Building the new H9 Sukhoi SU 26MM

[Aerozona]

Well it's like X-mas in August! My new plane showed up this afternoon...

I wanted a new plane, one step up from my Dietrich, and with doing an extensive amount of research both on the plane and my budget I settled on the H9 Sukhoi SU 26MM / DA-85 / JR Servo combo from Chief Aircraft.

From what I can tell at this point, this is one of the ONLY planes that Hangar9 sells that was specifically designed for a particular motor, the DA-85. Here are a few preliminary pix to get this build started and I will be adding more as the build continues until its maiden.
As with all good forums...coments and questions are always welcome!

KUDOS to Mike McConville...real nice job with the idea and the plane!

[DannyFlyer]

Ok quick guestion is their any defects in the paint on the cowl or wheel pants look good ill fallow this one im on a tight budget as well. and i love them SU-26's

[Aerozona]

Hey Dan...No problems on the cowl or the wheel pants. I got lucky on this one as there have been many when the plane was first introduced. On the earlier units the cowl had verious cracks in the fiberglass as did the pants and some problems with the wing tube sockets I herd also. Thats why I rarely buy when a new model is first introduced. This one had already had the fixes done to all the earlier problems.

I have been doing business with Chief Aircraft in Oregon for a number of years for most of my RC ventures and supplies and when this plane started showing up with all these problems, Chief sent their entire stock back and replaced it with the upgraded units.

I must say, from what I've read in the RCU forums, H9 has bent over backwards to get everyone with problems all squared away and running right. Gotta luv that part for sure!

If your thinking about building this plane, follow my build here and try to find out from who you purchase your plane, just how long they have had the plane your getting in their stock. Try to get one within the last 60 days or so if possiable.

This has been a real sweet build so far and really all and all, a typical H9 plane! If you need any help just give me a hollar and good luck on you choice what ever you end up with!

[jacksons air]

glue the hell out of EVERYTHING!!!! other than that its an awesome plane with the da 85, also check the aileron blocks in the wings they may need alittle tlc!

[zoomer260]

The one I saw at the field today looked good. It's not RTF yet so can't comment there. I did question prop clearance though. He had no spinner back plate and the prop touched the cowl on one side. Even with a spinner backplate I would still put a half inch or more spacer block behind the 85.

Round cowls look better and I hear perform better with the prop out a little.

[Aerozona]

Thanks for your replies guys and your both right on track...I'll get part 1 of my build posted up in the morning and you'll see exactly what your talking about with gluing everything! As far as the prop clearance...with spinner, backing plate and all...mine has 1" clearance at its minium point which is on the right side of the cowl because of the engine boxes built in off-set!

[1bad42]

Subscribed!

[Aerozona]

Let the build begin...

Part 1:
First and foremost, as Jacksons had commented on, I went over everything from the tail forward with a new seal of CA thin. Let it sit for 2 hours. Then I went to work with my 1/2" triangle making the added reinforcement pieces for the entire motor box area. I set the pieces in with a thin coat of 5 min epoxy then after about an hour…I covered everything including the wing tube & landing areas with a thin coat of 30 minute slo-set extra-strength epoxy to finish the entire front portion of the plane.

Whew...this was labor of love for sure!

[Aerozona]

Part 1b: The motor box reinforcement…

I bought 3 sticks of ½” ash hard wood from my LHS and cut 4 pieces 5” long for the vertical runners and 4 pieces 3 ½” for the horizontal runners. Broke out the epoxy & brushes and went to work.

Part 1c: The Fuel Tank support...

To finish up the front of the plane area and ready it for the plane's interior "Zeolite" finish coat, I re-worked the fuel tank mounting platform. Besides the CA and epoxy coatings I added a 1/8” piece of birch ply to give the tank mounting area some added strength.

I figure the total added weight for the pieces of added materials and epoxy was minimal as compared to the piece of mind that my new Bird wasn't going to fall apart on me while trying to have some fun. Besides this plane is built for IMAC not for a Reno Speed contest.

***Please note: The books DO come out after assembly...(LOL)

[Aerozona]

Well it was a great weekend of some flying my DPA 260 and some building on the Sukhoi...

