Basic Scratch Build Design

[hansdude]

I'd love to see an episode describing the basics of actual aircraft design.

The FT scratch builds are truly fun and the level of detail put into each design is amazing. It seems that each design gets better than the last in terms the build process and overall refinement.

The next logical step after learning how to build and fly scratch builds seems to be designing them. I'm very early in my RC career, but it's still clear from the effort invested by FT and others in the community that designing a plane requires knowledge, experience, and dedication.

Even so I think there's value in seeing the actual design process. There's plenty of stuff online describing the fruits of modelers' labor but not nearly as much on how they got there. In one of the episodes I remember JB mentioned becoming "self-sufficient in the hobby". What's the next step of self-sufficiency beyond building existing designs and flying them?

 

[willsonman]

I would highly recommend you give this a read. There are lots of different aspects to model design. Some are more applicable than others. The best thing they could do is resurrect Carl Goldberg and interview him. In my scratch building (ie. no plans for a scale model) I have to do many different decisions given size and overall plan layout from a 3-view. An airfoiled tail can have some undesired effect depending on the height of the plane in relation to the main wing plane and thrust line.