Brittan Norman Islander

[chris Ibbotson]

I had the good fortune to-day to be in my LMC and the company of Electriflier and Pilot Chuckles. Roy, great to see you looking so much better and I will take you up on your kind offer,(when complete and better weather)

Electriflier asked what I did with all the waste blue foam?

I treated myself to a new pin holder.

The next stage of the build was to do all the wiring in the wing Because I couldn't skin the top of the wing until all wire/servo extension cables etc were in place.

The first parts that required attention was extending the battery connector cables of the E.S.C.’s.

Before you start shouting: -

“You’ve used red wire to extend both the ‘Pos & Neg’ cables”.

The cables couldn’t care less what colour they are. As long as you put a colour tracer on to indicate polarity.

I won’t be fitting the battery connectors until much later, because I’m not 100% sure of the final battery box/nose leg steering servo position.

1/8 light-ply wing mounting plate glued and drilled out for cable exits.

I am fitting a high-brightness LED flight system consisting of:

Two white Landing lights (fitted on the leading edge wing tip)

Navigation lights (Red & Green) (fitted on the front of the vortex wing tips)

Two white strobe lights (fitted on the rear of the vortex wing tip's)

Two Red anti-collision lights (flashing slowly)(Fitted centre top of wing & under fuzz)

As you can see the wire for each of the L.E.D's wasn't long enough to fit the wing position. So using computer ribbon cable and heat shrink tube they were extended.

The fuz mounted anti collision L.E.D wire has to be detachable so a connector was fitted.

For now a look at the inner and outer wiring loom

Next stage possibly a start on the fuz.

Have a happy New year.

Regards Chris

[Electriflier]

Hi Chris,
Good to see you today. Also, I'm really pleased to see you've posted an update on the build. Worth doing because I really think you've cracked it with this one.

I know we joke about weight-saving but it really is important that you work hard now for the rest of the build to keep the build as light as possible.
I'll be more than happy to maiden the Islander for you when the time comes.......... It's a cracker!

[Philip Rawlinson]

Looking good Chris, are you going to get some flight time logged this year in preparation for flying this fine creation ?

[chris Ibbotson]

Sorry all I've been laid up with a bit of man flue. So not much of an update on the build.

Phil, Yes this is my year to be able to control and fly a model aircraft with the help and support of my of my fellow club members.

Made the battery box/wing location inner section from 1/8" light-ply that will fit inside the 6mm depron fuz sides. The 6mm depron plate is a former for the nose section.

Added 3/4" triangular balsa for rigidity when it's glued to the depron sides.

This section when bolted to the wing will carry all the load.

A question I would like answered please (as I am sat on the fence on this).

Do I need a steerable nose gear i.e. servo operated or just rely on rudder input to steer. This would save the weight of a servo.

I have been asked about the weight of the build.

So I've weighed all the bits built. This included, Lipo's , servos, Esc's, landing gear, motors, main wing, battery box.

The only extras to include are the depron fuz, tail section and paint finish and possibly a servo for steering the Islander. Depending on consensus.

I feel confident that my build weight has benefitted from my new approach of cleaning all my PU glue joints of excess glue and not over engineering the build.

The power train should be capable of producing up-to 600watts

To date the score on the 'Fat club' door is 3lb 3oz.

Till next time,

Chris.

[Electriflier]

Is laying around with a bit of man FLUE as bad as man 'flu Chris?

Hope you're feeling better. As for your predicted AUW, if that's what you arrive at, as well as being surprised, I'll be delighted for you. I can't see it coming out much below 4lb-5lb personally and even at that, will be quite an achievement and more to the point, a good weight for such a model. With that offering of assurance, I'd definitely recommend a steering setup on the nose wheel. Slow taxiing without would be a pain.

Nice work

Roy

[chris Ibbotson]

Sorry Electriflier for my typo error. If it's alright with you.

I'll see you after school to do my lines.

The next stage was to start the build of the fuz.

3/4" triangular balsa was glued to the uprights on all corners of the fuz internal ply wing support frame and the top 1/8" light ply wing side braces fitted.

I measured the inner ply support frame profile with the plan.This was not a good result.

I found for some reason the front battery box section was approximately 16mm nose down. The rear section was in line and true. I thought about re-building the complete support frame. Time consuming and using more material. So I cut the battery box sides as shown by the pencil and re-aligned the battery box.

The complete section was checked for alignment

On the bench the front and rear box section looked good.( pick's of this aren't that good )

Now thing's are looking a lot better. The top nose side formers were glued in place.

