Telemaster Build at FTFF 16

[Joker 53150]

The Mini Telemaster arrived today, and there is both good news and bad news...

The bad news is that FedEx managed to damage the balsa, even though it was double-boxed and there was air space between the boxes to allow for typical damage.

The good news is that the damage is limited mainly to the balsa sticks and I think I have enough balsa sheet on-hand to cut my own replacements if they don't want to replace these broken pieces. And when I say they broke the sticks, they broke ALL of them - none were spared. I'm actually surprised there wasn't more damage to the rest of the kit! One rib was split along the grain, but that's a 30 second fix. I've gotten MUCH bigger problems with my Hobby King kits.

Also good news, the quality of the laser cutting is top-notch. Many pieces just need a light breeze to make them fall out of their original sheets.






The kit also came with a lot of standard hardware for assembly, even the wheels. However, these are a bit small for the grass I'm expecting at FTFF so I ordered a couple larger sizes to take along just in case. Note that they also include a check list for all items included with the kit. There are a couple errors, but overall it really helps to make sure everything is there and ready.




Since the parts are literally falling out of the balsa sheets, I'm thinking about taking them all out and "staging" them - putting all the wing parts together, tail pieces, fuselage parts, etc. This would help when we start construction, so I'm not digging through all the pieces looking for a part that my dad has on his board, or worse yet shuffling the parts around and accidentally losing something in the grass!

Also, now that I have the plans I can start designing the mounts for the floats. I want to design the parts and get them cut out while I'm still home, so I don't have to take the bandsaw to FTFF just to cut a couple pieces of light plywood. I'll line up the plans against the HZ Super Cub floats jut to make sure everything looks Kosher.

 

[Joker 53150]

The Hobby Zone floats and electronics arrived today, so everything is moving along well. I need to study the plans and parts some more to make sure I'll have everything needed for the build. It appears that they've changed the pushrod design over the years and I may need to add some of my own hardware to make it all work. Not a big deal, but it could be if all the parts aren't handy!

So back to the floats... The Hobby Zone Super Cub is very similar in size and style to the Mini Telemaster. Both are also tail-draggers with a CoG slightly behind the landing gear. Seems to me that would mean floats would probably work on the Telemaster in the same spot on the fuselage as they do on the Super Cub. I lined up one of the floats with the plan page and it looks promising. Like the Super Cub, the prop here is a few inches back from the tip of the float and the CoG is about at the step in the bottom of the float. If this all works out, I could use some of the stock float mounts for the Super Cub, although I'd probably just bend my own wire for the front mount so I could re-use the Telemaster's stock landing gear mount. A mount for the rear wire should be easy to fabricate, and I'll play around with it over the upcoming weekend.

 

[Joker 53150]

Here are some props for Hobby Express and their customer service. I left an after hours voicemail after receiving the damaged shipment. Yesterday I went through it in detail and found the broken sticks won't really slow me down so it's not a big deal. Today they called to get info on the damage to file a claim, more than most companies would do. I told them about it in more detail, and let them know their packaging was great. I told them not to bother with the claim, I could make the parts work for me. My job is running warehouses and shipping products so I know claims are a hassle. Might as well make life easy for all of us.

 

[roversgonemad]

You'll want the step in the floats about one half inch behind the CG. If the step is too far forward, it's squirrelly on the water. The floats look to be a good fit!

 

[Joker 53150]

That should be easy to do, thanks for the tip.

 

[roversgonemad]

Some good tips here on float plane set up: http://www.hooked-on-rc-airplanes.com/rc-float-plane.html

 

[Joker 53150]

My plans for building at Flite Test just got more interesting, as I saw on Facebook that Laine's Planes is now a vendor there. I've been wanting to build his Cuda and almost pulled the trigger on buying one. Since Laine will be there I can save a few bucks on shipping and get it right from the source! I've already got a motor and ESC for it - the motor is an NTM prop drive 28-36 2200kv and it'll be running 3S and 4S packs. The motor might be a little heavy, but should balance out with a 4S 2200 pack.

This will NOT replace building the Mini Telemaster, as that's still the primary build goal.

 

[Joker 53150]

The Telemaster kit didn't include any decals for the wing, which surprised me. I see them on many Telemasters, so maybe they sell them separately or maybe somebody else makes them. However, part of my job includes running a vinyl graphics department so I've got access to everything I need to make my own.

Not knowing exactly how big I'll want the text to be (final color and design choice will influence that) I made 5 different sizes in both white and black vinyl. This should give me the flexibility to get it lettered while at FTFF. While I was at it, I also cut some vinyl for the 'cuda in a couple sizes and styles. Hopefully I can get both planes built at the event, and I'll have everything with me in case we get that much done.

 

[Joker 53150]

Pictures will be added when I get home, but here is where we are at after one day.

