Torch
New to GSN!
Ok,
First, I hope I am posting this in the right place, being new here my nav skills will take a bit to bring up to full RPMs...
That being said, this is going to be a build review of the airframe only as I do not currently have any electronics (but they are on the way!)
To begin, read this first completely as I tend to skip around a bit, you will see why, I promise!
Like my other Aerobeez plane, I was immediately impressed with how well this plane is boxed for shipping. No crushable foam inserts here. Just tightly boxed, well secured parts! The actual box the plane comes in is shipped inside an extremely tight fitting shipping box. Took me about 20 minutes of fiddling with it to get the plane box out! Once out, the boxed plane was another ordeal! I dont know how they do it, but they (Aerobeez) manage to squeeze these boxes together as if they were vacuum sealed!
Inside, the parts are grouped conveniently together for what appears to be ease of construction/identification. Parts are all bagged in plastic and the bags are taped in place to prevent shifting during shipping (be careful how you pronounce that, guys, if you are reading that out loud).
After gently coaxing all the parts out of their respective bags, you will be left with a pile of parts, bags, and cardboard packaging. I recommend tossing out (yes, I recycle) the bags but save the box halves and the "shelf" that comes in the box.
At this step, it is important to step back and just admire the details of construction! Look for the tiny carbon fiber reinforcing rods running the length of the fuselage, the CF rods in the motor mount box, aka, firewall, CF tube for the wing spar, CF spar tube, and a pile of what appears to be flat CF "bars". Also, of course, there are CF landing gear too!
Now, I dont believe in bashing or trash talking, but I do believe in honest, fair reviews. I have to say here that while I am 99.95% impressed with this airframe, I did have a couple hiccups. The first of those being that my plane did not come with assembly instructions. Not a huge deal since I have a fair amount of experience both building and repairing planes. Most (emphasis on most) of the parst are pretty self explanatory on where and how they are added to the airframe. The questions I did have were answered with a little sleuthing online to watch the short vids that Aerobeez had already posted about this plane. Once I had a part, and an idea of where it MIGHT go, I looked at the vids and compared my idea with what I saw on the vids. Mostly I was on the right track!
Now, this plane is extremely new to the market so there are no build vids or any other advice out there so far, so this was for me an excercize in patience and a bit of guesswork. My next hiccup came when i went to install the ailerons. Slot-cut hinges are the most frustration thing to install for me! So 2 hard learned lessons from me to pass on to others who might be building this airframe: 1. Dry fit first! Make sure all the hinges smoothly slot into place before even thinking about applying glue! 2. Use the back side of an xacto knife or other similar thin device to slightly open and clear the pre cut slots to proper depth and length. My first go round with slotted hinges resulted in more than one being deformed upon install as they tend to "collapse" if the slots are not just perfect.
Ok, on to the build!!
Like I said before, mine did not come with instructions, so my path of assembly may differ greatly from the "official" way...
I assembled the wings first. I used my advice from above with the slots and then used a thich, gel-type CA to secure the ailerons to the wings. Using the thick stuff, I had time to make final adjustments both axially (front/back along length of the plane) and laterally (side to side along the length of the wing). Sorry for the big words, guys. When I got the ailerons exactly where I wanted them to stay, I cut a couple strips off the outer shipping box approx twice as long as the wing was thick, to wrap around the wing and aileron and using a clothespin, secured the whole assembly in place to dry.
Now, for the elevator/stab assembly...
Ok here i had another slight hiccup so back to the vids! The hiccup came when I tried to install the stab first but it would not go in!!! Grrr, right? Then I saw the problem. Now, I have no idea if this was left in place purposely or not, but there was a pre-perforated bit of laser-cut wood hindering me. One glance at the vid and I saw that this was not supposed to be there. Made me nervous to have to break my new plane, but it shouldnt have. A gentle wiggle with a pair of needle nosed pliers and that barrier was gone! Then, a light touch sanding and all was good to go! The stab slid into place no problem! So maybe I am a little retentive when it comes to installing the stabs, but I spent about the next hour measuring and making infinestimally small adjustments to the stab to get it "just perfect". I measured from the nose to the stab tips and from the wing tips to the stab tips (yes the wings had dried and set up by now).
