Dave Patrick models ultimate 40 ARF

A small biplane with a big aerobatic heart!

I have always loved biplanes, and one of my all-time favorites is the Ultimate Bipe. Designed by the unlimited-aerobatics pilot Gordon Price, the original, full-size aircraft has been very popular ever since it first came out. Most recently, Tournament of Champions winner Chip Hyde flew a very impressive 40-percent-scale Ultimate Bipe and became the 2002 champ at the Las Vegas competition.

Dave Patrick Models introduced the Ultimate Bipe in an impressive 1.20 size and, with it, set a very high standard for ARF quality and performance (see my review in the August 2001 issue). When I saw the .40-size Ultimate Bipe, I thought it would be a great counterpoint to the larger model; not everyone wants to tote around a big 1.20 biplane.

Just like its bigger brother, the Ultimate 40 is available in a red/orange/yellow/white color scheme, a blue scheme, as a white ARF and in an almost-ready-to-cover (ARC) version. It comes with the same high-quality hardware and an excellent instruction booklet, making assembly as simple as 1, 2, 3.

ASSEMBLY

The Ultimate 40 is covered with Ultracote that is beautifully applied, but before I put the pieces together, I used a heat gun to remove the few wrinkles that always seem to pop up on ARF models. The instruction booklet provides photo-illustrated assembly steps and even some "builder tips" for basic building tasks-a nice touch.

* Fuselage. The model comes with the engine cowl, cabane struts and the canopy already installed, so there is little to do to get the fuselage ready for wing installation. Basically, just install the tail surfaces and the tailwheel. I used Zap medium CA glue throughout. The instructions recommend that you first install the control hinges and then the horns; I like to install the horns first and then attach the control surfaces. This way, it's a lot easier to drill the holes straight through the surfaces so the horn backup plates line up with the horn-attachment screws.

Before you can install the control cables, you must cut slots at the correct locations in the fuselage sides. The instructions show how you can use the cables to lay out the slot locations, and this works very well. Measure the distance from the servo arms to the wing-saddle opening and mark the side of the fuselage. Attach the cable to the control horn, and stretch the cable to the servo-arm location mark. Mark the location of the cable just below the stabilizer leading edge, and then cut a 1/16x 3/8-inch slot. Do this for the rest of the cables to finish the control-linkage setup.

The pull/pull hardware for the rudder and the elevators comes with the kit, and it's very easy to install. The threaded couplers that connect the cables to the clevises have cross-drilled holes; simply thread the cable into the coupler and out through one of the holes, loop it around and back into the other hole, and then pull it back out of the coupler. When the cables are taut and the control surface is centered, lock the cable into place with a few drops of thin CA. For a finished look, you can slip some heat-shrink tubing over the cable and coupler joint.

After several flights, I found this control system to be very secure and virtually slop-free.

When the servos and control linkage have been installed, it's time to install the landing gear, wheels and wheel pants. A nice touch here is that the pants come ready to be screwed into place. Each pant is already slotted to clear the axle bolts, and the internal plywood doubler plate is already glued into place.

* Wing assembly. Since the wings come in one piece (no gluing halves together), this involves only installing the aileron servos and the interplane strut fittings. The kit comes with removable plastic panels that serve as servo mounts to which you attach the servos. Hardwood servo-attachment blocks are glued to the hatch covers that are secured with screws for extra security. Four small screws then secure the hatches over the servo openings in the wing panels. Strings are provided (already installed) in the panels to help feed the servo leads through the ribs to the center of the wing panels.

The next step is to install the threaded aluminum interplane and cabane strut fittings. The holes are predrilled, and the fittings are simply screwed into the wings. The lower wing is bolted into place and all the hardware comes already installed. Once I had bolted the two wings in place, I installed the aileron interplane struts and the 2-56 interconnecting slave rods, keepers and clevises to connect the upper and lower ailerons. When the wings and all the control linkage are in place, check the wing alignment, and lock the aluminum fittings in their threaded holes using thin CA.

* Engine installation. For my test model, I used an Enya .50SS. Using the included engine mounts, this engine fit nicely into place without my having to cut large clearance openings in the cowl. The engine has to be canted slightly counter-clockwise to fit. I used a standard Enya muffler, but for it to clear the bottom of the firewall without my having to cut a recess in it, I installed an 1/8-inch-thick aluminum spacer between the engine and the muffler. A plastic throttle pushrod and guide tube (included in the kit) are very easy to install with the fuel-tank hatch removed. A white plastic spinner is provided, but I used a Tru-Turn aluminum "Ultimate"-style spinner. The Tru-Turn spinner's longer profile enhances the model's scale appearance.