Fly RC

April 14, 2016

Hangar 9 F4U-1D Corsair ARF build – The Evolution 77cc radial arrives!

Today my flying buddy Gary stopped by to give me a taste of his latest acquisition… the Hangar 9 F4U-1D 60cc ARF. Gary has only been flying a couple years, but one plane has always caught his eye more than any other… the Vought F4U Corsair. The distinctive WWII war bird is instantly recognizable to most and a favorite to many.

Gary stopped by today with just a few of the many parts and pieces required to get this big beautiful bird in the air. First and foremost is the power plant. Gary had the opportunity to see this engine at the Horizon booth when we attended and I think that pretty much sealed the deal.

The Evolution 77cc 7 cylinder glow 4 stroke is a piece of art. It comes complete with a glow wiring harness and integrated mount. But if you thought your wallet was done taking a beating when you bought the engine… probably not so much. Most will want the collector ring (at additional cost of course) and an on board glow system as suggested in the engine manual (now that wallet can take a deserved short break). Here are a couple shots from when we unpacked it today in my shop.

Here’s the money shot… This thing is just B-E-A-Utiful!

Even the mount is beautiful in an elegantly functional way. Having the choke and throttle linkage thought out a bit for you is a nice touch as well.

There are some interesting little notes in the manual about oiling the push rods before each day of flying, adjusting valve lash when needed and inserting after run oil after every flying session by pulling a push rod and cam follower to add after run oil… That all sounds pretty reasonable until you remember this thing will be hiding under a cowl, possibly with air baffling around the cylinders (again, a recommendation from Evolution) so maintenance is going to be a chore that no one with this kind of money invested is likely to be skipping I guess! Ah, large fuel powered war birds… They do enjoy being lovingly maintained! What have you gotten yourself into Gary? Of course it will all be worth it when we here the dulcimer tones that will be issuing from the exhaust!! Oh, and watch out for hydro-locks in those bottom 2 cylinders! I wonder if storage of the airplane “nose up” would minimize that possibility??

There are also some interesting recommendations on fuel mixes… I don’t recall seeing 0% nitro with 10% oil on the shelf at the local hobby shop (for break in) nor 5/7 for later use… Hmmm… Better start looking for some pure methanol so we can mix up some custom fuel!! This is where the modeling part comes in I guess. I ‘m actually looking forward to seeing Gary in his “mad chemist” outfit with a bubbling cauldron… 🙂

All that aside, I really think it will be worth it all when that big bird lifts off. This engine is going to demand some respect and loving attention for sure though.

Also in hand when Gary visited were his main retracts. You have to admire the engineering behind these as well. Not only are you raising and lowering the wheels whilst providing some nicely spring loaded struts… but they have to rotate 90 degrees as well!! These are Robart units with the electric actuator so I expect smooth action and simple setup… at least for retracts!

We didn’t get around to plugging together a receiver and the control board so we could cycle these… I’m looking forward to that as well.

Gary promised pictures and some commentary as he gets started building so I’ll try to post occasionally on how it is going. Especially on anything interesting, troublesome or particularly cool. We are already talking about ways to avoid the 2lbs of nose weight they claim we will need! I hate lead in an airplane.

More as Gary progresses.

March 23, 2016March 25, 2016

P-51 Redtail… Patching the fuselage… getting closer!

I’ve been rolling right along working on the restoration of the P-51 Redtail to flight status. Today I worked on some minor dings and one big hole that was inflicted during the “off-airport landing” that occurred last year. Yep, I landed a bit short, not crashed!! Never that…

So this method of covering up the boo-boos originated with another war bird that belongs to my flying buddy Kelly. During the construction of his P-40, as I was finishing up one night in the shop, I picked up the wing I had just finished some work on. I believe it was the final item on that wing… probably some servo linkage… that I had just finished and I just needed to sit the perfect wing in the corner so I could clear the bench for another part of the project.

