Recently in Fokker Category

Fokker repaired and ready for battle

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Recap - this is what it looked like back in August...


Well it's done. Just waiting for a nice warm calm fall day. Might have to wait until spring though.

First part I repaired was the firewall / engine mount. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had not lost any bits. A full reconstruction was done.

nearly_repaired_engine_mount

To repair the wing, I started by using a razer blade to open the skin. I carefully cut along a good rib making sure to leave a good rib in the opening so the skin would have something solid to adhere to later. The mess inside was substantial.

open_wing_surgery_posterior

To ensure the wing would remain straight, I propped it up with some styrofoam blocks. Once all the pieces were glued back together (which took a few evenings), I carefully closed the skin back up - again, using thin CA to reattach the skin to the ribs.

Fokker wing repair

I strengthened and sealed the cut by applying a layer of monokote (unfortunately I only had yellow, remnants from my Hummer which I have yet to fly).

Fokker wing repair

Next it was onto the cowling. 

cowling_reassembly

What a mess. At times I felt like a federal aviation disaster investigator. I started by aligning larger pieces and holding them in place with scotch tape from behind. Once I had the pieces lined up, I dripped thin CA along the crack and let it set overnight before moving on to the next piece. In the end only a couple small holes remain in the cowling. I may buy some red electrical tape to repair those.

Fokker Repaired

Here she is. Ready for another attempt. 

The lower wing received very minor damage. The peg that holds it in place at the front was snapped off - simple repair, just glue another piece of wood and sand down to fit. The other bit of damage was one of the holes that a bolt goes through to attach the wing was widened slightly - won't worry about that as the wing doesn't move once assembled.

The prop is a higher pitch prop (10x80 vs 10x47), however, that seems to give me a better throttle curve (for some reason the old setup only used 3/4 of the throttle range - the new prop seems to expand that to 7/8). The prop came from my Sophisticated Lady which is grounded until I buy a new gear set.

Shot down! Actually pilot error...

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Well, I went out flying tonight after quite a break from the hobby. Should have stayed home.

Started out with the Lady. Used a weaker battery (which wasn't a real big deal), and so I wasn't getting much performance. That's ok - I just wanted to work the bugs out of my head before moving on to the Fokker.

Well, after one successful landing and back in the air, it started to make a very different whine. I quickly brought it for a safe landing and looked for the problem - I stripped both gears. One down and out.



It was such a perfect night for flying, I figured I'd risk trying the Fokker. After settling my nerves I got airborne - my what a HANDFULL!. It kept doing these crazy stalls - I was panicking - How am I going to CONTROL it?!? I was sure it was balanced - what to do?

I managed to get my head back on and talked myself through the problem - it's pulling up to much, push forward - woa! not so much, back a bit - no wait forward TRIM that's it trim it down, some more - ok one more, there now it's behaving much bettrer, whew!

Flew around for 5 minutes! It was great! Brought in for a landing, which was into tall grass thankfully as I had not completely got the hang of it. No damage, looks good, back up she went! Beautiful take off and 3 more minutes of glory and then it happened. I was turning around over a gravel road and noting that the elevator has a LOT of authority - too much for my comfort, when it suddenly banked too far over and in my panic I pulled back which hammered it into the ground... I'm so ticked at myself.


 I'm not sure it is repairable. Will have to open the wing to see how mangled all the bits are in there.


Sigh. Back to dreaming about flying again...

My bad - no StarLITE at last Golf Dome...

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Just received my order of RC bits. Had trimmed back my order to ensure that:
  1. Received 2 sets of wheels for the Fokker - Check!
  2. Received batteries (check), servos (check), props (check), ESC (check) and motor (Do'h) for the StarLITE plane I'm slowly building.
Well, I guess I forgot to double check the motor. I had planned on ordering a $6 25g 1600kv outrunner which probably would have been suffecient for the plane, but I guess somehow I missed the fact that I removed it from my order to keep my costs within budget.

Oh well. I will assemble what I can and make sure to get the wheels on the Fokker so it at least is ready to fly.

(Also filed under Grounded - cause I'm an idiot...)

By the way - this Friday (April 17th) from 10:30PM to 12:30AM is the last (semi)-official indoor fun fly at the Golf Dome! I'll be there with my Citabria!

Come watch for FREE!

Fly for $20 (I hear rumor of prizes???)