Ecee Thunder and Geminee Thunder Restoration

[Voyhager3]

I recently acquired these 2 from a member at my local club who was downsizing and decided to give them to me for free since they were beat up.
I don’t know much about the history, but I hope to atleast get the Ecee to fly again!
And currently I’m working on the Ecee and will start the Geminee in the future

 

[Sandy H.]

I recently acquired these 2 from a member at my local club who was downsizing and decided to give them to me for free since they were beat up.
I don’t know much about the history, but I hope to atleast get the Ecee to fly again!
And currently I’m working on the Ecee and will start the Geminee in the future

I assume you were at the launch yesterday and I thought I heard a callout for Rocket 2 R.O.Y. edition.

Hope you had a good day! We didn't lose anything, so that's a plus.

Sandy.

 

[Voyhager3]

I assume you were at the launch yesterday and I thought I heard a callout for Rocket 2 R.O.Y. edition.

Hope you had a good day! We didn't lose anything, so that's a plus.

Sandy.

Yep, it was a good day, with low winds. Sucks today was a washout. But I lost 1 rocket, but came home with 2 more, so I guess It couldn’t get much better! I thought I also heard you out there, and for all I know I even might have talked to you!

 

[Voyhager3]

I have started the process of making new parts and I decided I wanted to tweak some of them to look a bit sleeker based on the plans i found on the forum.
The lines highlighted in red are the lines I used and the lines in blue are the original lines.
But since I have made them I found that the winglet things are actually more swept back than the plans that I found, so mine aren’t as aggressive as I wanted, but I’m still going to use mine.

And here are the two cut out

I’m going to also make the canard control surface a bit more drawn out also, so I’ll update when I get there

 

[Voyhager3]

Temporary fastened the winglets for a picture

 

[Rktman]

Just so you don't run into the same problem I had, make sure that your canard flap can fully deflect down to the cutout angles in the body side pieces. Mine didn't reach so the angle is too shallow to keep the nose of the glider up, and it goes ballistic after stalling a couple of times.

I'd suggest you also replace the kit's tape hinges with something that has a much stronger adhesive, like Blenderm. The supplied tape hinges let go before I even got to fly the glider. You might even want to consider Dubro hinges, which is what I did to make sure the flaps stay on permanently and won't have any chance of loosening.

 

[Voyhager3]

Just so you don't run into the same problem I had, make sure that your canard flap can fully deflect down to the cutout angles in the body side pieces. Mine didn't reach so the angle is too shallow to keep the nose of the glider up, and it goes ballistic after stalling la couple times.

I'd suggest you also replace the kit's tape hinges with something that has a much stronger adhesive, like Blenderm. The supplied tape hinges let go before I even got to fly the glider. You might even want to consider Dubro hinges, which is what I did to make sure the flaps stay on permanently and won't have any chance of loosening.

Yeah I was wondering about those deflection angles, because mine only gets about a third of the way deflected, so I guess I need to trim that piece that gets triggered by the plug that is ejected. And on another note, what thickness of CA glue would you recommend? So I can order it with the hinges.

 

[Rktman]

Yeah I was wondering about those deflection angles, because mine only gets about a third of the way deflected, so I guess I need to trim that piece that gets triggered by the plug that is ejected. And on another note, what thickness of CA glue would you recommend? So I can order it with the hinges.

I used 1-hour epoxy. That gave me a lot of time to ensure the hinges were perfectly aligned before the epoxy set.

If you prefer using CA I'd suggest using the medium gap-filling variety. It gives you a lot of wiggle room to position the hinges perfectly because it doesn't set immediately the way thin or thick CA does.

 

[Voyhager3]

As a recent turn of events has happens it appears I might be flying THIS Saturday, so I guess no paint up, and no proper hinges. And I’ll be on a E12-4 so let’s hope this goes well. And I’ll make sure to do test chucks before

 

[Rktman]

As a recent turn of events has happens it appears I might be flying THIS Saturday, so I guess no paint up, and no proper hinges. And I’ll be on a E12-4 so let’s hope this goes well. And I’ll make sure to do test chucks before

Best wishes for a great flight.

 

[hobie1dog]

As a recent turn of events has happens it appears I might be flying THIS Saturday, so I guess no paint up, and no proper hinges. And I’ll be on a E12-4 so let’s hope this goes well. And I’ll make sure to do test chucks before

I wish I could be there to see your flight.

 

[Voyhager3]

Best wishes for a great flight.

Thank you!

I wish I could be there to see your flight.

