I've had a 40cc twin sitting around my basement for a better part of a year. I planned on getting a 3D machine to stick it in. Instead I picked a handful of acceptable models that would happily accept the engine, and I thought I would have fun with. Gave it to my wife, and let her pick.
The winner was the BH Westland Lysander. That actually came as a surprise since she always makes fun of things in camo.
Here is my start (I'll add pictures later)
Didn't take long to get the box delivered to the porch. What a big box it is! The distributor opened the box and packed in some other goodies I ordered. The box has quite a bit of empty space, but any item that could move was firmly attached to a wall or other item that could not move. Initial impression was I didn't need to worry about finding damage to any major components. A fact that was proven as I removed each piece. The ONLY damage I found was a pinhole sized poke/tear in the covering on the bottom of the left wing.
I was fairly impressed with my initial review of the craftsmanship. It is by no means perfect, but easily acceptable to me. A few extra drops of glue in a place or two that just looked suspicious to me.
The fiberglass and paint work on the cowling is good. Except there is a fairly large indented line that I guess is the paint line. Not sure why you have to mold a line for paint masking. At least not so deep and wide.....
The covering is och. It has a matte PVC feel to it if that makes any sense. There are lots of little bits stuck under the covering. Not bad in the realm of bubbles and wrinkles. The overall looks of the panel lines and rivets and such is pretty comic-al-ly well done. Almost cartoonish when you are holding the parts and working on them at the table and otherwise scrutinizing the details. Once you step back and look from across the room, it starts to change to an acceptable representation. Clearly not scale, but adds a nice bit of detail.
The big wheel pants done in plastic have me worried. Wheel pants are not know to be lightly abused items on models. These are sandwiched between the 2 nuts at the axle and then attach to the air frame with 2 screws. The landing gear is a 2 piece set that runs up the middle of the wheel pants. I'm 1/2 tempted to pour in some expanding foam to give them extra support along the full length. As is I don't have much faith they will last. with the 3 little attachment points.
I didn't quite follow the order of assembly in the instructions. First thing I had to do was slip it all together to see how big it really was.It is big! I can use my GP Ultimate and Seagull Tiger Moth as parasite fighters.
Once I got done playing, I got to business. I left the wing tip lights out for now. I think this is begging for real lights, so I'm thinking about that. First actual step was the hinges. It is nice they are pre-drilled, but some of them felt a bit over sized. Maybe it is so you have a little play in aligning the control surfaces? Using 30 min epoxy they went in and I don't think they are coming out, but I would have drilled smaller holes.
Next I attached the landing gear and tail wheel to the frame. As mentioned before I'm concerned about the wheel pants. The tail wheel is pretty nice. A working articulating oleo strut. It mounts to the tail under a small hatch in the rear bottom of the fuse. Clever little get up. Once in there I started looking, and with a little bit of work, one could make the tail feathers removable. You have access to the inside of each elevator 1/2 and the bottom of the rudder. A little plywood, a blind nut, and a small bolt, all done.
I didn't go that route.I glued it all in place. Everything was well aligned with not work required of me. Remove some extra covering from the joints, a good helping of epoxy, and judicious use of painter tape supports and let it sit.
After the glue dried I decided to attache the engine. My hope was it would fit neatly inside the cowling. The reality is each cylinder is about 1/4" to long. The spark plug caps will need clearance holes cut. I'm fine with that, and will probably make up a fake exhaust stack to cover. I know not scale, but I'm not too worried about winning the best almost scale weekend flier award.
Radio gear installation is always about as much fun as gluing hinges in. I don't like doing either. After opening up the wing panels and staring into the voids I figured I was going to have to do it eventually. The directions are a little vague where. They show you very well what components you need, except I realized my ball links consisted of the link, and the ball that had to be assembled. The instructions called for 2 each 2.6x80mm and 2.6x75mm pushrods that were supplied with the kit. I had 2 each of 2.6 75mm and 2.6 x 74mm pushrods. Later it gives you a overall length with the ball links attached of 114mm for the flaps and 96mm for the ailerons. I couldn't get that with the flap pushrod and have acceptable engagement of the ball link on the rod. So I cheated the flap servo assembly towards the flap a little and it came out ok.
With the flaps when the instructions say to build the same way, they mean it. If you put the servo in one wing facing outboard, the other servo should face the same outboard. Otherwise you end up with one flap going up, one going down. I know this, but I still did this.
The instructions for installing the ailerons say the same thing. Left and right are built the same way. After the flap fiasco I looked harder at the ailerons. You can't build them the same way as there is a pre installed slanted mounting block facing in opposite directions! I started to wonder about how that was going to work ,when it dawned on me, I want the ailerons going the opposite way..... Here is where I have to confess that I have not built any planes, even ARFS, in 10 years or so. I just started flying again last year. Finished installing the radio in my GP Ultimate that took 10 years to build, and bought my other planes ready to fly.
Installing the linkages for the flaps and ailerons was pretty straight forward. Once I figured out the servo mounting that is. I even took the time to figure out, with my trusty old Futaba T8FG Super, how to slow the servo speed for the flaps. You have to set a virtual channel as a motor. In that setting mode you can control the speed and end point of the flap movement. Then you have to program a mix with the master as "motor" and the slave as "flap" set.. I guess you can also control travel and end points from the flap channel end point, but I didn't try.
