T-28 Trojan Maintenance

Been flying the BHM T-28 fairly regularly and it is getting worn out a bit.  I brought it in to the bonus room for sprucing up yesterday.  Here is what I worked on:

1.  The biggest improvement was reinstallation of all LG doors.  In a prior attempt, I attached the door to the LG via a zip tie.  AND the door was attached to the wing via a hinge.  This was a failure because as the LG bounced back and forth due the grass runway, the door would gouge the wing and break the hinge connection.  I needed the door to not be attached at all to the wing.  I came up with the simplest idea after months of thinking...just do it. 

I used 3/16" ply to fashion these plates that fit between the Robart plastic strut covers and the doors.  I epoxied the plate by filing off the paint from the strut covers and removing monokote from the doors.  Added a zip tie to hold the plate to the strut cover since I think the joining of those dissimilar materials is the weak point. . 

Anyway, it looks good from a few feet away.

2.  Reattaching the nose wheel door was a simple CA job. 

3.  The nose wheel was steering too much right lately, so I adjusted that.  

4.  I also ironed down loose covering in a couple spots.  

5.  The long extension wire to the needle valve fatigued and disappeared for the second or third time, so I replaced that but I expect it to fatigue and sheer at the top of the needle valve once more.  

6.  Lastly, after flying the other day, I discovered the bottom CA hinge of the rudder was broken.  I cut the other two hinges, shaved the remaining stubs flat to the fin and rudder, and installed new Robart point hinges...stronger and better than new.  

The T-28 looks almost as good as new again!  I HOPE I don't destroy the plane now because that has happened before...spruced a plane up only to crash next time! 

Flight Log: 03/23/2011

Oh what a nice day, FINALLY!  I wasn't alone in that thought...Mike and Dean showed up to fly today too...mid 40s, very light air directly down the runway from the west, and partly sunny skies!  Took my T-28 Trojan out today and got 5 flights of about 7 minutes each.  The Saito 82a with replaced bearings is running great.  What can I say...5 flights, 5 landings with full flaps, a bunch of slow rolls and 4pt rolls, loops, cuban 8's, and inverted flying, and fast low passes as well as slow low passes with full flaps deployed.  Just a great day!

Flight Log: 03/19/2011

Hey, finally a nice day for flying!  While my thermometer said 42F when I left home, it sure felt better than that at the field around 10:15AM.  I took my SNAFU and Imagine 50 today.  Got about 3 flights on the latter, maybe 4 on the former.  One flight was particularly funny with the SNAFU.  I was doing very low passes and got too low on one.  Before I knew it, my plane seemed to be sliding on the sod farm grass with no power.  I gave up elevator; it lifted off and indeed was not running.  I just glided it back down for a final landing.  I expected damage and was very happy to discover that the wire landing gear were bent back, and one prop tip was broken off, but there were no breaks in the covering or wood!  Joe and I snipped off the prop tips to match, he sanded and balanced the prop, and I bent the landing gear back forward and down...good as new, I hoped.  I flew and all was like normal!  Oh, the wind really picked up at the end, but I flew the SNAFU and had fun landing at just about nil ground speed!

Joe flew his Rascal, but had some glitchy situations where when lots of aileron was input, there was unintended down elevator given too!  Made for two exciting flights.  Jer flew his big Extra with the muffler securely attached, and it flew well, as usual.  Jer helped fly Dean's UCanDo in the higher winds because Dean was not feeling comfortable to do so today...seemed to fly well with Jer at the sticks.

Turbulent Sky #2

I liked Turbulent Sky so much, that I decided to paint another, which complements the first.  It would be neat if they are kept as a pair, but they can each stand alone. 

The first one could be the left half, and the second could be the right half of the pairing. 

