Building the Rico-SHE LW
Part I: The Lightweight Version of the Classic Racer from Phoenix Model Products
A slightly different build this time: A 60" pylon racer / sports slope soarer in EPP foam and wood from Phoenix Model Products (PMP — see Resources for link) and designed by Stan Yeo. Yes, slope pylon racing is a thing — or it was, no idea if it is still. I’m sure someone will comment! (By the way, we’re pretty sure it’s pronounced ‘ricochet’ which it hopefully won’t do too often. — Ed.)
As with most formula racing, the resulting designs tend to have certain similarities. A quick look at PMP’s site shows there are plenty of 60" pylon designs (and many others, he’s quite prolific!) I’ve seen a few on the slope in the flesh and acquired another prebuilt one a few years back — the Enigma — but I’ve never built one myself.
Fast forward to early summer and an email popped up from a club member: “For sale various gliders and kits…” Amongst them were two that caught my eye: A ‘kit’ (fuselage and wings) Sitar special and this Rico-SHE kit. Some funds were exchanged, and I have two more added to the build list, the 1st of which is discussed here today.
When Is a Foamie Not A Foamie?
One of the selling points of the PMP kits is that they are a quick build and they ‘bounce’. But this is not your normal ARF foamie! Inside the foam exterior, there’s a wooden structure. Model building techniques are still needed: the plans call for reinforcement as you build.
NB. I’m sure you have seen the many, many YouTube videos showing you how to ‘lamfilm’ your store bought Foamie? No need with this one. You do it as you build (and its stronger!).
What’s in The Kit?
Pretty much everything you need to build a 60" glider, just add glue and covering materials:
- The EPP wing panels (RG15 section) come pre-cut in two sections, with rebates top and bottom for the spars and ply joiner.
- The Corex tailplane is cut to shape and just needs creasing and hinging.
- The wooden skeleton that makes up the fuselage inside the foam is accurately pre-cut too.
- All the ‘bits’ you’d need were in my box too: the square and triangle sections to make the skeleton, the spars and joiner, the control arms, rods and clevises too.
The three pages of building instructions (see Resources) while not picture heavy, are comprehensive enough to make this a straightforward build, logically flowing and without cul-de-sacs. They suggest an 8 hour “hands on” time frame. That’s about what I have put in.
NB. There’s ‘glue time’ to add to that, YMMV.
What else do I need? Add to the kit the ‘usual’ modelling stuff you probably have in the workshop already: cyanoacrylate (CA) glue, kicker, Evo-Stik Impact adhesive, Gorilla / polyurethane (PU) glue, cutting tools, masking tape, covering materials etc.
Let’s Build
The starting point is the fuselage box section which runs the length of the airframe and to which the foam outer skin will attach. My kit is for the ‘Light Weight’ or LW version†, so my first task was to glue in some doublers, followed by some internal longerons and spacers. Glue choice: Titebond 3 wood glue on the doublers / longerons and medium CA for the spacers.
NB. †The LW version has thinner box walls @ 0.8mm vs the 1.5mm of the normal version. The wing root area is doubled on the LW version.
With the internals of the fuselage in place, the two sides can be joined, using the wing retaining dowels to aid alignment and clamped in place while the Titebond does its thing. Helpfully, the dowel points are pre-marked from the factory, just drill to open.
A Distraction
While the fuselage was curing, I started on the wing spars. These are simple hardwood strips that run full span, top and bottom. A little refinement was needed to get a good snug fit — the hotwire used to cut the cores isn’t accurate enough to get a perfect fit, so they are cut undersized. A few minutes work with some 180 grit paper resulted a good, tight fit, ready for the spars and PU glue.
Once the top spars were glued and cleaned up (the PU glue will foam up and seep out!) the trailing edge spars were attached.
With top and trailing edge (TE) spars in place, the panels are flipped over for the lower spars. At the same time, the two panels also need to be joined (it's a one-piece wing) with the main ply joiner and a smaller secondary towards the rear of the wing. The secondary is a laminate of 1.5mm ply.
