Great Planes Proud Bird
The horizontal stab is slid into place after trimming away the center section of MonoKote (above). Note the elevator joiner wire. After installing the elevators, the vertical stab and rudder assembly is epoxied into place (at right). Alignment was effortless. The Futaba S3115 micro aileron servo is installed in its mount (below right) and the pushrods bent and cut to length. The wheel assemblies are genius in their clean simplicity (below). Chris found hemostats to be the tool of choice to install the wheel nut.
To apply them without getting bubbles I carefully positioned them and worked the decals flat from the center outward. Another option is to spray ammonia-based window cleaner on the airframe first which will al- low for repositioning the strips. Once you are happy you can squeegee the excess liq- uid out with a credit card or balsa scrap. Just be sure to allow at least a night’s worth of drying time before flying when employing this method to ensure your trim stays on the plane. Finally, I added the included Proud Bird decals to finish off the build. What a slick looking plane!
At the flying field I set up the control throws per the manual and also double checked the center of gravity with my Flight Power 2,550 mAh 3S Li-Po installed, which was toward the back of the suggested range (note that the recommended racing setup is a Rimfire .25 and 4S battery). The low-rate throws may seem miniscule by sport flying standards (1⁄8 inch elevator throw, ¼ inch ailerons) but my experience with fast planes told me that these numbers should give you a good starting point. I also set mid and high rates just to see where I would feel the most comfortable. With the pre-flight done I tax-
ied out onto the tarmac and set myself up for the maiden flight.
Steady application of power and some slight rudder correction sent the Proud Bird down the runway centerline, at which point she lifted off before I had anticipated she would. After gaining some altitude, just a few clicks of down elevator were required for level, hands-off flight.
While my always-reliable wife, Jennifer, shot away with the SLR, I became conscious of the growing grin on my face as I wrung the Proud Bird out. While mixing up slow cam- era passes and full throttle dives I found the
To make your life easy, the Proud Birdincludes plywood motor spacers (top left) to accommodate motors of varying length. The Rimfire .15 requires all of them. The Futaba S3117 elevator and rudder servos are installed (at left). The specific placement of the pushrods in the servo arms is detailed in the manual. The Electrifly Silver Series 45-amp ESC is tucked into its bay in the nose (above) and held there with hook and loop.
52 APRIL 2013
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