Intro

The FliteTest mission statement (dare I call it that?) ‘To create memories with friends and family’ was the inspiration for, and highlight of, what turned out to be a fantastic vacation project. 

The first half of this article is written to share the experience my father and I had building and flying a FT Storch.  I’ve provided some background on where our love for aviation comes from, then the Storch story and how the project transformed our ten days of summer vacation time. 

In the second half I’ve gathered together the build tips that I gleaned from the forums, other tips that we discovered ourselves, and I discuss what we learned about using buddy boxes for training. 

Part 1: 2016 Family Vacation

As I built my first couple of foamboard airplanes, Josh Bixler’s positive message about creating memories with family – specifically his father - had been rattling around in the back of my head.  But I’d been thinking of how fun it would have been to do this with my boys.  Then it slowly began to dawn on me that I had a chance to do exactly what Josh was talking about, but with my father, at our family’s 4^th of July vacation.  My boys are grown and would not be attending, but My Dad and a bunch of other relatives would be there. 

A Little Background

I grew up with a passion for airplanes that I inherited from my father.  Some of my earliest memories are of Dad flying a control-line biplane in the front yard of the farmhouse.  Mom had to keep my brother and me from wandering into the flying circle.  Other early memories were of a 1961 Carl Goldberg Viking free-flight airplane. I remember he and his brother flying it over the alfalfa fields and I learned how to search cornfields to find where it had landed.  They also lofted towline gliders using a couple hundred feet of line, a fishing pole, and a lot of running. 

Free Flight:                 Viking

Free Flight:  Towline Glider

I was receiving toy airplanes for Christmas and I remember trying to mimic Dad by cobbling together an airplane body from scrap balsa, an electric motor scrounged out of some other toy, C-cell batteries, a propeller, and parts from other wind-up rubberband stick flyers.  I guess I caught the bug at about 3 or 4 years of age. 

Before I was ten I had built my first balsa and silkspan control line airplane.  I didn’t know at that time that it was a combat wing, and flying it was way beyond my abilities (it never flew), but it had been fun to build.

When I was in kindergarten, Dad obtained his private pilot’s license and one day a Taylorcraft landed on the farm.  It was thereafter kept in a pole shed.  He flew it from a sod strip that ran through the corn and alfalfa fields.  He used to buzz the farm and toss out my toy paratrooper, until one day it’s chute was caught and shredded on the tail.

Taylorcraft

When I was about nine Dad upgraded to a 4-place Piper Tri-Pacer and the family was able to start making trips together.  I also began to pay more attention and began learning how to fly in the Tri-Pacer.  With his support and encouragement I soloed soon after my 16^th birthday.  As part of the training requirements for a private license, I flew the cross-country triangle by visiting both sets of grandparents and landing just long enough to phone and report in.  I wound up behind schedule and returning late, which had everyone at home concerned but they finally got me on the radio and I landed safely.

Piper Tri-Pacer

During those years I was also into building all kinds of flying models; control-line, free-flight, rubber band, tissue and balsa, plastic war birds for display, and launching model rockets.  I used to get an occasional RC magazine and dream about building and flying one.

A couple of my rockets in a club display

As the family grew (in weight) we gradually outgrew the load capacity of the Tri-Pacer. Dad then purchased his last plane, a Cherokee 180. 

Cherokee 180

I came close to getting my private pilot’s license, with just night flying training left to do, but when I went off to college I let it all slip away.  Back then I couldn’t see how to support the cost of a flying hobby. 

Back In The Day

Late in my college years I got into RC with the help of a friend and fellow student that I met in the courtyard of our dormitory.  I saw him moving in to the building for the summer session and I just had to meet him when I saw a couple RC airplanes were moving in with him.  It was the 1980’s and we built balsa and Monocote-covered planes from kits.  Mine were 60-size glow powered trainers that flew and crashed on 72Mhz (there was a lot of radio interference at the club field).  I see that era is now referred to as “back in the day”. 

