PaulBlack71
New member
The build: Mine is quite ugly, has too much glue, is heavy but functional.
The build was fantastic fun and pretty easy. There's a few tricky bits, but overall it's a great plane to build. There are however a couple of little gotchas though: There is no access hatch other than the lower front end, so installing and reaching electronics after the build can be tricky. I added FPV gear into mine and it was a little annoying trying to fiddle everything through the body. Not a huge problem, just an annoyance. I have placed a runcam2 and an All in One fpv cam and transmitter in the canopy area, so mine has no canopy, I may try to build a clear plastic one later. Pay no attention to the horrid green removable vinyl strips, I threw them on there for orientation during testing. If it survives a few good flights, I'll give it a proper shark mouth detailing. My plane has entirely too much hot glue and some rough hackjob cuts around the prop to get spinner clearance, but it flies great so far despite is ugliness and in the air has a great war-bird silhouette.
The design:
I quickly found a few perceived weaknesses in the design: The wingtips where the under-camber starts out to the tips are VERY weak. Only really one thickness of foam out the the wingtips. One botched crooked landing and they will fold or tear off. I bolstered them up with some long skewers on the underside in one of the creases for the airfoil folds and extending into the wing a few inches. Some have used Popsicle sticks etc. Whatever works, it is now quite a bit more rigid out there although I don't know what difference it will really make other than adding weight.
The landing gear if you use them are prone to fail if you don't make sure you glue them only to the wooden hard-point and not the paper under the wing. My first landing sheared one off and peeled off some paper and foam from under the wing. I've since fixed it by cutting the paper and foam back a little more than the instructions show and making sure the gear are glued ONLY to the wood hard-point inside. Seems much better now but who knows.
There doesn't seem to be any thrust angle built into the firewall plans at all. This plane, if taking off from the ground seriously pulls to the left to a point where it's almost uncontrollable. I tossed the small self tapping screws for the motor connection and used longer bolts with washers/nuts at the back instead. This allowed me to place some washers between the motor and firewall to give it some right and very slight down thrust angle. I will post after testing to state if this makes the plane better or not. It's easy enough to undo if it doesn't.
My additions:
Since it's a warplane, I wanted a spinner. The dubro one recommended for this plane in the FT store works fine, but the Cpack motor has no real back mounting surface for it. It's a tapered surface and very small. I've managed to make it work with some fiddling, but getting it to spin true has been a bit fussy. A properly sized washer to act as a real pressure plate for the spinner to rest on is needed and does not come with any of the kits. It adds some weight up front too. I also had to cut some of the front of the fuselage back to fit the spinner up there without rubbing as it's quite wide. Fills in the ugly open front end nicely though.
I also added a telemetry receiver with vario and the frsky battery telemetry sensor as well so have a screen full of juicy data while flying. I also glued some scrap foam cross-members in places where the body looked like it had a little too much flex here and there especially up front.
Overall, these simple tweaks and strengthening additions will make the model a bit heavier, but since it is not short on power at all, I think it should be fine. Just have to fly it slightly faster I guess. This model has been great fun to build and fly thus far. I've tried to toughen it up a bit to see if it will last some abuse, but I don't think these things are meant to last. Expendable and cheap. It's still a low wing fighter shape though and therefore maybe not for beginners as it is quite quick compared to a trainer and does gain a lot of speed in turns when rolled sideways too far it just wants to keep rolling and of course falling. Some tip stall also seems to appear so watch that altitude.
Note: these little micro all in one fpv cameras get HOT! hot enough to melt glue. I had to use zip ties rather than glue to hold it on or it would just melt and fall off after about 30 seconds powered up to 200mw. I wired both cams to a hobbywing 5v 3A ubec attached to the spare 12v (direct to battery voltage) lead on the esc.
I have balanced it to around 3/4 inch from the leading edge. I think the spinner and extra motor mounting hardware I used have put more weight up front because it seems quite nose heavy at that CG. I've moved it back to about 1 inch and will test that on the next flight. (It seems anywhere from 1/2 inch to 2 inch is working for many people building this model.)
Will post an update when I get to fly it again in current trim and with all the fpv junk running. If it goes ill, I already have 4 sheets of foam board staged up to make new parts as needed
Cheers all.
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