? One Piece pre-fitted wing
? Plug-on Stabs
? Complete hardware
? Good FG work on Belly-pan
? Very good flight characteristics
? Easy to see in the sky
? Wide range of aerobatic capabilities
? Color
manual a plus, but could be better
? Engine mount needed
modification
Precision
Aerobatics,
(often referred to as pattern), has for a long time been out
of the reach of the average Sport-Flyer?s budget. The
reason was not only a cost issue, but also a need to have
a lot of building experience for the more ?exotic?
pattern kits. The good news is that as ARF?s in general
have become more popular, the availability of ARF precision
aerobatics planes has also increased.
The Ultra RC ICEPOINT
is a full-sized pattern plane that meets the current two meters
and eleven pounds maximum weight limit requirements of both
USA pattern and FAI-F3A competitions. You provide the engine
and radio. Almost everything else is included.
INFORMATION
SPECIFICATIONS
ENGINES CLASS 120-180. 2-c or 4-c
RTF. WEIGHT 9-10lbs
TOTAL LENGTH 78.75"
WING SPAN 77.50"
WING AREA 1100 sq.in.
CENTER OF GRAVITY 7.2" - 8" from LE of wing
at root
WING INCIDENCE 0 °
WING DIHEDRAL 0°
STAB. INCIDENCE 0 °
RIGHT THRUST 2-3 °
DOWN THRUST 0 °
INITIAL ICEPOINT THROWS FOR PATTERN AND SPORT FLYING
Rate Degrees
Up Degrees Down Expo %
Elevator Lo 15 15 40
High 17 17 50
Rate Degrees
left Degrees Right Expo %
Rudder... Lo 20 20 20
High 26 26 25
Rate Degrees
Left Degrees Right Expo %
Aileron. Lo 15 15 20
High 17 17 30
Degrees up Degrees
Down
Airbrake 7 0
Take-off
Assistance 0 20
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
The
plane arrives in a huge, very tough box that contains a wooden
frame that could easily be turned into a shelving unit. (In
fact, mine disappeared into my neighbor?s garage when
I tried to throw it out with the trash!)
Construction of the ICEPOINT is basically balsa wood and plywood.
It is pre-covered with Ultracote covering. The wing is pre-joined
and has been pre-fitted to the fuselage. It truly is a one-piece
wing, which is the main reason why the box is so huge.
A main feature is the plug-on stab that is also adjustable.
The wing is fixed in position by the wing saddle configuration.
The adjustable stab is a welcome feature that will allow some
fine-tuning at the field.
The canopy is clear with a pre-painted border. Included in
the hardware are a full complement of horns and clevises and
even a rudder pull-pull package. The ICEPOINT features a one-piece
Fiber glass belly-pan/chin-cowl that covers the engine and
the exhaust system after the one-piece wing has been fitted.
Hardware
Hardware
Hardware
Hardware
Hardware
Hardware
Items
that are still needed to complete the model include a spinner,
fuel-tank and an engine-mount. The mount will depend upon the
engine that you select. The ICEPOINT is designed for the current
breed of 1.40-1.60 2-cycle and 4-cycle motors. The fuselage
and belly-pan are made to accept 4-cycle pipe/mufflers and the
longer 2-cycle tuned pipes.
A 2-3/4? FAI-F3A Tru-Turn type of spinner is required
to stay within the 2 meter limit. Any 4-Channel radio and a
Y-lead will allow you to fly this plane. A computer radio with
some channel mixing options will allow you to dial away any
minor control coupling. (See flight testing). The plane needs
five servos, one for each aileron, one each for elevator, rudder
and throttle. The review model was flown with both 4-cell and
5-cell NiMH packs.
The ground clearance is very good with the supplied fixed-gear.
A 17? diameter propeller had plenty of room for its tips
to clear the grass! Although almost everything else is included,
you always have the option to substitute your own hardware.
RC pilots, especially pattern pilots, tend to have personal
equipment preferences when it comes to connectors, clevises
and pushrods.
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
Install
engine
ENGINE
INSTALLATION - The engine bay comes pre-fitted with a plywood
motor-tray that is ready to accept either a directly mounted
motor or a beam-type soft-mount. A Dave Brown iso-mount was
modified to take a wider rear-rubber support. This was to handle
the power and weight of the OS 1.60 FX. If a soft mount is not
used, the engine can be simply bolted to the motor-tray using
approx. 3/16? plywood spacers to line up the spinner with
the nose ring.
A Cline Regulator was used to feed the fuel to the remote needle.
This allowed the fuel tank to be mounted on the center of gravity.
The OS 1.60 FX is a side-exhaust motor so a Karl Mueller custom
header was employed to route the exhaust to an ES Carbon Fiber
tuned pipe. The belly-pan was opened up with a Dremel sanding
drum to provide cooling air to the engine and the exhaust coupler.
BELLY-PAN - A large amount of the construction
time was spent on the belly-pan. It is designed to be removable
and is fitted after the one-piece wing is attached to the fuselage.The
cut-outs for the cooling of the belly-pan are left to your imagination.
