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Another Ultra Flash Repair Thread

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Another Ultra Flash Repair Thread

Old 08-18-2016, 04:56 AM
  #1  
i3dm
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Default Another Ultra Flash Repair Thread

Hello Guys,

Some of you may remember my former Ultra Flash resurrection thread:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-j...step-step.html

That Ultra Flash was repaired with great success and has been flying great ever since:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTVLCJ0hdDM Unfortunately, one of my friends lately crashed his UF when he had an engine cut right after an aborted landing / Go Around attempt.
The damage consists of breaking the entire nose section off (some small pieces went missing) in front of the ducts, and cracking several other areas of the fuselage, nose cone completely cracked, horizontal stabilizer survived, but wing suffered damage to both tips, and to the root area skins, one hardwood wing mount displaced, split open leading edge on one side etc etc.
The damage is quite severe.

Looking at a broken jet such as this one, most people would say "BIN IT!" but we have the magician from Kiryat Gat, Mr. David Ifrah.

David is a professional UAV composite builder (as a profession) and fellow modeler and jet enthusiast. He took one look at the broken UF and said "Ill repair it for you, no sweat!".
So I decided to get the broken jet from my friend and let David work his magic on it.

First pictures im posting show the damage to the jet before the repairs.
Check it out.
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Last edited by i3dm; 08-18-2016 at 05:55 AM.
Old 08-18-2016, 04:59 AM
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First step of work was to strip the plane down of gear, and CA the broken fuselage puzzle back together, and then apply some aluminum tape on the outside, where there are missing pieces.
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Last edited by i3dm; 08-18-2016 at 05:56 AM.
Old 08-18-2016, 05:06 AM
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At this point the jet was delivered to David (Dudu).

David started by cleaning off all the paint from the inside, cutting off the (damaged) inlet duct in order to repair it outside the fuse, and then applyied carbon ans glass cloth to damaged areas, to set the fuse into place structurally.
slots / cavaties were closed with structural 3M Epoxy + Aero Seal mix.
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Last edited by i3dm; 08-18-2016 at 05:57 AM.
Old 08-18-2016, 05:09 AM
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David then proceeded to strip the paint off the entire damaged fuselage area, sanded it and applied a thin fiberglass layer on the outside, sealing all former repairs.
and sanded after it.
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Last edited by i3dm; 08-18-2016 at 05:59 AM.
Old 08-18-2016, 05:12 AM
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Since he developed a way of stripping down the paint while doing the repairs, he thought "why not strip the entire fuselage down?"

anyone ever seen an Ultra Flash in CLEAR scheme?
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Old 08-18-2016, 05:13 AM
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Thats the situation for now... more as repairs continue.
Old 08-18-2016, 05:30 AM
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Very cool!!
Old 08-18-2016, 08:15 AM
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What method did he use to strip the paint?
Old 08-18-2016, 01:46 PM
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Great work
Old 08-18-2016, 01:47 PM
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i3dm
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scratch the surface with 80 grit sand paper and then scrape the paint with an Xacto blade.
its an art
Old 08-18-2016, 02:54 PM
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No disrespect here but plain elbow grease ,
ressurection of high G maneuvering models as such is much of a risk as no one can actually "see" beyond the surface of "non damaged areas " such as remaining wings etc' .
The risk involved might greatly influence everyone as any of the un detected structural damages though not seen can still exists as cracks in the structure ...
Fixing one of these and calling it a sucsses is no more than plainly luck at the best , others would call it lack of fully understanding the nature of physics .. Which might end in a catastrophic failure in flight leading to damage to property or even worse to other bystanders .... So , following those who call out to "Bin it " would actually the right way to go IMHO !
Old 08-18-2016, 05:57 PM
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lavi rider ,
I really do not agree with your philosophy ....
The guy (Dudo) facility and rebuilding it, aviation constructor little more than 10 years
Maybe he does not understand the philosophy,But, build and repair aircraft Composite he knows
I trust his work in 100%
Old 08-19-2016, 03:59 AM
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Right side is almost see through as of today
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Old 08-19-2016, 04:43 AM
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It's probably the language
Old 08-19-2016, 05:46 AM
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Originally Posted by jan.z
lavi rider ,
I really do not agree with your philosophy ....
The guy (Dudo) facility and rebuilding it, aviation constructor little more than 10 years
Maybe he does not understand the philosophy,But, build and repair aircraft Composite he knows
I trust his work in 100%
I don't' agree with him either! Heck! He is a Comp-ARF Dealer, so he wants to sell another one! I have repaired several mishapes with CARF aircraft, and they were more safe then before, heavier, but just as safe or more so. Just have to know what you are doing as a modeler.
Old 08-19-2016, 06:11 AM
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I don't agree with you either. Are you planning on buying this jet?? If not what's the problem? Apperantly this gentleman is a highly skilled composite worker who does this for a living building UAV's and understands the stress these airframes go through. If the company he works for trusts him why can't anyone else?

