Hangar 1 Calypso Build

[David Hayward.]

This is both a rather belated and abbreviated build blog of a Hangar 1 Calypso, and indeed my second in about 18 months. I had just three flights with my first Calypso before its untimely demise, but enough to impress and motivate me to build another. I have previously built a Hangar 1 Curare, which I have been very pleased with, picture here..

 

Being based in New Zealand probably means these kits are not the cheapest option, but every now and then I just think damn it and bite the bullet for something that really appeals.

 

I bought the short kit (again) and have this time produced drawings of any items not detailed on the plan, so I could, if need be, make any repairs that may be required. There aren't any instructions provided but so long as you have built a few kits, or even better, built from plans, it’s all quite straight forward.

 

These are nice kits, the only part that I find a little disappointing with this one is the engine cowl, made from plastic and supplied in two halves. Fortunately, I still have the cowling from the first build as it wasn’t on the model when it crashed, which I had lined and covered with glass cloth – so that’s saved me one job.

 

The model is a tail dragger with retracts and I will be fitting an OS55 for power, as in the previous build.

 

I’ll start with an image of the contents of the kit with all the parts laid out, good quality wood and nicely laser cut as is pretty standard these days. Full size plan is supplied but as I stated earlier there are no instructions.

 

 

 

I started with the fuselage, here I have one side pinned to the board, added longerons and doublers. When that was dry, built the second side directly on top of the first so I should then have matching left and right hand sides.

 

The two sides came together in my SLEC jig, which is particularly useful for fuselages like this, where at no point are the two sides parallel.

 

Out of the jig, fuselage top sheet added, plus formers and stringers ready for sheeting the rear section.

 

For the rear sheeting I made a card template from a cereal packet to get the size right. Glued and pinned at the bottom with pva glue. When that was dry, wetted the sheeting and when sufficiently pliable pinned to the formers, left to dry which only took about an hour I think, before finally gluing in place.

 

 

[David Hayward.]

Block balsa added to the top and bottom of the front fuselage, planed and sanded to shape to accept the cowl built for the previous version.

 

 

Engine fitted to enable final fitting and fixing of cowl.

 

 

Next I tackled the tailplane which is of built up construction, fully symmetrical and then sheeted. I salvaged the elevators from the first Calypso and hinged them to the new tailplane.

 

 

 

[David Hayward.]

 

The wings are next and also of built up construction, fully symmetrical as you would expect and so the ribs have tabs at the trailing edge to allow the wings to be built flat on the board.

The wings went together very quickly, so then it was time to join the left and right sections, one flat to the bench with the other propped up by 50mm giving the required dihedral.

Retracts and aileron servo’s fitted. Again I used card from cereal packet for the wheel enclosures. I used the supplied servo mounts but made my own cut-outs as I used smaller servo’s. I no longer fit paper tubes in the wing for the servo wires, just put a drawstring between servo position and centre section. Front and rear spars have webbing both sides making this a very stiff construction, particularly once the sheeting is also added.

 

Wing false leading edge taped on while glue dries.

 

[Martyn K]

That looks lovely. Is it the Prettner design? It looks like you have an anhedral tailplane.

Edited February 25 by Martyn K

[David Hayward.]

6 minutes ago, Martyn K said:

That looks lovely. Is it the Prettner design? It looks like you have an anhedral tailplane.

As far as I am aware the Hangar 1 kit is the Hanno Prettner design and indeed mine had an anhedral tailplane.

[David Hayward.]

Tailpane and fin fixed in position.

 

Control rod to elevators installed and tested. Then it was time to install and test the closed loop system for the rudder. After which underside of fuselage was sheeted pretty much completing construction.

 

 

Getting the model balanced, just needed to move the rx battery back level with the wing trailing edge to get the CG between the forward and rearward positions shown on the plan. It will move back a little when covered but will still be closer to the forward position.

Couple of images of the completed model, just need to get on with the covering.

 

 

[David Hayward.]

A simple design to make my job easy, I used Solarfilm Supershrink Polyester covering for the yellow and Solartrim red for the trim, plus Guild red to paint the engine cow, plus a couple of coats of gloss fuel proofer. Final weight is 6lb 3oz which I think is pretty good for 64" span model, the OS55 up front should pull that around with reasonable haste.

 

 

[Murat Kece 1]

looks great. well done..