The WACO was well-packed in a multi-color box lined with foam dividers. Very few pieces (at left) made for rapid assembly with no more than an assortment of screws and double-sided tape. The stabilizer mounts to the stab platform (above) using double-sided tape and screws through a plastic mount into the main fuselage.
Assembling the WACO
The plane is marketed in two versions, a ready-to-fly (including the complete plane, radio, battery and charger), and a receiver- ready version that consists of the complete plane without the radio, battery and charg- er. I chose the latter because I had every- thing else at hand, including my Tactic TTX 650 transmitter and a spare Tactic TR 624 6-channel receiver.
The plane arrived from Hobby People in an attractive and well-packed box with no damage, thanks to a close-fitting outer box that offered adequate protection for the EPO foam plane. There are very few parts to be assembled, since much of the work is al- ready done, including installed electronics, hinged controls, pre-assembled landing gear and wheel pants, and pre-drilled cabane and strut parts.
One of the more curious elements of this quick-to-assemble plane was the scale-look- ing propeller, consisting of two separate blades, a two-piece hub, and two screws for assembling. Usually, a standard molded one-piece prop is the norm. I was quick to wonder about its durability and balance, but I’m pleased to say it’s been very good in both respects while adding a very nice scale touch to the front end.
The assembly manual with black and white photos is adequate for the task at hand; however, there is a full-color version on-line that by its nature gives more detail to the points being photographically illustrated. The first step in the assembly process be-
gan with a bit of a “hitch in the get-along” as we say in Oklahoma. The task at hand was to “remove the protective backing from the two strips of double-sided tape on the top of the fuselage” in order to seat the stabilizer and elevator. That would have posed no par- ticular problem and allowed the stabilizer to be properly positioned—had there been any tape in evidence.
After a bit of a searching to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything, a quick trip to my wife’s craft room fixed the problem and the horizontal tail was put in place so that the rudder bracket could be slotted in place and screwed down to the top of the stabiliz- er. Screwing the rudder in place is done si- multaneously as you slide the tail wheel tiller arm through its fixture on the bottom of the rudder.
The plane requires no glue and is entirely a well-engineered “fit-it-together-and-screw- it-in-place” operation using small Phillips- head screws driven into hardened plastic parts that fit exceptionally well. Having said that, I quickly observed that one of the most important choices anyone putting the plane together can make is to select the right size Phillips-head screwdriver. The screws take some effort and hand strength to get tight- ened down. Using a screwdriver that doesn’t fit, or a small handle screwdriver offering little more than finger torque, will not work well. There’s very little to push against in many applications and a slipping screw - driver can gouge the underlying foam quite easily.
After struggling to get a couple of the screws driven in to the required tightness without rounding them out, I went back to my tool box and got out my full array of Phillips-head drivers and selected two that seemed to fit the bill better than the others. With the correct screw drivers at hand, I carefully “pre-screwed” the several anchor points of the cabane and outer wing struts, and then backed the screws out. That made life very easy when I later attached cabane struts to the fuselage and the top wing to the cabane struts, since there’s not a lot of room to maneuver in the latter process. The landing gear is a nicely finished unit of adequate wire gear parts, plastic strut fairings and wheel pants, and foam wheels. The U-shaped portion of the front of the gear is simply pinched together a bit by hand and then slid into a hard plastic bracket that also serves as the battery box cover recepta- cle. Two pre-bent rear landing gear wires are pushed into pre-drilled holes in the back of the unit to complete the undercarriage. While the landing gear/battery box open- ing and cover are a nicely executed integral unit, there were a couple of problems related to their functionality. First, the side tabs on the battery box cover are awkward to insert in their respective slots, requiring the cover to be bent to a concave shape so the tabs can slide into the slot openings. Second, the whole opening is a very small in relation to the 1500 mAh battery required, and the bat- tery must negotiate a very sharp “L” bend in order to fit into the opening designed for it in
The plastic rudder mount bracket (above left) slots through the stabilizer and is held to the fuselage with screws. The rudder friction-fits into the mount and is also held with horizontally placed screws. The rudder and elevator servos are
FLYING MODELS
pre-installed and connected to the tail surfaces with wire pushrods running through aluminum tubes. There's plenty of room (above left) for the receiver of your choice, as well as room for adjusting the servo arms, if necessary.
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