Nothing good on TV so work on the plane.

I was able to do some angle trim pieces for mounting the tail wheel so now it looks more scale and retracts all the way and the wheel strut is angled at the correct position. The former from the factory was glued in at 1/8” off an inch off. The angle was enough to put the tail wheel one inch out of place when fully deployed. Took a while to figure that one out, I kept thinking I did something wrong. Others have had the same problem but opted to send the gear back and have it shortened.

 

 

I wish I could take credit for this idea but I stole it from yap, the internet.  I cut out where the factory Corsair gas tank would be and engineered some hinges for it. First I scored the outer glass with the Dremal then cut all the way through with an exacto knife.  I had to make three proto type hinges before it worked correctly. 

 

 

 I had to make three proto type hinges before it worked correctly. I made a template of the opening to cut some balsa for the door to stop and seal shut. I soaked it in water and ammonia and clamped it to the fuselage. When it dried it was perfectly shaped and ready to glue.

 

I then used brass to make a locking mechanism for it. The spring keeps it from turning while closed.  This box is where the radio, engine, charging jacks and fuel pump switches will be located. I will also put the fuel dot in there.

 

I am really happy (ok impressed) with how it turned out. Self hi five!

 

I just got word that Dave ordered a custom made scale exhaust that should be here soon and then I can get back to the engine area. It’s great that Dave is on top of supplying me the necessary hardware; it really helps to keep it moving along. I hate waiting for parts sometimes. He has really been a great owner to build for.

 

The owner stops by to inspect.

Well not much to report except Dave stopped by to check out his plane and my work. Oh and make a list of necessary products we need to keep progress moving in the hanger.

 

We just had to slip on the wings for a full look and wow what a stunning, intimidating plane.  The 110” wing span demanded a dose of reality of just how big this bird is.

 

I have been gathering information of just how the details should appear and where placement of things belongs.  I am in the process of designing a mechanism that will close the tail doors when the tail wheel retracts and I think I’ve got it figured out.  I am in one of what I think will happen often during this build a stop think plan and design stage.  I am also waiting for parts to be delivered before moving on. I have SWB servo arms coming so that I can start all the pushrod creating and assembling process to hook up servos. They should arrive soon and I can finish up the tail section with the exception of the tail retract that needs to be customized to a little shorter down travel.  Originally I thought we would have to send it back to the factory but I think I have a way to customize it myself. 

 

Thank you to all the encouraging emails and yes I am a bit crazy but I love this plane and the build. It’s almost one of those bucket list things.  

Engineering my way into madness.

 

Ok so I need better eyes, the brightest light possible, smaller hands and longer arms and then I would be set.

The silent reward of good modifications means it was worth it if we never have a problem with it again.

 

 What I have done here is mount the horizontal stabs and elevators. I am keeping the stabs removable for any possible (hopefully not) future repairs. Two set screws bolt into each end of the stab main tube.

 

 

The kit calls for a single Kevlar rod between the two elevators. This would make it impossible to adjust each elevator independently and on a plane this size I feel this is very important. Also if we had two servos on the elevators if one failed we would still have the other. I cannot imagine building a plane this big without two servos on the elevator for any reason. 

 

What I did was cut the Kevlar tube in half and drill a hole for a pin that will sit in a slot in the elevator on the inside. I then epoxied it with a little micro balloons mixed in. On the inside of the fuse you can see the bushing mounted to the side to help guide the Kevlar tube. I drilled another hole into the tube to attach the heavy duty 4-40 ball joints too. This definitely takes a little time but the insurance can be priceless.

 

 

 

I have been procrastinating about doing the engine install but I had a day to myself with no interruptions and could take some time to lay this out and do all the funky measuring I need to do. There are three bolts that hold the engine on and they are not drilled out equal on the engine so finding center on the fire all, engine and marking holes with three different size standoffs for thrust while keeping the engine perfectly straight for the exhaust to line up is an engineering nightmare. I have read many build threads on this plane and almost all require plugging holes and re-drilling. I THINK I got it right. The engine clears by a ¼” all the way around the cowl so no room for error. 

