Levanter Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 My girlfriend is an enthusiastic supporter of my hobby and thoroughly approves of the growing fleet adorning the ceiling in our flat. I have a growing collection of Peter Miller plans so one evening, completely without any need for a new project, I gave her the pile of plans and choose one. Very quickly she narrowed it down to Yuppy Love. So here I am, committed. A quick search on Ebay got me the 1992 magazine with the instructions and off we go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 Here is what the model looks like although I have a very different colour scheme in mind. And here are the rib blanks cut out It will be powered by a Magnum 15. Using Peter's own words, it is quite slippery but now with the availability of small servos I can follow his suggestion to have ailerons on both wings as well as having flaps on the lower wing. This will make it an interesting challenge. Supposed to be a quickie before the 2015 Mass Build. We'll see! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Hi Levantor3. IT is a nice model. So nice that I did bigger version called Toot Sweet and at the moment I am building a similar aircraft for a .40 FS. A little story. Many years ago I was looking round a DIY store and spotted a folding decorating table. The box showed a model aircraft and I thought "That is a pretty looking little biplane....That is a familair looking biplane....THAT'S YUPPY LOVE!!! and it was a painting of the model including sections of the plan. Now if the commercial artist had asked if he could use I would have said "Yes" but can I have the artwork when they have finished with it. But he had not. so I am afraid it cost him some cash! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marsh Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 I built one years ago. Got broken when I lived with my parents. Still have the wings, though and the plan is somewhere, so no big deal to make a new fuz. Had a OS 15FP in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 Very nice Paul. What propeller did you use? I think I might try banding the lower wings and nylon bolts on the top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marsh Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 was an 8x6, which us ideal for a .15 FP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 Good progress today. Here are the ribs ganged up for final shaping and sorting out the spar slots. The thinner sectioned ribs are where the centre sheeting will be. Here is the complete rib set. I have gone away from the square leading edge set on the diagonal. I think Peter has moved away from this now. I prefer to use a false leading edge for building and fit the leading edge later. The thick end ribs will allow me to do some wing tip shaping if I want to. Peter. I have tried but I am faiing to understand the tapered trebler in the left hand side of the nose. I am not sure what to do. I am thinking of putting the engine inverted and leaving the bottom of the cowl open. Is the taper anything to do with side thrust I which case I will build it into F1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 All that tapered trebbler is for is to provide material to shape the nose the match the spinner The sides are straight so you would not be able to carve them down to the spinner size. The trebler makes the front thick enough to shape NOTE. I never use side thrust. I get a swing on take off which I corect with rudder. In flight txhe model flies straight. I have never seen a full size aircraft with side thrust. If they need anything like that they use an offset fin. As a point of interest Yuppy Love was nice and fast and aerobatic on a PAW .15 cce engine. that is an 09. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 Peter - Got it thanks!! No side thrust then and I will decide later if it is going to be a sidewinder or inverted. On the wings right now and got one done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted January 1, 2015 Author Share Posted January 1, 2015 Turning out to be reasonably quick build for me and a real pleasure. Decided on inverted in the end. The wings are covered and now working on the nose. Here are some points of interest along the way. Another small mod was to use wing bolts instead of rubber bands. This was partly due to keeping the number of servos down. I have outboard ailerons on the lower wing and these are driven with a link from the top ailerons. I thought it would be important for the wings to have a register and fixing so that the link dimensions will remain the same. Working on the assumption that all dimensions will change drastically in a proper crash. The block supports the wing bolt and is glued securely onto the top and bottom spars. The black cord is braided spectra (fishing line variety) It is very strong, very stable, extremely light. The plan has no shear webs between the spars and although the wingspan is quite small there was quite a bit of deflection and with the front section sheeted this induced a noticeable twist. Again I wanted the relationship between the wings to stay constant for the linkages. I know that the covering stiffens everything up but I wanted to do a little experiment. See next photo. The thread sits in a very shallow knife cut in the ribs where they meet the sheeting. Just enough to make sure the thread is deep enough not to get rubbed out when doing the final sanding. The thread is pulled just taught and cyanoed into the slot, where it lies along the spars and at the intersections. The result was really noticeable and I am certainly going to try it again on a thermal type glider or similar. It was very easy to do and much quicker than fitting webs. This is the underside of the top wing with the torques rods for the strip ailerons. This is the top of the lower wing with the arrangement for the one piece flap that straddles the underside of the fuselage. This is the fabrication of the two main formers and the servo tray. It is self-jigging and just need the rake to be set up over the plan. I try and get as much of the fiddly bits done before putting the two halves together. Here is my favourite way of bringing side sheeting together with ensures getting it correct to the centreline (over offset if you want to). Two