Cessna 180. Swappable with plans. VIDEO & BUILD

     Check it out!  Cessna 180 Skywagon showing some style.. Cessna made some gorgeous planes back in the day, and I wanted to make my own cessna skywagon because I see them buzzing the skys all day in my city.  Well it looked awesome and flew so well that I wanted to make plans and share it with the Flite Test community!     

     So about how the plane flies: It is very sporty!  It shreds for a mellow looking plane. Its very responsive and can do some cool tricks. It will fly inverted well, with plenty left to pull ya out.  Roll rate is snappy and I made the tail surfaces oversized so you can tune it the way you want it.  This Cessna also floats wicked slow with the flaps down. Honestly the majority of my flight is done slow and scale. I just put around saving battery .. Trying to challenge people to slow laps haha.......   So thats how it will fly.. But when its not flying .... Im crashing it.. And man is it a durable plane. My first beta has lawndarted from high stall spins multiple times (Tests and whatnot lol) and only broken props and rubber bands. I've never taken a glue gun to it. The fuselage is beast! The beta will still fly for a while before shes gutted of sevos. Anybody else have 40+ 9gram sevos?lol  

    This is my first time making plans but I'm confident that it will go together as easy as any FT kit. I used many of their common build tricks and methods. If you've ever built from FT plans you will know exactly what needs done.  As far as electronics I'm using my first motor ever. It was in my Spitfire last year,  and is a Turnigy 2822/14  1450kv  with a Turnigy 18amp Plush ESC.   The little motor flies this thing nicely. You can always go bigger! a NTM2826 1200kv would be about the sweet spot I think (need to fix mine). And use any battery you want in this.. (with a large 2200kv motor) I ran a Traxxas 4000mah 2 Cell lol and Ive used a 850mah 3 cell, just stick it near to front half the of poer pod and you should be good.  Im using Turning TG9e 9 gram servos.  4 servos without flaps, 6 servos with flaps. and wheels are 3 inch light foamies.

Plans. Cessna 180 Swappable.
Small motor that works well..  9x3.8sf  prop
My favorite ESCs.    Nice to get a tuning card....

     Ok so the build process is not to difficult at all. It takes 3 sheets of foamboard and a half sheet of posterboard.And the landing gear is 1/8 inch rod for the axle and slightly smaller rod for the supports.  The color key will tell you what needs cut or score cut or just a reference line.   So once you got everything cut out we can go to the first step.  


 

First step, on the side pieces of the fuselage you want to remove the paper on the inside surfaces. And have the top fuselage piece ready.


Then glue halfway down one side at a time to make things easy. Use a square to keep things............square lol      Its nice to have the sides lean out a bit, Its better to squeze the sides to the bottom than to try and wedge the bottom between the side pieces.  

 

Should be looking something like this.  You don't need a ton of glue. 

Glue your power pod sleeve together with a B fold. (beside fold)

 

Lookin good.. Time for the gear pan side supports. 

Line the side supports up with the back of the pod sleeve. And step them down 4mm so the belly pan will fit inside the bottom of the fuselage.
 

Now line up the axle reference line with the center line of the landing gear. This is just to reinforce the fuselage for those hard landings..  But remember belly pan fits down inside the fuselage so the bottom sits flush against it.

Now that the reinforcement is done for the landing gear you can put the bottom of the fusealage on.  You want to peel the inside layer of the paper. You can start it flush with the back. I keep the air flow hole at the tail in durring this step to keep anything from crinkling or gettin all wonky.  You can glue the bottom on in halves like you did the top. When you take the paper of the foam board it has a natural curve that almost matches the fuse so its not tough.

Now get formers and also the former supports. 3s and 4s are glued together, doubled up to support the wing.
and the supports are paired up and glued doubled up for the bbq skewers.

 Add  your formers into the holes and add the former supports like in the picture. The bbq skewers that hold the wing on go though the supports. Then get the tail pieces. I bevel the tail surface rather than the control surface.  Then glue the horizontal and vertical stabilizer together then onto the fuselage. Its all keyed for perfect mounting location. Just keep it level with the table as your gluing.. Then add the "tail shims" between the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer and the top of the fuselage. They should slide almost all the way in.. Stiffens everything up.  There are also reference dots on the vertical and horizontal stabilizer to run bbq skewers if you want extra crash protection.. I've folded my horizontal stab in a cartwheel incident and figured I would throw that optional reference marks..

Now glue your #6 formers on. Glue them on that blue line in the center of the tail mounting hole.  Then enjoy a beverage..   And look at your half battleship half plane looking workbench masterpeice.  

