Lipo Man

The Bearcat is getting closer to being “finished”. The fuselage is fibreglassed (with water based varnish) and has a first coat of paint. I’m already flying it to get used to it - not without incident! Some issues with the takeoff dolly lead to a punctured lower wing skin (after a nose-over) but it was an easy fix, and once I’ve got to the shops to buy some more glass cloth the wings will be more robust (photos of the damage and the repair below). However - once off the trolley it flies really well. I’ve increased the size of the ailerons by about 30% over scale as rolls were soooooo slow. But it flies slowly, smoothly and has plenty of power. My clubmate Scott filmed some chase footage with his drone this afternoon so here is some air to air filming to show it in flight!

As usual the few finishing touches are taking as long as the big structural bits! Two things I was quite pleased with this afternoon. I’d intended 3d printing the front of the cowl, but my printer is playing up. Plan B - laminate strips of 6mm foam with foaming golden gorilla glue, using a paint can as a former. It was a random idea but it worked brilliantly! I’ll carve and sand to the final shape tomorrow after the glue has set. The other bits I was pleased with are the side cooling vents. They’re quite noticeable on the full size, and I need a way for warm air to exit the fuselage to cool the ESC and batteries. So I cut slits in the skin and pushed them in to mimic the full size. They look pretty good - I’ll finish them with metal self adhesive tape to mimic the full size - some seemed to have an unpainted polished panel around the vents. Last but not least, I had a go applying glass cloth to the belly cover. I used water based varnish which seemed to work well (not as stiff as with epoxy, but so much easier to do). I’d got a match pot if navy blue emulsion from Dunelm and this went onto the glass surface well - so I’ll repeat for the rest of the fuselage.

How did you get the supplied ones off? Or did you bend new wire legs?

I would never have thought of that before building your FW 190. Having done that I’m tempted, and as I was able to add those after the wing was completed I have to admit to having a little think about how I’d add retracts to this as well. Hypothetically speaking.

A trip to the field this morning and the weather was fine for a maiden. A quick taxi test on the takeoff dolly showed power on 4s was more than enough, so full throttle and full up elevator and away she went! Flight performance was as I’d hoped - the light weight and large size made for slow and realistic manoeuvres. Rolls are very slow, but elevator response is more than adequate and she is very stable and easy to fly. I flew two flights. The second was for 6 minutes with some rolls etc. and on landing the two 2200mAh 4s batteries were still at 54%, so eight minutes should be very comfortable! Next flights will push the envelope a little to test inverted, loops etc. Really pleased with how she looks in the air. The slow flight looks very realistic - given the 1.7m wingspan and only 2.5kg weight ready to fly that was what I’d hoped for! I’ve put some fibreglass onto a scrap of foam with some water based varnish I had lying around. If that works I will sand the airframe and fill the worst gaps before fibreglass and paint to finish. It will be very rough up close, but I think it will look great from a distance in the air!

The Bearcat is currently so light I’m tempted to try fibre glassing. Ideally with a water based system but epoxy if all else fails. I’m hoping to re-maiden it this weekend if I can get the FW190 take-off dolly adjusted in time. Has anyone used lightweight glass cloth with water-based varnish?

I’m flying mine with a 2200mAh 4s and no nose weight and it flies beautifully. Seems that the airframe is very tolerant of a rearward CG shift.

The moment of truth… I cut away the fuselage to allow the wing to be mounted properly, so everything is now bolted together. Putting a pair of 2600 4s batteries in the nose (they will run in parallel) allowed me to tip the plane inverted and check the CG - and it’s sitting about where I wanted it with no added nose weight. Hurrah! So - all up weight nearly RTF is 2.49Kg which (if my calculations are correct) gives a very low wing cube loading of 5.3. I think that weight is pretty low for a 1.7m wingspan warbird (albeit a belly-lander) that’s not unexpected. Should be an absolute pussy cat!

I’m hoping to make it for one day. Maybe “Six days” by DJ Shadow? Or “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps?

Wow. That’s a beauty!

The link worked perfectly. Thank you - this looks to be just what I needed!

This week I’ve got the fuselage exterior mostly done - which means I’ve got the first opportunity to put the big bits together to see how it’s looking. As it’s intended to be a cartoonish scale build I’m pretty pleased - and the size is exactly what I was going for. Hopefully that will give me the inspiration to push on and get it flyable! Does anyone know an easy way to make a clear canopy? 🤔

Another different colour scheme - looks great! Congratulations - that’s a beauty.

I’m not even slightly surprised that your Flitetest build is the best looking version I’ve ever seen. That is quite the inspiration!

Looks to work really well. I will almost certainly try that next time…