The first step in the Carden manual is to make sheeting for the various parts. I don’t want to stray too far from the manual but I was afraid that the sheeting might get damaged in the shop while I did the next few steps. I’ll do the sheeting at the last minute before its needed. I have a very generous offer to use some professional layup tables for skinning the flight surfaces on this project. So I’m going to work on getting them all skinned before I go any further.

The first big decision I had to make in the build was where to mount the servos in the wings. I really wanted to run 1 servo in each wing but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Saving 4oz and $300+ was really tempting. It probably would have worked just fine. I just don’t know enough to make that call so I went with the recommended 2 servos. My limited experience with model airplanes has been that servos are the worst place to be cheap.

I drew up the tapered ailerons to the dimension indicated on the plans and they looked fine to me. I just extended the aileron 1″ towards the wing root. I split the length into 4 and put the servos at the 1/4 marks, biased towards the root by 1″. Another big question was how far the servos should be from the hinge line. I looked at a bunch of build threads and came up with the magic number of 2 1/2 inches. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could be closer, there is enough thickness in the core for it.

I made up some servo boxes using the supplied servo rails (lengthened to 2 1/2 inches) and some 3/32″ ply. I made a little fixture to assemble the boxes so they where square. The main reason for the boxes it to make sure the servo rails go in square. The box internal dimensions are 21mm x 41mm. Standard servos are metric and about 20mmx40mm so the extra 1mm gives a little play. I used a paper template and the Dremel router to mark and cut pockets for the servo boxes. I just did the routing free hand and it worked out well. Just have the shop-vac handy to clean up the mess!

The tunnel for the servo wire is up next. I cut it with the Dremel to the same depth as the bottom of the servo cutouts. I did two passes guided by a straight edge to make it wider. The servo wire can wrap under the servo and into the tunnel and pass out of the servo box through the arch in the ply support. Study the plans and pick a spot on the side of the fuse clear of obstructions and run the channel out to that point. My exit was about 11cm behind the wing tube.
Finally I installed the servo boxes with Polyurethane glue. Once the first wing was finished the second one went much faster. I swear, the hardest part is just getting started!

On the the stabs. The plans call for a servo box up against the root of the surface. You don’t have much room to get creative here or the front of the servo box will come out of the bottom of the core. Also be careful not to put the servo over the tube socket, check the plans. I put the servo box 5mm in front of the stab, parallel with the tube (which is parallel to the hinge line) with one corner just touching the end of the foam.

I got my first scare after doing the first stab. I thought I had done it upside down! Then I checked everything over and it was alright. Unlike the wings, where there is an obvious left and right half and stabs are both identical cores. They both have the same side marked as “down” and that was what threw me off. If you follow that you will make two left stabs. You have to flip one over ad cut the ‘up’ side so you have both a right and a left. When you sheet them always put the side marked bottom on the table. One stab will be upside down in the shuck and the other upright. Confused yet? Good!

The whole ‘down’ side business is important. The bottom shuck has a perfectly flat surface but the top shuck is not flat. Sheet them upside down and you could warp the surface.

On to the wing tube sockets. I put the little dowel through the tube and added the 1/16″ balsa end cap, no problem there. Then I tried to fit the tube socket support plate and had my first real DOH! moment. At this point I had never picked the cores up out of the shucks for fear of causing damage to the foam. So I didn’t know that the hole the support plate goes in is cut clear through the wing core! I started jamming it into the slot and wondered why is was so far off center. I cut some material off one side. Luckily I realized my mistake before I cut too much for it to make contact with the wing skins on both sides of the wing.

Coat the tube and support plate up with lots of PU and do the push and twist ;-)

This thing is a god send for cross posting flickr photos in BB code to forums. AllSizes+

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could ban a particular site (e.g. experts-exchange) from your Google search results? (One of the interns just pointed out that a greasemonkey script exists specifically for blocking that site).

I have been lusting for a couple of Apples devices. Specifically the Apple TV and the iPhone. I haven’t pulled the trigger on either one yet because they are expensive.

I was really hopeful when the Apple TV came out. Steve Jobs refers to it as “The Hobby”. I believe this is an allusion to the idea that they know that such a device is needed but not exactly what needs to go into it. It can’t refer to the hobbyists that have been modding and hacking the device to add those things in. The first software update, 1.1, took away all of the tools that made modding easy.

It’s just missing too many things. The biggest beef I have is the lack of support for video formats. this is not a limitation of the device or even the codecs on it. Modders have even found a way to trick iTunes into sending all kinds of video files to the ApplyTV, which it plays quite happily. Not supporting every reasonable video format in iTunes and on the AppleTV out of the box makes this a non starter for me. You cant take over my media experience if you don’t play all my media.

Here is an example. I get loads of videos from FlyingGiants.com in all manner of formats, WMV, AVI, Xvid, ogm etc. None of that will play on the device and none of them will import into iTunes. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could subscribe to an RSS feed of the videos and get them delivered to me like a podcast? The XBox360 does a much better job of this and its comparable priced and, oh yea, it plays games! Hey Apple, get with the program, not all legal, legitimate, virtuous media originates on a Mac in Quicktime. The ApplyTV needs to be omnivorous.

No Net Radio. iTunes has stream support, why cant the AppleTV? I would like to be able to kick a little SomeFM in my living room without having to go mess with my PC. Seems like a glaring omission to me.
No Web Browser. Come on , they put Safari on the iPhone and that screen is tiny. The Nintendo Wii has a good web browser. i think though that this might require a better remote to really be easy to use, something like the Wii’s gyroscopic technology really is ideal for this.
So i had my hopes up, even after its release that the AppleTV would mature into the HTPC we have all wanted but never quite archived. It could still be that device it just needs a few things. Unfortunately those things are at odds with Apples corporate media strategy. Still if you don’t care about those things its the best HTPC going.
The iPhone on the other hand seems to be just about perfect. Its like they designed it for me personally or something. That thing is just Bad Ass. No Edge data is a bummer but Wifi is a huge bonus. I can live without the edge, the few times that I really needed net access on the go were for checking e-mail or getting directions. I never needed to watch YouTube.

My current phone has a lot of the iPhone’s features. Its a music player and lets you surf the net. It just seems neolithic with its small screen, clumsy interface and T9 text entry, next to an iPhone. I know I’m going to get one, it is a forgone conclusion. I haven’t this been excited about a cellphone since I got my first one. Still the $600 price point (come on, wants the 4GB model?!) makes this an item that may be on the “do want” list for a long time.