Hobbyking Cessna 182 Deluxe with Flaps

[solentlife]

So I decided that the run of 182's now available had to be for a reason. Also one of the guys who flies with us locally has 2 ... an electric and a petrol powered versions ...

So Hobbyking were offering out their Cessna 182 ...
Length : 31"
Span : 39"
AUW : ~600gr
5 Ch : Ail, Ele, Thro, Rudder, Flaps

Duly arrived in post ........ well boxed to protect against handling.

I took all out and here were the contents :



The model is supplied with a small amount of assembly to do and then connect own Rx ... battery.
First thing noticed was trim tape had been applied without thought of surface movements ....







So a model knife was called for to slice through and allow surfaces to move ...



When moving flaps / ailerons - the amount of slop was terrible. A gap of about 2mm existed at hinge line ... partly due to poor fitting of tape hinge. I hate tape hingeing and decided to remove, use acetate hinge strips epoxied into slots ...



So remove flaps and ailerons ... carpenters trick with pen and draw hinge line along surfaces and wing. Model knife and create slots for hinges. I chose to use epoxy for all my work here instead of supplied foam glue. I don't fancy waiting 24hrs for glue to set.







All hinged up and put aside to set.

Fuselage needs a slot cut at tail to allow tail set to be slid intop place. The recc'd slot in my opinion is not enough ........ so I sliced of the top of end section to allow tail set to be inserted easily and aligned ...



You have to cut away more than they say anyway to allow elevator to move.
I glued the piece back to fair in again.

Now wing is nicely hinged up - checking the control links from servo to surfaces .... the flap links are plastic ends glued to torque rods. The ends were not fixed solid and slight pressure on them would turn them altering the position of flaps. The rods etc. are glued into wing and would require surgery to remove ... so a careful application of CA was done to try and lock them in place. Taking care not to glue up torque rods in tubes.

So now it was time to marry wing to fuselage ........ flap actuator fouls back end of wing seat and you need to deploy full flap down to allow wing to drop into place. Once in place it's fine.
With a 1800mAh 3S Lipo ... balance was spot on ... most gear is fiited at or near CoG - so little difference with change of size / wt. Model is stated for a 1000mAh 3S but given the motor, 5 servos etc. - seems a bit on the small size. The battery compartment can well take up to 2000mAh and as said - its on CoG so no corrective weight measures needed.

One thing that is obvious when assembling model ... wing is flexible and leads to thinking of adding CF spar etc. Actually not necessary as when wing struts are fitted - wing stiffens up fine.

So now it waits for it's maiden flight at Regional Fly-In today July 2nd at Ventspils Airport ............. but forecast is for strong winds !

Test of motor indicates over-powered ........ just as I like ! It pulls strongly.

I have 4 niggles with it ...
1. The poor vinyl self-adhesive trim tape ... it's not shaped and fails to adhere on curves etc.



Its adhesion is poor and likely after 1 or 2 flights it will start shredding / looking tatty.

2. Very poor hingeing that I feel if not corrected would lead to sorry result if try to fly. This model is aimed at learner - intermediate - so would end up crashed in many cases.

3. Poor design for fitting tail set .......

4. Flap actuator rods ... poorly fitted plastic ends needing fixing.

Anyway here she is waiting for the day :







The model is actually the Skyartec Cessna. My opinion is that factory assembly produces a nice looking model but I believe from my above observations - it needs modification work to get to flight ready in addition to the small amount of assembly.
If a beginner was to buy and try fly without mods made - I think it would have a very short unhappy life.
(The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed one of my all-time favourites under the bench - Skyleader Skymaster Mk 1, waiting to be built. That will be subject of another "out of box" but real traditional build job .... )

Cheers
Nigel

[CHELLIE]

Hi Nigel Thats Smart to go through the aircraft with a fine tooth comb and check it for errors, thats something most novice pilots wont catch, but experienced pilots will now that you made it bullet proof it should be a great flier, it looks great too, Can i do the Maiden flight on it Just kidding Take care and have fun, Chellie

[CHELLIE]

if you have the time, get some testors clear spray enamel paint and give the plane a clear coat, its foam safe and will help to glue the decals on so they wont fall off after a few flights, also it will help to keep the foam looking clean, Just my 2 cents worth.

http://www.modelcars.com/testors-ena...ear-spray.html
its foam safe, get the enamel spray not the laquer spray


or clear miniwax poly spray paint, its foam safe

http://www.menards.com/main/paint/in...497-c-7967.htm

[CrimzonRider]

Originally Posted by solentlife

So I decided that the run of 182's now available had to be for a reason. Also one of the guys who flies with us locally has 2 ... an electric and a petrol powered versions ...






