Flies like a butterly, stings like a BEE

The Windrider Bee is finally here!!! The Chinese New Year holidays are looming. This I reckon is going to be one of my fastest build ever. I want to get the plane airborne by tomorrow. I think I can, I think I can! Choo Choo. Let the Randomtask Express through. This is going to be one whirlwind of a build.

This morning I received the Bee from Jeremy. I also took over the rest of the bees for easier distribution to the other guys, namely Ken and Colin. Alas I cannot start the build immediately as I had a cake order delivery to settle first. Once I got back from doing what I had to do I started my build at around 10 minutes to 4 o'clock in the afternoon.





The Bee's foam core and additional carbon spar for that extra rigidity.



The kit comes very complete. With all the hardware needed. It even includes coloured packing tape for the covering.



The electronics: Hitec Electron 6 (receiver), 2 x Hitec standard servos


Okay, now that all the posey pictures for the build are out of the way, it's time to get some real work done. First up, was to adhere the two part wings together. The instructions never mentioned any gluing, but I just had to. Just for the peace of mind.





Adhesive of choice: Goop. Goop maintains a very strong bond while having some flexibility to withstand impact. Bottomline: Goop will not crack under pressure.... Get it? Get it? OK lame. I know. Moving along.

Next up, I proceeded to strap the wings halves tightly to each other with the supplied filament tape. Did this step on both the top and bottom part of the wings.





The next step I did was another deviation from the instructions. I decided to glass the nose area of the Bee. After researching on the Bee, it seems that alot of the Bee owners found the strength of the nose rather disappointing. So I cut a piece fibre glass(FG) cloth, sprayed it with 3M 77 adhesive, plastered it on the wing and proceeded to apply thinned down epoxy on the FG areas. Job done within a few minutes. Not the best looking job, but getting better every time.





While waiting for the resin to dry, I then went on to the programming the plane onto the 12FG. Easy job on this radio. I made sure the servos were moving the right way and I also wrapped the receiver antennae wire around the "dog bone" to reduce the length of the dangling wire when installed on the wing. After that, all the electronics, sans the battery pack were installed into the plane.



The last order of the day was to attach the ailerons to the foam core. I had to cut off part of the ailerons near the wing tips so that it will be flushed with the wing tips. I did this step while following closely to the instructions. No problems there. Once that was done I went on to brace the bottom side of the Bee with filament tape as per instructions.



There. Done for the day. I think I will be able to finish up the build tomorrow and get it airborne. Fastest build ever. For me, at least. To be continued.

Signing off,
RandomTask