Keep in mind I had not applied any CA to the stab yet. Dillemma: how to take the thing out, put glue on it, and then reinstall it in xactly the place I wanted it? Answer to dillemma: I took a black sharpie pen and traced along the stab where the fuselage and stab meet to give myself reference lines. Then it was easy to just pull it out, add some glue, and slip it back into place matching my reference marks! Still using the thick CA, allowed me the time to recheck my measurements and get it exactly where I wanted it! Definitely a fan of that longer-setting CA for these types of steps in s build!
Lets see, where am I??? Ahh yes, the elevator was next! Ok, so if anyone reading this has built one of these hybrids (like the Sbach 342 for example), the step here is a little different. For my other plane, yes Sbach, you have to slip the elevator through the fuselage first, then install the stab. Not the case on the Extra! Back to the vid. Now, remember that little piece of wood left in place from earlier? Yeah, there is another to remove. After looking at vids for about 15 min, I was able to pause one in just the right spot to see a notch that would allow the elevator to be slid in from the back! Back to the work! You have to VERY CAREFULLY remove this wood and foam to allow the elevator to be installed. Then a little more sanding and we are good to go on installing the elevator! Use my advice on the hinges from above and you will be happy with the results! At least I was.
I have to back up here for a moment. Remember what I said at the beginning about saving the box and the "shelf”? I found the shelf to make a fantastic surface to do your gluing on! If you are like me and find it to be inconvenient to glue important parts to your bench, or worse, to set your hand on the tabletop into an almost set blob of CA (with your de-bonder perhaps in another room) then use that shelf as a surface to apply glue to parts over!
Ok, back to the build! I used my wrap-around-and-clip method with more cardboard from the shipping box to secure the elevators while they set, allowing me to jump right into the rudder install. Pretty straight forward if you make sure the slots are all open and dry fit it first. Take care that the rudder does not bind at the top with the vertical stab as this would result in less than ideal performance in flight. Use more cardboard and clothespin the secure the rudder in place and lets talk landing gear!
If you are like me and dont have a lot of space for fancy stands and such, you can make one out of the plane box. All you have to do is lay the plane, canopy off, Across the box and butt the rudeer end of the canopy up against the outside of the box. Use a pen to trace the profile of the curve onto the box and then cut it out. Now, you have a place to rest the airframe inverted and stable for landing gear install instead of trying to grow 3 or 4 extra arms to hold the plane upright and fit, bolt, and glue the gears in place. This Extra has what appears to be a "flap" of foam over where the gears install. Again, not having instructions to consult, I am not sure if this flap is meant to be left in place or not so I left it in place and hinged it open to access the through-bolts for gear leg install. I skipped ahead and installed the wheel-posts before I installed the gear legs just to make it easier on me. Now here, I took an extra (no pun intended) step and, in addition to bolting the gear legs to the fuselage, I added a pretty fair amount of CA between it and the fuselage for an extra measure of security as I fly off grass mostly.
Next, I installed the wheels themselves. Petty straight forward here. Use the collars and set screws provided in the kit. Oh! I must back up once again! I forgot to mention that I use an old ice cube tray to organize all those little parts that can get so easily lost if you sneeze the wrong direction! Use one to organize all those parts into like compartments! Its a life saver! Back to the build again.
Now for the tail wheel: aaaand back to another vid. At first the tail wheel assembly can look confusing as it has about 7 different parts. Once you see it on the plane, its pretty straight forward. Slip the wheel and axle into the hole in the mounting, uhhh, thingy and then slide the straight "pin" into the tiny hole in the pivot to secure the wheel into the mounting thingy. Make sure the long end of the pin points aft. Now find another thingy that looks a lot like half of a pin hinge. This will be glued into the pre drilled hole in the bottom of the rudder. Slide the long end of the pin into the hole in this half-hinge and use the screws provided to mount the mounting thingy in the pre drilled holes in the aft of the bottom of the fuselage. Bingo! Steering complete!
