AviationStation.net

Yak-54 Maiden

Brenton Shank — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:28:35 +0000

Took the Yak out for its maiden this past Saturday and got 2 successful flights in. Trimming was impossible due to the winds but it wasn’t a bad time considering I haven’t flown in over 4 years. Using a flight simulator definitely keeps your skills up in the off seasons.

Airfieldmodels.com

Brenton Shank — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:54:39 +0000

From time to time I run across a website that just blows me away with the amount of information made available and/or the craftsmanship of the site owner. AirfieldModels.com is one of those sites. The site belongs to Paul Johnson and he is a meticulous craftsman that should be an inspiration to any who browse his work. I plan to someday convert my building area to a magnetic system using the fixtures that he has designed and sells from the site. Take a few minutes (which will turn into a few hours) and browse his website…I think you will be amazed.

Yak 54 Ready for Maiden Flight

Brenton Shank — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:14:53 +0000

After finishing up radio setup on the rudder, the Yak is ready to go. I didn’t keep track of total hours but I would guess it was somewhere between 15 and 20 from the box to ready for flight. The only thing I would caution anyone about if building this is the rudder horn setup. Other than that, everything went together pretty smoothly and as planned. You can check out the Gallery for all of the pics taken from the Yak 54 construction.

Ready for her maiden.

Yak 54 work progresses…

Brenton Shank — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:52:50 +0000

Put a few more hours into the Yak 54 ARF build…Be aware of the position of the rudder horn when you are installing it as I’ve found that it interferes with the elevator if mounted per the instructions. I had the horn mounted and glued in place before realizing the problem. I was going to fix the problem and move on but I didn’t see much sense in having a hacked up rudder on a brand new airplane so I placed a call to Great Planes tech support. They said that this plane has been on the market for 4 years and they have never had a complaint about the rudder horn but you can clearly see in the pictures that there is interference. They were nice enough to send me a new rudder so I won’t complain too much about it.

Elevator halves joined and hinged.

Test fitting the cowling and getting the prop clearance set.

Yak 54 arrived yesterday…

Brenton Shank — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 04:53:06 +0000

The big brown truck delivered the Great Planes Yak 54 3D ARF ultimate combo from Tower Hobbies yesterday and work on it has started. You can see all of the pictures on the Yak 54 page.

The Tower Hobbies Yak 54 Ultimate Combo comes with everything you need to get in the air. Ive made a few substitutions to the standard combo...I upgraded the radio system to the Futaba 7C so it is a little more future friendly and also substituted an AC/DC charger for the DC one that was included.

As it is out of the box...typical of most ARFs, the covering needed shrunk down a bit but other than that all looks good.

Great Planes Yak-54 3D EP

Brenton Shank — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 02:51:07 +0000

Next project to be featured will be a rather simple ARF… The Great Planes Yak-54 3D. I will be building this ARF for myself so I can get some long overdue (about 3 years) flying time in this spring/summer. Tower Hobbies delivery should be Thursday of this week so stay tuned for the first AviationStation.net build in blog format.

Transformation to WordPress is Complete

Brenton Shank — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:08:15 +0000

Success!! All of the project pages have been successfully transferred to the new blog format and are viewable now. I will be updating them in the next few weeks to include captions with all of the pictures. I will also be adding Tips and Tricks, Workshop Hints, and many other members-only features in the near future so stay tuned. Also, be sure to sign up for the newsletter so you can be informed of new areas as they develop. Keep in mind that I hate spam as much as you do so your email address WILL be kept private and WILL NOT be given or sold to third party advertisers. Enjoy the site and as always, comments and suggestions are welcomed and considered.

2007 – Balsa USA Fokker DR1

Brenton Shank — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:30:05 +0000

The Fokker DR1 construction photos are posted…captions will follow at a later time.

2007 – Great Planes PT40 Revisited

Brenton Shank — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:25:02 +0000

The Great Planes PT40 page is now live. This was another project that was done during some down building time. It turned out to be a nice aileron trainer just as it would have if it had been built 4-channel the first time. The Great Planes PT40 is an excellent trainer airplane for anyone who is interested in getting started in the hobby. It is available as a kit through Tower Hobbies.

The finished product after some Monokote treatment.

2006 – Great Planes Giant Aeromaster Bipe

Brenton Shank — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:57:56 +0000

The Aeromaster page is up but without captions…Ill get back to those at a later date. This is an electric conversion that ended up a little on the heavy side due to the amount of paint that was required to cover. This airplane is coming back to the shop as I have agreed to strip the covering and duplicate the scheme in Monokote to hopefully get the weight down a bit. Ill post some additional pics of the new covering job as it happens but in the meantime, the original build and painted scheme is on THIS PAGE.