The model is actually the Skyartec Cessna. My opinion is that factory assembly produces a nice looking model but I believe from my above observations - it needs modification work to get to flight ready in addition to the small amount of assembly.
If a beginner was to buy and try fly without mods made - I think it would have a very short unhappy life.
(The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed one of my all-time favourites under the bench - Skyleader Skymaster Mk 1, waiting to be built. That will be subject of another "out of box" but real traditional build job .... )

Cheers
Nigel

Very good explanation about your mods on the 182, one of my favorite a/c!
Is it just me, but the right wing looks down warped, Maybe it just the way the pic was taken or something.

have a good one
cr
Great thread!

[solentlife]

Originally Posted by CrimzonRider

Very good explanation about your mods on the 182, one of my favorite a/c!
Is it just me, but the right wing looks down warped, Maybe it just the way the pic was taken or something.

have a good one
cr
Great thread!

No its fine .... its the main U/C ..... when you push and clip into place - one side goes in easier than other. I hadn't squared it up evenly - just put in quick for photo.

Hi Chellie ..... Clear lacquer is good idea - but this plane has thick vinyl self-adhesive stuff on it. If it was water-slide decals - then 100% agree.
I'm not bothered about it actually - as I intend to let it start to peel of in use and then do a proper paint job with UK registration ... just to set her apart from all the others who have same USA reg'n !

Here she is 'sitting' on TOP of my mates 26cc gasoline powered Cessna 182 ....



Unfortunately the wind was very strong that day and most planes were not flown at the meet ... I chickened out on the Cessna after my ME109 couldn't handle it ! We hope that today 3rd July ... wind should be lot less and she'll be given her maiden.

I have to say that the 182 does have a nice overall look and hope she goes as well as she looks. I'm expecting her to be too fast in scale ... Youtube vids show that .. plus that motor they fit is pretty strong on pull.

Photos to come !

[solentlife]

So Ventspils Airport runway and wind about 4m/s gusting 6m/s ....

Fired up FlySky 9X Tx with FrSky module and then fitted my 1800mAh 3S Lipo to the Cessna.

So here before the initial flight ....



(I'm wearing a helmet vid-cam so I can video the flight for post analysis ... )

Take off run ...



In flight showing I'm a very happy pilot ......







Unfortunately the nose wheel fixing must have come loose and as she rolled out the nose wheel turned and she flipped on her back....



But having flown her and going home with her in one piece .... you can see how pleased I am here :



Ok ... points found in the flights ( I made 2 before wind starting to increase again and I packed up).

a) Definitely well powered ... faster than scale by a long way, but nice. She slows down to about 1/2 throttle OK with a shallow gradient decline in height.

b) Aileron rate is excellent for geneeral Cessna style flying, but not enough for good rolls etc. - she is very untidy in rolls and very slow ! She needed near full right trim to stay level ... must check out why.

c) Elevator authority is high and could be trimmed back a bit.

d) She needs a burst of throttle to execute anything like a stall turn, as rudder is not as powerful as it could be.

e) Nose wheel fixing is not so good ... it is a long collar with grub screws tightening on wheel leg and short leg on fuselage. Mine loosened in flight and caused her to flip on landing.

f) Tried inverted but until I get aileron authority sorted - she was very unhappy inverted actually going into a spin when trying to turn her in a moderate bank ...

Summary :

Care with out of box inspection and sort out the items highlighted earlier.

She wants to fly and is good 2nd or later model IMHO ... I wouldn't recc'd for a lone beginner but with teacher / buddy box - no problem ..

Flight time on 1800mAh 3S Lipo ... with about 75% of flight at 75% - 85% throttle and short full throttles ... I did 4:57 and had 58% charge left in Lipo.

If anyone else is looking at this model - ENJOY !!

Nigel

For landing you set her up on low throttle and let her glide in and she greases in lovely.

[CrimzonRider]

Thats awesome and some really good pics too.

have a good one
cr

[TopSpin]

Solentlife, so far you have done an excellent jub of sorting out all of the nits and oversights on this model. I hope you are able to get it to trim properly since full right trim is a bit much.

I have to say after reading all that you had to do, and still have yet to do to get the thing flying I would not be tempted to buy one. I just seems like there are ARFs out on the market that are much better constructed. I realize the price may be a bit higher but then you don't have to fix a bunch of mistakes either.

Well good luck with it and happy flying.

[solentlife]

I think the overall model is OK for the money ... having seen other 182's ARF and RTF ... I don't think it's unusual to do some mods or replacements.
The 182 in this thread is actually a Skyartec RTF 182 sold by Hobbyking minus the radio ... even the manual is really the RTF version. So anyone thinking to go Skyartec instead of the cheaper Hobbyking are actually buying same item.


