$5 Durifly Ryan STA(M)

Ok, maybe it will not turn out to be $5, but it started that way.  I was browsing Hobby Kings bargain bin items and under the $0.99 bin I found all of the critical parts for the Durifly Ryan STA(M)!  I was really bummed to find out that the engine cowling and parts kits, while not $0.99, were out of stock, but I can live without those.  I'm not so much looking for a complete, complete deal here, I just want something that I can have fun flying, looks reasonably good, and relatively cheep.

So, here is what I ordered.  One set (yes, set, right and left) of wings, one fuselage, one cockpit, one rudder, and one stabilizer.  Each was only $0.99!  So, ok, this will not come out to a $5 build as I did have to pay shipping and HK is smart enough not to let you order too many $0.99 pieces without ordering something else (I had to split this into two orders!), so shipping cost me about $28, or about $14 each order.  But still, I'm only about $35 into a $150 plane, so far.

I did already add two 9g servos to the wings (about $4 each).  You can see them installed into the wings in these photos.

The really good stuff (besides the parts being CHEAP!) is that everything was already covered, all movable surfaces were already hinged with control horns and stoppers, and the rudder has the tail wheel installed.  All very nice indeed!

The not so good stuff, the wings came without the spare (that seemed really odd!).  So I had to make one using a lot of educated guessing (but I got it done).  The rudder was a little kinked about mid way, right where the balsa color changes.  I have no engine cowl.  I have no landing gear, wheels, or pants (I'll make a set but don't plan on making the pants), the cockpit section came without the dash decals, the manual (as sparse as it was) is no longer available (luckily someone posted photos of theirs on RCGroups), and the hardware kit is no longer available (this included all of the linkage, screws, support wires/string, wing mounting screws, and misc. hardware).  I will also have to provide two more servos for the tail surfaces, a 25Amp ESC, a 3530 1100Kv motor, and a 10x6 prop.

So far I have the wing spar made, the wing halves epoxied together, and the aileron servos installed.

This photo shows the wing spar that I cut from 1/8 inch plywood.  I measured the depth of the slot in each wing to come up with an estimate for it's length.  I measured the angle of the wing roots to come up with an approximate dihedral angle.  I carved and sanded until it fit and the two wing roots came together nice and flush.

I then put a liberal amount of 5 min. epoxy into each wing root spar opening and covered the root faces with a thing layer of epoxy.  Then I slid the left side of the spar (yes, it has sides to match the wing) into the left wing and then slid on the right wing onto the right side.  Then I taped up the bottom side good and flush (lower photo) and then pulled the top side together nice and flush and secured with tape (upper photo).  I left this to sit over night.

Here is what the parts look like so far.

Check back again and find out how this new project is coming together and as usual, thanks for stopping by my blog.

Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Cleaning a Dirty Brushless Motor

Some times you biff a plane into the dirt.  Some people tend to do this a lot more than others.  I think I tend to land (pun intended) into that group.  This can really mess up an electric motor, especially if you keep trying to spin the propeller (if one still exists), or the shaft.  This can cause all kinds of damage to the magnets and stater coils.  So don't do it!  If you get dirt into your motor, just leave it until you get home and can clean it.  Brushless out runner electric motors are actually quite easy to clean out.

I recently had this issue with my Hobby King Club Trainer.  I came in over a freshly plowed field and didn't make the runway.  Of course it nosed over and the cowling scooped a large amount of dirt all around the motor.

Below is how I went about cleaning it up and getting it back into shape.

The first thing that I did was to take the nose cone and prop off.  All the while being careful not to spin the motor shaft (or at least as little as possible).  Then I removed the motor from it's mount and disconnected the power connectors.

Now you need to take the motor apart and separate the out runner and magnets from the stater coils.  A lot of times this is done by removing some Allen set screws.  In my case, this was held together with an "E" clip in a slot on the end of the shaft.  There are special tools for removing these, but I usually just use a small screw driver or pick.  Just be careful not to bend or gouge up this little item or you will need to find another.

Now separate the two parts.  This is not always easy to do as the strong magnets used will try to keep the iron stater where it is.  Just be careful and don't pull on the wires!  For mine, I was able to pull on the prop shaft and the bearing tube.  After some effort, it popped right apart.  Depending on how much dirt is in your motor it may cause it to bind up.  If this happens, first try tapping the motor with the bell facing down to see if anything will come out.  Then try to gently turn the motor just enough to free it up.  Repeat this process as needed until it can be taken apart without damage to the magnets or iron stater.

