Intrest in a 4-Site Build Thread?

[heligrom]

Looking good! I'm going to be building one for a buddy, so it's nice to see how its going to go together.

[Dave_ORCC]

Thanks for the thread......... I, too, will be building one for a buddy soon.

2 questions for ya:
What was the weight of your first one? and, are you in some sort of "witness protection plan" or something?

Cheers,
Dave

[3D-Seth]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Fade2Black
	Since I am trying to cut weight on this thing as much as possible: I cut the little plastic case off the receiver, and cut the wires on the servos to shorten them up a bit...

If you're trying to save weight, you could also go with some smaller servos. HS-55s are "big" by today's standards.

Thread looks great.

Seth

[Superrmario]

	Quote: Originally Posted by heligrom
	Looking good! I'm going to be building one for a buddy, so it's nice to see how its going to go together.

Thanks guys.. Build is almost done. I didnt take many more pictures, but will describe in much detail what I accomplish with the pictures I have left.

	Quote: Originally Posted by Dave_ORCC
	Thanks for the thread......... I, too, will be building one for a buddy soon. 2 questions for ya: What was the weight of your first one? and, are you in some sort of "witness protection plan" or something? Cheers, Dave

Honestly, I never weighed the other one, but by the time I was done with it, I am well sure that it weighed more than this one, thats for certian.

No, actually thats not me, its my Kid brother and he didnt want his picture up on a forum.

	Quote: Originally Posted by 3D-Seth
	If you're trying to save weight, you could also go with some smaller servos. HS-55s are "big" by today's standards. Thread looks great. Seth

Yea, I know there is smaller servo's out, and the 55's are a bit heavy, but I drilled them and snipped the wires. They should be light enough. We'll see.

At this point, all is done, all I need is to add the ESC, motor and, prop. Waiting for the ESC and motor from my LHS as I lost the set I had from the original. I think it made it into the trash!

[Superrmario]

As the above post stated, there wasnt much left to do to the plane after the last pictures. But I will highlight some of the stuff that I did, as well as a very important mod that I find is going to help it fly much more straight and cleaner snap rolls.

The hardest part of this build hands down was the connecting of the carbon rods to the control surfaces. The only thing that holds them together is shrink tubing, and obviously to get it to shrink, you have to apply heat. All the surfaces suffered since I was forced to use a lighter. The soldiering iron started to melt and buckle the foam. You can see the damage in the pics. I used the white part of the flame to hit the shrink tubing... Its hard to get this to stay because you dont have three hands. One to hold the control rod stright, one to apply the heat, and one to hold the rod in the tubing.





Also, you have to manually build the control horns which consist of an inch long carbon rod and a triangular peice of foam. I think this could have been supplied much better from eflite prebuilt. Between the shrink tubing and the horns, my happieness turned to a big dissapointment. Once you glue the rod to the horn, hit it with activator. The you have to glue it to the surface and hit it with activator as well. I think the process could have been much better and lighter if they just supplied you with micro horns.

[Superrmario]

The firewall goes in clean, and i would defiently follow the directions with this. Make sure you sand the back end of it before you mount it or it WILL rip off the first time you goose the throttle. Make sure you get it on as stright as you can.


The pushrods are completly built other than the opposite end. It figures that they leave the hardest part for the builder





The above picture shows the rudder rod and "my modification" I will touch on that shortly.

The rudder and elevator rods must follow through wood guides that they provide you with. When you are ready to put the rod on, guide the rod through the wood, and then place the wood into the foam! If you do it backwards, then your going to have to unhook the servo arm from the servo and hook up the rod with the z bend, then bolt it back down!

[Superrmario]

The speed brakes are fairly easy. Snug them up first to open the slot. Then once fit, apply glue and tack it in. Dont worry about them being crooked at first, try to get them stright, but once you put the supporting flying wires, you can tweek it to straighten out. Since it comes with two diffrent sets of speed brakes, I flew it before, I opted with the Larger of the set. I would honestly fly the plane without them first and figure out which ones you like better. I am going for super slow flying, so bigger are better!





The support rods mount into the holes on the wing strut:

[Superrmario]

Okay.. So this I guess is where I start complaining alot i guess. Between the building of the control horns, then the shrink tube connectors, this took the cake.

Once the plane was build as you see it, I was forced to add two carbon rods to the tail section. They run from the "turtle deck" to the horizontal stab.



The first plane I had had alot of tail flex in it, and when rolling, the tail would lag behind the wings ALOT.

On this model, I tested it crudely by holding it by the nose and rolling the airplane with my arm. Again, the tail had significant flex. I was forced to add the rods to stiffen up the rear half of the airframe, but ultimatly added a lot of tail weight. form vs function i guess.... Make sure these rods are perfectly straight, or the airframe will tweek and the elevator will not be in a straight line with the wings. Not sure what the designers were thinking here.

[Superrmario]

Over all here is some pictures of the plane fully built less the motor and prop. After you put the speed controller in, you can close it with the other brace.







Synopsis:

1. Looks awesome. Clean lines has an agressive look that gives it that cool factor which I like alot, function over form, but it seems the form, functions if you know what I mean.

2. Cannot comment on the flight caricteristics of this airframe since i havent flown it yet, but the other was good. I did have it proped wrong, and the tail was very sloppy, but it did perform well.

3. The directions were very detailed with the exception of a few vauge portions. If you follow the directions well, it will build nice. jsut make sure you take every step correctly, or your going to be pulling apart glued parts.

4. Quality of the parts and built materials are top notch.

5. "The 4-Site also offers a high level of prefabrication" quote from HH's website is highly misleading. The only "prefabrication" i found was the hinges and the easy half of the control rods. Everything else must be built by hand including the control horns and connections between the rods and surfaces. I may also want to add the CF tail skid was also in place when taken out of the box

6. The half aft portion of the the airframe is extreamly weak and twists when you roll or snap. you MUST reinforce it with carbon rods or your rolls and snaps will look like hell.

One other tip I would like to give is, when you glue the 1" extentions to the ailerons for the control horns, you should shrink half of the shrink tubing on them first, and then mount and glue them BEFORE you put the wings on the plane. It will make it much easier when you connect the wings with the 2mm CF rods.

I am sorry about the quick last portions of this thread, but I was lacking.

If there are any questions, please feel free to give me a shout.

I will update this thread with fligh photos and flight info as well.

[Superrmario]

Additional pictures after motor, ESC and matter install.

I tried to make it as neat as possible, but wires never seem to cooperate.




Wires!


Some of the foam ink came off when I tried to CA the velcro to the fuse, and than in fell off. A marker will fix that.






I will be flying it tonight, and will post up videos. I will be a good chance to test out the video camera on the New Motorola Droid

[heligrom]

Looking good!! Let us know how she flies

[Superrmario]

Here is a vid of it flying a big circle. I was having fun with it so much that I forgot to have someone take a vid of it. I had my buddy fly it, but he wasnt doing much other than circles, burping, and almost hitting bleachers. But, you cans ee how stable it is.

It flies GREAT, and is extremely slow, but responsive. I do have to say that the 240mah Hyperion lipo's only last about 6 minutes at a half throttle flight, and about 4 on a 3D flight. Time for 400mah packs

YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.

[CoemnjemAvepe]

Marijuanasaurus is basically telling me he closed it because he thought it was stupid. Wow, a great response.Whyd you close my legitimate thread which, in a matter of minutes was already conjuring up a good discussion?"Cause its stupid Hmph"

[bodyshopjustin]

I Liked this plane smoked the motor trying to use a three cell pack so I am waiting to get a new motor flew very well