OK Gang-

Feast your eyes on the worlds cheesiest control line Stunter : introducing the Hobby King "Voltiguer"  . Even the name rolls off the tongue like a mouthful of dry soda crackers. But let me digress to the why. I am mostly a spoiled R/C er, knowing how to build, but not having to in a long time. I am building a new Brodak profile to replace the one that attracted the ground firmly, but it's taking tooo long and I miss my CL flying buddies. When an advertisement for this gravity defying R/C ice chest popped up in my browser feed (gotta love A & I) I figured well, the ailerons seem huge, big enough to be flaps, the included motor and speed control seem about right for 4S, the wing looks pretty thick and worst case, I just throw a Rx in it and it joins the R/C fleet. I have oodles of 4S2700s and 4S 3300 batteries waiting to propel some foam into dizzying circles. Want to know how I did it? Read on.

OK, First things first: out goes the servos (yes, they are included in cheap Chinese R/C ARFS), the ill placed control horns and this bulky chunk of foam that will interfere with the future bellcrank. Hmmm... not much left of the wing rod carrier after amputation of the foam. Seventy eight grams coming out, yes! Oh did I mention the price to my door for the Voltiguer including shipping and no tax for some reason was a mere 214 US money?

Next comes the flap drive. Unlike a normal CL stunter, R/C ailerons do not require a coaxial hinge line. I solved this with standard Dubro "Strip Aileron Linkage" which I mocked up by poking holes in the foam to insert the linkage from the wing root. Any foam in the way? Chop it out! Since the flaps were already hinged (hinging is a skill completely lost on the R/C crowd, only the Chinese are still capable of doing it), I epoxied a piece of plywood to the 90 degree bend in the wire so I could hog a slot into the flap root and have some surface area for the glue joint when I slid the wings into their final position. Did I mention the floor of my shop looks like what a puppy would do with a beef infused foam chew toy? Second picture a little out of sequence but shows the motor  battery in it's intended position and the bellcrank about where I think it needs to go.

Amazing!

Looks like a lot of work but,  I hope it works for you.

Now on to the bellcrank/wing mount. I fabbed up couple pieces of 1/8 ply to locate the wing rod and pickup up the bellcrank mount. The "voluminous" directions specified the C.G.and I placed the bellcrank about 1/4 in front of the forward most indicated position. For reference, here are the voluminous directions, it is a sticker on the outside of the box!  Yes, really. If you expected real directions and took the box out to the trash, you'd be retrieving it to get the sticker off. I guess us R/C ers are deemed too lazy to both build and read.   Luckily, the wings themselves indexed sufficiently in the fuselage to position the plywood plates which were glued to the inside of the fuselage with titebond. The final bellcrank install included about a 1" square chunk of balsawood that connected the bellcrank platform to the existing Voltiguer battery tray. A long 6-32 screw and more titebond clamped it all together. This gave me one more chance to pull the wings off to make the fuselage easier to handle, i.e. a "take-apart plane" to this point.

Now on to the elevator pushrod. The fuselage is pretty hollow in the back but no straight line between the elevator horn and flap linkage exists. I drew a line between the (2) positions and drilled 3/8 hole right up the planes you-know-where. The best drill bits for foam are of course, concrete bits rated for concrete with rebar. I should send correspondence to the maker of concrete bits admonishing them for not specifying foam as an applicable material. OK, it was the only bit I had long enough  . I fabbed up a carbon shaft pushrod, connected it to the elevator control horn and test-slid it into place. I had to split the back of vertical fin open so the horn would go into place in the hollow area, then glued the fin back together when the H.Stab was glued into position. Easy peasy! More like pure luck. Once I had the length,I soldered a ball link receiver in the right place to be driven off one of the flap horns.

Final assembly time. I chose a mixture of titebond and foam-tac to permanently join the wings to the fuselage while bonding the flap linkage into the root of the flaps (foam-tac for a little flexibility). When dry, I secured the plastic bearings, part of the Dubro aileron linkage to the inside of the fuselage using some balsa blocks with a slot cut in them to receive the bearing journals. Once this was dry, I couldn't wait any longer to put on all the ball links, the flap pushrods and the bellcrank so I could wipe out the controls  . Don't worry about how bad it looks; both flaps have the same travel and the elevator ball is just under the outboard flap ball. The rudder is secured with its original pushrod engaging a hole drilled in the servo mounting plate. I can field add some offset rudder, should I? How many CL stunters have a 6" chord, 13" tall rudder? For tip weight, I found an adjustable furniture leveling leg that weighs 14 grams (1/2 ounce). I can unscrew the leg and add a washer if need be.