As I swung the wing around the very sharp corner of the bench jumped up in front of the top wingtip surface on one end… maybe 2 or 3 inches in from the tip. It made a really nice divot in the wing and I began to… recite the rosary… that seems right… I know there were some words directed at a deity. That I’m sure of! Anyway, as I unsuccessfully tried to smooth out the damage I thought of the hours of filling/sanding/recovering I’d have to do in order to even come close to restoring this area to it’s original state, I realized that war birds are never this perfect…. Why should this one be? I looked at a few pictures of patched up old birds in real military service and thought I could approximate that look (riveted on bare metal patch). I found a role of aluminum foil/metal duct tape, cut out a square and carefully applied over the ding. Not bad but then I snuck over to my wife’s craft table and found a tool that looked like someone stabbed a BB with an ice pic! Eureka!! A little application of that tool around the edges and my patch job had rivets… or at least close enough for me. After a year or two of flying, that original application is still in place.

So for the Mustang and a few assorted dents and dings…. Here are a couple examples.

This is one to cover the crack that continued from the bottom of the elevator surface back almost to the trailing edge of the fixed portion of the tail. A little glue in the crack and add the “riveted patch”!

This one is right out in the open on the side of the body below the cockpit… Any patch I put here is going to be visible so why not make it look “natural”?

Then comes this monster!

This is just behind the cowl and right where my hand and/or any cradle I might put the plane on tends to rest… plus it is hard to get to the back of this without pulling the fuel tank, which involves pulling the receiver, etc.. I’d normally add at least some sheeting from behind but with that being such a pain… I decided to try a bit of reinforcing before I used the “metallic duct tape” trick. Looking around for some reinforcing I came across some small plastic drinking cups and went to work. The first task was cutting out an appropriate size and shape to cover the damage. The curvature of the cup worked to my advantage on this curved section.

With some more Gorilla glue and a little masking tape, I attached the plastic reinforcement and left it to dry for a few hours. Just in case you don’t find this easily in your local store… here is a link to it on Amazon. Gorilla Glue

Then finally I carefully peeled the masking tape and applied the metal tape.

The tape seems to be the ideal thickness and seems to be quite permanent so I’ll post a link to it here. I’m sure there must be other equivalents out there but this is what I use.

So that’s about it for now. I need to get back to doing a little covering work on the wing and I’ll be getting very close to another “maiden” flight.

March 21, 2016

P-51 Redtail… More progress. Wing repairs progress.

Further work is occurring on my quest to reassemble the Redtail without spending significant dollars and simultaneously lightening it up a bit in the hopes of improved flying traits.

The latest is around the port side (that’s left if you were to sit in the cockpit of the P-51 facing forward) main landing gear mounting area and wheel well. That area took significant damage during the abrupt meeting between the retracts and beans at about 35mph! Yep, that is about stall speed… or at least is was that day.

Here is a sequence of pictures showing the progress. Most of this was simply measuring, cutting, fitting and a fair injection of TLAR engineering methods to try to get something put back together that will stand the strain. TLAR… you know… “That Looks About Right”!

After cutting out the sheeting and getting rid of the various splinters and unidentifiable fragments here is what I was left with.

I cut away even a bit more before adding back a bit of structure… Rebuilding the rails so that the screws have something solid to bite into required some temporary bracing…

Then I started building the actual rail structure and piecing them together with an eye toward making sure there was some interlock to help add some strength. This rail notches into the rib and creates a lip for the rear rail to rest on.

Here, all the rails are in place and all of the mounting screws have been drilled and put in place… lots of advanced TLAR to get the placement right (I hope).

Then came the puzzle of re-sheeting around the fiberglass wheel wells. I cut the existing sheeting back to expose a bit of the top of the spar and then pressed the sheeting down over the fiberglass to give me a cut line. This created shapes like this ones.

Then I added some small “railing” to catch the sheeting and give me some glue surface for the larger span of this piece of sheeting. There was also some reinforcing and rebuilding of the ribs that contact the wheel well that had to be done.

Here are the pieces going into place.

And the final bits of woodwork are glued in.