rigid pine beams are clamped to the parallel section of the fuselage. Dowels of a suitable diameter are rolled into the gap until the correct shape or dimension is reached. Two dowels can be used in tandem to spread the load and vary the curve. The arrangement is completely stable and the dowels are easily rolled in or out. Normally their position can be set by eye but for real precision they can be measured against a reference mark placed on the beams. Any former or firewall is easily dry fitted to get good matching tapers and when ready, the whole thing acts as a clamp. The method works just as well on fuselages that are tapered or if you want more clamping pressure on the top or bottom. Simply roll the top or bottom further in and there you have it. It is much quicker than jigging off a board and a doddle to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 Some interesting ideas there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Fenton Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 Yes indeed, I like your methods will have to keep on eye on your build Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Progress a bit quicker than the blog work slowing things down a bit. Trial fit of the engine (inverted). There is not much room in there! The nose of the aircraft is not detachable, not in normal flight anyway. I did not have any dowels or round bits large enough to follow my own methods so made do with bits of balsa to squash the nose into shape. Here you can see there is just clearance on the engine mount after some removal of the nylon. The nose ring is epoxied into place. I use very little epoxy (mainly aliphatic and cyano) but here it is ideal because I can select the cure time I want and it works well bonding the end grain of the balsa onto the plywood. On the sides you can see the 0.8 mm plywood doublers. In the early stages of the construction I only bonded them as far as the former at the front of the parallel section of the fuselage. Try to make these tight curves is very hard and builds in lots of unwanted stress. This was very easy to bend as the doubler just slips along the balsa. In this photo you can see a slight gap. Now is the time to lock the shape in. First I opened the gap slightly using flat toothpicks and then drizzled a small amount of medium cyano into the space. Quickly taking out the picks and clamping with clothes pegs has the job done in seconds. Minimal stress and effectively a very strong curved laminate. Here is another view of the engine fitting procedure. I am trying to make the engine removable once the model is fully complete. I think I might just do it with any luck. Here you can see the hole in the nose ring is a snug fit on the prop driver. That has given me the accurate position of the engine for drill the holes in the mounts and leaving a nice neat gap at the front for the spinner. The nose ring is then bored out to the biggest size I can reasonably get. This just allows me to get to the machine screws hold the mount to the fire-wall past the crankcase. The top sheeting is now glued in place and roughly shaped. This stabilises the whole front end and the hard part is over. Yuppy Love is starting to develop her very distinctive front. The last two photos show the top and bottom wing seats along with the servo tray built between the two main formers. Fuel proofing is now in progress. Next job to fit the tank and the plumbing. Peter warns this is a bit space challenged! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I wonder how effective the ailerons on the top wing only will be. Very, very neat building. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 The quock way of aligning the nose ring is to glue it to the spinner backplate with 1/16" balsa spacers. Mount this on the engine. and then build the cowl onto it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Thank you Peter. The top wing has strip ailerons And the bottom wing has outboard ailerons spanning the last two rib bays. The one piece flap runs right across the centre section of the wing. The chord of the lower ailerons and flap is 6mm more than on the top wing. I am hoping I have not killed the response. Oops - I've given the colour away but the actual colour is much more lurid! After I had finished covering when I looked at something white ie WC it turned green in my peripheral vision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Smitheman Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Oh Help! It's lovely I want one. 1. Its balsa. 2. Its a biplane. 3. Its cute. 4. It looks like it would be great fun to fly. 5. I have a suitable engine So many models so little time. Sigh, I think I need therapy. But building is therapeutic..... But first I must finish the Spacewalker and what about the .. and the.. and the ....... oh yes once I was building a Sparrowhawk... It really is cute. Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 I will be interested to hear how it flies. Just in case anyone is interested. There is a bigger version for .40 FS engines called Toot Sweet in the plans service. That was just as much fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 You won't regret it Charles. It is very very endearing. Looks like I forgot to show a picture of the bottom wing. With the outboard ailerons controlled by links from the top wing ailerons. The one piece central flap is controlled by a servo concealed in the fuselage on the top surface of the wing. The linkages for the flap are internal so it is very clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 I told you that by coincidence I was just building a similar model. Well here it is. 37" span. 8.5 chord, a bit over 600 sq, in.wing area. Weight just over 4 pounds. Not flown yet. No, It won't be in RCM&E. I am doing something Special here, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levanter Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 Peter. Very nice indeed. What engine does it have? Be sure to post some flying pictures soon. SPECIAL eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Sorry, OS FS 40 Surpass. You send some sunny, calm Sundays and I will do the pictures Edited By Peter Miller on 07/01/2015 14:15:18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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