OK the full right trim .......... found it.

The wing underside has plastic plate each side that carries the 90 degree cranks to actuate ailerons. The plates also supply screw fixing points for the wing struts.
On checking over the model at home and starting to adjust links to return Tx trims to centre ..... I found that one of these plates had come loose. It's basically just hot-glued into place and there was very little glue had been applied. So my 5 min epoxy came to rescue and viola ... the ailerons then came in fine. It may also explain the lack of roll rate.

Now this is MY item and not because it didn't work ... just me being picky ! I decided to prise the flap actuator rods out of the wing and make more solid the lnks at ends of the torque rods. I was in for a surprise. They are actually threaded on and adjustable. Only trouble is the links don't lock in place and are liable to turn on the threads. So I decided to superglue the links to prevent this happening.

I have to explain something ... I am from the old school of RC where we didn't have computer based radios ... trims were not digital and therefore we got into habit of altering control surface links to return trims back to centre. This then meant we could fly more than one model without having to remember trim settings etc.

So for the newbies who only know digital Tx's etc. - how to centre trims after maiden flights ...

Asjusting a link anyone can do - but to get it precisely right as per trim setting of radio ?

Set model up on bench. Fix it in place. Get stiff card and make a vertical stand of it.
Switch on radio and model with throttle cut activated so no motor mishaps !
All surfaces should now move to their trimmed positions from flight test. Using your card ... you stand it next to edge of control surface and mark of with a different pen / marker for each one.... aileron left, aileron right, elevator left, elevator right etc.
Go round a second time after moving Tx sticks just to make sure ....

OK - you now have trimmed reference marks.

Now centre all trims on your radio ... including subtrims in menus.

Now taking each control surface in turn check which way to adjust with the card marks ... adjust linkag until surface lines up with mark. Move on to next control surface etc. - Complete all.

Now move Tx sticks and then check again against card.

You can in fact name the card and keep it for future but as long as model stays same height of bench !!

You now have full trim range returned for your use and model zeroed in ...

I have to admit that I have modified my own procedurer of above to using a precision vernier scale rule ... writing down the mm measurements of each surface.

Friend of mine uses sticky side paper ... cuts a piece and then slides it into the gap between end of ailerons / elevators and wing tip ... marks the paper with surface setting ... puts trims to centre and then adjusts links to match the marks on the paper ... removing paper of course after completion.

I'm sure there are other ways ...

Cheers
Nigel

[CHELLIE]

Congrats on the maiden flight glad you got to take your plane back home in one piece Take care and have fun, Chellie

[CrimzonRider]

Great job solentlife, enjoyed it and your critique is very well written. Great explanation of trimming control surfaces without a 500 dollar computer tx.
I have the Nitroplanes Airfield 55" Super Select Scale 182 version 4 . It is an incredible a/c, too.
Some of the mods that you had to do have been addressed with this version. Yeah the nose gear needed a lot of "re-engineering" by me but after that it is truly is beauty scale-like flyer. Pic of it is in my avatar. Comes with lights and flaps installed in the kit(its a steal at $79 USD for such a scale-like plane). I crashed my first one due to reversed ailerons!! my fault.
I enjoyed it so much, I now have two waiting to be built!

Have a great one
cr

[solentlife]

Now for flight vids ....

Maiden flight (I have to apologise that in post above - I condensed the text from long two flight missive ... means it says i flipped plane on first flight ... actually it was second - the first landing was SMOOOOOOOOTH !! as you'll see .... )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGXjD...eature=related

Remember this stock out of box servos etc. - just my mods to hinges and my radio.

Second flight ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jRPr...eature=related

Apologies if vids are a bit naff ... I can't check them on Youtube until my other 450 Trex vids complete upload ..... second - I have no idea why this forums Youtube linking is difficult when all other forums I can link Youtube without any problem !

I will return to this thread at stages as model goes through it's first days and future ... so giving an idea of it's sweaknesses and longevity !

Unfortunately for me now ... I have lots of work to do on my yacht readying her for summer Baltic cruise - so models will be on a back-seat for a while ... but I promise I will have something else for you guys soon. I have the Skymaster Biplane to build ... that is one hell of a plane and awesome for display work - which it was designed for by a guy I knew back in UK ... Phil Ramsay ... but you'll have to look on another forum as it's IC powered and destined to have a 15cc Gasoline lump up front.