From here is will just be some recovering work, though I have considered adding a bit of light fiberglass reinforcing underneath the landing gear mount area… We’ll see.

Next up is finishing up the covering and the last of the repair work on the fuselage.

March 21, 2016March 21, 2016

P-51 Redtail… Broken but progress is underway

I’ve been the owner of a 1/5th Scale Top Flite P-51 made up in “Redtail” colors for several years now. If you want to see more on it there are several posts on it, just do a search for redtail or p-51 and you’ll find pictures and information on it.

Last year during a club outing I took her out for a flight or two and managed to stall it just feet from the runway. The straight ahead stall from 4 feet or so caused the landing gear to catch the beans at the approach end of the runway and a fairly violent tail over nose tumble resulted. Another main retract bending extraction from the wing, a punch in the bottom of the body just behind the cowl, along with the horizontal stab breaking loose on one side and cracking across the top of the tail was the result. It was not pretty and it was just a case of not enough airspeed on approach… which I should know well but is easy to forget when you fly so many lighter, easier landing aircraft!

I was truly disgusted and tired of pouring money into this airplane. It has not been a particularly fun or inexpensive airplane to fly and I began to wonder why I continued with it. I can’t say I’ve ever gotten a great amount of enjoyment in flying it… It has pretty much zero of my top 3 most enjoyable attributes when it comes to RC aircraft. It isn’t by any means an impressive flyer as far as it’s aerobatic capabilities, it isn’t easy to get flying or haul around, and it certainly isn’t low cost to fly either. In fairness, I never expected it to be much more than what it is… A complex, heavy, fast, expensive, nice looking and perhaps even impressive war bird!

I talked myself into putting it together and flying it partly just for the varied experience of doing so (check), as a nod to my flying buddy Tim (check), and just to have something that would be both impressive and welcome at war bird and giant scale meets (check). The problem is that I just never really enjoy the way it flies… heavy and fast just aren’t my thing. When I do fly it, I get simultaneously bored with the way it flies and apprehensive since it never flies for long without something needing fixing, adjusted, etc… and often the cost of those repairs just isn’t top of my list so flights are to far apart to ever get totally comfortable with it.

So after the last crash I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get it flying again. It sat over on the side bench for months without my giving it more than a glance and a frown. Several times I had decided to just part it out and or maybe just clean out the expensive bits and do some work to make into a display only airplane with a dummy engine, etc… Finally, I started thinking (maybe it’s just loss of memory and old age) that maybe I could make it fly a bit better and take some of the complexity out of it to make it a bit more reliable?? There are still occasional events I’d like to take it to. Of course that means making it flyable again… without breaking the bank either!

So here is the plan. First, I’ve started working on repairing the damage to the tail and done at least a little cleanup and analysis of the landing gear mounting area. I expect to be able to patch it up with a moderate effort and very little expense. Here are some shots of the repairs in process. Gorilla glue is wonderful thing.

This is the bottom of the horizontal which had separated from the body along the glue line.

This is the point where the wood cracked and broke across the top of the tail… It was one continuous crack/break from that bottom area above all the way across. This allowed the horizontal to “flex” approximately 2″ up at the tip of the horizontal/elevator!!

In addition, one of the main landing gears is toast… Apparently ripping the retract assembly out of the wing, tearing out chunks of wood, shearing the self tapping screws and bending the assembly followed by attempting to pull the retract controller (which is roughly the size of deck of cards) by the wires out of the wing via a quarter size hole… is a bit hard on the electric motor in the retract!! For some reason it doesn’t work anymore!! I guess Robart just doesn’t expect that sort of thing when they build these… go figure. So there will be no more retracts!

So if I get out of the retract business and patch together the wing damage, I can avoid spending about $300 and shave off some ounces. Leaving the controller and both the main retracts behind looks like it will save me about half a pound. While I’m at it, I’m going to pull all of the telemetry. I have enough info from the flights I’ve made that I know pretty much everything I wanted to about how it flies. I may even spend a few dollars to go to two smaller main flight packs (I can reuse the larger packs that are in this airplane elsewhere). If I can manage to trim a full pound out of this bird I wonder just how much better it might fly!?

