Cox Sky Cruisers Viper RC conversion build

I have been waiting for parts for the Cox Gravity Warbirds F4-U Corsair build so i will start the conversion of the Cox Sky Cruiser Viper freeflight plane to 2/3 channel RC.
my original idea was to try to fit the RC equipment i already had into the small foam plane and live with the consequences. i soon realized the consequences were a non-flying piece of overweight junk.
you may have seen other modifications of similar planes from the cox sky cruisers series as they made several models. my favorite was the P-40 or the P-51. the Viper looks like a P-51, except with a purple fuselage and a yellow wing and elevator assembly. this modification will follow the format of the Cox Gravity Warbirds F4-U Corsair i started last week.

as with the F4-U Corsair it is easier to start with the easiest parts first.
first the Viper elevator stabilizer before modification.


next the elevator stab with control horn marked in proper location. abrade area around horn top and bottom.


next install control horn and glue.


cutoff extra control horn on opposite side and carefully heat rod with soldering iron tip.

set asside for now

Viper rudder assembly before modification.


Viper rudder assembly with control horn hole marked and abraded.


Viper rudder assembly with control horn glued in.


cutoff extra control horn on backside and carefully heat with soldering iron tip.


that's all for now. untill the other parts come in.


edited 9-12-12 10:26p.m. PST

I have a few minutes to update the Cox sky cruiser Viper conversion so i thought i would finish the elevator assembly first.

When last seen the elevator assembly looked something like this:


Place the elevator assembly on the fuselage, view from the bottom and draw a pair of lines allowing clearance of the moveable part of the elevator to avoid touching the fuselage.


Cut the moveable part of the elevator along these lines. The elevator assembly should look like this with each part of the moveable elevator loose and moveable on its own. We will fix this later.


Place elevator assembly on the fuselage again and view from the bottom. This time note the interference between the moveable elevator and the rudder and rudder control horn. mark the moveable elevator for clearance and carefully cutoff the foam piece as noted. The elevator assembly should now look like this:



Make sure that the moveable elevator part of the elevator assembly clears the rudder and rudder control horn on both sides of the rudder. More next time. and we'll also figure out how to make both moveable elevator surfaces move at the same time.

happydad