Middle Phase 2

[Jonathan M]

Problem solved using simplest solution (the one where laziness overcomes OCD in the great battle to end all battles) by just replacing the middle white panel with a slightly narrower one, so now have virtually unnoticeable (2mm) overlaps. White servo covers blend in nicely.

Then onto the pink, laying borders on first. With hindsight, realised that I should have done the leading edge border after the main panels were on, but hey-ho...

Using masking-tape to help align on centre of leading edge:

Then the ailerons and trailing edge areas - which I covered in one piece with the hinges in dry, then slit the pink and trimmed it back to top surfaces except for a forward wrap-down to the hinge-line. I like the way the black gaps pick out the ailerons.

Ta-dah! Careful inspection shows a bit of back overlap margin showing through the pink, but its negligible really!

Underside. A couple of small white triangles help indicate the consensual CG point (2-3/8" from LE):

Fuselage ready for all black (except perhaps a white canopy afterwards?

In the style of my old English teacher from 38 years ago, I'm awarding myself a B--(B-?) for this first effort with covering film.

Jon

Edited By Jonathan M on 22/03/2018 07:35:08

[Andy Blackburn]

I never thought I'd say this about a colour scheme that involves large areas of pink, but it looks very good. A bit, um, pink, of course, but still very good...

> @Andy, have you not heard of OCD? 🤪

Yes, and I'm also a sufferer, but I'm trying to do better - sometimes it's useful to pay attention to the detail but sometimes it's not. Personally, I find it very difficult to avoid paying minute attention to everything...

[Jonathan M]

Okay, today's instalment of PINK OCD... The aim was to get all the covering done, but ran - eventually, unfortunately - out of time.

Tailplane 'cavity' insides lined with black:

Which was pretty stupid really, as the whole bottom was then covered in black anyway, thus the cavity would have been blackened with natural overlap! Then the top was covered (without foolishness) in regulation pink and the slit made:

Hinges still hanging around dry:

Finally the fin was covered... just checking how it would look at a great distance against a murky sky!

Then onto covering the fuselage, which I'm doing in two halves, and got as far as the whole of the rear:

I'm mildly disappointed that I didn't have quite enough time to complete the fuselage covering this evening... as I'm rather keen to pack the iron away and get on with connecting up the mechanicals!

Jon

PS Next model is going to have wings of a SINGLE colour top and bottom!

[Andy Blackburn]

Looking good, but still a bit pink-ish

> Tailplane 'cavity' insides lined with black:

...

> Which was pretty stupid really, as the whole bottom was then covered in black anyway ...

No, it's not - that's the neat (OCD) and accepted way of doing it. Or if it isn't the accepted way, I've been doing it wrong, which is entirely possible.

[Jonathan M]

Cheers Andy!

Fair enough on the 'approved method', I'll give you that, but I'll also raise the stakes... to something really stupid that's just come to light...

i.e. this is my sketch for a white canopy against the black fuselage:

But this is the sketch on the other side, which is bang in the way of the black switch! So will just have to fill and make good the lovely cutout I made earlier, and move the switch one level down!

[Jonathan M]

PS: Re doing something about all that shocking pink... when the whole job is complete I might then consider adding:

• A curvy black 'swoosh' on the upper surface of each wing, in the same style as the white ones underneath but further out towards the tips and not quite so wide?
• A similar but not too wide curvy black 'swoosh' which is more or less horizontal across each side of the fin/rudder?

Got some other stuff to focus on now for a few days, but back next week folks...! 

Jon

Edited By Jonathan M on 23/03/2018 11:45:07

[Andy Blackburn]

Posted by Jonathan M on 23/03/2018 11:32:45:

Cheers Andy!

Fair enough on the 'approved method', I'll give you that, but I'll also raise the stakes... to something really stupid that's just come to light...

i.e. this is my sketch for a white canopy against the black fuselage:

<snip>

But this is the sketch on the other side, which is bang in the way of the black switch! So will just have to fill and make good the lovely cutout I made earlier, and move the switch one level down!