Turbulent Sky

Oh yeah, this one was fun.  It's #5 for this year.  I had it in my head to make this combo sky of brown, blue, and lavendars, and it came out better than I expected.  The mountains came out well...my touch on the highlights is getting lighter and better.  It was fun playing with various shades of lavendar to get the background trees in.  I made tall skinny trees with the 1" and 2" flat brushes, and the pine trees with the small fan brush, but for the first time making the branches go up instead of drooping down.   I had cabins in the first 4 paintings this year, so I did not want one this time.  Made water instead, with the colors of the sky in the water too.  Also very fun!  Quite happy with this one, but the best painting is always the NEXT one.  :)  That is what Frank Lloyd Wright answered when asked which house was his best one...the next one. 

flight log: 03/12/2011

Very sunny, but too breezy after I got there, so I flew just one flight with my SNAFU.  With a strong crosswind from the south, I used the short runway of course.  Just wanted to fly and not rust!

Mountain Meadow

Got another painting done today, #24 total, and #4 for 2011.  I just wanted practice on skies and mountains, so I used the smaller size canvas, 16x20.  The skies and mountains came out pretty good, and I was able to get the paint to "break" when I did the highlights on the mountains, so that felt nice.  I think it is time for a new subject challenge on the next one.  Is it time for a seascape?  Kinda scary!

Extra on new Xmitter

I spent the evening switching my Extra 330L from the Airtronics 8ch transmitter to the new Airtronics 10ch transmitter.  This is a big advancement because the old one had dual rates on only the elevator and ailerons.  The 10ch has DR on those plus rudder, which is essential for smooth aerobatics such as slow rolls, rolling circles, even knife edge.  The 10ch also has the ability to set throttle curves, which is very advantageous over the 8ch transmitter.  The DL and DLE engines respond with much zest to the low throttle inputs and reach full throttle at about 3/4 of full stick.  I set up a curve that hopefully reduces throttle servo throw at the low end, i.e. reduces throttle response at the low end.  I set up the plane so the kill switch is the same on this plane as the Ultimate, and likewise the DR switch is the same for both planes.  Great radio for programming.  I am anxious to fly the Extra first for the initial use of the transmitter, to adapt to its feel, etc.

C'est Pau!

Yahoo, basically the AeroWorks Ultimate 50cc is pau, fini, done.  I got the receiver in and everything hooked up: 8 servos, optokill switch, two 6.6V LiFe batts, one 4.8V NiMH and 3 heavy duty switches.  I have the basic assignments of the servos to the channels and sticks and switches on the new Airtronics SD-10G transmitter.  Programming the simple stuff like servo reversing and centering is real easy and intuitive on this radio.  I put the optokill engine kill onto a switch at top left like on my Futaba, but this one is better because it is spring loaded to return to neutral, i.e. it turns the ignition back on after I deflect it to turn the power to the ignition off.  This will assure it is back on for the next start.  On the Futaba, it is not spring loaded so it stays where you leave it, and I have tried to start the Extra 330L a few times with the ignition still off. 

I have two Y harnesses connecting the top and bottom right ailerons together, as well as the top and bottom left ailerons.  I actually have enough channels on the 10ch receiver to plug each of the 4 aileron servos in separately, and I could then slave 3 of them to one master, but I am going to see if the pairings work ok.  I think they are already.  If I used 4 channels for the ailerons, I would have to Y harness one of the batteries into the receiver.

At this point I need to program DR and EXPO into the rudder, elev, and ails.  I also want to reassign them all to one 3 position switch...I don't want to fumble with 3 separate switches.  Mechanically speaking, I need to check the whole plane over and threadlock whatever I have not done already, such as the servo arms into the servos.  I found a warp in the TR ail and already corrected it with the heat gun.

The plane came out BEAUTIFUL, especially with my home brew vinyl decals, haha!  The Ultimate looks aggressive just setting on my pool table.  :)

Fuel dot behind Pennzoil decal.

That's a red LED indicating the ignition is ON.

Final Decal Set for AW Ultimate

This might be the final decal set for my Aeroworks Ultimate!  SIX decals for each side of the plane, for a total of 12.  Six are on the table, and six are on the tentative positions on the plane.  All were created on my computer using SCAL2 and Inkscape, and cut out of vinyl with the Cricut Expression.  FUN!