Here are the completed repairs at the tail with it all buttoned back up.

It seems strong enough. More to come as this is getting done a bit faster than I first supposed.

February 11, 2016

Aeroworks BD-5B – final touches and photos

Did some final work on the BD-5B this evening. Here are a couple photos… still pre-flight.

You can see the Pitot tube (which I love on this plane) along with some of the decals in this shot.

The rear end of this plane has some bite! That spinner (stock) is nice looking and the APC 7x6E looks great and certainly seems to produce some push… at least sitting on the bench.

This view shows the interior which is admittedly cramped and messy with all the goodies stuffed in the right places to make the balance come out as specified. You can see the 2200mah 3S LiPo on the right (tucked into the nose). The tubes coming out from underneath it are going to the pitot which feeds pressure to the airspeed sensor which is tucked in the back (left/upper in the picture) part of the area under the canopy. Hidden under the wires in that same area is the Variometer as well. The Castle speed controller is velcro’d on to the sidewall at the bottom center. At the bottom left of the photo just behind and below the speed controller is the telemetry receiver with the g force sensor attached to it. Just in front of the servos, just peaking out from under the servo tray is the Spektrum receiver.

This may be a bit of over instrumentation for this little bird but once I see the data I can always pull some or all of it out… except the pitot/airspeed as it just looks to good to lose it! Hurry up spring… I need to get a few flights on this bird. 🙂

February 6, 2016February 11, 2016

Aeroworks BD-5B… Assembly

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been working on several projects in the shop as the weather in Indiana has not been especially hospitable for flying. It has been quite a bit warmer than in most years past for the time of year but still not up to my standards for comfortable flying. Sometimes the temperature tempted me but those mild temps usually came with gusty strong winds so no flying lately for me. The good side of that is it gives me some time to work on some projects in the shop!

The latest is the Aeroworks BD-5B I just finished putting together. Mine is pretty close to stock with only a couple small exceptions. On mine there is a pitot tube sticking right out of the front of the nose… which is about the only visible difference. I actually like the look of it on this air frame. Other things that are not exactly per the directions are:

E-Flite DS76 servos instead of the specified Hitec 55s… I like the 55s just fine but as speedy as this thing is likely to be I like having extra precision and torque of a digital.
In addition to the pitot for airspeed, I also have a g force sensor, variometer (altitude and altitude rate of change), temp sensor around the HiMax motor body, and voltage monitor at the pack as well as from the receiver bus.
I chose the Himax 2815-1400 per the written instructions which seems to be rated for quite a bit less power than the E-flite motor now recommended on the Aeroworks web page… I hope it will be sufficient.

I still have to setup the control surface throws and exponential settings but everything else is pretty much buttoned up at this point. Centering and direction of surfaces has been set. I need to apply the decals and any other final cosmetics I want to add and I haven’t picked up the propeller yet, but that is about all that is keeping it from graduating from static model to aircraft at this point.

There were a few minor annoyances when assembling… Belly pan fit could have been better, Canopy could extend down just a bit more or maybe have a structural frame added to help it fit better/keep its shape. Also, I am not a huge fan of the extensive use of the EZ type connectors where only set screws are keeping the control rods from slipping… Much prefer ball joints, standard pin clevises, Z-bends… really most other connection types! I may think about replacing some of those either before the first flight or shortly after if all seems to go well. Just seems a bit “under” designed for a plane that is going to (I presume) move along briskly as I expect this to.

My bird is 29 ounces with a 3 cell 2200mah on board. With the Himax 2815-1400 and an APC 7x5E or similar, I expect about 150 watts which should give me decent performance… 85mph? more? We’ll see soon. I am a little concerned if this will be enough, plus I have never flown a pusher and the lack of airflow over the surfaces at lower speeds (no propwash) has me thinking that landing this might be a bit more interesting. Only one way to know for sure!