Hopefully it will warm up a bit in the next few months!

 

[Voyhager3]

Oops

Flight tests were going really well, but a head wind happened. I was using a larger motor than I would, and even after being used the motor i was using would still be heavier than a e12. But I will hopefully have if ready for tomorrow

 

[Rktman]

Gliders always fly better after they break and get fixed.

 

[Voyhager3]

Repaired and temporary decorated!

 

[Voyhager3]

So the first flight when well,
And I don’t know if you can tell I was very happy with it
Here is the link too the Google drive video:
I couldn’t figure out how to lower the quality

 

[hobie1dog]

Thanks for the video, that was great

 

[Voyhager3]

Now that you’ve seen the the good, it’s time for the bad.
(I’ll add the vid later)
I decided to use a e26, bad I idea

 

[waltr]

Did that break apart on launch or landing?

 

[Voyhager3]

Did that break apart on launch or landing?

Launch, I’ll post the vid soon.

 

[Voyhager3]

So here is what happened,

I decided to use a quest e26, because I assumed it would still be fine, but obviously was wrong. Right before the motor stopped burning the aircraft hit its maximum speed, and had a structural failure. The fuselage ripped at the wing attachments which caused the wing to fall off causing instability which cascaded into the other wing ripping. Then all the pieces rained down on me.
So only use BP motors I guess
But I will rebuild it, this time with fiberglass.

 

[Rktman]

Can't see the videos. The player loads but doesn't display anything. Can you please type the link url?

 

[hobie1dog]

Bummer

 

[Sandy H.]

So the first flight when well,
And I don’t know if you can tell I was very happy with it
Here is the link too the Google drive video:
I couldn’t figure out how to lower the quality

Awesome flight. I hope to meet you at a future launch. The next launch is my and my wife's birthday weekend (born 1 year apart) and I will be out of town the week before and the weekend after, so it is highly unlikely I'll be at the launch, but maybe March.

Good luck on the repair. Not sure what you have on hand for lightweight fiberglass, but I know I've got some so if you need a bit, let me know. We did a group buy years ago to get the cost down and I still have a bit. Its 2.7 oz weave, so it might work as it is pretty light/fine. Not sure what the glider people use, so maybe it is heavy for that world. . . I'm on the Weddington side of town.

Sandy.

 

[BABAR]

So here is what happened,

I decided to use a quest e26, because I assumed it would still be fine, but obviously was wrong. Right before the motor stopped burning the aircraft hit its maximum speed, and had a structural failure. The fuselage ripped at the wing attachments which caused the wing to fall off causing instability which cascaded into the other wing ripping. Then all the pieces rained down on me.
So only use BP motors I guess
But I will rebuild it, this time with fiberglass.

Mother Nature frowns on those trying to exceed the speed of balsa

On the other hand, you demonstrated a successful CATO recovery, looks like all the pieces came down nice and slow.

 

[Voyhager3]

Mother Nature frowns on those trying to exceed the speed of balsa

On the other hand, you demonstrated a successful CATO recovery, looks like all the pieces came down nice and slow.

Yep, I got nearly every piece back, and the only thing I didn’t get was something that is easy to make. And everything else will just be like putting a jigsaw puzzle back together. And now I gained the opportunity to make it better (maybe) with fiberglass! And most importantly, I now have more experience and now know to only use bp motors.

 

[waltr]

Oh my....
AT does make low thrust composite motors but only in reloads.
Thinking an E11J, E18W, F12J, E16W may work and not shred your glider.

 

[Voyhager3]

I’m getting the last bits of resin this week, then I can fiber glass. I also got some hinges. They are a bit small, but I think the should be fine…

 

[Rktman]

So here is what happened,

I decided to use a quest e26, because I assumed it would still be fine, but obviously was wrong. Right before the motor stopped burning the aircraft hit its maximum speed, and had a structural failure. The fuselage ripped at the wing attachments which caused the wing to fall off causing instability which cascaded into the other wing ripping. Then all the pieces rained down on me.
So only use BP motors I guess
But I will rebuild it, this time with fiberglass.

I launched mine on an E15W-4. It did fine and it would've been a great flight if the canard flap had fully deployed.

 

[Voyhager3]

I launched mine on an E15W-4. It did fine and it would've been a great flight if the canard flap had fully deployed.

That’s one thing I’m definitely concerned about, when I recovered to the first time, that little tab trigger thing broke off at some point. It obviously landed fine, but I think that is what caused it to fly upside down. So I’ll probably try and secure that in better.