The bottom of the model’s planing hull is covered with a hard plastic (at left) and includes molded chines that assist in deflecting the spray raised during takeoffs and landings. The aileron servos have hard plastic fairings (above) installed to keep water spray away from the servos themselves. The elevator servo (below) is pre-mounted in the vertical fin and covered with plastic and a decal for an unobtrusive look. The short pushrod arm from the servo to the elevator eliminates any slop in control response. Note that adjustments to the control throws are all done via EZ connectors with Phillips head screws. The wing float “N” struts (below, at left) fit into hard plastic housing and are calibrated to keep the plane level by having the two wing floats and the hull in the water all at the same time.
Assembling the Tidewater Since the part count is low, the plane goes together very quickly. While I did not time the assembly process, I doubt that it took me any more than about 45 minutes to go from the box to a flight-ready airplane—and much of that time was absorbed by stopping to take pictures for this review.
There is no glue involved in putting the plane together, so it becomes a “bolt togeth- er/screw together” process. Assembly begins with attaching the stabilizer to the fuselage, which requires only a coordinated effort in installing the elevator pushrod in the servo arm and the elevator control horn, while mounting the stabilizer atop the fin with a single machine screw. Tabs on the fin and
indentations in the bottom of the stabilizer make alignment perfect, although it’s prob- ably a good idea to make sure the stabilizer is atop the fin at a 90-degree angle before fully tightening the machine screw. The elevator servo embedded in the verti-
cal fin is worthy of mention since the servo extension wire extends into the fuselage for connection to the receiver, and the servo is aesthetically covered with plastic and a de- cal. All servos, in fact, are already mounted and require only pushrod installation/ adjustment to ready the flight surface con- trols for first flights.
The wing is a one-piece unit with molded- in ailerons and hard plastic control horns in- stalled. True to the classic seaplane configu-
ration noted earlier, the motor is mounted above the wing in a pod, which in turn is mounted to the top of the wing by two nylon bolts screwed in from the bottom. The motor wiring harness to the ESC goes down through the hollow pod and exits the bottom of the wing.
The motor pod is finished by attaching an aluminum collet-type prop adapter, the 9– 4.5-inch pitch prop, and a 2-inch plastic spinner, although prop installation is best left until the radio is set up in order to avoid the prop starting up at full speed when you least expect it. While some of the newer ra- dios will not allow such surprise motor start- ups, my work bench has scars to prove that earlier ones do!
The water rudder is very effective in taxiing and turning the plane and is pre- mounted with two bolts to a hard plastic housing (at left) at the bottom of the flight rudder. The hatch knob (above) initially seems rather obtrusive, but proved to be just right for opening the hatch, given the strength of its magnetic closure.
FLYING MODELS 27
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