Looks good Dennis, you will tell us what engine you have won't you ? I know you said STAY TUNED.

Back again with ANOTHER episode!

WING SUB ASSEMBLY
I have the HIGHEST respect for all those who administer a contest: CD's Judges, Recorders, compilers, EVERTBODY deserves kudos for the effort they put in for the flyers.  However, I harbor FEAR of those ANIMALS that run pull test in the pits!  Normal, even NICE and certainly HARD WORKING people, but they become 800 lb gorillas when it comes to pull testing MY airplane! 

All seriousness aside, I want the bellcrank mounting to be strong and durable but I also want a place to hang on to the airplane when I am trying to pull test.  As supplied the Oriental comes with a substantial 4" bellcrank with a large bolt - mounted to a single platform.  I think it is imperative that the bellcrank bolt be supported with mounts above and below the bellcrank to keep it stable.  Call this a throwback to building foam wings, but if you take the bellcrank mounts and put them OUTSIDE the wing, then you can also run them up against the fuselage sides.  This in turn gives a place to HOLD ON to the airplane when you are dealing with "old lead bottom" in the pull test pit.

The supplied bolt was too short to do all of this so a new 6-32 x 3" bolt was substituted.  Since the bellcrank was loose removed anyway, I went ahead and REVERSED the bellcrank so the pushrod arm is now pointing toward the inboard wing tip and the front line is now UP.  Been doing this since the attending the "church of Reverend Al" (Rabe) back in the early 1970's.  Old habits die hard.  While I was at it I also moved the bolt over far enough to get the flap m& elevator pushrods a little closer to the center of the wing - for a more direct shot to the flaps.

While contemplating the 3:2 Elevator to flap ratios, I first went through the normal excercise mixing and matching outputs.  The inexcapable conclusion is that when using the traditional daisy chain of bellcrank to flap horn to elevator horn, the elevator has to get sped up .  Time for Plan B: I have always been fond of slower controls, so I sought to not speed-up the elevator, but slow down the flaps.  The solution I choose was to use a SECOND pushrod from the bellcrank.  The rod from the outer output of the bellcrank goes to the outermost hole on the elevator horn.  The flap rod goes from the SECOND hole in the bellcrank to the outermost hole in the flap horn.  Result: when the elevator moves 30 degrees the flaps move "only" 22 degrees - that's close enough to 3:2 for me!  Added benefit the bearing loads especially at the flap horn and bellcrank outputs is roughly halfed.  BTW I used a short piece of 1/4" dowell rod for the elevator rod, and OF COURSE the flap horns were bushed with brass tubing.

Flap Horn and Elevator Horn Bearings
This was a shortcoming of the kit - no bearings.  I made some out of Plastruc tube; drilled to fit over the horn wire, sanded flat on one side, then slit with a #11 Xacto.  The slit side is glued back together with plastic cement (optional) and the bearing epoxied to the wing (or stab as appropriate) then a swatch of cloth wrapped over the bearing to hold it tight and reinforce it.

Hinges
Struggled with this.  I WANTED to use the CA hinges because I have found them to be very durable as well as very easy to install.  Pinned hinges would move freer.  Settled on keeping the CA hinges, but cut them in 1/2 width strips so they would not be so stiff.  One reason I thought I could get away with this is because I used:

Hinge Seals
I used clear Monocote top and bottom to seal the hingelines.  I consider this to be as important a step as using moving control surfaces in the first place.  Some folks don't believe in sealed hingelines - they are wrong.



Note to Leester: tomorrow the ENGINE choice is revealed (whoo hoo!!!) 

Note to Bill: the answer is in the single digits... so far! 

I don't have the Brodak kit or Arf, but have a MAN plans Oriental on the bench (for more years now than I would like to admit). Anyway in the MAN build-article, Dee Rice is adament about putting the landing gear wire on the back side of the former that butts up against the wing leading edge. The comment is that this gives the nice take-off and landing characteristics of the design, and that moving it forward (even to the front of the former) will give less than desirable results.
Now the Brodak version is a little different than the MAN plans, but from listening to people, Dee's comments seem to also apply to the Brodak version.
Just a point to think about.

