AMR GiantStick - Fuse Complete

The major components are now all assembled and the turtle deck is sheeted up. As you can see the backyard has suffered at the hands of aeroplane construction.


Here's the Giant Stick compared to my TMRC Pawnee still underconstruction. I can reassure you that the AMR kit is much, much, much easier and straight forward construction than the Pawnee. Did I mention it's easier?

Time to clean up the bench to assemble the stab, fin, elevators and rudder.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse top plate

Unfortunately preping for adhearing the top plate has shown up what appears to be an error with the parts.

At the read of the part instead of a tab on one side there is a recess as you can see in this pic.

If you put oneside up against a straight edge you can see all the tabs line up and the edge is parrallel.

When you flip the part over you can see where the tab should be there is a recess, and the edge of the part is not parrallel.

It's only one part, and really is fairly easy to repair by cutting the edge parrallel again. I'd say that there was just an error when the CAD drawings were done, or when they were transferred for CNC consumption.

No matter, we'll fix it up and send AMR a note.

Meanwhile, I've attached the rear top fuse stringers, the wing mounting blocks, fuse reinforcement and hatch lid.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse assembly continued

One thing I forgot to mention in last night's post, was to make sure that you orientate f7 the correct way. Not upside down as I have done. doh!



Now, before you start dry fitting your fuse sides, get the conical attachment on the dremel and remove any epoxy that has leaked around the edges of your laminated fuse sides. This not only makes for a better and stronger fitting structure but also makes attaching the sides much MUCH easier as everything just sits there in place.

Now that we have nice fitting fuse side, it's time to epoxy up one side to the fuse. This is a simple and straight forward process, but make sure that you have plenty of clamps around to ensure a tight fit.

There's a slight error in the manual that I got with my kit, in that FF6 is in the manual to be fitted after you have added both sides of the fuse. Don't do that! You need to put FF6 in place now with one of the sides still not attached. The reason being is that the ends of FF6 go through F8 and therefore once the sides have been attached you cannot physically fit the part through and you will have to detach one of the sides as I had to.

Now you can fit up the other fuse side, don't forget to fit up the radio tray and the former between F2 and F3 at the same time, makes for a much easier construction.

AMR GiantStick - Fuse assembly and formers

I've done the doubling on the fuse bottom and sides, and have laminated all the parts for the fuse that need to be laminated.

Today we attached the fuse formers, and undercarriage mounting assembly. The later fits together and self-aligns for the most part. Very strong assembly.

Everything slots into each other, it's really more like doing a giant 3d jigsaw puzzle than a traditional kit.

Once the formers are glued some 3/8" stock is glued to the base as you can see in the photo, it's just like all those FunFly 40's we build when I was a teenager.

AMR GiantStick - Joning fuse components and laminating parts

All the ply laser cutting is excellent, as you would expect from a modern kit. The timber is good quality overall, a few parts where a bit dodgy with the odd knot here and there, but nothing drastic.

One thing I did find ingenious, (having attempted importation of kits from overseas before) was that the guys at AMR have cut the fuse into 1/3 and 2/3 section to keep the box a reasonable size for postage. You can see in the lower part of this photo the bottom of the fuse and the finger join that has been cut into the front and rear peices. It's now a matter of joining the parts together then laying the fuse doubler (top left of frame) over the join. Very clever!


All the ply parts are cut from the same thickness material, which makes for efficient use of material I guess, which means there's lots of laminating to be done for the formers and other parts. I did read somewhere that laminated parts are stronger than the plain timber weight for weight, but I don't think that means anything for ply parts. In any case, it's no drama, just epoxy the parts together and go for it.

I like to laminate all the parts together before I start assembling the airframe so that I'm no held up in assembly waiting for parts to laminate.

The picture below shows the fuselage bottom and the firewall at the front.

AMR GiantStick - The Box

Here's the contents of the box, seems to be a very complete kit. All sheeting, and other stock required for the kit is included in the box, which means no more trips to the hobby shop! Wheels, hinges, control horns appear to be complete and included.


