Official Black Horse 1724mm Dornier DO335 Pfeil ("Arrow") Thread

[handyman220]

Did my first power-on today. No smoke, no fire, no shorted servos. Well, I did smoke the landing light LED. I guess that it wasn’t rated for 8.4v. The LED ran for about 10 seconds, then died. Oh well, we’ll just constrain ourselves to fly during the day. In hindsight, I should’ve mounted the landing light cover with #2 screws, instead of epoxy. If I have to open up the wing again, I may replace the landing LED.

Installed the plastic trim pieces. All of the trim pieces fit nicely and were easy very to CA in place. I trimmed the aft exhaust stack quite a bit and it looks a lot better than the untrimmed piece would’ve looked.

Doing some mechanical aligning/trimming, while I wait for the motors to arrive. I’m still thinking about ways to mount 2 more servos, for the elevator and rudder.

Looking good, without a doubt the exhaust looks better trimmed down. That's a must do for me also, stock is out of proportion.I'm hoping the Spitty motors work as I already placed the order at Motion.

[Oxotnik]

Oh well :woozy_face: Guess the booze patrol is gonna have to monitor your build consumption You can pretty much bet that all "standard" RC LED's are maxed out @ 5V

It was an LED from a Freewing Jet, don’t remember which. I was planning to run the LED with an LED switch controller (tied into the gear channel, so that it’d switch ON when the gear deployed). Didn’t have a spare LED controller on hand, and in my haste to get everything hooked up and tested, I wasn’t thinking and just plugged the LED directly into the RX power bus. I’d probably have been okay, if I’d have put a resister in the circuit. Without the resister, I bet that I over-amped the poor little LED.

[OV10]

Well, I did smoke the landing light LED. I guess that it wasn’t rated for 8.4v. The LED ran for about 10 seconds, then died. .

Oh well :woozy_face: Guess the booze patrol is gonna have to monitor your build consumption You can pretty much bet that all "standard" RC LED's are maxed out @ 5V

[Oxotnik]

Did my first power-on today. No smoke, no fire, no shorted servos. Well, I did smoke the landing light LED. I guess that it wasn’t rated for 8.4v. The LED ran for about 10 seconds, then died. Oh well, we’ll just constrain ourselves to fly during the day. In hindsight, I should’ve mounted the landing light cover with #2 screws, instead of epoxy. If I have to open up the wing again, I may replace the landing LED.

Installed the plastic trim pieces. All of the trim pieces fit nicely and were easy very to CA in place. I trimmed the aft exhaust stack quite a bit and it looks a lot better than the untrimmed piece would’ve looked.

Doing some mechanical aligning/trimming, while I wait for the motors to arrive. I’m still thinking about ways to mount 2 more servos, for the elevator and rudder.

[MrSmoothie]

The aft spinner is more conical. Here are a few pics of the full scale at the Hazy-Udvar museum from last fall.

It can be pretty aggravating to find a plane in a museum that you're dying to document -- only to find it's squeezed into a tight place and cordoned off. At the USAF Museum in Dayton, for example, I could only photograph the front of their rare P-61-- the rest of pushed back into a corner, and the tail, booms and radar station were not visible. The Bristol Beaufighter was likewise jammed into a space. Next time I go, I plan to inquire about a museum volunteer to, perhaps, escort me around certain planes for documentation purposes. Has anybody ever done this?

The Naval Aviation Museum (Pensacola) is different, in that nearly all of the planes are fully accessible. You can walk up to, crawl under, whatever. I enjoyed getting a lot of details shots of their two-seat ME-262.

I was looking at some photos of a Do-335 under construction -- turns out they did the fuselage much like the ME-262, in that all panel lines were puttied and sanded smooth! So really, the only lines should be removable panels. Nah, I'm not going to repaint the plane!

[Oxotnik]

Looks good! Patiently waiting for mine, it will be here tomorrow, please let us know how the FL Spitty motors work out. I like the price and availability. Out of curiosity what retract are you using for the nose gear?

I’ll be using the XWave RM400-90 retract for the Nose Gear, same as for the Mains. I only had two RM-400s on hand and had to order the one for the NG, plus the two more to replace the two that I’d stolen from He-111 Upgrade Bin.

[handyman220]

Looks good! Patiently waiting for mine, it will be here tomorrow, please let us know how the FL Spitty motors work out. I like the price and availability. Out of curiosity what retract are you using for the nose gear?

[Oxotnik]

For all of you who are living vicariously through my Pfeil exploits, here's my nightly update.

