Facebook

I'm not a member of Facebook and I don't tweet. Am I any lesser of a person, no. I don't have 20 million Facebook friends and I don't care (in fact I only have a few close friends). I can see other peoples friends (where the privacy settings allow) and its a bit weird really. And as for tweets, I don't really want to know what you had for breakfast, lunch or even dinner. I'm busy enough as it is without people tweeting me, or me tweeting.

Another view of the Cessna 185 EP

Yes, another view of this model.

Cessna 185 foamie flies

Well I have now flown this model about 5 times and it flies well except for the fact that the wing flexes in flight. I am thinking of ways of strengthening it. Today I tried aeros and rolls rather well, flies inverted with a little down elevator. Given the wing flex, you just have to fly smoothly. I am very happy with the model. It flys well with a 0.35 engine. I suspect a heavy .25 would be fine.

Cessna 185 Test Flight

I installed a OS S35 RC which, as it turns out, has plenty of power. I test flew it at the weekend and it flew well. Note that I have installed fullsize servos rather than the 13g servos recommended. Also replaced the pushrods with Dubro wire pushrods for much better control (I left the tail wheel pushrod in and when the servo pushes, it hardly responds!! ). The wing tends to flex a bit in flight but I will have to avoid too many aerobatics.

Cessna 185 Assembly starts

Well I started work on the fuselage. At the risk of the questioning of what am I doing, I am going to put a .35 engine in it (yes!!). So I am beefing up the firewall and unfortunately have to cut the cowl.

Just a warning. Don't use the supplied pushrods (unless you support the routing through the fuselage. They are not up to the job. I am replacing mine with Dubro pushrods. Also use epoxy to support critical joints such as where the wings are bolted to the fuselage (see photo).

Cessna 185 foamie

Well I spied this model on Trademe (our version of EBay). For $NZ99 plus freight, it was a great buy and the wingspan is 1400mm which is quite large. It arrived today in a surprisingly small box and even included a propellor. It is made in Taiwan rather than China by Super Flying Model. There is very little information about the model on their website but as I have constructed one or two models in my time, it should be a straightforward build. It is not bad quality but I will no doubt change a few things. You can use flaps but I doubt I will use them given it will be quite light. Here are some pictures.