David Payne’s grandfather, Doug, stands (above left) by the Cessna 150 Aerobat he owned in 1985. It’s the inspiration for E-flite’s new Cessna 150 Aerobat 250. Young David, aged 9, sits (above right) in the left seat of
N2719J, maybe waiting for his Dad, Steve, who also flew the plane. Quality wood frame parts and fiberglass cowl/wheel pants (below left) and complete hardware plus instruction manual (below right) comprise the kit.
rear windscreen. There wasn’t the smallest bit of an open space and with R/C 56 adhe- sive and some blue 3M painters tape both pieces were firmly in place and allowed to cure overnight. Can’t say enough about the 1-inch E-flite spinner (EFLSP100) that’s available as an option for the plane. The spinner makes the 150 a real 150 and the quality of the alu- minum piece is superb. The prop, which is a GWS 7–3.5 gray prop, fit perfectly. This is the prop for this plane. There really weren’t many other options and subsequent flights proved this prop provides more than enough thrust with the Park 280. The fit of key parts was quite good. The
carbon fiber wing tube spar fit snugly in the fuselage receptacle and was a perfect fit in both wing panels. The small locator pins to align the wing were right in place as were the magnets which hold the wing to the fuse- lage. No retainer screws to mess around with. Besides aligning the stab, it was par- allel with the wing and didn’t require any dressing of the stab saddle. Same can be said of the vertical stab. It fits into a slot at the tail post with a tab on the dorsal fin to secure it to the fuselage. Without any addi- tional work the fin was perpendicular to the horizontal stab. With all the motor and ESC wires in the front, the fit of the fiberglass cowl looked
FLYING MODELS
like it would be a problem. At first it was but it wasn’t because of the wires. It was the tie wrap used to secure the 10-amp ESC. It was cut off and just some hook and loop fastener was used to hold the ESC. When that was accomplished the cowl
went on smoothly. It has some strong mag- nets that hold it securely to the firewall and there was no problem with it loosening dur- ing flight. Something subtle showed the quality of the parts. The stripes on the cowl lined up exactly with those on the fuselage. There is one important caution about the
cowl. Be sure that the rear cowl former is se- curely glued all the way around. One end of the former on this cowl had loosened. Some 5-minute epoxy—not CyA—glued it right back in place permanently. About the only real snag in the whole as-
sembly centered around the wheel pants on the plane. They are very nicely molded fiber- glass. In the case of one of the main wheel pants the tire was rubbing on the front edge of the pant. Some dressing work with a Dremel Moto-Tool quickly ground the open- ing to a size that let the wheel turn freely. The front wheel pant has a recess on one
side of its outer surface for the nose gear leg. But there’s nothing to really hold it in place. That presents the danger of the pant mov- ing around and possibly binding the wheel. The solution was pretty simple and effec-
tive. Follow the instructions on page 13, step 23 and use some R/C 56 or Pacer’scanopy glue to keep the nose wheel pant secure. The wheel pants aren’t necessary and any
150 I ever saw at any airport never had the wheel pants installed. It was expedience. You never knew where the plane would land and because it was always in use, mainte- nance of the struts, tires and brakes was pretty much a routine. Wheel pants made those chores doubly hard. Besides, the pants added weight and their streamlining only added a few more miles an hour to the cruise speed. So, the choice is yours. Earlier I mentioned the micro radio gear
that is suggested for the little Cessna. Be- sides its small size, the most noticeable dif- ference is its use of the tiny white JST-ZHR connectors. They were used once before on the earlier Skyhooks and Rigging micro ra- dios from years ago, and seem to have found a home with Spektrum’s micro line. These are smaller than the more familiar red JST connectors used with power hookups like battery to ESC. Both the E-flite DS35 servos and the Spektrum AR6300 Nanolite receiv- er (SPMAR6300) that equip the little Cess- na use the JST-ZHR. These JST-ZHR connectors require adap -
ters to interface with some of the radio com- ponents. For instance the ESC has a receiv- er cable that terminates in the standard
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