First impressions ARF Nobler

My ship came in today, but I was at the airport. Good thing because my ARF Nobler came in.
I rushed home and went out into the garage, moved three planes and opened the big box. First thing out is the rudder. Thinner than the kit version, but light, no airfoil. It fits into a notch on the rear of the fuselage, neat idea. It does have some offset built in. I may use it(the idea of mounting it) on other planes. Next out comes the elevators, stab, wing, fuselage. The only fault with the wing is no weight box and those leadouts HAVE TO GO. No way would I fly that plane with that set up. Also sliding leadouts would be inorder today. The leadout wires are too small and the way they are litteraly hooked, like a fish hook set up, into the bellcrank is a no, no. An AMA sanctioned contest CD would "dq" that set up. Or should. The fuselage is very light, very well assembled, lots of lightening techniques, straight, but the cowl will be a job. Not a big one, but it ain't falling onto the nose. The tank seems a little heavy, but drops right into place and will be easy to remove, in fact it is easy to remove. I tried it several times. There needs to be a balsa filler between the motor mounts to help dampen vibrations, but the original kit didn't have them, so it is a copy. Just not up to date in a few areas. This will also give the tank a floor to sit on. The motor mounts appear to be oak or hard maple, they appear dark brown, but is it oak or just the varnish or whatever? Nice big light wheels, just right for grass fields. Inside of the nose area appears to be fuel proofed with thinned epoxy or very thick dope?
As to the elevators and flaps, the notches for the hinges are there and the control horns at first glance looked a little hokey, but on closer examination, I decided I would use them. They are two lpiece but very well wired and soldered. I'll probalbly wreck this plane before those horns ever go bad. Let's hope not because of them!!
Thje hinges are typical looking r/c type. I am going to use them also. The push rods should be a little heavier, those I will replace. Bell cranks looks like an old Veco style that had been sand blasted.
Once I get this thing assembled and flown I'll report more on it. As it first appears, it is a very nice and well built, light, plane and should be great for someone geting back into PA with not a lot of time to build or has doubts about his/her building skills after a long lay off. It sure will not hurt this hobby/sport. Mine cost 99.99 at RC Hobbies here in Rocket City. (Huntsville AL). Well at tomorrow fun fly, the guys will get to see it and I'll have their emotions, logic, ideas, etc on it also.

I also got an ARF Nobler and started working on it. I'm beefing the front end toying with the idea of setting it up for more than one style of engine case. The recommended LA .40 should work fine. The tank is nice, but too small to run the pattern with a LA or FP forty. The only engine I have that might run long enough on the supplied tank is the DS forty. They could have (should have) made the fuselage wide enough to accept the more commonly available 2" wide tanks. I have some Brodak medium wedge tanks in route that are narrow enough to fit, but length then becomes an issue. I need a 5 ounce tank (4.5 minimum) for the LA and FP engines I plan to use. I concur that the leadouts must go. I just finished the ARF Flite Streak, where I replaced the supplied crank and leads with a Sig 3" nylon crank and .027" cable leads with wrapped end. I also used a 3/32" MW pushrod (the supplied Flite Streak rod is too thin and flexible). I like the way they made the wing takeapart, as an aide in alignment and gluing. I'm considering making the whole plane takeapart, with appropriate beefing of course. It's already built, so I figure why not tinker with it. It's early in the game, but at this point I'd rate the ARF Nobler kit a "B" and it could become an "A" with a few changes. The ARF Flite Streak is done and has several flights on it. Here's my brief report (copied from another email):

"We had an outdoor club meeting tonight, where I flew my Top Flite ARF Flite Streak for the first time. It flies great!!! Corners are incredible: smooth and tight! I'd rate the kit a B+ and the overall experience an A-. Mine has many mods. I beefed the front end considerably, replaced the bellcrank and leadouts, added a robust tail gear (doubles as the stooge release) and used Brodak removable 2-wheel wire gear (vs. the included single wheel gear). It's shown here with some of the tank and prop options ready to try. The Dixon re-timed FP .25 runs well and puts out surprisingly good power. Despite being in the hobby 40++ years, this is the first .25 powered model I've ever owned. Total weight (with an ounce of tail weight) is 31 ounces. Although I didn't use any of the stock hardware, it was good quality except for the leadouts. There is some room for improvement, but overall Top-Flite did a great job on this kit. I could not do a better framing or covering job. My price was under $60, which is a real bargain. I could not build one from a kit, or scratch build it, for less. Next up: the ARF Nobler!!"

