Flyingshark
Master member
Over the past week or so, I've been building the FT Spitfire from the plans here on the forum. This is my second FT plane, but my first without an SBK. I'm using the new power pack C, and flitetest brown foam board, since I didn't want to deviate too much from standard before I get better at flying r/c planes. I'm making this thread to try and document the build and several difficulties I had, which I thought would be easier if it was all in one place.
Since I was following the build video, I started with the wings, and ran into a problem with the servos and linkage stoppers from the power pack:
https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...c-linkage-stoppers-dont-fit-servo-arms.64228/
After that, I paused until today for various reasons. (I was low on packing tape, and my workspace was full.)
Once I got that last problem fixed, I had a severe case of get-it-finished-asap-itis.
The wing went from 2 parts to this pretty quickly:
As it turned out, I'd cut too much foam away on the top in front of the spar to try to get a nice clean fit, and had to fill the area in with some scrap fb. To make sure it stayed together, I also added a layer of packing tape all around the joint instead of only on the bottom.
After the wing was done, I went and made the power pod so I could test fit it when I built the fuselage. That went well up until I tried to mount the Ft radial motor from the power pack. After a lot of rewatching the video (and checking the P-40 build video) to figure out how the motor attached to the swappable firewall, I got frustrated and tried to screw the motor directly onto the firewall. Since only two screws fit in unsure: correct me if I'm wrong, but the firewall had four holes...), I took it out and tried again with the x mount on the back.
Turns out, it only works one way, and on the other way it doesn't align correctly. (Can someone explain why this is?) After that, the power pod build went well, though it ended up receiving an extra layer of packing tape on the outside for no real reason except to make me feel better.
<nervous laugh> "But if one WORKS, then two layers will work even better, right??"
Hopefully that didn't add too much weight.
After finishing the power pod, it was on to the fuselage!
That went well, with the only hiccup being that the score/remove foam areas for the B-Folds on the bottom of the fuse weren't quite wide enough (either errors with me taping the plans, me cutting the tiled plans or me transferring/cutting from the plans to the foam. Wasn't a big deal, though, and a little bit of cutting and sanding did the trick.
As you can see, I stopped after folding together the fuselage box and cutting out the reliefs for the formers which I had somehow forgotten to do before.
And that's where I am now, with a 100% chance of more building in the forecast for tomorrow.
Also, if anyone has any tips on flying the Spitfire/large FT planes in general, I'd really appreciate hearing them. Who knows when I'll get to fly it, what with COVID, but, still, any and all sorts of building/flying help is welcome!
Since I was following the build video, I started with the wings, and ran into a problem with the servos and linkage stoppers from the power pack:
https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...c-linkage-stoppers-dont-fit-servo-arms.64228/
After that, I paused until today for various reasons. (I was low on packing tape, and my workspace was full.)
Once I got that last problem fixed, I had a severe case of get-it-finished-asap-itis.
The wing went from 2 parts to this pretty quickly:
As it turned out, I'd cut too much foam away on the top in front of the spar to try to get a nice clean fit, and had to fill the area in with some scrap fb. To make sure it stayed together, I also added a layer of packing tape all around the joint instead of only on the bottom.
After the wing was done, I went and made the power pod so I could test fit it when I built the fuselage. That went well up until I tried to mount the Ft radial motor from the power pack. After a lot of rewatching the video (and checking the P-40 build video) to figure out how the motor attached to the swappable firewall, I got frustrated and tried to screw the motor directly onto the firewall. Since only two screws fit in unsure: correct me if I'm wrong, but the firewall had four holes...), I took it out and tried again with the x mount on the back.
Turns out, it only works one way, and on the other way it doesn't align correctly. (Can someone explain why this is?) After that, the power pod build went well, though it ended up receiving an extra layer of packing tape on the outside for no real reason except to make me feel better.
<nervous laugh> "But if one WORKS, then two layers will work even better, right??"
Hopefully that didn't add too much weight.
After finishing the power pod, it was on to the fuselage!
That went well, with the only hiccup being that the score/remove foam areas for the B-Folds on the bottom of the fuse weren't quite wide enough (either errors with me taping the plans, me cutting the tiled plans or me transferring/cutting from the plans to the foam. Wasn't a big deal, though, and a little bit of cutting and sanding did the trick.
As you can see, I stopped after folding together the fuselage box and cutting out the reliefs for the formers which I had somehow forgotten to do before.
And that's where I am now, with a 100% chance of more building in the forecast for tomorrow.
Also, if anyone has any tips on flying the Spitfire/large FT planes in general, I'd really appreciate hearing them. Who knows when I'll get to fly it, what with COVID, but, still, any and all sorts of building/flying help is welcome!