Hi y’all. Finally got a chance to maiden the Pilot. Honestly, she was a frustrating build, and I still do not think it’s my best work…however, she did well. She’s a little tender, as expected, but she ran well, albeit a bit slower than I was expecting but reliable. The kit called for 2 Speed 400 sized motors, but there was a callout on Aeronauts website for 2 optional 880kv outrunners, so I went that route. I didn’t notice the power recommended for the out runners was a 3s lipo pack, as the callout in the instructions was 2s, but that was with the brushed motors. Before I go to a 3s pack I’m going to swap out the 3 bladed 30mm props for some 36mm 2 blade race props and see if she picks up a bit, if she does I’ll keep her on 2 s.
Ran well, all functions worked, and she was dry as a bone after more than an hour on the water. Works for me!!😁
Cash

Hi y’all. Well, she’s about done, save for ballast and a tub test. She has some flaws, but she looks decent up close and good from 5 feet, so I’m satisfied, for now. Every lamp works, radar works, props are on, power and helm a-ok. I’m hoping to maiden her this Sunday.
Cash

Hi y’all. The upper platforms and railings are installed. I had to fill and redrill the holes that were drilled wrong from the factory. I lucked out and had some plastic rod in my stash that just fit, so I glued short pieces in place, used flush cutters to get as close to the deck as I could, then repainted.I had no fun getting this done. Besides the missdrilled holes, I think I got the platform sides mixed up, and had to correct that best I could. I’ve also had more problems with glue spills, scratches, etc than I’ve had in a good long while. I was able do fix most of that and repaint, but it’s not my finest hour. She looks good from about 5 feet away, get too close you see the flaws. Anyway, that parts done. I also added a rubber rub strake. I was hoping to find a d shape rubber strip or strake material to use, but most I’ve found was too wide for my use. So, I got some rubber automotive vacuum hose that’s the right diameter, my intention was to split down the middle, but I knew I couldn’t do it free hand. So…I made a tool. I had some brass tube that the inside diameter was just about a mm or so bigger than the rubber tubes outside diameter. I then slotted the end to accept an xacto blade, soldered it in sharp edge facing inward. I had cut the tube down a little short, luckily the blade shank extended enough to set down into a vise.I had to manually split the tube a few inches to start, but once I had enough to pull on, it was a simple matter to pull through against the blade while simultaneously feedin the rubber tube through…and it worked!! Since the blade was off set a bit I got a 60/40 split on the tube, but that worked out in my favor. Now, I have to add the pilot lettering, do the aft railing, and some work under deck and she’ll be ready for the test tank.
Cash

Hi y’all. I’ve painted the bottom black, using the box photo and other modelers build logs as a reference, as there’s no real indication in the manual nor is there a good 3 view to guide me as to where the waterline should be…in short, I winged it. I’ve built the 2 center platforms up, and started the platform handrails. I used the pre bent wire from the kit, and used the soldering jig/template to good effect. I built the forward railing first, and got those painted and installed. I then started the railings for the center platforms. I used the first assembly to check fit against the pre drilled holes, and that’s when I realized the holes in my kit are drilled wrong. Now, the aft set of railing holes, both starboard and port, are fine. The forward set is rubbish. 3 holes instead of 4, too close to the platform slots, and offset. I checked another persons kit build on Model Boat Mayhem, goes by Beyno1968…his holes are aligned correctly. Im wondering if I got an early production kit. Anyway, at some point I have to address this. The right way to do it would be to fill the missdrilled holes, sand, repaint and re clear coat, then measure and drill new holes. Sometimes I miss die cut parts. When I used to fly, I built a kit from Pilot models in Japan. Their die cutting and parts fit was amazing, I took a sheet of die cut ply ribs, twisted the sheet a bit and most of, if not all, of the parts came out of the sheet cleanly. This was in 1985!! Anyway, I have to fix this before I go forward.
Im posting a pic “liberated” from the Mayhem build so y’all can see what I’m griping about..
Cash