 

It may look like I am really making progress but all I have done is mount up things the real work will start soon of hooking everything up and making it all function and that’s when it will really slow down. 

 

 

I am far enough into the plane to say I do like the kit and the workmanship. It’s well manufactured with quality material. The instructions are lacking but not anymore than most planes these days.

 

Thanks for reading.



Steering things

Got some more work done last night. The tail wheel retract is installed. This was pretty straight forward as the former is already installed. The only mods here was the former opening was not large enough so I had to reach in and open the upper center outward to fit the cylinder. The challenge will be connecting up the tail doors and the steering cable. The cool thing about the electric converted retracts is the speed of the cycle is very scale like.  

 

 

Ok so here we are installing the vertical fin and rudder. The control linkages are hidden inside the tail so this requires some precise drilling and a good drill press is a must. I just realized I did not get better pictures for this sorry. I will elaborate more on this when I install the servo for the rudder later.  The one thing that is a little frustrating is the instructions (if you want to call them that). I think they were printed on the first run of the kits because the parts described and pictured are not the same as what’s in the kit and the builder must play around with things a bit to get the idea of how it should properly work.  Everything needs to be custom created and installed.  I was not happy with the thin balsa that was supposed to hold the rudder bushing in place so I doubled up on it and made a custom plywood support.  This plane will weight over 40lbs in fact almost 50lbs and even though it’s not going to see heavy G forces as an aerobatic plane there will be some heavy forces pushing against the control surfaces making the connections a possible weak point for failure.

 

 

Tail wheel video

 

 

Next will be the horizontal stabs and all the servo installs for the tail. This is about the point where I get a good idea of some of the parts and accessories I will be needing.  As the list grows a little I am ordering and parts should be arriving soon to keep things moving steady.

Gear up!

Today I dove in to the Corsair. After laying out all the gears and reading for the last week all the different installations I plugged them in and started some programming. One gear is in-operable so it may need to get shipped back to the manufacture unless I figure out if I am doing something wrong. Waiting for a call back from them. That’s the problem living on the west coast all the manufactures seem to be very east of us and unless I can call early enough it’s a hurry up and wait until tomorrow.

But in the mean time I started on the left gear. One thing I have learned over the years is do not rely on some one else’s measurements even the manufactures. So many variations can alter how things need to fit so I spent a good couple of hours measuring before I started and it seems to have paid off. 

After 6 ½ hours it feels very rewarding to watch it operate. It’s always hard to decide where and how to get my feet went when starting a new project and now I feel ready to move on. Not that I was ready to give up. LOL

 

 

You can see I need to trim the wing cover on the upper left just a bit for instillation which is in the instructions.

 

I then trimmed the gear to be able to slide into the opening. This will not affect the strength of the gear at all in fact only serve to lighten it up a bit maybe.

 

I also need to drill a hole in the shear web above the wing tube. This is so that when the gear cycles down the threaded rotating shaft can extend out ward. It is very important that this shaft have clean open room to extend. If it were to bind or hang up it could prevent the gear from working. I like the electric gear it has a built in lock to keep the gear down and that is most important on a heavy scale plane.

 

After 6 ½ hours it feels very rewarding to watch it operate. It’s always hard to decide where and how to get my feet went when starting a new project and now I feel ready to move on. Not that I was ready to give up. LOL

 

 

Video  

 

Scale WWII Bird Build

It’s time for another build. This will be an in-depth detailed look into scale model building from a semi ARF kit. There is no end to the scale details one can replicate on a model plane.  The limitations are defined by time, money and skill. Somewhere within those three elements the builder must decide the level of finished scale they desire to build. And yes the question is do I have the skill? I hope so.

