go, I was also looking at the thickness of the tab and was contemplating a little creative sanding on my belt sander could also do the trick. Have been impressed with things so far.

[dgliderguy]

I had to do some carving on my wing root to allow space for the jury strut. Ya do what ya gotta do.

[oldnewbie]

Apologize for my post noted some gross spelling errors after I hit the post button, trust you got he gist of my question?

[oldnewbie]

In final stages of building the Fairchild and I find the wings do not make a good contact between the fuselage and the wing root. It appears that the black support rods that attach to the fuselage are thicker that the cut out that have been allowed for. Before I start with some creative carving is it with worrying about and is it normal? I do notice that it may need to have a slight tweak made to the angle so as to creat a more intimate contact with the fuselage but it will not account for he difference completely.
I know it is a dumb question but being relatively new to the spot and this being my second ARF I am proceeding cautiously.
Thanks,
Dave

[dgliderguy]

I don't plan on doing any dress-up of the interior, since it is not all that visible without close-up scrutiny. I do, however, plan to get Callie to make me some registration numbers for it. I didn't much care for the semi-translucent, italicized decals that came with the kit. And the pictures show them incorrectly applied, with numbers on the fuselage sides AND the rudder, and the wing decals on the wrong side. I was relieved to find that they were not pre-applied.

By the way, I tossed the seats in my scrap bin. The floor is too high in the cabin for them. They didn't look right all perched way up high, and they seem too small for the scaling anyway, so I didn't bother to mount them. Look at an interior shot of a full-size Fairchild and you will see what I mean.

[James]

Speaking of "beautifying" the cockpit - where would you go to find little detail pieces like door handles, seat belts, sticks, etc? I'm thinking the same thing since there is so much real estate to work in, and there is good access with the front hatch and side doors. I've downloaded several images from the internet - and I already have some white faux leather on hand!

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I would go nowhere else but Callie Graphics https://callie-graphics.com/

She will customize just about anything if you provide her reference pics and measurements.

[USMA-82]

Speaking of "beautifying" the cockpit - where would you go to find little detail pieces like door handles, seat belts, sticks, etc? I'm thinking the same thing since there is so much real estate to work in, and there is good access with the front hatch and side doors. I've downloaded several images from the internet - and I already have some white faux leather on hand!

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[James]

So awesome dgliderguy ! Welcome to hobbysquawk. I enjoy my Fairchild for sure. When is the maiden? and will you be doing any extra customizations to it? I have been thinking about trying to beautify the cockpit with seats/pilots etc.

[dgliderguy]

... maybe a build thread on HobbySquawk or RCU/RCGroups, like what we have going would help.

Hey, guys, I just finished up this model and I have a build thread on RC Groups-- check it out here: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...Saito-180-glow

I really like this kit. One of the more pleasurable ARFs I have put together to date. Can't wait to fly it now!

Don.

[USMA-82]

The day looked right for a nice morning of flying today, so I brought my Fairchild to the airfield. The day was cut short, however, when one of my landing gear wheels jumped off the plane during climb out. The scene would have been hilarious if it wasn't so serious. It looked like something that was staged for YouTube.

I did my best to bring her in gently with full flaps, but still ended up nosing over on landing. The wheel-less side dug into the ground, and ripped out of the fuselage. Later inspection determined that the supplied hex nut holding the wheel to the landing gear strut (with lock-tite applied) had fallen off - followed quickly by the wheel and wheel pants.

DO NOT USE THE SUPPLIED HARDWARE ON THE WHEEL ASSEMBLY! Replace the hex nuts with 5mm nylon insert lock nuts, and avoid my headache.

I repaired the landing gear this afternoon (epoxy the base, create a new balsa former, re-skin with balsa), and will be ready for our New Year's Day Frozen Finger Fun Fly. Fortunately, the ugly repairs are all along the bottom of the plane (including some cowl damage), and are not readily seen from above.

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[Alpha]

I too enjoy hearing about your shakedown flights, progress, and findings. "Five minutes from pull up to takeoff" is impressive, considering the size of this bird. 'Goes to show that Big can still be Easy!

[Twowingtj]

USMA-82 Congratulation on the maiden and subsequent flights. Well done on the flight reports. It's nice that we have models of classic aircraft, to choose from, that not only look good, but fly well.

[USMA-82]

Three more flights today. After seeing the mild stall characteristics the other day, I really felt comfortable flying around at half-throttle. Even though it slowed quite a bit, it still maintained altitude at this speed, and I only increased throttle to climb. With this routine, I had as much as 39% battery left after 6 minutes, so I'd be pretty comfortable at 7 minutes. I will switch out a couple of other props on my next outing to see what I get.

Increased the aileron throws even further - just not comfortable with the slow rolls from the previous flights. It was much better this time. I still had to add some down elevator during the inverted phase to keep it flying level, but that's fine. Loops were great, and the stall turns - although vertically-challenged - were fine as well.