Now get the windshield. I add a dab of glue to the center at the top of former 3 and 2. just to line up the windshield straight and just a tiny bit above former 3. Then wrap each side around the formers and glue it down.

Now make a mark on the center line of former 2. This mark is where you want to line up the hood. 

 

Then do the same with the hood, as you did with the windshield. Glue the center of 1 and 2 then work each side down glueing and also scotch tape just as you would a FT plane. 


Then hack like a honey badger at the backside of the windshield.........It was a test lol ..  But yes trim the windshield back flush with former 3 so the top wraps around nice. 

 

Then time to mount the turtle deck.. The plans have to cut lines for the rear turtle deck.  One is left long if you want to get detailed with it? Or just cut it at the first lines and slap it on...  You will want to pre-contour the posterboard or this step will be difficult. roll it. creace it, rub it. whatever. Just so its something like this angry duck looking thing.

Then glue it down the center again.. I slice the turtle deck at the center of the doubled up former 4. Makes it easier to do front and rear sections separate....   I also cut the posterboard hood flush with the rest of the fuselage..

 

Then she comes out looking something like this.  yay!  

Not included in the plans but you can add slices of posterboard to the nose of the fuselage to fill the gap of the powerpod sleeve.  Makes it look nice and I bet it adds to the already impresive sturdiness.

Then take a straight edge and draw out a hole between formers 3 and 4. This is where I pass my aileron/ flap wires and keep my Rx

 

Chop another hole to pass wires to your power pod.

Time for bbq..        Add your skewers into the former supports that are now beneath the posterboard. Use the photo for reference?   
 

 Here you can see the skewers in the Power Pod..  One in front goes under the pod. The rear skewer goes through the pod..

 Better view of the under side to see the skewer supporting the underside of the power pod.. This is a trick I do with all my powerpods.  The 2 though the top of the motor plate didnt hold up to my rowdy flying style. I crash from time to time.. Try it out.    Also The powerpod depth all depends on your motor setup.. I keep the prop about 3/4" from the fuselage.  

Got wings? good.  do what you would do with FT planes. Double bevel. run skewers down score cuts. Test fold it to get things smooshed right.

 

Cut holes for servo wires.  Typical stuff...... Add your wing spar, then the wing shims about a 1/4 inch from the edge. Then glue it together like you would a spitfire wing for example. Front half then back half.  Easy peasy.

 

Glue the seam on the leading edge of the wing

 

Then get out your dihedral gauge.... Tape roll..  I didnt use any math here. haha

 

Then add your servos and servo horns..     If your wickedbad builder status you wont use Ez adjusters on your pushrods ;)        Like Josh Bixler.... Im cheap.   6 adjusters is worth more than the airframe itself lol.     
 

Tail servos go in like this here...        (because of constant improvments, actual product may vary slightly from photo)    :)

Bend some steel into the landing gear. The prints show you the shape of these. Get some grips, and a torch and this becomes stupid easy to do.  Or use what you got.  Got a crack in your garage floor? Vice!   be creative.

So here you can see how things go down.pun ..  3 lines. center axle and 2 lines for the axle supports. Basic but super effective 

 

Another angle to see how to put it all together..  The Zip-ties loop through each other and aroud the side supports.  If you need to see it I learned the method in the Storch video. works good.  When you crash you just tweak it a bit and break a zip tie. Nothing that I couldn't fix bare handed, and with a zip-tie or two.. Whats pictured here is a gear thats on its 3rd plane. Rugged.

 

Close up to see how the 2 halves line up during the build.. Smear the glue nice and thick, over laping everything. Keeps its strong as nails.

And then bam.....  You got your self a Cessna.        The CG of this airframe is the wing spar.  Being slightly nose heavy is never a bad thing..    
 

Some Beauty shots...

Well thats the build..   I hope lots of people are interested in builing this plane. Its been a fun learning process.  It was a goal of mine to make this available to all because I know thousands of people are proud owners, and even more have taken their first flights in a high wing Cessna just like this one. After all it is the most produced plane EVER! I know if I go outside right now I can either hear one or see one. Night or day.   I would love to see how other people outfit their planes.. I aim to paint this one used in the build, like an old Army serveillance aircraft.  I'm thinking I should get this in the forums also. Probably the best way to get feedback and see other builds.    Hope to see some at Flite Fest 15!     See ya there........

         Also if you would like to make a small donation for all my efforts you could meet me at Flight Fest 2015, at the Fury Cafe' and buy me a few of Ms. Fury's phenomenal pulled chicken sandwiches!!   Bomb.      

Dont ya hate when people put crucial info at the end.? hahahaha