Thermal Instinct F5J Wing Rebuild

Friday evening saw me removing all the old, damaged ribs and cleaning the carbon LE and spar ready to glue in the new ribs.

This turned out to be a very easy and very quick job to do, so much so that I had completed the tip section and still felt I had enough time to complete the middle section too in that evening.

Saturday morning and there was only a little damage to the starboard wing, which was completed in a couple of hours. I did have to cut out some damage to the wash out fin tip and fabricate a new piece. It just needs a little more sanding to shape.

So here are both of the repaired middle and tip sections completed and ready for covering.

Me - 109 build cont

Construction of the fuselage is progressing nicely.

I'm awaiting delivery of a sheet of 4mm correx for the tail fin and horizontal stabilizer, so I've decided to make a start on the primary covering.

Usually I cover my correx builds in vinyl, but this model is going to be painted in the colour that the Luftwaffe used for the  Polish invasion in 1939.

Painting on correx will require special primers and paints and as this is a 'budget' build I carried out a few tests on preparing the surface so that it will except standard paints.

The best result I had was to sand the surface down to 'key' the plastic, then spray the correx with a 3M type aerosol glue and while this was tacky I applied brown paper  to it.

This has dried ok so I should be able to paint and seal this with no problem....hopefully, only time will tell.

Looking a bit rough at the moment, but getting there , albeit slowly.

As you can see, I've managed to source a canopy which is the correct size, this saves me trying to make one.

I'm having a flat nosed spinner 3D printed up, along with a pair of exhausts and an engine air intake. These should help with the 'scale look'.

Wing Construction

I've also made a start on the construction of the wings, again I've used my tried and tested method of build using 2mm sheet for the wing skin and a 8mm thick pine strip cut to shape & size for the spar.

This method produces a flat bottomed 'Clark Y' type section, along with 2.5" of dihedral under each wing, has proved very successful.

The wing template is drawn around to form the basic shape of the wing.

But you do not cut along the L/E  as this becomes a fold line  and the material in front of the fold line/leading edge becomes the top of the wing.

Well it looks like a wet weekend ahead of us so no flying    :-(    so I'll try and crack on with the wing build....

Till next time.

Rain, rain, and more rain!

This weekends weather is looking totally pants, with heavy rain forecast for Saturday and more rain for Sunday, so no flying will be taking place this weekend at all.

But that's ok as I have things I can be doing. For instance, the rib kit has arrived from Hollein in Germany, so I can get on with rebuilding the wing on my Thermal Instinct F5J. And a very quick service that was, considering Hollein didn't have any stock of this item when I contacted them this time last week. Well done Hollein!

So last night I began work on the outer wing tip panel, removing the old, broken ribs, cleaning off the carbon spar and generally tidying it up.

You can see that the tip panel was virtually destroyed with only the TE, aileron and servo box surviving. The mid wing panel looks like needing about half of the ribs replacing.

So the above picture shows a dry fit of the ribs. The servo box still has the rear half of the ribs intact, and these make up part of the servo box. So I'm just going to modify the new ribs and glue these to the existing ribs. I also have to fabricate a triangular strengthening piece to fit where the tip rib and TE meet.

The construction of the tip panel should be completed tomorrow and a good start at least made on the mid wing section panel.

And whilst all this is happening, I shall be watching the Six Nations Rugby Championship on the TV.

Have a good weekend all.

Red Arrows over the Bwlch, The Spectre, The Moth & The Stug

So on Saturday, Mark, Clive, Phil, Josh and myself walked up the track at the Bwlch to probably our favourite slope there, Mickey's West.

The wind was blowing 25 - 30 mph which, for those who know this slope, equates to a HUGE amount of lift.

It was pretty chilly too with the temperature back at the car park at only 3*C, so with the wind chill, it was a bit cold. However, I was well dressed for the day and I was warm enough to fly for 3 hours.

Phil has been rebuilding his Red Arrows Hawk, and Josh's too, so they launched for a bit of syncro flying, but the conditions were just a bit too much for that.

Anyway, here's some video of the fun they had.




Phil had also brought along his new Flyingwings Spectre, which was flying along with my Moth and Clive's home brew plank, The Stug, which actually flies faster than this video depicts.



Until next time, happy flying dudes
Steve

ME 109 Build cont

Progress has been slow at the moment due to other commitments, but today I managed to spend a couple of hours in the workshop.

I was having a problem sourcing a canopy and it was looking like I was going to have to mold one myself, but after some more  searching I've managed to find a suitable one on-line, hopefully it will be ok.

This afternoon I started to cover the  section of the fuselage from the cockpit rearwards, this turned out to be more difficult than anticipated mainly because I wanted to use 1 piece of correx for each side instead of multiple pieces. The correx just did not want to follow the shape of the 3 rear formers and join to the cockpit section without creasing.

This is the 3rd attempt...not perfect by any means but I hope I can make good.

Securing the sheet to the formers and stringers was by my usual method with correx builds of a hot glue gun, which I find gives me about 20 seconds to position correctly before the glue starts to cure.

I have only managed to complete one side this afternoon and here are a couple of photos to show the progress.

 

The tail is just a rough piece taped in position to get an idea of size to see if I need to increase it's dimensions slightly.

I've left the front section open so I can add the battery and receiver  latter on.

Douglas A4 Skyhawk - PSSA Mass Build Project 2016

With the plan and wood pack being eagerly awaited by members of the PSSA, the chat has already begun about colour schemes.

Some of the guys have mentioned the schemes used by Viper and Jester in the film Top Gun.

But as I'm still developing my building and covering skills, a simpler scheme is called for. So I give you ....................

The US Navy flying display team, The Blue Angels

Rebuild of the Thermal Instinct Wing

Back in the summer I had an ooops moment when I misjudged the height of my Thermal Instinct, 3m F5J model, and I made contact with a tree.

Well now that my other rebuild projects are done, the Moth has been built, and I'm waiting for Traplet to release the Douglas A4 Skyhawk plan and wood pack, (for the PSSA mass build project), I thought I'd get on and rebuild the wing on the Thermal Instinct.

This is one of the panels, the opposite one is nowhere near as bad.

Well I thought I was going to have to painstakingly cut out individual wing ribs, but my Facebook friend, Armin Zander from Germany, informed me that Hollein, (the models supplier in Germany) provide a rib kit, at a cost of €42. So I have been in touch and a rib kit should be winging, (pardon the pun) its way to me next week.

So with any luck, this should be flying again by the time the warmer weather of spring arrives in S Wales.