Hi y’all. I spent a few hours this week soldering connectors to the ESCs for the Pilot, and a “Y” connector in parallel for esc hookup. Once that was done, I programmed both ESCs via a program card, then I pulled the power lead of one of the ESCs receiver connection. I’m using a servo “Y” harness so both ESCs are controlled as one, and if I have 2 of them trying to power the BEC I’ll have smoke, and that’s a bad thing.
So, this morning I hooked everything up, and applied power. One motor seemed a bit noisy, a little running in with some more lube and a slight tweaking at the mount cured that. At full chat on 2 cells my old Astro-Flight Whatmeter was reading 1.37 amps on the bench. I also tried her on 3 cells, sounds fine ran good.
I then decided to paint the hull. Whole boat is going to be blue, including the deck, I’ll have some contrasting trim on the sides of the hull, and either a black water line or hull bottom black. After that was done, I installed the fwd steps and light cover/platform. My next jobs are to solder up and do all the railings and steps. I also need to figure out how to secure the pilot hose when she’s on the water. I have some ideas, which do NOT include a rubber band hooked to the pilothouse as the instructions suggest. Just not doing that..
Cash

Hi y’all. I can now state that, with the exception of a touchup here and there, the pilot house is done!! Yay! I spent last Saturday morning finishing the railings, the I shot a final coat of semigloss clear, windows included. It gave the glazing a translucent look, but it works for me, and yes it was intentional.
The hardest thing I did Saturday was to build the side rails. It looks simple enough, one piece of brass wire per side and several one hole stanchions, but the stanchions in the kit are made of etched metal, and a little hard to grab with fingers or tweezers. Nice thing is the kit supplied extras for those “oops” moments. The upper railings are, according to the manual, made up of silver nickel wire, so that’s what I did. The kit is well supplied with more than enough nickel and brass wire, but I forgot that the railings are in superset packets, bent up and ready to solder. And, here’s where it gets a little confusing. You see, there are 2 inverted U shaped railings middle of the aft cabin roof, along with another railing aft and the 2 antennas. Those are pre bent, in the packets. That’s shown in one of the illustrated steps in the manual. However, there are 2 holes in the upper roof aft wall that line directly up with the U railings, as if there’s supposed to be an extension from the railings to the roof…AND, sure enough, the pic of the final pilothouse assembly shows just that!!
Heres my thoughts on the kit so far. It’s not an easy build. The kit supplied materials are fair to great, but there’s some instances where I think they went cheap. Lamps are built up from clear tube and laser cut plastic instead of proper brass, plastic or even white metal fittings. As I stated in an earlier post, you better make darn sure your rudder linkag is straight and everything is cranked down gorilla tight, as once the deck is on there is no easy access. Bollards are also built up from tube and sheet, in lieu of plastic, metal or resin fittings. Most of the parts fit are okay, some are not so good. I know it’s a kit, and there’s a fair amount of sanding, etc to effect a good fit, but I think it could be better.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Next up I’m going to finish any under deck work, esc installation, etc, then I’ll start paint and detail on the hull. Getting there!!😀
Cash

Hi y’all. Finally got all the lights wired up. I’m using 2 Control Hobbies (ex-Graupner) switches to run my lights, each switch can do 4 separate banks off 1 channel using a stick or 3 position switch. I have all the cabin, nav and mast lights on one, and the bow lights and searchlight on the other. Only problem I had is that I wanted my yellow and blue pilot lamps to flash, but when I set the jumper for bank 4, I got flashing on banks 3 and 4…the entire mast. Now, this is a pretty easy setup, and I’ve used these switches before with very good results. One leg of all banks goes to the hot side, which is your common, and then the other leg of each bank is connected to 4 wires, which determines what switch position turns on that particular light, or groups of lights. I disconnected the 4th bank, my pilot flashers, and still had lights flashing on the mast even though I had the jumper set on the disconnected bank 4. So, for now, I have no flashers on the mast. With the jumper removed, everything works as advertised, I have separate command of interior lights, nav lights, the normal mast lights and the pilot lamps. I even set the jumper on the 1st leg, the cabin lights, and they flashed without flashing any other branch….so I may have gotten a defective unit at least when it comes to flashing on branch 4. I could disconnect and unsolder everything, move my flashers to 1, but not now. Maybe I’ll do that after the boat is built and maidened, but not now.
I still have to pretty up and secure the wires. I’ve mounted both modules on the underside of the cabin. My next step is to finish getting the escs wired up and mounted, then do my best to have the receiver in a good accessible point in the hull and go from there. I. Going to have 4 extensions running from the cabin to the receiver for the 2 modules, radar, and searchlight servo. It’s going to be a mess if I’m not careful…

