Willy Nillies Eaglet 250 build. It's here!

Turbojoe

Elite member
It's moving right along now! I got the top and bottom hatches completely finished along with their magnet catches. Added and sanded spackle at the tab and slot areas. It was then time to do a trial fit of everything and setup the radio. I'm using a Lemon 6ch DSMX RX and a Castle Creation Micro 10 ESC. I soldered the 2mm connectors on to the motor and replaced the 3mm on the Castle ESC with 2mm. At some point I'll have to decide if I want to use the tiny red JST battery connectors that I loathe or use the XT 30's that I had started putting on most of my smaller packs. For now I'm using an adapter I made. The XT's take up more room and I might have to use JST.

Nose gear works perfect. In fact I may move the pushrod out a hole at the gear as it has a really tight turn radius.
That little motor is wicked too! With a 2S 370mah Turnigy Nano-Tech pack at storage voltage and the 6x3 prop the assembled fuse will pull vertical out of my hand if I let it. That prop is SHARP too! I have the cuts to prove it!

Weight so far as you see it in the pictures is 122.1 grams. That's with 2 servos, ESC, RX, 2S battery and landing gear with wheels. Just for grins I weighed ALL of the remaining wood including the sheets the parts are still nested in and it was 53.7 grams for a total of 175.8 grams or 6.2 ounces before final sanding and . I just weighed both rolls of covering as shipped in their plastic bags and they total 60.3 grams. That gives me a total AUW before deducting waste wood and covering backing and shipping bags of 236.1 grams or 8.32 ounces. I expect it to come out closer to 7.5 ounces when all is said and done. In any case there is more than enough power to fly it.

On to the wing sometime tomorrow.

Joe

Top hatch.JPG Bottom hatch.JPG Nose and motor.JPG Ready for taxi test!.JPG
 

Willy Nillies

Elite member
Looking Great Joe!

We are finding the 1306 motor and 6X3 prop is almost too much power (But very Fun!). We've been running testing 5x3 props and are favoring them. Less amp draw and less torque/yaw when the throttle is punched. With the 5x3 and 350 mah pack we are getting solid 6 minute flights with plenty of reserve. With a 500 mah pack we easily get 9 minutes of mixed flying and have gotten a couple of 14 minute flights being very easy on the throttle. You will come to love this little 1306 motor!

You are probably pretty close with your weight estimate with the addition of the steerable nose gear, peewee motor mount and steel wheel collars. Seems as though full 4 channel setup is coming in closer to the 7 ounce mark for most. Still well below the 250 gram (8.55 oz) FAA limit and still amazing flight envelope!

Hope your back is better, keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
Thanks Doug. I'll definitely try her with the smaller prop. When I saw the motor I kinda laughed and thought yeah, that thing is gonna fly a plane? I'm a believer now. I won't even try a 3S pack. That would be insanity on the little Eaglet.

Stupid question time now. Take a look at the picture please and tell me what if any of those pieces go to the wing. I know you included parts for hatch tongues etc but I made my own. Maybe that's what all these pieces are for. I just want to make sure. I wasn't going to do any more work tonight but I just had to pop out all the wing parts and sand off the nubs on the ribs (so they don't show when covered). I dry assembled one wing half and figured I'd better not glue anything before I know these extra pieces don't go somewhere important.

After popping out all the parts I re weighed everything. The parts went from 53.7 grams to 27.3 grams. That's a loss of 26.4 grams in sheet weight alone. Almost a full ounce! (y)

If I'm not careful I may be covering her soon. I was thinking I should do the Eaglet 50 box scheme but I think I'm going to do the Thunderbirds theme like I did on the all balsa Eaglet 50 I scratch built. It's fast and fairly easy......

Joe

Spare parts.JPG All Balsa Eaglet 50.JPG
 

Willy Nillies

Elite member
Hey Joe,

All those pieces are for fuselage. Attached are a couple pics. The ply rectangles were intended for hatch tangs, the balsa rectangles are stringer supports, and the other ones are upright braces for the aft fuselage - if you don't put these in the covering will pull and deform the structure in between the large aft fuselage lightening holes.

Great work Joe!

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20200115_231312078_MP.jpg
    IMG_20200115_231312078_MP.jpg
    5.5 MB · Views: 0
  • IMG_20200115_231400300.jpg
    IMG_20200115_231400300.jpg
    2.6 MB · Views: 0
  • IMG_20200115_231301662.jpg
    IMG_20200115_231301662.jpg
    3 MB · Views: 0

TooJung2Die

Master member
I'm following this with great interest. My Eaglet 250 delivery was delayed. It should be waiting when I return home in a few days. Thanks for taking lots of photos.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Looking good Joe.

Good questions have been asked and answered here as well. Hopefully the new prepaid card is in the mail today so I can actually get an order in to start building one. I tried to make an order on the temp card but the site didnt allow it to work like Amazon did. :(
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Belay my last...