I learned early on that it was not a good idea to put a lot of time and effort into making a trainer look pretty. 

SIG Kavalier: First trainer – crashed when I went home to show Dad my RC abilities.

Distinguishing the top from bottom was the most important purpose of adding color.

Sterling Gazariator: second trainer

But it is interesting where life can lead… 22 years later I wound up living in a townhome that was built almost on top of the old RC club’s runway location.  Development had engulfed and overtaken the entire flying field and the old club had moved 15 miles further out of the city.  Turns out that my house was almost on top of one of the crash spots that had been associated with radio hits.  Hmmm…?

Flying Club Field: Back in the day, and now. Looks like the club used to be pretty active.  My place is marked with the red rectangles.

After entering the work force and after a few years of employment, other interests replaced models.  Eventually over the years all my gear and models were sold off.  Dad retired and sold his Cherokee 180. 

We were both leaving our hobbies behind.

Getting Back Into RC

I was surfing Star Wars movie trailers during the winter of 2015 and YouTube offered related videos.  One such video was of a crazy group of talented builders (nerds?) that made a flying Star Destroyer.  The prototype was neat enough, but the upsize to 15 feet was crazy cool.

I consumed quite a few of their videos over the next couple weeks; FliteTest had caught my attention.  Watching was fun, humorous, and uplifting.  I liked their emphasis on a low-cost entry into the hobby, and the positive message of creating memories with family and friends.

When I was then given a micro quadcopter as a gift my interest in RC was rekindled.  Well, actually it started burning up a lot of my time.  FliteTest offered a chance for a retired engineer to keep on creating, building, learning to fly (and crash).  All without the jittery nerves that used to accompany putting $400 worth of airplane, electronics, and a winter’s worth of build time and effort into the air.  Then trying to bring it back down gently in one piece.

I joined a local club for training and the camaraderie.  My FT planes can’t fly as fast as the other club guys who have larger electric and gas-powered planes.  And I drop out in winds over 12mph, which the others can fly through.  But those guys complain A LOT about winds over 10mph anyway, so I don’t feel all that bad about the light weight of my planes.  And I do have the option of going to several close local parks to fly, which the gassers and larger aerobatic/3D planes cannot do.

The guys in the club were right; old flying skills did come back pretty quick.  At least enough so that I was comfortable enough to try teaching them to Dad.

Connecting with Dad

Dad is now in his mid 80’s with two strokes that have taken away some speech and motor skills.  I had recently retired from the work world after a cancer diagnosis that has left me with an unknown but limited horizon.  On past vacations, because of Dad’s disabilities, while the rest of our relatives go out boating, sunning, shopping, dancing and eating, he spent most of his time in the rented unit watching TV.  But his mind is still sharp, and at his home he is still building plastic models of vintage airplanes.  I’m not exactly a bundle of energy either but we connected and had a good time in our own way - sharing an airplane project.

Storch Kit Planning and Preparation

So a couple weeks before the vacation, with Josh’s FliteTest mission statement in mind, I began a scratch build by downloading the FT Storch plans.  After cutting out parts and spraying them yellow I boxed them up with all the required hardware as if they were a kit. 

Tracing parts with a push pin

Dad receiving the “kit” box

Storch Build

That gave us a 4-day project to work on together while our relatives were enjoying their outdoor activities.  We quickly found out that Dad’s grip was not strong enough for the 200W glue gun, so I applied the glue. 

Squeeze!

You would think with 200W that the glue sticks would feed like butter.  Maybe you just get what you pay for at Harbor Freight.

Reinforcing Leading Edge

In the evenings the daily progress provided a brief topic of conversation with the rest of the group.  They were especially curious to know if this cardboard craft would really fly.  (Of course it would!)

Tail Feather Supports

Landing Gear Wires

They were impressed enough when it began to look like a yellow Big Bird with a 4 foot wingspan.  But on the 4^th day it was really impressive after we applied the Swiss Army color scheme and decals.  For finishing we used a combination of red packing tape, and color printer ‘decals’ stuck on with 3M-77.  I think the scale the decals had been printed at was a bit too large but we made do.

