| Bob,
Two quys at field fly the Aerostar 40. It is a nice looking plane.
I have not flown one, but those who have say they are just as nice
as my PT40. They say it is a great beginners plane.
It appears to be a simple kit to build and also durable. One guy
flew his threw the trees and all that he had to do was rebuild the
wing and touch-up the fuselage.
If your looking for a first plane, I suggest starting with a .40
size as when it's up there it's easier to see.
Regards,
Chris Spohr
|
| JOHN,
I don't live in your area, I live out in Colo. Spgs. I have just
finished an aerostar .40, which is the same airplane as yours with
the exception of being about 10 inches larger. I found it to be
a very easy airplane to build. A couple of suggestions though:
starting at the tail, the vert. stabalizer is not that strong when
mounted the way the plans say, so what I did was put three tabs
along the bottem edge to give it more strength when glued. Also
with horizontal stabalizer I didn't glue it directly to the bottem
of the fuselage I inserted it about half way between the top and
bottem of the back of the fuselage, making it stronger and also
cleaned up the pushrod exits from the airplane, I now have the elevator
pushrod coming directly straight out the back and hooked to the
clevis. Doing it this way you don't have any flex in your elevator
which can come in extremly handy in emergency situations.
If I think of any other tricks I have done I will let you know.
If you have any questions while building it just ask.
SCOTT
|
| I've scrapped the idea of building the kit strictly by the
instructions. I found a discrepancy between the instructions and
the plans last night while building the wings. No major hassle,
I'm glad I'm a skeptic and fit things together before committing
the kit to glue. In the wing there are two spruce braces that run
down the length of the wing, one on the bottom surface, and one
on the top of the cambered surface. The instructions call out for
the spruce brace to be glued right at the back edge of the bottom
leading edge panel. Checking the plans, it shows the spruce bar
located a quarter inch in from the edge of the panel. Well, the
plans were right, the instructions were wrong.
I guess the message here is to try fitting as much of an assembly
together as you can before you make even your first glue joint.
This can save you alot of pain, as CA is pretty tough, and I think
it's fair to say that the balsa would break first.
So far I've found the kit fairly easy to build, and I am still pleased
with it. The bottom of the wing is flat, I don't know what this
means in terms of aerodynamics ( needs a large stabilizer? ), but
it sure makes things easy during the building stage. This model
is turning out to be a real pleasure to build. I considered getting
an ARF originally, but what can I say, if I had, I would have been
missing out on half the fun.
John.
|