Post by sean on Sept 27, 2008 19:58:30 GMT 10
I got my Pike back in the air again today, and didn't break it!!!
Shortly after buying it second-hand and spending ages repainting it, I managed to crash it... twice... The first time I flew it into a barbed wire fence while trying to get back to the slope in sink, which put some big holes in the wings and basically wrecked the fresh paintjob, covering it in deep scratches. I fixed this damage fairly quickly, spent a bit of time repainting it etc etc, then on the first day out after these repairs I lost radio contact and it crashed rather badly, breaking the fuse in many places, breaking a wing joiner, and causing some other minor damage here and there. Amazingly the wings survived this crash with only very minor damage. The cause of the crash turned out to be my own fault - the antenna had a plug on it near the rx end, and I'd inadvertently disconnected it while pulling the rx out to adjust nose weight. It flew for a good 10-15mins with only a 1.5" antenna!!! Amazing it took so long to crash really...
After this incident I put the pieces in the cupboard, not sure if I'd bother trying to fix it this time having wasted so much time on it up to this point. I couldn't even bring myself to looking at the damage in detail for a couple of weeks.
But... Jeff had a look at the damage and encouraged me to fix it, and gave me lots of handy advice on how to go about it. This time I payed no care to aesthetics - just glued everything back together as quickly and strongly as I could. Doing small amounts of work on it heere and there, it didn't take too much to get it fixed in the end. But, I still had the problem of the broken carbon wing joiner. I tried to locate a second-hand joiner with no luck, then got a quote from SUSA that came to around $100 for two new joiners, including postage, which was franky way too much to spend on a beaten up old Pike. So once again with Jeff's encouragemant and advice I went about making my own. This didn't take too long in the end - I made a mold from the intact joner then pulled wetted-out carbon tow through it and the finished result looks identical to the factory joiners, and appears just as strong! This was also my first molded part - it really is nice waking up in the morning and pulling a perfectly formed composite component out of a mold
. Well, perfectly formed is a bit of an over-statement - it needed a fair bit of tidying up and some sanding to fit precisely.
I fit a Spektrum AR7000 2.4 receiver in the Pike this time, and gave it a very thorough range check at Bald Knob this arvo. It range checked well. In the air I was able to fly it as far away as I could comfortably see in the low light, with no glitches. This Pike has a glass fuse so no carbon worries here. My plan is to use the Pike as a testbed for my 2.4 module, if it works well I'll try to use 2.4 in most of my future builds.
One nice thing that came out of the accident - I was able to replace the pushrods. The original pushrods were causing the elevators to double-centre by a few millimeters. Having the fuse in pieces gave me the perfect opportunity to fit carbon tube pushrods, and replace the horrendously slow JR 331s with fast and accurate HS65s, so the Pike should have much more accurate elevator and rudder control now.
I have to thank Jeff for all his help with the Pike over the last few weeks - not only for his advice on how to fix it and mold the new joiner, but also for the loan of his Pike during the contest down at Lismore, which I thought I'd miss after crashing my Pike the second time. Without his help it'd still be a pile of pieces in my cupboard. Fingers crossed I can keep it in one piece for a bit longer!
Shortly after buying it second-hand and spending ages repainting it, I managed to crash it... twice... The first time I flew it into a barbed wire fence while trying to get back to the slope in sink, which put some big holes in the wings and basically wrecked the fresh paintjob, covering it in deep scratches. I fixed this damage fairly quickly, spent a bit of time repainting it etc etc, then on the first day out after these repairs I lost radio contact and it crashed rather badly, breaking the fuse in many places, breaking a wing joiner, and causing some other minor damage here and there. Amazingly the wings survived this crash with only very minor damage. The cause of the crash turned out to be my own fault - the antenna had a plug on it near the rx end, and I'd inadvertently disconnected it while pulling the rx out to adjust nose weight. It flew for a good 10-15mins with only a 1.5" antenna!!! Amazing it took so long to crash really...
After this incident I put the pieces in the cupboard, not sure if I'd bother trying to fix it this time having wasted so much time on it up to this point. I couldn't even bring myself to looking at the damage in detail for a couple of weeks.
But... Jeff had a look at the damage and encouraged me to fix it, and gave me lots of handy advice on how to go about it. This time I payed no care to aesthetics - just glued everything back together as quickly and strongly as I could. Doing small amounts of work on it heere and there, it didn't take too much to get it fixed in the end. But, I still had the problem of the broken carbon wing joiner. I tried to locate a second-hand joiner with no luck, then got a quote from SUSA that came to around $100 for two new joiners, including postage, which was franky way too much to spend on a beaten up old Pike. So once again with Jeff's encouragemant and advice I went about making my own. This didn't take too long in the end - I made a mold from the intact joner then pulled wetted-out carbon tow through it and the finished result looks identical to the factory joiners, and appears just as strong! This was also my first molded part - it really is nice waking up in the morning and pulling a perfectly formed composite component out of a mold
. Well, perfectly formed is a bit of an over-statement - it needed a fair bit of tidying up and some sanding to fit precisely.I fit a Spektrum AR7000 2.4 receiver in the Pike this time, and gave it a very thorough range check at Bald Knob this arvo. It range checked well. In the air I was able to fly it as far away as I could comfortably see in the low light, with no glitches. This Pike has a glass fuse so no carbon worries here. My plan is to use the Pike as a testbed for my 2.4 module, if it works well I'll try to use 2.4 in most of my future builds.
One nice thing that came out of the accident - I was able to replace the pushrods. The original pushrods were causing the elevators to double-centre by a few millimeters. Having the fuse in pieces gave me the perfect opportunity to fit carbon tube pushrods, and replace the horrendously slow JR 331s with fast and accurate HS65s, so the Pike should have much more accurate elevator and rudder control now.
I have to thank Jeff for all his help with the Pike over the last few weeks - not only for his advice on how to fix it and mold the new joiner, but also for the loan of his Pike during the contest down at Lismore, which I thought I'd miss after crashing my Pike the second time. Without his help it'd still be a pile of pieces in my cupboard. Fingers crossed I can keep it in one piece for a bit longer!
