Hangar 9 Meridian 10cc ARF
Dick made a modification to the furnished pilot figure (above left), adding gray hair and a mustache for a competent pilot appearance (above center). The tricycle gear, with its fiberglass wheel pants (above right), looks great and
The engine cowl and the wheel pants are molded fiberglass, not plastic—I like that. I mounted the engine as instructed, and slow- ly trimmed an opening in the cowl with my Dremel so the cowl fit over and around the engine.
The landing gear is tricycle, with a steer- able nose gear. The main gear is sheet alu- minum, nicely painted, and it bolts to the bottom of the fuselage. The trike gear looks good, but I plan to modify the fuselage for a taildragger gear setup which I prefer for the grass fields I fly from. I think it will be an easy mod. A plastic spinner is standard equipment, but Horizon has available a very nice aluminum spinner, which is preferable if you’re going to be using an electric starter.
The balance point location is given, and when I checked my plane, the balance was very close. With a full tank of gas it will be slightly nose heavy, a normal situation. And filling the tank with the proper gasoline/oil mixture will be a lot less costly than if a
allows the plane to track solidly on asphalt and concrete runways. For rough grass field operations however, you might want to go without the pants and with larger wheels. Easy to do.
glow engine were being used. That’s a good thing.
I did make a mod to the pilot figure; I felt that gray hair and a mustache would add an air of competent appearance. I didn’t rush the assembly work, doing it a little each day and spreading the work over a week. The weather was too cold and windy to go flying anyway.
I set up the control surface throws, with dual rates on the elevator and ailerons. The flaps were set to work with a two position switch, about half way down and full down settings. With 880 square inches of wing area, a semi-symmetrical airfoil, it’s pretty light. I figured the flaps weren’t really nec- essary, but they’re nice to have, and practic- ing with them will make it easier when you build that heavy iron warbird scale model. My minivan makes it easy to take planes to the field, and our workbenches at the field make it easy to assemble the plane for flight. My well-used electric starter is handy, and, of course, a glow plug ignitor isn’t needed for
the Evolution 10cc gas burner. This is an ABC engine—that’s an Aluminum piston in a Brass, Chromed cylinder liner, so it needs to be broken in accordingly. The old method of running the engine slowly and rich for some time is the wrong thing to do with an ABC engine, and would harm this engine. Use a smaller than usual prop, let the en- gine wind up a bit, and get its operating temperature up so the parts will expand for the proper running clearances. The first time I took the Meridian out to
the flying field, the engine got all of the at- tention. The plane looks good and flies well. But all the questions and comments were about the engine. People liked the idea of a 10 cc/.60 size model airplane engine with a spark plug, laid out like the glow engines and mounting like the glow engines, that ran on gasoline. A lot of comments were made about the current price of glow fuel versus the price of gasoline. And you can use a smaller fuel tank for the gasoline. And at a 20 to 1 gas/oil mixture, there is less ex-
Rather than a large one-piece wing, the two removable wing panels (above left) make transportation easier. It's nice to have wing flaps (above right)
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although with the large amount of wing area and the plane's light weight, they’re hardly needed for easy slow landings.
MAY 2013
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