Decided on 60cc aircraft expressly designed for electric flight

[Adrian Smith 1]

Servos duly arrived today. All fittings added. As I am going to use metal servo arms I needed to establish which were compatible with Potenza. Well Futaba arms or similar seem to be the ones to use so it will be back to t'net to search for some.

[Adrian Smith 1]

I threaded the 40" elevator servo leads through the internal fuselage tube which was very convenient.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Loose fitted the rudder servo to check the wire length and that seems fine.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Next I loose fitted the aileron servos and added the extension leads. Helpfully, there is a tube within the wing to thread the leads down to the root. As it turned out it wasn't so helpful after all at the safety joining clips were too big to thread down the tube! So plan B was to heat shrink a piece of tube over the join.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Next job will be to glue in the suppled horns to all working surfaces. The manual suggests 1.5" aluminium servo arms for the ailerons and 2" for the elevators. The rudder for a pull-pull set up needs a 4" arm.

Incidentally, there is a weight penalty using the metal cased servos I chose as they are 84g a piece, while plastic cased servos are nearer 60g a piece, nearly 0.8oz extra per servo in old money.

[Rich too]

I tend to use heat shrink on the extensions anyway - it does make them very secure.

You got a cracking deal on those servos.

[Nigel R]

Superb looking airframe. Following.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Thanks for the encouragement, gents. Will be taking it at a steady pace, but I hope to do a bit more this weekend.

Nigel, I agree. So far the quality shows through.

Rich, yes I was surprised. The old adage did cross my mind about if it looks too good to be true, it is! However, the reason for the reduction seemed quite plausible. I have attached them to my servo tester and they seem all to be fine so we will see.

[Adrian Smith 1]

First I have bit of soldering to do. the RX Lipo needs my preferred EC3 charging connector fitted.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Next to set about adding the elevator horns. The suggestion, which is good one, is that the film is cut around the base plate to allow decent glue adhesion. I use Gorilla Glue in all instances for this job. Much as I like epoxy it is a bit of pain to mix it up.

I use the push rod loosely fixed to ensure the horn remains aligned whilst drying.

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 27/10/2018 16:02:41

[Adrian Smith 1]

Same process for the main wings.

[Adrian Smith 1]

I did briefly toy with the idea of using the rudder servo in the tail slot specifically provided as an option making it a direct drive set up. I decided against it for two reasons. One being I would introduce more weight to one side of the fuselage which would have to be balanced up. Secondly, I didn't want to add anymore weight to the tail than is necessary.

So the rudder servo will remain in middle of the fuselage as originally thought.

[Adrian Smith 1]

The horns in the rudder have a really clever wooden template to hold them perfectly aligned while drying. The preparation to glue is essentially the same.

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 27/10/2018 16:03:28

[Adrian Smith 1]

I thought I would start with Robart type elevator hinging. As I usually do I oiled all the joints to help avoid them being stuck. I used Gorilla Glue here too, once again, because of its gap filling qualities.

All pulled together with tape.

[Adrian Smith 1]

On the ailerons. Such fun here! Because there are 8 hinges per aileron getting them lined up with glue on was a bit fiddly as you can imagine given the aileron is quite long.

[Adrian Smith 1]

The rudder was less stressful with fewer hinges and was easily lined up and taped. Not sure why the photo is cock-eyed as it's the right way up in the desk top album prior to transferring to my MF album.

I now need to wait for the aluminium servo arms and standoffs which are winging their way to me at this moment from Steve Webb Models. Next time I will go into a few thoughts on motor and ESC combination.

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 29/10/2018 15:43:23

[Adrian Smith 1]

Time to get the old soldering out. 100 watt is going to be required I think. After some deliberation and not wishing to alter a winning combination, I went for the Dualsky 6000.8 V2 60cc equivalent motor. The ESC is the partner item from Dualsky which is in the Opto category given I am using a separate power source for the RX. I chose this combo because of using the same in my Corvus & Sbach 342

All connectors from motor to ESC are provided and are of good quality, along with standoffs that fit perfectly for length. 63mm in this case

Those all done.

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 30/10/2018 16:24:22

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 30/10/2018 16:25:16

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 30/10/2018 16:25:47

[Adrian Smith 1]

Next I soldered the AS150 7mm anti-spark connector to the power source wires. I used an arbitrary length of 10SWG cable for the other end of the connection to the lipos because at the moment I am not sure how long I want the leads to be.

All done for moment.

[Adrian Smith 1]

I will try and fit the motor later this week.I had a bit of time to check out the motor fitting work. The kit is designed for the XPWR 60 cc and the motor mount hols are different to the Dualsky motor so I have had to draw a template ready for re-drilling the motor box wall.

The hole marks on the motor box plate are quite a bit different, compared to the 71mm spacing on the Dualsky motor mount. Bit of a funny measurement, but that's what it is.

[Adrian Smith 1]

I have departed from the manual here and put the U/C legs on now, as i like to have some stability when drilling out the motor box wall.

[Gary Manuel]

Lovely quality.

Looks like you are doing it justice as usual Adrian.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Thanks Gary. It really is a pleasure to assemble this aircraft because everything seems to fit without extra adjustment. I hope the rest of the process provides some further interest.

[Adrian Smith 1]

In absence of the aluminium servo arms arriving, I thought I would mount the motor. Using the drawn template to match the motor mount I lined it up with the thrust lines printed on the motor box wall.

The standoff bolts are M5 so I drilled suitable holes and mounted the standoffs.

I am using washers both sides of the motor box wall to help avoid the wood being compressed when the bolts are tightened. It's always a nervous moment when fitting the motor, as you find out if the bolt hole centres were measured correctly!

I will of course use blue thread locker all round when everything is finalised.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Side thrust is built in and I happy to report the motor looks correctly positioned with cowl attached.

A 4.5" spinner is called for which is not something I have, but no hurry for that anyway. The prop driver extends outside the cowl to the distance I want so happy with that.

Edited By Adrian Smith 1 on 31/10/2018 16:41:20

[Adrian Smith 1]

Next the Opto ESC needs fitting. A bit of modification is required as I am not using manual recommended the Castle Creations unit.

I was able to use the pre-drilled holes nearest the motor wall as can be seen.

I made a ply support with M3 claw nuts and glued and screwed for safety. I did put some grommets on the bolts to alleviate vibration and also a thin piece of neoprene between ESC and airframe.