FWIW, my ARC Oriental that I just finished and trimmed before the Regionals last weekend, I ended up moving the landing gear to the aft of the ply shelf that it mounts on. I rotated it 180 degrees so the single hole was in front, that sets it to angle back, then I placed a shim under the front to get the wheels to actually be almost under the leading edge. There isnt any structure in the wing saddle block to mount the gear to and man before I did this stuff this thing would NOT land, bounce bounce bounce,, If I got 5 points per touch down I woulda scored 55 every landing, lol. The other thing I did was to take the rudder block, that fairs the fuse into the base of the rudder. I prebalanced the plane, and decided it needed an ounce in the tail. I hollowed the block out and epoxied one ounce of lead in that fairing block. I am using an FP 40 with a wood prop. I have had to add NO additional ballast and it flies great now. I think the LA 40 is pretty similar in weight so that might be a consideration. I like the way it worked out because the lead is secure and hidden.
not meaning to hijack YOUR build thread, just wanted to throw my experience in there

pix 041 showing landing gear did not upload correctly (my fault) here's another try...

Have taken the Oriental out twice.  So far it has been doing just fine, albeit not wthout the usual gamut of things to dial it in, and it has been responsive to our inputs.

I was worried about fuel economy and letting the engine run comfortably, as well as trying to get a semblence of reflexes back!  I wanted to run 10% nitro Omega fuel, engine, and fly on 63' lines.  Engine was set up choked down to a .265" venturi, with a stock OS needle assembly.

Test flight was with an 11x4 Power Point Engine sounded great, running a 4-2 cackel in level flight,  Problem was lap times of 6.7 seconds!  That's a bit optimistic, but was able to get the bird inverted and confirm tank height is spot on.

Flight 2 switched to a 10x6, and did not change needle.  Lap time dropped to 5.1!  Did nearly a complete pattern, surfacing some line tension issues but not bad overall.

Tweaked flaps for flight 3 & slow engine back to 5.5 sec laps: better.

Flight 4 tried moving leadouts aft about 3/16, better.  Am getting a full accelerated pattern each light.  Biggest problem so far is run duration - engine cut-off is around 5:15 to 5:25, but engine is running like a watch.

Flight 5 changes., switched to a 11x6 power Point, again without having to reset the needle. Run time now in the 5:45- 5:55 range.  Wo who's worried about a 7 minute pattern?

Flight 6 Added 1/4 oz tip wight - seems better (but say tuned).

Overall the engine is working great, the airplane is working well and the Pilot - he's just working!  Round manuvers are looking pretty good, squares are fighting.  The balance feels right but the control loads high.  Really want to shorten the full span flaps.

Session 2, 1 week later: flaps shortened 4" (see pix) a big success - control load now feels right, no longer fighting to get the full 90 degree corner, but a new glitch popped up.  The airplane seems to be out-turning the wing and stalling.  Bottoms of inside squares, triangles, inside half of Square 8 and 4h corner of hourglass.  Suspect the slightly sharp leading edge is the culprit, going to have to peel back the leading edge covering and knock that edge down.  Good news is the round manuvers, and elevations all looking good. Bad news are bottoms and quares.  Last flight made a special effort to concentrate on bottoms and it looked a LOT better!

Two fresh sets of eyes are looking at it and say the tip weight is too much.  Remove the 1/4 oz that was added last week and they approved, I cannot tell any difference.  Some additional flap tweaking is overdone, and restored to where it was.

In all the slowed 3:2 control ratio, slightly aft CG, sealed hinge gaps and shortned flaps are all working, just gotta get rid of the stall! Plan is to cut-back the covering, exposing the leading edge so it can be blunted a little... Hope to try next week!

UH-OH!  Dennis is flying patterns, and trimming planes............

That's good to hear!

Bill:
At this stage its better to HEAR about than to SEE!

