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Post by alaskabliss on Nov 2, 2010 16:51:53 GMT 1
Awsome news... Not very offten you get back something you lose.
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Post by higgsbosonman on Nov 2, 2010 22:28:06 GMT 1
YAY!  glad to hear you got it back. |
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Post by killioughtta on Nov 2, 2010 22:34:18 GMT 1
Awesome!
The wing probably warped because of the few days of Sun...?
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Post by toff on Nov 2, 2010 23:45:27 GMT 1
I'm well pleased for you Dill! The weather here at the moment is truly awful - Heavy rain and gale force winds - so I'm hoping my A-10 will have blown down by tomorrow. I check every few days, and It was still up on sunday.
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Post by leisureshoot on Nov 3, 2010 0:00:33 GMT 1
amazing news!
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Post by Dillzio on Nov 6, 2010 13:45:03 GMT 1
I finally got around to checking out the cub, and starting on some repairs. Things have been pretty hectic with uni lately, but since I went out last night and had to spend today recovering from my hang-over anyway, I thought i'd take advantage of the free-time to start the repair work.
All the major electronics were intact, gotta feel sorry for those neighbours near where the plane ended up in a tree, having to put up with all those flashing lights and the beeping noise all night long. The servos still seem to be fine, those Corona 928BBs are beauties. One of them had been spun all the way around to it's maximum throw when I got the plane back, but it seems to still be working fine. Seems the wings took most of the impact, the motor and cowl are fine, luckily. Prop is still intact as well so it seems I did manage to cut the throttle before it hit the ground. All the navlights still work, apart from the one that stopped working before I lost it. Some of them were knocked out of their mounts and the wires ripped through the profilm a bit, but nothing a profilm patch job and a little glue won't fix.
I'm fixing it up with an iron basically, just heating the profilm/foam to get it into the right shape again. I found that all you really need to do is make the bottom of the wing flat, which is a task the iron is well suited to. All it really seems to need to fly again is to have 2 of the control horns on a aileron and a flap epoxied back in. I'm also hanging it between two posts and have some weights in the centre to bend a little bit of a dyhedral back into it too.
My cub, she sure seems to be a toughie. Maybe I should call it "The Tank"? It does weigh over a kilo.
OH, and note my recent promotion to air-chief marshall! This is my 1002nd post ;D
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Post by alaskabliss on Nov 6, 2010 21:54:39 GMT 1
I can just imagine the little kid who kept telling his parents their was a UFO in the tree because of the lights and sounds and them saying " go to bed son, their is no such things as UFO's" LOL
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Post by toff on Nov 12, 2010 0:33:16 GMT 1
Quote" OH, and note my recent promotion to air-chief marshall! This is my 1002nd post "
1005 and counting, mate!
Looking forward to the post where you say - " Flies brilliantly - but seems to want to fly up to the mothership all the time and spits acid everytime I try to control it! Also love the way it says "Take me to your leader!" everytime I turn it on"
Can't wait for it!
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Post by Dillzio on Dec 9, 2010 4:31:48 GMT 1
I've finally finished uni (for this semester) and have had some time to repair the damage to the cub. After my last 'glitch' it nosed into the ground, broke the nose off the fuselage, stripped the gears on both aileron servos and ripped out a flap servo.
I glued it back together with some araldyte two-part epoxy, the super strong 24-hour setting one. It was a fairly clean break (just broke into two pieces, no little ones) and the two pieces fit together very intricately, lots of knocks crannies bumps divots and all the rest of it. It was slow setting so I had lots of time to get a nice thin even layer over all the foam, then I put the two pieces back together and sticky taped it overnight. After it had set, a went around the edges with a little super thin CA glue as well.
After I fixed the nose I spent another hour or so with my leftover profilm and solartrim covering the nose again getting it to look nice. I then turned my attention to the servos. I cut a slit in the profilm along the length of the wing where the wires ran, and removed the damaged servos. The Selleys bathroom-style white gap filler I used to stick them in with was perfect! It was difficult to get them out, but with a little effort and the right tools (scissor clamps) they came out without any damage to the wing. I think it also helped that I wrapped the servos in sticky tape first before gluing them into the wing.
The way I came up with installing the servos worked so well, I ended up ripping out the one left in there so I could do that one again too. You apply the gap filler to the surfaces of the servo hole in the wing with a calking gun, and put a fat ring of sealant on the bottom. You then coat the surfaces of the servo in a very fine lyer of the gap filler, and gently put the servo into the hole.
The trick is to push the servos down flat WITH A RULER, that way it flattens out the ring of sealant just the right amount and they come out completely level and dead flush with the surface of the wing. It may not be the most innovative solution in the world, but compared to how I did it the first time it worked brilliantly. Now I have more travel with the servo arms and they don't bind against the wing at full throw anymore.
After that, it was a matter of poking the wires back down into their grooves, covering over the slits with some more profilm and solar trim and I was done. You can see some evidence of the repairs looking up close, but freom a distance it looks as good as new. I've even covered over the servos with profilm this time, the enhanced aerodynamics should make a BIG difference!
The other repair that had to be made was to the GPS tracker. I've made my own oversized tail for the cub, but it's heavier than the stock one so now I have to have the GPS tracker mounted on top of the cowl to balance the plane out. On the last crash the GPS tracker came off and got busted up pretty bad. Anyone else that uses a GPS tracker, keep it in the back that comes with it! It still gets reception just fine, and it will keep the thing in one piece in the event of a crash.
It ripped the GPS circiutry out of the casing, and ripped out a wire that went from the circuitry to the antenna in the casing. Luckily the lenth of wire left in the casing was BARELY enough for me to solder a wire on to it, then solder that wire back onto the circuit board. I put a little fast setting epoxy on the solder joint too to prevent it coming out in future, and used heat shrink and CA glue for the wire-wire connection. I just tested out the GPS and she's working sweet again, but I won't be using it unless it's in it's case in future.
Can't attach pics of the repairs or new tail yet, as i'm installing (or at least trying to install) Windows 7 on my lappy. Plan to take the plane for a flight today if the wind dies down though :-)
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Post by Dillzio on Dec 15, 2010 20:02:18 GMT 1
Hi Gang, I finally managed to arrange a couple of camera girls ;D
Here's a video of a dayflight:
And last night, I took it for it's first nightflight!:
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Post by flydiver on Dec 15, 2010 21:39:17 GMT 1
You flew!
AND you got your plane BACK! Whew!
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Post by mebillica on Dec 15, 2010 22:23:01 GMT 1
Looked a little breezey in the day flight. Love the lights!
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Post by Dillzio on Dec 16, 2010 4:41:56 GMT 1
You flew! AND you got your plane BACK! Whew! Thanks for the vote of confidence Fly  |
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glad to hear you got it back.