I have had this ARF sitting on my shelf for a couple years but until we got a geo-textile runway recently, it just would have been impossible to take off or land without risking damage. Now, with a place to fly, it is finally going to get its chance to soar! Once I dot the last i and cross the last t and get a flight or two I will take some actual pictures and do another post on how it actually flew.. or didn’t!!

January 17, 2016September 7, 2018

Balsa USA 1/4 Scale Cub – Part 4 More Mods – Rudder Shape.

Another modification I recently accomplished on the Cub is to reshape the rudder. Again, I have decided to just look at the general outline of the aircraft. I realize that when covered, some of the “ribs” will not be in the right place and anyone looking closely will be able to tell this but in the air I doubt anyone will be able to tell! They will see the outline, which I hope will at least be suggestive of the real Super Cub!

So here is what I did. After careful comparison of the shape of each I decided that just a bit of a change to the trailing edge of the rudder would take care of the primary difference between the J3 and the Super. Besides… I’m always happy to have a little more control surface! In order to accomplish this I decided I would just laminate a new trailing edge.

Here’s the process. To start I used my balsa stripper to create some strips of the proper width from a sheet of 1/16″ balsa. After a quick sand to make a slight flat spot at my “start” and “stop” areas I pinned down the rudder and used some thin CA to tack down one end of the first strip.

I then bent the stick to shape and tack glued down the other end and then trimmed of the remainder with my Xacto knife.

I then added two more layers of stripping. On each one I used some wood glue between the layers and then tacked it in place with pins and some thin CA to insure it didn’t move before the wood glue set.

Once finished with the third strip, I added some additional support at the point where the existing “ribs” would have contacted the trailing edge. With just a bit of sanding to round things off a bit and to taper the new material at the ends and mate it up with the existing structure, the final shape was complete.

The structure is quite strong and once covered I think most folks will find it to be a fair match to the outline of the real Super Cub.

There is plenty more to do in order to get this bird finished so… more to come!

December 26, 2015September 7, 2018

Balsa USA 1/4 Scale Cub – Part 3 More Mods – Flaps!!

Another modification I have decided to make on my Cub is to create functional flaps. Below you can see the inboard section of the port side wing.

After extending lines from the trailing edge of the outboard section and then accounting for the thickness of the trailing edge I made some cuts. Here is the result.

I then created a gauge from plywood with the proper angle to match the ailerons and marked and cut the flaps to match. Here you can see it in use.

Once all the ribs were cut to match this angle and length I attached a plate to the back edge in order to finish out the flap structure and allow for hinge attachment.

I then used a plane to match the size and angle I needed on the top and bottom edge of the flap surface.

I will probably need to add some blocks at the hinge attachments point inside the flaps before they are covered in order to insure a strong attachment point. When finished, the flaps look very similar to the ailerons. here you can see the leading edge of the flap (left) and aileron (right)

Aside from the hinge blocks, I will need to work out servo placement in the wing to actuate the flaps before I can call these finished but the major work is done now and overall I am pleased. The only drawback I see is that the angle of the leading edge of the flap surfaces (and the ailerons) are going to limit the throw to approximately 30 degrees of down travel. I feel like that is likely to be enough for my purposes but I’ll do a little research to see what I can determine.

One thought that occurred to me after finishing these up is that I may just plane the corner off of the bottom edge where it contacts the wing surface. I calculated that I could possibly gain another 10 degrees or so of travel this way. I’d be happy with that since the real aircraft maxes out at about 50 degrees… I’ll call that close enough.