The manual is included, and spiral bound, good idea, makes it easy to leave on the building bench. The landing gear struts included are about 8mm thick aluminium, I'm not sure if the AMR guys were planning on carrier landings for this thing, but it sure is sturdy!

Santa has visited!

I have been very slack updating this with the project status's. Fortunately having some time off over the christmas break gives me time to get this done.

Santa found me and has delivered a brand spanking new AMR Giant Stick 50 kit. I've started construction and at this stage should have the fuse finished in the next two days or so.

For details checkout the AMR website - http://www.amr-rc.com/

Mike Morton is the local distributer here in Australia, you can get in touch with him via email at - amr.rc.kit@internode.net.au or you can call him on 0429-788-041. Mike's a great bloke, and very helpful, so if you're after a kit give him a bell.

I'll upload some more about the AMR kit once I get the photo's off the camera, but after one night of construction I have preped all the formers, and have started the actual fuse assembly. The quality of this kit is excellent, and all the gear is included, quality of the timber is good, and the price is right costing around the $550 mark for this 50cc-80cc size kit you can't go wrong.

I wanted to get an aircraft that was robust enough for aerotow, and something simple that didn't involve a heap of assembly everytime I flew it, and it had to be slow enough on landing to fit into our field at Thunderbirds. If you have a YouTube for the Giant Stick or checkout the amr website you'll see what I mean about slow landing.

I've built FunFly 40's, and "Ugly Sticks" since I was a teenager, the design is timeless and each generation seems to get something out of this simple design. In fact, I finished the last FunFly last year for my little brother.

This one is just a gigantic version of the same thing, but with flaps, and a big noisy gas engine at the front.

More soon.

Greenly Tug - Evening Three

Did the finishing on the stab and fin, and also shaped the templates for the foam core. I'm trying to figure out how to implement the wing joining system so I can have a two piece wing.

I will cut a tube in the foam core for the main spar, and epoxy a wing joiner tube inside the spar of the inside foam panels to fit a wing joiner. If you have any suggestions send 'em through.

Dalby Fun Fly

Been away for the weekend at Dalby for their fun fly running over Saturday and Sunday. We camped at their field. What an excellent weekend! The crew out there are second to none, lunch and dinner each day was provided, hot showers and clean toilets provided, and the airfield, well, it's safe to say it's the best I've ever flown at.

Attendance was apparently down this year, but it didn't detract from the fun and friendship with everything from large jets and enormous IMAC craft down to tiny electrics flying. The night time limbo was great fun with electric zagi's, and others getting tangled up in the libo line - great fun!

Post some pictures soon, and thanks again to the Dalby Model Aero Club for their hospitality friendship.

Greenly Tug - Evening Two

All major parts for the fuse have been cut out and shaped now, and the end pieces glued onto control surfaces. Will go and pickup some 1/32" ply for the fuse sides tomorrow and get the fuse sides and hopefully joining done over the weekend.

So far the build has been just as expected, no problems, very simple, plans are excellent and detailed enough for even a low experience builder to tackle.

Greenly Tug - Evening One

This is a great little project, very easy to cut and build the parts already have the balsa stringers for the warren truss cut, the stab is complete, fin and rudder are also complete.

Firewall and other formers have been cut and are ready for fitting. Just waiting for the glue to dry and the elevators will be cut and caps for them glued.

Once I get a hold of some 1/32" ply we'll be away with fitting the truss fuselage sides and formers to build both sides, join them and fill in the truss cross-members, mount the fin and stab and we're almost done with the major build on the fuse.

New Project - Greenly Tug

I've decided to put the Pawnee build on ice for a little while due to time constraints. It's taking me too long to remember where I was at with the build each time I get back to it.

So, in the meantime I've decided to build John Greenfield's Greenly tug.

http://scalesoaring.co.uk/TUGS/Plans/TugPlans.html

http://www.ghostsquadron.co.uk/page21.html

It will fit my Zeonah 62cc quite nicely and if the blurb is right on the site it can tow up to 20kg worth of glider.

Now I just need to find a good source of 1/32" ply in Brisbane.....

Aerotow Updates

We had a great weekend just past, spent Sunday afternoon doing aerotow with my newly modified Ugly Stick!

