View showing the fuel tank and battery compartment (above left) ready for hatch fitting. Note threaded fasteners for hatch retention. View showing details
for mounting of control pushrod sheaths (above right) before installation of bottom sheeting. Routing should be as straight as possible to minimize friction.
1940s. But, as time has moved on and some people insisted on adding noise restrictions eventually flying sites began to disappear, or with urban development became simply unavailable.
If you don’t have a flying site, what is the point of building and having a flying model? Particularly if you have to drive three or four hours just to go fly it, if that is where the nearest flying site is. The flying field is the modeler’s habitat along with the work shop. Remove this and the modeler perishes. Food for thought and also one of the main reasons for the explosive growth of both the electric and micro R/C model categories. The first thing you will want to fabricate after obtaining the ½A glow engine is a suit- able firewall to mount it on. This will deter- mine several other things on your project. One of the most important besides whether or not you will need to buy another servo for the throttle will be whether or not you will need the external tank.
If your engine has the integral type tank, then you won’t need to buy the 2-ounce ex- ternal tank shown in the pictures. This will mean that your model will be lighter in the nose and you will probably be well advised to move the upper pylon/cabin installation back about 1 inch to the rear of the plane when that time comes for better balance. The Cox .049 reed valve engine installa- tions are a very simple four radial hole mount on the firewall and that will be the end of that. No tank holes or throttle linkage unless the Cox engine you have has the re- strictor throttle sleeve on it. In that case you will want to provide a servo to give you the extra control it will provide. Being able to shut down a running full throttle engine is a big safety plus.
Next will come the two 2 × 36-inch long sheet balsa fuselage sides. Note the addi- tional 1⁄8-inch square stringers and 1⁄8 × 3⁄16 joiners at the top and bottom for strength and rigidity as well as providing extra glu- ing area for joining operations. Be very care- ful to make both a left and a right side and not two of the same side. Otherwise you will be obliged to make another one or two for the opposite side and end up with two fuselages.
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With these small models and control sys- tems, I have found that it makes a lot of sense to fit as much of the control system
into the aircraft before the two sides are joined as it is easier to work with the parts in this mode. Assembled on the “half shell” so to speak. As you can see the two servos for the rudder and elevator (or ruddervator if you have a “V” tail) have been built into a mount for them and then that mount is pre positioned into one side of the fuselage. The same goes for your 1⁄8-inch thick ply- wood firewall (note the downthrust angle) and throttle servo if you need one and, of course, the receiver switch mounting. It is also a good idea to figure out where your re- ceiver mounting should go at this time and this will depend heavily on the type and size of your receiver.
I’ve taken to the DSM2 Spektrum full range receivers for this type of model and that requires that I mount two receivers. It is also a good idea to mount them where the LEDs that show that you have a good signal lock can be easily viewed (hence the clear front window). If your receiver has different requirements, then act accordingly. Once all is in order and the equipment and controls are laying on one fuselage half it is a good idea to check the rough c.g. loca- tion so that you can move the upper cabin portion back from the position shown on the plan if you have a lighter or simpler engine installation. The plans show the most com- plex installation with the Norvel .061 with throttle and a 2-ounce remote tank just be- hind the firewall and a third servo for the throttle.
If you do not have some or all of these com- plexities then you will probably be moving your upper cabin back about an inch from the location shown on the plans. This will give you a longer nose to compensate for your lighter engine installation. Once this has been done, any final adjustments will have to be done with ballast. When you are satisfied with the installation, glue the up- per cabin sections in place on the fuselage halves and add the reinforcement straps (½ × 1⁄16 balsa).
The next step will be to start gluing the second side of the fuselage to the first side assembly and jigging it up so that it is square. I use slow cure epoxy around the firewall for this purpose and Tite Bond for some of the other key cross members. Once squareness is assured, glue the remainder in with CA type adhesive. This will go fairly
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