Precision Aerobatics Bad Boy crash
My repair job on the PA Bad Boy after the midair collision didn't quite hold. Half the elevator come off in flight and it went straight in.
The lesson is not to skimp on repairs. It'll end up costing you more in the long run.
Repair job
The usual process to follow here, strip it all back, cut out the broken bits and start putting new bits in.
Precision Aerobatics BBV2 Midair
My first midair and I must say, overall, the BadBoy V2 came out of it well. The other guy didn’t have a scratch on his plane so I’m guessing I came into contact with his prop. I was surprised how well the elevator control worked as I landed.
All in all, for a midair, I guess I’m pretty happy with the outcome.
To top it off, I flipped the Corsair on a touch and go. No damage, just a heap of dirt in the cowl.
Bad Boy – The business end
Check out the shiny OS46AX, muffler, aluminium spinner and landing gear - comes up quite nicely.
Some follow up photos post maiden flight. A few nuts and bolts to tighten, servo leads to label.
I've swapped the 11x4 prop and plastic spinner for a 12.25 x 3.75 prop and aluminium spinner.
There's two un-nessary holes in the fuse after I had to move the tank forward to accommodate the wing. I like to think of them as speed holes 🙂
Thoughts on the first flight
I setup the control throws and CG as reccomended in the manual. There are two settings per channel, 1) Regular and 2) Aerobatic. For the maiden flight I found the Regular settings quite comfortable, plenty of control without being too twitchy. I didn't get around to switching on the "Aerobatic" rates but considering these rates are more than twice the "Regular" rates I think a bit more practise before I go there.
As you can see from the video, takeoff roll was only about 10 metres after slowly advancing the throttle to a bit over half. A couple of clicks of down elevator was needed. No adjustment to aileron or rudder required. The flight was fairly short but long enough too get the feel for it. Landing was a piece of cake. Easier than any other tail-dragger I've flown and just floated in for an almost perfect (?) 3 point landing. I reckon if there was no wind you could go handsfree and let it float it itself.
Overall I was very happy with the first flight. No nasty suprises, takeoff and landing was a breeze. The next step is to push it around a bit harder and see what it'll do.
Bad BoyV2 Maiden Flight
There's a few steps missed here in the build log due to a hurried final day assembly to get it ready for last weekend.
So here's a video of the maiden flight - fairly short flight to iron out the bugs, check CG and son on. I'm sure there'll be more video to come.
Landing Gear, Tail Wheel, Ailerons and Wings
Throttle servo is in. I ended up taking the throttle servo apart so I could fit it through the fuse easier and not have to enlarge the hole too much.
Landing gear securely attached. Wheels will go on at a later stage.
Check out that profile.
Tail Wheel assembly is quite straight forward. Three self-tappers, some CA to firm up the holes, some Epoxy in the hole where the strut goes in and you're done.
I had to enlarge the holes slightly in the wing for the servos to fit with the rubber grommets and all. Don't make the mistake I almost did when I assumed the ply mounting rails would be directly beneath the balsa sheeting. I thought "great this is easy", screwed one servo mount screw into the wing but got suspicious at how easy it went in. Considering it was only going through balsa sheeting I wasn't surprised. Imagine how long the aileron servos would last only mounted to the sheeting.
Aileron servo mounted snugly in the wing.
Bottom of the aileron servo. The carbon fibre wing tube is visible on the right.
The wings are pretty straight forward to mount. Just take it easy and don't apply too much force trying to slide them over the wing tube. I hade to shape the rear hole slightly to get a snug fit for the rear guide.
Here's a tip. If you have to enlarge the aileron servo openings, don't forget to clean the balsa dust out of the wing. It'll be much easier now than when it falls down into the already covered wing. Not a big deal, I'll get it out. It just would've been easier to get out earlier. What's that saying about haste and waste.....
The progress so far (Monday night). Next... stabiliser. Reckon it'll be ready for this weekend?
Bad Boy v2 – Step 1 – Tail Servos
First things first. The blank fuselage ready for the elevator and rudder servos. I removed the covering with a soldering iron. The iron melts the covering as a nice seal around the edges without any jagged edges you might get by cutting with a knife.
Fuse as it comes out of the box.
Servo holes before removing the covering.
Servo holes with covering removed.
I covered the lead extension joins with heatshrink as recommended in the manual but found it impossible to fit the join through the small gap provided. I had to cut a small part of the balsa away to get it through. The cut isn't visible once the servos are in so appearance isn't compromised. The thing I don't get is the small cutout on the engine end of the servo cutout. The manual says to mount the servos with the servo arms closest to the control surfaces hence the lead also comes out that end. The cutout at the other end doesn't help fit them at all or with the leads running into the fuse.
I found it best to get the first lead connector into the fuse. Before you pull it all the way through, insert the second connector straight after the first then pull them both through at the same time. I found if you pulled one lead all the way through then try to pull the second through it would get stuck on the extension joiner in the middle of the fuse.
After some stuffing around, the servos fit snugly in the fuse with the leads out the front holes.
Step 1 complete.
Next step - fitting the throttle servo.
Bad Boy v2 – Precision Aerobatics
The Bad BoyV2 arrived in the post today from Precision Aerobatics. Pretty quick delivery time seeing as I rang up midday on Monday when I noticed a small notice on the PA website saying they were going to be closed for three days this week. I was really hoping to make some progress on the build this weekend so I rang up straight away. The lady on the phone said she'd try to ship it today but couldn't make any promises. A day and a bit later (wednesday morning) and a small white cardboard box has made it all the way from NSW to Vic in good shape. Thanks lady on the phone!
Total cost of the kit was a little over $255 including postage, insuance, Carbon Fibre servo arms and metal links. Considering I spent close to that on a Great Planes Extra 300 kit (not ARF - and I still haven't finished building it) then it seems pretty good value. Someone else with probably 1000 times more practise at covering and finishing this model has done the hard, tedious work for me. I spend a few hours construction and hopefully she's in the air.
Packaging was excellent. All was well packed and arrived safe and sound through Aus Post. All the pieces were individually wrapped and packed. The horizontal and vertical stab surfaces are huge compared the the fixed surface area. Each wing felt feather light and build quality appears to be excellent. It's hard to match the accuracy of the cuts and joins on this type of model if you tried to scratch build.
I'll post more pictures as I progress through the build which considering the amount of work already done shouldn't take very long.
In the meantime, check out some video of it in action.
Here's some photos of unpacking the contents;
1. Clearly labelled "Bad BoyV2" box. A little crumpled on the outside but no damage on the inside.
2. The fuselage - wrapped in it's own plastic covering.
3. 8 Page Black & White Instructions
4. All the relevant bits and pieces including aluminium undercarriage, fuel tank, carbon fibre wing tube. I splashed out and included the carbon fibre servo arms and metal links.
Main wheels and tailwheel assembly.
Carbon Fibre servo arm extensions
The clear section is the elevator where the red section is fixed! It's huge!
Check out the tiny section fixed to the fuselage compared to the size of the rudder!