There are a couple of vents built into the trailing edge of
the wing but much more airflow is required to keep the pipe
cool. ?Shark gills? were added at the rear and an
intermediate air-scoop to help more air get into the pipe inside
the tunnel
The belly-pan comes with plywood tongues that act as tunnel-edge
locators. The instructions said to use the machine screws provided
to hold the belly-pan in place. Because the belly-pan was going
to be removed and replaced every time the plane was used, it
was decided to use five 4-40 bolts and blind nuts at key locations
instead.
The tuned pipe was supported at the coupler with an iso-stud
and at the rear of the pipe using the neck of the exhaust stinger.
The pipe was held in place by a wire-tie that is cut and replaced
every time the plane is assembled. An O-ring is used to hold
the pipe temporarily in place during transport.
Install
belly pan
Install
belly pan
Install
belly pan
Install
belly pan
Install
belly pan
Install
gear
Install
gear
Install
pipe
Install
gear
MAIN
LANDING GEAR - You have to drill the landing gear and the holes
in the fuselage for the blind nuts. Be careful that you do not
get too close to the fuselage sides and the triangle stock.
This is clear, if you look at the pictures provided in the instructions.
Check for good glue joints inside the landing gear support area.
It is not a bad idea to wick-in some thin CA for good measure.
The wheel pants were opened out to give better wheel/tire clearances.
(Tires will change shape when rolling fast or when turning hard).
The pants were each held in place with a 4-40 bolt and blind
nut instead of the provided machine screws. Notches were cut
in the bally-pan to clear the landing gear leg exits from the
fuselage.
STAB - A ?pointed? soldering iron is used to open
up the stab-adjuster holes. They are a bit hard to find at first,
but a probe light inside the tube really helps. The same light
also was used to find the location of the stab retainer holes.
The soldering iron was again used to open up the holes and keep
the covering neat. Allen-head 2-56 screws were used to hold
the stabs onto the stab-tube. Nylon inserts were fashioned from
the heads of 1/4 x 20 nylon wing bolts and used to provide more
grip for the 2-56 bolts inside the stab tubes.
The stabs were fitted before the rudder was hinged to allow
for easier visual alignment of the elevators and the adjustable
stab-halves.
The
supplied carbon stab tube was thickened with the use of medium-CA
(It is a common pattern plane practice to do this to get a
snug fit for wing and stab tubes. Just be sure to use kicker
to cure that all of the CA before fitting.) It is a good idea
to set the two stab incidences equal before drilling for the
retaining screws.
All the control surfaces, (including the ailerons), use Mylar-CA-type
hinges and there are plywood hard-points already inlaid to
make the fitting of the control horns very sturdy indeed.
Install
gear
Install
control surfaces
Install
control surfaces
Install
control surfaces
Install
control surfaces
Install
control surfaces
Install
control surfaces
Install
tailwheel
Looks
good
FIN and
RUDDER - The fin has a plywood tab that ?keys?
the fin to the fuselage making alignment somewhat automatic.
Both the fin and the stabs came aligned correctly with the
wings. The rudder was fitted with Mylar hinges. The tail-wheel
was not fitted as per the instructions. Instead of using the
tail-wheel-assembly as an extra hinge, the tiller-arm was
bent in such a way that it could be removed to service or
be replaced in the future.
WING - It took approx thirty-five 30 minutes to complete the
wing. The metal wing bolts were swapped for nylon 1/4 x 20
wing bolts. The wing-bolt blind nuts were removed and the
remaining plywood tapped and ?zapped? to accept
the ¼ x 20 bolts. This is not necessary, but the nylon
bolts tend to grip better. They rarely, if ever, loosen in
flight. (They are also more readily available should you lose
one!) The assembly work consisted of simply fitting the CA
hinges, installing the servos and fitting the control arms.
Prep
for gear
Prep
for gear
Prep
for gear
Prep
for gear
Install
electronic gear
Install
electronic gear
Install
electronic gear
Prepainted
canopy
Icepoint
FUSELAGE
- The ARF comes with servo and tank trays to help you install
the radio etc. The elevator servo was laid on its side to keep
the swing of the servo arm in the same plane as the elevator
horns. It was also mounted higher so that it would clear the
rudder servo, which was fitted centrally to help the pull-pull
geometry.
The Cline regulator uses a pressurized fuel tank so this allowed
the tank to be located close to the CG. The throttle servo was
put as far back as possible to also help in avoiding a nose
heavy situation. The supplied canopy was sprayed on the inside
with R/C car body metallic blue to give it more in-flight visibility
than that of the clear canopy. RC-56 was used to glue on the
canopy in preference to the supplied screws. The canopy edges
were sealed with self adhesive colored trim tape.
The RX and battery were placed next to the throttle and elevator
servos and retained with Velcro tape. All the rearward placement
work proved to be successful because the CG came out exactly
as per the instructions.The decals came with transfer-tape which
made both alignment and application very easy.
