The Coast Guard Project (Fuselage Assembly)
The first thing I decided to takle was the landing gear. As seen on the inspection page the gear is setup to mount from outside the fuselage. That's fine, but the fact that it sticks out and bolts through the fiberglass fuse just doesn't cut it for me. I think it looks cheap that way.
This section will mainly cover the landing gear. It seems like it will need an entire section for itself.
You can see how the mounting for the retracts stick outside the fuselage, yuk!!!
So I scribed lines to know where to cut through the fiber glass, but not down through the wood.
This is what I can do with the cut-off disc. Then I use a small bevel tool to complete the corners.
Then I used a larger bevel and flat cutter to finish up the cutout. I will be painting these cutouts black.
Now the gear sits flush and looks much better.
Still had a little more work on this one after I shot the photo.
Here all three gear are installed and moved to the down and locked position.
Next was figuring out how to control the nose wheel. This kit came with no instructions. When I asked about it
I was sent instructions for a 500 size kit. This is a 600 size and I can see in the photos they used different parts.
I bought this from RC Aerodyne along with the four blade head and some rotor blades. It is kind of my test to see
whether I like doing business with them. So far the fuselage instruction issue is not impressing me. I do plan to contact
them about it again, but for now I will just figure it out myself. That's a big part of scale building anyway, and it can be
fun when you finally get something working the way you want.
The above setup was just not quite right. Lots of binding. So after breaking the basswood servo mount I made a new one
from ply, which also shifted the servo over closer to the nose gear. I then lengthened the servo arm so it would reach over
the mechanics of the gear. This gave a better push-pull geometry. This setup is working great now and will be the final design.
For the main gear I had to remove the original control rod and make a new one. This one is a little bigger diameter so I
had to drill out the small brass barrel that is used to activate and lock the gear in place. It all worked out well. Then it was
just a matter of bending in the right spot so as not to hit the fuse when the gear was retracted. Below you can see how it looks.
Here you can get an idea of how the retract servo will connect to the main gear control rods.
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It's been a while since the last update. The main landing gear idea above has not worked out very well. I have tried a couple ideas and
I still don'thave something like I really like, but I do have something that sort of works. Well I thought it did until it came time for an actual
flight with them. It seems they have trouble locking into position. Something I should be able to adjust with my control I made. I have just
been fighting other problems and have not spent any time on the gear issues. Anyway, below is what I have to date.
Nvermind. I thought I had a photo but I don't.
I will take some and add them later.