Rcbirk21, congrats on your yak.looking good. I also have a tbm mh yak 54 in the 50cc size 87". you mentioned running smoke ,question is how large a gas & smoke tank.my yak has a stock 550cc gas tank.in stock location where's the room for smoke tank? I found a 24oz sullivan slant tank that would fit below the gas tank location,but your intending to run cannisters so again where's the smoke tank gonna go?

1/4 inch clearance between prop and cowl seems very tight. I would lean more towards 1 inch. You will get better prop performance also. That is my experience.

That was without the cowl all the way on, and that is at the closest distance. I measured the distance on my other plane and it is almost identical. Because of the built in thrust, it is more than 1/4 on the other side

I got myself exactly the same kit .. It is still in the box :-). I am planning to use my old DL50! though my experience is that Magic hand planes usually come out tail heavy. On my 87inch SU26 model, I had to move the engine (same DL) out by approx 1 inch and still had to add approx 400g at the firewall. My friend had the same issue on his yak54 with DL50 engine.

How is magic hand YAK 55 with this CG issue? I am also considering ...... rather adding dead weight of 400g why not put in a bigger engine 60 or maybe 80cc (Don't kill for for that!!!!) what do you guys think?

RCbirk, from experience I very strongly recommend adding nylock nuts behind the blindnuts. The threads in blind nuts are historically weak and can easily wallow out under vibration and load of the engine.

It might be a good idea to put some fender washers on there too.

The plane looks great. I love the lines of the Yak 55, and that color scheme should be very visible.

dards, if you are adding a bunch of weight to the firewall anyway, you could probably use a larger engine. You would be smart to keep the power under tight control and use full throttle on uplines only. Perhaps the firewall would need some additional reinforcement though.

Thanks BTerry, point well taken. I had considered doing just that, and was still undecided. After you telling me that, I will definately do it.

Dards- I will let you know as soon as I am finished balancing it. I am a strong advocate of NOT using lead if at all possible. I have a heavier 3W engine on the nose (with plenty of power @ 6.5hp). I havnt decided exactly what tank to use on it yet, but the one that comes with it I do not trust. I am thinking either a B&B rectangular 32oz or a dubro 24oz. I am also putting in a skywriter smoke system, which should add a bit of weight to the front. To boot, I saw an interesting setup on a plane the other day, and thought it would be perfect for this plane. I am going to put the smoke tank in the canister tunnel since I am not using canisters. It should work out just peachy.

Over the past week I finished up the firewall. After the fiberglassing, this thing is tough. I can pick up the entire plane by the firewall alone. I also did some work on the rudder to get it almost ready. Unfortunately, the pull pull wire they provided was not long enough, so im going to have to go get some more to my liking. I also got the holes cut for the exiting of the pull pull wires out the end of the fuse. It is kinda wierd that they exit above the elevator, but it shouldn't make any difference. I got the beautfiully beefy rudder servo arm hooked up and attatched it to the round disc arm that comes with the 7955tg servo from hitec. I just lined it up carefully and drilled all the holes that I needed and went ahead and screwed it on. I did not use any stock screws, I used all of my own. It ended up using 8 of 2x8 mm machine screws, 8 nylon insert locknuts, and 16 washers to complete it. I have some pics that should explain it a little better. Also note that I put those screws in from the bottom up. Otherwise, the locknuts were uncomfortably close to the servo case. Well, here are the pics. As always, dont hesitate to ask any questions or blurt out any stupid mistakes I might have done. Enjoy.

Have you calculated the wingarea of this plane? Whats your target weight and wingloading?

Have not calculated the wing area of the plane, but I definately will. My target weight was originally around 17 to 17.5 lbs, but hearing about the nose weight these planes need I might not get it that light. Also the smoke system will add just a tad of weight to it.

ok, calculated the wing area, and it looks to be 1248 sq in. If I can get it to flying condition at 17#, then wing loading will be 31.4 oz/sq lb. Seems pretty decent when compared to that of the popular planes...just as good as the extreme flight yak if you have them both at the same weight. We will see when I finish the plane how much it ends up weighing. Now remember it will be with a smoke system and the heavier 3W engine.

Humm 1248 !! this seems slightly smaller compared to the yak54s about (1354) by MH? though the span is about two inch more! I was wondering how the wider span and smaller chord will effect the flying characteristics!

rcbirk21 I like your engine choice! 3W55CS is a monster and should be ideal for this plane!

Hope you get time to finish this plane soon!

I am itching in my socks right now. I am really busy with school, but I am trying to crank this out asap. That did raise my curiosity. Maybe I measured/calculated wrong. I had to calculate the wing area and that is a guesstamite weight. I dont know, I guess flying will be the true test!

I can calculate the wing area of this plane if you provide the following dimensions

• Wing root chord
• Wing tip chord
• Wing half span
• Distance between two wing halves inside the fuse.

My kit is still in the box abt 500km from here at my hometown. Your thread is really helping me plan my build!

I asked someone at my place to take the wing out of the box and give me the dimensions of the wing. (I do not trust these are 100% accurate) but anyways

Tip chord= 10 inch
Root Chord=21.25 inch
Total Wing Span= 89 Inch -> Half wing span 44.5 (if you measure the actual half wing it is 41 inches but we need to include the wing area which is part of the fuse)

So the total wing area comes out to be approx. 1390 Sq inch or 9.66 Sq Feet

If we keep the weight to 17lbs the wing loading will be 28.2 oz/sq inch ... which is not bad!!!. But only if only we can SOMEHOW bring it down to 25!!! (that means total all up dry weight of 15.1 lbs)

Possible????

Originally Posted by dards

I got myself exactly the same kit .. It is still in the box :-). I am planning to use my old DL50! though my experience is that Magic hand planes usually come out tail heavy. On my 87inch SU26 model, I had to move the engine (same DL) out by approx 1 inch and still had to add approx 400g at the firewall. My friend had the same issue on his yak54 with DL50 engine.

How is magic hand YAK 55 with this CG issue? I am also considering ...... rather adding dead weight of 400g why not put in a bigger engine 60 or maybe 80cc (Don't kill for for that!!!!) what do you guys think?

Dard, from what i read on the newer MH planes...they have increased the nose moment (length from the wing ahead?) to counter the tail heavy issues in their first batch of planes. They have also added aluminum angles for the landing gear inside the fuse to correct the ridiculously weak LG mounts in the first versions...you shouldnt have to add nose weight in this batch but time will tell i guess.

How's your Edge 540 flying?