Now take the bell out runner side and tap it down on a suitable surface.  By a suitable surface, I mean something relatively soft.  Don't do this on a hard surface like tile or metal as you risk damaging your tile and the shaft.  This will dislodge most, if not all, of the non magnetic dirt.

Now take a stiff epoxy brush and start bushing out the rest of the bits that remain.  I thought I would have a tough time with the magnetic bits and iron dust with such strong magnets, but they came out quite easily.

As you can see, it's nice and clean once again with no remaining bits.

Now just reverse the process to put things back together.  Be careful putting the stater back into the out runner bell as it can come together quite violently and pinch fingers!  Once it's back together make sure that it spins freely again.  Of course you will still get the "coging" of the magnets and stater, but there should not be any grinding or gritty feel.  If you do encounter this, start over and clean it out again.

Argh!!! It happened again!

You can see that the mud actually mushed all the way through the motor.  I pulled everything apart and used some water to rinse most of the mud off.  Then I made sure that it was dried out to make sure it did not rust and then used these techniques to clean it out the rest of the way.  And yes, it did fly again.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Fun With My SAP Buds at Bilby

Now, before you get a little upset that I may be being rude about my friends, let me make it clear that I mean my Sacrament Area Parkflyer buds.  You can check us out and get some more information about where we commune and fly at this site parkflysac.com.

I went out to my favorite flying area to have some RC flying fun (I like the Bilby site because it's the closest to me) and hit a snag.  I was in such a hurry to get out there that I forgot the wing spar for the one airplane I brought!  Since I could not fly, I decided to video those that were out there and record the fun and commerrodery.  The video isn't great because all I had with me was my cell phone, but I think you will enjoy them anyway.

In this video a nice 4 stroke 3D plane has problems with stalling before take off as a nice foam jet comes in for a landing.  While waiting for the 3D plane to take off, Dr Bob gets ready and tosses up an insanely speedy little wing of his and puts it through its paces.

In this video the 3D 4 stroke comes in for a nice landing while Richie is getting ready to take off his big wing with landing gear.  It's a big heavy wing so he gives himself a lot of run way.  Those of us parked at then end are grateful for the courtesy.  Surprisingly it takes off quickly. It wobbles around quite a bit but Richie soon takes control and flies it quite nicely.  Then someone gets ready to maiden their Apprentice but is troubled with steering issues.

In this video, a really cool foam jet takes of.  This is the same foam jet that landed in a previous video.  No, this video is not out of order, this is another flight.  It took some distance to take off and from my angle, it almost looked like it was going to end up in the back of my Jeep.

This next video starts with a really nice flyby from the foam jet that took off in the last video.  Just after if flew by, Richie landed his big wing with landing gear.  Unfortunately he came down a little heavy and collapsed the nose wheel.  We take a closer look while the foam jet makes some sweet flybys.  After a few more low and casual passes he comes in for a nice landing.

Dr Bob takes out another screamer.  Too bad about 3/4 of the way through while going vertical, the motor screws come loose and the prop catches the right side of the prop slot.  You can hear this in the video.  The result is that the torque causes the motor to spin and rip all of the motor wires out!  Despite this, Dr Bob deftly brings in this wing with a nice glide and drops it right at his feet.




Quite often we have someone maiddening their new plane.  That is the case with this beautiful new WW2 biplane.  Unlike the Apprentice earlier, this one actually gets a chance and flight.  Let's see what happens.

Yeah, OK, I don't know what happened, but needles to say, it didn't last too long.  He'll get a lot of help and make another attempt soon.

We have a lot of fun out here and also at the other sites around the Sacramento area.  Come out and join us, the more the merrier.  There are no fees or dues, we just ask that everyone fly and behave respectfully and also take care of the areas we fly at.

Hope to see you out there!

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Trojan T28 Canopy Repair

Initial damage

 There is one final issue that I have not resolved yet in the reconstruction of my Airfield Trojan T28, and that is the canopy damage.  When my plane crashed, the canopy was ejected into the propeller (just before it completely shattered).  One of the propeller blades ripped through the front shattering it.  Fortunately it was still in one piece.

OK, it's in one piece, but how do I fix it?

Some Google searching came up with a solution that I decided to try. This solution involved using tape to hold things together while thin CA glue is used to repair the cracks.