The front nose leg was hit/bashed into shape.

and a brass mounting plate and tube silver soldered to allow mounting to the front ply bulk head.

The rear undercarriage height was measured, so I could correctly set the height of the nose leg.

It was at this point I couldn't resist doing a dry fit using duck tape.

I hope you agree that she is starting to look like an "Islander".

As I've said before, thank you for following the build.

Till next time.

Regards

Chris.

[chris Ibbotson]

Evening every one, It's that time again to try catch-up on the build, so here we go.

The nose leg required to be made semi scale

to convert from single leg to double leg the steering servo was fitted first

then the lower leg was duplicated and silver soldered in place.

Next the 6mm depron sides were cut

It was at this point that I realised that the location of the rudder/elevator servos were in conflict with the proposed front wing mounting plate. The servos needed to be relocated further back to allow access for my fat fingers. So this was done.

The ply plate base felt a little flexible after the changes so a 1/8"x 1/2" hard wood spar was added for strength. Yes I know it's adding weight, but for the right reason I believe.

The first wing mounting plate was glued in place. You can see why I had to move the servos and bracing the ply sides to keep them straight while glue was drying.

Both plates glued in place.

The wing plates were screwed through the outer 1/8" ply side for added strength because this is the main stress/load area of the fuzz.

Two front lower nose formers were glued in place as well as 6mm depron spars for the lower mid section of the fuzz sides.

The 6mm depron sides were glued using P.U glue and a little help from a heavy weight to hold things in place.

The rear sides were clamped in alignment using 1/4" sq hard wood.

Three 6mm depron formers were cut/cored out and glued in place

Alignment was confirmed using a taught string from the front c/l to the rear c/l

I'm happy so far with the build to date

I hope this update is acceptable, as all I seem to do is cut and glue depron. Nothing earth shattering or ground breaking. But then I am enjoying the build ,which is what It's all about.

Thanks' for looking and following.

Till next time.

Chris.

[Electriflier]

Chris,
Great update. I've got to say, in my opinion, your best yet! Its going to be a great year for new models at the field this year. Nice work.

[Philip Rawlinson]

Nice work Chris. As Roy said there's going to be a fantastic line up of new models at the field

[chris Ibbotson]

Sorry gent's my computer died and I lost a lot of build pictures . What I'd like is a pointy stick and get Bill Gates in a dark alley to show him what I think of Win 10.

So I apologise for the quality of the pictures and continuity of pictures.

My next part of the build was the tail feathers. Without these fitted and aligned I cannot fit and align the main wing section.

So do I build a balsa wing as per plan or not.

Well I did say this was a composite depron /wood build.

So here we go.

The upright stabiliser was built with 1/4" sq balsa leading edge and 6mm depron, using PU glue and clamps to hold and stabilise all the glue interfaces. 6mm and 1/4"" are a little different in thickness. So a plane was used to reduce the balsa, plus a little sanding and filler.

The rear wing was built first built using the same method but because of loss of info and picks I can't show the build.

The rear upright stabiliser and rudder was hinged.

I thought the rudder should be 6mm balsa for stability.

completed parts cut to fit.

parts fitted and marked to be in alignment with the fuz.

The black line is the top of the 6mm depron top skin.

I'll try to do a proper update very soon.

regards Chris

[Martian]

Just latched onto this build it's very good and enjoyable Chris

[chris Ibbotson]

I sound like the local "copper"

"Evening All" I'm back

Now that I had made a rear stabiliser. It was time to align it to the "fuzz".

6mm depron doublers were glued /around all the insides of the "fuzz". These were then glued to the top/bottom of the depron skin So that I could put a small radius on the skin edges.

I knew the work bench was level

and I knew the basic "fuzz" was level.

The rear section proved level. The front wing location proved level

The rear wing was pinned down and the level checked.

The main wing was aligned and if you look closely you will see 4 holes drilled to be enlarged for captive wing bolts to be fitted.

All measurements of the wings were checked and double checked for alignment. These were found to be as required and I think this as good as it gets.

As I've said before thank you for following. It's not a case of replies, it's a case of seeing people watching my B/log, that's what counts.

Thank you

Chris

[Andrew Price 2]

Cerainly am watching, Chris, with great interest.

[chris Ibbotson]

I've been a little busy recently organising with the wife ,my "ready made" daughters wedding ( Feb 29th ) Had 3 days of festivities and great enjoyment.

So it's time to do an up-date.

