Piccole Ali

Aeromodellismo dinamico online

2009 Piccole Ali – Stra’ (Venezia) - Italia

AEROMODELLO RADIOCOMANDATO

RADIO CONTROL MODEL

NORTH AMERICAN HARVARD AT-6 “TEXAN”

VQ MODEL AT-6 TEXAN ARF 46

Apertura alare / Wing span: 1536 mm

MOTORE A SCOPPIO / GAS POWER

2-Tempi / 2-Stroke: 0.46 ci

4-Tempi / 4-Stroke: .52 - .70 ci

MOTORE ELETTRICO / ELECTRIC POWER

KV 610-720

Produttore / Manufacturer: Distribuito in Italia da:

www.vqmodel.com www.piccoleali.it

www.piccoleali.it …passione pronta al volo !

2009 Piccole Ali – Stra’ (Venezia) - Italia

L’AT-6 Texan è un addestratore avanzato biposto costruito dalla North American Aviation. Il primo AT-6 volò

nel 1940 e fu l’aereo scuola di moltissimi piloti alleati che combatterono nel secondo conflitto mondiale. Fu

progettato per essere sufficientemente versatile per addestrare i piloti a tutti i tipi di tattiche di volo, incluso

attacco al suolo, bombardamento, ricognizione, riprese fotografiche, ecc.

Il modello

Non si tratta di un altro AT-6 ARF !

L’AT-6 della VQ Model rappresenta il “benchmark” di riferimento per la sintesi tra qualità, facilità e rapidità di

assemblaggio, maneggevolezza in ordine di volo e prezzo. Apprezzerete l’accuratezza della riproduzione e

la qualità del rivestimento in pellicola polivinilica. Il modello è predisposto per i carrelli retrattili (opzionali) e

può essere motorizzato con motori a combustione interna ed elettrici.

Se cercate una riproduzione al miglior rapporto prezzo-qualità, con l’AT-6 VQ Model siete a poche ore da un

entusiasmante collaudo.

Caratteristiche generali

Costruzione tradizionale in balsa e compensato delle migliori qualità

Naca motore in fibra di vetro dipinta di fabbrica

Superfici di controllo già incernierate di fabbrica

Pratico vano batteria (utile in caso di motorizzazione elettrica)

Istruzioni dettagliate passo-passo in italiano

Caratteristiche tecniche – VQ Model AT-6 “Texan” ARF 46 RC

Apertura alare 1536 mm

Lunghezza fusoliera 1061 mm

Superficie alare

Peso 2680 - 2950 g

Motore a combustione interna 2-Tempi / .40 - .46 ci 4-Tempi / .52 -.70 ci

Motorizzazione elettrica Brushless Outrunner

KV/RPM-V 610 o equivalente

80A Brushless controller

LiPo 4500 mAh – 5S

Radio 5 canali 5 servi

Accessori inclusi

Carrelli fissi e carrello di coda

Ruote

Supporto servi

Castello motore

Serbatoio

Pacchetto hardware

www.piccoleali.it …passione pronta al volo !

2009 Piccole Ali – Stra’ (Venezia) - Italia

Non incluso

Motore, servi, carrelli retrattili, colla e tubo miscela

Prodotti correlati

VQ Model AT-6 Texan ARF 46 RC – RED-

VQ Model AT-6 Texan ARF 46 RC – BLACK

Motore ASP FS70AR RC

Electric pack EP-720

Visitate il negozio online / Visit our webstore: www.piccoleali.it oppure scriveteci /contact us at:

info@piccoleali.com

VQ Model AT-6 Texan ARF 46

Aeromodello radiocomandato

By Michael Kramer Photos By Michael Kramer (from www.rcwarbirds.com)

First Impressions:

Upon receiving our review plane it was very nicely packaged to prevent any damage duringshipment. Everything was neatly and individually packaged in plastic wrap or zip lock bags.

The VQ AT-6 ARF retails for $169.95 and for the quality of construction and included hardware is avery nice price. The kit includes all the hardware, except fuel lines, that was needed to assemblethe plane. It even includes mechanical retracts. The first thing I noticed was the quality of thehardware, and in my opinion it is a step above what you find in most ARF's. As an example thehinges are plastic pin style not CA style. Another nice feature is the plastic film covering; I'm not abig fan of Monokote film because I find that it wrinkles too much or does not stick very well.Adhesive plastic covering is not new to ARF's but I particularly like it over Monokote. So I found theadhesive backing plastic film to be a nice touch. It was wrinkle free out of the box and comes pre-printed with all the graphics including panel lines and rivets already in place. The only thing that I felta little concerned about were the ailerons. They run the length of each wing and are very narrow, somy first thought was that the roll rate will be a little slow. The flight test may reveal something totallydifferent so I will wait and see.

