Maiden flight!

 


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Empennage

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I am moving on to the tail section. This will turn my attention to the next complex building task as wel as complete another area of the fuselage that will help assess overall weight and CG for balance. The tail section is built out of laminated balsa, something I have never done before. I consulted several good YouTube tutorials and a friend at the club. I started out with building the templates from foam (two layers glued with Elmer's glue) that were accurately cut according to the plans: I wrapped the template with clear plastic (Saran Wrap) and pinned it to my building board. I soaked five strips of 1/32" thickness balsa cut to 5mm wide in boiling water for about 20 minutes and wrapped them around the template with PVA wood glue between the layers. I let this dry for 24 hours: After the glue was thoroughly dry I unpinned the lamination:   Now I can build the fin and rudder strictures: I repeated the same lamination steps for the two laminated sections of the elevator and h...
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Covering

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I selected Esaki tissue from Peck Polymers; picked blue and orange that best fit the end result I wanted to achieve: colors that are close to the actual plane and a covering material that will highlight the model's structure. These are the horizontal stabilizer and elevator fins covered in orange tissue with two coats of sealer: After practicing on the stabilizers, elevator, and rudder I turned my attention to the fuselage. The complex contours posed a challenge that I wanted to tackle first and here are some results. The windows are covered and cut away after applying a coat of sealer to the covering, leaving the cross members covered: A view of the internal setup and a top view of the battery hatch: The battery hatch is located at the bottom of the fuselage behind F3. The hatch is secured with a simple swiveling latch and a silk strap:  
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Electronics

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The fuselage cabin area is rather cavernous and installing modern radio electronics does not pose any difficulties. Care should be taken to position the components in a way that allows easy access and also aide in balancing. This picture shows the elevator and rudder servos with the receiver and antenna positions: The heavier components such as ESC and battery are positioned as forward as possible under the turtle deck through the hollowed F1 and up against the firewall:
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