Night 5 proved to be a busy one. To allow easy access for installation of the engine mounting hardware, a hatch was cut into the top of the fuselage. This also allowed us to fuel proof the fuel tank area and the back side of the firewall, which would have been extremely difficult otherwise.
New holes and T-nuts (blind nuts) needed to be added to the fire wall for the Saito 182 twin. Due to the width of the engine mount, these holes had to be located right on the triangle stock firewall reinforcement. |
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To allow the blind nuts to lie flat against the back side of the firewall, a relief had to be ground into the triangle to allow the blind nuts to fit against the firewall. The rear mount was removed from the engine and clamped onto the firewall so that it was centered top-to-bottom and side-to-side. Pilot holes were then drilled. The pilot holes were drilled larger for the blind nuts. Then a grinding stone was inserted from the hatch through the front of the firewall. The stone was attached to a dremel tool and the stone then pulled against the angle stock until a relief was cut even with the firewall. |
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Once the relief had been cut into the triangle stock, the blind nuts were installed using the engine mount to ensure correct spacing. 30-minute epoxy was spread on the blind nuts to make sure they don't come loose.
You can see that the main landing gear has been installed. Rather than use the phillips screws provided in the kit, we elected to use 8-32 cap screws and blindnuts. Again the blind nuts were epoxied into the fuselage. We used Dubro 3-1/2 inch wheels rather than the wheels from the kit. This saved 34 grams and gave us better ground clearance. A flat was ground along the length of the wheel axle pins for providing a better surface for the wheel collar lock screw. Cutting the wheel axle pins off flush with the wheel collars saved another 6.1 grams (these were locktighted in place). |
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The plane is starting to look pretty nice with the twin four stroke up front. The light plywood on top of the fuselage is a part of the former that was removed in the fuel tank area. This allows the Sullivan 24 ounce fuel tank to be installed, rather than the supplied 18 ounce one.
A Graupner 15x8 three blade prop and DuBro 3-blade spinner were installed. This should help to cut the sound level of the engine down some and allow lots of torque for the hovering and other 3D style maneuvers. |
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We decided to replace the kit tail wheel with a Klett one, even though it weights 1-1/2 gram more. The Klett design has less possibility of damaging the rudder if an especially hard landing on the tail wheel should occur. The new tail wheel assembly is held on with threaded style blind nuts that allow the 6-32 screws to be used. Some of the torque rod between the elevator halves was removed to allow 1-1/2 inch control throw. The instruction manual indicates that 1-1/4 inch throw is all that is necessary on high rates, so we're ok with this. The Klett gear really should have been installed 1/4 inch further toward the firewall (one of the mistakes made while kit bashing). |
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Day 6. We installed the elevator and rudder servos. A HiTec HS-605BB was used for the Rudder control (77 inch-ounces torque) and a MPI MX (111 inch-ounces torque) servo was used for the elevator. We got 4-inches full travel for the rudder and about 1-1/2 inches of travel for the elevator.
What we are doing now is assembling enough of the remaining items to verify the CG and lateral balance. We can then decide where and how to install the throttle servo and linkage, battery size and location, receiver location and whether to use the on board glow system. Carbon fiber push rods were used rather than the wood ones supplied in the kit. The kit rods weigh 78 grams (together), while the carbon fiber ones weigh 29 grams for both. It doesn't seem like much weight, but every little bit counts. The kit's 4-40 hardware was used with the carbon fiber push rods.
We bought a JR combination switch and charge jack for this plane. It will add 20 grams.
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