The E-flite Sea Furycomes largely pre-assembled (above left). The paint quality is excellent and scale details are plentiful. The gear needed to get the Sea Fury airborne (above right), including six DS76 servos, Park 480 outrunner and a 40-amp E-flite ESC, were all supplied for the purpose of
this review. The optional mechanical retracts (below left) after installation and adjustment. It is refreshing to see retracts on a model this small. The rear portion of the wing saddle is glued in place (below right). The black plastic area accepts the rear wing bolt.
DS76s) so down that route I went. The re- tract servos sit snugly in deep pockets in the wing, so I was able to mock up and test the required servo arm/pushrod positions to get full extension and retraction of the gear. Depending on how many channels your receiver has, you can either use two sepa- rate channels or a servo reversing Y-har- ness, which is what I was provided with. I spent a few minutes tweaking the travel ad- justments for each servo on my radio and got fluid, smooth operation. I ran into a few small hitches in my re-
tract install. Firstly, the wire gear legs had flat spots pre-done for the retract unit set screws, but they were ground at the wrong angle. Since the mechanical retract unit could accept a set screw from either side of the leg, I filed new flat spots and inserted the set screw from the opposite side. The manual instructs you to use some included double-sided tape to hold the retract servos into their slots in the wing, but no such tape was included in my kit. Instead, I used a few dabs of silicone.
Lastly, the legs needed a slight re-bending to fit properly in the wheel wells once re- tracted. At normal speed the gear move very quickly and hit the wheel wells rather hard. However, most computer radios like my JR X9503 have a servo slow function
FLYING MODELS
which, in this application, offers sweet scale-like retraction. After gluing on the aft portion of the wing
saddle I moved onto the aileron servos. In- stallation was simple and my only deviation was to use silicone to hold the servos into their pockets in lieu of the missing double sided tape. Before buttoning up the wing, all of the servo leads were routed by the main spar and through the wing. Y-harnesses or 6-inch extensions are required to reach the radio compartment. A large molded plastic cover conceals all
of the servos and the retract bodies under- neath the wing. The manual depicts the cov- er as having double-sided tape pre-applied, but none was present on mine. Instead, I used clear tape to hold it in place. This way you get a clean install with little chance of it coming loose in the slipstream. Finally, I installed the wheels and bolted the wing to the fuse.
Powerplant installation in the Sea Fury is
fairly simple via a stick-mount system. E-flite recommends their Park 450 (sport) or Park 480 (high performance) brushless outrunner, both of which fit the included plastic motor mount which attaches to a pre-installed wood motor stick. For the Park 480 I was provided with the wood motor stick needed to be trimmed down to 7⁄8 inch past the firewall.
The ESC (an E-flite 40-amp in my case) is
placed in the inner cowl next to the motor. I used some hook and loop to secure it to the firewall and keep it away from the spinning bits. An extension for both the ESC battery and signal leads is required to reach the ra- dio compartment, which I was also provided with. The cowl is supposed to be held on with
more of that missing double-sided tape, so again I turned to my trusty silicone and used a few small dabs. The foam undercowl gives the cowl lots of support, so it does not take much to hold it in place. The E-flite Sea Fury includes a 10–8 prop, prop adapter and a two-piece spinner. Unfortunately, the prop adapter is too short to work with the other parts, so some modification is required. The easiest approach is to trim down the rear portion of the prop hub as it is longer than is necessary. Once everything is bolted up the front portion of the spinner simply snaps into place. I must warn you that when assembled as
per the manual (after shortening the prop hub) the prop assembly is still not safe. My whole prop assembly flew off of the motor during my first run-up. Luckily no one else was in the danger zone and no harm was done. The problem is that the shaped prop nut is slightly too wide and does not fully
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