Advertisement
Cut the glass and glue it in from the inside. The small portions of the canopy make this job fairly
easy. There are several techniques, and you might have done it before and have a preferred way
to do it. We like to use a special canopy glue, and a few very fine drops of CA to hold the clear
glass in place while curing. Small magnets are used by others to hold the canopy in place while
the main glue dries.
Two small magnets installed in the front frame will work nicely to keep the front canopy closed,
the rear canopy does not need any help to stay closed in flight and the rear gunner glass can be
either fixed permanently, or also held down with a single magnet in the frame.
When the canopy frame is finished, glass glued in, functionality confirmed, then glue the frame
rails on the fuselage. The small pins will align it nicely to make the job easy. Then glue the front
glas and dash board (see next chapter) as well as the two rear fairings to the fuselage. Of course,
during all this work you will have to be very careful not to damage or mess up the nice in-the-
mold color scheme you might have ordered with your kit.
8) Cockpit
The cockpit will be installed from the bottom opening of the fuselage, it is a one-piece design,
plus the front dash board with instrument panel, which is fixed in the front area of the fuselage.
The front dash board will have to be trimmed as shown in the photos above. It is part of the kit
and not part of the cockpit set. A rear dash board is also included in the kit, for the ones who do
not want to install the full cockpit. As soon as the first cockpits become available, a more
comprehensive guide will be added here.
9) CG and Throws
The CG is at 29%-30% of the center wing chord. That equals a distance of 17-17.5 cm from the
leading edge. A tail heavy AT-6 is one of the worst beasts to fly, so please do not experiment
before you have made a few flights with this CG setting. Set this with empty tanks.
Control throws are pretty conservative. 40-50 mm on elevator, 80 mm on rudder, and 25 mm on
aileron are a good starting point. Please use one dual rate switch each on elevator and aileron
with 65%-70% of your high rates. if you feel that the given deflections are a bit hefty for you,
simply switch to the lower rates, but do attempt your first take off with the high rates. All
recommended throws are measured at the point of the largest chord of each control surface.
The AT-6, if a little nose heavy, needs quite some elevator to flare for landing. Also, the tail
surfaces in general are quite small at any AT-6. The fuselage is short, this gives the CARF-Models
AT-6, just like the full scale, its characteristics. And everybody knows, that an AT-6 is not the
absolute easiest plane to land. Any full size pilot will second that. Most of you will use a gyro to
help, but this gyro might alter the feel of the plane, make it feel much softer than with direct
control without gyro. However, if you stick with the recommendations in this manual, you will have
no problems to take off, fly and land this wonderful airplane.
A small tip for landing: The AT-6 wants to be landed with full flaps. It should be flown on to the
ground, which means, the main gear should touch down first, with the fuselage still fairly level. We
recommend to program a 2 stage idle switch, so that the approach and touch down can be done
with a higher idle. This allows the air to flow freely over the tail surfaces. As soon as the tail also
touches down, and the tail wheel takes over the steering, you flip the low idle switch.
For the moment of touch down, it has proven to be helpful to let one wing slightly drop lower than
the other. That means, the two main wheels do not touch down at the exact same time. This will
be a 90% help to avoid any landing bounces.
So far so good... It's time now to experience the great flying characteristics of this marvelous
scale plane, this legend of the skies, by yourself.
Advertisement