In your shoes I'd be a little concerned at weakening the fuselage by having a cut-out so close to the previous one; I'm envisaging a hard arrival into the side of the slope (I know you wouldn't do that, but one of your lesser-skilled colleagues might have to land it for you whilst you were unavoidably detained on important business elsewhere).

Had you considered putting the switch on the other side?

[Jonathan M]

Put the switch on the 'other' side...?! But that would offend all convention, contradict the instructions, and involve months of painful therapy... 😱

Actually, anything that gets the switch out of the 'light' and into the 'dark' will do, and I also considered moving it under the wing-seat.

But, thinking through the structural mechanics... if I epoxy in a ply doubler that is wide and long enough, before filling the current hole and then making a new cutout below it - through BOTH side and doubler - then this side should in fact be as strong (or even stronger?) than a virgin single ply side with a hole cut into it?

Edited By Jonathan M on 24/03/2018 09:56:20

[Andy Blackburn]

I'm sure you're right. But in my head, there is much wringing of hands...

[PatMc]

Any reason not to mount the switch internaly ?

[Jonathan M]

The plan really is to not have to un-bolt the wings on site each time. Switch is of the type that has a battery charging/checking port for added convenience... although it would be good practice to regularly open the hatch to check everything is in good order!

[PatMc]

Do you have to unbolt the wings to open the hatch ?

If that's the case I'd suggest altering the hatch fix setup.

[Jonathan M]

Pat,the hatch design on the MP isn't optimal for this (designed really for banded-on wings), but does give almost full access to the interior after the wings are first removed, which is certainly desirable, so I'll leave it as is.

Keen now to get the job done and get the MP flying off the slope ASAP! 👍

[Jonathan M]

Back on the case...

Stuck with my original plan and doubled the whole inside area of the switch - top to bottom - before filling the old cutout from the outside and making a new one below it. Should be plenty strong enough really:

Then completed covering the rest of the fuselage including the hatch, and tidied up the wing-fairing:

Beside the nose is my own tracing-paper version of Chris Foss' canopy, which is similar but shorter - it starts further forward from the wing than the original, and doesn't then go so far towards the nose... which is just as well as I don't anyway have enough left on the roll of white trim to do the full monty!

The alternative it to not do a canopy at all, which would avoid the 'shadow' lines where the canopy fits the fuse (which problem CF's black canopy on a light fuselage colour neatly avoids), thus leaving the whole nose needle-black? Or find another graphic way to add white to the nose, which I'd quite like, but without pretending its a canopy?

Will sleep on it...

[Andy Blackburn]

You could just declare it flight-ready and do the maiden flights like that to see how it looks. Then if you think you need a canopy, you can add one...

[Mike Etheridge 1]

I am most impressed with the plane's finish Jonathan and no doubt your middle phase will fly before mine does cockpit or no cockpit. Mine has no cockpit to date and my Flair Heron has not had one for over 30 years and flies OK.

[Mike T]

You could just alter the bottom line of the 'canopy' so that it curves gracefully around the switch. The full size Salto's canopy does something like this.

I didn't bother with a canopy on mine (or the Ph 6), so you just see the pure lines of the fus.

[Jonathan M]

Thanks guys.

The clean nose does look very smart, but one good reason for adding a sizeable contrasting canopy is to help the bloke holding the TX with as much clear orientation of the model as possible in all conditions of weather and brain. (In fact my reasons for the choice of strongly contrasting colours has to do with this... rather than political or 'personal' preferences!)

Just before I quit the workroom last night the many slivered off-cuts of black film on the floor gave me an idea for adding some subtle trim towards the wingtip ends of the upper-wing surfaces (which currently look just a little too bare in screaming pink) and maybe also to the fin/rudder, which I'll try today.

I could then complete this graphic concept with slivers of white trim around the nose area... although I'd definitely need to avoid making it look like it has just hit a large gob of descending seagull poo!

