TheWes
Crash Test Dummy
Last year, I had the itch to start building again, hard. I started with some bloody WWII planes and it began to spiral out of control resulting in an X-29, custom 860mm camera drone and this. I had an idea to build a Strike Eagle because they are strong, elegant and highly maneuverable. Once I started building it, I saw that another member in the community had started building his own and not wanting to steal his thunder nor feel like a copy cat, I decided to challenge myself further with making the next generation air superiority fighter, the F-22 Raptor. I started with a mock-up of the Eagle when I ordered the EDF's from China and ever so patiently waited for them to arrive. They finally did and I realized that I screwed up when I mocked up the plane, not taking the thickness of foamboard into consideration. D'OH!!!
Oh well, I had to scrap the whole plane anyway and I went forward with the next generation fighter.
I've really enjoyed building this plane, even though I took almost 6 months of breaks while building it. The final result is a slightly tail heavy airplane that loves to snap into high alpha and flutter down to earth like a screaming, angry leaf of imminent death. So far it has only seen the maiden flight as the weather around me has fallen to this disappointing mix of wind or rain when I am not at work. I'm hoping to a second flight today or some time this week after work, weather permitting.
Now, as far as plans are concerned, there are none. I just built this off a 1/35 Revell model and photos from the internet. There was a lot of cutting, trimming and starting over to build this. The exhaust nozzles look like they are thrust vectoring but they are not. I might cut them off and try that but I don't think the C.G. will allow that without making the plane that much heavier.
This was the result from me not compensating for the thickness of the foam and using the fans outer dimensions as the inner dimensions of the jet.
I used a fair amount of math to neck down the thrust tubes to match the square area of the fans themselves. You can see some of the math scribed onto the circular piece of foam board at the top right of the photo. I wanted to make sure I had a 10% restriction at the exit nozzle so I could really get this jet to scream!!
In level flight, this thin does HAUL!!!
Here you can see one of the reference photos I used to make this airplane. My girlfriend has a sketching projector that we used to blow up this photo against the wall. From there we quickly transferred the projection to the foam board and I went from there. I used the scale model as a basic proportions reference.
Oh well, I had to scrap the whole plane anyway and I went forward with the next generation fighter.
I've really enjoyed building this plane, even though I took almost 6 months of breaks while building it. The final result is a slightly tail heavy airplane that loves to snap into high alpha and flutter down to earth like a screaming, angry leaf of imminent death. So far it has only seen the maiden flight as the weather around me has fallen to this disappointing mix of wind or rain when I am not at work. I'm hoping to a second flight today or some time this week after work, weather permitting.
Now, as far as plans are concerned, there are none. I just built this off a 1/35 Revell model and photos from the internet. There was a lot of cutting, trimming and starting over to build this. The exhaust nozzles look like they are thrust vectoring but they are not. I might cut them off and try that but I don't think the C.G. will allow that without making the plane that much heavier.
This was the result from me not compensating for the thickness of the foam and using the fans outer dimensions as the inner dimensions of the jet.
I used a fair amount of math to neck down the thrust tubes to match the square area of the fans themselves. You can see some of the math scribed onto the circular piece of foam board at the top right of the photo. I wanted to make sure I had a 10% restriction at the exit nozzle so I could really get this jet to scream!!
In level flight, this thin does HAUL!!!
Here you can see one of the reference photos I used to make this airplane. My girlfriend has a sketching projector that we used to blow up this photo against the wall. From there we quickly transferred the projection to the foam board and I went from there. I used the scale model as a basic proportions reference.