The winner was the BH Westland Lysander. That actually came as a surprise since she always makes fun of things in camo.
Here is my start (I'll add pictures later)
Didn't take long to get the box delivered to the porch. What a big box it is! The distributor opened the box and packed in some other goodies I ordered. The box has quite a bit of empty space, but any item that could move was firmly attached to a wall or other item that could not move. Initial impression was I didn't need to worry about finding damage to any major components. A fact that was proven as I removed each piece. The ONLY damage I found was a pinhole sized poke/tear in the covering on the bottom of the left wing.
I was fairly impressed with my initial review of the craftsmanship. It is by no means perfect, but easily acceptable to me. A few extra drops of glue in a place or two that just looked suspicious to me.
The fiberglass and paint work on the cowling is good. Except there is a fairly large indented line that I guess is the paint line. Not sure why you have to mold a line for paint masking. At least not so deep and wide.....
The covering is och. It has a matte PVC feel to it if that makes any sense. There are lots of little bits stuck under the covering. Not bad in the realm of bubbles and wrinkles. The overall looks of the panel lines and rivets and such is pretty comic-al-ly well done. Almost cartoonish when you are holding the parts and working on them at the table and otherwise scrutinizing the details. Once you step back and look from across the room, it starts to change to an acceptable representation. Clearly not scale, but adds a nice bit of detail.
The big wheel pants done in plastic have me worried. Wheel pants are not know to be lightly abused items on models. These are sandwiched between the 2 nuts at the axle and then attach to the air frame with 2 screws. The landing gear is a 2 piece set that runs up the middle of the wheel pants. I'm 1/2 tempted to pour in some expanding foam to give them extra support along the full length. As is I don't have much faith they will last. with the 3 little attachment points.
I didn't quite follow the order of assembly in the instructions. First thing I had to do was slip it all together to see how big it really was.It is big! I can use my GP Ultimate and Seagull Tiger Moth as parasite fighters.
Once I got done playing, I got to business. I left the wing tip lights out for now. I think this is begging for real lights, so I'm thinking about that. First actual step was the hinges. It is nice they are pre-drilled, but some of them felt a bit over sized. Maybe it is so you have a little play in aligning the control surfaces? Using 30 min epoxy they went in and I don't think they are coming out, but I would have drilled smaller holes.
Next I attached the landing gear and tail wheel to the frame. As mentioned before I'm concerned about the wheel pants. The tail wheel is pretty nice. A working articulating oleo strut. It mounts to the tail under a small hatch in the rear bottom of the fuse. Clever little get up. Once in there I started looking, and with a little bit of work, one could make the tail feathers removable. You have access to the inside of each elevator 1/2 and the bottom of the rudder. A little plywood, a blind nut, and a small bolt, all done.
I didn't go that route.I glued it all in place. Everything was well aligned with not work required of me. Remove some extra covering from the joints, a good helping of epoxy, and judicious use of painter tape supports and let it sit.
After the glue dried I decided to attache the engine. My hope was it would fit neatly inside the cowling. The reality is each cylinder is about 1/4" to long. The spark plug caps will need clearance holes cut. I'm fine with that, and will probably make up a fake exhaust stack to cover. I know not scale, but I'm not too worried about winning the best almost scale weekend flier award.
Radio gear installation is always about as much fun as gluing hinges in. I don't like doing either. After opening up the wing panels and staring into the voids I figured I was going to have to do it eventually. The directions are a little vague where. They show you very well what components you need, except I realized my ball links consisted of the link, and the ball that had to be assembled. The instructions called for 2 each 2.6x80mm and 2.6x75mm pushrods that were supplied with the kit. I had 2 each of 2.6 75mm and 2.6 x 74mm pushrods. Later it gives you a overall length with the ball links attached of 114mm for the flaps and 96mm for the ailerons. I couldn't get that with the flap pushrod and have acceptable engagement of the ball link on the rod. So I cheated the flap servo assembly towards the flap a little and it came out ok.
With the flaps when the instructions say to build the same way, they mean it. If you put the servo in one wing facing outboard, the other servo should face the same outboard. Otherwise you end up with one flap going up, one going down. I know this, but I still did this.
The instructions for installing the ailerons say the same thing. Left and right are built the same way. After the flap fiasco I looked harder at the ailerons. You can't build them the same way as there is a pre installed slanted mounting block facing in opposite directions! I started to wonder about how that was going to work ,when it dawned on me, I want the ailerons going the opposite way..... Here is where I have to confess that I have not built any planes, even ARFS, in 10 years or so. I just started flying again last year. Finished installing the radio in my GP Ultimate that took 10 years to build, and bought my other planes ready to fly.
Installing the linkages for the flaps and ailerons was pretty straight forward. Once I figured out the servo mounting that is. I even took the time to figure out, with my trusty old Futaba T8FG Super, how to slow the servo speed for the flaps. You have to set a virtual channel as a motor. In that setting mode you can control the speed and end point of the flap movement. Then you have to program a mix with the master as "motor" and the slave as "flap" set.. I guess you can also control travel and end points from the flap channel end point, but I didn't try.
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