Card came, activated it and the system still does not process the order. Sorry Doug but this has exceeded my tolerance for Bills Law BS so there will be no order. This whole process has been nothing but a HUGE headache. I guess its my own fault for trying to be nice.
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
Hey Joe,

All those pieces are for fuselage. Attached are a couple pics. The ply rectangles were intended for hatch tangs, the balsa rectangles are stringer supports, and the other ones are upright braces for the aft fuselage - if you don't put these in the covering will pull and deform the structure in between the large aft fuselage lightening holes.

Great work Joe!

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com

Thanks Doug, that was a huge help. My back is at it again and all I've accomplished today is adding those supports and gluing together most of one wing half. I got out the servo tester and centered and bench ran a pair of servos to make sure they work fine and won't fail AFTER they're sealed inside the wing. That would be just my luck. Only one thing I need clarified. The aileron servos mount from the backside of the rib correct? If not then the servo openings are way too small for the servo body to fit through.

I'm hoping to be able to get caught up on the build tomorrow. I shouldn't be this far behind but pain has a way of slowing you down.....

Joe
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
Belay my last...

Card came, activated it and the system still does not process the order. Sorry Doug but this has exceeded my tolerance for Bills Law BS so there will be no order. This whole process has been nothing but a HUGE headache. I guess its my own fault for trying to be nice.

Let's not drag the thread off topic but I have online purchase paranoia and several years ago I tried one of those pre-paid Visa cards. It was hit or miss as to where it would be accepted. My daughter went through the same problem recently. One of the retailers told her it was the credit card processing company that sometimes rejects the pre-paid cards mainly due to card theft and fraud. Not sure if that's true or not. Only what she was told. Now I just make sure any payment method I use be it debit, credit card, PayPal etc is backed by credit card. That way IF someone hacks into one of my accounts I'm not liable for any losses.

Joe
 

Willy Nillies

Elite member
Hey Joe,

Tabs of servo are on outboard side of rib. Attached pic is only one I could find on phone. If you need a better pic I will get one when I get home from work tonight.

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20191103_192740464.jpg
    IMG_20191103_192740464.jpg
    3.3 MB · Views: 0

Turbojoe

Elite member
Doug,

I had to charge the camera to be able to get the downloads. Attached are some pictures of the servo interference problem I had. The servos are the same ones you sell however I don't know where, when or even why I have the ones I have. They may very well be clones of clones of clones. They weigh 5.1 grams without arms attached. Not the 3.7 they're supposed to. They're also just slightly larger than they're supposed to be. Just to verify my scale I pulled and weighed a bunch of my different size Hitec servos and they weigh exactly what it shows on the box. Looks like I should have ordered servos from you when I ordered everything else.

Anyway...... The ribs are very thin in the servo opening area so I soaked the openings with thin CA to harden the wood then carefully sanded until I could slip the servos in. They would have fit the unmodified rib if mounted from behind the rib with the case top sticking through. This wasn't a huge problem but future builders should make sure they measure the servos they have on hand if not using the servos you carry. Size absolutely does matter here.

Joe

IMG_0005.JPG IMG_0008.JPG IMG_0012.JPG IMG_0015.JPG
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
Thanks Doug. I'm chalking it up to the unknown origin of the servos I have. I took the sanding bar to the one going in the right wing and ground off enough to fit rather than compromise the rib. I'll give the servos another nice long bench cycle before I close everything up.

If I can just get my back to cooperate a little I'll have this thing done soon.

Joe
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
I got tons more done than I expected today. I did make a bonehead recoverable mistake along the way as well. You'll see in one picture three different "dihedral" braces that I'm assuming Doug included for us to experiment with. Now this is only my assumption: in that picture from left to right are 0 degree flat wing, the middle is for the 4 channel aileron wing and the right is the 3 channel high dihedral version. Again, 100% speculation on my part. I initially decided on the flat wing variant then changed my mind as I was joining the wing panels and went with the middle brace 4 channel design. That was stupid on my part but not at all unrecoverable. If I wanted to spend an hour or so sanding and sanding the root section to have the proper angle then I could have had a perfect match. Screw that! I glued it all together and will fill that very minimal center void with thinned 30 minute epoxy. If I hadn't changed my mind late in the game and had thought ahead I could have just leaned the root ribs in enough to compensate and all would be good with a CA bond. My mistake for not thinking ahead just a bit. :oops: After all is said and done for my "aileron wing" the measurement with one wing held flat and measuring at the end rib of the other wing I read 30mm or 1.2 inches. Trying to figure out the degrees will just make my head explode so do it yourself. :rolleyes:

My wings are now joined and the forward sheeting is glued on and drying with SuperPhatic. Sheesh! I'm running out of parts to stick together!

I plopped the partially "finished" wing on the fuselage and got goose bumps. Doug did an amazingly accurate re-creation of the Eaglet 50/Eagle 63/Eagle 2 in a fun size! I SO happy I bought two kits at the same time....

My back problems are fighting me every step of the way but I'm determined to finish and fly this little bugger as soon as possible,

For wing and kit builds rockyboy has done some amazing posts with pictures for Willy Nillies kit builds. I consider him the reigning king of Willy Nillies builds at this point. Seek out some of his posts for exceptional help.