Has anyone changed the leadouts yet and if so was there a trick to doing it without having to remove any of the covering?
I just opened my box night before last and was pretty impressed with everything I saw. Wing and one flap have a little bit of warp but hopefully a little heat and patience will take care of that.
I have some carbon fiber pushrod material left over from a RS SV-11 that I think I will add to the push-rods. Looks like there could be a lot of flex there.
I also have some concern that the plans don't seem to indicate any final on the flap pushrod connection at the bellcrank. Just insert it from below and let it slide around on the bellcrank platform. That concerns me somewhat.
The cowl in my box was a very nice fit to the nose.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-03 AT 02:37 PM (CDT)
 
HI Chuck. I just came in from the garage and guess what I'm working on. I replaced the bellcrank with a Sig nylon crank and I used .032 solid wire for the lead outs. I super glued them to the existing wires and carefully pulled them through the wing to the center. I tried strand wire, but it became a real hassle for me. Others have been successful. I removed only the monocote over the inboard tip, top only, to see if I could install a slider. Whoa. Is that tip ever well built. The tip plate looks like balsa ply or a very light ply of some type. The rest of the ribs are perfect. SO I am going to leave the leadout guides as is. The more I look at this plane, the more impressed I am with the quality of assembly and the way it was assembled. The wood is or appears to be 4 to 6 pound stuff.
Installing the pushrod from the flap horn to the elevator can be a royal pain, but read the instructions for this plane very carefully. I placed a carbon rod over mine to beef it up. There is only one place where it is totally wrong, words and photos.
When it tells you where to mount the engine and the numbers shown are used, the engine won't be on the mounts, but in mid air. A misprint I bet. I have the engine (Brodak .40) installed, cowl all set up with the appropriate cut outs, now the tank needs to be hooked up with the inlet/uniflow vent and overflow vents and off to the field this weekend. I'm not sure about all the decals.

Hi Chuck,
I also responded to your question on the forum.

I did add a washer to the pushrod to instead of letting it ride on the ply platform. And like Ty, I slipped a piece of carbon tube over the elevator pushrod (a piece left over from my Titanium-CF control linkage on the Plathfinder).

The only covering you really have to remove on the wing is the little rectangular part over the bellcrank, and a round piece that covers the access hole to the bellcrank screw. I simply RTV'ed (blue stuff) the belly-pan onto the bottom wing center since I wanted to make sure I would have access to the bellcrank system in case "upgrade fever" grabbed me. My wing is totally removable--I untape the canopy (done as they suggest with white tape), use a hemostat to unclip the elevator pushrod, unbolt the two long wing screws, and voila! out comes the wing. One point, after a week or two of running, I found the wing to be getting looser and looser at the front. I took the wing off and found that the dowel seems to have been crushed a little--probably because of my "snappy" outside squares. I found a piece of brass tubing that just fit over the dowel gave me a real snug fit when I put the wing back in the fuse saddle. I had sealed the saddle area by making a RTV gasket--put Saran wrap on the wing, and RTV on the fuse saddle, put wing onto saddle and tighten (but not super hard) the wing bolts--let cure. IF I were doing it over again, I might consider adding a little balsa fillet to the inside of the saddle, just to give a little more area for the RTV to grip on. Again this was the blue RTV, not a perfect match to the Nobler color, but hey, it's an ARF!