This is not my plane a friend has entrusted me with this project. He wants a very realistic scale painted finish with some much scaled functioning parts. The retractable landing gear is hand precision made to resemble the real deal as close as functioning possible along with the gear doors. The engine will be a true radial engine resembling the real plane with a sound that when your eyes are shut you almost could not tell the difference from the real plane. The owner has chosen to invest the major portion of his expense into the three major items: the engine, retractable gear and quality composite plane kit. It will be an occasional weekend flyer.

I will assemble the plane, install all functioning elements and paint the scale color scheme that he picked out. From steps one to the test flight I will detail in-depth as much as possible. I expect this project to take a minimum of six months and building a scale plane should not be a rush job with so many working features that require non-failing exact performance every time.

Ok now for the big unveiling …… The plane is the F4U-1D Corsair.

No single-engined American fighter aircraft is as instantly recognizable as the Vought F4U Corsair.

To allied ground forces in the Pacific, this mighty warrior was known affectionately as the "Sweetheart of Okinawa."

To Japanese troops, it was known as "Whistling Death."

 

This inverted gull-winged, long-nosed, five-ton warplane carried United States Navy and Marine Corps pilots on 64,051 missions between February 1943 and the end of World War II, 9,581 from aircraft carriers.

Corsair pilots destroyed 2,140 Japanese planes over the Pacific at a kill ratio of nearly 11:1. That sterling record of achievement only fell short of the amazing 19:1 kill ratio established by the F6F Hellcat, a record unmatched by any other American aircraft.

It’s been years since I have built a scale plane. For know I am familiarizing myself with the plane and everything that will be installed. I am doing lots of reading and preparing placing sticky notes everywhere. The actual work should begin next week so I hope you enjoy following along I look forward to sharing every step with you and hearing your comments and any questions.

Joe Nall 2014 Countdown Clock | CountingDownTo.com

Joe Nall 2014 Countdown Clock | CountingDownTo.com
Can't wait!

Another Success

The maiden was a complete success. The plane is very predictable and very responsive. I only needed to make some minor adjustments and those were only to meet my style flying needs. A few more flights and I should have it set to my needs and have a better feel for its capabilities. I am very happy with it.

A friend put together a great video of the test flight, (Thank You Bill).

http://vimeo.com/69733529

 

The GP 123 puts out some serious HP as you can see by the indent from the safety rope holding the plane while I tuned the engine.

 

Thank you for everyone for reading, I hope it was some what entertaining.

 

Gentlemen start your engines:

Gentlemen start your engines: 

The wing servos are hooked up and programmed. I used 2” SWB arms which may prove to be too much for these giant ailerons. I may end up drooping them down to 1.5”

 

The headers are installed and smoke line attached. The mufflers required some custom work with the support mounts in the fuselage exhaust tunnel. Not my favorite way to do it but I had to make the canister mount permanent due to limited space.

 

 

Note the screws on the canister coupler, this has never been a problem on my Large cans but the medium cans always want to spin and slip out so I have to put a stainless set screw in to hold it.

 

 

 

 

Pilot includes a cowl engine face that can be cut for baffling. The idea here is to only have air enter the cowl forced over the engine. What’s most important is to have more air exit the cowl than entering, 3:1 seems to be the rule.

 

The Yak cowl is round so I decided to cut round vents on the cowl instead of the usual rectangle.  This mad life much easier and things faster than drawing all those vents and using the dermal and covering myself, the garage and the plane in fiberglass.

 

To keep things light and the CG balanced I went with a manual choke.

 

The handsome builder. Last step is to run the engine and get it tuned. I will be starting out with a Falcon 29x9 prop on Redline oil 40:1

Speaking about balance again

balance it appears I am at a neutral spot so placement of everything seems to be spot on but each plane has different characteristics so some placement may be necessary later on.

 

 

 

Thanks for following the build; I hope to have a report of success after the maiden flight.