| The first thing that I noticed was the lack of instructions in the pamphlet labeled“Instructions”. I could not make a lot of sense of some parts. So I emailed SAS. The reply from Alan Head, the designer, was an invitation to ring him, despite the fact that I had told him I had bought second hand and therefore made no contribution to his Bank account. Long distance phone calls are outside my budget, so I emailed back and asked him about the leading edge. It arrived with the foam square cut.
The instructions say to “round it off”, but do you round off equally top and bottom? The answer came back that the leading edge is not critical, just do the same both sides. So, following advice from a club member, I drew a guideline along the flat section and rounded it off.
I happily sanded and smoothed the EPP and started the Cross weave taping. This requires at least five fully functional hands, and with my two less than perfect ones, was near impossible to get absolutely perfect.
If you have access to someone who really makes the Christmas presents look good, get them to do it!
The next stage is fitting the Servos. I was using a couple of servos given to me by a friend, and I removed the mounting lugs and fitted them into the cut-outs. This showed up something else not mentioned in the instructions – they would not go in all the way but caught on the cable where it goes into the servo. This was resolved by warming an old scalpel blade on the cooker jet igniter and melting a slot for the cable to fit in to. The servos were then put in place, not taped in as yet. Having tried to bend the z-bends in the control rods with a pair of pliers, I was happy to accept the offer of borrowing a tool to do the job. Next came the Elevons. The parts supplied are Corex, but on the advice of my Zagi flying friend, I replaced this with Balsa, as it does not flex as much. The instructions for fitting the tape hinges seemed complex, but worked. It seems awkward to fold the elevon back over itself but it works. An extra pair of hands is useful here.
The change of materials also solved another little snag- I had no idea what the instructions meant by cutting up little bits of 3mm square balsa and stuffing them up the flukes. To me; Flukes are what happen when Ronaldinho mis-hits a free kick and it sails over David Seaman’s head. They are not the gaps in Corex. That is the wing done for now, and the preparing and taping of the Fuze is straight forward, if a little untidy in places. There then came a visit to the model shop, following a period of Fasting and ignoring the red letters from the Council Tax people. I explained what I was doing, and purchased the necessary Rx and battery and went home. Then I went back to the model shop and took the fuze along to change what I had bought for ones that fitted. The fuze has a small hatch cut into it to allow access to the Rx and battery, but I found that even with the smaller ones the battery will not come out of the hatch past the Rx. So I decided that I would attach a loop of ribbon to each to allow me to remove them easily. I also decided a tag would be useful on the hatch to help open it – I have no idea whether it is sealed on the finished model, but until I have got it fully sorted I want the best possible access. The biggest problem with this plan was finding the ribbon – all the shops in town that used to sell such things have disappeared in favour of trendy cafes, over priced greeting card vendors and saucy undies shops. It seems that making things yourself is an out-moded concept these days. But the receiver and battery are successfully fitted in to the fuze with Velcro, placed as shown in the instructions. With all the components in place, but with the fuselage and wings still separate, it is now possible to power the Rx and the servos to check they are centred at the neutral position. I found out the hard way that it is better to do this before fitting the servos or with the arms off – the moment I plugged in the battery one of the servos tried to lever itself out of the wing. This also suggested the advisability of using an on-off switch. The switch I have will not fit in the place shown on the plan, but moving a little further aft will allow it. The switch will be very near the junction of the wing and fuze, so should be pretty well protected when my friends are using my novice status as an invitation to play tag. The wiring is a little confusing as there is no diagram and there are three leads. Battery input, battery output and? Charging connector? The cutting was easy. I marked the shape using a gel pen and cut it with a cutting disc on my battery mini- multitool, then finished the job with a craft knife, leaving it very slightly small. Then I sealed the surfaces by heating the craft knife blade and it was a perfect fit! Took about 3 minutes doing after 2 coffees, eight cigarettes and an hour of head scratching. But that’s why I am writing this.
