Art Tech Cessna 182 Frankenstein Nitro Conversion

[ryank]

Hey everyone,

OK basically just to introduce myself.. Im Ryan, I'm 21 and I live in Southern Ireland and today i was flying my Art Tech Cessna 182 4ch Brushless version... Of course, this being ireland, the wind was howling at unnatural speeds! and I really mean CRAZY WIND. Id say most typical rc flyers, especially those with little foamies like this one, wouldn't bother flying - but in down here, if you let the wind bother you you will NEVER get to fly so you just have to deal with it.

ANYWAY....

So this morning im in the field flying the cessna and my dad hand launches it for me but within 5 seconds she just rolled to the left and done a cartwheel. (I was having problems with aileron servos not working after a bumpy landing on the grass so judging from what happend between hand launch and plane meeting grass I truthfully think I had no aileron controll but thats just the way it goes - annnyway..) heres the damage:

- Left wing broken off at fuselage
- Left elevator broken off at fuselage
- Propeller shaft sheered off 5mm from motor (like butter it just split - very weak spot or defect even)
- Obviously the pathetic landing gear on this plane also bent and twisted.

Ok so thats pretty much the most of the damage.. All is obviously very easily repairable with good old epoxy, besides for the motor which I will look into reusing at a later date.

ALRIGHT ! SO WHAT WERE WE TO DO??

We said enough of this electric motor fiasco. With our wind here in Ireland, using this little motor and this foam model, can be alikened to bringing a knife to a gun fight.

We decided we were gonna fit a nitro engine to this little plane! My dad has a 1.5 cc OS nitro engines from just over 20 years ago which he recently found and got back into a healthy state.

So we just spent all day gutting and repairing the broken parts of the plane..
On top of that I reinforced the wings and the elevator and rudder to be more durable and resilliant to the wind and the higher forces that will be exerted on her. basically Im beefing her up alot more with packing tape and plastic sheeting for tension and strength.

Also a custom engine mount has been made from the aluminium case that used to belong to some sort of electronics unit. I have on going pictures taken showing all the measures we took.

A small temporary fuel tank has been made from camera film pot with the correct nozzel inserted into the lid for the fuel line to connect to.
A 5th mini servo is being added from an rc heli to control the throttle lever on the engine and the esc will stay in purely to use the battery connection and to power the receiver and servos.

Another thing is due to the shape of the nose piece for the cessna we will make a mould of it using a plaster type material tomorrow and then make new front ends which we can customize to better suit the new engine.

Basically everything is complete apart from adding of improved landing gear (possibly skids? for the grass) and the new engine cowling assembly - hopefully to soon be out flying a nitro modified art tech cessna 182 !!

Please let me know if any of you have completed such an exchange on this model or similar and if you have any tips or comments they are all welcome - especially regarding the landing gear. witht he grass here in the fields being a few inches long theres not a hope of a rolling take off. But the worst part is there is no rolling landing either.. any landing has to be litterally a stall as close to the ground as possible, and even then the plane often does a "stoppie" on its nose when the gear hits the grass.

Thanks,

Ryan

(PS - Video and completed pictures will follow if anyone is interested to see)