Back to the wings now! Every Aerobeez plane ive put together(and this is only my 2nd one) has wing-ends that need to be installed at the fuselage end of the wing. Match the color of the wing underside to reference which goes where. Dry fit again to ensure ease of install and glue in place. Use the cardboard and clothespins method to ensure a tight bond and set aside to dry.
Ok getting toward the finish now.... Think back to those CF "bars" I mentioned at the beginning. These had me stumped for a bit until I counted them and compared the lengths. Back to vids..... My idea proved correct as I found a 1-second blurb that showed that these are, indeed, trailing edge stiffeners. My advice here is to use fast drying CA to tack one end of these stiffeners to one end of the control surface of choice for you. After that end sets, you can easily lift up the rest of the stiffener and apply CA to the length of the trailing edge and CAREFULLY apply the stiffener to the entire length of the surface. You will notice that the stiffener is slightly longer than the surface to which you are applying it. No worries, just let it set and trim off excess. Repeat for the other 4 stiffeners and you are that much closer to a maiden flight! Ok 2 more steps to the wings!
Step 1: you have undoubtedly by now wondered what those funny hooks are for.... Those are the attachment points for the tiny rubber bands that will hold the wings together. I had to do a little reaming of the pre drilled holes to allow the barbs to pass through the wood fully. Use CA or mega bond glue to secure these in place. Mine are at about a 45 deg angle facing aft to hopefully allow easy install of rubber bands at the field. In the flight review of this Extra, Aerobeez Pete says you can replace the bands with a zip tie too. Awesome idea that I will definitely be using! Hooks are in place and now on to the Side Force Generators (SFGs)! Remember when I said I am proble a little retentive when installing ailerons and control surfaces? I neglected to mention that I had taken great care to align the ailerons exactly to the wingtips. Oops. When I went to screw on the SFGs, I immediately saw my mistake. The ailerons bound up against the SFGs! Oops again! I had to trim off about 1/8th inch of the tip end of the ailerons to ensure uninhibited travel next to the SFGs. To avoid my mistake, center the aileron along the wing with approx 1/8 inch of clearance at EACH END. Or be prepared to do a little bit of trimming like I had to do. The SFGs are very easily installed with 2 screws each. I elected not to glue them on as I may want to remove them for transport at some point.
This brings us to my final step.... In my previous Aerobeez plane, the instructions called for installing the motor mount/firewall in the very first step. I have elected to wait til last for this as not having it on the airframe during all the rest of the build allows you to stand the plane on its nose to help with things like installing the rudder and such.
Notice: I have not mentioned installing control horns yet. Thats because I have not installed them! The plane comes with 4. 3 are the same size and 1 is smaller. I can only assume that the smaller one is for the rudder but I am waiting to hear back from Aerobeez to be sure! I have to extend a big Thank You to 3DMIKE here for his advice in my previous build. He pointed out that I had been (admittedly) rather ignorant when it comes to installing control horns. So take my (and his!) advice here. All horns should point toward the servo and when you install the horns, make sure you press them ALL THE WAY in until they seat at a notch at the base of the control horn. Use more CA for these!
This is just about a wrap for me. I will add one more... I did some pre assembly on the push rods too but thats easy as they are all threaded on one end for the ball-links. I used a tiny drop of CA to add further security on the threads.
Ladies and Gents, this is my first article and I hope it is not too wordy or too long. I welcome feedback on it of all types. I hope my experiences with this plane help you to have a fun and successful build!!
If anyone from Aerobeez reads this, please dont think for a second that I am in any way disappointed about anything to do with this plane. I feel i cannot write an honest review without being honest about the hiccups I encountered along the way. I am exceedingly impressed with the overall quality and craftsmanship on this 2nd gen EPP hybrid and Aerobeez has a fan for life from me! You guys did an outstanding job in the design and attention to detail in this model. I appreciate the use of carbon fiber and the quality of the laser cutting! Great job guys!!
Torch signing off from Oregon
Off to fly now!
Happy Landings everyone!!
