Extreme Flight RC Edge 540 User manual

120cc Build Guide120cc Build Guide

Please read the following paragraphs before beginning assembly of your aircraft!
THIS IS NOT A TOY! Serious injury, destruction of property, or even death may result from the misuse of this
product. Extreme Flight RC is providing you, the consumer with a very high quality model aircraft component
kit, from which you, the consumer, will assemble a flying model. It is beyond our control to monitor the finished
aircraft you produce. Extreme Flight RC will in no way accept or assume responsibility or liability for damages
resulting from the use of this user assembled product. This aircraft should be flown in accordance to the AMA
safety code (or code appropirate to your region). It is highly recommended that you join the Academy of Model
Aeronautics in order to be properly insured, and to operate your model at AMA sanctioned flying fields only. If
you are not willing to accept ALL liability for the use of this product, please return it to the place of purchase
immediately.
Extreme Flight RC guarantees this kit to be free of defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 30
DAYS from the date of purchase. All warranty claims must be accompanied by the original dated receipt. This
warranty is extended to the original purchaser of the aircraft kit only.
Extreme Flight RC in no way warranties its aircraft against flutter. We have put these aircraft through the most
grueling flight tests imaginable and have not experienced any control surface flutter. Proper servo selection
and linkage set-up is absolutely essential. Inadequate servos or improper linkage set up may result in flutter
and possibly the complete destruction of your aircraft. If you are not experienced in this type of linkage set-up
or have questions regarding servo choices, please contact us at info@extremeflightrc.com or 770-887-1794.
It is your responsibility to ensure the airworthiness of your model.
Special notes on120cc aerobatic monoplanes:
Extreme Flight 35%/120cc aerobatic monoplanes are a high-point in RC aerobatic capability and are champi-
ons of freestyle RC contests worldwide. Their performance is truly extreme. Choose your components wisely.
Use only the best servos and arms to prevent flutter. Tie and wrap and fasten your equipment extremely well
inside the airframe to prevent anything coming loose in flight.
It is assumed that anyone assembling and flying a 35% Extreme Flight aerobatic monoplane is an experienced
assembler of RC aircraft. For this reason this assembly guide will not teach basic aspects such as how to
shrink covering material. We will cover details specific to this series of aircraft. If this is your first aerobatic RC
aircraft, it is highly recommended that you recruit an experienced giant scale RC enthusiast to inspect your
work before you maiden. Please read through these instructions to familiarize yourself with tools, materials,
and techniques before you begin assembly.

1. is assembly guide covers the entire series of 120cc aerobatic monoplanes. ey all assemble in
fundamentally the same way. ere are detail dierences between the aircra, but they are slight
in terms of assembly. Because these are large aircra and can be dicult to move around, we will
begin with assembly of the landing gear so that the aircra will be up on its wheels for later steps.
Screw the landing gear to the fuselage, the gear sweep slightly forward when installed correctly. Use
blue loctite or equivalent threadlocker on the gear attachment screws. Locate the gear-to-fuselage
fairings. We recommend to glue the fairings to the landing gear *only* (not ot the fuselage) with a
large dollop of rubberized glue such as “Goop”. Tape the fairings in place until the glue is dried.

2. e axle system includes a wheel-pant-saver mechanism. Begin by attaching the axles to the
landing gear with washers and self-locking nuts, nd the at spot on the outboard end of the
axle and orient this at spot *down* to face the runway. Assemble the “pant saver” as shown
and install the wheels as shown with the pant saver as the outboard wheel retainer. In these
photos, we show the installation of optional “Spot On” wheels, available from Extreme Flight
RC.

3. Using loctite, start the screws which hold the wheelpant into the landing gear, but leave them
loose. Please a dab of epoxy glue between the wooden pad of the “pant saver” and the wheelpant.
Tighten the screws holding the wheelpant to the landing gear.

4. Locate the tailwheel, screws, and tiller keepter (nylon ball link). Glue the keeper into the
hole in the bottom of the rudder with epoxy. Install the tailwheel onto the fuse using the
screws and blue loctite threadlocker. Put the plane up on its landing gear.

5. All the control horns on the aircra install in the same way, in this step we will install the elevator
and rudder horns ONLY. Scu the gluing surface of the horns using 80-240 grit sandpaper. Assem-
ble the horns with their ball link as shown. Remove the covering over the slots under the cover plate
as shown. Assemble the cover plate onto the horns and test t without glue, make sure the horn
slides all the way into the surface. Remove the horn, apply epoxy into the slot and onto the horn,
then install the horn and clean up any excess epoxy. Allow to cure.

6. For the aileron horns, note that each wing has two aileron servos and two horns. To correct for
the tapering thickness of the wing, and keep the linkage geometry identical between the inner and
outer servos, install the TALLER horn on the OUTBOARD location. e shorter horn goes into
the thicker, inboard location.