While I’m thinking that over, I may finish up reshaping the tail feathers…

December 23, 2015December 26, 2015

Balsa USA 1/4 Scale Cub – Part 2 Modifications begin

I’ve spent a fair amount of time just sitting and staring at… by which I of course mean meticulously planning modifications for… the Balsa USA Cub. I have been comparing the J-3 Cub and the PA-18 Super Cub from a visual appearance perspective and one of the first things I realized is that the Super has a slightly different shape to both vertical and horizontal components of the tail surfaces. Looking at the horizontal feathers first, there is a bit of a difference in shape, especially in that the PA-18 has what I refer to as aerodynamic load balancing. In the case of the Super there is a section of the elevator that is in front of the hinge line located at the most outer section of the elevator on each side. This design not only give you increased surface but also decreased load on the servo as the air flow on that part of the elevator will aid in moving the surface in the desired direction. I.E. When you pull elevator the rearmost part of the surface goes up relative to the hinge line and the airflow is fighting this motion which your servo must overcome. The part forward of the hinge line however is moving downward and the air pushing on it is helping to rotate the surface and therefore is assisting the desired motion! This is not only a very noticeable difference visually in the control surface shape and design but it is one that will help to keep the servo(s) on the elevator from having to work so hard! I like that so I immediately decided to incorporate this change. Another nice part of this modification is that it is simple since there is a rib at approximately the correct spot where surgery will need to be performed to make this change!

Of course the horizontal surface is also a bit different shape on the Super versus the standard cub. I haven’t decided if I will do anything to correct that as it would be purely cosmetic… adding very little surface area to the elevator… We shall see. So here is what I did for this first control surface change.

Here is the starboard horizontal surface.

That first rib looks to be in approximately the correct spot so below you can see the first cut has been made right against that rib. Plenty of TLAR involved in this project!

After making this “incision” I then needed to add a rib to the tip of the fixed surface. If I just capped them with a piece of balsa I’d end up with a fixed surface that would be to wide for my elevator to wrap around so I then had to cut off about 5/16ths worth of balsa in order allow for insertion of a new 1/4″ rib (1/4″ x 3/8″ was used as the thickness of the trailing edge is more than 1/4″).

I then installed my new end cap as seen below

And after a bit of sanding to size I ended up with this

Rinse and repeat for the other end and I am ready to glue the removed part to the moving elevator surface. The builder has done very little shaping of the leading edge surface of the elevator so I think I can glue the removed portion of the fixed surface to the front edge of the moving portion and with just a bit of filling and sanding I should be all set.

I will probably leave the tail surfaces for a bit and work on the wings next as I am in the mood to tackle that project. I’ve been getting nervous about cutting into the wing surfaces for a bit and I think I have my courage screwed up now since this task came off fairly painlessly. I’ll get back to the tail surfaces again and see what can be done to shape up the rudder a bit later.

I have yet to decide if I’m going to do anything else on the elevator before I call that part good and move on but for now I am pleased with my progress. There is at least one big “mistake” that the original builder made that will prohibit me from making this plane truly scale looking… at least it’s a big enough discrepancy that I don’t think I will tackle it. Once I decided that it made me start considering what the limits are going to be in terms of how much effort I am willing to put into this thing. I feel his pain as I have problems when building sometimes telling my left from my right as well but I’m not going to point it out yet. Maybe you can try to spot it someday when the project is finished and I get it ready to fly and take a few photos to post here. It’s nothing that will effect the flight performance of the airplane but there’s no way this thing will ever be in a scale contest! As a result, there is a fuzzy line in the sand in regards to how far I’ll go to make it scale. I want it to be recognizable as a super cub and even as a particular airplane but I’m not going to get to crazy making it perfect. I’m especially leaning toward anything that not only makes it look more Super and less J-3… especially when that affects it’s flying characteristics as well. I guess it’s just going to be Goldilocks scale. Not to much. Not to little. Just right!

December 22, 2015

Balsa USA 1/4 Scale Cub – Part 1 Acquisition and plans

Recently my club had a batch of RC gear contributed and much of it was sold off to club members over the course of a few weeks with proceeds going to the club. One of the items that got sold off was a Balsa USA 1/4 scale Cub. The kit had been almost completely framed up and even some covering done. The craftsmanship looked good and the price was right so I decided it would be my next large scale electric project. I have immensely enjoyed flying my 84″ wingspan Carbon Z Cub and I figured 108″ of Cub might mean almost 30% more fun!