First, I hope I am posting this in the right place, being new here my nav skills will take a bit to bring up to full RPMs...
That being said, this is going to be a build review of the airframe only as I do not currently have any electronics (but they are on the way!)
To begin, read this first completely as I tend to skip around a bit, you will see why, I promise!
Like my other Aerobeez plane, I was immediately impressed with how well this plane is boxed for shipping. No crushable foam inserts here. Just tightly boxed, well secured parts! The actual box the plane comes in is shipped inside an extremely tight fitting shipping box. Took me about 20 minutes of fiddling with it to get the plane box out! Once out, the boxed plane was another ordeal! I dont know how they do it, but they (Aerobeez) manage to squeeze these boxes together as if they were vacuum sealed!
Inside, the parts are grouped conveniently together for what appears to be ease of construction/identification. Parts are all bagged in plastic and the bags are taped in place to prevent shifting during shipping (be careful how you pronounce that, guys, if you are reading that out loud).
After gently coaxing all the parts out of their respective bags, you will be left with a pile of parts, bags, and cardboard packaging. I recommend tossing out (yes, I recycle) the bags but save the box halves and the "shelf" that comes in the box.
At this step, it is important to step back and just admire the details of construction! Look for the tiny carbon fiber reinforcing rods running the length of the fuselage, the CF rods in the motor mount box, aka, firewall, CF tube for the wing spar, CF spar tube, and a pile of what appears to be flat CF "bars". Also, of course, there are CF landing gear too!
Now, I dont believe in bashing or trash talking, but I do believe in honest, fair reviews. I have to say here that while I am 99.95% impressed with this airframe, I did have a couple hiccups. The first of those being that my plane did not come with assembly instructions. Not a huge deal since I have a fair amount of experience both building and repairing planes. Most (emphasis on most) of the parst are pretty self explanatory on where and how they are added to the airframe. The questions I did have were answered with a little sleuthing online to watch the short vids that Aerobeez had already posted about this plane. Once I had a part, and an idea of where it MIGHT go, I looked at the vids and compared my idea with what I saw on the vids. Mostly I was on the right track!
Now, this plane is extremely new to the market so there are no build vids or any other advice out there so far, so this was for me an excercize in patience and a bit of guesswork. My next hiccup came when i went to install the ailerons. Slot-cut hinges are the most frustration thing to install for me! So 2 hard learned lessons from me to pass on to others who might be building this airframe: 1. Dry fit first! Make sure all the hinges smoothly slot into place before even thinking about applying glue! 2. Use the back side of an xacto knife or other similar thin device to slightly open and clear the pre cut slots to proper depth and length. My first go round with slotted hinges resulted in more than one being deformed upon install as they tend to "collapse" if the slots are not just perfect.
Ok, on to the build!!
Like I said before, mine did not come with instructions, so my path of assembly may differ greatly from the "official" way...
I assembled the wings first. I used my advice from above with the slots and then used a thich, gel-type CA to secure the ailerons to the wings. Using the thick stuff, I had time to make final adjustments both axially (front/back along length of the plane) and laterally (side to side along the length of the wing). Sorry for the big words, guys. When I got the ailerons exactly where I wanted them to stay, I cut a couple strips off the outer shipping box approx twice as long as the wing was thick, to wrap around the wing and aileron and using a clothespin, secured the whole assembly in place to dry.
Now, for the elevator/stab assembly...
Ok here i had another slight hiccup so back to the vids! The hiccup came when I tried to install the stab first but it would not go in!!! Grrr, right? Then I saw the problem. Now, I have no idea if this was left in place purposely or not, but there was a pre-perforated bit of laser-cut wood hindering me. One glance at the vid and I saw that this was not supposed to be there. Made me nervous to have to break my new plane, but it shouldnt have. A gentle wiggle with a pair of needle nosed pliers and that barrier was gone! Then, a light touch sanding and all was good to go! The stab slid into place no problem! So maybe I am a little retentive when it comes to installing the stabs, but I spent about the next hour measuring and making infinestimally small adjustments to the stab to get it "just perfect". I measured from the nose to the stab tips and from the wing tips to the stab tips (yes the wings had dried and set up by now).
