Hangar 9 3.1M Sukhoi

[Jetpainter]

Finally going to take this to the field and fire her up and i notice separating monocote. Tried to touch it up with an iron and it got worse. May need to fly in @stangflyer and borrow his covering repair skills. View attachment 104530

My Pilot edge has a spot just like that in the same place.. It's just a bad spot for covering. Shrinking just pulls it off the curve. I ended up cutting mine in a few spots, ironing it down, then putting a small piece over the top. Not gorgeous to look at, but hasn't come apart again.

 

[dhal22]

Now to find a repair piece................

 

[stangflyer]

Yup, as Doug mentioned... horrible place to cover and keep down. A few tricks I've learned are first, when I cover a plane in that area...it gets priority attention of ironing. Then I work out from there. Second, also as Doug mentioned... sometimes you just have to slice it. Right down the middle. Right across the peak. Lay it in flat. You may have to add subsequent angle slices to get it down. Next, cut a cleverly designed patch to lay over the top. You can make them so they look good enough to fool people into believing it is factory design. Lastly if you haven't shrunk the covering too much, your sealing iron, a damp ice filled rag and a lot of tenacity will get this back to factory look. Mine was the same way. Maybe not quite as bad. I noticed it pulling and caught it before it got away from me.


If it begins to pull back up, as i see mine is starting to do again since being out in the hot sun last weekend... use your trim tool on low heat and "work" the covering back down. If you need a piece of covering for a patch, shoot me your address and I'll send ya some.

 

[dhal22]

Finally got this plane in the air. I had the awesome benefit of Antonio de Souza going over the setup and doing the maiden flight. This guy is an insanely good flyer, 6th, I think in last years XFC contest.

Anyway, beautiful maiden flight but a servo problem was found after landing so might be be a week or 2 before she goes up again. Antonio at the sticks in the photo, I'm just watching.

 

[AKNick]

Right on! That darn servo tho! What a kill joy.

 

[dhal22]

Servo removed, unreal that this plane survived it's first flight as the servo barely moves. Drilled a hole in the cowling for carb screw access, choke arm had to be secured, etc, etc. Warm sunny day, great for outside work.

 

[dhal22]

Servo replaced, talked Antonio De Souza into another afternoon of help getting this plane airworthy. Amazing watching a pro go through the motions in properly setting up a plane. I am learning a lot as he now has several hours in dialing in. 3-4 flights today with me getting my first stick time. More flights on hold until carb problem solved.

Here is Antonio tuning the DA170.

 

[dhal22]

Hope to get my Sukhoi in the air tomorrow.

 

[dhal22]

Maintenance day. Wheels are crap, of course. Using some smaller tires until I get my hands on some new ones. Mono/Ultracote falling off here and there, tightening and patching.

 

[dhal22]

More Sukhoi maintenance. Anybody will Ultracote experience?