The fuselage is about 80% done and mainly needs the set is hooked up and covering done. The wing is about 79% done. Overall, the quality of the kit is very good. There were a few small confusing spots in the instructions, but nothing we couldn't get past.

 

[Joker 53150]

So the build was frinished yesterday, but winds were too high to fly. When winds died down the skies were filled with too many planes to deal with on a maiden. It had to be postponed.

This morning weather was perfect, so it was time to give it a shot. The original plan was to use a 2200mAh 3 cell, but it was just too heavy even with it shifted back as far as possible. A 1000 3 cell was picked since it's the next smallest size on hand at Flite Fest. In the runway and it just leaped into the air. A minute or two of trimming and it was flying great at 1/3 throttle. With that battery I should end up with around 14 minutes of flight. A 1300-1500 may be a better pack, I'll know more after trimming it out back at home.

But for now, success!

 

[CrashRecovery]

Video or it didn't happen!!!!!

 

[roversgonemad]

What he said!

 

[Joker 53150]

There is no video yet, but I'll work on it!

I'm back home after an 8 hour drive this morning, and I've got a lot of stuff to put away, pictures to look through, etc. Plus I've got a couple travel days for work coming up this week, so I may not get the Telemaster build pics uploaded until then.

However...! Here are a couple pictures of the finished product. First is the finished product, minutes after finishing it up late on Day 2. I REALLY wanted to fly it that day, but winds were pretty bad all day and when they finally died down towards dusk everybody else took to the air, and I didn't want to risk the Telemaster on it's maiden flight - it'd have to wait another 12 hours till morning.




Bright and early my dad and I got out and after a quick pre-flight up with went! It took a bit of trimming, but really floated nicely. The original plan was to use 2200mAh 2 or 3 cell packs. I started with a 3 cell to make sure I had enough power, but the 2200 was way too big and she was very nose-heavy even with the pack pushed back in the fuse. Switching to a 1000mAh 3 cell was the trick and it balanced out. A 1300 may be better, I'll check it out soon. Even with a "small" 1000 pack I was still getting 12+ minutes of flight and cruising along nicely at 1/3 throttle. Landings were a non-event. Many people claim Telemasters fly great, and I'm in agreement with that!

After the maidens I cornered Joshua and had him take a pic of my dad and me holding the newest bird in the hangar. Two solid days of work paid off well! If I were building the plane on my own it would have taken a couple weeks of on & off work to do it. Covering would have been MUCH easier and faster in my shop, as it was a bit windy that day at Flite Fest. The covering shows that it was rushed, but with all the flying dust I'm happy it turned out as well as it did.




Besides also picking up a Lane's Planes 'Cuda kit, I ran across a guy selling a bunch of planes. I was really tempted on a Top Flight Corsair or the Top Flight P-51, until I saw an old Sig Astro Hog sitting in his trailer needing some love. Looks like it's time for me to rescue yet another old plane! The covering is a little brittle and I'm not sure if I'll need to re-cover it before flying it, but the tentative plan is to simply patch the holes, convert it to electric, and fly it. It will absolutely need re-covering in the future, but I can live with it for now.




There was something about the look of the Astro Hog that I really liked, but couldn't figure out what it was until I got home and brought the Hog into the shop. Sitting on the shelf was the body of the Sig Ryan STA that I got from a friend a few months ago - the Ryan STA has always been a favorite design of mine, I'm not sure how I didn't see the similarity at the event. Long lost brothers! They're similar in style and size, and are both just slightly smaller than my 1/4 scale Cubs and Pietenpol, so maybe the Hog and Ryan are around 1/5 scale?

 

[willsonman]

Watching this build was pure joy! What an amazing accomplishment (the dealing with your dad part ). Seriously though, It was a real treat to see this one built and flown.

 

[Joker 53150]

Thanks, we appreciated all the encouragement and compliments. It was a lot of work but was fun exposing people to balsa.

 

[Joker 53150]

Here we go with an abbreviated group of build pictures. Once we got moving, I never really thought to take out the camera and document the process. And once we were far enough along that we could see light at the end of the tunnel, the focus was on just getting it done. I think we were both somewhat sick of sitting and building for as long as we did, even though there were plenty of breaks in the action and tons of people to talk to.

Day 1 of our build, bright and early we arrived at Flite Fest. I worked all day Wednesday and instead of sleeping and leaving at 3AM like we did last year, we hopped in the truck and left Milwaukee at about 7:30PM. I drove all night (although we stopped for about 30 minutes to try and sleep - unsuccessfully - so we took off again). We got to the field around 5AM Thursday and unloaded as quietly as possible to avoid waking people up. Construction started around 6AM, and here is where we started. Notice the untrampled ground and lack of scrap foam everywhere.




