The fuselage is a beautifully molded single fiberglass piece (above left) with all the trim colors prepainted. The nacelles are a thin plastic while the tip floats appear to be a stronger plastic that sandwiches a fiberglass plate. Colors match and the fit is very accurate. Both the wings and tail surfaces (above right) are conventional balsa/ply frames, covered in MonoKote. The tabs for the tip floats are already installed. While the aileron hinges are glued in, the elevator halves
are not, so the metal joiner wire can be inserted. All the hardware (below left) needed to finish the Widgeon, including extra length cables for the two motors, is included. Some foam tape is also included to seal the wing saddle area. Along with the pretty comprehensive manual (below right), there is a single addendum sheet plus some nice self-adhesive graphics. The graphics are pre-cut but the choice of which ones to use are up to the modeler. Some will be left over.
strings to save later frustration. Secondly, enlarge the single hole in the bottom of the center section panel. There are a lot of wires that will come through it. If left the same size it will get pretty tight quickly. Of course don’t make it the size of a manhole cover. Third suggestion relates to the motor
wires. At first I tried just tying the string around the end of the motor’s 3-wire bundle. But the ends of each wire went off in a dif- ferent direction and kept snagging on ribs in the panel. A cleaner way was to wrap some blue painter’s tape around and over the end of the bundle. The tape extended beyond the wires so I put a small hole in the tape and tied the string to that. The wires went through more easily since they were all tightly aligned in the same direction. Another method for doing the same thing
would be to use a short piece of heat shrink tubing over the end of the bundle, with a bit of it extending past the end of the wire. A small hole, like the tape method, lets the string get tied to it. I would have used this method if I had the appropriate diameter tubing at hand. A number of adhesives are mentioned in
the manual, including cyanoacrylates and 5- minute epoxy. It would be good to also use some 30-minute epoxy for the joining of the wing panels. That will allow enough time, without rushing, to “butter” the joiner spars and the root ribs completely and evenly with epoxy. Use 5-minute, even 15-minute, epoxy
FLYING MODELS
and it will start curing before you get every- thing together. The rest of the assembly is a piece of
cake. One of the things that made it even more so was the Great Planes parallel ESC Adapter (GPMM3141). It eliminates a lot of fussy soldering. It’s simple enough: two fe- male Ultra Deans connectors soldered to a single male Ultra Deans. There are other adapters that do the same thing, but they rely on short lengths of wire and are nowhere near as compact as the Great Planes adapter. This is an essential item for this plane. Two Great Planes 8–6 Slow-Fly props (GPMQ6610) are specified for the Widgeon’s Rimfire 400 motors. They provide plenty of thrust, but like a lot of electric plastic props need little ring adapters in the prop hub to seat on the prop shaft without any slop. None of the adapters fit the prop shaft cor- rectly. Some were excessively sloppy, some far too tight. So I used the ones that were the closest
tight fit on the prop shaft and drilled them with a #9 bit. Before I did that I had to CyA them in the shaft carefully. The #9 drill bit (0.196 inch diameter) made the prop fit the shaft perfectly. Nearly every kit or ARF that uses a mu-
sic wire joiner to connect left and right ele- vators has a joiner whose legs are not in the same plane (geometric, not aeronautic). It’s important to check this and tweak the legs until they are both flat on a flat surface. The
Widgeon did have some slight twist but it wasn’t hard to get the legs flat. By this time the Widgeon was pretty much complete. Needless to say, the drain hole at the rear of the fuselage hull step was sealed with the rubber drain plug that comes with the model. If there was any step in the as- sembly that should be paramount, this is it. The fiberglass hatch in the nose does bear
some additional attention. It’s held in place with four magnets and does seem secure, but the first flight showed that it can come loose and because of that it got chewed up by the props as it flailed around. I’m not sure if it came loose on takeoff and some water got in the hull, shifting forward and aft, but the resulting flight was exciting to say the least. Perhaps the simplest solution to securely fastening the hatch is some clear packing tape across the front and the back of the hatch. Don’t need it on the sides. But it might not hurt to put a very small amount of waterproof caulk around the perimeter of the hatch to make absolutely sure no water will get in. There’s a large sheet of vinyl, self-adhe-
sive graphics that come with the Widgeon. The model itself is already pretty colorful with its red, white and blue trim scheme. The painting of the fiberglass and the trim on the MonoKote covering is quite good. But I felt the need to add a bit more zest to the Widgeon with the vinyl graphics. There isn’t any suggested trim scheme for the graphics so it’s personal choice as to how many and
31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68