Originally Posted by lavi rider
No disrespect here but plain elbow grease ,
ressurection of high G maneuvering models as such is much of a risk as no one can actually "see" beyond the surface of "non damaged areas " such as remaining wings etc' .
The risk involved might greatly influence everyone as any of the un detected structural damages though not seen can still exists as cracks in the structure ...
Fixing one of these and calling it a sucsses is no more than plainly luck at the best , others would call it lack of fully understanding the nature of physics .. Which might end in a catastrophic failure in flight leading to damage to property or even worse to other bystanders .... So , following those who call out to "Bin it " would actually the right way to go IMHO !
Old 08-19-2016, 08:08 AM
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lavi rider-

I completely agree. Unless he is opening up the wing to check every rib, this is very unsafe. Because it's a one piece wing, it is very very difficult to actually see every rib and make sure they didn't come un-glued. But I don't know, maybe he is able to see all the ribs since the jet sustained quite a bit of damage.
Old 08-19-2016, 08:22 AM
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Of course we are checking the wing from the inside. We have an endoscope camera for that
Old 08-19-2016, 10:53 AM
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From my 30 years plus in composite structures , building , designing , later into composite structure analysis let us say done my share in the field ( working with CARF mainly in the military aspect of drones , CARF models is no more than a hobby and side kick :-) ... ) and my words where in general about high stress maneuvering platform be it CARF products or any other in that matter I'm saying as a fact .... Without complex testing and analysing tooling there's absolutely no way not even an endoscope that can reveal failure in composite structures ... That's why with certain grade of damage its abosulty non recommended to try and fix it ... The risk is extremely high as explained earlier .
Old 08-19-2016, 10:58 AM
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I would definitely avoid flying such a heavily repaired platform at places where other bystanders might be present just in case it turns out to be less airworthy than mistakenly thought to be.

Just my my two cents ...
Old 08-20-2016, 11:49 AM
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David is on with his great work - Right side of fuse now completely see through.
we found a bit of spackle here and there under the original paint. thats interesting.

Now he will finish all internal reinforcements, and later it will get a completely new finish...
i will tell you already paint scheme will be special.
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Last edited by i3dm; 08-21-2016 at 11:59 AM.
Old 08-21-2016, 11:49 AM
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Nose got some glass cloth on the outside to seal off the repairs and re-finish, with peel ply until the glue dries.
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Old 08-24-2016, 04:49 AM
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Very cool repair job. I remember as a kid I would go to field and pick up crashed models people would wanna throw away cause they didn't wanna fix and I couldn't afford a jet. Was the only way of owning one. This was back in DF days
Old 08-24-2016, 04:53 AM
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My Flash was a repaired flash and flies great! Just as strong as original! Thanks i3dm!! Awesome plane! Rocket ship!
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Old 08-24-2016, 04:53 AM
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Your composite guy does great work!

hybrid flash, classic wings he made to look like UF with UF stabs! Flies fantastic

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