Keep in mind I had not applied any CA to the stab yet. Dillemma: how to take the thing out, put glue on it, and then reinstall it in xactly the place I wanted it? Answer to dillemma: I took a black sharpie pen and traced along the stab where the fuselage and stab meet to give myself reference lines. Then it was easy to just pull it out, add some glue, and slip it back into place matching my reference marks! Still using the thick CA, allowed me the time to recheck my measurements and get it exactly where I wanted it! Definitely a fan of that longer-setting CA for these types of steps in s build!
Lets see, where am I??? Ahh yes, the elevator was next! Ok, so if anyone reading this has built one of these hybrids (like the Sbach 342 for example), the step here is a little different. For my other plane, yes Sbach, you have to slip the elevator through the fuselage first, then install the stab. Not the case on the Extra! Back to the vid. Now, remember that little piece of wood left in place from earlier? Yeah, there is another to remove. After looking at vids for about 15 min, I was able to pause one in just the right spot to see a notch that would allow the elevator to be slid in from the back! Back to the work! You have to VERY CAREFULLY remove this wood and foam to allow the elevator to be installed. Then a little more sanding and we are good to go on installing the elevator! Use my advice on the hinges from above and you will be happy with the results! At least I was.
I have to back up here for a moment. Remember what I said at the beginning about saving the box and the "shelf”? I found the shelf to make a fantastic surface to do your gluing on! If you are like me and find it to be inconvenient to glue important parts to your bench, or worse, to set your hand on the tabletop into an almost set blob of CA (with your de-bonder perhaps in another room) then use that shelf as a surface to apply glue to parts over!
Ok, back to the build! I used my wrap-around-and-clip method with more cardboard from the shipping box to secure the elevators while they set, allowing me to jump right into the rudder install. Pretty straight forward if you make sure the slots are all open and dry fit it first. Take care that the rudder does not bind at the top with the vertical stab as this would result in less than ideal performance in flight. Use more cardboard and clothespin the secure the rudder in place and lets talk landing gear!
If you are like me and dont have a lot of space for fancy stands and such, you can make one out of the plane box. All you have to do is lay the plane, canopy off, Across the box and butt the rudeer end of the canopy up against the outside of the box. Use a pen to trace the profile of the curve onto the box and then cut it out. Now, you have a place to rest the airframe inverted and stable for landing gear install instead of trying to grow 3 or 4 extra arms to hold the plane upright and fit, bolt, and glue the gears in place. This Extra has what appears to be a "flap" of foam over where the gears install. Again, not having instructions to consult, I am not sure if this flap is meant to be left in place or not so I left it in place and hinged it open to access the through-bolts for gear leg install. I skipped ahead and installed the wheel-posts before I installed the gear legs just to make it easier on me. Now here, I took an extra (no pun intended) step and, in addition to bolting the gear legs to the fuselage, I added a pretty fair amount of CA between it and the fuselage for an extra measure of security as I fly off grass mostly.
Next, I installed the wheels themselves. Petty straight forward here. Use the collars and set screws provided in the kit. Oh! I must back up once again! I forgot to mention that I use an old ice cube tray to organize all those little parts that can get so easily lost if you sneeze the wrong direction! Use one to organize all those parts into like compartments! Its a life saver! Back to the build again.
Now for the tail wheel: aaaand back to another vid. At first the tail wheel assembly can look confusing as it has about 7 different parts. Once you see it on the plane, its pretty straight forward. Slip the wheel and axle into the hole in the mounting, uhhh, thingy and then slide the straight "pin" into the tiny hole in the pivot to secure the wheel into the mounting thingy. Make sure the long end of the pin points aft. Now find another thingy that looks a lot like half of a pin hinge. This will be glued into the pre drilled hole in the bottom of the rudder. Slide the long end of the pin into the hole in this half-hinge and use the screws provided to mount the mounting thingy in the pre drilled holes in the aft of the bottom of the fuselage. Bingo! Steering complete!