Completed Storch

Maiden Flight

And fly it did.  We had to wait a day or two for rain and wind to cooperate but we were able to fly for two sessions before vacation ended.  My son surprised us by driving out for a visit and we had three generations at the field.

Three Generations at the Flying Field

After a successful maiden flight I jumped right into teaching Dad how to fly RC using a buddy box system. 

Maiden Flight

The buddy box presented its own unexpected learning curve as we discovered his transmitter was not able to control the flaperon setup.  I had brought a Y-connector on vacation but it was back at our room.  So for that session Dad settled for taxiing the Storch around the field for a while. 

He was better at taxiing than I was.  I’ve had no experience with tail draggers but his experience with the Taylorcraft seemed to transfer well into RC models.

Buddy Box

No surprise though since none of my other planes have landing gear.  I’ve been hand launching my planes ever since knocking the landing gear off the Old Fogey when I first started relearning to fly.

When I walked out to pick up the Storch I discovered the four rubber bands on the wing had caused the wing to buckle upwards over the hold-down area.  That will be discussed in Part 2.  Since it had been flying in that condition, we thought it would be OK to continue on a new battery.

I put it back up in the air and on climb-out from the takeoff a wheel dropped off due to a glue glob failing to grip the axle.  It looked a bit like a bomb drop – which by the way is a modification I hope to add to the Storch later - like FT’s Breakfast Bomber video.  The Storch’s slow flight capability came in handy and after a slow safe landing the first session was over.

Nose Tip-up After 1-Wheeled Landing (Prop Was OK)

Session #2

At our second session the Storch was configured as a 4-channel with normal ailerons.  But we still fought with the buddy boxes having different trim settings and control throw ranges.  That is discussed further in Part 2: Lessons Learned below. 

Dad could not speak while flying to tell me about any problems he was having with his transmitter, so we had to feel our way through each flight and debrief after the Storch was safely back down. 

A collection of Video Clips of Flying the Storch with Buddy Boxes

(Sorry they were shot in vertical format.  I zoomed some sections while editing to get a better view of the Storch and those are full size.)

Our wives, a girlfriend, and some of the relatives all came out to see the Storch fly so we had our own cheering section and support group.  They were all impressed that foamboard could be made into such a good-looking model that also flew well.

Dad was able to eventually get a few straight and level passes before we packed it in.

And a Good Time Was Had By All

Personally I achieved two goals on the family vacation this year;

1) building a model with my Dad

2) flying with Dad. 

We spent a couple hours on each of four days building the Storch together.  The build kept us entertained, sharing ideas, solving problems, and resulted in a great looking plane that we were able to go out and fly together.  I think this year’s vacation will be a lasting memory for both of us. 

It was just frosting on the cake that the Storch is still in one piece.  We left the flying field that last day with big smiles on our faces. 

As we drove away from the field Dad turned to me and said; “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Part 2: Storch Build Comments & Lessons Learned

Before building one of FT’s airplanes I’ve developed a habit of scouring the forum for community tips.  Presented here are some of those modifications, my own observations, and some lessons learned from our Storch build and the maiden flight.  This link is the main build thread that I reviewed, although there are a lot more threads and some articles out there.

(Relatively) Low Cost

I have been curious for awhile what the ‘real’ cost of a scratch built FliteTest airplane was.  So I performed a detailed calculation for our the Storch build. 

It was $25.20(US) for all the materials used!  Foamboard, tape, glue, little wood bits, etc.

The C Power Pack package, Rx, servos, and a few other pieces of hardware that could be salvaged and used on another airplane if the Storch were to be totaled in a crash, add another $64 for a total of $90.

Plan on another $100 for transmitter, battery charger, and a couple batteries if you don’t have them.

So we built a great flying model for about $90.  Not a bad cost at our stage of life but that still might involve a bit of saving at first for the younger folk.  There is also an investment in tools needed too, if they aren’t already sitting around the house. 