I was thinking about a hatch cover for access. I'd got some spare blue foam that was too small to cover the openings and not having the time to buy more. I had to think out of the box. I'm using a P.U. based blue foam and I'm using P.U. glue.

So why not glue the blocks together , let them fully dry and see if you could hot-wire cut them.

The answer is a resounding big yes.

This is the location of one section of the joined/cut blocks.

The foam had to be cut to fit under the leading edge. So templates were made to hot-wire the profile.

Cut to profile.

Other sections of glued blue foam were made.

The lower nose section was cut first using templates.

The final finish was below par. Not the best result

The next section was the sloping cabin front.

The lower front had to be cut to align with the cabin front.

These were glued and held in place with sticky tape until dry.

Glue dried and tape removed.

The top section was cut to give a radius curve at the front and a flat section at the L.E. of the wing.

The top section was cut and sanded to align with the fuzz and cabin front. Light filler was applied and allowed to dry

The wing was unbolted and the full nose access removed.

and sanded and refitted.

If thing's go to plan I might be doing a bit of cosmetic surgery next. Watch this space.

Thanks for following:

Till next time.

Chris

[chris Ibbotson]

I forgot to say on my last B/log that the one piece hatch is held down with 4 rare earth magnets and by the main wing when bolted down.

I aligned the magnets by drilling a shallow 8mm hole and using a wood workers dowel locator to mark the other mating surface. The black metal 8mm plugs has a centred point to mark the opposite surface.

Next a blue foam block was pre shaped and glued(P.U) on the front ply former

When the glue was dry the "patient" was anesthetised and prepared for Rhinoplasty surgery (nose job)

Using a combination of a scalpel and a sanding block the nose was slowly formed and shaped

The hatch and nose sanded to shape.

The tail section or "Rearplasty" was formed using blue foam glued in place with P.U and sanded to shape etc.

I've found that P.U. joints sand a lot smoother than Por glued joints.

The wing wiring was tidied up ready for testing of the servo's and motor connectors before I skin the main top wing.

Under the grey tape is the landing light controller box.

Next on my list is strengthening of the main U/C legs and the skinning of the main wing.

As I always say thank you for following.

Regards

Chris

[cymaz]

Great build , well done

[Andrew Price 2]

Wish I could trim my rear end so stylishly!

[chris Ibbotson]

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement. Much appreciated.

Well a bit of good luck, the 'Wi-fi' was out last night. If the cat's away the mice will play So lets play!

The main U/C legs needed strengthening, this was done using a brass strut(6.5mm X 1.5mm)

This was silver soldered to the main leg.

The U/C main legs were given shape by using 1/2" balsa L/E and 1/4" balsa sheet to form the profile.

After a bit of sanding and cutting the rear blue foam 'pods' fitted to the contour of the balsa leg covering.

They now await filling and sanding when they are bolted down on the main wing.

Regards

Chris

[Colin Leighfield]

Great detail Chris. All set for a great flying model here, can't see you going wrong with this one.

[Keith Simmons]

The build looks great. What do you fly from? Grass or Tarmac as I don't see your undercarriage not absorbing a mistake in your arrivals and damaging your model. You are a much better flyer than me.

[Electriflier]

Quality building Chris. It really is looking lovely.
Regards
Roy

[Martian]

enjoying following your build Chris, just an observation but are the leg fairings the right way round as near as I can tell looking at the full size the wide part of the fairing is to the font .apologies if I'm mistaken

[chris Ibbotson]

Wow!!

I'm amazed at the volume of people looking at my B/log, totally phased out with the numbers.

In reply to Keith.

"Orville" flies better than me (just ask Pilot Chuckles and Electriflier). I take off from a hand launch and arrive on a cricket pitch , if I'm lucky.

Colin, you say "can't see me going wrong with this one". Just you wait and see.

[chris Ibbotson]

Now, it's time to respond to Martian.

Firstly.

Thank you for saying you enjoy following my build, lets hope this continues.

Secondly.

You noticed my "Willy Wonkar" moment.

It has to be said you have passed the observation test and you now get 10 House points for being observant.

I totally agree with you that I had got the profile wrong.

So a total rebuild of the fairings was required.

The old fairing was removed.

and using 1/2 inch thick balsa to make the new fairing sides.This made the front face 1 inch thick/wide.

Cutting and sanding got to this profile.

You can see the change in the profile from old to new.

Thank you Martian.

Keep the faith and keep following .

Chris

[Martian]

Looks good Chris feel kinda guilty causing you more work