7. Servos: You MUST use a top-quality digital, high-strength metal gear servo in these 120cc aerobat-
ic monoplanes to avoid utter and have the expected level of performance. Savox SG-2290, JR8911,
and MKS599 are good choices. When installing servos, install the servo screws, then remove the
screws and servo and put a small drop of thin CA glue into each screw hole to harden the area,
allow to cure then re-install the servo permanently.
Attach the link to the servo arm using a tapered cone spacer between the ball link and the arm. Use
washers and locking nuts as shown. Some of our 120cc kits include pull-pull rudder hardware, but
so long as you are using a power system in the recommended range (120-125CC twin cylinder gas-
oline engine) you should mount your rudder servo in the rear using the simple, direct, push-pull
linkage as pictured here. For every servo location, use the pushrod as a length gauge to determine
the direction the servo should face.

8. Drill the rewall as appropriate for your engine. e DA-120/GP-123 pattern is marked on the re-
wall for you. Use large washers and locking nuts on your engine mounting screws. For the DA-120
and GP-123, you will need the Blazing Star DA-120 mount, availble for Extreme Flight RC. Note
that these engines are slightly dierent in overall length, and berglass cowls can vary slightly in
length. So, the Blazing star mount, and some of our kits, include spacers so you can set the distance
from your spinner backplate to the cowl perfectly. Place the spacers between the aluminum mount
and the rewall as necessary. We recommend 2-3mm spacing. Note that we include 2.5-3 degrees of
right thrust built into the rewall of our kits, and so on some cowls, such as the Extra 260 and 300,
the clearance will be dierent on the right and le sides.

9. Pictured is a typical throttle servo installation. Take care to ensure that the pushrod does
not contact the motor box at any point in its travel.

10. For stock muers you will need to cut the cowl for the muer exits. One easy way to do
this is to make a carboard or paper template as shown and use it to mark the cowl. Use
a “dremel” type grinding tool with a sanding drum or stone attachment to make these
openings in the cowl. Wear eye and breathing protection!
In our experience, if using stock muers, the best way to exit hot air from the cowling
is through the bottom of the cowling. Large openings on the bottom of the cowling will
exhaust hot air and, particularly if using smoke, the lack of holes in the bottom of the fu-
selage will prevent smoke oil or engine residue from migrating into the fuselage, length-
ening the life of your airplane.

11. If using canister muers or tuned pipes, we provide outlet/vent plates for the bottom of the
fuselage. Remove the covering over these locations on the bottom of the fuselage and install the
plates with screws, using thin CA glue to hard the screw holes as you did your servo screw holes.

12. Many of our kits include cooling baes (cooling ducts) which install into the cowl
with epoxy glue. ese ducts control the ow of air into the cowl and force the ma-
jority of the air to ow through the cooling ns of the cylinder heads. If cooling air
is managed, and forced to ow though the ns, it may surprise you how little ow
is actually needed to cool a well-tuned model aircra engine. For kits which do not
include baes, they are easily made with cra foam.

13. Here are typical equipment installation locations for this series of aircra. For your
maiden, you may wish to place your Rx batteries alongside your fuel tank. For the
Extra 300, Extra NG, Slick, Extra 260 and Edge airframes, we prefer the batteries
alongside the receiver for aerobatic ight. For the Laser, we prefer the batteries in the
rear of the cockpit area.
For the Extra 300, Extra NG, Extra 260, Laser and Slick airframe, this results in a CG
location just behind the wing tube for best aerobatic ight. For the Edge 540T, this
results in a CG location on the center of the wing tube.

14. Recommended control settings are as follows:
Aileron Low: 20 deg up, 20 deg down 18-20% exponential
High: 38 deg up, 37 deg down 50-60% exponential
Elevator Low: 10-12 deg 18-20% exponential
High/3D: 45-50 deg 50-60% exponential
XA/Tumbling: 60+ deg 60-70% exponential
Rudder Low: 20 deg 50-60% exponential
High: 45+ deg 60-80% exponential
NOTE: This high rate aileron is an extreme setting and will result in a roll rate which
is quite fast and may, for some pilots, be dicult to “keep up with” until you get
used to it. If your transmitter has a mid rate for ailerons, set it to approx 32 degrees
and 50% expo and this may help you get acquainted with this very high-perfor-
mance aircraft.
Likewise, note that the “3D” elevator setting is optimized for smooth 3D perfor-
mance in harrier, the“XA/Tumbling” rate may make it dicult to be extremely
smooth down low until you are used to it.
We recommend only carbon-ber props for maximum performance on this series
of aircraft. 27x11, 28x9.5 and 28x10 are our favorites for our typical ying sites
under 2,500 ft altitude.
We hope you enjoy your Extreme Flight 120cc aerobatic aircraft. This series of
aircraft has collected trophies at top freestyle contests around the world. You now
have that same level of world class performance in your hangar.