Re: Flight B/C
Posted: September 25th, 2023, 2:26 pm
Received my FF kit Friday and have been building it yesterday and today. I’m looking to fly tomorrow (exciting!) and I’m building more carefully and closer to the manual this year. Some questions:
1. I changed to a soldering iron this year to trim mylar and found that it wasn’t as neat as I expected it to be - the Mylar tends to curl up when heated so the edges always curl around the cf if they’re not burnt and I have to uncurl and cut them using an xacto. Does that make a difference (small pieces of mylar on the edge of cf rods) or is it too trivial of an improvement to spend time on?
2. I’ve had 2 or 3 holes in my mylar and I found that mylar tends to stick to itself through static electricity, so instead of fixing holes like I did last year (with scotch tape or gluing mylar scraps on holes) which got heavy real quick, Im just putting mylar scraps on the holes and rubbing them to make them stick. Is this the normal way to fix holes?
3. The duco cement I have on hand is from 2 years ago and has thickened to the point where it just doesn’t work anymore, so I haven’t used it. Should I be using duco? Is it easier to cut through than super glue?
4. So I accidentally installed my tail boom upside down which results in the HS being a couple mm lower than normal and maybe tilted up by a degree or two. Is HS incidence a thing, and is it beneficial/detrimental to my plane in this case?
5. How important is it to have the leading edge of the wings level? I had some problems with this last year but forgot what happened when they weren’t level. Right now, my inner (left) wing is a couple mm higher than my outer. I expect this to increase the turning radius slightly - is this true? How does this affect flying compared to wing wash?
Thanks,
Astro
1. I changed to a soldering iron this year to trim mylar and found that it wasn’t as neat as I expected it to be - the Mylar tends to curl up when heated so the edges always curl around the cf if they’re not burnt and I have to uncurl and cut them using an xacto. Does that make a difference (small pieces of mylar on the edge of cf rods) or is it too trivial of an improvement to spend time on?
2. I’ve had 2 or 3 holes in my mylar and I found that mylar tends to stick to itself through static electricity, so instead of fixing holes like I did last year (with scotch tape or gluing mylar scraps on holes) which got heavy real quick, Im just putting mylar scraps on the holes and rubbing them to make them stick. Is this the normal way to fix holes?
3. The duco cement I have on hand is from 2 years ago and has thickened to the point where it just doesn’t work anymore, so I haven’t used it. Should I be using duco? Is it easier to cut through than super glue?
4. So I accidentally installed my tail boom upside down which results in the HS being a couple mm lower than normal and maybe tilted up by a degree or two. Is HS incidence a thing, and is it beneficial/detrimental to my plane in this case?
5. How important is it to have the leading edge of the wings level? I had some problems with this last year but forgot what happened when they weren’t level. Right now, my inner (left) wing is a couple mm higher than my outer. I expect this to increase the turning radius slightly - is this true? How does this affect flying compared to wing wash?
Thanks,
Astro