Items Needed to Make Flight Ready:

Radio System (Minimum 5 channel) .46 - 2 Stroke Engine or .52 - 4 Stroke Engine Propeller Silicone fuel tubing 4 - Standard Servos 1 - Retract Servo (180°) 1 - Servo Extension (6")

Construction:

In reviewing the instruction manual two things immediately jumped out at me! First this was going tobe a very fast build and second several of the steps in the manual had already been done for you bythe factory. The mechanical retracts were already installed and the ailerons were pre-assembled tothe wings. So without doing anything Step 1 is already done. In Step 2 the manual indicates a needto attach the wheels but this was also done at the factory so all I needed to do was attach retractdoor covers with the supplied 2x6mm screws. In Step 3 the two wing halves were joined togetherusing 30 minute epoxy. For this I mixed equal parts of epoxy and microballons, the microballons willhelp provide a stronger bond between the glued sections.

Once the epoxy was fully cured it was time to install the servo trays for the aileron and retractservos. In step 4 the aileron servo tray gets glued to the wing sheeting so this step required layingthe servo tray on top of the covering film and marking its location. The covering was then removedto expose the balsa sheeting and the servo tray was glued with CA. The retract servo tray took alittle more work to get installed. I needed to enlarge the wing opening where the retract servo was tobe mounted. Once I had a little more room to work with, I used CA to glue the servo tray uprights inplace against the wing ribs and then glued the servo tray to the uprights.

Step 5 the servos and the control linkages were installed. Here is another example of what Iconsider nicer hardware. The servo arms get metal linkage keepers that are screwed togetherinstead of the standard nylon snap-on type. The most time consuming part of this step wasconnecting the retract linkage rods which had already been installed at the factory. The rods neededto be cut to length and attached opposite each other on the servo arm so that when actuated themaximum amount of travel is achieved. Most of the time was spent fine tuning the gear to get it tocycle correctly. When the servo operated smoothly I had a little more play in the gear than made mefeel comfortable. Taking the play out of the gear caused the linkage to bind. Before the first flightthis will need to be worked on some more.

UPDATE: As mentioned above I originally had some difficulty getting the gear to cycle smoothly.After careful study of the problem I realized the I should have looked at the instructions moreclosely. I started with the largest servo arm I had, thinking that I needed the most possible travel.Actually all that is needed is the stardard small round servo wheel to get the gear to work perfectly.Once I changed out the servo wheel all worked as smoothly as designed.

Step 6 the vertical and horizontal stabilizers were joined to the fuselage. The excess covering onthe fuselage needed to be removed first before dry fitting the control surfaces.The horizontal stabwas first dry fit and checked for straightness by measuring from the firewall centerline back to eachstab tip. The measurement should be equal on both sides. Once straight the horizontal stab wasmarked with a felt tip pen to indicate the fuse location on both top and bottom. The vertical stab wasalso dry fit and marked. The stabs were then removed and the covering is cut to the inside of eachline to expose the balsa below. Once this was done the horizontal and vertical stabs were epoxiedto the fuselage. Again I mixed equal parts of 30 minute epoxy and microballons for a stronger bond.The rudder also needed to have the lower hinge epoxied at this point. Once dry the elevators werealso epoxied to the horizontal stab. Since these are not the standard CA style hinges they neededto be epoxied. A little Vaseline was dabbed on the each of the hinge joints to keep the epoxy fromgluing the hinge.

Step 7 the tail wheel assembly was mounted. Some covering needed to be removed to expose thetail wheel pocket in the fuse as well as in the rudder. The tail wheel bracket was screwed in placewith two 3Mx12mm wood screws and the tail wheel was attached with a collet. A small rudderkeeper slides on to the tail wheel wire and was glued to the rudder using CA.

Step 8 the engine was mounted and the throttle linkage was installed. Here the engine, an OS46FX, was first attached to the included engine mounts to set the proper spacing. It was then placedup against the firewall to mark the engine mounting holes. The firewall was marked with centerlinesto help center the engine mount. Four 5mm holes were then drilled into the firewall and blind nutswere secured from inside the fuselage. A little CA was used to help keep the nuts from backing out.The engine with mount was then bolted to the firewall with four 4Mx25mm machine screws. A dabof thread lock was applied to all of the bolts that secure the engine to the mount and the mount tothe firewall. The throttle linkage hole was marked on the firewall and a 3mm hole was drilled. Thestandard muffler which came with the OS FX46 engine interfered with the fuselage and would haverequired substantial modification to the fuselage, so a Slimline Pitts style muffler was used instead.However this muffler interfered with the engine mount so a custom made extension was made. Thiswas done by cutting off a section of the standard muffler and filing down the cut face.

