Unfortunately unable to fly Sunday, but after messing with it, I still didn't get the Sbach to balance.  Ended up removing most of gear in the nose and building a small tray over the fuel tank to mount the electronics.  I've got battery hold-downs that will fit in pockets next to the firewall step, and will try again to balance this next weekend.  Will post pics of what I finally come up with.  Prior to doing this work, the CG point was about 1" behind the rear of the spar.  I'm shooting for the center or the leading edge of the spar.  I'd have to say that 3 big servos in the tail aren't helping things...

May try some heavier A123 batteries or some NMH batteries that I can perm. attach to the motor box under the cowl.  There's always lead... a quick test indicated that I needed 7 oz of lead to get in balance.  That's a lot, even for a 12-13lb plane.  Maybe I'm just over-thinking the problem.

Paul

Brought the Sbach to Oroville for the long weekend to try and finish it up.  I've got the final balance and motor run up/tune to do tomorrow (Monday) and I should be wrapped up.  Hope to fly it next weekend at the club (weather and travel permitting). 

Tony,
I'll take two in blue LG-XL
Thanks, Paul

Hey - that looks great.  I may do the glass as well when I start mine... well err... might be a while!  Good work you guys.

Decided to purchase a Pitts muffler for the Sbach.  Will keep the canister and possibly do the upgrade in the future, but I'd like to get this thing air worthy sooner rather than later.  Working on hooking up the throttle and fuel system.  No pics for a while but will post when I get a chance.

Finally well enough to go work on the Sbach for a few hours this afternoon, nasty bug... been with me for 4 weeks now.  Anyway, got the servos installed, decided to change the rudder servo to an XQ-S4016 for a bit more umph, 200oz-in at 6V should be plenty for this plane. 

Got the motor mounting set up, it's kind of weird that you have to trim the fill stock on the motor box to mount the standard motor that the plane was designed for...  It fits great and the cowl and spinner fit perfect.

I'm now deciding if I want to mess with putting the canister in this plane.  Looks like I'll have to tear up quite a bit of the bottom of the plane to get it in there.  I'm considering a baffled pitts muffler as a compromise.  Might be a bit loud, but certainly not as loud as stock.  I'll take this week and chew on the idea - Adam, do you have pictures of Bobby's setup?

I've been working on the electrical system, mocking it up on the bench.  I'm pretty happy with the Wilke power distribution setup.  It routes battery power from two batteries via a smart switch directly to the servos.  It also has a 5V regulator for the RX power (3A) allowing you to run 5V servos off of the receiver's ports directly.  The battery switch is set up for LiFe batteries, and performs a fail-safe: if one battery fails, it's isolated and power is drawn from the other battery. 

Using 20C 1400mAhr LiFe batteries (2x = 2800mAhr).  This should be plenty for the type of flying I do for 3 or 4 flights.  It's important to cycle LiFe's before you use them, so I set my iCharger up for LiFe and cycled the batteries on in in regenerative mode (fast discharge) about 5 times. 

For the ignition setup, I wanted to do something a bit different so I went for a Tech Arrow ultra BEC / switch.  This unit has a BEC that is massively filtered from the LiFe's to keep ignition noise out of the receiver.  It then has an opto-isolated interface that allows you to turn the ignition on or off.  It also has a nice blue LED that indicates the motor on/off state.

The following pictures show the schematic of the setup, and my benchtop layout of the parts (minus the ignition and one servo).  More in a bit on servos...

I'd love some pictures of Bobby's setup - the canister fits OK but there's little room for a vibration isolation mount for it.  I've got a few more pics and a status update for you guys.  I haven't been able to get a lot done but I'm making slow but steady progress.

I told Paul K. that I'd take a stab at a build thread, so here goes.  Back in January, I decided that rather than build a number of smaller planes this year I'd focus on one build and go for quality over quantity.  I decided to jump into my first gas build.  After a lot of research, the Pilot-RC (PRC) Sbach seemed to meet my needs: a good sport flyer, some 3D capability to grow with, a wide flight envelope, and a reasonable price.  Chief Aircraft distributes PRC in the US and had some good deals in early January for motor-plane combos.  I had read a lot of good things about Chief so I opted for the 25% version in Thrush Blue with a 30cc DLE. 

Like all of us, I have to watch my pennies (in the case of this project tens or hundreds of dollars), so I made some compromises and carefully researched my options.  In particular, I decided on PowerHD servos (gasp), instead of the tried, true, and uber expensive HiTec, Futaba, etc servos.  I'll delve into the details and the research that I did, and why I chose them over others.  I also decided to use LiFe batteries and explore the basics of redundant power systems even though this level of power isn't needed for a 30cc. 

The build plans include the following:

30cc DLE gas engine with a generic canister from Chief
Xoar 18x8 prop for break-in
PowerHD 8309TG Servos
Dual LiFe batteries
Wike Power Distribution System (and smart switch)
Tech Arrow Ultra IBEC and switch for ignition
Spectrum AR8000 with Satellite

I'll go through some of these items and why I chose them in subsequent posts, but here's a few pics of the unpacking.

Great work you two! 

Paul, when Drew starts in on the nose of the Twins, I've got some advice on how to do up the nose gear.  Probably don't want to mess up a long discussion about it on this thread but send me an email before he starts to glue the fuse together, I have some experience on how to do this right.

Hey John, I've been suck on the east coast most of the week and part of the weekend.  Won't be around on a weekend until the end of the month.  Work during the week, but we'll get this sorted out sometime soon.  Thanks for your patience.
Paul

There are a few of us that could improve our landing skills (I'm not pointing fingers at anyone except me).  I've been flying for about 3 years, getting into more advanced airframes and still can't do a good job at landing.  Perhaps if we have a couple of our pros work takeoff and landing circuits, spotting for one or two fliers at a time, it would work.  Every time I've had Red or Adam behind me giving me advice on how to position the aircraft or adjust my speed or pitch, I've nailed the landing.  If that's followed up with a "next time try this" discussion I think it would be a winning training session.  Maybe not the most fun for the crowd but it could improve flying for everybody (my 2 cents on the topic).

I'll sign up in a heartbeat if we could arrange a training day (of course if I'm ever back in Sonoma county for a weekend again, but that's another discussion).

Thanks,
Paul

Before I left last week I did get a 13x6 Master Airscrew in and it calmed down the over current situation pretty well.  About 70A on the deck so it should be fine in the air (just under the motor's 80A limit).  Still wants to pull my arm of on the bench so it should have plenty of grunt to pull gliders.  Will give it a try in a couple weeks, for now I'm not sure if I'll be around on a weekend until the end of March.

Great job Paul, good pics too. 
I'm like Red, I'm so slammed with work right now I can't see straight.  I expect to be home for a couple days next week and the I'm heading out again for more quality time with an airplane seat... I'll get to it, but it might have to wait, my 30cc Sbach came in today and I don't even get to see it until next Tuesday afternoon.  I did get the HK motor that I was referring to in my previous post.  It looks great and seemed snappy when I ran it on the bench with a 30A ESC and a 3S battery.  Not bad for $9.00.