FT Bushwacker BUILD

[whackflyer]

It's a direct replacement DXe for the one that I have that doesn't hold signal, the woman at customer service was so accommodating and assured me the issues were a faulty transmitter. I didn't even have to send the old one back, might use it for sims

Horizons customer service is top notch. I had my DX6 RF deck get fried because the TX went into low battery mode in the air. It was due to a bug in the firmware I was running. Usually you would just land right away and the TX would be fine, but for some reason, it fried the RF deck and quit transmitting. I emailed horizon customer service, and they told me to send it in, they replaced the RF deck, and sent it back to me, my only charge was shipping.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Horizons customer service is top notch. I had my DX6 RF deck get fried because the TX went into low battery mode in the air. It was due to a bug in the firmware I was running. Usually you would just land right away and the TX would be fine, but for some reason, it fried the RF deck and quit transmitting. I emailed horizon customer service, and they told me to send it in, they replaced the RF deck, and sent it back to me, my only charge was shipping.

[/QUOTE]
Nice, it's amazing how customer service goes a long way. A customer is already pissed because of faulty gear and getting kyboshed by some knucklehead on the phone really gets the blood boiling.

I even got an email confirming that it was shipped, same day.

 

[The Hangar]

Cool, did you put it through it's paces?

You - came back with two broken props😉 Actually really disappointed in the APC 10x4.7 props I just got. I bought two, and each only lasted one flight! The first one I don’t blame for breaking since it was on my spitfire when I powered into the ground inverted, but today, I had a not perfect landing, but nothing terrible, and it snapped! I then used an HQ 9x6 prop and did a corkscrew thing I wasn’t able to pull out of and took a hit and the prop survived. It snapped later on on a harder crash though. Here’s the first flight video:

 

[The Hangar]

Nice, it's amazing how customer service goes a long way. A customer is already pissed because of faulty gear and getting kyboshed by some knucklehead on the phone really gets the blood boiling.

I even got an email confirming that it was shipped, same day.[/QUOTE]
Shipping is super fast too. When in Indiana I ordered a plane one day and it arrived the next morning😀

 

[The Hangar]

Nice, it's amazing how customer service goes a long way. A customer is already pissed because of faulty gear and getting kyboshed by some knucklehead on the phone really gets the blood boiling.

I even got an email confirming that it was shipped, same day.[/QUOTE]
Shipping is super fast too. When in Indiana I ordered a plane one day and it arrived the next morning😀

Edit: Not sure why the quote isn’t working, but I re-did it and it still isn’t working...

 

[whackflyer]

Ya, something wierd is goin on...

 

[The Hangar]

Ya, something wierd is goin on...

For you too? It quoted this post fine, so not sure what the issue was...

 

[whackflyer]

Ya I had one after I posted it. It did some other weird unexplainable thing...

 

[The Hangar]

@BATTLEAXE here is the video showing the flaps.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Got the fuse done on the Whacker. Turned out really well, super square and centred and the balance will turn out really good once everything is installed. Check it out:

The profile turned out just like I imagined it would, nice and slick in the tail section. Took out the droopy belly of the tail to save weight, straightened out the top of the tail from the rear windshield back at the same incidence angle from the original plans so it accentuates the rear windshield even more, not so blended. This gave me to opportunity to put the Hstab on top of the fuse and exposes the bottom of the Vstab more, which gives it more of a 3D look and more surface for lateral stability. Peter did say the wing fences on the ends of the Hstab were for looks, I decided there should be the same amount of exposed surface without them and saved some weight at the end of the tail as well.

Front profile shows That I actually got this thing square compared to my first failed attempt. How do you like the double tires?...

The landing gear struts are double layers of FB sandwiched together, double beveled in the front, cut slimmer in behind the wire so the skewer makes contact with the wire itself, eliminating a degree of failure in the foam between the wire and the skewer. Being two layers of FB it creates twice the amount of contact of the struts to the fuse. In the belly of the fuse are skewers frenched in with the added pop sticks reinforcing the inside like in the stock build. The servos are now inside way closer to the CG, no need for extensions, and I was able to use the skewer control rods from the Baby Blender, no cutting or bending. Here is where things get fun, baby needs a new pair of shoes...

These skis are made of polystyrene plastic, the stuff I use for control horns, which apparently is easy to heat with a heat gun and form. The axle housing is made from a pen tube and is all glued together with HG...

I did glue one nickel a little back from center on the skis to get a positive angle of attack so the skis don't nose into the snow, (not shown in the pics). The wheels and the skis will be held onto the axles with set screw collars.

One more gratuitous shot for posterity.

I am thinking the skis might be a bit short but we will see if there is enough snow in the maiden, they will work better then the wheels I have on the bench. And I will be building the FB wheels from the plans as well.

Thanks for reading

 

[Grifflyer]

Looks great! I agree the skis look a little small.

 

[The Hangar]

I’m going to do another set of big bush tires like the black ones I use on my cub. They are light, big, and really durable. I’ll post detailed pics when I do it. My ftfb order should be here tomorrow so if everything goes smoothly, I may have a bushwhacker in less than a week from now!

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Looks great! I agree the skis look a little small.

It almost looks like a big Shrubby lol. Yea the skis are more experimental then anything, Using HG it should be easy to use these same ones and modify as needed.

I’m going to do another set of big bush tires like the black ones I use on my cub. They are light, big, and really durable. I’ll post detailed pics when I do it. My ftfb order should be here tomorrow so if everything goes smoothly, I may have a bushwhacker in less than a week from now!

I noticed with the stock BW FB tires I saw that a lot of people put electrical tape on the treads for durability. I have grip tape that might work well, mind you they don't really need traction lol.