We put some velcro on the nose of a couple of foamy slope gliders that the guys at the club have and aerotowed them up where they pulled back on the stick to "tear away" literally!

Great fun, who knew a weasel could thermal?

New Glider !!! - 1/4 Scale Mosquito

The Hits keep on coming, thanks to good ol' Steve from Melbourne I've aquired a 2nd hand 1/4 scale H-303 Mosquito.

Needs a bit of TLC, but hope to have it complete fairly shortly. It's going to share the hanger next to my CMPro Ventus.

The Mosquito is my first large scale glider being around 4m span, Steve assures me I can launch it on the slope by myself..... we shall see!!

Thanks Steve for all your help with my modelling, it's really appreciated, looking forward to more honey soy chips next trip to Melbourne.

New Plane 2 - Red Bull Edge 540

The second plane I've finished is a Red Bull Edge 540 that I got from ebay as an ARF kit. It's a 1500mm span, power is from an OS FL-70 with 12x8 prop, although I think I may go to a 13 or 14 with lower pitch depending on how well it flys.

New Plane 1 - SebArt Katana

I've finished building two planes, the first is a SebArt Katana S30. Haven't maidened it yet, but looking forward to doing so over the Easter break.

Power is from a Hacker B50L with a 14x7 prop and 3S 2200 lipo.

Vertical fin attachment

The vertical fin has been attached the fuse which again is very straight forward.

Tow Mechanism Point

As I'm planning to use my Pawnee as a tug, the tow release point has to be of suitable construction to be able to take the loads of towing gliders.
As with other Pawnee tugs that I've seen I've chosen the location just behind the cockpit, which lines up with F5 on the plan. I discarded the laser cut F5 made from 4mm balsa, and made another one from 6mm birch ply.

I've also constructed a triangular brace from the same material and will epoxy this in place to strength the tow point.

Toying around with the idea ot using carbon tubes to brace F5 instead of the ply, any ideas welcome.

You can also see in the pictures the actual tow point which is milled from aluminium, with a 2-56 rod coming up the centre to hold the tow rope in place. A servo will be installed underneath F5 to acuate this rod.

Horizontal Stab

The construction of the Horizontal stab is pretty straight forward. Again as with the fin the "tricky" parts that would previously have required steaming and bending have been CNC cut in the TMRC kit and also notched to take the spruce. Making construction a simple and straight forward process.

You'll be sick of cutting gussets though by the end of it! :)

The elevator is constructed in the same fashion. Un sure at this stage if I will use a single servo for the elevator as Tom has done on the plans, or if I'll use two.

New Coreflute Racer (Tea Racer)

I spent some time over the holidays knocking up a new coreflute (same stuff real estate signs are made out of) racer. It's called the "Tea Racer" and is designed by the Mugi guys. (http://www.mugi.co.uk)

Takes a 28mm inrunner, and with a 1800-2000kV short can (48mm) brushless and a 6x5 prop you can tear up the sky. I run mine on 3S 2200mAH and it's great fun. I made two of these, and my brother and I have had a blast racing around the place.

Checkout the website and make one, it costs about $15 for a sheet of coreflute, and a couple of bucks for some servo's and a receiver, the only expensive stuff is the motor, speedy and lipo, and you really shouldn't skimp on a good speedy, and a good lipo, balancer and charger.

Vertical Fin and Rudder Construction

Now I have to credit TMRC here because the tailplane construction (so far) is extremely easy thanks to the CNC cut ply curved peices.

Firewall / Tank Compartment + Stringers

Well I've managed to get back out to the shed over the holidays and do a few nights work attaching the firewall, tank compartment, and stringers at the front. I've also added the formers on the rear deck to start the aft of the fuse.

Currently working on the towing attachment point which will sit at the first of the aft formers but obviously re-enforced with carbon tube, and ply.

During the assembly of the firewall etc, the CNC cutting made for the ply sides in no way whatsoever matched up with anything resembling a fit for the propost 4deg of down thrust as required by the plans, so we've had to notch up the firewall to fit them properly.

The warp has been removed during this process quite simply by adding the strings and ensuring that the whole assemble was straight and square before finalising everything.