Back to the wings now! Every Aerobeez plane ive put together(and this is only my 2nd one) has wing-ends that need to be installed at the fuselage end of the wing. Match the color of the wing underside to reference which goes where. Dry fit again to ensure ease of install and glue in place. Use the cardboard and clothespins method to ensure a tight bond and set aside to dry.
Ok getting toward the finish now.... Think back to those CF "bars" I mentioned at the beginning. These had me stumped for a bit until I counted them and compared the lengths. Back to vids..... My idea proved correct as I found a 1-second blurb that showed that these are, indeed, trailing edge stiffeners. My advice here is to use fast drying CA to tack one end of these stiffeners to one end of the control surface of choice for you. After that end sets, you can easily lift up the rest of the stiffener and apply CA to the length of the trailing edge and CAREFULLY apply the stiffener to the entire length of the surface. You will notice that the stiffener is slightly longer than the surface to which you are applying it. No worries, just let it set and trim off excess. Repeat for the other 4 stiffeners and you are that much closer to a maiden flight! Ok 2 more steps to the wings!
Step 1: you have undoubtedly by now wondered what those funny hooks are for.... Those are the attachment points for the tiny rubber bands that will hold the wings together. I had to do a little reaming of the pre drilled holes to allow the barbs to pass through the wood fully. Use CA or mega bond glue to secure these in place. Mine are at about a 45 deg angle facing aft to hopefully allow easy install of rubber bands at the field. In the flight review of this Extra, Aerobeez Pete says you can replace the bands with a zip tie too. Awesome idea that I will definitely be using! Hooks are in place and now on to the Side Force Generators (SFGs)! Remember when I said I am proble a little retentive when installing ailerons and control surfaces? I neglected to mention that I had taken great care to align the ailerons exactly to the wingtips. Oops. When I went to screw on the SFGs, I immediately saw my mistake. The ailerons bound up against the SFGs! Oops again! I had to trim off about 1/8th inch of the tip end of the ailerons to ensure uninhibited travel next to the SFGs. To avoid my mistake, center the aileron along the wing with approx 1/8 inch of clearance at EACH END. Or be prepared to do a little bit of trimming like I had to do. The SFGs are very easily installed with 2 screws each. I elected not to glue them on as I may want to remove them for transport at some point.
This brings us to my final step.... In my previous Aerobeez plane, the instructions called for installing the motor mount/firewall in the very first step. I have elected to wait til last for this as not having it on the airframe during all the rest of the build allows you to stand the plane on its nose to help with things like installing the rudder and such.
Notice: I have not mentioned installing control horns yet. Thats because I have not installed them! The plane comes with 4. 3 are the same size and 1 is smaller. I can only assume that the smaller one is for the rudder but I am waiting to hear back from Aerobeez to be sure! I have to extend a big Thank You to 3DMIKE here for his advice in my previous build. He pointed out that I had been (admittedly) rather ignorant when it comes to installing control horns. So take my (and his!) advice here. All horns should point toward the servo and when you install the horns, make sure you press them ALL THE WAY in until they seat at a notch at the base of the control horn. Use more CA for these!
This is just about a wrap for me. I will add one more... I did some pre assembly on the push rods too but thats easy as they are all threaded on one end for the ball-links. I used a tiny drop of CA to add further security on the threads.
Ladies and Gents, this is my first article and I hope it is not too wordy or too long. I welcome feedback on it of all types. I hope my experiences with this plane help you to have a fun and successful build!!
If anyone from Aerobeez reads this, please dont think for a second that I am in any way disappointed about anything to do with this plane. I feel i cannot write an honest review without being honest about the hiccups I encountered along the way. I am exceedingly impressed with the overall quality and craftsmanship on this 2nd gen EPP hybrid and Aerobeez has a fan for life from me! You guys did an outstanding job in the design and attention to detail in this model. I appreciate the use of carbon fiber and the quality of the laser cutting! Great job guys!!
Torch signing off from Oregon
Off to fly now!
Happy Landings everyone!!
Last edited by a moderator:
