Flyzone Mini Switch
The tongue at the front of the high-wing canopy hatch (above left) is reinforced with a carbon fiber insert for added strength. On the high-wing version, the canopy hatch with the wings installed carries the entire weight of the airplane in flight, necessitating a bit of beefing up of the foam tongue. The molded high-wing canopy hatch (above center) carries the carbon fiber wing tube as well as small alignment pins to keep the wing from twisting after it’s
tube kept hitting a spot inside the wing where the hard plastic screw tubes had been inserted into the molded wing tube channel. I solved that problem by slightly chamfering the ends of the carbon fiber wing tube and the canopy hatch alignment pin to provide more rounded surfaces that could bypass any glue joints or slightly misaligned hard plastic inserts. After chamfering, as shown in one of the photos, the pins and tubes slid right into place.
Completing the high-wing version in- volves feeding the aileron servo leads through the canopy hatch, attaching them to the supplied Y-harness in the fuselage, and locking the canopy in place by inserting the carbon fiber reinforced tongue in the front of the hatch. The rear of the hatch is held in place with a single screw which is also used with the low-wing version.
Installation of the prop and spinner is guid- ed by a sequential set of photos in the manual and provided no problems whatsoever. Be sure to allow clearance between the spinner backplate and the foam fuselage. Also, using a crescent wrench to securely tighten the prop nut is essential. I’ve been surprised more than once at our local flying field by an errant prop on an electric powered plane that was not tightened down appropriately.
installed. One nice touch is that the windscreen and window areas of both the high-wing and low-wing canopies are of bonded plastic, not just decals or paint. The motor is installed in a plastic motor mount housing. Vents situated on each side of the cowl (above right) provide flow-through cooling for the motor and ESC with the air exiting in back of the battery pack at the bottom rear of the fuselage.
Speaking of things that are tight, I did find that the foam tires mounted in the foam wheel pants were making contact with the inside of the pant on both sides of the land- ing gear and would not allow the wheels to turn freely. The solution was to sand down both foam surfaces by inserting a garnet pa- per finger nail file (emery board) between the pant and the wheel and simply rotate the wheels until they no longer were drag- ging. It took two or three applications of the finger nail file until I was satisfied with the way the wheels turned.
Finally, with the installation of the sup- plied Flyzone 3S 11.1V 1300 mAh battery in its recessed pocket in the bottom of the fuse- lage, the plane balanced perfectly. If the bat- tery hatch doesn’t want to close fully and easily, simply enlarge the locking pin hole a bit using a jeweler’s file.
Switching the Mini Switch Changing the Mini Switch to its low-wing configuration is an easy task and will ele- vate the model’s flight envelope consider- ably in terms of its aerobatic capabilities. The first thing I would advise though, is that if you are making the change at the field, don’t try to make it “in the air” so to speak, but make it in the back of your SUV or over
the trunk of your car in order to keep track of the five screws that are essential to mak- ing the switch (pun intended). I found that the screws had a tendency to wander off un- noticed and hide while I was occupied with other things, if I wasn’t careful. The first task in making the changeover is to open the battery hatch cover and gently coax the wing plugs out of their sockets in the lower fuselage sides. They are held in place by a very precise friction fit and need to be protected from any kind of damage for future use in the high wing configuration. Once the wing joiner tube is removed from the wings and the high wing mount (remem- ber what I said about the screws?) and in- serted into the hole in the main fuselage, it’s a small matter of re-sliding the wings over the tube and poking the aileron leads through the receptacles inside the wing pockets. Be sure the panels are fully seated against the fuselage inside the wing pockets before re-tightening the screws and giving the wings a tug to make sure they’ll stay in place in flight.
Connecting the aileron leads to the Y-har- ness again lets you finish the conversion by screwing the sleek low-wing canopy hatch in place in the same manner as the high-wing version. The manual does recommend mov-
The low-wing canopy hatch lacks wing rod holes and alignment pins because it simply covers the top of the fuselage after all installations and hook-ups are complete. Its shiny surface (above left) resists marring and wear by featuring a bonded black plastic overlay rather than just being a decal or painted on the foam surface. The wings are seated in molded pockets in the fuselage for the
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low-wing version. Close up of the molded area that accepts the wing (above right). The round hole at the bottom of the photo is for the carbon fiber wing rod; the rectangular hole for the servo lead; and the oval hole at the top accepts the nub for the friction-fit foam plug that hides the molded pocket when the plane is in high-wing configuration.
DECEMBER 2013
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