Still having problems with the axle/nut arrangement - need to pick up those nylon lock nuts.

Other than that, takeoffs were smooth and predictable, and landings (full flaps) were very straight-forward and gentle. I think the portability and ease of set-up and take-down are a big plus for this model. Arrive at the field, slide the wings on the tube, connect the servo leads, tighten two screws, insert four strut pins, connect the batteries, do a quick control test, and off you go! Five minutes from pull up to takeoff.

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[USMA-82]

Maiden Report:

Conditions were just about perfect today - hazy sun, low winds, above freezing - so I decided to hit the airfield. I brought along my Phoenix Stinson Reliant 30cc as my "warm up" plane and for comparison purposes.

After all my pre-flight checks, I ran a number of high-speed taxi tests up and down the runway. The plane tracked well, and the tail came up as expected with a touch of forward stick. On the third run I noticed the plane was starting to jerk to the right and soon found out that one of the wheels was locked tight. I reset and re-tightened the axle/nuts, and added some blue lock-tite to keep them in place. One thing I would recommend is that you change out the standard nuts for the nylon-insert lock nuts to keep them in place.

Once the wheel was turning freely, I felt I was ready for some airtime. Before the first maiden flight, I switched to my tried-and-true Phoenix Stinson Reliant for a quick flight. The plane is very close to the Fairchild in size and weight, and I am using the same basic power system (1.60 motor on 12S) for both. The flight was uneventful, and was a good warm-up.

Now the moment of truth. I ran the Fairchild down to the far end of the runway after double checking control surface throws and CG one last time. I use the Lemon 7-channel receiver with stabilizer for all my planes now, so I also checked that the movement response was in the right direction.

As with the taxi testing, the plane tracked well, the tail came up, I pushed the throttle stick all the way and off she went! Power was adequate on the climb out, but not nearly as brisk as the Stinson. All I could think about was all those landing gear struts hanging in the breeze and causing gobs of drag. I leveled out after the turn and checked for trim. Except for a couple clicks of up elevator, everything seemed right on the money. I set the timer for 5 minutes on this initial flight and planed to gradually increase time depending on how much battery was being used.

At the four minute mark I set up for my landing. I have the flap throws set according to the manual (as were all throws), but I wanted to see how she came in on 1/2 flaps initially (I also had zero elevator response mixed for the first landing, but I ended up adjusting that later). I set the 1/2 flaps for the downwind leg, turned on to base with plenty of power still on, then cut the throttle to about 1/4 on the final. I kept the nose down until reaching the end of the runway, flared at about 3 feet above the grass, and slowly continued to decrease power until the mains hit the ground. Perfect landing!

The two 6S batteries were my all-time favorite Gens Ace 4000mAh 60C with an EC5 plug. The prop is similar to the one I have on the Stinson - a sliver Xoar 18x6 wood prop. In my initial power testing I was developing over 2000 watts of power with this set up, so I reduced the throttle curve to just 90% at the top. This was still about 1800 watts and 42 amps (or so). After the third flight I had 30% battery remaining after 6 minutes of flight time. Not nearly as much time as I'd like, but it is close to winter time, and you would expect times will be reduced. I think the amount of gear drag is fairly significant.

The other two flights I completed today were very similar - I did increase the elevator and aileron throws slightly for a little better control at landing. The max elevator throw (from the manual) made it a little difficult to complete a nice round loop. But once the throws were increased, the loops were great. CG at 54mm from the leading edge at the fuselage seemed right on. I did have to add about 16 oz of lead to the firewall to get there.

One of the most interesting parts of the flights was the stall testing. After flying to "three mistakes high", I cut the throttle completely, and slowly maxed the up elevator. The plane basically remained motionless, and seemed to come straight down as if on a slow-motion elevator! There was no tip stall, or other reaction - it just floated until I increased throttle and resumed flying.

In summary - great maiden flights. The plane is everything the boys at MotionRC say it is, and I highly recommend it. I will continue to experiment with throws and report back as the New England weather allows.

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[USMA-82]

Well, I pretty much finished up the build. Everything went well - very impressed with the quality of the components and the 62-page manual! The only problem I ran into was finding the correct mounting point for my motor. Unlike the plywood plates used to align gas/glow engines, the one for mounting electric motors does not have "keying" slots that match up with the protrusions from the firewall. The only visual alignment references were the etched mounting lines (vertical and horizontal) and the four "hardpoints" that were obvious on the firewall - see photo.

As a result, when I drilled the mounting holes on the "squares" the motor ended up being about 1/4" too low, and the motor itself could not be centered on the cowl opening. I could have tilted the front of the cowl downward to match, but that would look even worse. I'm relatively certain it won't impact the flying characteristics, but it looks a little goofy. I'd like to try moving the mounting holes up 1/4", but there's not alot of room to do that before running into the horizontal shelf above the mounting area.

We'll see - I hope to maiden soon. Stay tuned...

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