Another view of the tape

Taped up

So, here I go.  These two photos show the clear tape that I used to cover and hold together the cracks.  The tape also allows you to see better the extent of the damage.

CA applied

Finished product

It's maybe a little hard to see in the photo on the left, but all of the cracks have been run over with regular thin CA glue.

The photo on the right shows the finished product after the tape has been removed.  Yes, it does look like it has been welded together, but it's together!  There is also some clouding of the plastic near the glue (you can see a little of it covering the pilot), but I should be able to buff some of it out.

While this appears to have worked very well there is one thing that I would do different.  If I have to do this again (and I'm sure that I will), I would tape it on the outside and glue it from the inside.  Why?  Well, the taped side left a nice smooth surface (surprisingly, the glue did not stick to the tape) while the glued side, well, feels like a raised weld seam.

Any way, I'm still very satisfied with the results.  Especially since it saved me from buying a whole new cockpit (plastic, foam, and pilot).

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Trojan T28 Rebuild

This is the account of my reconstruction of my crashed Airfield (FMS) Trojan T28.  I hope you have time, because, although the damage was not that great, this was big task as there was a lot to do.

Surprisingly the motor and mount are just fine.  With the impact and shattering of the prop hub, I thought sure that something here would have been severely damaged.

Humpty Dumpty of propellers

This is what I have to start with for the propeller and hub.  I was just going to order another hub, but it was hard to find one that I could get for a reasonable price from a place that had one on hand.  Nitro planes has them for only about $5, but they never seem to have any in stock.  Other sources have them, but they are twice the price and then shipping doubles this cost again.

All fit back together

So, I decided to try to repair mine.  I saw a post from another pilot who had the same issue and he mearly used Goop glue to put his back together and replace small pieces.  I thought if he could do this and be successful, I could do it too.  My prop blades are in great shape with no chips or gouges, so no issues there, just the hub.  I started the repair process by dry fitting all the pieces together to see

Other side

how they would fit together.  Once I was happy with how they fit together, I CA glued them to hold all of the pieces together.  I did this for each half.  I also test fit the two halves together to make sure that they would still mate up.

Epoxied together

Once I was happy with the two halves, I fill the void spaces with 5 minute epoxy.  I used a narow wooden stick to made sure that the epoxy got down into these voids and filled them to the top.

When the epoxy was almost dry, I used the tip of a small flat blade screw driver to scrape off any overage and trim everything down.


Now I was ready to fit the blades back into the repaired hub.  Although the hub was still a bit distorted, it fit back together better that it did originally.

This is what it looked like when I finally got it all back together.  I was a little worried about tightening down the screws as I thought it might break everything apart again, bit this was not to be the case.


Now on to the cowling.  There was only one broke off part but everything else had to be formed back together before this part would fit properly.  So, I fit the parts together as best as I could and CA glued them in place.  Then I secured everything with epoxy.  The tape in the photos served two purposes.  One was to hold things together and the other, to act as a glue dam.  I glued this from the inside so that it would not show on the outside.

Once the cracks were glued up and everything was close to aligned, I was able to glue back on the air scoop piece that was broken off.

Now it's all ready to go back on.

Before the cowling can go back on the mounts need to be repaired.  The cowling almost pulled out all three of its plastic mounting points.  The picture shows the worst one.  It will take some effort to repair to get these repaired.  I started with the top center mount and used a pair of needle nose pliers to jockey it around until it looked good with the cowling.  Then I used CA glue to hold it in place.  Then I did the same with the other two taking care to stuff any loose foam bits back in.  Once all three looked good and were secured with CA, I used hot glue to fill in the gaps and secure them even more.

Next, on to the tail sections.  Both the rudder and elevator movable surfaces were broken off and so they needed to be put back on.  Fortunately, there was no serious damage and the hinges were the only thing affected.  The rudder was easy and only needed the plastic spike hinges glued back in as they pulled straight out.  I used Goop as it gave me time to work and would not cause any serious issues if it got on the hinges.

 For the elevator surfaces I used these really cool paper hinges that I thought I would never use.  But, they were what I had and so decided to try them out.  They worked great and now I love them.  Check out my video and just see how easy they were to install.  All that is needed is a hobby knife, the hinges, and CA glue.

In this video I show the basic installation steps for these hinges.  I started with the movable surfaces. Since these used molded foam hinges, I had to start by trimming away all of the old hinge material.  This actually helped me in locating the hinge line and made for a good guide to follow.

