Very
good assembly instructions are provided so what follows is a few minor
improvements, alterations and observations.
Generally speaking the accessories were of reasonable quality but the
plastic clevises seem a little “brittle”. If I could readily
obtain different ones locally, I would have changed them. The spinner
is a little too long and this prevents a good contact with the starter
cone when trying to start the engine. For a small sum it would be worth
purchasing one of similar diameter and replacing it.
Wheel collets are provided and I prefer to clean the end of the under
carriage leg and solder a washer on to it to prevent the wheel sliding
up and binding with the leg. I then file a small flat on the tip for
the collet screw to seat on.
It’s difficult to land with one
wheel missing!
The alloy engine mount has a clamp type fitting where the engine mountings
on the engine case are sandwiched between two metal plates and the engine
mount itself.
The underside of the mounting is grooved
to hold the nuts whilst they are being tightened. Despite this I found
fitting the engine awkward. A spare lock nut is provided for each bolt
but I chose to fit nylon locking nuts. I was concerned that the engine
may work loose and wreak havoc.
The side of the fuselage is fairly thin so I glued a pair of ¼
inch strips of soft balsa along the inside of the fuselage to provide
a wider wing seating area. Once that was done I was able to fit wing-seating
tape on top of this. The reasons for this are three fold, one it increases
the wing seat area reducing the chance of creasing the wing, two it
helps prevent the wing moving and three provides a seal to prevent fuel
entering the compartment.
Joining the wings was fairly straightforward, my only variation being
to use a dolly peg to ensure the trailing edge of the wings remained
aligned. Once joined, masking tape was placed ½in either side
of the central joint and slow setting epoxy was spread over the joint
using a piece of plastic card. Remove any surplus glue and take the
tape off by peeling it back on itself before glue has set leaving a
tidy seam. This adds nothing to the strength but prevents moisture /
fuel from soaking the joint Do not allow the glue to run, try to keep
the wing horizontal to avoid this.
I used fine felt tip pen to mark the tail surfaces prior to removing
the covering for gluing. Careful use of a scalpel blade is needed to
avoid damage to the balsa tail/ rudder but the covering MUST be removed
to ensure the tail surfaces are glued correctly. ( See later )
One item I did find to be a trouble spot was the steerable nose wheel.
The arm is set at 90 degrees to the wheel and parallel to the engine
bulkhead. This limits the travel to the left. To reduce this problem
I opened up the hole for the throttle wire and placed a piece of fuel
tubing over the wire to act as a sleeve. The bulkhead was also sealed
with a polyurethane varnish to prevent fuel soaking under the covering.
Once happy with the fuel tank position I used clear silicon sealer to
close the gap around the neck of the tank. The plan shows a three tube
fitting on the tank but the one supplied only had two. This doesn’t
make a great deal of difference it just means that you remove the pressure
feed from the exhaust to fill the tank. A different colour fuel tube
helps to identify the fuel feed from the pressure feed.
I used a dolly peg once more to hold the control surfaces whilst I aligned
the neutral positions of the servos. The peg is simply ( gently ) pushed
over the gap between the control surface and the fin / tail etc to hold
it in place enabling you to measure point at which to bend wire at servo
arm end.
The servo arms are connected to the operating rods with small metal
fasteners. These are basically a threaded cylinder with a hole in the
side and a screw protruding through the bottom. ( A common device found
on a lot of ARTF models ) The easiest way I found was set the servo
arm so that at neutral it was at 90 degrees to the body of the servo.
Having selected an arm of suitable length I drilled the arm to fit the
screw in the fastener. Insert a small screwdriver into tube and screw
the retaining screw into the arm and then superglue the lock nut on
the other side of the arm.
The engine I chose was an OS 40LA. Other
than running in as directed by the manual little else was needed to
get the engine performing well with a reliable tick over. I found it
unnecessary to adjust the slow idle screw and would suggest you don’t
tamper with this unless absolutely essential. The servo arm linkage
makes fine adjustment a simple case of slacken the grub screw and moving
the connecting rod a fraction in the required direction.
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