As the manual suggested, I started with the assembly of the wing and horizontal tail. Nothing special here as all the parts fit great. Just make sure to use a large flat sur- face to keep everything aligned. I used epoxy for gluing the wing together and installing the carbon fiber spars. The manual suggests putting a strip of Scotch Transparent tape on each side of the carbon spars to help sta- bilize the joints. Don’t forget this step as it really did help.
Hinging the ailerons and elevator was straightforward foamy style; bevel mating edges and taping the hinge line. Lately, I have been using Scotch Pop-up tape with ac- companying hand dispenser for my foamy hinges. This is the easiest and most secure tape hinging method I have found for foamies. I use the over and under method and have not had a single hinge failure on over ten airplanes.
The Pop-up tape comes out of the dis- penser in 2-inch precut pieces. I take two pieces and tape them together sticky side to sticky side, with about a ¼ inch overlap. Place the overlap section in the hinge line and press one side on the fixed surface and the other side on the reverse side of the mov- able surface. Do this in sets of three, alter- nating between the upper and lower surface of the fixed and movable surfaces. This is just like installing cloth hinges in the old days, just using tape instead.
The fuselage build was also pretty straightforward but this is where the se- quencing
with the control components
starts. A bit more on that later. The manual suggested using 3M77 Spray Adhesive for attaching the fuselage reinforcement strips to the edges of the fuselage. I did and it worked out great. A note of caution: test spray a scrap piece of foam as some of the older 3M77 was not foam compatible. The next step was to assemble the fuse- lage sides and formers. Just take care on this step to make sure that the fuselage sides are square and that there is no bow in the fuselage when looking down its center- line. The front fuselage bottom went on next. I used medium foam safe CA for this; quick and easy.
Before installing the fuselage bottom make sure to sand the edges of the fuselage to make them square. I used a 12-inch wood- en block with 80-grit paper and sanded both right and left fuselage side edges at the same time. This needs to be done on all the
The Polaris XLkit components as supplied by Aero Model. The kit includes accurately cut foam and plywood parts as well hardware and vinyl graphics. A well thought out package.
fuselage edges prior to installing the top and bottom pieces. As recommended, after I in- stalled the fuselage bottom, I ran a small bead of latex caulk around the inside of the fuselage to ensure it was waterproof. At this point, I also sanded the edges of the fuselage bottom flush with the fuselage sides. The wing and battery tray went in next. I was pleasantly surprised when all the tabs and slots lined up and everything came out perfectly aligned. Again, I used medium foam safe CA to glue the wing in place. Building the vertical pylon came next and was probably the most intricate part of the build. It took me a while to figure exactly where all the pieces went, but as the manual says, “Study this picture carefully” and I did. Once I figured it out, everything came out fine. Again, as recommended, I used 3M77 to laminate the pieces together. When building the nacelle, the manual says to use a heat gun and bend a curve in the nacelle sides to match the nacelle bottom. I didn’t pre-bend the sides. I simply glued the back of the sides in place first and gently pushed on them until they matched the curve of the nacelle bottom. Foam safe CA held every- thing in place. I used 5-minute epoxy and micro balloons for attaching the motor mount and wood vertical tail brace support. The manual didn’t say how to hinge the rud-
der; however, I found two CA hinges in the package and used these.
After mounting the pylon to the wing, it was time to install the servos. The rudder and aileron went in first followed by the ele- vator servo. I simply hot glued the servos in place. As I mentioned above, a bit of fore- thought and sequencing was important for this build. With the servos installed, all the pushrods had to be installed and the servos adjusted for neutral.
In addition, the motor needed to be in- stalled and the wiring from the motor to the ESC threaded through the pylon and into the fuselage top compartment. Take your time here and carefully lay out your compo- nents as it will affect the balance point and future receiver and ESC access. In retro- spect, I could have mounted my ESC and re- ceiver a bit more forward.
With all the controls installed and work- ing properly, the rear fuselage bottom and the fuselage top were installed and sanded flush with the fuselage sides. The horizontal stab was also installed and finish sanding of the nacelle completed. The manual says to also attach the vertical fin at this time but I waited until after the graphics were applied. The final components to be installed were the nose block and the tip floats. I laminated both of these using the 3M77. I final sanded
The wing and horizontal tail components being glued together (above left). Blue painters tape was used to secure the parts together while the epoxy cured.
FLYING MODELS
The completed wing assembly (above right) was light and strong. Note the transparent tape reinforcement over the carbon spars.
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