Plane Talk: E-flite Deuces Wild ARF - 2010/09

THE inTroducTion in the assembly
manual reads, “The Deuces Wild is the first
twin and sport aircraft in the Platinum
Series.” Models in this E-flite line have a
higher level of prefabrication, with features
such as prehinged control surfaces and
installed control horns. Completed, you have
an impressive aircraft.
The instructions are highly detailed, with
pictures and check boxes, to help you ensure
that all setup steps are finished, and a list of
everything you need for completion. This
design comes with fixed gear. An optional
retract system (EFL4565) is available from
Robart through E-flite.
Although you can put together the Deuces
Wild using the sequence in the manual, as I
did, several tasks are much easier to
accomplish in a different order. Those include
installing the retracts first and mounting only
the motors before attaching the nacelles to the
wing. Thoroughly read the manual and make
your own decisions.
E-flite provides two motor options: the
Power 25 and the Power 32. I understand that
the aircraft was developed with the 25s, but I
went with 32s. With either power system the
motors spin in opposite directions (rotate
inward toward the fuselage), to eliminate any
influence from torque or P-factor. I employed
the servos and retracts recommended in the
manual.
As with all highly prefabricated ARFs, it
is most productive to have all accessories on
hand to allow for quick assembly. Additional
tools that come in handy include a Robart
foam stand, professional-grade hex drivers,
and an inexpensive bar stool. (Yes, a bar
stool—more about that later.)
I will review the assembly steps in the
order that I would have preferred to do them.
I’ll also explain some of the challenges I faced
and make suggestions about how to resolve
them.
Assembly: Let’s begin with installing the
fuselage retracts. They are air-up/spring-down
devices.
Part of the wording and some of the
pictures in the manual are not as clear as they
could be (page 37, step 20) when the
plumbing connections are explained. I figured
it out when I jumped ahead to the wing
retracts section.
In brief, there should be a male and female
connection in the fuselage and a male and
female connection in the wing. That way, the
lines cannot be hooked up incorrectly for
normal operation and can be joined in the
fuselage and the wing for storage.
Flats need to be ground on all of the axles
and gear legs so that all setscrews can firmly
seat against a flat surface. I use hardened and
ground metric (item DYN2904) and SAE
(item DYN2909) hex drivers from Horizon
Hobby to ensure that the setscrews are tight.
These are great tools to torque setscrews or to
remove those with hexes that have become
stripped.
The nose-gear axle must be installed so
that the upper retention collar is at the top of
the nose-gear leg. Otherwise you will hear an
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retracted the first time.
The nose-gear steering is accomplished
with pull-pull cables. Instructions call for the
cables to pass through the crimp tubing once.
However, the tubing is large enough to loop
the cable through a second time; that makes
for a more secure connection and the ability to
lock the cables in place before crimping.
This is where the bar stool comes in
handy. The wing can easily be balanced on
the stool so that you can install the flap and
retract servo and exercise the gear during
setup.
I noticed that when the gear was retracted,
the upper skin of the wing was deflected and
distorted. I began cutting the axle portion of
the gear leg. I eventually found that I had to
use the thin wheel collars that came with kit,
drilled out and installed on the inner side of
each wheel, to allow the axle to be short
enough to avoid the wheels touching the top
of the wing.
There was not enough area to secure these
thin wheel collars with setscrews, so I retained
them with four-minute J.B. Weld. I forwent
the wheel-well doors, because I would be
flying from a grass field.
I need to jump ahead to the first flight. The
model’s firewalls broke loose, allowing the
motors to shift. Check your aircraft before
installing the motors, to verify that the
firewalls are secure. The firewalls on my
airplane had minimal adhesive, especially
where the firewall attached to the top of the
nacelle.
The recommended propellers for the
Power 32 provide minimal ground clearance,
so I don’t know whether or not a propeller
strike might have contributed to the firewalls
coming loose.
Applying extra epoxy certainly won’t hurt.
I added a brace between the firewall and the
battery tray to help strengthen the firewall.
The firewalls use a three-piece assembly
that conveniently allows the blind nuts to
move to the correct position, regardless of the
motors used. Unfortunately there was minimal
adhesive holding the three parts in the
sandwich together, so some of the plywood
pieces broke apart.
By carefully twisting the firewall with the
power plant installed, you can apply 30-
minute epoxy, which is thin enough to wick
into any cracked area and create a strong joint.
I do not recommend that you mount the speed
controls, propellers, or spinners at this time;
they will get in the way as you try to join the
nacelles to the wing root.
Employing Power 32s requires you to use
spacers to locate the motors away from the
firewall. The spacers supplied with my ARF
were too long, so I purchased eight 1/4-inch
nylon spacers to replace them.
An alternative is to cut the supplied spacer
to the proper size. Details are available on the
Horizon Hobby Web site, under the Power 32
motor.
Attaching nacelles to the wing was
problematic, because it appeared that the
subribs in the wing were to touch the
fiberglass in the nacelles. My nacelles were
considerably wider.
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54 MODEL AVIATION
It also looked as if the inside of the
nacelles was white with overspray from the
outside finished surface. I sanded the inside to
remove the overspray as best I could.
