Chad - How did you make out with the RC?

[aparchment]

How are your RC flying lessons going Chad?

[cjensen]

Haven't flown yet... My friend and I keep scheduling a time, and something on one end or the other comes up. We're gonna try again this weekend.

I am getting close to getting the Zero done though. Waiting on my receiver...that's all I need to finish it up.

[cjensen]

Still don't have the receiver, and I ran in to a problem that may ground this airplane before it ever takes to the air, but I went ahead and finished it this evening. The problem is my fault...I was trying to jostle the right aileron control link in to it's slot in the fuselage, and the link broke right at the bend. It's metal, and I don't know that I can fix this. It's glued in place, and I don't know what the fix is for this problem.

Anyway, here's the finished product, less a battery and receiver.







So that's what I've been working on in my spare, spare time.

I hope to fix it and fly it...we'll see.

[1:1_Scale]

Looks like you may have dimpled those wing skins a bit hard, eh?

There's gotta be a way to repair the control link. Got a picture of that?

[cjensen]

My friend here in town said he could probably fix it. I'll take a pic in the meantime...don't want to get too far away from RV's with this...

[cjensen]

Here's a pic of the offending linkage...



You can see it's broken right at the bend where it goes up in to the fuselage.

I'm taking it to Rich tomorrow, but do you have any ideas?

[1:1_Scale]

I would probably just make up another one out of the sime dia. wire. Cut a slit in the green tape to remove the broken one so you don't tear up the foam, and use scotch tape to close it back up If you can manage to get a replacement from the mfr., I'd go that route, but I don't think I'm that patient

[papakeith]

I'm with Kelly, If you can't get a replacement from the LHS just bend up a new one.

[cjensen]

That sounds easy...the problem is, the other end is glued in to the aileron, per the instructions. I could try and yank it outta there, but at the risk of completely tearing up the aileron in the process.

One of our A&P's here at work is also a scale modeler, and he said he may be able to solder it without damaging the foam.

[1:1_Scale]

I thought about soldering also, but I usually don't have the best luck soldering music wire- but it can be done

[aparchment]

Actually I had a similar problem on one plane, though I can't remember why. I ended up putting a brass sleeve over the two broken ends and soldering that on to hold the wire together. It's been so long that I can't remember if it was a .40 size or a .60 size plane, but either way the repair held since I have never had an in-flight control surface failure (knock on wood).

[cjensen]

HA!! That's EXACTLY the solution we came up with at work today! Brass sleeve!

[cjensen]

UPDATE!!!! The A6M Zero flew today!!!



Read about it here-

http://www.chadandbrittne.com/First_flight_a6m.htm

[Spike]

Cool!!!

[papakeith]

sweet!

[dons]

Nice Chad! Good to know you're not letting your 'kit building' skills sit idle by working on that C195. My first electric RC was way back when we used 6 C cells and the electronics/servos were about 4 times bigger than todays stuff, if you got 4 to 5 minutes in the air it was a good run before the batteries died. The RC stuff today is so much better, and the number of kits out there is just amazing.