This video shows more detail in how the hinges go together and how they are glued up.  The hinge material is made of a fiberus material that will wik the CA glue into the slot and make for a good bond.

You can see at the end of this video that even with the glue in the hinge material, they still move quite well.  I will be using these when ever I need a hinge where tape will not suffice.

Here is a photo of the ailerons fixed back up with the same paper hinges.  At first glance the wings looked fine but on closer inspection the aileron hinges on both sides were found to be badly cracked.  I just cut them the rest of the way off, trimmed the excess material, and repaired them just like the elevator.

Clevis repair

One of several repaired clevis

I had several clevises that broke.  At first I was going to just replace them but I had problems finding the right ones.  My LHS did not have a decent selection of them and online it was hard to tell for sure what size they had and if they would replace what I needed.  So, I decided to just repair what I had.  I started by trimming off the remains of the pin. Then I used a small drill bit to make a hole where the pin was.  Now all I had to do was to bend a trim a piece of paper clip to fit.  A small piece of fuel line is all that is needed to keep everything secure.  I have since found out that this is a common way of doing clevises.

Decal distorted by a fracture

Fracture can be seen here

 On to more fuselage damage.  This was not obvious for while, but there was a fracture across the fuselage above the back edge of the wing.  I noticed this because of the decal distortion (stretching).  Looking further revealed the fracture.  Since it wasn't that deep I repaired this by opening it up enough to squirt CA glue in and then close it down.  This seems to have done the job and it is holding well.

Front corner landing gear box damage

Another view of the damage

Doors and linkage broken free

What turned out to be the worst damage was the front landing gear.  The gear was broken, just flopping around, both doors were broken off, linkage was broken, and finally the landing gear box was cracked in the front and pushed back.

I started by removing all the broken parts and landing gear.
Fixing the box required using a needle nose pliers to pry on the bent surfaces until they fit back together.  I did this by inserting one jaw of the pliers down in between the plastic box and the foam.  The other side jaw was then inside the box.  I pushed them down until the tip was right at the bend.  I then pried back on the plastic until the pieces were back in alignment.  Then I used glue to hold everything in place.

Landing gear removed

Opened up showing
broken trungeon

 Now I needed to repair the broken landing gear.  This required the removal of the four small screws holding it all together.  This revealed the motor, electronics, and moving parts.  This gear works by moving a bar back and forth on a screw shaft rotating the gear itself.  The pawls on this pivoting part (trungeon?) were broken off.  Fortunately I had another one from the defective landing gear it originally came with.  I pulled this one apart and removed what I needed.

Part replaced and
ready to go back in

There was one issue with this and that was that the replacement piece was not intended for steering gear but for the shaft to be held in tight.  To resolve this I needed to drill out the strut hole so that it would pivot for steering.  This was easily done with my drill press and I carefully drilled out the plastic and brass to enlarge the hole.  Now I only needed to put all the pieces back together being careful to get all the pieces lined up and keep from pinching the wires.

Making sure the wires aren't pinched

You can see from these photos that it all went back together and now I have a functioning front steerable landing gear again.

Going back together

All back together

OK, the following video is a little lame, but what ever.  I was holding the camera and doing the servo tester at the same time.  Yeah, I could have used a tripod (I do have one), but I was in a hurry.  Any way, it still shows that the landing

gear works!

Pin replacements

Closer view

Next, on to the doors.  The obvious damage to both was that the servo horns were both broken off.  Fortunately one was still hanging on and I found the other.  These were glued back in place with a little CA glue.

Less obvious was the loss of the hinge pins on one end of each.  At first I did not know what to do.  I thought I was going to have to purchase new ones.  Then I got the idea, why don't is just make new ones?  I shaved the ends off flat and then drilled a hole where they used to be.  Then I carved down a piece of bamboo skewer and press fit them in.  These came out so nice I did not need to use any glue.

Covers installed

Now all was repaired and ready to go back together.  It took a little doing, but I got everything back in place.  Not easy to do with my fat fingers (not as dexterous as I used to be).

Ready for assembly

Everything is all fixed now and ready to be re-assembled.  The picture at the right shows all the repaired parts.

Please ignore all of the other stuff on the table

OK, was that enough for everybody?  I know it was for me!

Now I'm at that usual point of waiting for the right day and weather to go out and fly again.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.