Rejuvinate a weary FT Flyer!

by alibopo | October 11, 2013 | (0) Posted in Tips

Rejuvenating a weary FT Flyer

This plane is brilliant! In stronger winds I stick on a heavier battery and drive it harder – in light winds it carries almost any size of battery and ghosts around in high-alpha mode. With that versatility it gets a lot of use, and plenty of abuse too.

Wingtip repairs...

 ...nose repairs....

...tail repairs etc. etc. etc.  My Flyer is an airborne advert for packing tape and hot glue - but it still keeps flying!

Then one day it went kind of 'mooshy' and unresponsive in the air. The reason - the centre wing join had gone floppy. FYI - this plane does not fly well as an ornithopter, and without the dihedral it's got almost zero stability.

Time for a new wing? NOT when there’s a hot glue gun around!

First I removed the power pod and did the obvious repair, cutting open as much of the centre wing join as I could, refilling it with glue and resetting the dihedral. But without removing the tail section I couldn’t repair the whole join - time for a bit of reinforcement.

I used two rectangles of foamboard roughly 100 x 80 mm (4" x 3") and deeply bevelled the two opposite sides that will lay against the wing. One rectangle goes at the front...

...the other at the back, just behind the servos. The deep bevel gives lots of contact area to get a strong join. When glued down these new pads help ‘set’ and reinforce the dihedral.

I did a test fit, positioning them over the centreline, and measured the gap underneath.  I then made up a small vertical stabilising element to be glued on the centreline. OK, I got it a bit wrong at the front here, but it still does the job.

...and back (much neater). This prevents the centre of the new pad from flexing or getting kinked from careless handling or a crash. This addition also makes the whole assembly incredibly stiff – which is a good thing.

You'll also note the new zip-tie eyes for the control rods and the creative bending of the rods to get them to the control horns.

When I was positioning the front pad I intended cutting off the excess - following the leading edge of the wing. Instead, because the foam was bevelled and easy to bend, I rolled it over and stuck it down under the wing.

As you can see this produced an extremely strong and attractive finish. Which I'll admit looks better than most of the rest of the plane.... :)

Another mod was the triangular wedge behind the front panel. I cut this to fit, and then bevelled the two rear edges. This glued down to produce a neat finish. It does add a little strength, but mostly it’s just for show.

You might also spot that I shaped the front of the wing so that it didn't come to a point, but curved it forward and made a flat edge for the swappable pod to rest against.

End result -  the FT flyer is back to flying the way it should.

NOTE - you don't have to wait until the wing goes floppy before applying this mod! If you check out the original FT Flyer in the link below you'll spot it used to have carbon fibre rods doing much the same job as these foam pads.

Happy flying, Alibopo.

COMMENTS

johanjonker on October 12, 2013
I make a new wing in less than 15min, so a repair for me should be less than 10min work and almost as light as a new wing.
Honestly the ft flyer makes for a wonderfull starter plane cause rebuilding one takes no time at all.

Its great youre enjoying yours so much, and by the sounds of things, Bixler is making a FT trainer, and even though I am 100% sure it will fly 50x better, there is no way it will beat the time building it, when compared to the FT flyer.
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alibopo on October 12, 2013
Hi johanjonker - of course there's that approach, but I definitely get a great deal of obstinate pleasure from resurrecting the half-dead :) I also get a certain pleasure in flying models that have a bit of history and character - but sure, if they're gone - they're gone. Not wanting to get too deep - but each model becomes a history of successes and failures, and for me keeping each model in the air is a learning opportunity - and a challenge to my ingenuity. Plus I hate waste, and this fix required a squirt of hot glue and a few offcuts of foamboard - that counts as a score for me. Also, I now have an improved stronger more durable design. Don't get me wrong I do value your comment and there's probably different camps regarding rebuild from scratch or repair, so it's perfectly valid - but I feel it's worth sharing my perspective. Cheers, Alibopo.
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Fly'n-V on October 12, 2013
Thanks for the tip Ailbopo!!! The FT Flyer was my first scratch build foamy...much quicker to build than the old balsa stick models I grew up with. Much less painful to wreck! Little hot glue, tape and foam scraps...good as new and as you said...with a bit of character! Cheers, Sr12
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lostcity on October 13, 2013
I like the idea of butting the wing up against the swappable pod. I think it will be a bit stronger.
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alibopo on October 13, 2013
Thanks :) Yep, it seemed an obvious mod. I did it when I first built the Flyer - I just sketched-on an extra little curve and cut to that line. And when I later wiped-out the nose I did it again with the replacement section I stuck onto the front of the wing. You can see it in the pictures of the underside of the nose. The join is about an inch back from the front.
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Bellows on October 14, 2013
Hi, It was fun to see your mods and to know someone else is crashing as much as I do. I have been rebuilding my Nutball in many of the same ways. There are more bamboo skewers and gift cards in it than I can even remember.I am going to build a new one (rainy today) but I am not done crashing this one yet. One helpful mod I did was to glue a gift card on top of the wing right behind the power pod Then a rubber band across it and down through the wing to the skewers that hold the landing gear makes a very durable stiff easily removeable wing that had turned quite floppy. Happy flying, LooseBruce
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Driveandairsmash on October 14, 2013
Lol this reminds me of my first plane ever! The f-22 that rcgroups made was my first plane! the first one I had got so floppy and bad that I would pull all the way up to get it to fly straight! Taht did not last very long. Good job on the repairs I hope that it keep you flying.

Keep chuggin along,
Driveandairsmash
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Rejuvinate a weary FT Flyer!