Welcome to Canuck Engineering

The foam smoke was fuming tonight!

I managed to block up a whole 6" thick billet of EPP tonight and also cut 8 of 12 wing panels for the first LJ60 and LJ72 protos. So far so good.

My plan of allowing full size gear will work well with the new wide cord LJ platforms. I checked with a Futaba 148 full size servo and I still have about 3/16" of foam thickness under the servo at the first panel join out from the root join. I haven't cut the root panels yet, but I'm pretty sure you will be able to fit a full size standard RX in there as well.

I finished the foam cutting tonight finally.

Then I immediately started in on the gear. Battery's on all three now installed, RX tomb cutout, servo bays cut out, and wing panels joined.

The 72" Lumberjack is going to be a beast. Lots and lots of area to work with!

Here's the status of the builds.

LJ48 complete minus elevon throws in radio.
LJ60 working on the elevons and control rods. It also needs a tail.
LJ72 covering complete.

There a few pics on rcgroups of the covering scheme. I will post them here when I get time. It's getting close to the start of my CA trip and I'm getting real busy.

First off, I haven't gotten to fly the LJ72 as I ran out of lead for balancing. It did recieve alot of good comments from the SoCal pilots.

The LJ60 flies great. Maiden was done on Parker in CA. First flight was uneventful and I even DSed it on the maiden flight. Trims were good, rates a bit high but overall a great flying LJ.

It's been confirmed that the LJ60 turns as hard as the LJ48. It does need a speck more wind to get it up on step, but it is faster overall. It's easier to fly as it is bigger and easier to see.

I also flew the Polar Bear F3F race at White Point with the LJ60. Winds were very light and contest was called after two rounds. The LJ60 did very well against all the glass. I was about an average of 10 - 15 secs. off the pace of the glass. With more wind and practice it would have done better. I was late on most of my turns and on the second round cut a turn losing alot of time.

Andrew

I drug the beast to Zion today and flew very very light wind from the east for about an hour. Maiden was uneventful once the right about of lead was applied to the nose. Took one walk down the hill before I got it flying sweet. Air was light enough that combat wings were having alot of trouble, but the LJ72 was doing okay. It can really slow down and crawl across the sky.

Then like a light switch the wind turned a 180 and blew 70+mph from the west. I threw out the LJ72 into the roughest air I have flown in a long time. Lots and lots of turbulance. The big wing handled it very well for the conditions. Penitration was no problem. Loops were nice and tight, rolls are axial and surprisingly quick with a 72" wing. Inverted flight was easy with 1/8" stick for level flight.

I also tested the durability when I smacked a combat wing dead on. I lost most of my balancing lead and went way tail heavy, but managed a short walk and no damage to the plane. I dug out more lead and taped it down good this time.

Next was DS in the micro groove on the point. Very turbulent back side but I did manage a few hair raising passes. I did eat it once on a wing tip at 75mph or so. I thought for sure there would be damage, but none, not even a striped servo and I have HS311's installed.

A couple things to note,
This thing howls all the time and makes all kinds of noises in the DS groove. Rolling increases the pitch and loudness of the howls on the front side.

Lauching a 72" plank from the nose is hard work in big wind. It gives you a real wrist workout. One good thing is that it flies slow enough you don't need big forward speed to get it going.

I ended up only flying the LJ72 the whole day as this plane is a lot of fun to fly!

Bigger is Better!

Andrew