Page 14 - MFW June 2024

which I cyanoed together and then epoxied into the front Today Sunday 28th April is a fabulous Hawkes Bay
cowl through the rear whilst I still had access. From there autumn day, so off to Awatoto Field for a test fly. The range
it was just a matter of taking time working from the front test was satisfactory, cockpit check all normal and the test
back and joining the pieces with the “bog”, using some flight was almost a non event needing just a few clicks of
“gentle persuasion” and inserting toothpicks across the aileron and elevator and she flew on rails. It’s a delightful
joins to stabilize the alignment and copious amounts of model to fly and I was only using a 3 cell battery which
masking tape to hold things in place whilst the epoxy set. proved quite adequate. I can imagine the four cell advised
would be fun !
By taking my time and allowing each portion to set and
working back through the fuselage it all came together The nose leg does need to be lengthened as the plane’s
quite well and finished up straight. Then it was just a negative attitude on the ground requires a lot of elevator to
matter of cleaning up the surface of the bogged areas and get airborne and then it’s going vertical until you can let it
applying some “Red Devil” light weight filler over the joins off ! Other than that it’s been a successful and satisfying
and to the surface compression wrinkles. Then some project. The good news is the owner is now going to fly it
touch up using black and red test pot paint, refitting the on wireless buddy for a while until he rekindles his
gear and the job’s done confidence and flying skills.

Fortunately the Cockpit Canopy was undamaged in the
crash, but found when I went to fit it, because of the crash
compression, the fuselage space was about 10mm too
short so had to carve that amount out of the front and a
wee bit off the side and then it fitted quite snugly.

The rudder foam hinge was damaged, so that was
replaced with three normal flat hinges. Both flap foam
hinges were also broken and I found it easier to rehinge
those on top and bottom with fibre reinforced tape.

The undercarriage legs were a little bent, but they seem to
have straightened satisfactorily and the retract units are
functioning okay.

During the rebuild I found the rudder servo had also
stripped gears so replaced both that and the elevator with
some metal geared servos. I know they’re built to fly and
not to crash, but the plastic gears on those small servos
are pretty fragile. Considering the negligible extra cost I
would have thought metal geared servos would have been
a better choice on a model of this expense.

The aircraft was initially flown with the supplied
Spektrum™ AR631 6-Channel Receiver which includes
the AS3X® technology and also the optional use SAFE®
Select technology and with a New Spektrum NX7E 7
Channel Mode 2 Transmitter. As I fly Mode 1 ( is there any
other mode ?), using a Spektrum DX9 Transmitter, I‘ve
set the model up using a 7 channel ASX 3 Lemon DSMX
receiver plus satellite and we’re ready to go test flying.

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