Skyraider build

[jpuke]

Been working on a Skyraider for the last couple of months. Takes a while now that the kids are older and busier. The kit wood was pretty good and I wanted a flyer more than a looker so I decided to try to build light and hope for the best. I started by getting a good nose block/plug so that I could make thrust adjustments, something I'd never done before. I did all the work on it BEFORE putting the fuselage together. I made a thin ply circle and glued the A former to it, sandwiched together some balsa instead of the plastic cowl also.

Also sheeted between the first two formers:


Now I know she's ugly but I'm very happy with the 24 g weight. It almost doesn't require any nose ballast. Test glides have been great and I'm going to fly it in the next few days. The decals are terrible, they didn't stick to the clear Rust-O-Leum paint that I used to seal the tissue.

[jpuke]

Not sure why my photos are being cropped on the right.

[WIDDOG]

Very nice build/post. At that weight I think you will have a very good flying model. I really like the front end mods. I use white glue and water to seal tissue. I find that the decals really stick well to that formula. BTW your decals look great.

For Those About To Fly We Salute You.

[jpuke]

I tried a few new things on this one:

1) I made sure to have the nose block assembly worked out BEFORE constructing the fuselage - much better approach than trying to work on the fragile front end after it's put together.
2) I put the decals on BEFORE assembly of the entire model, that's why the red stripes go behind the wings. I placed them according to their location on the plans, not quite right. I might go back to diluted white glue for my next model but I find I have trouble getting in on the thin rear surfaces nicely. When I paint it on the tissue tends to stick to the other side and I get rudders and stabs with dimples in them. Maybe I'll spray the rudder/stab and white glue seal the rest. Not sure yet.
3) I added the side "blocks" of balsa to avoid the complete flat-sidedness of a 900 series kit. The plans call for a couple small pieces of balsa but I really didn't like the look of that. In the end the sides are a bit too large but they're great for holding on to.

A quick attempt at flight last night didn't go great. I didn't put enough turns on it to climb so it just went into a powered descent from 6' to the ground over about 50 feet of distance. My last attempt broke the rubber (older motor) and I was glad to have a blast tube in!

[PsyberPhlier]

Try mixing your white (PVA) glue with denatured alcohol instead of water. Just a trick that I found while testing dope alternatives...

Ted

[jpuke]

I have always wanted to use a bobbin or something similar to attach my motors to the motor peg but I couldn't find bobbins that were small or light enough so I decided to make my own out of aluminum tubing. My other hobby is shooting and handloading so I have a number of ways to expand tubing (or cartridge cases normally) so I set up a universal expander die and ran a short piece of 3/16" tubing into it:

Then I did the other side and made sure a 1/8" motor peg would go through it:


I then used dental rubber bands to secure the motor to the aluminum bobbin and a crocket hook at the front:


Don't try to put the dental bands on a lubed motor, too hard to grip everything!
I lubed and broke-in the motor (per Don Ross' instructions) and it should work well.
Most of this I've learned on this forum so THANK YOU to all that include build threads, photos, and tips!
Jeremy

[jpuke]

I took my Skyraider out flying tonight and was consistently having it climb and stall but never climb that high. It ran out of altitude before it ran out of winds each time. Am I underestimating the amount of downthrust that it needs? It was also flying a fairly tight left hand turn so it may need some right thrust. Help!

The last time I took it out it had problems climbing at all so I put some clay on the tail hoping it would get it to point upwards a little bit. I kept taking clay off as I made more attempts but never found a sweet spot. It even climbed after I had almost all the clay off. I'm a scientist by trade and it drives me nuts when I can't get something to repeat its performance.
Any tips would be appreciated. All my previous models that actually flew, flew well from the start.

[WIDDOG]

Peanut Power by Bill Hannan Model spiral dives to left. Prop reaction effects... Try smaller diameter prop. Model merely putters around, gains little altitude lands with lots of turns left in rubber motor... Too much propeller. Try smaller diameter prop.

[jpuke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTq48HI5iYE

One of my flights. I don't have any shorter props so I'm going to verify the prop's balance and shorten the shaft on it, I think it's too long and there's some oscillation that's making it a bit inefficient.

[David Lewis]

You might want to first verify CG location is optimum by removing the prop and rubber and test gliding the model. (It's usually easier to get consistent, repeatable glides without the prop and rubber moving around.) The more altitude you start with at the beginning of the glide the more time you give the model to settle down to equilibrium glide speed.