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| The tail wheel mounting on GP's Ryan has alwys been criticized for being weak. Many builders have suggested that GP was out of their mind by attaching the tail wheel to a balsa block with nothing substantial to hold it in place. It looks like GP has taken those complaints and improved on the braket mounting. The bracket and tailwheel itself are very nicely done. GP now calls out to drill and epxy install sections of nyrod for the mounting screws to attach to. Although this installation is not scale it works very well. I did use the furnished pushrod and guide tube. Installation went very well and the tail wheel has positive response. |
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| The cowl mount blocks are supposed to be epoxied to the engine box structure but typically a butt-glued joint like this is weak, even with epoxy. I decided to add a bit of reinforcement with a dowl pin. I first marked the outline of the mounting block on the engine mount box then 'X'ed the center of that. I then X'd the center of the mount block and drilled them each for a 3/16 dowel. (a crude but effective way of lining things up) The blocks were then epoxied in place with 6 minute epoxy. |
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| These various views show the engine installation. I went wiht he OS 1.20 pumped engine, 90 degree in cowl header pipe and the stock muffle pipe that comes with the motor. Due to the inverted mounting of the engine a remote glow adapter is needed to allow easier access to the glow plug for starting. I used a Sullivian Glow Pud Adpter (formerly McDaniel RC's one). I also installed a Robart fueling valve. I made the mounting box for it from 1/8" lite ply. The muffler is virtually inside the cowl. Only a small portion will be visible after the cowl is installed. |
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| The cowl is fibeglass and finished rather well. There are some seam lines but to fix those would require stripping the paint, applying putty, sanding, priming and repainting. Too much work. For the most part it looks OK. You need to install a supplied 1/16" ply ring to give the cowl some rigidity. I marked the setback from the aft end about 1 3/8" and temp attached the ring with CA. I then mixed 30 min epoxy and micro ballons and permanently affixed it. The prop shaft hole is already cut out but the other openings need to be made. I used a dremel for this. The cowl was then test fit and the other cutouts for fuel valve, Ni-starter and needle valve extension were added after permamnetly locating the cowl. You can see from the inset pic how the muffler exits the cowl. It's quite a neat installation. Hopefully there will be adequate cooling. |
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| The wing struts come pre-covered but you need to bevel them to conform to the wing and fuse profiles. The instructions show where the hardwood block in the wing is and how to locate it. I marked it on the covering with a felt pen. The strut is purely decorative and non functional. |
| A Ryan without flying wires looks a bit bare. I decided to add some using the technique I learned from my Byron Gee Bee. The 'wires' are silver elastic cord I picked up from a local craft store. The end fittings on the wings are ball and socket hardware from Du-Bro (GP stuff works well too). You need to provide a hard mount for the balls in the wing. Once I located where the fittings needed to be I drilled a 1/4" hole in each location on the top and bottom of the wing. I then inserted a 1/4" wooden dowel, cut to the proper length and CA'd in place. The dowel ends were sanded flush with the wing surface then a 1/16" hole was drilled in the center of the dowel for the ball fitting to thread into. I cut some circular pieces of covering from extra cub yellow monokote to dress up the hard points and threaded in the ball links. The elasic cord is inserted into the ball connector with CA and then a pin is inserted thru the link stem to positively retain the cord. The excess pin it trimmed and filed off. The fuse and wheel pants have holes drilled in them to accept the cord. Which is inserted and knotted to retain it. The 'wires' are flexible and easily taken off and on for wing installation and removal. They are totally non-functional |
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| on to the flight test |