Dirty Birdy out of the box (at left). Fiberglass fuselage and built-up wing and tail surfaces are light and strong. An excellent manual (above) is provided; lots of photos clarify assembly steps.
review, all flying was done using a few basic computer radio features; they will be noted later.
Okay, let’s get on with the assembly steps. It’s not a long process, a lot of the work is al- ready done.
If you receive a box without noticeable ex- terior damage, it’s unlikely anything inside will be hurt. All parts in my kit came out of the box without damage. The covering, how- ever, showed numerous wrinkles on wing and stabilizer surfaces. It took a fair amount of heat gun and covering iron to work out the wrinkles. Some wrinkles returned after the first day in the sun, and needed another round of ironing.
Packing was excellent. Parts were nicely secured in the box. All the basic parts are built and covered or painted. The kit is very complete including fuel tank, engine mount, control linkage, cowl, plastic spinner, and hardware. Several assembly steps, left to you in many ARFs, are already done. The ailerons and elevator control surfaces are in- stalled and hinged. The fuselage includes the fin and rudder which is already hinged
in place. The servo tray and elevator and rudder pushrod casings are installed. An an- tenna guide tube is installed for those using a 72 MHz radio. Unseen at first, you will find hard points are installed in the aileron, elevator, and rudder control surfaces where the control horns will be mounted. This detail will keep the horns from crushing into the control surfaces as your Birdy accumulates air time. A hard point is also in place for the aft end of a tuned pipe if you choose to use one.
What’s left for you to do: assemble the wing dihedral brace and wing halves; add landing gear brackets and the landing gear. The wing forward mounting pegs are pre-in- stalled, and rear hold down bolt holes al- ready have T-nuts in the fuselage. Plug the stabilizer onto the fuselage with provided carbon tubes. Install your radio, servos, re- ceiver, battery, control linkage. And install the tank, engine and cowl.
The 43-page instruction manual is very good and will guide you through the assem- bly process. Lots of photos of assembly steps
supplement the text. Photos and text cover installation of the provided fixed tricycle landing gear. A section is provided on in- stallation of Hobbico mechanical retracts, as well as a section on pneumatic retracts, both with photos.
The manual suggests visiting the website
at
www.greatplanes.com and go to the “Air- planes” link and do a search for “Dirty Birdy .60 ARF”. If there are any changes to the model, a “tech notice” box will appear on the page. As of this writing, there were no changes.
I assembled the Birdy following the se- quence of assembly steps as recommended in the manual. Well, maybe I should say “mostly” followed. I found a few things along the way that in my opinion make assembly easier, or are improvements. I’ll note those as we take a look through the manual. Installing the two aileron servos goes quickly. A little bit of foam will need to be picked out of each aileron servo pocket to make room for the servo cables. Strings are in each wing to pull the aileron cables to the center of the wing where they
Tape or shrink wrap the aileron extension connections (above left) that will be unseen in the wings. Pencil (above right) points to the area to hollow out for the
FLYING MODELS
servo cable. Great Planes has provided a string to help route the servo leads through the wing; however, Ron used another approach.
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