[kenchiroalpha]

Hi Nigel
Outstanding
Congratulations on the maiden shes right sharp looking very nice
Videos are not working though
Take care dear friend
Yours Hank

[solentlife]

The vids will work ... I made mistake and started upload of 4 vids ... 2 of the Cessna and 2 of my Trex 450 ..... until upload is completed vids will be dead links ...
Sorry about that ... my BB internet is via radio link and is slowwwwww !

[road king 97]

Great job on fixing the kits short comings and telling newbes in this thread so they can follow your solid building advice. I am happy she flew well and hope to watch your video soon. joe

[solentlife]

Well repairs on the yacht came to a stop waiting for engineer ... so back to Cessna !

Items noted on second day :

1. Nose wheel needs to be checked before each flight until a way to get grub screws to really lock down.

2. Aileron binding even with re-hinged and on hinge line ... they made servos buzz. So I did something that I never thought I would ... I re-fitted tape hingeing BUT properly. This has partly cured it ...
( I will explain my method of tape hingeing below ).

3. ESC double sided tape factory used failed and ESC was loose in cabin. Replaced with better and wider own tape. (On another model I actually passed a tie-wrap round and through fuselage side and back to anchor it in place !)

4. Control surface horns needed screws tightening up ... will see if this an ongoing issue or just a one-off.

5. Plastic guide on one side of wing aft centre that sits against fuselage came away and needed glueing back on.

Basically silly things and will be part of pre-flight checks from now on. Pity about ESC one - as the wing needs to come of each time for that.

So tape hinges ........... something I've used a lot in past but still not a system I like.

Tape I use is extra power Tesa clear tape. It's about 2x the thickness of standard Sellotape and a lot stronger. It's 48mm wide - so gives a wide adhesion area.

So prepare control surfaces and wing ... making sure no greasy fingers, no dust etc. Control edge should be beveled to allow the up / down movement. Main wing edge flat.

Unroll a length of tape and apply to aileron hinge edge with centre of tape the actual hinge line... make sure you have overlap so fingers have something to hold and not the working tape.
Smooth all along so well adhered. Trim tape to aileron length allowing for any sweepback / angle etc. at ends. Trim around any horns or fixings.

Now lay control surface ie aileron on top of wing face to face so hinge edges are facing you and straight / aligned. Press together and then smooth tape along wing edge to fix in place. This then is the UNDERSIDE tape that is folded into the hinge crevice.

Next keeop aileron in full down position and apply a length of tape along wing edge with centre line along edge. Make sure it only sticks to wing. Trim to length.

Now while holding full down aileron and pressing it into wing to close gap - you fold the later tape onto aileron and smooth it out. Press all down well to make sure adhered.

Now it's a matter of working the control up / down to make it free up and find it's natural setting.

My final is to run a back of knife over the tape to make sure its well stuck down.

I've read other methods but none seem to address the freedom of movement needed by setting first tape the hinge crevice one.

The above method also provides the way to seal up gaps by applying a top tape only after conventional hingeing.

[road king 97]

I dont know about in the UK but here i use 3-M velcro strips to hold my esc,s and reciever to the side or botom of my planes. Just peel and stick ,just make sure of where you want it because it does not come off easy once applyed. I even wrap around some wires to stick to the side of the fuse to keep out of the way. joe

[solentlife]

Originally Posted by road king 97

I dont know about in the UK but here i use 3-M velcro strips to hold my esc,s and reciever to the side or botom of my planes. Just peel and stick ,just make sure of where you want it because it does not come off easy once applyed. I even wrap around some wires to stick to the side of the fuse to keep out of the way. joe

My problem is I live in Latvia and industrial strength Velcro is hard to find.... so I use best double sided I can get.

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by solentlife

My problem is I live in Latvia and industrial strength Velcro is hard to find.... so I use best double sided I can get.

Hi, Hobby King has some of the best Velcro i have ever used, its very very strong and inexpensive too.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...RONG_1mtr.html

[solentlife]

I was supposed to be of on another assignment before end of week - which would have curtailed further flights till my return ...... luckily job has been put back a few days and I should have weekend now !!

So next post should have next sessions with a trimmed / checked out after maiden teething sorted out.

Trying to get a decent roll rate .... get her to stall turn cleanly and of course get her to stay inverted without falling out to one side !

Watch this space !

[Toby B]

Skyartec Cessna

I got one of those RTF before I knew better- had a lot of the problems you mention
(including the nosegear falling off on takeoff) and it convinced me to
buy a 'more-ready-to-fly' plane. Gawd, that must have been 2-3 years ago. $89 with brushless
seemed like a lot for it then...

You make me want to dig it out, put a 2.4khz brick in it, and fix it up-

Thanks!


t