So it was not quite as cheap as “an airplane at $4 for four sheets of foam board”.  But saying that in the FT videos is a great hook to get people interested.

Wing Score Cuts

I think we should have made those wing score cuts that are forward of the spar a bit wider or deeper so that the front of the airfoil didn’t turn out so stiff.  After folding and gluing, the leading edge of the wing was being pulled upwards by the top section of the airfoil.  That made the wing’s cross-section more symmetrical, rather than flat on the bottom.

That then led to modifying the mating of the wing to the fuselage by adding a piece of foam to support the leading edge of the wing.  The foam rectangle can be seen as the white block in the Wing Saddle section below. 

I suspect that the bending may also have changed the wing’s angle of incidence.  The saddle area may need some rework to raise the trailing edge.  This is not a design defect – it is because of our wing score cuts.

Due to the score cut issue I don’t think the top of the wing had the intended amount of curvature and therefore the width of the wing was wider than it should be.  I suspect this because the location of the rubber band tie-down skewer wound up underneath the trailing edge rather than behind it.  This led to a structural failure of the wing root during the maiden flight.

The force of four rubber bands squeezed the rear portion of the wing upwards and forward.  The top foam surface bent just behind the trailing edge spacer strip – in the area that is only one thickness of foamboard. 

We still were able to fly the Storch while we were at the field, but it needed repairs.  I later straightened and reinforced the bent wing section with popsicle sticks on the top and bottom of that foam section and moved the hold-down skewer behind the rear edge of the wing.

Repaired wing-failure - Note the crease where it was bent by 4 rubber bands  

Moved skewer – Old location was clipped and hidden with black Sharpie

Protect the Wing from Rubber Bands

We glued popsicle sticks across both the front and back edge of the wing joint to spread out the load of the rubber bands.

Wing Spar Joint

Our paint stick spars in the assembled wing did not meet up after adding dihedral and hot glue as a gap filler didn’t seem very strong.  So we added two popsicle sticks to span across the spars at the wing joint.  Each stick bent a little bit to match the dihedral angle and then one was threaded into the opening (without glue). It was  then slid aside.  Glue was then applied to the paint stick where the popsicle was going and the stick slid into place on top of the glue.

Wing spar installation sequence:

1. Bare stick slid in then slid over to lower right. 

2. Glue added on the upper left area, then stick slid over glue into place. 

3. Repeated for 2^nd stick in the lower right location. 

Wing Saddle

The forums mentioned that the wing might rock in the hold-down area due to its dihedral joint resting on a flat surface.  Two popsicle sticks provided a good seat.

Wing saddle sticks

Elevator Weakness

The forums mentioned problems with the elevator bending at the thin area where it crosses through the fin.  In the build video Josh talked about strengthening this, but never actually did. So we made the thin foam elevator area a little wider and glued a popsicle stick across the weak area.  It was covered with colored tape as camouflage.  The window through the fin was enlarged and the top edge of the window notched for the stick to clear.  There are also other tips in the forums that show strengthening this area using embedded skewers or wire.  Pick a method.

Strengthened Elevator 

Tailskid

The forums noted the tailskid could be a problem area that either weakened over time, or the bamboo broke many times.  We replaced the skid during the build with a paint stick that was recessed into the rudder’s foam and extends up to the bottom surface of the stabilizer.  The vertical installation looks a little odd.  It works well but could have been angled back a bit.  I no longer possess the tools to do a lot of wood shaping.

Paint Stick Tailskid

Landing Gear

The Storch’s gear in the build video is made from 4 pieces of wire.  I don’t know if it was designed that way to make it easier for you to mirror them side-to-side, or so that the wire segments would fit within the FliteTest shipping boxes.  Dad suggested making the bottom supporting wires, and the top wires that become the axles, each out of one long piece.  I liked that idea since it eliminated the joining of the halves on the fuselage that could later become a weak point. 

