Cessna 180 Swappable with plans. 50" inch wing span.

[Timmy P]

After many months, I've finally finished this plane. Kids, family and work have sucked up a lot of my building time. When I first saw the article on this build, I knew I had to do a CHP(California Highway Patrol) plane. I have a close relative who is an officer and I have seen a few CHP planes up close so it was always on my list to do. Although the real plane they use is a Cessna 182, I figured it still look good.
Everything went together smoothly, the plans were great.

A few notes:
-I forget how, but I ended up not putting as much dihedral as the build log showed. I was a little worried about how that would affect things. It turns out it flies fine. I didn't notice anything bad about it.
-I added a basic tail wheel that I picked up at my local shop. It works great.
-I spent way too long painting this thing. I did it all with blue masking tape and spray paint. I printed out and sticky sprayed the CHP stars on.
-I misunderstood the description of the skewer locations. Mine are through the formers instead of the former supports. This makes my rubber bands super tight and the wing to sit forward more than it should. I added two pieces of plastic sliding bar(from report covers like these) to the trailing edge of the wing to take the brunt of the rubber band force.

I really enjoyed flying this thing over the weekend. It's smooth, slow, and looks great in the air. I love the beefy-ness of the design. I feel like it gives the FT swappable type plane a third dimension. I've taken that concept to my own Mooney design, now I just need to find the time to cut that out and put it together.

Thanks for the awesome plans and build TimmyP!

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Oh my gosh! Dude that is freakin beautiful man I'm almost in tears.. Until I read I thought those pictures where a full scale plane. Not your rendition of my plans.. Thats too cool man... Thank you for putting so much effort into it and I'm glad it has paid off and is flying nicely for you.. I hope you still have it up in the air.. Ill be sharing your pictures with my friends for sure.. Wow. I was born in San Bernardino so thats has extra cool points..

 

[dmaximob]

Oh my gosh! Dude that is freakin beautiful man I'm almost in tears.. Until I read I thought those pictures where a full scale plane. Not your rendition of my plans.. Thats too cool man... Thank you for putting so much effort into it and I'm glad it has paid off and is flying nicely for you.. I hope you still have it up in the air.. Ill be sharing your pictures with my friends for sure.. Wow. I was born in San Bernardino so thats has extra cool points..

Thank you, I'm glad you appreciate it.
Your plans are great, I really dig how much closer to scale you get than a good chunk of the DTFB designs. I think it's the paint job that kinda brings that out a bit more. I wish I had more time to dedicate to learning how to paint/stencil better. Kids are too fun right now to make that happen though.
The plane is still intact, except for a wheel. I haven't had time to come up with a better way to fasten the wheels to their axles. The dab of hot glue doesn't handle my landings for very long.
Also, it survived a nosedive due to a loose/stuck elevator push rod. Thankfully it dove into a creek bed that had a lot of cattail plants and such. It never touched the ground.

I look forward to any future designs you come up with.

 

[Timmy P]

Thank you, I'm glad you appreciate it.
Your plans are great, I really dig how much closer to scale you get than a good chunk of the DTFB designs. I think it's the paint job that kinda brings that out a bit more. I wish I had more time to dedicate to learning how to paint/stencil better. Kids are too fun right now to make that happen though.
The plane is still intact, except for a wheel. I haven't had time to come up with a better way to fasten the wheels to their axles. The dab of hot glue doesn't handle my landings for very long.
Also, it survived a nosedive due to a loose/stuck elevator push rod. Thankfully it dove into a creek bed that had a lot of cattail plants and such. It never touched the ground.

I look forward to any future designs you come up with.

Yea I definitely like to keep towards the scale side with my designs.. Ive only done 2 planes now, the Cessna T-50 and the 180.. Next will be the Skymaster 337. And Ill have plans for it eventually. For keeping the wheel on you can use gas tubing for gassers. or 1/8 inch collets. I will say the 180 is a tank.. The fuse is super solid and can take a lot of crashes.. Ive even rebuilt the nose on of them.. I think I made an article on that too..
Thanks again for making the plane look so good..

 

[Timmy P]

I have a couple blank 180 airframes Im taking to Flite Fest. I plan to sell them for 35 bucks, if anyone needs a plane to load with electronics.

 

[balsa basher]

Problems accessing the plans

When I click on the link for the plans I get a message in google drive that says no files found in folder - can anyone help?
Thanks!

