E-Starter Mothballed

Well, it's finally official. The beat up E-Starter I own is being mothballed. The front mount is just too weak to hold the motor, and it did not want to ROG and was unstable once it was airborne. Too much downward thrust. I went ahead and used the setup to break in the motor. The Voltage really drops steep once it hits 10.0 V, so beware of this if you use Lipos. I actually noticed that the voltage rises too once it is taken off the load. That was a bit odd. I'll probably use the set up to run it once more today to condition the battery, but I'll be gutting the plane soon. Most of the sticky stuff on the pads GWS gave me for the servos are loosening up, so I'll put some balsa I bought in to hold the servos later. More than likely in 2 months or so I'll completely cut up the front and redo it and then go ahead and fix everything else about the plane up nice. Maybe I'll get some foam filler or glue some foam into the chunks that are messed up to make her look pretty too. I'll probably paint it then as well.

For now I started the Formosa last night. I got the ailerons cut off, all the way out to the edges though. I noticed a while back that if you just drag the utility knife over the foam continuously instead of applying downward force, you get pretty smooth cuts. Then I went ahead and glued in the control tubes to the fuse, and started cutting slits in the wing for the hinges after sanding the corners down. The carbon spar is also in the wing. I'm using Gorilla glue on everything to build her, and trying to be as sparing as possible, while enough to make her solid. I don't have any way to weigh her, but I'll compare her to the e-starter to see how she turns out.

I played some Warcraft III with the wife last night, otherwise I would have done more. Hopefully tomorrow morning or Saturday I'll get some more work done on her. I'm thinking I'll run the 400 motor in her to start, and then move on to the 350 which I will break in with the rechargable phone battery I'm trying to make. So, the next post should be some plane building tips for the Formosa I've learned off RCGroups.com and my own observations. I've also decided to use velcro to secure the battery and receiver so they are movable as well. I'll try and post some pics.