[Tyler P]

Hi Guys! As some may have heard, my 50cc Wild Hare Sukhoi has finally hit the turf for the last time! During a descending knife-edge maneuver I took it down too low and the engine burbled. I was too low and airspeed was too slow to recover properly so in it went! It was pretty spectacular and the fuselage came home in a garbage bag! One wing survived completely, the other is repairable and the stabs and rudder survived. If anyone still has one of these planes and wants some spares, send me a PM!

Anyhow, on to the new plane! I purchased the EG Aircraft 50cc Slick 540 from Great Hobbies in the red and white scheme (looks like a Patty Wagstaff Extra) and have begun the assembly!

First off, I'm very impressed by the hardware that came included in the box! All large titanium turnbuckles with large heavy duty ball links, carbon wing and stab tubes, beautiful one-piece carbon fiber main and tail gear and a very nice carbon fiber spinner! It also comes with long aluminum servo arms that bolt to a disc servo arm. More about those later.

As with any ARF, I had to spend a bit of time with the covering iron to tighten it up. Spent about half and hour going over the entire plane, so that's not really too bad.

Long story longer, the plane is nearly in flying condition with all the surfaces already setup, cowl cut for the motor and exhaust clearance holes. Basically, all I have to do is plumb the lines to motor and figure out where I'll put the batteries and receiver for balancing. Just waiting on a new back half of my DA50, as one of my mounting tabs cracked. It ships today or tomorrow and should be here pretty quick.

I'll go into a bit more detail later but here are some pics of it out of the box.

[Bdegan]

Hey Tyler,
That looks good. Can't wait to see it all done.
I have been eyeing the 3D hobbyshop AJ slick in a 50cc size for giggles



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[Bdegan]

Hey..... Where is the cowl ????



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[Tyler P]

I was wondering if anyone would notice that. When I was taking the pictures I had forgotten to take it out of the box! It's there and will appear in pictures once I get everything cleaned up. It's all covered in fiberglass dust from all the cutting.

From the look of the design, the Slick should fly extremely nice. Doesn't look like it will have much coupling, which will be nice after flying a plane that was constantly on the verge of a snap! I'm looking forward to it!

With the first of two Ottawa IMAC contests rolling up quick I figured I'd better get something in the air for practice just in case I don't get the time to finish the Yak. I'll be working on the Yak tonight.

[wingburner]

Looks great Tyler.

Do you think the ARF is as good as or better than AW?

[Tyler P]

I'd say they're pretty darn close. This one is built really well from what I can tell and it feels really light in comparison to my Wild Hare, which was a slightly smaller plane than this one.

The build design seems really well thought out and most of the hardware is outstanding! There are a few areas in the hardware area that they should look at upgrading but about 90% of it is excellent!

The fit and finish of everything seems really nice, too. Colours match well on the painted stuff vs. the covered stuff. The covering isn't perfect but then I'm used to seeing all these fantastic BBT builds!

The CF stuff is really nice, too. The main gear is just awesome! Super stiff and light and I know it can take a beating from seeing another set get ripped out on someone else's 100cc version. Not a scratch or crack anywhere on the gear in that incident.

[Tyler P]

Here's some pics of the plane more or less completed. I tried to focus in on some key areas to give you guys a good idea of the build quality.

[Tyler P]

And some more:

[Tyler P]

Two more:





All in all, I'm very happy with it so far. The build was pretty easy. The only "building" that had to be done was the hinging of the rudder and installing the composite control horns into the surfaces. I also had to install my own pilot (which I took from my Sukhoi) but it does come with a sticker set for the dash panel.

One area of concern that I mentioned before was some of the hardware. If you choose to use the servo arms they supply you should upgrade the attachment hardware to Du-Bro 2-56 cap heads and ny-lock nuts. The screws that come with it are cheap quality and the nuts aren't locking. The servo arm mounts to a disk-type servo horn using 4 small bolts and nuts, hence the upgrade. Dave Rees had one of his elevator horns fail in flight on his 100cc Yak 55M-SP while using the stock ones and it looks like they probably just fell out. I also chose to CA my arms to the horns before installing the better hardware. They should never fail now. I only used the arms on the elevators because you need the extra clearance with the servo inside the stab.

There are a couple other areas where they chose to use philips-head bolts. I'm not a fan of them but I used them anyway. I may choose to change them for hex bolts later just because I prefer using that type of fastener.

Other than those small areas of concern this is a sweet plane! Can't wait to maiden it!

[TBrum]

The design of the fuse looks great!!!! It looks very similar to an AeroWorks design... Are they made in the same factory????

Please post some full shots of it all set-up when you get a chance!!!!... I like the scheme!!

Cheers

Trevor