 

[pakrat1022]

Plans come up for me, try again. It's worth the build, nice plane

 

[dmaximob]

My job takes me to airports during construction season. This week I was in Tahoe, doing some paperwork and check out what pulled up.

It's the same exact aircraft that I used for my paint scheme. I thought it was pretty cool to see that tail number.

 

[corytee]

Hey Timmy,
I saw your Cessna article on here recently and had been looking for a solid foam board Cessna for a while so I decided to print the plans. You did a good job - it goes together nicely. I put tricycle landing gear with steerable nose, and carved out the fuse to recess the wing a little more. Here are some pics -


I saw that you had mentioned wanting to build a B-25. I don't know if you have started that yet, but I built one not too long ago with a 60" wing span. I posted some pics and video links in the Mad Scratch Builder's Corner. I have some plans for the bigger parts but cut most of the parts out as I built. So I'm in the process of deconstruction right now using my wife's hair dryer to separate the pieces, and then tracing them out on paper. Hopefully in a few weeks or so I can post plans for the B-25.

 

[corytee]

Some updated pics. Almost done.

 

[ClearSkiesCalmWinds]

Great looking plane. How did you do a steerable nose wheel? Cheers!

 

[corytee]

Thanks. I used a steering arm and mount set (link below).

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=64701

I glued 3 squares of foam board together to give me a surface to glue the swivel mount to (3 just happened to put the mount hole in the center of the fuse). I lined up the mount hole and poked a hole in the bottom of the fuse to push the gear through so it would continue through the mount hole and swing arm. Then I glued a servo to the inside wall and ran a control rod to connect them. I'll try to remember to take some pictures of it tonight so I can post them. I don't know how sturdy it will be, but I'll fly it until it breaks and then I'll revise the design.

 

[corytee]

One way to make it stronger (I'll probably do this when it breaks) is to glue a small piece of hobby plywood to the bottom and drill a hole in it so the gear passes through as well, and put a collar on the gear so it doesn't stress the foam squares as much.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__8411__Landing_Gear_Wheel_Stop_Set_Collar_9x4_1mm_10pcs_.html

 

[corytee]

Some pics

 

[ClearSkiesCalmWinds]

Thanks!!! Great share.

 

[SnowRocker88]

Wow!! What an awesome design!

I have added this to the "Compiled 3rd Party Plans" thread.

 

[corytee]

Maiden Video w/out take off or landing. My 8 year old was manning the camera.

 

[Timmy P]

My job takes me to airports during construction season. This week I was in Tahoe, doing some paperwork and check out what pulled up.
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It's the same exact aircraft that I used for my paint scheme. I thought it was pretty cool to see that tail number.
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Dude that is awesome.. seriously what are the odds? Its a good looking plane.

 

[Timmy P]

Some updated pics. Almost done.

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Looks good man! That blue graphic looks cool.. Is that a sticker or you do that yourself?

The trike looks great. I fly in thick grass so I dont get to play with trikes much.. Hows the stability on the ground. I bet it wont loop out like mine on pavement lol.. Thanks for sharing your technique.


Thanks for taking a video of it flying.. Do you enjoy the way it flies? Any critiques? Its the only plane Ive flown in the past year and I love it.

 

[corytee]

Looks good man! That blue graphic looks cool.. Is that a sticker or you do that yourself?

The trike looks great. I fly in thick grass so I dont get to play with trikes much.. Hows the stability on the ground. I bet it wont loop out like mine on pavement lol.. Thanks for sharing your technique.


Thanks for taking a video of it flying.. Do you enjoy the way it flies? Any critiques? Its the only plane Ive flown in the past year and I love it.

Thanks man, I drew the graphics and printed them out. It is actually pretty stable on the ground, I fly on grass too but they usually cut it golfing green short. The flaps work very well - I have them on a variable knob channel which turned out perfect because I only ended up using about 30% of the servo throws for the flaps. I originally had them wide open and it was headed for outer space, then I pulled them back so I could putt a little. It flies great so far, I wish I got the landing on the recording. It sat down nicely and stayed on all 3 wheels. We've been having a ton of rain and then the flood a couple of days ago, so I haven't been able to fly much. I did get to drive my rc airboat in the floodwaters though.

 

[corytee]

Cessna with floats attached - I haven't flown it like this yet. I haven't ever flown a plane from the water so whenever I find the time, this will be fun and interesting. I might have to rig a harpoon gun on the front of the air boat like Peter's so I can recover the wreckage.