Chinesespaceman_

Hi Guys,   I have looked at Pete's ebay store and there is nothing suitable listed at the moment, I will drop him a message and see if he would make a couple of suitable occupants.   Martin, I like the canopy. Do you have the rear section on sliding rails?   Cheers for now   Gav

Hi Mark,   Getting to the pilot stage, where did you get yours from, having difficulty finding a pilot of the right height. Most 1/6th scale ones I can see are too short to see over the top of the fuz   Homebrew exhaust made by mofiying 2 standard OS outlets by cutting, bending and silver soldering. Joined with a brass sleeve, tapped to M11x0.75. 10mm copper tube formed to replicate the original system shape, all silver soldered including a brass supporting strap screwed into the engine box with some silicone in between to hopefully absorb the vibration.        

Cheers Richard. I have soaked, set to shape and glued, will leave overnight pinned to bench and see how it comes out.   Rather than turn the plan over and wet with parrafin I have traced the profile onto some greaseproof paper, reversed this and used to assemble the other side. It is glued with the formers in place and left to dry overnight. (Forgot to drill the holes in the formers for the elevator control rod, so will have to work that out tomorrow night)   I am going to try and make a sliding canopy by embedding 2 brass strips either side of the fuselage, so will have to give that some thought before I start sheeting. The destructions state to complete the forward sheeting before joining the halves - can you see any reason why this can't be done last?   Where are you up to now? Have you sorted out a steerable tailwheel?   Cheers   Gav

Hi Richard, more questions.......   When I fit the stringer F20 as far back as F6 it induces a twist in the fuselage in the direction shown. I guess if it is fitted with the rest of the fus all pinned down to the bench it might come out straight, but I'd rather not have a stressed structure. The position of the slot in F6 forces a sharp downward turn and twist in the stringer. My thinking is to soak the stringer and then fit.   I am really questioning if this looks right to you - I haven't put something in the wrong way???     Cheers   Gav

Hi Richard,   Sussed out F19 thanks, I picked it up as you say with a bevel on each end. F1 ply okay then, I just can't be confident with anything in this Airsail kit! The laminated pieces on the wiong centre section were like that in my kit as well, the tooling they have used for my parts is really poor.   Anyway, I guess that's the challenge.   Cheers   Gav

Richard, I am hoping you can help me here. The 5mm sq stringers F19 and F20 - do they both run up and into the F1 Balsa? My F1 balsa has a 6mm sq notch in it and I'm unsure whether thet have just cut this a bit too big, or whether it should be 10mm to take both stringers.   I have found that he accuracy of the cut outs in the Fus formers is really poor, when I try to laminate the F2 balsa and ply the cut outs don't match.   My F1 ply former has no notches at all, but I think the plan shows stringers going through the F1 ply former. What was yours like?   Cheers   Gav

Hi Richard,   I've not got too far lately. Been building a new "Hangar" and rearranging the garage as things wree getting unworkable. Have got as far as finishing the poly-C on the wing and have covered from behind the sheeted area with Solartex. I will take a photo and post it later tonight. Am looking forward to getting onto the fuselage and some progress. I think i have tried to re-engineer / over-engineer the wing to get it more scale like and caused myself no end of problems and probably not got the desired result. Anyway, it's all a learning curve.   Catch you soon   Gav

Hi Richard,   I'll have a look in my box of bits this afternoon and see if I can help. Initial thought - is it the duck tail that goes onto the very rear of the fuselage, extending underneath the rudder?   Cheers   Gav

Hi Richard,   I've applied Poly_C and 0.6oz glass to the leading edge sheeting on my wing. I got really bad warping of the sheeting - the wood swelled up in the areas between the ribs. Did you experience any such issues? I was careful only to give a very light first coat.  Have now replaced the top sheeting on one side and ready to go again.   Really nice to apply and no-mess, I can't see that I would ever use eopxy after having used this. I have emailed RC World to see if it is okay to first use a sanding sealer, stopping the Poly-C from soaking into the wood and making it swell as if soaked in water.     Cheers   Gavin

Hi Richard,   I've applied Poly_C and 0.6oz glass to the leading edge sheeting on my wing. I got really bad warping of the sheeting - the wood swelled up in the areas between the ribs. Did you experience any such issues? I was careful only to give a very light first coat.  Have now replaced the top sheeting on one side and ready to go again.   Really nice to apply and no-mess, I can't see that I would ever use eopxy after having used this. I have emailed RC World to see if it is okay to first use a sanding sealer, stopping the Poly-C from soaking into the wood and making it swell as if soaked in water.     Cheers   Gavin

Hi Richard, yes it's me the Chinesespaceman, not sure what's changed on my profile? Like you I am going with the PolyC rather than epoxy, but have not sheeted the wings or control surfaces. Am away this weekend, but will get at it the following weekend and post some photos.   Cheers   Gav

Hi Richard,   Any progress lately? I've just got my wing ready for glassing, covering and painting. Have covered the control surfaces in solartex.   Will post some photos next weekend   Cheers   Gavin

Yeah, sorry about the pics, i removed them from the host server. Still maintain a very poor model when compared to the Seagull Arising Star or Boomerang Happy flying Gav

Hi for the last time in this thread.............. The Lucky (or maybe not so lucky) Star is no longer. After 3 flights on Saturday the wings folded and the fuselage complete with 1/2 a wing plummeted to earth, burying itself in the ground. The fuselage, wing and motor were all written off. I was able to recover the radio gear and tank................... So, 2 words of caution: do as i was advised after the carnage and make sure to use a wing bandage when joining the wings. This means stripping back the covering, but worth the effort I think.Don't try getting too over enthusiastic with the aerobatics with one of these flat bottom winged models.So, I'm off to get hold of a Seagull Boomerang with semi symetrical wing and a few lessons under my belt Gavin

