Sigh

Thanks Martyn. I'll do that. Spar slots will be my reference

I hope everything went well about the roll. Your blog is like an exciting movie but cut before the final and you don't know if it has a happy ending or not.

Hi guys I am starting the build i removed the ribs yesterday evening. Astro hog is not too different from building from plans, the cutting is very poor. Don't know why they don't use laser cutting. Anyway the first question i hva is if i have to press the ribs together and sand to make the edges equal. The manual doesn't call for it but i guess i have to do that. Should i do that. Also since each rib is cut slightly different i could not align one to another.

In my other planes the bottom of the engine mount is accessible with a tool to stop the nuts turning while i install the engine. Whereas in the hog the bottom of the mount will be blocked with wood no surprise tapping is suggested. Incidentally I'll use OS max 55 that I have available. By the way your astro hog looks perfect and nostalgic Phil, do you fly it with that transmitter?

Hi andy very nice to meet you. I have read the blog and visited your site. very good job. Hope mine will look as good as yours. Have you had any problems with your landing gear?

I bought a sig astro hog kit when i was in the uk from smc, i will start the build this winter. I am reading the manual, taking notes and doing some research on previous builds on the internet; the more i look the more questions i have. I would like to keep it more or less the way it used to look. But i would like to decrease the dihedral to half of the manual calls for and make it a taildragger. The way the wings join worried me, the spar is out of laminated balsa the landing gear fits on a hardwood piece which is glued on three ribs. The dihedral brace is glued to the spar from one side and without force. So the balsa spar and balsa root rib should stand the landings. I don't want to use an aluminum landing gear on the fuselage, but during my build i may leave provision under the fuselage just in case.

Last week I installed the ruddervators, and tail servos. I used special horns for V-tail planes and ball-links to the servos. I don’t know if it is because of the ruddervator installation or I measured it wrong before the CG moved. Only the fins and links are newly added. Now it has become tail heavy. I may install a plastic nose wheel instead of a foam one and/or use a UBEC to power the servos and the receiver. I checked rActive’s building blog about the CG data. There are multiple numbers so I decided to have it at 65mm from leading edge. BTW I wonder why a V-tail plane is designed in the first place, it should bring some advantages. I asked my aeronautical engineer friends they said it brings advantages but it is much harder to produce. I don’t know what advantages it would bring to an RC pilot. I am asking friends if they have V-tail planes in their simulators. I also set the directions of the ruddervator control surfaces. Common sense tells me that they should work like ailerons when rudder stick is moved; is that correct. Elevator operation is simple anyway. Also I use channel 7 for steering I programmed it as well but it required two of my mixes. One mix goes for the flaps together with the A-Brake function to have two different settings of flaps. I am going to paint the canopy I need to find a suitable paint and pick a masking option. I don’t know if I can use masking tape as this is the cheapest solution. After the CG is moved back to where it should be the plane will be ready to break oh! Sorry I mean to fly. I found a local shop that sells SIG kits. I have been reading good comments about SIG kits. They have FOUR STAR 60. Should I go for it?

Since I can’t find time to write about the developments I’ll post the developments of the last two weeks. I opened the wheel wells but I think I should have surrounded the inside walls with balsa but I didn’t. This would help me get the correct contour; now they ended up in a rather elliptic shape and not symmetrical. Mounting the servo and the pushrods was very hard, it was easy for the main gear but adding the nose gear to the mechanical circuit of flex wires was a nightmare. At the end I gave up and removed the wires and the servo and turned to fixed landing gear and I covered the wheel wells with the covering material. Apparently I should have used electric retracts but I wanted it to be as light as possible because the wing loading is too high. Later I installed the 3530 1250KV motor gave it some degrees to the side and down I covered the motor with a condom because I had to sand the cowl to shape when the motor is inside. Now the motor is trapped inside the cowl. This was my first covering job I am not satisfied with it, there are some wrinkles and pieces around. I bought 38mm aluminum spinner and decided to use 10x5 propeller. The spinner internal parts allowed a very thin propeller so I dremeled the bolts and nuts for a shorter length and finally installed it. I took out the plane for taxi tests and it was very good. The steering was ok as well. The plane is now 970 gr. At the time of weighing the ruddervators were not in place. The CG is at 62mm behind the leadingedge, this is according to the manual but I remember rActive had leared something else form Jamara, I have to check his and VA’s forum again. I don’t think I will make a nice cockpit like VA did. I am not even sure if I am going to paint the canopy as well. I will mount it with double sided clear tape. This is how it looks at the moment.

Hi Ton; I liked the plane very much, i immediately searched the magazine website, to check if there is a way to download or buy the plan but i guess it is not possible. where can i find the plan for this or a similar model.  

this is what webocalc calculates about the plane

Long time few progress; Hi friends! We moved to a better place the kids are OK. I am 10 minutes walking distance to work and most importantly I have a workshop downstairs; but still not too much progress. What I did lately is that I glued the wing halves, made the flap connections very much like VA did. After some indecision period about retracts I decided to use mechanical retracts. I by mistake ordered a much larger size; now I have to build a larger plane in the future; incidentally I sometimes think maybe apart from being the first it may well be my last build. I spend much more money for building for something that will break eventually and most possibly at the first flight. My wife asks me if I am crazy; but I guess I am much less interested about the lifetime of the model but the joy it brings as it is built. She doesn't understand me. Anyway I finally bought simple and almost suitable retractable landing gear. Since I couldn't find suitable axles I had to bend the 2.5mm struts which weren’t very successful but can be described as OK. The installation is done by using Sullivan 2mm flexible pushrods. I liked the product but it takes time to understand it's behaviour. Incidentally I entered the model parameters to webocalc and it says expert to advanced pilot skills and heavy warbird to heavy aerobatic like performance. So if it can survive my building skills it may not survive my piloting skills. Anyway I need to decrease the weight of the plane since I am no expert on piloting. I can make it lighter so that it can fly slower. In order to decrease the weight I decided to use a single servo for the retracts and I don’t have a stacked servo arm. It has been very painful to adjust all three linkages. I think I have one last option if it won’t work I’ll leave the landing gear open and remove the servo. Also this solution will make the wing not removable. I don’t really mind that much because only the flap servo will be not accessible.  I made the ruddervator covering, I used the covering material as a hinge, the hinge is ok but my covering sucks because of the curly edges of the control surfaces. I also made the balsa covering of the center of the wing to make it flush with the fuselage. I embedded plywood pieces where the screws go in. It will make the wing stronger. I haven’t opened the wheel wells yet, I don’t know if it is better to do it before the covering or after. If anyone have an opinion please share. Also I am open to all power train suggestions. It is nice to be back and writing about the developments. I’ll post recent photos soon.

Weekends developments: I finally managed to install the torque rod to one half of the wing; but we'll see when I have hinges and the flap is in place. I hope I won't have any alignment issues about the hinges and the rod. I had to cut a slot on the number 2 rib at the trailing edge for the torque rod to pass. While dealing with it I even thought to fix the flap to the wing, but I didn't want to call off requirements at least not the basic ones. Speaking of calling off I have doubts to use RDS. Unfortunately the build quality is low when compared with the ones I have seen. So I don't know if it makes sense to use state-of-the-art and expensive parts. I may leave them for my next project. I also did the upper planking of one of the wing halves. I had spent rest of the evening admiring my job. When it is covered the parts look very good.   I have a doubt on my leading edge job though. I didn’t have any outer leading edge part to glue over the middle leading edge. I just sanded it down to match the ribs. I don’t know if it is bad, the airfoil seemed ok to me. I hated the instructions and the lack of parts identification. This model is definitely not for beginners.