Building a Micro Fatty -- Skeeter 30 Phat Boy

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To mount the wings, trim away the covering from the fuse sheeting where the root ribs touch. Use regular white Elmer's glue and liberally smear onto the main fuse bulkhead where the spars will touch it. Slide the wings into the slots in the fuse sheeting and when happy that you have no dihedral or anhedral tack into place with thin CA. Yes, this is strong enough for this airplane

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[Quicker]

For the gear, you gotta bend the wire yourself. The exact wire layout is printed on the plans. Just bend the wire to match. CA the 1st layer of the mount to the bulkhead, then lay in the wire and CA the top layer on.

The wheel pants are formed from red plastic, so if you want them white like me, you need to paint them. Any good spray paint will work, with Rustoleum being my favorite. Stay away from cheap brands, like the Walmart brand, or other store brands. Give it a coat of primer, then shoot the white on.

I used a shot of Goop to hold them on, but the pants include a small nylon strap, wood block and 2 micro srews if you want to use that to hold it to the wire gear. I honestly find Goop to be much easier. Put a dab on the wire gear and use some tape to hold it in place for an hour for the Goop to setup. If you use the nylon strap you will have to bend the wire slightly different than the plans show. Put a flat part right next to the wheel pant for the strap to hold onto.

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[Quicker]

Cut out and trim all the vacuum formed plastic parts. The parts are all formed slightly larger than needed, so trim away as much material as needed to get a good fit.

BE CAREFUL!!!! These parts were formed THIN to save weight, yet be strong enough to hold up to ProBro style abuse. They are thin, though. Also, don't trim away toom much!!!!

I just use Scotch tape to hold my parts on. I also painted the canopy black. The canopy is clear for those that want a pilot. I like black and tinted canopies. The Canopy is PETG, so I think that should take tea staining , but be carefull not to warp it while staining. I think I's just shoot light coats of charcoal or black on the inside to tint it.

The cowl and wheel pants are Polystyrene.

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[Quicker]

As for the battery and radio mounting, just flip her over and place the components where you feel best. Depending on the battery, motor and servos, you might need to trim away some of the bulkhead and slide the battery forward to get the right CG. I CA'd some velcro to the tray and I also use a velcro strap, looped throught he holes.

Also, you can see that I trimmed away a lot of the bottom of the cowl. This was for 2 reasons: 1, I wanted more airflow throught he cowl, so this gives me a large exit area. 2, Easy access to the battery.

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A few more pics

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[Shaggy]

Heres mine

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Cool.

You still need to trim the cowl

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[Shaggy]

Thanks Q, I have.

In those pics everything is just taped together, I flew her yesterday, only about 7 minutes before it got dark, I will be taking her out again today, hopfully I can find somebody to take pics !!!

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Got my next one almost done. Dressed up in a traditional scheme like this it kinda looks like a little Extra.

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[Boogie]

Wow! Absolutely one of the best planes I've seen to date!! What is the blue covering??

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That's Doculam painted with Rustoleum Metalic blue. Doculam is a 1.5mil laminating material. I'm building so many planes right now in prototyping, etc that I was spending a fortune in covering. This is becomming a popular covering material since it's about the same weight as Ultracote light. It goes on just like any other covering because it has an adhesive backing.

OK, back to the plane. My vinyl decals should be done at the sign shop today, so I hope to get the gear in, landing gear on and decals on tonight. I'll post pics of the finished bird in the morning.

I'm running my other Himax 2015 in this, and until I get some new servos I'll be using a mix of GWS and Tower Pros. The Tower Pros suck, but It's what I have for now. I need some more GWS servos. The naros work great in this size bird.

This should work well for me to practice routines in the small field next to my house.

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[Quicker]

Got the decals in. Now I just gotta glue on the pants and install the radio gear.

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