Final Aircraft Assembly. Slid the H. Stab elevator into place with glue; glued the V. fin opening shut and installed the rudder hinges and the rudder. She looks like an airplane now! The Voltiguer came with some cute wheel pants but too small of a wheel for our grass field flying. I hogged out the pants to accept some larger wheels from the salvage pile and used my own hardware including an aluminum tube bearing that I could clamp up to retain everything while the wheel still turned. Lastly, I had to remove the power system to reverse the motor direction for my desired 11 X 5.5 EP prop and Climb and Dive timer RPM sense wires. You guys with screws and mating pins for you cowl attachments are working too hard : For the Voltiguer all you have to do is peel back (2) Hobby King decals and yank the cowl off secured by (2) magnets! Four screws and blind nuts retain the motor/ESC assembly removed and then reinstalled for the aforementioned modifications. It also took a bit of hogging to get the CCW spinner to fit the CW prop. I also added a thin cardboard washer between the motor drive hub and the spinner and between the spinner backplate and the prop. I find this always helps things clamp up properly and allow the backplate to align with the spinner cutouts easier. Amazingly, the thing ran true! I think this is a first for cheap Chinese ARFs when usually the supplied spinner is of such poor quality that it doesn't. Using a 55% charged 4S3300 Lipo battery, I measured 11,040 RPM at 39.5 amps. I'll set the governor to about 10,600 +/- 200 RPMs for 5.3 second laps on .015" X 58' lines. That's the plan anyway. All up weight including battery : 52.5 oz. Wing area : 464 in^2,span 47.75 including fences.

Epilog. Total build time, about 20 hours. If I were to do it again, probably less than half that knowing exactly what to do. The bellcrank and leadouts, contributions from a friend; Dubro aileron linkages about $8 and everything else out of the junk bin. The nice carbon elevator pushrod about $13 from the kite store although I bought waay too much. The first flight(s) in the next week or so will using my R/C control handle so I can land quick if something goes wrong. If successful, I then install my new C&D Timer which I will have received by then.

Wish me Luck!

Steve Manganelli

I always wondered how doable this would be. I dont have any RC foamies to try it on. Look forward to hearing how it flies. Thanks for sharing.

Mike

Back in 2024, I wrote this article to encourage C/L flyers to try a scale event - Fun Scale.  The process of coverting an ARF to CL is basically the same whether scale or precision aerobatics.  https://www.modelaviation.com/article/control-line-fun-scale
Thanks to Pete Mazur for the photos documenting his ARF Bearcat conversion.

< Taking notes on the adjustment points on the handle. Big thumbs up. Gotta steal ideas wherever you find 'em.

Years ago there was a RC ARF I think was called a "Giles"?
People converted them a I think I remember them flying ok. Never saw one.

She Flew Today!      

Made (2) flights. 1st try good enough for a couple of inside loops; made a small trim adjustment to the outboard flap prior to 2nd flight. A couple more inside loops and a touch and go (since I was using the R/C handle with throttle control). Full power, I clocked 5 second laps so 5.3 ish with future governor should not be a problem. Plenty of line tension. I had a little offset rudder which I can probably take out as there was a noticeable outboard yaw (winglets make it obvious). I chickened out on outside maneuvers as seemed a little sluggish on insides. Right now, it has about the same amount of flap travel as elevator travel, so I'm going to fix that, plus slide the battery back a touch.

One thing pointed out by my CL mentor, Charles Carter, is with the leadouts on top of the wing instead of in the middle of it, it flys with the outboard wing up...duuuh! If I tried harder, it would have been possible to put the leadouts in the middle of the wing as it is hollow (maybe, oh well). Expediency won the day here as this is intended as something quick to get me back into the CL air. On that guise, I call it a total success. We took 165 MB of video; soon as we figure out how to edit it, Charles will put it on his YouTube channel.

Any trimming suggestions from you Experts?

Cheers,

Steve Manganelli