Colin Anderson

Okay, Harry , I couldn't find my original Flair instructions, so I did a quick search and found them online:   http://www.ef-uk.net/models/aircraft-electric/Flair_Cub/flair_cub_instructions.htm     The instructions show the CG to be 85 mm. I hope this helps. 😊 Edited By Colin Anderson on 14/12/2016 20:06:55 Edited By Colin Anderson on 14/12/2016 20:14:21

Hi Harry, As you say, the struts are non functional. On the instruction sheet the struts are referred to as being optional. The instructions, as I remember, were pretty vague about how they ought to be fitted. I made mine out of hard balsa. CG I've got set on the main wing spar/rear of D-box, 75 mm ~ 80 mm sounds about right, from memory. If I can find the instructions I'll confirm that or I'll measure it off my Cub. I apologise if I'm teaching my grandmother to such eggs, but I balanced the plane with an empty fuel tank, slightly nose down. This makes it slightly nose heavy with a full tank, but this didn't present any problems. My plane is covered in Cub yellow Solartex; it was the first time I had used an iron on covering, so I was surprised how easy it was. In use its every bit as durable as silk and dope, which I'm more used to, but does seem to pick up dirt very easily. The plane flies really well (although I'm not flying it presently, as my club will only allow me to fly electric at present). On an Irvine 40 I got around 20 minutes on a full tank; one of our club members also has one that he's converted to electric. The plane is pretty sedate in the air; it can be rolled and looped, but not inverted (but you probably wouldn't want to do that with a Cub, anyway!). Take offs are really short, but landings are really long; at least they were in my hands - this plane is a real floater.

I put a brass tube each side of the fuselage and two brass tubes into each wing half; I then fixed piano wire to the three mounting points of the struts. Once the wing is banded on it holds the struts in place. I made the profile of the struts a squashed ellipse.

I've just read this post with much interest. I can't say that I've understood everything here, but it does seem to have answered some questions for me - particularly BEB's answer. Recently I completed the build of RCM&E's Chapter One - with the aileron wing and tail dragger set up. I got one of our club instructors to maiden it for me (I'm still a novice) and he had it flying perfectly, but it did, to my eyes, have quite a bit of down trim on the elevators. Heading into wind and opening the throttle slightly showed a tendency to "baloon" or pitch up under power. As I recall, the take off was textbook. As soon as conditions were favourable I took myself up to the strip to fly my model myself. In calm conditions I found the plane a joy to fly, but take offs were another matter entirely. It was only the fact that the ground slopes away on one side of our strip that I was able to get the plane aloft, at full throttle! Regardless, I made 4 beautiful flights which, as a novice I was proud of; on the fifth flight I got things too low, too slow caught a gust under one wing and cartwheeled into the ground. I've since repaired the plane and it flies well again - my flying session only being cut short when a collet came loose and the wheel fell off! However, the plane was still exhibiting a reluctance to "unstick". I've since given this some thought. Could the elevator trim be causing the problem? To my way of thinking, at the point where I needed a neutral elevator , with the amount of trim on the elevator I was probably trying to take off with down elevator or insufficient up elevator. Thinking this way, I've now zeroed the elevator trim and increased the motor's down thrust. I've yet to try it out, but it does seem in reading all your comments that this might help to alleviate the problem.

Finished and ready for its maiden flight.

If you think you're getting me up in that thing again; forget it, I'm busy!

For some reason these images don't show up in my previous post  Hopefully this time they will. This is Chapter One with the aileron wing  Progress so far. Motor, U/C and all internals donated from a Wot4   Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:31:12 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:37:16 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:38:38 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:39:44 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:42:51 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:43:45 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:44:54 Edited By Colin Anderson on 16/07/2016 22:45:56

It's only ribs one and two that are cut into sections. I set the angle on the first wing half to the centre line of the dihedral brace; I didn't add the root rib to the second half until I'd lined it up with the first half and the dihedral brace. Not the normal method, but it works for me.

Progress so far. Motor, U/C and all internals donated from a Wot4

What is this answer in relation to David?

