Contender - History

9/17/99 - Started building!!!  Built the frame for the stabilizer and elevators.  Took about 2 hours.

9/18/99 - Building Fin and Ruder. 2 Hours

9/19/99 - Finish Fin and Ruder.  Do hinges for ruder and elevator.  Used Du-Bro hinging tool.  Works great as long as you don't have to go through a glued surface.  Looks like that electric one is for my next plane, unless I can figure out a place to borrow one from.  3 Hours

Started building the wing.  Made the same mistake on this one as I did on the Eagle 2.  I did not press the wing spar in all of the way so that it now sticks up a little.  1 Hour.  Looks like the TF estimate of "Ready to cover in 10-16 hours" assumes that the builder does not bother to align or cut all the balsa sticks very well, or is a super fast professional builder.

9/20/99 - Finished the bottom of the wing.  Ran out of CA making the wing sheeting.  2.5 Hours.

9/21/99 - Sheeted the bottom of the wing, aside from sanding, the bottom is finished.  1.5 Hours.

9/22/99 - Wing nearly finished.  All parts on, just need to do some final sanding/filling and deal with the servo holes and wing mount pegs.  5 Hours.

9/23/99 - Installed the wing mount pegs. 0.5 Hours.

9/25/99 - Build flaps, ailerons sanding on wings. 3 Hours.

9/26/99 - Big day (finally.)  Finish Wing Tips, Flaps, Ailerons and hinge them all.  Start and finish main part (bottom) of fuselage.  Now, I have to stop because I am at the point where I need 30 minute Epoxy and I only have 15.  I will wait for the 30 minute for the extra strength. 7 Hours.

9/27/99  through 10/3/99 - Realized two problems with this building project.  First, the wing seems to be slightly warped.  About 3/32th of an inch over the entire length.  This warping, I believe is from the warped wing spars.  I incorrectly assumed that, like my Eagle 2 trainer, that by pinning it straight, and then gluing all of the other stuff to it, that it would stay straight.  Oops.  I guess in the future, if these pieces are ever warped, that I will replace them, either just buy new ones, or have the manufacturer replace them.  The other problem that I have found is my wing dowels are not parallel to each other.  One is dipping about 1/16 of an inch or so.  I am considering ways to fix this.  Be it either by remaking the dowels and re-drilling those holes, or keeping them un-even and doing some sort of construction to the fuselage Don't know which way is better at this time.  Will have to think about it.

10/4/99 - Fixed the wing peg problem after about a week of thought.  Simply drill the hole larger in the fuselage to make the wing larger, place a drill bit in the hole where the wing should be and glue in some plywood in the extra space.

10/6/99 - Glued firewall together.

10/09/99 - Work on nose, what a mess.  Need to redesign the engine mount bolting...

1/25/00 - Wow thinking about planes again, looks like the nose was a real stopping point.  Decided that I should get a new engine, and then decide on a engine mounting solution.  Currently thinking of the normal nut and bolt with extra cowling holes to access them, or buying / making a fiberglass nose for easy removal (or none following E.H. method)

1/31/00 - Bought a new engine mount to replace the drilled into one.  Order a MDS .68 engine for this plane.  Should be fun and fast.

2/2/00 - Brought the plane out of the basement to work on it again.  Need to re-drill the engine mount screws in the firewall.  Found out the normal JR servos actually fit properly in the plane.

2/3/00 - The engine mounting game.  Mounted the engine, mount does not fit well, so messed the whole thing up.  Drilled holes with too tight fit, when make fit better, holes don't line up. 2 Hours

2/7/00 - Remade the engine mount.  Broke down and made the wooden cowl.  Actually, does not look too bad.  First attempt at straightening the wing.  Went from 1/4 inch off to 1/8 off.  Might not bother doing any more.  Will wait to see if it snaps back any more. 2 Hours

2/9/00 - Cleaned up the cowl, worked on smoothing the plane.  Made some bad servo lead tubes.  Redo with paper. 1 Hour

2/10/00 - Rough sanding.  Servo rails.  2 Hours.

2/12/00 - Work on straightening wing more.  Sand fuse and finish..... (check manual) 3 Hours.