Position the nacelles so that one side of the
subrib touches the battery tray on the bottom
of the nacelle. Then create a plywood brace to
use to tie the other subrib to the battery tray.
In subsequent communication with
Horizon Hobby, I learned that there is not
supposed to be a direct connection between
the subrib and the battery tray. The subribs are
to be glued only to the side of the nacelles.
This might work in your assembly, but it
didn’t in mine.
All servo installations are standard and
well documented in the manual. During flighttesting
I found that there was a fair amount of
adverse yaw with the application of aileron. If
you have enough channels on your radio, you
can connect each aileron to a separate channel
and use differential mixing.
An alternative is to move each aileron
servo arm forward (toward the LE) one spline.
The goal is to get slightly more up- than
down-aileron.
The wing is made from three pieces.
While attaching the outer panels, I saw that
one of the aluminum wing tubes was
considerably larger in diameter than the other.
Although I’m sure that Horizon would have
been happy to replace the part, I sanded it
until it fit.
In the process of fitting the oversize wing
tube, I noticed that one of the fiberglass tubes
in the wing had minimal resin on it. I covered
that area with thin CA to help firm it up.
Several of the model’s decorative stickers
oozed some of the adhesive, but it was easy to
remove with Goo Gone cleaner. Take care
when tightening the covering; in some places
there are multiple layers in addition to
stickers. It is easy to distort trim patterns or
decorations with too much heat.
In general, I found a heat gun to be the
best choice for tightening covering. A trim
iron worked in small areas. In some of the
open areas of the tail, small holes were
punched in the bottom covering to help the
hot air escape.
E-flite has a cockpit kit for the Deuces
Wild, but it did not arrive in time for the first
flights so I substituted another pilot figure.
The canopy is temporarily installed with four
screws until the cockpit arrives.
While attaching the canopy I noticed that
the red trim piece in front did not follow the
flowing lines of the aircraft. Two pieces of the
red covering cut approximately 3/16 inch wide
allowed for all rough edges to be covered.
Two small pieces of black UltraCote helped
make the seam of the nose cone disappear.
I elected to use a separate receiver battery.
The on/off switch was easy to install in the
precut opening in the fuselage. I also installed
an external charge jack on the opposite side of
the fuselage. With four servo connections and
the two air-line connections, you might not
want to remove the wing often.
I set up servos and linkages per the
manual, but the flap settings for takeoff were
reversed. The flap-to-elevator mixing
recommendations were dead-on and simple to
complete with the program in the Spektrum
DX7. The CG came out at the forward edge of
the recommended range.
Make sure you test the motor rotation with
the propellers off. In fact, the propellers and
spinners can be the last things you install. The
recommended propellers have to be displaced
from the stop pin for the spinners to fit
correctly. This requires a bit of trial and error
and is not mentioned in the manual.
Let’s Go Flying! The receiver and power
batteries were peaked and the retracts were
pressurized to 120 psi (pounds per square
inch). Taxi control was positive, and I
positioned the Deuces Wild on the runway. I
went with a no-flap takeoff.
It took a great deal of up-elevator to break
ground. Roughly 1/16 inch of up-elevator was
required for level flight. Only a few clicks of
aileron trim were required. After two circuits
of the field, I pulled up the gear with no noted
trim changes.
Shortly after the third circuit I noticed an
odd sound, as if the motors were going out of
timing. I did a pass with flaps deployed. I
made another pass to confirm that the gear
was down.
The Deuces Wild needs power through
touchdown to make smooth landings. I taxied
it back and disconnected the power batteries.
It was then I noticed melted plastic from the
back of the spinner on the left wing.
At first I thought that I had not tightened
the propeller adapter well enough. After closer
examination I determined that the back of the
spinner had worn partially away after making
contact with the nacelle. I also found that the
propeller and spinner could easily be rocked
back and forth; the firewall was moving inside
the nacelle.
Back in the shop I cleaned everything up.
Then I applied five-minute epoxy to the
firewall and added the brace I mentioned
earlier. Given the lack of propeller clearance, I
trimmed the propellers to a 12-inch diameter
and rebalanced them.
I did get a chance to fly the model
inverted. It required a lot of down-elevator—a
good indicator that the CG could be moved
back. The roll rate was adequate.
Loops were large and tracked well. The
Deuces Wild comes alive at full throttle,
especially after a dive.
I mounted 12 x 8 propellers. The flight
performance improved, with rpm up and
power consumption down. A different power
combination, one with a higher Kv and a
smaller-diameter, higher-pitch propeller
(maybe a three-blade), might further improve
the flight characteristics.
The E-flite Deuces Wild is impressive on the
ground and in the air. There is nothing equal
to the sound of a twin during a high-speed,
low-level pass with the gear up, followed by a
victory roll. MA
Joe Hass
[email protected]
Manufacturer/Distributor:
E-flite/Horizon Hobby
4105 Fieldstone Rd.
Champaign IL 61822
(877) 504-0233
www.e-fliterc.com
Sources:
Horizon Hobby
(800) 338-4639
www.horizonhobby.com
Thunder Power
(702) 228-8883
www.thunderpowerrc.com
Spektrum
(800) 338-4639
www.spektrumrc.com
JR
(800) 338-4639
www.jrradios.com
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