Joe

Dihedral braces.JPG Dumbassity 1.JPG Lower right servo bay sheet 1.JPG Upper right servo bay sheet 1.JPG Upper right servo bay sheet 2.JPG Waiting for forward sheeting.JPG
 

Willy Nillies

Elite member
I got tons more done than I expected today. I did make a bonehead recoverable mistake along the way as well. You'll see in one picture three different "dihedral" braces that I'm assuming Doug included for us to experiment with. Now this is only my assumption: in that picture from left to right are 0 degree flat wing, the middle is for the 4 channel aileron wing and the right is the 3 channel high dihedral version. Again, 100% speculation on my part. I initially decided on the flat wing variant then changed my mind as I was joining the wing panels and went with the middle brace 4 channel design. That was stupid on my part but not at all unrecoverable. If I wanted to spend an hour or so sanding and sanding the root section to have the proper angle then I could have had a perfect match. Screw that! I glued it all together and will fill that very minimal center void with thinned 30 minute epoxy. If I hadn't changed my mind late in the game and had thought ahead I could have just leaned the root ribs in enough to compensate and all would be good with a CA bond. My mistake for not thinking ahead just a bit. :oops: After all is said and done for my "aileron wing" the measurement with one wing held flat and measuring at the end rib of the other wing I read 30mm or 1.2 inches. Trying to figure out the degrees will just make my head explode so do it yourself. :rolleyes:

My wings are now joined and the forward sheeting is glued on and drying with SuperPhatic. Sheesh! I'm running out of parts to stick together!

I plopped the partially "finished" wing on the fuselage and got goose bumps. Doug did an amazingly accurate re-creation of the Eaglet 50/Eagle 63/Eagle 2 in a fun size! I SO happy I bought two kits at the same time....

My back problems are fighting me every step of the way but I'm determined to finish and fly this little bugger as soon as possible,

For wing and kit builds rockyboy has done some amazing posts with pictures for Willy Nillies kit builds. I consider him the reigning king of Willy Nillies builds at this point. Seek out some of his posts for exceptional help.

Joe

View attachment 154983 View attachment 154984 View attachment 154985 View attachment 154986 View attachment 154987 View attachment 154988


Hey Joe!

Absolutely correct on the dihedral braces. I'll get dihedral brace templates added on to the patterns PDFs for all the kits.

It really is the cutest little Eaglet isn't it! :)

Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
Hey Joe!

It really is the cutest little Eaglet isn't it! :)

Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com

OMG Doug! You did yourself proud on the little Eaglet 250!

I'm way beyond needing trainers but I still love a nice easy flying high wing bird. I also understand that they aren't all that much different but what would it take to cajole you into releasing the Goldberg Skylane 250 VERY soon?

Joe
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
I did a little more work today. I filled my screw up minor open area of the center section with a tiny amount of thinned epoxy. It's such a small space that medium CA probably would have worked just fine. No pictures yet but I finished the center section sheeting and added the extended trailing edge. I've done the first application of drywall mud (spackle) and will sand it soon. I'm hoping only one application will be enough and I can move on to angle sanding the ailerons. After that I need to final sand the tail feathers and angle sand them for hinging as well. Then it's on to covering! I did't order enough white from Doug so I'll be using HK white film. I do have an unopened roll of white Solite and Solarfilm but it's so rare now that both rolls are being packed away in my hermetically sealed vault of unbuilt Mountain Models kits.

I almost forgot that I need to replicate the correct Eaglet wing tips. That's a must have for sure and should take very little scrap balsa to make it happen. I haven't even started on it yet. It may be easy, it may not. We'll see... I'll post failures and successes.

While I converted my all balsa scratch built Eaglet 50 to a bolt on wing (I HATE rubber bands) it was hard not to modify but THIS build of the Eaglet 250 will use rubber bands to hold the wing as designed. My spare Eaglet 250 kit is fair game though.......;)

Joe
 

Turbojoe

Elite member
A little more progress today. I needed to get the rudder push rod path figured out and though the nose steering caused me to have to run both pushrods out the same side it wasn't a big problem. I'm a huge fan of the Dubro #47 pushrod kits LINK and always have several on hand so that's what I went with. It'll make it so easy to cover the fuse and then be able to slide the push rods in without having to fish them through.Just another of my personal preferences. I also made the wing tips. I just took a piece of 3/4" light balsa triangle stock. Traced the rib on it and took it to the band saw. Glued it on and final sanded and it's good to go. They only weighed .6 gram each after I used the Dremel to hollow them out a bit. Quick and easy. I also finished up the wing center section. Filled and sanded. A quick final sand and it'll get some covering. The fuse is stripped of all the gear and needs a final sand then it will get some covering as well. I'm nearing the finish line. It's just taking me a lot longer than I wanted because of my back. Not sure how much more I'll get done today.

Joe

Filler piece.JPG Push rod tubes.JPG Wing tip top.JPG Wing tip bottom.JPG IMG_0012.JPG
 

DraxRC

New member
Bought this kit for my 10 year old son to build and might have accidentally finished the fuselage already. Thank you for doing this build log. I had some head scratching moments until i found this. Should have bought the printed Cox engine mount. It looks awesome and the 1306 has to built out alot anyway for the prop to clear.