First plane

[Martin229]

Hello,
I started building my first airplane model. My uncle gave me modela itoh 62 - 160. It is old balsa kit. The plane is supposed to run on CO2 motor, but I wanted something easier for my first model, and I can not really buy them where I live. I started thinking about rubber powered plane, but as far as I was googling, I could not find enough informations about rubber motors. Can somebody please explain me how to make and install rubber motor in the plane? Or at least if its worth it? My main reason building this plane is not to go fly, but just to get some experience with buiding models from balsa. But be able to test if they actually can fly with at least with a rubber will be amazing. Please ignore my grammatical errors, I am not from english speaking country. Anyway, thanks for you time reading this and your advice would be appreciated, greetings from Slovakia!

 

[Merv]

Here is a flite test episode about rubber powered planes, also known as free flight planes

 

[Bricks]

I remember those old C02 motors what size is this plane and weight then maybe we can give you a better idea. Sometimes going to rubber band power the fuselage may need some strengthening to cope with the rubber power.

 

[Martin229]

I remember those old C02 motors what size is this plane and weight then maybe we can give you a better idea. Sometimes going to rubber band power the fuselage may need some strengthening to cope with the rubber power.

The plane is long 510 mm, it has wingspan 740 mm, and it weights 100g.

 

[Jackson T]

Hello,
I started building my first airplane model. My uncle gave me modela itoh 62 - 160. It is old balsa kit. The plane is supposed to run on CO2 motor, but I wanted something easier for my first model, and I can not really buy them where I live. I started thinking about rubber powered plane, but as far as I was googling, I could not find enough informations about rubber motors. Can somebody please explain me how to make and install rubber motor in the plane? Or at least if its worth it? My main reason building this plane is not to go fly, but just to get some experience with buiding models from balsa. But be able to test if they actually can fly with at least with a rubber will be amazing. Please ignore my grammatical errors, I am not from english speaking country. Anyway, thanks for you time reading this and your advice would be appreciated, greetings from Slovakia!

I've never tried rubber power myself, so I don't have any advice, but I wish you the best with your project!

 

[Bricks]

The plane is long 510 mm, it has wingspan 740 mm, and it weights 100g.

You should be able to do rubber powered the hardest part is going to find the right prop and rubber bands, might try this lnk they may have ideas and parts to make it work.

https://easybuiltmodels.com/ff.htm

 

[Martin229]

You should be able to do rubber powered the hardest part is going to find the right prop and rubber bands, might try this lnk they may have ideas and parts to make it work.

https://easybuiltmodels.com/ff.htm

I think this plane is becoming more and more complicated, even when my idea was to make it easy as possible haha. I think I must add some micro servos to the plane, because it is so fragile that it would break after firts landing. I really start to lose hope, and I think I will be doing full electric plane. But I dont want to dump the rubber idea, as there are less and less rubber powered plane.

 

[Martin229]

After few days of thinking about rubber powered plane, I changed my mind. Somehow I found in basement old Modela Co2 engine, which was intended for this plane. My uncle who is building rc planes left it here. I am very excited, because I can do the plane as it was modeled originally. My only problem is to make it rc controlled, because of the fragility of the plane. It should be build as free fly plane, but i am scared of it breaking after first flight, or flying away, as I have no experience with Co2 engines.

 

[Bricks]

Before you get to carried away might want to check if you can get CO2 catridges for that engine IF memory serves me tight they take a normal C02 cartridge used in some paintball guns.

 

[Martin229]

Before you get to carried away might want to check if you can get CO2 catridges for that engine IF memory serves me tight they take a normal C02 cartridge used in some paintball guns.

Yes, first thing I did was to look for some catridges for it. You are right, the engine takes CO2 catridges for paintball guns. They are cheap, aroud 0.50 Eur for one, so it will be even more cheaper than buying rubber and material for my rubber powered plane.
Oh, and I will not install servos. I will make it free flight, as it was intended.

 

[Bricks]

Not sure how long that engine runs on one CO2 cartridge but you may need some type of setup to shut the engine down or control how long the engine runs. Most free flight IC powered planes only run for 10-15 seconds wide open straight up.and then glide down.

Rudder needs to be set up so the plane will circle

 

[Martin229]

Not sure how long that engine runs on one CO2 cartridge but you may need some type of setup to shut the engine down or control how long the engine runs. Most free flight IC powered planes only run for 10-15 seconds wide open straight up.and then glide down.

Rudder needs to be set up so the plane will circle

The engine should work around 50 seconds on 1500 RPM, according to manual given with the engine. It can of course be way less in the air powering plane, but I will try to figure something out.