Step 9 the fuel tank was assembled and mounted in the fuselage. As mentioned the silicone tubingis not supplied with the tank and needs to be provided by the builder. Once assembled, the tankwas mounted in the fuse in a cutout designed to hold the tank. A few small pieces of foam wereplaced between the tank and the fuse rib to keep the tank secure.

Step 10 the engine cowl was installed.

Steps 11 & 12 the servos were installed in the fuse and the control linkages connected. In this step Ihad to make some modifications to fit the servos and linkages. First I inserted the linkage rods intothe linkage tubes already installed in the fuselage to line up the control horns. I secured the controlhorns to each elevator and to the rudder. The rudder servo was installed first and the metal linkagekeepers attached to the servo arm. Here the rudder control rod did not line up with the servo arm soI drilled a new hole in the bulkhead to move the control rod over. The elevator linkage rods were cutto size and connected together using a connecting block. The elevator servo was then installed sothat it lined up with the linkage.

Next was the most difficult part of the assembly and required the some modification. The throttlelinkage supplied is a rod as opposed to a cable so therefore it was limited to how much it couldbend. The position of the throttle on the OS 46FX forced the throttle linkage to enter the servocompartment well above the servo tray. In order to keep the binding to a minimum the throttle servohad to be moved above the other servos.

Steps 13 & 14 the pilots and scoops along with the canopy were installed. Another nice feature ofthis kit is that it comes with two pre-painted pilots. They were glued to the cockpit deck with CAalong with the backseat instrument panel. The IP has a sticker that gets applied before it is glued.The kit also comes with two vacuumed formed scoops that I glued using CA. The canopy firstneeded to be trimmed and secured with eight small wood screws. The canopy comes unpainted buta there is a sticker sheet that strips can be cut from to apply to the canopy frame areas.

Step 15 was to attach the wing to the fuselage. The wing has a tab that sticks out forward of theleading edge at the center and is inserted in to a notch in the fuselage to secure the LE. The trailingedge is secured with two 6Mx38mm nylon bolts. The mounting holes in the wing are pre-drilled atthe factory so all that was needed to do was to cut a hole in the covering to expose them. Thefuselage also has the blind nuts already installed so there is not much to do in this step.

Step 16 & 17 are for installing fixed gear and are therefore skipped since the kit came pre-installedwith mechanical retracts.

Step 18 & 19 document the control surface travel and the CG location. I used the 3-3/8" position asmy balance point.

Control Throws Gear UsedElevator: ± 7/16"Rudder: ± 1 - 1/4"Ailerons: ± 1/4"C/G: 3 - 3/8" to 4"

Radio: Futaba 12ZReceiver: Futaba R149DPServos: Futaba 3003 & 3004Retract Servo: Futaba FP-S136G

Engine: OS FX 46Muffler: Slimline PittsProp: Master AirscrewFuel:

That's it, the plane is now ready for it's first flight. All in all a pretty easy build and not bad looking fora sport scale plane. Stay tuned for the flight report. Click here for the Flight Report.

By Michael Kramer Photos By Michael Kramer

Flight Conditions :As with most winter days our flight testing day was less than ideal. It was a very cold 40 degrees

with over cast skies and some light rain from time to time. There was also a strong cross windthat swept across the runway at the Lexington Model Airplane Club field. Despite the conditions

the VQ Texan performed well at the hands of PJ Ash.

Overall Impressions:I was recently asked why there are no Texan's on RCWarbirds.com and the best answer I couldgive was because no one has sent in any pictures to post. I think that could change with VQ'sversion of the timeless AT-6 Texan. The overall quality, easy of construction and flawless flightperformance make this a great plane at twice the price. The fact that VQ is able to delivery aplane with many of the tedious tasks already done like pre-installed control surfaces and a

generally good set of mechanical retracts at $169.95 is feat in itself. The big names ARF's willhave to play catch up to VQ to beat its quality to price ratio.

So if you looking for a quality inexpensive plane for that quick trip to the flying field or a full daysworth of flying the VQ AT-6 delivers.

My original concerns that the ailerons were not large enough went completely out the windowthe moment the AT-6 took to the skies. The VQ Texan handled every aerobatic maneuver PJthrow at her with greatest of easy. Loops and rolls were very precise even in the strong wind.

The OS FX 46 engine proved to be a good match for this plane. Power on throttle was verystrong which made for short quick take-offs. The large elevators and rudder again made this a

very aerobatic performer.

Setting up the approach for landing the Texan handled well but as with any small plane in astrong cross wind it required PJ to use all the stick moment he had to keep the Texan tracking

straight down the runway. Considering how well the Texan performed in the less than idealweather, normal flying conditions will be a walk in the park for this plane.

Gear coming down for landing was smooth and locked in place. This of course is the case whenthe I finally paid attention to the instructions on servo setup.