2/13/00 - Mount wing with bolts.  Mount landing gear.  Sand, glue tail together, sand. 4 Hours.

2/14/00 - Make good lead tubes.  Sand, sand, sand, sand.  2 Hours.

2/16/00 - Cover Fuse sides. 1 Hour.

2/17/00 - Cover Fuse bottom and top. 1 Hour.

2/19/00 - Install 2 servos.  0.5 Hours.  Cover Fin.  0.5 Hours.

2/21/00 - Cover Tail (red part). 2 Hours.  Cover cowling.  1 Hour.  All that is left is a few minutes with the rest of the red between the pilot and nose, and the wing.  Unfortunately for the wing, I have to wait until the radio stuff so that I can balance it laterally before covering.

2/22/00 - Finish covering fuse. 1 Hour.  Now left to install radio and controls surfaces, balance laterally, and cover wing.

2/23/00 - Installed the fuel, connecter and what not.  1 Hour.  What a pain, will use the Sullivan instead of the Robert Ultra fueler for the next plane.

2/24/00 - Glued in Rudder and Elevator.  1 Hour.

3/1/00 - Build Elevator and rudder wires.  Install antenna guide tube.

3/2/00 - Install elevator and throttle controls and full hookups.

3/14/00 - Install rest of radio and controls.  2 Hours.

3/15/00 - Balance plane laterally, OK.  Start to cover wing, don't like so ripped half back off.  2 Hours.

3/16/00 - Cover some more wing.  0.5 Hours.  Decided to make the tips all red instead of 50/50 with white.

3/19/00 - Cover rest of white wing except for tips on bottom side.  0.5 Hours.

3/20/00 - Finish covering wings.  Wow, on wing tips, figured out that whole pulling while heating thing.  Very nice, no wrinkles.  Too bad I did not figure that out earlier :-(.  2.0 Hours.  All that is left gluing control surfaces for wings.  Need to adjust flap size as currently too big.  Will have to uncover, sand and recover.

3/21/00 - Finished gluing and setting control surfaces.  Now need to adjust throws to correct amounts, and work on the wing saddle.

3/25/00 - Make wing saddle with caulk. 1 Hour.

4/1/00 - Glue in pilot that Steve painted.  Glue on canopy.  Time to test and break in engine!!!

4/9/00 - Remake throttle servo mounting.  It was too high inside of fuse.  Was making servo strain. 

4/15/00 - Test run engine, break it in.  It runs very well, but can't get it to shut off.  Elevator rattles, need to fix horn.

4/16/00 - Fixed horn for elevator and remade throttle servo linkage.

4/30/00 - Plane is done.  Need to do radio check then fly away.  Unfortunately, the top of the VERY thin wing sheeting is starting to crack.  I might have to pull up the covering.  Fix it some how and put it back.

8/8/00 -  Replace the glow plug.  Taxied around in my grassy yard, until the nose wheel hit a bump.

8/10/00 - I was actually able to take the plane out to fly.  Bob S. had the honors of the first flight.  First flight it was badly out of trim in the ailerons.  Using the flap, it flew very very slow which is nice.  Second flight, I adjusted the trim and it flew well.  It does a very nice knife edge and inverted flight needs very little elevator.

5/9/01 - Flew the plane a few times.  First flight, it was quite rich and stalled during landing.  After a 45 minute disaster at the flight line with flooding engines, dead glow batteries, spraying fuel all over, and cut glow plug lines, finally got the engine to run right.  It was about 1/3 turn too rich.  Next flight it flew GREAT!  I heard a strange buzzing sound so I landed, dead stick, again.  The bolt for the muffler broke and ran into the prop.  I guess this plane is done until I either replace the engine or fix the muffler.  Bought a rod from riders to replace motor bolt.

7/14/02 - Flew plane, engine bad, fouled 2 plugs (Have to dbl check them to make sure they are actually fouled.)  When Dawn made it out to watch me, I almost crashed while trying to go inverted.  Needed to re-trim the elevator and tail wheel.  After all above fixed and run out of fuel again, it flies great.  Just need to keep the engine needle correct.