Another little tip – if you have the type of switch with on / off positions on a screw on plate – Check these are the right way round!!! . My switch was wrong. This error could have been serious if I had installed the switch in a powered model and chopped off a finger or two because I thought it was turned off. So always follow the correct safety procedures. The check is easy, if you have a multimeter. Set your meter on the 20 volt DC range, plug the battery to the switch, and place your probes on the tiny metal bits on the side of the plug, making sure that you have the positive and negative correct. If you get a reading, the switch is on. If not, move the switch and try again. But what I can proceed with is the coloured tape necessary to protect the model from UV radiation. The colour scheme adopted is obviously down to the builder’s taste. It should be bright enough to be visible from above and below, as well as stand out whilst hanging in the middle of a bush, as they rarely seem to stay on the outside of these natural obstacles to the perfect landing.
My own choice is rather different from the more usual stripes in red, blue, green or purple. How it will work out has yet to be seen, but I can at least make a start on the top of the wing. Getting the tape smooth is not easy, especially round the edges, but a nick here and there with a sharp scalpel solves most problems. If there are bubbles when covering, nick them with a scalpel and smooth down. If my planned colour scheme works, I will include a photo. If it looks daft, I won’t. So having done all the taping of the top of the wing, I can fit the little plastic bits on the ailerons to connect the control rods. I have bought metal clips in place of the plastic ones supplied, as I expect that at some stage the plane will hit something hard, and I don’t like the plastic ones anyway. Screw these on so that it all comes out the same length on each side. This in theory will mean that the elevons are level with the servos neutral. Then clip the links on to the plastic things and place them on the elevons. Mark the position of the holes and measure the distance from the end. Then place the other side equally, and screw them both down. It can be a little difficult getting the backing plates on, the trick is to tighten the screws so they just break the surface, put the backing plate in place and hold it, and tighten the screws. So I can now test the whole assembly. This produces a very unexpected result. For the benefit of the total novice, Elevons are the only control surfaces on this type of plane. They perform the functions of both the Elevators, which on a normal aircraft are on the tail and cause the plane to nose up or nose down, and the Ailerons, which are on the wing and cause on wing to go up and the other down, causing the aircraft to turn. Elevators always travel in the same direction, either up or down. Ailerons always move in opposite directions. So when you pull the stick back to climb, both elevons should go up. But I found that one was going up, the other down. When I tried to turn, they both went the same way. But this is obviously a matter of setting up the Tx. One of the better purchases from Ebay was a decent Transmitter, a Futaba Field Force 7 computer type. This can combine the functions of ailerons and elevators without the necessity of buying and installing a mixer on the plane. Whilst a Computer transmitter is quite complex to learn, it does give you the option of using one transmitter for all the different models – Elevon, Rudder-Elevator, V-Tail, Helicopter, Aileron. Okay, so what’s next. Oh yes, attaching the wings to the fuselage. This is a major step as it means that changing anything requires major surgery. So check EVERYTHING! It all appears to work. So do it. It has been test fitted countless times, and the difficulty appears to be getting the servo leads out of the join. One more test fit and make sure everything is central. Mark the underside of the wing on each side when it is right. Then carefully apply double sided tape to the top of the Fuse sides, and carefully locate the front. Hang the aerial lead out of the side, making sure there is enough slack inside to enable you to pull the Rx out. Get those pesky servo leads out of the way. Now press the wing down all the way. Now reinforce the joins with cross weave tape, being very careful of servo slots, off switch etc and get the tape right into the join. Tape the Aerial into place in a couple of spots and finish the decorative taping.
So that’s it. Done. Finished. Ready to go. All that work and now I am going to throw it off a cliff. A session with a club instructor who uses an FF7 sorts out the Aileron/ Elevator confusion, and she is ready to go. But whilst we are sorting this out I am told that I have put the elevon links in the wrong place, and introduced differential. Apparently the pivot point of the plastic thingy has to be above the hinge of the elevon, or you will get different amounts of travel. I fixed this at the field by taking them off and repositioning them, not easy as she wants to take off in the wind! |