Seriously, have had a couple good weekends, and making progress.  The round manuvers all look pretty good, but anything with an inside square pull-out is bad because of the stalling problem - hopefully fixed.  Gotta get the bottoms next.

Bill:
Interesting that you should mention muscle memory.  Among the things I am re-learning is that flying CL calls on muscles that are not normally used for anything!  Even flying a Ringmaster with maybe a 5 lb line pull, I got a sore arm, The Oriental doesn't pull a lot harder, but the muscles have not been used enough and tire easily, my arm is sore today.

HOWEVER, I blunted the leading edges.  This would have been a LOT easier to do if I had done it before assembly!  First step was to clean the airplane, three times with window cleaner, each time with a clean towel.  After washing my hands I then cleaned the leading edges with Acetone to further degrease.  Used the pencil point soldering iron to cut/seal the covering roughly 1/4" either side of center and remove it, exposing the wood.  Then I put down some masking tape about 3/16" behind the remaining edge of the covering.  Proceeded to sand out the wood and even the edge of the plastic covering.  Coated the balsa and edge of covering with Balsarite Film Formula, and removed the masking tape.

Next was I cut 3/4" wide of chrome moneycoteand ironed it down.  The "new"leading dege does not look especially blunt, but it is quite a bit rounder and CONTINUOUS than it was.  Unfortunately it will have to wait until NEXT WEEKEND to fly. 

If your arm hurts after flying, instead of letting the model pull your arm out straight, pull the handle in toward your chest. Take the load on your bicep muscles. Letting your tendons take the load is asking for pain and agony.  I learned this a few years ago, flying .60 and .51 powered models.  Steve

Grooooaaaaannnnnn


lol

Steve: am doing that and THAT is where my arm HURTS!   

but it:
Hurts so good, come on baby make it hurt so GOOD
Some times the stunts don't look like they should
But its still, hurts so GOOD!

eat your heart out Mellencamp!   

Ah! You're out of shape! Get thyself into the gym...I did. Been at it for a 1 1/2 years now, and have made a lot of improvement. Don't wait too long. I'll be 62 the day after Father's Day. Part of my usual workout is 100 leg presses at 305 lbs and 50 more at 365. I can move around the circle a lot better now. If only the fliers would tell me where they'll do their next trick!  Steve

Finally got to fly the Oriental with its blunted leading edge today.  No drama, it worked great.  The stalling tendencies vanished and I was able to confidently corner without any concerns. 

Last trimming item: switched from the toungue muffler to a expansion chamber (tube type) muffler, mainly to see if I could gt more run time.  This of course also moved the CG forward some - and really brought the bird home.  Now I can ATTACK square corners rather than finessing, and got bottoms that were not there before.  Not much to pick apart anymore.  Pilot needs to get better, but he cannot use the airplane for an excuse any more. 

Throughout the trimming process it seemed the Oriental kept showing positive incremental improvments, responding to every tweak as expected.  It was not a bad airplane to start with, but now it is a very happy airplane!   

Also test flew the "dennis-ized" Cardinal ARF today, it looks real good too, but that is the story for another thread... 

Rob:
From the start the LA40 has run near perfect.  Engine was brand new when we started, now has about 16 flights on it, but it has been very easy to set and holds the setting.  Factoids: .265 venturi, stock OS needle, 10% Omega fuel, 4 oz Brodak 2" wide all tubes forward tank.  11x6 Power Point prop.  Flying on 63' lines (roughly 66' handle to center of airplane) lap times in the 5.4-5.7 sec range.  No RPM checks but middle to fast 4 cycle with a soft 4-2 break.

Sounds like lots of folks are having good luck with the APC props.  I have commited to wood props for myh hands sake!  Besides, the Top Flites are light (less inertia) and seem to pull hard.

Run quality did not change appreciably from tongue to tube muffler, but quality of sound is much smoother, probably quieter (but not measured)

Have NO issues with how the LA40 runs, have not run the LA46 but understand it handles the same or better!

Wes:
stay tuned...!  (I need to get the bird back from Big Art and take some pix)