Meanwhile, in the Fuselage Department
The Rico-SHE is an aileron / elevator aircraft, of the ‘bank and yank’ style of turn coordination 😉. Therefore, the only servo that goes inside the fuselage is for the elevator, driving a forked control rod. The kit comes with a brass collar to join the long rod and its smaller fork, but I chose to solder (and clamp) mine rather than just clamp the collar. The instructions are pretty good at describing the process to mount and cut to length the rods etc, so no issues there!
With the servo rods done, the fuselage top and bottom decks can be added. Initially, I used PU glue, but for the latter, I used medium CA. You will see later on the fuselage is wrapped in foam and then reinforced tape and an outer covering. The box section is structural, but there’s not much torsion or sheer on the joints, so I think CA should be fine.
Remember, This Is A Foamie
Now that we have a wooden box section or skeleton, we need to make it a foamie. The kit is supplied with oversized strips of EPP foam which I glued into place with Evo-Stik Impact adhesive. The order is sides first, followed by top and bottom deck second. After each is attached, the overhang is removed resulting in an overlapped square, wrapping the box section.
By happy accident (okay, it’s per the plan, but it is very smart!) there’s a small empty section on the nose where you need to fit 60g of nose weight. It fits perfectly! Almost like it was designed that way! 😉
Back to The Wings
The servo pockets were transferred from the plans to the wing cores and then routed out using the Dremel and the router jig I wrote about in What a Tool! Servo Templates for Dremel Rotary Tools (see Resources).
NB. This differs slightly from the plans: They call for a full cut through the wing panel and then a back fill with offcut foam. There’s no need with the Dremel and the jig.
Once the pockets are cut, the wings are covered with cross weave (CW) tape, overlapping about 10mm per run. I also added a second longitudinal strip of CW tape on the other side of the servo pockets to reinforce the (now) thinner area of the wing.
Tail End Of Things
By this stage, it's starting to look a lot like a glider, but it still needs a tail. The kit is supplied with materials for a Corex V-tail. An alternative would be to make something from balsa, but for me, the Corex is sufficient. A few minutes with a ruler and a craft knife results in a perfectly proportioned tailplane, ready for control horns and mounting.
The tail is held in place with an assortment of triangular sections of balsa (all pre-shaped in the kit), glued into the gap between the two fuselage sides. I used a mix of PU and Impact adhesive depending on the surface and if there were any gaps to fill.
Get To The Point
With 60g of weight in a handy vertical pocket up front, the aerodynamics are not ideal. The kit has an answer to this though and it’s a separate lump of foam, pre-cut to a rounded ‘nose’. PU glue to the rescue and as you can see above, the rough shaped nose is in place.
As with other steps, the foam is easily worked with a mix of sharp craft knives or 180 grit sandpaper. It didn’t take long to get the rough shape refined down to a ‘sportier’ glider nose, with flowing lines back to the rest of the fuselage. It too was then taped over with cross weave.
Next Time
- Ailerons: shape & mount
- Coverings: might be vinyl, might be packing tape (the traditional covering)
- Radio fit: one for my new FrSky X18
- To the slope!
©2022 Marc Panton
Resources
- Rico-SHE — Product page from the Phoenix Model Products website: “The Rico-SHE is a stylish 60in EPP pylon racer and sports aerobatic sloper designed to meet the demand for more crash resistant pylon racers and conform to the new 6Oin EPP pylon racing class…”
- Building Instructions — The building instructions provided by Phoenix.
- What a Tool! Servo Templates for Dremel Rotary Tools — By Marc Panton from the November, 2021 edition of the New RC Soaring Digest: “Now that building season is here in the Northern Hemisphere, I dare say there will be a few of you needing to fit servos into foam wings…”
- Thunderbirds’ ‘Ricochet’ — Of course, we simply couldn’t let this article go by without a reference to Supermarionation high-flying disconaut Rick O’Shea of orbiting pirate radio KLA. So here’s one for all you fans of big shiny foreheads, hair that appears moulded in place and a bottom lip that barely moves.
All images by the author unless otherwise noted. Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
