F-14 Tomcat working wing sweep

[pope]

I have finished construction of my first scratch build and its a cool one so far havent gone up yet the wing sweep is a simple 1 servo setup but all i have are plastic 9g sittin around so thats what I have in the future It really needs a better servo I see a dead servo in my future but I was really trying to make the first step so I can learn what I need to fix heres some pictures of what i've got

I used the FT-22 as a reference and for the nose so its pretty close to the 22 in size

the wingsweep set up is a 9g servo the arms I had werent long enough for the amount of travel I wanted so I glued a small popsicle stick to the top of the arm to extend it the length of your arm determines the distance your wings will sweep the shorter the arm the less movement you will get. i pluged in the servo and set my servo to its stop and set the arm horizontal all thats left is to place your wings in the full sweep and install the pushrods. for the controll horn its just a 1" piece of popcicle stick with a few holes in it for some adjustability. the wing pivots are actually plastic toilet seat hardware I cut to fit and i reenforced the wing and top with nylon washers i glued down it makes a pretty rigid wing

the bottom plate has my control surfaces its going to be a simple bank and yank and a couple spars that are knotched for the wings the cross bar is two pieces of foam board to support the wings

i had to cut a window because the wing control was binding on the bottom plate

the wings are a step airfoil less for flight and more for strength
its a pusher but I havent decided on the set up yet I have a few to choose from

i hope you like it ill probably get to fly it soon and let you know the CG seems to be right at the pivots its going to be interesting to see how that changes in flight as i sweep the wings but if i set it in sweep when i fully extend it will make it a bit nose heavy which isnt the end of the world

 

[Maingear]

I want to hear an interview about the test flight on the weekly after hours podcast!
Cover CG changes and flight performance?

Justin

 

[Ace13]

you should make it edf

 

[victour20010]

This looks really cool; has it flown yet?

 

[Revere]

I thought a while back about making an F14, didn't really progress anywhere with it but I did figure out there would be a CG change and thought through a solution for it.

The solution i thought of was a channel along the centerline of the plane maybe an inch wide and 1/2 inch tall within the fuselage, a fishing weight would sit in this channel directly above the CG when the wings are in the forward position.
In the rearward position the servo which moves the wings would push the weight towards the rear of the plane via a length of piano wire attached to the weight and the one end of the server arm which moves towards the rear when the wings sweep back (and thus move it to the forward CG again when the wings sweep forwards).

I figured if this was set up correctly then there would be a smooth transition of CG which would always match the wing position at any point during the sweeping motion.

This was all just worked out in my head however, so wether it works or not is anyones guess.

 

[dutchmonkey]

So here Is a link to another foam f14 http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=769451his has swing wing. Now his is more complicated but he should be able to answer your cg concern. I like your ft22/14 its a good looking ft design.

 

[TrentC]

I tried an F-14, but the swing wings didn't work out, so it is a fixed wing. I also had trouble with the tail, because i tried to make the horizontal stab as scale as possible, which meant making the whole stab pivot together. It is now just laying around, so maybe I will give it another chance.