Maiden flight went by without any problems. No trim needed and the Four Star flew wonderfully as promised. The only issue I have is a short flight duration that I intend to fix sometime with a high capacity 3S. During the end of my forth flight, during my landing approach, I misjudged my air speed and stalled while turning into the final leg. The plane top-stalled and plummeted 40 or 50ft through the trees. Luckily, she fell all the way down and did not get stuck on one of the higher branches as some planes at the club do. Damage was minimal to the fuselage; only a torn landing gear. The right wind panel took to brunt of the fall and was severed to the right of the aileron servo After consulting with an experience club member I set out to rebuild the wing by stripping all the covering and "grafting" the missing section from scratch I sanded and re-covered the wing and the Four Star is ready to take the air again!
This is the first time I'm building a laser cut balsa kit. The manual seems to be very detailed including pictures and a full size plan. The only issue I have is the mismatch between measurements on the plan vs. the actual part layout and size. However, using the plan as a guide seems to be sufficient and the wing panel build was easy. I use my magnet board and a few of my LiPo batteries to weigh things down when needed. I am not using Aliphatic wood glue and no t CA as directed by the build manual. This required me to glue he wing panel in stages instead of a complete dry fit before a CA gluing stage. The part were sometimes not snug enough, so the wood glue was a better choice. I think that for a good CA bond all parts must be snug against each other. Complete wing panels before sanding: Wing panels attached with dihedral brace before and after sanding
With an AUW of 2.3Lb I chose to use a 313W motor that is slightly more powerful than the kit's recommendation of a 250W motor. I found a suitable motor on Amazon.com, combined with a 40A ESC, that fit my requirements of power and weight with the following specs: Voltage range: 7.4V to 14.8V (2S to 4S LiPo) Kv: 1,100 Io: 1.6A @ 12V Max current: 30A Rm: 0.05 ohm Weight: 86 grams Motor attachment to the fuselage followed the kit building instruction manual. I fit two blind nuts between the 1/4" motor spacers and added 3/4" standoffs to achieve the 2 5/8" clearance between propeller and cowl: The ESC fit above the battery plate, and for balance I positioned the battery about 1" behind F1: Receiver (FlySky FS-iA6B), elevator and rudder servos (Hitec HS-81 Micro Servos) fit nicely in the compartment above the wings: Aileron servos attached as called for in the plans without any modifications: The completed plane with cowl (spray painted) and spinner removed to achieve...
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