All servos/pushrods/control horns have been installed loosely, awaiting the first power-on of the control system. Main retracts have been installed using XWave RM400-90 retract units. I'm still waiting on my retracts for the nose gear and pull-pull system installation. Also, waiting on 5055-390kv motors (FlightLine Spitty). There have been absolutely no bad surprises during the build so far. The H Stabs went on nice and straight and the wings also slid right into place for a good, snug fit. While I wait another day or two for the front retract trunion and the motors to arrive, I'll start programming the 335 into my JumperTX. I'll be using two FrSky X8Rs to have 16 channels available, although I won't need that many. I'll also start installing the vacuum-formed plastic trim pieces.

The only thing that I've seen so far that I wish had been done differently is that the dorsal and ventral rudders are mechanically Y-d together and the left and right elevators are also mechanically Y'd together. I'd have preferred that all four have had their own servo, so that I can subtrim them with the radio. There aren't accommodations for two extra standard servos, but I may look into adding a another PW tray within the Servo Bay, to add two additional servos. I mounted my pushrod connectors a bit differently than the instructions, but we all do pushrods and connectors our own way. Six, one half dozen, or the other....

Oh, one other thing that I did a little differently... The instructions said to epoxy the plastic wheel wells in place. I, instead, chose to use five #2 sheet metal screws to mount each wheel well in the wing. That way, I can easily take them out, if I need to get inside the wing for wires or something..

[paladin]

ok so I don't know if I would trust the stock spinners, the front is an elliptical and the back is a std. I have one of the spinners from the place I posted for a 2 blade prop, have not flown it yet. if I have time i'll see which one fits.

[Twowingtj]

Yes it is. The Owl was nearly complete.

[Oxotnik]

The aft spinner is more conical. Here are a few pics of the full scale at the Hazy-Udvar museum from last fall.

Is that the He-219 Uhu in one of the photos? The last time I visited Udvar-Hazy, the Uhu was in pieces and under construction/assembly.

[Twowingtj]

The aft spinner is more conical. Here are a few pics of the full scale at the Hazy-Udvar museum from last fall.

[paladin]

this is where to get a scale looking spinner for the front. not sure at this point if they used an elliptical spinner in the back.

https://www.dolphinco.com.au/spinner-3-aluminum-2-blades/

joe

[handyman220]

some on ebay

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Electric...-/161855363519

PZ-15096SN is the part number

Thanks again for the linkTerminator, NG ordered. I'll still play with the eflite 105 degree retract for the nose gear to see how much fiddling to make it work. Probably be a month before the nose gear comes from China anyway. The wave retracts are interesting in the way the mains are used for the nose gear, who would have thunk that, not me! Mine is landing 3/12, just got the shipping notice.

[Oxotnik]

Wings fully assembled (less push rods). Installed the XWave RM400-90 retracts and a landing light. Picked up two 80A FMS ESCs and MAS 16x10x3 props (pusher and puller) at my LHS today. All I have left to buy are the 5055 motors.

I'm going to set up my control system on an 8.4v bus. 2S lipo feeding directly into the RX (which will be a pair of FrSky X8Rs, which will give me 16 total channels). My servos are HiTec D485MWs, except for the NG steering servo, which will be a D645MW for the higher torque rating. Servos, RX, and retracts are all compatible with a 2S power bus.

Anyway, that's where I'm at in the assembly process.

[edit... 2 hours later]
Purchased two Flightline 1.6m Spitty 5055-390kv motors, and a WarbirdPilots.com 1/8 scale Luftwaffe pilot. I think that I now have everything onhand or ordered to complete the assembly. I think that the full-body pilot is going to look great piloting the Pfeil. I'll have to do a little cutting of the cockpit floor for his legs, but it should be a really easy mod.

[WAYNE888]

due Thursday

[Twowingtj]

You mean the Wedell-Williams? I'd sure like to see how that turns out! Good luck with it -- love those Thompson Trophy racers.

I'm doing the build on the Official Gilmore thread here. Black Horse did a great job on this one.


Back to the Do335.....

[MrSmoothie]

You mean the Wedell-Williams? I'd sure like to see how that turns out! Good luck with it -- love those Thompson Trophy racers.

Glad to have +1 on the XWave retracts. I'm feeling much better about having spent the money than I did last night.

[Twowingtj]

When I had to replace the retracts in the 15lb BV-141B, I used the XWave RM400s and found them to be well made and worth the price, Very smooth and positive lock at end travels.

I'll follow everyone elses 335 builds for a little bit longer, as the Black Horse Gilmore is on one bench and my wife's VQ Twin Otter is on the other. Both have about a week's worth of work to go.

[Oxotnik]

RE: Sold out Do-335s.

I'm glad to see that MRC sold what they'd bought into their warehouse, and I'm glad to see everyone carrying through on their promises to buy a 335, if Motion brought them in house.. Hopefully, this will continue to encourage Motion to continue to bring us new and exciting warbirds! After all, if we wanted Mustangs and Cubs, we could go to Horizon, as that seems to be all that they're putting out, in addition to Timbers, of course.