Lanier RC: CAP 232

Model Airplane News, Jul 2002 by Onorato, Jim

Outstanding almost-ready-to-fly aerobat

Lanier RC's CAP 232 kit proved to be a popular aerobatic aircraft, and I have no doubt that this ARF version of the model will live up to that reputation. A recent addition to Lanier's 21st Century line, this ARF aircraft is essentially the same as the kit version, although its wing is 1 inch shorter. The CAP features interlocking, laser-cut parts, plug-in, balsa-sheeted foam-core wing panels, airfoil-shaped tail feathers

and painted fiberglass cowl and wheel pants.

The fuselage is constructed of lite-ply with balsa-sheeted, foam-core turtledeck and forward hatch/canopy frames. The model is expertly covered with red, white and blue UltraCote and comes with high-quality hardware. All of the control surfaces are dual-beveled at the hinge line to allow maximum deflection for all those radical maneuvers. The 16-page instruction manual's step-by-step instructions and many photos guide you through the assembly. A photo of the hardware required for each major is also included at the beginning of the section dealing with that assembly. I thought this was a nice touch, and it was very helpful in identifying all of the hardware. This is a very complete kit. It looked good in the box and it looks even better when assembled.

ASSEMBLY

Before I started the assembly, I had to shrink out the wrinkles in the covering. Since there was very little overlap between the various colors of covering, I first sealed the edges with a heating iron and then used a heat gun. If you don't do this, you may end up exposing bare wood where the colors overlap.

WING PANELS

Assembly begins with the wing panels. Simply attach the ailerons and install the aileron servos (one per panel), control horns and linkages. The control horns are 6-32 pan-head screws. They should be inserted through the hard points in the ailerons and held in place with lock washers and hex nuts. To make the length of the control horns adjustable, thread nylon horn brackets onto the screws. The ailerons and wing panels are predrilled to accept the Robart hinge points (four per aileron) provided in the kit.

The instructions suggest that you install the hinge points in the ailerons first, let the adhesive cure and then glue them into the wing. If you do this, you must be sure that all of the pivot points are properly aligned and inserted to the same depth to prevent binding. I chose a different procedure-one that guarantees proper alignment. I first applied Vaseline to the pivot points and put 30-minute Zap Z-Poxy in the predrilled holes in the wing and aileron; I also put a dab on the tips of the hinge points. I then inserted the hinge points into the wing and aileron and flexed the aileron up and down while sliding it onto the wing. This causes the hinge points to automatically rotate into perfect alignment. After the epoxy had cured, I installed two DAD Pro Flex servos and connected them to the aileron control horns with the provided linkages.

TAILPIECES

The stab was made to be removable, but Lanier recommends that you permanently glue it into place and use the added holding power of the bolt to retain it so that's exactly what I did. When the 30-minute Z-foxy had fully cured, I attached the elevators and rudder with the provided Robart hinge points and installed them using the same procedure I used on the ailerons.

Next, I installed the tail feather. The elevators require two servos, and Lanier recommends that you use two rudder servos with the two rudder pushrods in a pull/pull setup for maximum force. All four servos are at the rear of the fuselage. I used a standard Y-connector for the rudder and a reversing Y-connector for the elevators. Of course, if you have a computer radio, you could connect the elevator servos to two different channels and eliminate the reversing Y-connector. I used two Futaba 9202 servos for the elevators and two DAD Pro Plus servos for the rudder. I had to slightly widen the servo cutouts to accept the standard-size servos. I connected all four servos using the included hardware.

Next, I assembled and installed the landing gear, wheels and wheel pants-all of which were of excellent quality. The landing gear is heavy-duty; 3/16-inch preformed aluminum with steel axles. The wheels are Sullivan SkyLites, and the wheel pants are painted fiberglass. I attached the landing gear to the fuselage with three 1/4-20-inch steel socket-head bolts. Two aluminum angles installed in the fuselage reinforce the landing-gear mounting plate. These made a very solid installation.

ENGINE INSTALLATION

After I measured the lengths of the cowl and engine, I determined the location of the firewall and glued it into place with 30-minute epoxy. I pinned both sides with 1/16-inch dowels in three places and reinforced the firewall joints with 1/2-inch triangle stock. Lanier recommends that you install a 1.5 to 3.2 2-cycle or a 1.6 to 3.0 4-- cycle engine in the CAP 232. I installed a Fox 3.2 gasoline engine with a giant-scale Slimline muffler. I mounted it with four, 10-32 socket-head bolts and blind nuts. I mounted the ignition module and battery on the engine box behind the firewall along with a servo-operated kill switch. I also installed a manual kill switch in the cowl.