The last thing to do was iron down all the covering edges
and wait for a good flying day?.
The first thing to do was to take some pictures. The
second thing was to answer the many questions of the
onlookers. This is a strikingly colored airplane and
does stand out well. The top colors are very different
from the bottom colors which proved to be very useful
in flight.
The OS 1.60 was new and needed to be broken-in. the
Cline regulator requires you to ?prime?
the fuel lines for the first run of the day. This
is achieved by putting your finger over the carb intake
and hand turning the motor over one or two times.
After that the engine would hand start with a backward
?bump? almost every time.
A full tank was put through the motor on the ground
and this time was used to set the transition from
idle to mid-throttle. The OS engine instructions are
very exact and if followed correctly the motor will
be yours to command!
For break-in, 15% Coolpower and an OS ?F?
plug were used. The engine was very happy with the
17 x 12 APC propeller. There were really no more excuses
to delay the test flight. As a safety precaution,
the JR 10X failsafe-settings were programmed to have
throttle at idle and a touch of up elevator. All range
checks were satisfactory so it was off to the flight
line!
FLIGHT TESTING
The ICEPOINT
tracked straight and lifted off easily at about half
throttle. It needed some ?beeps? of down
trim and a tiny bit of right aileron trim. It was
put through a series of straight and level hands-off
trim tests. Then some up and down lines to check the
vertical tracking.
The initial testing went so well that most of the
FAI-F3A P-05 schedule was attempted. The rolling maneuvers
were pleasantly easy but needed the higher roll rate.
The throws that had been selected were aimed at smooth
pattern flying. The goal being to be able to do snaps
in the down-line and up-line without using rate switches.
POSING
TIME
Inverted spins were performed with rudder and elevator
only. It stopped rotating as soon as the controls were
centered. Before the fuel got too low, some long and
very slow rolls were flown. In the knife-edge position
you could see that there was a very small push to the
belly. Landing was simply a matter of lining up on the
runway, chopping the gas to idle and letting the plane
land with a small flare on touchdown.
After the very uneventful landing you could see about
1/16? down elevator had been dialed in. This plane
has an adjustable stab so both stab halves had their
leading edges raised. Three quick test flights for elevator
adjustment, doing half of an adjuster turn at a time,
resulted in a neutral elevator trim.
The knife-edge performance was now excellent. It also
did the Avalanche type of snap without any problems.
There was a very slight pull to the canopy on the down
line so 1% of down elevator was dialed to kick in at
low throttle.
Although this review was aimed at using this plane as
a pattern plane, there is a lot more that it can do.
The rudder response is very strong and it has no problem
at all doing slow High-Alpha rolls and knife-edge passes.
You can confidently do consecutive knife-edge loops.
The exit of the loop in the knife-edge attitude is very
predictable. A single roll loop is very achievable with
this plane.
For you more extreme 3-D fans, it will readily hover,
albeit with a tendency to climb with the APC 17 x 12.
Vertical snaps can be performed with only a short pause
between each snap. (I would suggest an APC 18 x 6W and
a set of 3-D throws if you really want to find out what
this plane can do.)
Take-off and landing can be augmented with the use of
the ailerons as flaps. A little up aileron on both sides
helps slow the plane down to a crawl on landing. Twenty
degrees of down flaps will give very short take-off
runs that will save the landing gear from unnecessary
wear and tear when using rough runways.
DEMO
FLIGHT
A weather window for a video session proved to be hard to
find. The day when we could all get together was not a good
one. It was foggy at first and then we had very low cloud
cover for the rest of the day. Eventually, it was decided
to film a series of low level maneuvers. During the filming,
the plane frequently went into the cloud banks and had to
be ?relocated? for the camera, and sometimes the
pilot!
The ICEPOINT,
however, is a very predictable plane to fly and can be flown
low with confidence. Eventually we got some footage of how
it will roll and snap. Especially evident is the power of
the rudder and the ease at which it will knife-edge.
This plane will let you quickly become competitive in pattern
flying. If you are new to pattern or are already into competing,
this plane could be what you need. It is also a great plane
to fly just for fun. It is smooth in the air, rolls on a wire
and will help anyone develop their aerobatics skills.
This is a relatively complete kit. Experienced builders will
probably replace some of the items such as the clevises with
those of their own personal preference. The builder will need
to know how to line up a motor with the spinner nose-ring.
It is a big plus to not have to do any stab and wing alignment
due to the pre-fitted wing and plug -on stabs. The balsa/ply
construction allows for easy modifications and repairs. The
canopy retention and belly-pan retaining techniques can be
improved by the builder.
The ICEPOINT
is a great precision aerobatics experience for $479.99.
The comments, observations and conclusions made in this review are solely with respect to the particular item the editor reviewed and may not apply generally to similar products by the manufacturer. We cannot be responsible for any manufacturer defects in workmanship or other deficiencies in products like the one featured in the review.
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