https://youtu.be/XC9SgV1faoU?si=D-hE6wMNNMjvcHWS

So, I finally have the roof finished. All the lights are wired, the radar is finished save a little touching up, the searchlight about 40 degrees each way via radio, and the details are done. This part of the project took a while.
The radar is driven by a little N20 motor that comes with a 90 degree gearbox attached. It’s very small, and I’d say it’s running about 55 rpm. I had to build up the radar unit, then drill for a brass tube. I found a piece of brass rod that fit inside the tube, that’s glued to the radar sweep, the it’s attached to the gearbox shaft via a piece of plastic tube. After my first install I realized the radar was mounted backwards, had to break it loose and reinstall. Radar is controlled via an Apex rc switch. It plugs into the appropriate channel, then has a lead the motor plugs into, and with a flick of the switch it’s getting receiver power and runs like a, well a radar.😊
I decided to forgo the pitch control of the searchlight, and just do the side to side sweep instead. It took a few tries, but I settled on using an old GWS Micro servo to actuate, and I glued one of the old Graupner rudder arms to the lights shaft. The arm is one of the older types that has a 3mm bore, it’s usually sandwiched between 2 nuts and lock washers on a threaded shaft. I had to drill to 4 mm to fit, and glued in place, and it’s sturdy enough.
After that, I made the simple hatch handle and aerial, and it’s done, save touching up. Now it’s on to the main pilot house fill, prime and finish.
Cash

Hi y’all. Decided to tackle the searchlight today. This unit is a separate kit within the Pilot kit, it’s included but Aeronaut also has it listed as a separate part number. It’s made from etched metal, and can be lighted, and set up to pan and tilt with the addition of 2 servos.
The instructions state to bend up the main part of the box that supports the light, then solder in the sides and top. Unfortunately I don’t have any good non metallic clamps to help me jig the assembly up before soldering (on second thought I do, didn’t think about it at the time🤣) so I coughed up the inside and cyano’d it together.
There are 2 brackets you make up with pins to attach to the body of the lamp, and these solder to 2 tubes, one 3 mm and one 4mm. One of the brackets has an offset center hole. Once assembled, the 4 mm tube is used to turn the lamp side to side, the smaller telescopes inside the 4 mil and is used for tilting the lamp.
The kit comes with LEDs for the bow lamps and searchlight, but they seemed dim using the resistors I had in stock, so I’m using incandescent bulbs. The reflector is designed for the bigger diameter LEDs, so I made up a bulb holder using a short piece of nyrod tubing and a servo grommet with one flange cut off. I threaded the bulb wires down the tube, tacked the bulb with a tiny drop of ca, then inserted that thru the grommet, and inserted the assembly into the reflector. It took the better part of 4 hours to build the lamp, test the light, paint and install on the roof. Now I have to set the tubes up with arms and servos so I can animate the light….and I’m still toying with the ide of making the radar sweep. I have a LOT of cabling to run, paint and hide in the corners of the wheelhouse!!
Cash

Hi y’all. Decided to install the lights on the mast today. This boat is challenging, more so than the Caldercraft Puffer I finished earlier this year. The hull was challenging but not too bad as was the main wheelhouse. The roof is really trying to kick my butt. It doesn’t look too bad, but I’ve sanded and touched up and well, I’m done. Gonna live with it. Installing the lights, at first glance, seems easy enough. Braid up the wires, put the bulbs in their holes, run the cables through the holes on the side and down the mast. In practice, you really need to oval out the side holes to get a good angle to feed the wires through. Doesn’t need much, maybe a little over a millimeter, and the jobs much easier. I built up and painted the light housings to match, I used some lights out of my stash and some I bought from Harbor Models in California. I tacked the cables to the mast with a dot of thick ca and painted to match.
I then built up the nav lights, nothing earth shattering here, then I came back into the shop before I went to bed, painted and installed the window frames. The assembly looks a sight better with the frames installed.
Now, I need to build up the search light and radar, and add a grab handle to the hatch in the fwd middle of the roof, and that assembly is done.
Cash