The lengths of each bend segment are given in the FT build video and from those I made 1:1 pencil sketches of the complete gear.  Since I couldn’t physically mirror parts side-to-side, a sketch was necessary to check bend angles and make the sides similar. 

The gear turned out great and has held up well (although that is only two sessions worth of data).  The landings were also much gentler than those I made while learning.

Checking angles of one-piece LG wire against sketch with last bends yet to be made

Landing Gear Specs

Dimensions are in inches.  You all know how to put up with American attitudes and make your own metric conversions. 

Not sure what the various LG wires are called, so I’ll call them the Bottom Support wire and I’ll call the upper lading gear arms the Axle wire.

The forum stated that the size of 4-piece wires from the FT kit: Ø 0.90" (ASW 32 gage) x 15.5" long.  Total length if you make them using only 2 wires: 31” each.

I marked the center of each 31” wire and started bending from the center out, creating the same bends on each side.

Bottom Support Wire

Dimensions are described working around the Support wire from the Front Fuse attachment plate to the Rear Fuse attachment plate.  From the center point of the wire, the first bends to create the Width of Front Fuse attachment plate is 1-1/4” in each direction (or whatever fits the width of your fuselage).

Repeat the following bends for each side of the bottom support wire:

The next segment from the fuse to the wheel is 6”. 

Those 3 segments should all lie flat.

The segment after that from the wheel to the Rear plate is 7”. 

Looking at the support wire from the front of the model, the spread from wheel-to-wheel is 11”.

The last bend segment fits all the way across the Rear plate is 2-1/2”.

The spread between the front plate segment and the rear plate is 3-1/2”.

I made the rear plate segments each 2-1/2” so that they would lie side-by-side across the fuse. 

If using shrink wrap as described in another section below, slip it on before doing the Zip Ties.

Zip tie the segments together.  The channel through the foam had to be widened.

Overlapping Rear Plate segments with Zip Ties (Sorry – out of focus)

Axel Wire

From the center point of the wire, the first bends to create the width across the Top Fuse attachment plate is half your fuselage width, or again 1-1/4” in each direction.

The next bend for the axle is roughly 10-3/4”, but this should be actually be marked by assembling your LG to the fuse and marking the bends against your Support wire.

The axles are parallel to the top segment.

The entire axel wire either should lie flat, or the axels may be bent to give a little toe-in as viewed from the top of the model.

Trim axels to size to fit your wheels.

Landing Gear Fuselage Reinforcement

We added two paint stick sections each 4 or 5 inches long to the inside fuselage walls just above both of the LG wood pieces on the bottom of the fuselage.  Their edges touch the LG wood pieces and hopefully provide extra support.

Landing Gear (In)Flexibility

The LG wires are secured together behind each wheel with hot glue and two zip ties.  Bayboos had an article "Perfect trainer: FT Simple Storch LIGHT" that said for LG assembled this way as per build video; “This landing gear does not even have a chance to flex and dampen the load.  All you need to do to make flexible gear is to put a sleeve on the upper landing gear arm to prevent the zip-ties/glue from gripping on the central arm. This will allow slight movement of the central arm without having it separate from the rest of landing gear construction.”

“Use oversized shrink tube on the central arm (to allow free movement) and tight fitting shrink tubes on the other two arms (to improve glue grip).”

I have no data to show that this works, but it sounded good to me so was included in our build.

Loose Shrink Tubing sleeve for flexibility on Axel wire.  Tight tubing on Support wire for Zip Ties to grip.

Securing the Battery

Our Storch was built as a trainer so I added a hold-down skewer to make it harder to eject the battery from its Velcro on rough landings.

Battery Hold-Down Skewer

Just visible at the bottom of the photo above is a second Power Pod skewer passing through the front of the pod.  I have adopted this mod on every swappable model.  My experience has been that a few nose hard landings will tear up the two skewers at the front of the pod that the firewall hangs from.  The single layer of paper above or below them is not enough.  I still use them though because they help to align the firewall and pod.

