Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their evenings last night and stayed safe. Despite representing Team Caribou Lou last night with my friends, I couldn't wait to wake up this morning. Having a PAU Sukhoi kit waiting for you in the garage can do that to a person. Had someone asked me last night to explain my excitement about this new release, I probably would have done so through interpretive dance. Fortunately for all of us, I think a build thread on Flying Giants is going to be much more informative and involved. Having said all that, let's take a look at the kit! After all is said and done, the end result should look something like you see here in the ad in the January Model Aviation. Information on this airplane should be available shortly on PAU's (Performance Aircraft Unlimited) website, www.flypau.com .

Here's how the kits arrive from PAU. One box containing the fuselage, tail feathers, landing gear, and hardware, and the other box containing the wings. The wings in the Sukhoi kits arrive in their custom wing bags. No need to order wing bags separately when you purchase a PAU Sukhoi! Overall the boxes are very good at keeping the planes safe in even the hands of the clumsiest delivery driver. The large box on the top of this pile is the Sukhoi fuselage box. The huge box beneath that is my 43% Edge kit. Yes, I'm now broke. Yes, it's worth it.

Here's a look into the fuselage box. The fuselage itself has the cowl slid on with a layer of insulation between the cowl and covering to prevent scratching. That entire setup is then enclosed in a plastic bag, and wrapped with more insulation. The tail feathers are in a separate compartment, and the landing gear and hardware are in their own compartment as well.

Here's the cowl. It's huge! A DA-50 will fit without having to cut holes for the cylinder. I am pretty sure the spark plug cap fits as well. Also is a picture of the pilot figure I purchased for this plane. It's a Great Planes 33% civilian pilot. I haven't made a mount for him yet but the sizing is perfect for this bird. If you purchase a pilot figure, I would highly recommend the 33% size instead of 25%.

You putting the MT57 in this?

A few shots of how the fuselage comes out of the box, as well as the canopy/hatch. The framework is very nice, with an included cannister tunnel. The canopy already has the tabs glued in and drilled, so no work is necessary on it unless you decide to install a pilot and panel (as I will be doing in this build). Also notice that the canopy and hatch are a one-piece lexan unit that is painted from the factory. The resulting "blended" look is fantastic and the design has held up well in flight-testing the prototype. Also, when I was flying the prototype I loved how the large fuselage would add lots of lift in knife edge flight. It made for wonderful rolling harriers as well.

Originally Posted by Jim D

You putting the MT57 in this?

Yes, Jim. I haven't tried the fit just yet and there are still some zombies in my living room recovering from the party last night, but as soon as I can bring the plane in without disturbing anyone I'll check the fit and report on standoff length needed with this engine. I'm pretty confident that the included 3" standoffs will be fine. I'm also pretty sure that 3" is the standoff length needed if you are planning on installing a DA-50 or DL-50. I will also be installing MT's CS-65 cannister in this plane. As it will be my first cannister install it will probably require the most head-scratching out of this whole build for me. We'll get to that in a little bit though.

A couple more hours and you will be RTF!!!

I will be ordering servos, engine and batteries for mine tomorrow, so I have to sit and stare at it until the goodies arrive!

Do you have a feel for how the stock MT standoffs are gonna work yet? I think 3" are the right length for a DA-50. What length you gonna need to position the MT properly?

Keep the pics coming!!!

Regards,

Astrohog

Here are a couple more detailed shots of the canopy. Please excuse the pictures for being so dark; I was taking these at about 1:30 in the morning when I brought the plane home. Couldn't wait to open it up!

Originally Posted by astrohog

A couple more hours and you will be RTF!!!

Jeff, I certainly hope so! I'm kind of a notoriously slow builder but am going to do my best to get as much work done as possible before I head out for my trip on Monday. This build thread is really more of a setup thread as there is very little actual fabrication to be done. I will get a firewall-to-spinner measurement as soon as I can but I am confident that the 3" standoffs included with the MT-57 will be just right.

One of the first things I noticed on this plane, besides the size, was what a beautiful job they had done with the canopy hatch assembly. This was on the prototype. As Ken was putting it together at the field it never sunk in that it was one piece. Beautiful............

Tom

Looks good keep it comming

Danny

Some more detail of the fuselage. Here is the motor box construction. You can see the right thrust built into the firewall as well as the length of the motor box. Looking at the firewall, the "X" on the right is where you want to center your engine. The X is slightly offset to account for the right thrust in the firewall. Also shown is the cannister tunnel.

This is where all the gear is going to go. Easy access to the fuselage interior with the size of the hatch, and lots of room in this big fuselage for your electronics.