Phil's Atom thread

[Chris Barlow]

I have noticed on mine the two outer fins only just clear the ground and drag through the grass so your mast angle may have been too upright before after all.

Nice idea in making the mast break point above the socket too. If I break mine I plan to put a small hole in the belly of the fuselage and poke the bits out with a screwdriver!

[Phil Winks]

That's what I had to do with the 1st mast Colin and it was easy enough but the top of the fuselage around the socket to some damage, so hopefully this will prevent that happening again. On the tail wheel/mast angle I think your right

[Phil Winks]

Well it's been a while the trimming days have been and gone, I attended the 1st and very educational it was too, she has flow successfully quite a few times though on the last outing I got to bold and the damage to the fuselage meant a rebuild was the easiest route, along the way I incorporated a few mods that others have done and I'm happy the end result will be a better model.

First the general shots

She's subtly different but not so much as to be unrecognisable from the MKI

and now some of the altered details in close up

1st the formers were made from carbon reinforced balsa, lighter and stronger than light ply I believe

then there's the position of the head servo's, this means there are no cutouts in the mast housing hopefully making it stronger.

and I've shortened the elevator control on the head arm to give more elevator movement, the addition of two holes has given me three positions I can use to fine tune it

Finally, and there's no pics of this bit, the u/c is brazed together as one piece and I've sandwiched two layers of 1mm Epoxy glass plate into the mount area, one in the fuse under the ply plate and one outside on the ply plate, this has given me a rock solid U/C attachment that shouldn't wear to soon.

Now just to check the blade balancing and re-maiden her