Posted by David perry 1 on 25/06/2016 12:09:53: Not really. You still need primary roll or yaw control on the right stick (mode two). You can't "reserve" controls and hands. You could of course build ailerons and fix them, but I'm guessing the aileron wing has less dihedral. David Hi David, Sorry, I don't understand your reply in relation to my post above. Could you explain? 😊

At last I've begun to build Chapter One with the aileron wings. The first thing I noticed, using the plan from the magazine, is that the fuselage is actually 1/4" bigger than a sheet of 36" balsa! Of course 1/4" isn't going to make that much difference, but once I'd cut out the sides I added it anyway. F1 is drawn on the plan as being 2 3/4"; measuring on the side elevation, it should be 2 3/8". I bored a hole in this to take the motor leads and a small cutout below where the motor will be to allow cooling of the esq. as I'm using the motor out of my ill fated Wot4 I had to modify its mount to fit (in its original form it's too long and too wide). I'm also using the Wot4's U/C, which is a bit taller and wider; I don't think wider will be a problem and being taller will simply increase the angle of attack at take off. The Wot4 will also be donating it's servos and snakes. I was hoping to use the tail wheel too, but haven't figured out a way to make it fit I cut and shaped the dihedral braces as per the plan and glued them in; however, matching up the second half of the wing I found the dihedral to be way over the 1/2" specified, so I had to carefully cut them out and start again. Incidentally, the root ribs are shown cut into three sections; for the position shown on the plan for the dihedral braces, the cut positions for these ribs is drawn wrong. As I couldn't find any 4 mm spruce, I used 1/8" sq for the rear one and 5/32" X 1/8" for the two central ones. I also slightly increased the width of the trailing edge by 1/16" and recessed the rear of the ribs into it. I figure that this ought to strengthen the wing in lue of the slightly undersized spruce spars. Other than the above, the build is progressing well. I've yet to cut the modified wing seat into the fuselage. I had thought to use a rib template and do this in advance, but the instructions say it'll be more accurate if I do it when the wing is finished. I've never done it this way before, so I hope I can get it right. I don't have one of those tools for checking wing incidence and don't know what it ought to be anyway. Presumably 0 degrees for wing and tailplane?

Cheers Daniel. 👍

Thanks Daniel, I'm still learning to fly at present, so I need my wings to be as tough as possible. I used hard balsa in the Jocasta that I built, but the wing broke in a hard landing (read crash). The second wing with spruce spars has fared better. As the there is only 0.8 mm difference between 4 mm and 1/8 I'm wondering if it will be sufficient. If you think hard balsa would be more than adequate then I'm reasoning that 3.175 mm (1/8) spruce ought to be too. I tried sending a PM to Nigel, but for some reason this site isn't working properly (at least not on my iPad) and many of the links are not responding.

The aileron wing states to use 4 mm spruce spars. I see on this thread that another builder was having trouble sourcing 4 mm spruce, but there was no update or reply to this. I'm about to commence this build and I find the same problem. What have others used? My local model shop had 1/8 spruce; would this be sufficient?

I still haven't managed to get around to building this model, as my suffering Wot4, which will be the donor for the power train still lives. When I do get around to it I'll be using the aileron wing. What was the answer regarding a woodpack for the aileron wing version?

I hope everything goes well for your maiden Glyn; as soon as we get some better weather - it's atrocious here at present (Langley). I flew mine last week for the first time in ages (I've been practicing on a Wot4); it was a lovely calm day and I really enjoyed flying the Jocasta. This is a really tough plane. I've crashed it twice now. The first time it broke the wing in half, which I repaired; the second time I totally destroyed the wing - in both cases the fuselage remained unscathed. I've since made a new wing, with slightly less dihedral and it flies beautifully. Do remember though what Jim wrote, the Jocasta needs to be flown in on landing.

That looks brilliant to me, Glyn. Great colour scheme. 😊 Good luck with the maiden (or have you already done that?).

Surely it makes sense to just build the aileron wing and inhibit them on the TX when you want to fly on just rudder and elevator. To be honest, though, I'd agree with Nigel; flying is so much nicer with ailerons. 😊