Friday, November 30, 2007

Something fishy...

Something fishy arrived last week...
7x5USD + 4x1USd worth of stamps
All the way from Kanas, USA
What could it be???
Fishes!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Salto H101

Last year around Nov, i ordered the discus, banana and the salto. Well time flies, the discus and banana have flown, now its time for salto. Reason i got the salto was i wanted something different from the discus, a change of flavour, something faster and slick. It looked fast n slick.

This is the 2.4m 1:6 scale by Baudis model. Here's the specs,

The kit - a pair of wings, fuselage, V-tail and some misc hardware. Usually, the lesser the pieces the higher the price. lol.
Dry fit
The stuff going in - Hs65 on the ailerons, JR DS362 for the rudder-elavator V-tail, Great-planes nylon control horns, FG wing covers, 3 pin deans connector and Berg 7 rx. Going to reuse the same battery from the discus.

On with the build, for fix-wings, it alwvayz startz viz zhe vingz.

A pair of beautiful straight wings. (Madien day must buy 4D.)
Date of birth.
The servo bay is fairly close to the hinge line, had to cut out abit of the top corner to prevent binding. Test fit everything first before marking out where the control horn go, glue it in with some epoxy + chopped up FG mix.

Use transparency and mark out position of 3 pin dean connector. Drill hole for it. Flip the transparency over n do the same for the wings. This will ensure the position for the connectors matched up.

I 'm going to do plug n fly wings using the 3 pin deans connectors as similar to what i have done with the discus. Suffer once, enjoy later. Made twisted extension wire, solder to servo, pull through the hole and solder on the connector

Made the connector for the fuselage side. -> So that can use it to center the servo. All this wirings and soldering actually took up quite a bit of time, 2~3 hrs.

Center the servo, glue it in place with epoxy mix. Servo was first wrapped with layer of masking tape. Notice the servo horn is angled towards the front. This is to get differential throws, since we need less down throw and more up aileron travel.
Glue the connector in and make sure its flushed except the 3 pins sticking out.
Wings considered done less attaching the servo covers later on. Next is the fuselage, that will be the tricky part...

Friday, November 23, 2007

Checks checks checks

Past few flights, raptor seems to be pitching down during fast forward flight, even after making a few clicks to trim. During pre-flight check just now, discovered that the elevator push pull lever had wriggled loose and was only hanging on by a few threads. Can't imagine the consequences if it pop off in the air.
The thread had worn out prob from all the vibration. Removed the 2 self taping screws, lifted the pitch control arm, cleaned up the hole and added some CA. Then change the screw to a longer 3mm cap screw. Holding tight now. One more item to add to pre-flight checklist...

Monday, November 12, 2007

Discus repaired, rainy days begun

With the rainy season approaching, i finally got down and repaired the discus. The tail took most of the damage during that fateful collision. It was patched up with the usual FG cloth and epoxy.

Was left with some visible areas where it was patched up as i couldnt find matching colours to spray. Oh well it will serve as a good reminder to take extra precaution when landing. One more month to go... better start on the others soon...

Added a layer of FG cloth in the front for reinforcementPatched up tail
New horizontal stab. Part of the vertical fin that was patched up.
New canopy and good to go.