Buddy Box

I wish that I had known much more about buddy boxing before ever trying it out ‘live’ with Dad and assuming it would work.  Test your buddy box setup before ever leaving the workbench. 

I used my OrangeRx T-Six transmitter as the master and a Spektrum DX4e as the slave.  Our Storch was originally configured (in the T-Six) with flaperons which is really a 5-channel setup.  I made an erroneous assumption that buddy boxing would use my TX settings, trims, and mixes; and when the trainer switch was pressed to pass control to the DX4e it would just electronically substitute the slave’s sticks for my sticks on the information stream going to the receiver. 

But alas it didn’t work that way.  Our first time out at the field I discovered that the slave TX could not make both ailerons work with the flaperon setup.  Only one aileron would move.  Luckily, I had a brought a servo Y-connector for a standard aileron setup, but that was somewhere back at our room.  Without being able to control the left aileron, Dad settled for practicing taxiing the Storch back-and-forth on the ground.

Taxiing on Buddy Box

The next day at the field with a standard aileron setup I thought I had the buddy system functioning correctly.  Dad had all 4 channels working and surfaces responding in the correct “High Five” movements. 

But I had forgotten to check for differences in trim settings.  It should work that when switching from master TX to slave none of the surfaces move.  If some do move, then your trim settings don’t match and the plane does something weird – usually towards the ground! 

In our case besides different trim settings, Dad also had almost no “up” movement of the elevator.  Because of our miss-matched trims, every time I passed control to him, the Storch began a moderate dive - and then he didn’t have enough up elevator movement to pull out.  This was demonstrated by a spectacular dive or two in the flying video.

After adjusting TX’s for similar trim points, now every time I passed control to him the plane began a gradual left turn that took it further and further away from us.  Turned out dad had unknowingly bumped the rudder trim tab all the way left.  So it might also be a good idea to recheck your surfaces before each flight.

After noodling through all this I thought of another tip.  It might be a good idea to try flying the slave TX yourself.  Your student would have to hold the slave next to the master TX so you can fly from either set of sticks.  Or bind the slave to your Rx and fly the slave.  I never did this, but if I had, then this simple step would have made it much easier for Dad.  His slave TX would then have had the final trim tweaks necessary to achieve level flight.

I’m just guessing at the above steps for successful buddy box setup.  I think “How To Setup And Test A Buddy Box System” would be a helpful FliteTest video.  Perhaps as an update to Transmitters in the RC Beginners Series or add a link to an article.

A little after-the-fact search only turned up one section of an article at FliteTest:  Look under “TIME TO GET FLYING” near the end of the article.

Wrap Up

For two old guys who each were heavy into model airplanes when they were young, the FT Storch was a great design to share building and flying together. 

We made some discoveries and made a few modifications:

• $25.20 for a completed Storch airframe took the fear out of flying.
• Creating an unwanted curve in the airfoil by not relieving the top airfoil curvature with wide and deep enough score cuts.
• Spreading the wing’s rubber band load with popsicle sticks on the leading and trailing edges.
• Strengthening the wing spar joint with two popsicle sticks.
• Creating a saddle for the wing’s dihedral joint with popsicle sticks.
• Beefed up the thin section of the elevator with yet another popsicle stick.
• Replaced the tailskid with a sturdier piece of paint stick.
• Bending the landing gear from only two pieces of wire.
• Supported the bottom LG inside the fuselage with paint sticks along the side walls.
• Letting the gear flex by adding shrink tubing to the bends behind the axles.
• Using a battery hold-down skewer to help Velcro keep its grip.
• Adding another Power Pod skewer at the font of the pod.
• We fought our way up the buddy box technology learning curve.

I wish to thank all the crew at FliteTest for making radio control modeling accessible and entertaining.  The information and videos on your website are fantastic. I especially appreciate your emphasis on creating memories with family, which inspired me to build and fly again with Dad.  He is looking forward to flying with my assistance at a local park the next time I come to visit.

He has asked me not to “bend” the Storch before then.