It also seems like a great excuse to try something with an even larger electric motor and with it in the 90% framed up state, I figured it was ideal to do some “bashing” and make it into something a bit different than the usual “big yellow cub”.

I searched for a suitable subject and came across several attractive options. I needed to balance the desire for something a bit more unique with a practical eye toward ease of adaptation and availability of covering options etc… I didn’t want to go to the level of scale competition but I wanted something recognizable as “not” an available ARF. I looked at the NE-1, the Grasshopper (complete with Bazookas) and a couple others before I settled on a conversion to a PA-18 Super Cub.

There are a number of color schemes that are close enough to available covering colors to make it unnecessary to resort to painting… and many variations of the Super Cub exist… So many of these aircraft have been modified “in the field” that it would be difficult for anyone to point out a combination of “optional” gear like tire size, window size and shapes, cowl changes to accommodate various motors, etc… etc… that isn’t out there somewhere! The one’s that attract me most are all bush planes with the big tundra style tires! Those things not only add a nice scale touch but they are practical in that they absorb a bit of the abuse that the air frame would normally have to absorb.

Super Cub cowls are available for this kit so that part of the profile is easy to achieve. Bush wheels are also available as are light kits, interiors, articulated landing gears, etc… etc… So a bush variation PA-18 is what I will shoot for. I picked a picture off the internet of an Alaska based aircraft that I thought would be “within reach” to model and started planning, plotting and modifying.

First on the agenda was gathering info on equipment I would have to acquire. Bush tires and a nice shock absorbing landing gear are a necessity and I found PR bush wheels… These guys are out of Alaska and they created scale bush tires and rims for several sized and types of Cubs because no one else really has another really good option that I could find!! You really need to check out their video of a customer doing wheels skims across a pond! They are pricey as one would expect for such custom items but one of my flying buddies stepped up and ordered me a set in return for some RC shop work I had done for him recently. I wasn’t looking for that kind of payback but it is appreciated! Thanks Kelly!

Of course this forced me to order the appropriate Robart 1/4 Scale Cub landing gear! Can’t have those fancy wheels on some old, ugly wire gear can I?? So now I have pretty much all I will need to have an awesome landing gear setup for the PA-18.

Here’s the Robart gear with the wheels attached… These are going to look great!

I also went ahead and order a new cowl from Fiberglass Specialties Inc… They have a stock PA-18 cowl that fits the Balsa USA kit. It looks to be their standard quality workmanship (which is high) that has already survived sever drops from my workbench onto the concrete floor with nary a crack. I really need to quit dropping it!!

The project has since languished a bit as work got busy and I spent some time working on other projects. I also had to spend some time stuffing the piggy bank to purchase a suitable motor, speed controller, etc… I have finally gotten back to doing a bit of work on the Super Cub and I have found a few more things I felt “needed” modifications. There are a number of noticeable differences between the venerable J-3 and the PA-18.

I have the cowl taken care of but the tail feathers are noticeably different with aerodynamic counter balances on the elevator and a more rounded and larger rudder as well as some obvious bracing difference in the cockpit. Also, the vast majority of PA-18s have flaps while the majority of J-3s do NOT. Those items seemed to be high on the list of what makes a PA-18 look different and they all seem to be modifications that are “in reach” since they will require very little but time and effort to accomplish.

During this busy time I started stripping all of the covering off of the control surfaces and a bit of the tail which was about as much as the gentleman had gotten to. This was mostly accomplished during short windows in the shop after work was finally done and before bedtime.

I also removed the glow motor mount that I won’t be needing… The blind nuts I punched out before I realized that the top pair were trapped in an enclosed space and now make a fantastic rattle! I can see some Dremel work is coming to retrieve those!

This promises to be a fun project so I will have more updates soon as I expect to get in the shop a bit over the next 2 weeks around the holidays. I’ve already made some progress on the cockpit area, tail surface shapes and flaps so will try to post on some of that soon.