Anyhow I keep on monitoring the wing joint, looking to see if it loosens up again. The ply former which captures the wing dowel looked pretty sturdy, but I did hit the oval cutout in it with a little thin CA to toughen it up. I have put another 20 or so flights on the plane, and the joint still looks pretty good. And since I can take the wing off anyway, I can always fix it if it does loosen again.

Since now I have a plane which I can't blame for limiting my flying abilities, (as if that were ever really the case), I am actually worried about running out of fuel this summer. Since G&D hobbies closed down, we can't get Sig (or any other 20% lube) fuel in the Chicago area.

Thanks guys for the tips.

I tried a few minutes ago to get a Brodak 3" bellcrank in but the thickness of the bellcrank doesn't seem to be acceptable. Guess I'll go with the supplied bellcrank but I've got to get some kind of bushings on it. No question that the reason they use those cute "fish hook" connectors is that the leadouts wouldn't last long on that brushed metal.

There is a tech update at the Top Flite website talking about the engine mount. They acknowledge that the instruction book is wrong and give corrected measurements.

I tried to get the new measurements from the Top Flite website, but for some reason I could get it to download. What are the correct figures?

Top Flite Control Line Nobler ARF
Instruction manual correction
Page 14, step 1, under "Mount the Engine":
The photo below replaces the one in the manual. Please
refer to it as you perform this step. Also notice that the
engine mounting rails in the kit are shorter than the ones
depicted in the manual.
Mount the Engine
NBCLADD01

Couldn't get the photo but the measurement is 3 5/8" to 3 3/4" from the firewall to the back of the spinner plate.

I will try to email a copy of the file to you.

This is the day that the Lord has made. And He meant for you to use it flying CL.

Thanks!

LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-03 AT 11:37 AM (CDT)
 
Those numbers sound about what I used. I placed the engine so the back of the spinner plate was 1/32" from the front of the cowling.
It does mention in the instructions that they never test flew the plane with the wing in a removable setup. Nice to know it can be done. I epoxied my wing in place, then used the white goop for canopies to fill in the small gap.
Did anyone have to add tip weight? I think mine will need more and I hate the idea of just sticking it on the outside. I may install a tip weight box yet.

Mine certainly doesn't need any (more) tip weight. Of course I am using the incredibly tiny tongue muffler for the B40. Perhaps a stock muffler (since it is inboard) might affect things. I am assuming that you notice that the wing is ~1 in longer on the inboard side, so this may reduce some of the weight that you think you need.

I may be blowing smoke here as my local shop has yet to supply me with the Nobler I ordered from them. So I have yet to see the actual kit.

Still, some of you may be a little taken aback at how little in structure and/or fasteners is required to keep a wing bolted in place. The local Mutant Magnum--now safely in Helmick's hands and still flying quite well--had four 4-40 stainless steel machine screws holding it all together. Two in front, two at the rear. Threaded into maple blocks which in turn we glued to fuselage sides.

This is Dixon redesign of the SIG Magnum, ST 51 for power, capable of hard corners. Never had a problem with the wing coming loose or breaking the 4-40 screws.

Did once have the rear mable blocks come loose from fuselage sides and it was a rather eventful final few minutes of that flight, no damage to model. As I was done screwing around inside the model I epoxied it all back together.

As a result of experiences with the Mutant I would not hesitate to use either 4-40 screws or 1/4-20 nylon bolts in attaching Nobler wing to fuselage.

The ARF Nobler has a dowell in the leading edge that fits into a hole in a former. The former appears to be a very light balsa and the dowel can and will elongate the hole. The brass tube trick sounds good. The rear of the wing is held in by two 4-40 bolts and is quite secure.
I got mine all finished today, the only hassle being the fuel tank vents and filler tubes, but those worked out ok, with some small slots in the cowl. Now hurry up Saturday and no rain. We are only 1/2 through Aug and already have 1.07 inches more than normal.
Also finished my Debolt Continental. Neat little stunter with an OS .25 FP in it.