But best not to over-egg the pudding, so I'll try the canopy idea first. Being sticky-backed, its easy enough to remove if it isn't up to snuff.

[Jonathan M]

Pheww!! White canopy doesn't look too bad... quite pleased really

And other side, with wings on:

Switch neatly blends in with black below:

Ta Dah!

Very happy with the overall effect and also the mini-slivers of black on the wings, and the nod towards equality on the tail!

All that's left before hurling the Pink Beastie off a steep hill is to connect up the control surfaces and set the travel etc, balance with lead (if needed) and snug the battery in with foam. AUW is 35oz (before any lead) is just 1oz more than spec. Happy.

[Andy Blackburn]

Looks very good indeed, and better than mine ever did. Very professional - looking forward to seeing if fly.

A.

P.S. - still very pink, though...

[Martyn K]

I like it and I like Pink....

Great build blog

Martyn

[Jonathan M]

Cheers for that Andy and Martyn - and for your kind remarks about the blog.

The build actually took much longer (when I had the time to do it) than I imagined - partially because its been my first proper RC build and I was learning how to do things for the first time, but also because I probably put a lot more thought and effort into it than strictly necessary...?

The blog has been a fun addition. Easy enough to take a few photos as I've gone along, and then upload these with a few words in the evenings after. I hope its been entertaining enough for anyone following, but also useful as a resource for relative beginners building a MP or any similar design of its era/type.

For completeness I'll post a couple more shots of the final radio/servo/control-surface setup when its done, and try to get some photos - or even footage - of its maiden in due course.

Jon

[Jonathan M]

Hoping there'll be just enough break in the rain later this afternoon to allow me to nip over to the bowl at Uffington White Horse Hill for the long-awaited maiden....!

In meantime, finished off the control surfaces linkages yesterday.

Instructions say 13mm of up-aileron and 9mm of down, so I thought I'd help this along with a little mechanical differential before programming the TX, thus the slight forwards angle at zero on the servos:

Once connected, I noticed a worrying amount of lifting on the control-horn flanges (which could produce unwanted flutter as well as inaccurate or failing controls!) so I added a third screw at the ends. Also, as the nuts supplied with the small brass screws were too big, a fair amount of medium CA had to be applied to lock everything in place:

Finally the rudder and elevator snake outers needed securing at the servo end of things. Small ply pieces were glued in under the bridge and along the sides and drilled, then the roughed-up outers were bound with thread and locked with thin CA. There is now zero flexing of the snake outers, especially on the rudder which needs a good 35mm of maximum deflection each way.

Balancing needed about 2.5oz of lead, which is now snugged down dry inside the small nose compartment and tightly held in place with compressed foam, behind which the battery sits.

So AUW now 37.5oz, about 10% over Chris Foss' original spec (for a 2-chan model), giving a wing-loading of 12oz/sq ft (up to 14.5oz/sq ft with max ballast of 8oz)

Come on weather!!!

Edited By Jonathan M on 31/03/2018 11:42:23

[Mike T]

LOL! Great minds:

... or should that be 'fools seldom differ'?

(Excuse the 'lived in ' look - and best of luck with the maiden )

[Jonathan M]

I'd say great minds Mike, but right now I feel like an early April Fool... as my Mac had finally given up the ghost and remains permanently crashed!😰 So can't yet upload any photos of today's fantastic maiden session.

But what a maiden! Without any additional ballast, punched into the stiff wind coming up the bowl, and clearly very capable and huge fun.

Weirdly had to dial in a good 2mm of up-elevator trim for level flight, and later also trimmed in a bit of droop on both ailerons to help. I wonder if the wing- or tailplane-incidence isn't quite right..? The CG is near spot on to spec and there's almost no pulling up from dive-tests, so next steps will involve playing with shims to sort things out.

However, pleased as punch really!! Rolls great, inverted flight, etc very good, does need an assertive putting down to land and takes time to bleed off speed (will play later with up-flapperon braking mix), etc.

What more does one need! 👍