HI, Added the separate aileron servos and conrol rods, soldering the rods to give me a steel clevis at each end. Flew perfectly although had to reduce the rates to 50% on my Futaba 6ex tranceiver. At full rates the plane flew really reactivley, you could see every minor aileron input. The landing gear is like rubber, the nose wheel deforms so much on every landing that the propellor hits and stalls the engine, making a  touch and go very dodgy. The Super Tiger 38 motor is brilliant picks up well on the carburation and allows touch and goes for a learner like me

Had another flight yesterday with the revised aileron servo mounting. The plane trimmed out nicely and flew really well. What a delight compared to a 3 channel with rudder only. Only problem experienced was a really audible flutter when in a slight dive, and I don't mean anything aerobatic, just a shallow dive. My instructor brought the plane in and we checked it over, all okay, nothing falling off, control surfaces all okay. Took it up again, got some height and let it drop from a turn, really bad flutter again. Looking at the torsion bar set-up that go through the wing and into the ailerons I can see the potential for problems, there is so much stiction and I guess potentail for slop. So what do i do? Either way the rods have got to go, so it is either separate servos, control rods and horns, or maybe a bell crank? Will have to have a think about that one. Also, the undercarriage is really not up to the job, distorts and vibrates really badly on landing, so I can see these bits getitng an upgrade too. I do appreciate this is only a trainer, but it should still be airworthy and not an accident waiting to happen. The other high wing trainer at our field, a "Arising Star" is a much better kit out of the box 

I used 2 x bicycle spokes for to replace the control rods, as the kit ones don't have threaded ends making adjustment impossible.  The undercarriage, vertical fin and stabilizer i left to the end to assemble, purely to prevent damage and make easier handling. When assembling these everything was smooth, however watch that the bottom of the rudder doesn't rub on the fuz.The undercarriage straps are a bit mickey mouse and really could do with stiffer rods and a better clamping system, this will be a later enhancement.The fuel tank caused me to sctrach my head. In the end I epoxied some bearers behind the firewall (13mm behind) carved out and spaced to snugly hold the neck of the bottle. I drilled and tapped out the sheet metal inner plate to M4 as it stripped the thread when tightening the bung. The ali tube I bent the top most one to reach almost the top of the tank and used this as the exhaust pressure feed. The clinker was positioned to allow free movement all around the tank and reaching as close to the end of the tank as possible. When filling I use the 3rd tube and disconnect the pressure tube at the exhaust as the breather / overflow.I used wing tape / rubber between the tank and the rear bulhead to give a close fit and surrounded the tank with foam behind that to prevent any movement.Make sure that the ali tubes do not protrude through the firewall otherwise they will interfere with the nose wheel steering rod.The engine mounting screws in the kit did not fit through the Tiger engine mount holes so I used some correct size (M3 i think) capheads.Ah the good old servo adjusters. When fitted these should move freely on the servo arm and without any slop. I had to file the servo arms down to 1.7mm thick to achieve this. I also used lock nuts for security. The little grub screws are of dubiuos fit with the allen key. I replaced with better quality screws and a decent allen key.The positions for the servos were more or less okay, although the rudder servo rod isn't routed in line with the servo arm, but is okay.I fitted the battery in front of the receiver and fitted the receiver vertically The battery fitted flat underneath the throttle servoI glued some bearers in place on either inside of the fuz and above the receiver, so that when the receiver is in place with foam on top, a balsa strap (old piece of trailing edge) holds it all in place.Another thing, the spinner supplied in the kit has too large a hole for the crankshaft of the engine so cannot be use dwithout turning and fitting a sleeve. Also, the wheels have to be drilled out to fit onto the undercarriage rods.If I think of anything else I will add, any questions please feel free to ask All the best Gavin

Hi,  I have just finisehd building a so called ARTF model "Lucky Star" purchased complete with Tiger .39 engine. I would like to post some observations that I discovered along the way which I hope will help anyone building a similar model: The hinge tabs for the control surfaces are really flimsy, better to buy some proper hinges and pin them before you start to build.If you follow diag 2 in the destructions you will just have bonded your wing together with the opposite dihedral. The plywood wing joiner is pictured upside down. Dry assemble first to check.The aileron servo mounting is nothing short of criminal. Although suspicious I am new to RC flying and was stupid enough in my eagerness and tried this. The balsa blocks are epoxied onto the wing skin (1/16th balsa) so after 30 seconds of flight the plane did a barrel roll. Luckily my experienced test pilot (cheers Ken) managed to bring it down safely.Before you start to assemble and bond the wing, mark out and cut the clearance for the servo and servo rails as this is much easier when working from the end of each wing rather than working into the blind slot when the wing halves are bonded.I have modified by cutting away the wing skin and epoxy 1/4" hardwood posts vertically in, right down to the top wing skin.These were then sanded level with the inner wing spars, or as close to as possible.Then I prepared 2 x 3/8" hardwood bearers to replace the balsa itmes from the kit, drilled these and counterbored to get the screw head below the surface. These were then screwed into place, bedded in epoxy, the vertical posts having been pre drilled to prevent splitting.Once both bearers are in place I sanded level and checked with a straight edge to make sure no twisting of the servo.The servo was then mounted as normal.