 

[whackflyer]

Got the fuse done on the Whacker. Turned out really well, super square and centred and the balance will turn out really good once everything is installed. Check it out:
View attachment 148082
The profile turned out just like I imagined it would, nice and slick in the tail section. Took out the droopy belly of the tail to save weight, straightened out the top of the tail from the rear windshield back at the same incidence angle from the original plans so it accentuates the rear windshield even more, not so blended. This gave me to opportunity to put the Hstab on top of the fuse and exposes the bottom of the Vstab more, which gives it more of a 3D look and more surface for lateral stability. Peter did say the wing fences on the ends of the Hstab were for looks, I decided there should be the same amount of exposed surface without them and saved some weight at the end of the tail as well. View attachment 148083
Front profile shows That I actually got this thing square compared to my first failed attempt. How do you like the double tires?...
View attachment 148084
The landing gear struts are double layers of FB sandwiched together, double beveled in the front, cut slimmer in behind the wire so the skewer makes contact with the wire itself, eliminating a degree of failure in the foam between the wire and the skewer. Being two layers of FB it creates twice the amount of contact of the struts to the fuse. In the belly of the fuse are skewers frenched in with the added pop sticks reinforcing the inside like in the stock build. The servos are now inside way closer to the CG, no need for extensions, and I was able to use the skewer control rods from the Baby Blender, no cutting or bending. Here is where things get fun, baby needs a new pair of shoes...
View attachment 148085 These skis are made of polystyrene plastic, the stuff I use for control horns, which apparently is easy to heat with a heat gun and form. The axle housing is made from a pen tube and is all glued together with HG...
View attachment 148086
I did glue one nickel a little back from center on the skis to get a positive angle of attack so the skis don't nose into the snow, (not shown in the pics). The wheels and the skis will be held onto the axles with set screw collars.
View attachment 148088
One more gratuitous shot for posterity.

I am thinking the skis might be a bit short but we will see if there is enough snow in the maiden, they will work better then the wheels I have on the bench. And I will be building the FB wheels from the plans as well.

Thanks for reading

That looks really nice! Hope the rest of your build looks that good. What are you gonna paint it like? One more thing. On takeoff on maiden, don't use flaps, you definitely don't need them. Once you're up and flying go up a couple mistakes high and put the flaps down. Try some power on and power off stalls and generally get the feel of how it handles at slow speeds before you try to land. I would recommend landing without flaps for the first time also... Good luck!

 

[BATTLEAXE]

That looks really nice! Hope the rest of your build looks that good. What are you gonna paint it like? One more thing. On takeoff on maiden, don't use flaps, you definitely don't need them. Once you're up and flying go up a couple mistakes high and put the flaps down. Try some power on and power off stalls and generally get the feel of how it handles at slow speeds before you try to land. I would recommend landing without flaps for the first time also... Good luck!

Thanks for the compliments and the advice.

I have never used flaps before even though I had them on the first Spear I built, never had a chance to use them though, so yea i will not be using them first spin of the prop. Good advice, definitely want to see what it does with them up in the air. Considering this plane is way lighter then the Sportster and will use the same motor it should hop into the air with ease. Gonna use a 10x45 slow fly prop so it should have a crap ton of torque as well. I am waiting on servos to build the wing, the second one that is... don't ask, embarrassing story. Still waiting on the new Tx so I won't be flying anything for another week or more.

 

[whackflyer]

Make sure to reinforce the back of the wing on top of the fuselage. Any hard hits and even the tension of the rubber bands will want to fold that single thickness piece up and make it to where the back of the wing is angled up. Just use some skewers or something of the like to reinforce it.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

I did the same thing on my Storch, to the point of overkill to some point, then again I would use like 6 elastic bands to hold it down too. On this one i have skewers lining the top of the fuse for wear and tear and i might put a light squeegeed layer of HG just for grip to hold the bottom of the wing. On my Spit I used those indexing blocks from the build vid but I found those just tear things apart. You should build another Whacker, the more I look at mine the more I am impressed with it.

 

[The Hangar]

Thanks for the compliments and the advice.

I have never used flaps before even though I had them on the first Spear I built, never had a chance to use them though, so yea i will not be using them first spin of the prop. Good advice, definitely want to see what it does with them up in the air. Considering this plane is way lighter then the Sportster and will use the same motor it should hop into the air with ease. Gonna use a 10x45 slow fly prop so it should have a crap ton of torque as well. I am waiting on servos to build the wing, the second one that is... don't ask, embarrassing story. Still waiting on the new Tx so I won't be flying anything for another week or more.

I can tell a huge difference in performance between the 9x5 and the 10x4.5. The only thing is that the cold weather is brutal for the slow flys. Gemfan and APC break just like that if you have a bad landing. The 9x5 survive a bit more. I’m going to try a 10x6 prop when I go to my lhs. It should be durable and have a bit more speed.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

I’m going to try a 10x6 prop

Are you going to put it on the cub to replace the 4.5. If you are going with a 10x6 get the sport prop, way stronger then the slow fly's, as I am sure you know. The 10x45's I ordered from the FT store were the $5 for 2 deal, got 4 coming in the mail. I don't remember what brand they are but I am sure I will be going through them quick. Actually I plan to be real careful and dilegent with this plane, stay concentrated. Hope fully it works out in results that way

 

[whackflyer]

You should build another Whacker, the more I look at mine the more I am impressed with it.

I want to, but first I want to fly my durafly tundras last flights out of it so I can use the 3536 900kv and 12" prop on a new Whacker! I'll probably scale it up to 55", do leading edge slats, and possibly use some RC car shocks on the landing gear to take the shock out of those high AoA landings. Maybe will add a little bit of width to the control surfaces too.