The winner of the 2014 SEFF Southeast Electric Flight Festival Best New Aircraft is a model called the Giant Norman. It is a laser cut balsa and plywood traditional build with Monokote type covering and an 84″ wingspan and 12-18 lbs weight. The model was very popular at the time but the designer had many requests for a smaller version, which is how the Normal Norman was born. This one has a 49″ wingspan and is made from EPP foam. Normal is a 3 channel model but there is now a 4 channel version available called the Nifty Norman. This one appears to be a good candidate for a foam board scratch build project. The Giant Norman kit (balsa & plywood) and both the Normal Norman and Nifty Norman (EPP) kits are available at: http://lainesplanes.com/
Author Archives: funkhouser
Centering The Turtle Deck
I was having a hard time getting the turtle deck centered on the FT Simple Scout. Came up with this idea using some foam board scraps and painter’s low tack tape. Mark the centerlines, then it is easy to align the separate turtle deck sections while gluing. And the painter’s tape comes off easily without damaging the poster board.
Turtle Deck Former – Gluing
An easy way to keep the front and back of the turtle deck formers square while gluing is to simply use two strips of foam board to align the former.
Stick Fuselage Details
At the point where I am finishing the fuselage. Without the foam board top rear of the fuselage, the back end of the turtle deck has no support. You might add a cross member right where the turtle deck ends. And on the bottom of the fuselage you might cut the foam board to include the tail skid and end at the last cross member.
Control Surface Clamps
When you are assembling the carbon fiber pushrods and the servo arms, you may find it helpful to clamp the control surfaces so that they are perfectly flat; no up or down and no left or right.
FT Simple Scout External Pushrods
When I built the first FT Simple Scout with the balsa diagonals, I didn’t make slots for the pushrods. The foam board fuse has slots but I thought that I could somehow maneuver the pushrods through all the open spaces between the balsa sticks. I couldn’t find a way to do it. So instead i decided to mount the servos on the outside of the fuselage and use carbon fiber tubes as pushrods.
Make some short Z-bends for each end of the carbon fiber pushrods. Make sure the piano wire is a snug fit in the tubes. Then I used thick CA to fix the Z-bends into the tubes.
If you use a Dremel tool or power saw to cut the tubes you are liable to put some cf dust in the air. You don’t want to inhale that so I use a miter box and hand saw for minimum dust.
The cardboard packing in the servos from FT can be used as a template for cutting the hole in the fuselage. Just extend the opening on each end so that the entire servo with end tabs fits through.
This model is being built as a 3 channel. If you are building the 4 channel version you need to make sure that the servo has room with full aileron down deflection.
The way that the Scout is constructed there is a second layer of foam, the doubler, that you will need to cut through.
The servo arm is in the up position. This makes the line from the servo to the control surface close to parallel to the top of the fuse.
I put the hot glue inside through the bottom of the fuselage. Little bit of a tight fit to get the glue gun nozzle in, but it is doable.
FT Simple Scout External Pushrods Video
Just a short video to show the action of the external pushrods on the FT Simple Scout.
FT Servo Tester
The FT Servo Tester looked like a good idea when I bought it over a year ago. The FT youtube video shows exactly how to use it. The tester has been sitting on my bench waiting to be used. So today I went to use it and discovered that the tester that I purchased is not quite the same as the one in the video. No big deal. The pics below show how to use this model.
Subscriber Post – FT Cub LG
Carmine is a subscriber to the foamboardflyers blog. He told me about some landing gear mods that he was doing to a Flite Test Simple Cub. I asked him to send me some pics, and he did. Thanks Carmine!
From Carmine, ” More progress on the Cub Landing Gear, if you’re still interested.I got the Main finished and installed. Looks and Works far better than hoped!! 9 inches wide, at the Axles, raked almost 2 inches farther forward!!”👍👍😊
FT Scout Balsa Mod Drawing
Download the FT Scout fuselage plan sheet with the balsa sticks modification. Take the file to Kinkos, Office Max, or your choice to print it out. It’s a 5+ MB file.