The front sides of the fuselage are made from two pieces of balsa sandwiched together, which puts the grain in different directions, resulting in a more solid piece. They use locating "pins" (nails) to align everything, which works nicely.




The wing is straightforward in design, although we did end up making a fairly major mistake (my fault as head of quality control). We accidentally used the leading edge for the top spar, and I didn't have my extra supply of stock balsa along to make a replacement. In the end, my dad ran to the lumber yard and picked up a couple 1/4" hardwood dowels to use for the leading edge, which worked very well. When looking at the finished wing you can only tell what isn't "correct" if you know how it was supposed to be built. Otherwise it simply looks like a balsa wing.




With the fuse fronts done, the top/bottom corners were added along with the tail sides.




Here dad is working along on the first wing. He's got a crazy assortment of pins that he uses for balsa work, and he can pick whatever size/style he wants based on the pieces he is pinning down.




With both fuselage sides done the interior structure could be added. As with everything else on this build, it was very straight forward. Note the green clamp, which is where I customized the fuselage. This is where additional landing gear wires can be installed to set the Telemaster up for floats. The work I did before leaving was pretty good, but I still had to make field modifications during assembly. When I made the parts I didn't test-fit all the pieces together, wanting to leave as much of that as possible for Flite Fest.





We are using standard ceiling tiles cut to smaller sizes to build on. Pins go in very easily, they're flat, and super cheap.




If you squint your eyes and rub them real hard, it looks like a real airplane fuselage!




Fuselage construction is done (other than electronics and final sanding), so attention is turned to the tail feathers. The vertical stab is a very simple design, made from 3 laser cut pieces and 5 sticks cut down from longer pieces.




Other than pushrods and sanding, this is as far as the fuselage got for Day 1.






The wings are nearing completion as well. Wing tips are still required and we needed to come up with a solution for the leading edge. Again, there would normally be more sheeting on the wing, but it's plenty strong the way we built it.




Day 2 we got all the details figured out. Here you can see the 1/4" hardwood dowel that became the leading edge. The wing has some natural dihedral to it, plus the ailerons. The result is a very stable wing, perfect for a high-wing trainer-style aircraft. The first piece covered was the battery hatch so I could see how well the covering stuck to both balsa and light ply. I did have some covering problems, but mainly around the tail. But in this case, it's good enough and you can't see it when the plane is flying.




A couple long hours later and the fuselage is covered. I didn't take any "during" pics, or any of the wing being covered. Pictures posted previously show the final result, with the white trim, vinyl lettering, and windows. I really like how the transparent red turned out, allowing you to see the classic stick-style structure of the wing and tail.




During the build, we had a lot of conversations with people. Most have never tried building from balsa, and many said they'd like to try it. We were asked if this would be a good kit, and my immediate response was "NO". Don't get me wrong, it's not really a difficult kit. The instructions are very good and the quality of the laser cutting is top notch. But there are kits available that I think are better for the first build. Kits that have fewer parts are a better choice because they give a first-time builder a better chance at actually finishing the build. My first two choices are both from Mountain Models, either the Lucky ACE or the Switchback, depending on your flying experience. I've built them both and both of them are easier to build than the Telemaster. Laser cutting quality is also extremely good and their instructions are also great. After building one of those kits, a Telemaster would be a great second build.

For those thinking of starting off with a balsa kit from Hobby King because the kits are cheap, understand that they are cheap for a reason. Instructions are basically non-existent, laser cutting is normally poor, and the kits need an experienced hand to make sure they go together properly. I've built a number of the HK kits, and they normally take me many times longer to build than a good quality kit. I also have to supply good hardware for the kits, like screws, landing gear wire, wheels, etc. That all drives the cost up and you eventually end up at the price of a good kit anyway, so make your life and learning easier with a good starting point.

I am by no means an expert builder, but I can stick wood together and make it look like an airplane. I'm happy to help anybody with questions, and encourage everybody to try building from balsa. You'll be amazed at how much pride you take in something you actually BUILD compared to something you assemble.

 

[rockyboy]

It was great fun talking with you (and your reluctant laborer) at FF! I had to leave before it flew, but I'm very glad you were able to get up in the air with it - congratulations!

 

[Joker 53150]

Thanks, and thanks for stopping by to chat. Dad wasn't as reluctant as he made it sound (hopefully). He was all-in on doing the balsa build, since he doesn't like flying when too many people are also in the air.

 

[Joker 53150]

After reviewing the instructions a few times, I think we'll have a very good chance to finish it completely in 2 days. Assembly is very straight forward. The wild card will be the speed which my dad works at - he's very meticulous, so I'll have to break him of that habit!

Just re-reading some of the details from before the event, and it looks like my timeline was spot-on with 2 days. Sometimes I actually think I know what I'm doing!

 

[willsonman]

LOL! I've seen you build here and in-person... you know what you are doing. For sure one of the treasure builds this year.