How to build your plane

Your plane and parts have arrived, congratulations !!!

Verifications

• Check that everything supposed to be in the box, with the plane, is there.

• Take your time to review each part, and the User's manual, few times, before you even start.

• Make sure you more or less understand all the building instructions, and where everything is supposed to go, again, before you start, VERY important.

• Note that it is rare, but it happens with translations, that some manuals contain errors, and hopefully, you will spot them or when you were on the Forum, you read about them (one of the reasons going to the Forum is so important)

Start Building

• Make sure to select the appropriate glue to perform the work, and step by step, slowly and surely, do it.

• Better do it in few days, clean and nice, than in 1 day, with a lousy job.

• Be aware that some mistakes can be pretty serious on flight behaviors, even if on the ground, it looks really ok. The main things you will want to not mess with are:

  • Center of gravity (CG). THE most common mistake done which crashed so many planes. CG too much in the back will make your plane very unstable, he will want to always go left or right, never straight and will stall and spin as soon as possible. CG too much in the front will make the plane heavy to climb, difficult to maintain same altitude. The plane will either drop or climb. This will also prevent any loop (Good, you may think), and will make landing difficult. It might be even impossible to take off in this configuration, as the plane will be too much nose heavy

  • Check that the Servos are well glued, and that all parts can move freely, as needed.

  • Re-enforce some parts, where you feel it could be necessary

  • Check that the Servos extensions are fine, not too much but to what is recommended in the manual. A common mistake is to give too much amplitude to the rudders and elevators, and as a result, a far too nervous plane to fly.

  • If you decide to add anything not planed for this plane, make sure to not add too much weight, that would damage the flight behaviors.

Electric checks

• Read the section on how to wire components

• Make sure that all connectors are well connected, before you plug the battery. MANY BEC are destroyed, due to wrong polarity inputs

• Check all connectors, and verify that no short-cut could appear. No wire should be left uncovered

• Check that all wires are well attached to each plug. Bad soldering could, during a flight, disconnect your battery and you could kiss goodbye your plane, eventually destroy also many components on the crashes, not mentioning falling on people, so, double check this few times

• Check that you didn't forget to put the crystal in your receiver, and that your radio is tuned for the frequency you chose

• Make sure that all wires are connected to the receiver properly. Especially the motor plug in the input 3 of the receiver. As for my experience, all other mistakes never had any serious impact on the ground, and were fixable, after the "System on" checks at home. Just don't mess up the motor one as that could turn on the motor full speed, immediately after plugging the Battery

• Check that your receiver is not too close to your Speed controller, as in some cases, when turning on the motor, this will make the servos go nuts

Systems on, checks at home

• Make sure that the propeller is well attached to the motor. How ? Check with your fingers to pull it (without the battery in !), Just run it at home, with no one in front of it, to avoid any accident

• Make sure that your radio is on, with this plane selected and the motor POWER DOWN to zero !!!!

• Double check again that you did a proper Electric check

• If your BEC has a ON/OFF switch, you could turn it on or off, just remember what you chose (The red means ON)

• If alone, put the plane on a surface, where no one, and no thing in front of it or on the sides, for few meters (9 feet is good). If with someone, ask this someone to hold the plane, with his body behind the propeller, meaning on the side of the body of the plane.

• Touch a little the plugs Battery - BEC. If the propellers started to go full speed, STOP everything on the spot. You made a mistake and your BEC is maybe already gone (smell or smoke would confirm this). If you are lucky, and removed the battery very quickly, go back to Electric Checks, fix it and do this again, until the motor remains idle, when you plug the battery in. (could be that the BEC is dead....)

• Assuming you did ok with the Electric Checks, battery is in.

• motor Check

• If when giving some push on the stick for the motor, on the radio, it starts, then you are done with this, and put back the stick to 0 (some radios have a Lock position, use it)

• If it doesn't move, it means that you have a type of BEC, that wants to learn your radios maximums before allowing the motor to start. So, put back the speed stick to 0, remove the battery, plug it in again, wait 1 sec, then put it full throttle, wait 1 or 2 sec (you should here some beeps when it is ok), then put it back to 0, another signal will tell you the BEC has just learned the extensions for your Radio Speed stick. Motor is ready to use, next time you increase the stick, the motor will work, so again, either make sure to leave it on 0, or use the LOCK speed function, if available on your radio.

• Check that when turning on the motors, and not touching any stick for directions, even at full speed, all servos stay unmoved. If they move, just because you are turning your motor on, there are interferences. This can be due to your motor itself, too close to the receiver, then just add to the motor an interference kit. If this is not the case, check that the receiver and Speed controller at not too close. If yes, separate them. If you still have interferences, check that your antenna is out, that the receiver antenna is deployed. If you still have interferences.... Ask on the Ezone as I am running out of idea why.

• Servo Checks

  • One by one, check that the parts that the servo controls are responding properly, to the proper stick, and to the proper direction. A common mistake is to have the direction inverted

  • Check that all amplitudes are fine, according to your manual

• CG Check

  • With all parts it, especially the heavy battery, check again that the CG is well placed, according to the Manual

Turn off your plane, you are ready to go on the field, but you may wan to read the section on the How to "Avoid Common Mistake" as well as the come with a "field Survival Kit" one.