Part 2:
As you can see by the pix, I cut out the hole in my firewall for the engine's carb an choke. I installed the landing gear. Got the ailerons, elevators, and rudder servos and linkage all installed. I got the extention wiring routed up to the reciever area from the tail section and I finished the interior with the Zeolite. I did the cockpit area with the metalic silver Zeolite. I have to be honest, the build so far has been by the book, going sweet, with no real problems...amazing but a typical Hangar 9 build!

I used all JR Servos & Servo Arms...
Ailerons: DS 8611A
Elevators: DS 8611A
Rudder: DS 8711
Throttle: DS 821

More as I go...

[Aerozona]

Continue Part 2:

[1bad42]

Aerozona,

Where do you get the silver Zeolite?

[Aerozona]

	Quote: Originally Posted by 1bad42
	Aerozona, Where do you get the silver Zeolite?

I'm not real sure where to tell you to look, sorry. "Zeolite" is a blended industral coating product. I got it from a friend that flys and works for a large const. company that got it or had it made through a vendor they deal with. I do know that Krylon makes something that kinda looks like this stuff but I really don't know much about that. Again, sorry I couldn't really help out more here. 8(

[Aerozona]

Building the Sukhoi Part 3:
In this part I am going to work on the wing studs and the Smart-Fly Power Expander Pro for my receiver and servo power distribution duties.
The typical Hangar 9 wing bolts for their larger scale airplanes is a 1/4x20x 2”-4” nylon bolt. I’ve built 7 Hanger 9 airplanes over the last year from their 60 sized Ultra Stick to the 27% Sundowner and now the 33% Sukhoi and all the ARF kits used these same kind of bolts. I really don’t care for nylon bolts when it comes to the wing area so I made a change for this plane.
For the Sukhoi I went to some nice 1/4x20 stainless studs with a wing nut, nylon washer, rubber holding washer to do the wing fastening chores.

The next part was a step taken do to a couple of discussions with Craig Guest and a friend from Tucson about the power distribution to the servos. Basically I came away with the fact that as your planes get larger in size the plane’s power management needs increase to handle the larger servo power draws on the system. The use of redundant dual battery bac-ups in case of problems and the even constant voltage available for the system now become very important as not only the dollar figures with a plane this size are really starting to get astronomical but the planes flying characteristics need to be taken into serious consideration.

Again through my discussions I decided for my new Sukhoi to go with the Smart-Fly Power Expander Pro. This unit will supply an even constant voltage and resolution signal to all my servos and at the same time give me the dual battery failure protection circuit for my plane and my piece of mind.

I talked to Bob with Smart-Fly about the Expander and found out, among other things, that it needs to be elevated off the bottom of the unit for cooling purposes. So I made the mounts for the Expander out of ½”x ½” walnut hardwood and AirWild Servo Hex mounting screws. I epoxied the walnut pieces to the planes sub frame then mounted the Expander on the walnut pieces for a solid hold.

Hope this has been of some help to you builders and if you have any questions I’ll gladly help out any way I can.

[Aerozona]

Building the H9 Sukhoi Part 4:
Tonite I want to work on the receiver’s power management system. The receiver, the Expander Pro, the HD Switches, and the batteries...
The receiver I will use in my Sukhoi is the Synthesized Futaba 319DPS that goes with my CAP9 Super with the synthesized module. The Power expander Pro, the HD Switches and the HD Deans wiring are all Smart-Fly and the batteries are Cermark 2700mAh 6Volt Supers.
First...I re-worked the batteries to accommodate the new Smart-Fly HD switches. The switches are 18ga silver wire with Deans Ultra plugs on the ends. I had to open the outer shrink covering on the batteries and remove the existing light gauge wiring and plugs then solder the new Deans Ultra pigtails to the batteries. Next I made sure the new wiring was taped to the batteries in the same original location as the wiring I removed then I applied the new shrink covering Smart-Fly supplies with the HD switch assemblies and took my heat gun to the covering to complete the batteries re-work.
Second…I prepped the plane’s fuselage for the new switches by cutting the covering off the openings already built into the plane’s structure for these switches (thanx Mike Mc & H9) and then carefully re-drilled the original 1/16 screw holes to a 5/64 hole for the new switch screws. (be very careful when tightening these switch screws as they go into a very light gauge plastic holding ring and will “strip” in a heartbeat if not careful!)

With switches ready, batteries ready, the expander ready, and the servos plugged in and ready…
I then put the system together for the testing and all worked great!