Jerry Bates Yak3
 

many moons ago I bought a Bates Yak3 and had it shipped her from a fellow in BC (who did a great job building a crate for shipping) and installed a 2.4 radio in it.

The plane was well built and looked quite scale (but was a bit of a tank!) and flew ok, but sufferes from its heavy wieght and aleron flutter....long story short, a dead stick landing left it about 6 feet short of the runway and pranged it :(

Now after a bit of thinking I diecided to build a new air frame rather than fix an all ready too heavy plane, and see if I could lighten it up a bit. I bought a set of Bates plans, and got Bob Holman to cut me a short kit with his lazer (great job btw), and got started here the other day.

One of the reasons the Yak I had was so heavy was the builder went off the plans and changed a lot of the design (removable tail, two piece wings and such) to make the plane more travel friendly, but added weight, and the scale details (the paint and pannel lines were expertly done) also tipped the scales a little farther, so I plan to stay a little closer to the Bates plan and keep it as light as possibal.

Lucky for me the landing gear (Century retracts) survived the off field landing well and I can re-cycle (no pun) them, along with most of the radio gear (I plan on upgrading most servos etc), and the G62 ran ok, but I might just use a different motor (ZDZ60??).

So here we go, this will be a long project, so updates may be a long time coming, but as I go I'll try to update and look forward to your comments....even the flamers.....:)

Bill

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

so above you see the plane I bought from BC, and put a few flights on it, befor it got bent, and here are a few pics of the new plane (some assembly reqired!)


One of the scale details that will not be finding it's way into my build will be the scale exhaust, I tryed to fly with the scale exhaust and a 3 blade prop but the G62 couldn't deliver the power needed to fly swinging that many blades and strangled by the exhaust, so the fumes from the motor will be dumped out the bottom, but not quite as ugly as Mikecam's P51 (sheesh)

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

sure hope I am using the right plans....looks a little like a Kadet Sr. to me....

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

Interesting construction technique. I've never looked at Bates plans before. So I assume the formers are glued to the outside of the rectangular framework? Is the entire fuse then sheeted?

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

Thats the plan, there's a great build thread on RCSCALEBUILDER.com, Capt Dave did, I have no illusions of building as well as he does, but hopefully I'll have a plane that flys well....

had to come up with a way to steer the tail wheel without having a lot of pushrods or pull-pull pullys and such, so here's what I came up with.

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

Still having fun....fingers are covered in CA, shop is a mess....what could be better :)

few mor pic's of the progress.....

Bill

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

Looking forward to seeing Yak 3 2.0 in the air!!!!!! GMF 2014 warbird scramble!!!!!

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

got a bit more done Saturday, there is now a firewall and a compartment for the fuel tank and the air tanks.

Today has turned into a cleaning day, but hope to get a little more time in on the Yak tonight.

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

work continues, I thought I had better see if I could remove the canopy from my old airframe, let me tell you, that was a well built plane! (Heavy but well built) I did manage to remove the canopy, and the rails without destrying them, so they will be trans-planted into my new airframe.

and got a few more bits glued together.

Bill

Re: Jerry Bates Yak3
 

Very nice work on the steerable tail wheel!! Simple and it should last a long time without any maintenance issues.